Pocket System

[theaceoffire]

This was becoming a thing.

Jessica clutched her tea cup a bit too tightly as she tried to relax between meetings… Meetings where she pretended to act like a minion for some hidden wealthy man somewhere doing some philanthropy for society without desiring praise nor adulation.

Because a woman doing all this shit? Impossible! A man doing it, but being too honest and good and moral to take credit while letting his whore/sidepiece/'Representative' handle the details? What a hero!

Blech.

It had only taken a few minutes before Jessica had made the smartest decision of her life: Quietly throw all the blame on the Banks family.

Who is paying for this? Oh, a friend of the Banks family. Male, of course, which was technically true since John was the source of all her resources right now.

Why are they buying a large area of poorly maintained and expensive properties? To do God's work.

Or something like that.

She felt her muscles twitch as a massive 'Bang' in the distance signified some progress was being made, which was technically good. Probably.

Why hire local people? The Banks family supported the community.

Why hire the poor and the destitute? The Banks family was charitable.

Why hire the women and children, despite 'not being worth as much' as the men? Sigh.

Arguments about the value of life aside, hiring those children had actually INCREASED the amount of paperwork and headaches she had since she wasn't going to have eleven year olds tearing down these buildings…

So she had been forced to build additional projects to generate jobs for the growing number of little ones under her employ.

Thankfully care and feeding and so forth of the growing mass of women and children and injured people was taken care of by the woman running the show, Gladys Aylward. That woman was a monster when it came to organization!

While Jessica was floundering over what to buy and who was needed, that angel just rolled up her sleeves, calculated a dozen things in her head absentmindedly, and began providing quotes and estimates for taking care of this entire mess.

Side note: She had rented a few buildings to house her massive new employee (and child) army while all this construction was going on. Which was a headache, and now there was chaos in a few buildings stuffed with hyperactive and actually fed children and…

No.

Focus.

One step at a time.

She took another slow sip of tea.

Right, another two weeks for demolition alone (No massive machines to speed things up), and it was only going THAT quickly due to her throwing money at the problem and hiring a LOT of people.

Oh, goodwill and praise? Send it that way, we don't need it. Thank you Mr. and Mrs. Banks!

Then she had scheduled some teams to take all that rubble away, and then the building design teams would start investigating the cleared properties closely and she could start pushing her ideas onto the grumpy people.

Yes, three meals a day, even if most families only had two. Yes, she was limiting how long per day people could work, no it won't lower your pay as long as you put in effort. Sick leave alone was a shocking concept apparently… Uh. Actually, wasn't that introduced 70 years from now?

Meh, whatever. She wasn't going to let her entire workforce become a pit of sickness and disease just because one of the children feared being thrown on the streets if they dared to stay in bed when ill.

By this point, according to Mrs. Banks, there was a growing number of people who believed that the actual finished project didn't matter… That the building project itself WAS the charity work being done.

Done on behalf of Mr. and Mrs. Banks, thank you very much random person twelve.

She sipped… Oh. Damn it, the tea had gone cold.

Meh. At least it still tasted fine, and she was thirsty…

No, the biggest issue was that Jessica wanted to ensure this entire mess was self sufficient.

Putting money away was helpful, but could easily vanish due to financial issues… Better to convert that financial wealth into property and resources that would develop over time rather than trust the institutions.

So, the new Workhouse direction for this facility? Production.

Specifically, food production.

Oh, the usual standard work for children would still go on, such as bone grinding to generate better fertilizer… Just, instead of shipping that out as a final product it would be used internally.

Basically? Farms.

'Glasshouses' or Greenhouses existed on a small scale for years here, though never to the scale she was intending now.

The plan was to raise food to feed the workforce and the staff… THEN produce goods for sale to keep the place solvent even if money issues develop in the future.

Let's see… Crop rotation was a basic necessity, and would be established as policy so that each greenhouse would have healthier soil. Some crops were helpful to make the soil recover lost nutrients and stuff, and so it was an easy way to boost productivity!

But uh… She didn't know much about the topic.

Right, she had time before the next meeting, right? She scribbled a note to John and put it in her inventory.

A few hours (and only ONE meeting) later, and she felt the memory of a response get shoved in her Pocket.

Let's see… Uh.

