"Hey Dad, Onesie wants another shovel!"

Matthew Albright looked up from the crafting table at Bel's call and blinked the sweat out of his eyes. The disbelief, however, stayed.

"Another one?" He called back, incredulous. "He's got five going already!"

"Yeah well he's signing that he wants another one!"

Matt had to laugh. When Dinah had convinced the big creature that it had to stay behind while she went off into the forest, it had been almost inconsolably mopey. Until it had stumbled across one of the drawings Lucas has made of the pit traps he was planning on implementing as a first line perimeter defense should more Sentinels show up. The Bargalest had taken a couple of minutes to comprehend what it was looking at, but as soon as it had, it had brightened up considerably.

Apparently, it liked digging holes.

It didn't communicate in words, but its bevy of limbs allowed it to make truly impressive hand shadows and gestures, and it had taken only a couple of tries before Matt had realized it was asking for a shovel. So, since he had been at the crafting station anyway testing out the detritus from the Dilligaf, Matt had taken the time to convert a couple yards of tinfoil and some driftwood into a serviceable shovel.

It still weirded him out a little seeing the glow of the table suffuse his limbs every time he spent a coin on it. It was weirder still watching the magic guide his movements with superhuman speed, breaking down the ingredients as needed and then putting them back together in the arrangement that would get him what he needed. The magic of the station changed the shape and makeup of the ingredients into something else altogether under his hands. But he was getting used to it.

He supposed he could have just used the drawers to summon a tool, but Onesie had looked so eager for a shovel that Matt had decided to give the Bargalest one that wouldn't disappear if the coins ran out. So he had made a permanent one on the station. Then he had handed the new shovel to Onesie and gone back to work. Only for l, a couple minutes later, the creature to return and ask for another one.

And another.

And another.

And another.

Onesie apparently really liked digging holes. And, Matt guessed, if you had that many hands, might as well put a shovel in as many of them as possible.

"Alright," he called back, hearing the laugh in his own voice and enjoying the fact that it was there. "Gimme a second to get it fired up here."

It was him and the girls this time around, what with Allie chaperoning Dinah and Luc on their hunting expedition. Neither of his daughters had expressed a desire to go with the troupe, and so were helping out around the camp, possibly because they were still tired from the last time they'd gone off into the jungle. Seeker Tempest had withdrawn from the main camp to wander around the rubble piles and stone heaps of the clearing, taking with her a small basket of edibles and a couple little pieces of technology--Matt's solar-powered calculator especially had won her attention and admiration. Poor kid probably just needed some time alone to think over everything that was happening to her. Lord knew he could relate.

Matt paused and closed his eyes, saying a little prayer that his wife and his son and adopted daughter would come back safely, just as they had last time, and that this time they wouldn't encounter anything that wanted to eat them and was also capable of the feat.

No sooner had he finished the prayer than there was a flash of heat and a deep *boom* from nearby. He spun, hand already grabbing for the shotgun laid down on the crafting table–

"I'm okay!" Liv's voice came from within a column of white smoke that was already starting to dissipate in the wind. She coughed several times, gagged, and repeated in a slightly more strained voice; "I'm okay!"

Oh and P.S. Matt thought, letting out the breath that had frozen in his chest. Please protect my daughters from themselves as well. Amen.

"What happened?" He asked as he moved towards Olivia, now revealed to be standing over the Alchemy table and coughing more smoke from her lungs. She had decided to attempt to find new recipes with some of the more esoteric junk they'd brought back from the Dilligaf. So far nothing had been quite as… Energetic as what had just happened.

"Well," Liv coughed and grabbed for the water bottle Matt held out to her. "I thought, you know,try and find some defensive concoctions that would be useful if we ever get attacked here again. Stockpile some munitiions, that kind of thing."

Matt looked at the alchemy table. It worked differently from the crafting table, they'd discovered. It had several small bowls fused to the wooden tabletop through some means Matt still hadn't figured out. You placed ingredients into the bowls, one per bowl–they'd discovered the importance of that quite quickly. Matt still hadn't gotten the smell out of that set of clothes. And then, once all the ingredients were there, you touched the glass orb in the center of the table and it gave you a muted demonstration of what combining the ingredients in totality would do when combined into the actual potion or whatever it was called.

The first successful test they'd done, the mixture had produced a golden liquid that would heal small wounds and scratches.

This one, apparently, had been a bit more.

"What in the world did you try?" Matt asked, staring at the fading scorch marks on the magical wood.

"Well, you know how back on Earth you can make Napalm with–"

Matt held up a hand.

"Napalm," he said in a flat voice.

"Uh, yeah," Olivia shifted a little under his stare. "So I got some of the gasoline we'd taken from the Dilligaf and put it in and–"

"Napalm," Matt said again in the same tone, trying to wrap his head around it.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Uh, yeah. And I remembered how back on earth you basically just jellify gasoline, so I figured if I added, like, some starching agent, it would–"

"Napalm."

"Uh… Yeah." Olivia stopped talking and fidgeted under Matt's gaze. "I, uh, should have asked first, huh?"

Matt closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying the old 'count to ten' trick. It… Mostly worked.

"Liv," he said slowly, opening his eyes and focusing on his daughter. "What have we discussed about trying dangerous things like that?"

"'Always get permission first,'" she said in a quiet monotone like she was repeating something she'd heard a thousand times. "But I didn't know it would be dangerous, I just thought–"

"Liv," Matt said, holding up a hand. "You were trying to make napalm."

She paused and her brow furrowed, then she blinked. "Oh. Uh. Yeah. I guess that just kind of automatically counts as dangerous, doesn't it."

Matt sighed. He loved his daughter very much, but there were times…

"Look, new rule okay? Any time you want to use the alchemy table, you tell either me or your mother first what you're trying to accomplish. That way we can be ready if this happens again… What did happen, by the way?" he asked almost as an afterthought.

