The march home was, in a word, painful.

We’d tried talking to pass the time, though the exhaustion coupled with the plummeting temperatures made that all but impossible.

Thankfully, the snow didn’t start to fall until shortly after we’d started down the driveway, meaning we were at least dry when the shack came into view.

“What do you think?” Nolan asked proudly as we passed his mobile cabin thing, “Pretty nifty, huh?”

“Huh?” I chattered in response, my molars tapping away in the back of my mouth, while the girls apparently didn’t hear the Sasquatch and made a beeline for the shack.

“The toilet,” Nolan clarified, nodding over to a small outhouse around fifty feet from the shack, “it ain’t nothing special, but it’s better than a pot.”

“I guess it is,” I huffed, forcing a smile, “how’d you get it up so fast?”

“Connie,” Nolan replied, “but she needs some more diesel before we get started on anything else. Speaking of…”

As much as I enjoyed talking to Nolan, I have to be honest and say that as he fumbled through his pockets I genuinely considered just walking away.

Well, running.

“Ah, there,” Nolan exclaimed happily, pulling out a piece of folded paper and showing it to me, “I got to work on a floorplan for a house, if you’re interested.”

" alt="">I looked between the eager handyman and the crudely sketched layout a few times, the cold doing a good job of messing with my ability to process anything beyond ‘You need to warm up or you’re going to start losing toes, man.’

“Doesn’t seem like too much to you?” I mumbled, applauding myself for my mental wherewithal.

“Not really,” Nolan replied, shaking his head, before pointing to what looked like a weird mini room between the dining and lounge room, “the toughie will be the fireplace, but essentially we’re just looking at making a bigger shack.”

“What about power and water?” I asked as best as I could through my steadily freezing lips.

“Already hooked up,” Nolan said with a smile, “near as I can tell, when the… thing happened, it wasn’t done in such a way that it would be impossible to work your way back to, you know, not making in a pot. Anyway, point is that with Connie’s help I can get started on this. Only if you’re interested, that is.”

I really didn’t think I was in any position to be making those kinds of decisions, especially not without the girls, but even as exhausted and cold as I was, I knew it would be dumb to say no to a house.

“Sounds like a plan to me,” I finally replied, much to the relief of Nolan, before handing him back his piece of paper, “just let me know what stuff you need. Remember, we aren’t exactly flush with cash at the moment.”

“Most of the core construction can be done by Connie using the woods,” Nolan explained, “with access to your Trove, she can trade for the other stuff she needs. What you’ll be looking at for the most part is anything big or weird. Bathtubs, some plumbing and electrical stuff, you know.”

“We’ve got that bathtub downstairs,” I said, internally slapping myself up the head for going deeper into the conversation, “couldn’t we just bring that up?”

“We could,” Nolan agreed unsurely, “but we could also break it down in the Trove and use it for wiring and stuff. Totally up to you though.”

“What about showers until construction’s done?” I asked.

“I can whip something up easy, realistically just have to get a tap set up,” Nolan replied, “again though, this is all up to you.”

My lips were numb and I was struggling to keep my eyes open, so I can’t rightly say what spurred me to say “Hell yeah, let’s do it.” followed by a slurred but cheerful “See you in the morning!”

I didn’t like leaving Nolan like that, felt rude, it was just that I was pushing the limits of hypothermia as it was, and he seemed happy with the fact that we were going along with his plan, even more so to get inside and fill Connie in.

Not to disparage anyone and their love for their machines, but there were moments where I wondered if Nolan was a little too close to his robot friend.

Laughing that particular judgement off as I remembered how ‘close’ I was with Monster Mash, I entered the shack and started the climb down through the open hatch where the warm glow of the still burning fire welcomed me.

The girls had already pretty much passed out, their weapons and clothes in a pile by the tub and their phones in their barely conscious hands.

I briefly considered talking to them about leveling up, but decided against it as Millie started to snore, her phone falling onto the pillow next to her head.

Setting my axe down with the rest of the stuff, I started getting undressed, pulling my phone from my pocket as I did.

It probably would’ve been smarter to wait until morning to start fiddling with leveling up so I could really think about what I wanted to fix, but I knew it’d take me hours to pass out if I had it sitting in the back of my mind.

So, after climbing into bed and getting at least somewhat comfortable, I opened the app, clicked through to the level up screen, and started assigning my six stat points.

ATTRIBUTES

STR

8

DEX

7

TGH

6

SPD

5

FRT

5+2

STA

4

INT

7+3

LCK

8+1

FINALIZE SELECTION?

(this cannot be undone)

CONGRATULATIONS!

You are now a level 2 in the HUNTER class!

ALISTAIR GRAY

Level

2

Human

Hunter

Progress 230/1000

Looking at the finalized numbers with mostly fresh eyes courtesy of the small but significant boost to my Intelligence, I couldn’t help but feel like putting two full points into Fortitude may not have been the smartest move.

Between holding my phone above my head and internally wrestling over how likely it was I would’ve gotten sick regardless of the points in that particular Attribute, I successfully managed to exhaust myself.

Truth be told, I honestly couldn’t say when I passed out and when my dreams began, a fact that’s made slightly strange considering the dream I’d slipped into took place in some weird mash-up of the Revolutionary War and Woodstock.

Brains are weird.