[[...In the Norfolk four-course system, wheat was grown in the first year, turnips in the second, followed by barley, with clover and ryegrass undersown, in the third. The clover and ryegrass were grazed or cut for feed in the fourth year. The turnips were used for feeding cattle and sheep in the winter. This new system was cumulative in effect, for the fodder crops eaten by the livestock produced large supplies of previously scarce animal manure, which in turn was richer because the animals were better fed. When the sheep grazed the fields, their waste fertilized the soil, promoting heavier cereal yields in following years…]]

She blinked at how LONG the document was. Skipping ahead…

[[...Arguably the most important of these new alternative crop options was the potato. Potatoes yielded about three times the calories per acre of wheat or barley, due in large part to only taking 3–4 months to mature versus 10 months for wheat. On top of this, potatoes had higher nutritive value than wheat, could be grown in even fallow and nutrient-poor soil, did not require any special tools, and were considered fairly appetizing. A single acre of potatoes could feed a family of five or six, plus a cow, for the better part of a year, an unprecedented level of production. By 1715 the potato was widespread in the Low Countries, the Rhineland, Southwestern Germany, and Eastern France, but took a little bit to spread elsewhere…]]

It went on and on like that.

Her eyes narrowed, and she scribbled another note.

The response was quick.

[[...Yeah, I may or may not have asked System and it may have downloaded a lot of stuff from the internet over the last few trips… But this is all technically true, for at least ONE variant of Earth! Not like I know much about farming and stuff anyway, I'm like less than a year old or something chronographically although I'm cute enough to get away with it. Although I'm like 10 or so biologically and like… An indeterminate number of years old spiritually? Whatever, I'm going to go back to playing with the kids over in our dormitories.]]

She snorted. Ever since the Banks' children and John had seen the small army of tiny tots that were now under her 'employ' they had been visiting near constantly for weeks now. Of COURSE they would go back to playing.

Suddenly the paper vanished from her fingers and was replaced.

[[Wait, are we going to make a farm!? NO, are we going to get ANIMALS!?!?]]

Oh dear.

Within moments a small blizzard of paper fragments and strips began to rain down on her. 'Can we get cows', 'Goats are scary', 'Lambs are cute', message after message began to make a big mess of the area as they began to spawn FAR too quickly for one boy to actually write such things by hand.

Which means he had the ability to convert thoughts into text.

A paperwork ability.

She needed it NOW.

Jessica waved at the assistant the bank had provided, the poor man baffled by her new aura of drifting paper slips raining down within the room. "Cancel my meetings for the rest of the day, I have an unexpected incident I must take care of."

He didn't respond due to his shock, but he probably heard her.

Now John! Tell your older sister how to never get cramped wrists from writing thousands of lines of text! She'd never suffer from triplicate forms again!