"I, uh, combined the gas from the Dilligaf with corn starch and flour and vaseline," Olivia said.

Matt blinked.

"Look," Olivia said, seeing the look on his face, "one of the ways napalm was described was 'jellied gasoline', so I figured if I just added some thickening agents and some jelly and stuff, the magic would figure out what I wanted and give me that! And instead I got–"

"The mother of all smoke bombs," Matt said, snorting. "Okay, I can see the thought process, but…" He paused and peered at the alchemy table for a second. Actually, smoke bombs might be useful to have available. Just not ones that were that energetic.

"Tell you what," he said after a second. "No more gasoline, but try some of the alcohol we brought back. Something that will still burn, but that isn't as potent as yacht fuel." He thought for a second more, then added, "And try adding some food coloring, so we can get different colors. That might be useful for signals if the radios ever go out."

Olivia brightened up. "Really?"

"Yeah," Matt raised a finger, "but, holler out before you test them, just so we know to be prepared and can come running if something goes wrong, okay?"

Olivia nodded vigorously. "Sure! I can do that!" Then she paused and frowned, fixing Matt with a strange look.

"What?" Matt asked.

"I just almost blew myself up, and you're telling me to keep going," Liv said slowly, like she wasn't quite sure she could believe what she was saying. "Are you feeling okay Dad?"

Matt snorted. "Shortstop, if I told you to never do anything dangerous again, we'd never get anything done. Look, just be careful and be wise, okay? No more going off with half-baked ideas. Be thoughtful, be cautious, and always let someone know what you're doing, and I'll trust you to not blow yourself or the whole campsite up. Okay?"

Liv's eyes got a little bit wider as Matt spoke, and when he got to the part about trusting her, she drew in a little breath and seemed to stand up a little straighter.

"Okay Dad," she said with a firm nod. "You can count on me."

"I know," Matt said with a smile, reaching out–and up, good lord how had she gotten so much taller than he was–to pat her on the head.

"Hey," Isabel's voice came from above them in the tree's canopy. "If you two are finished getting all therapy and huggy and stuff, I could use a hand up here."

Matt glanced upwards. Isabel was standing on the plank platform he had put up the other day with a hammer in one hand and a long equivalent of a two-by-eight plank in her other. "I need another set of hands to get this wall up. Dad, how about it?"

"Coming!" Matt called. He started forward, when he was interrupted by what sounded like the chirp of a thousand pound bird that had been weaned on bass guitar riffs from behind him. He turned to see Onesie standing there, all five of its shovels held in its hands, and two more hands outstretched towards Matt making grasping motions.

Matt very carefully did not jerk in surprise at suddenly seeing the huge snake-faced creature a bare ten feet away from him. Man, the big fellow could move quiet when it wanted to.

"Oh, right! The shovel!" Matt snapped his fingers and turned back to the crafting station. He grabbed the newly formed shovel and handed it off to Onesie, who gave another basso chirrup and bobbed its big head in thanks.

"How many holes have you done so far?" Matt asked, more out of curiousity than anything else.

Onesie held up a hand with five erect fingers.

"Woah," Matt said, raising his eyebrows. "You've only been working for like an hour. How…" He trailed off as Onesie lifted all six of its new shovels, chirruped, and headed back to where it had been digging holes.

"Right. That's how." Matt shook his head. And now they had an industrial backhoe for a pet. Sure, why not.

"Hey Dad, you coming or what?" Isabel's voice was getting testy.

"Yeah yeah, on my way," Matt grabbed his toolbelt–one of the things he'd salvaged from the Dilligaf–and strapped it around his waist before looking at the nearest tree trunk. "Billy? Mind giving me a hand up?"

"Of course, Matthew."

Matt raised his eyebrows as a large limb came down and hefted him up into the air. Just 'Matthew' huh? That was new. Maybe the tree was starting to rethink its whole Allegiance To Caesar thing. Certainly not the worst idea in the world.

The next half hour passed swiftly, with him and Isabel working in relative harmony erecting a couple of walls and securing them down with braces to protect them from the wind. Down below, Olivia would occaisonally call out her new mixture and let them know she was testing, and it would swiftly be followed by a much less terror-inducing whoomph and brightly colored smoke.

After the third time, Matt stopped holding his breath every time she announced.

In the walls he had built for the house, Matt had purposefully left holes in the walls for windows and doors that he would install later–althought he still wasn't entirely certain if he'd be able to make the glass he wanted for the windows. Something he still needed to experiment with.

"It's coming along," Isabel said, wiping sweat from her brow. The rain had vanished earlier this morning, but it had left in its wake humidity that would have done the Florida Everglades proud.

"Yeah, faster than it would have back on earth," Matt agreed. The whole family had that newfound strength thing going on, and with it seemed to come increased stamina as well. "By this rate, I figure another week and we'll have a solid roof over our head. Another week after that and it'll be close to finished."

"That's like, lightning fast, right?" Isabel asked.

"Pretty close," Matt chuckled. "But let's break for now, we need water. Hey Billy, how about getting us back down, if you don't mind?"

There was no immediate response.

Matt and Isabel shared a look, and as one grabbed for their weapons–shotgun for Matt, rifle for Bel.

"Billy? Talk to me," Matt said, his voice changing to something hard.

"Forgive me Matthew, I was distracted and in conversation."

"With the hunters?" Matt asked, feeling a bit of the tension drain away.

"No, with… With a delegation from a neighboring state. They are on the borders of our northernmost territory. They claim to have traveled here to give their obeisance to the new Sojourners, and humbly request an audience."

Matt blinked. He turned and looked at Isabel, who looked similarly shocked.

"Well what the heck?" Bel said.

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