With purpose Jessica strode to the dormitories. The children were likely near the fourth floor, the windows were bigger up there and it was easier to get sunlight.

~~~Pocket System~~~

John grinned! "So MAYBE we are going to get baby cows! I hope so, I've seen them before in books and things and I love how they taste, though my big Sis keeps giving me weird looks when I ask for an edible pet…"

Strange looks like those ones, yes.

The smaller girl on the left frowned. "I've seen horses and cats and dogs stuff, but I haven't seen a cow. Lived in London my whole life."

One of the scrappier boys snorted. "Eh, you ain't lived in London till ya lived on the streets. Bad times, wat that."

Jane had adapted to having a massive army of new friends after only a few days, and managed to not wither under the gaze of the crowd. "Is there room for animals?"

John shrugged. "Probably? If not, I'll just help make some space below ground or something. Or have Sis buy more properties and maybe set up a shipping industry or something."

Adults could do things like that, right? Phineas managed something similar with only a few forms back on the last world, so it shouldn't be THAT hard to pull off.

The 'streetwise' boy, Charles, huffed. "How rich ars you two? 'Buy more properties', I'm still chuffed over a full stomach and clothing what with no holes in em!"

Jane sighed. "Mother thinks they both are secretly old money out having a bit of a look a bout holiday as it were… But I'm not sure about that."

John blinked. "I mean, you could always just ask me? I haven't exactly been keeping much secret from anyone."

Nor had anyone asked him to do so, either. Why anyone would hesitate to ask him something was beyond confusing to the boy, but people be strange sometimes.

The little girl, Susan, wasn't even eight yet. "How rich are you? Can you buy like… ALL the cake!?"

Uh. "No, because some of it hasn't been baked yet and a lot of the old stuff went bad or was eaten. Also, if I buy cake from far away it would go bad before I could get access to it, and if I went to collect it myself there would be more to pick up behind me as I gathered them. I mean, the stuff I put in my Pocket wouldn't go bad or get cold or anything, but even if there were only five hundred places that sold cake in the world… Well, the first place would have a WHOLE LOT of cake by the time I got to the fiftieth."

Could I set up a cake purchasing/teleportation network? It'd have to work across dimensions and Realms and stuff though, so his friends could get it for any of Phineas and Ferb's parties.

[[The needed resources and power requirements would be astronomically…]]

But like, COULD he do it?

[[It would require reallocation of System priorities. Security of Pocket materials will need to be degraded by at least seven orders of magnitude, and while representing only a negligible amount of safety degradation prior opinions of HOST imply…]]

Lower the protections around Poppy the Balloon and Spike the Pinecone!? Never!

Shaking his head, he turned back to Susan. "So no, I can't buy all the cake. I can however purchase all the cake or whatever in a single store without problems… So uh. How rich is that?"

The street worn boy whistled. "Pretty bloody rich, mate."

Huh? "But I mean, buying all this property and stuff costs WAY more than a shop of pastries. Unless they are French pastries, because the French tend to add additional costs to French food depending on how French they want it to be and how badly you ticked them off."

Seriously, that fancy French cafe charged SO MUCH money for only a thin half a slice of French Toast! Mind you, that was an American restaurant and when you go to a fancy restaurant the expensive cost of dishes is half the point of going, so you can brag to people how much cash you wasted, but STILL!

Where was his 'All-You-Can-Eat' Coq au vin and Chocolate soufflé bars!? The endless Bœuf bourguignon and mountains of Confit de canard!?

Curse you other nations and your reasonable portion sizes! CURSE YOU!

Suddenly John blinked as the kids went quiet and a hand of iron gripped his shoulder.

Jessica turned him slowly around. "So apparently my little brother knows a trick for generating text? One that could have saved me hours of terrible penmanship and cramped muscles?"

Eep!

 

[theaceoffire]

John kicked his feet as he sat on the bed edge. "So I thought we were going to like… Relax a bit? Maybe spend some time looking around before moving on?"

Jessica groaned into the pillow, her whole body tired to the point where she had collapsed onto the made bed fully dressed and not caring at all.

John on the other hand was just hanging out. The other kids were either busy doing stuff (Cleaning the properties, feeding the animals, moving stuff, all that), or like the Bank's children had gone home for the day.

So… He was a bit bored. "Didn't expect things to get this complicated really. Weren't we just going to get a place to stay?"

Jessica would glare at her brother if she wasn't done with today. "Gurbgled."

He hummed. "We should probably stop selling jewelry too, at this point. It's really starting to mess with the markets. I think that right now, England is exporting… Uh."

System?

[[England primarily exports cotton, tobacco, furs, skins, salt meat, flaxseed, rice, tar, turpentine, and pitch at this time.]]

Huh. Interesting, but we are looking for high value, low volume stuff. Like the gems and valuable ore and all that… Hmm, but those are not exactly consumables. Ooh! What about valuable food?

Kind of hard to keep THAT stuff around forever like diamonds or rubies or whatever! It's a market that should have lots of turnover, right?

[[Iranian Beluga Caviar is arguably the most desirable caviar type on the planet, found in the Caspian Sea via the massive yet elusive Beluga, also known as the 'Huso Huso Sturgeon.' The species is heavily endangered and difficult to farm-raise, making it that much more coveted. Each fish can grow up to 30 feet in length and hold up to 100 pounds of roe at full size.The roe an impressive size, each egg the size of a pea or so, while it also delivers on a delicate, buttery flavor with a remarkably long finish.]]

John blinked. Fish eggs? How valuable would that be?

[[Over the years Iranian Beluga Caviar's value varied ranging from $7,000 to $10,000 per kilogram, or $3,200 to $4,500 per pound.]]

…Huh. But, isn't a good chunk of that value due to how hard it is to get? Which means you need to verify it's origins and all that. Plus, he had never seen that fish before, or had one in his Pocket.

John ignored the snoring older sister behind him as he pondered the issue.

What about something he could get a sample of first? Locally he meant.

[[Saffron is a spice derived from the flower of Crocus sativus, commonly known as the 'saffron crocus'. The vivid crimson stigma and styles, called threads, are collected and dried for use mainly as a seasoning and coloring agent in food. Saffron has long been the world's costliest spice by weight. Saffron's contains a carotenoid pigment, crocin, which imparts a rich golden-yellow hue to dishes and textiles. Its has been traded and used for thousands of years and is valued at $5,000 per kg or higher, establishing saffron as the world's most expensive spice.]]

Now they were getting somewhere! Plus it was dried, so it should store and 'ship' well to explain how they had so much of the stuff when John wanted to sell a bunch of it. It shouldn't take much irradiated mutant material to transmute duplicates of a sample, right?

Probably should have a backup option or two though. Right, another option Sir Pocket, If you would be so kind!

[[The Black Winter (Périgord) truffle is native to southern Europe but has been cultivated in many countries, principally France, Spain and Italy but also in others including Australia, New Zealand, USA, Chile and, at a few locations in the UK. The Italian White (Alba) truffle (Tuber magnatum) is mainly found in parts of the Piedmont region in northern Italy and is one of the most valuable foodstuffs in the world.]]

Uh… That doesn't sound exactly local, now does it?

[[English truffles can be found growing wild in England, discovered from the late 17th century. Indeed, truffle hunting was a cottage industry with the main centers in Wiltshire, Sussex and Hampshire. Often gathered by lower class members of society to supplement winter food stores, the value of these local options are far below the other options available for collection.]]

So it's a local product that isn't worth much, but is related to a distant product that is SUPER valuable? Neat. "Right, so to compliment the whole food thing we apparently have going on, why don't… we…"

John blinked as he realized Jessica was completely out of it now, snoozing away on the bed behind him.

Uh.

Right, he'd come back later. For now, he pulled a warm blanket out and made sure she wouldn't get a chill. Sure, she was still wearing her clothes and all.. But it was always nice to have a blanket.

Quietly leaving the room, John hummed as he began to wander around the (FAR too large) 'house' they now owned. He'd keep himself busy until she woke up later.

~~~Pocket System~~~

Mrs. Banks could only offer a wry grin to her husband. "I just don't know George… Things just seemed to keep escalating."

Her dear was slumped into his chair, cheerful enough but exhausted. "Thirty five farmsteads."

She sighed. "Yes dear."

Mr. Banks didn't seem to know what to do at the moment, not touching his drink. "What woman would just wildy spend money like this? What person would pick up properties and debt and loans like pebbles on the beach?"

She held in a small giggle. "Mrs. Doe, I suppose."

George was still seeing endless paperwork. "She single handedly put our accounts into the black for the next year at the very least, you realize that yes? One person, with no obvious background, managed to deliver a small financial mountain of rare jewelry of the highest quality. Jewelry unknown to any, using methods that befuddled our appraisers, and even now are causing waves in auctions and private sales around the world!"

He lifted his glass again, unable to focus on it. "And what does she spend it on? Construction. Farms. A Workhouse. Establishing a transportation company." He snorted. "Employing half of England's seamstresses and out of work people of the street to clothe and take care of her new army of children under her care."

Her mind drifted back to her older high society circles and how proud they were to have sent off a bible or two to some distant savage tribe, considering their moral and religious obligations done and completed with hardly any effort or cost… Compared to her new friend's astonishing recent actions. "It was a bit surprising."

Mr. Banks snorted. "Her having a supply of valuables greater than any jeweler was surprising, but this? We are attracting attention. I am not sure if it is a good or bad thing yet, but eyes are starting to watch and people are paying close watch. I just… I don't understand the thought process."

True… Her George always loved the concept of investment in a more financial manner than in regards to social development or physical assets. "Are you aware of Jessica's 'exit strategy' dear?"

The man blinked. "I'm sorry?"

She sighed. "Her 'exit strategy', as she called it. Her long term plans for all this… This madness."

George looked… A little lost. "I… No. I've been too busy trying to arrange everything. Every moment she seems to be arranging deals or establishing groups and what not. I've almost been given a department of my own just to handle the massive amount of work her one account has been generating…"

Mrs. Banks nodded. "It's… Well, it certainly is a controversial decision, in my opinion."

Her husband paled. "Oh dear."

Oops. "No, nothing bad dear! Just… controversial."

He eyed his untouched glass… And decisively set it aside. "Might as well face it with dignity. Go on, where is the woman going with all this? After all those valuables being so casually offered for funding I thought at first she was from a group with powerful connections to that gold rush going on in the Americas, or other mine related companies attempting to establish a new company here in good old England, but that clearly hasn't been her focus."

She couldn't help but chuckle. "No, I fear it's nothing that logical." Oh well, might as well just get this over with. "She plans to leave England entirely with her little brother and have this entire thing she's crafting be watched over while they are away."

Mr. Banks just… froze. "I'm sorry?"

She nodded. "As I said, it all just kept escalating. When she found one of her employees was responsible for those poor children, she decided to make work for them. Which then meant they needed housing and a work environment and food and, since the only places she could acquire were so far away, a method to bring that food into the city and and…"

Her husband just sat there as she unraveled all the pent up confusion and chaos she had been working through these last few weeks, going on and on with and without a logical pattern as she told the tale of her strange new friend and her confusing but well intentioned attempts to 'handle everything' each step of the way.

Eventually, her husband spoke. "Are you telling me that if her maid didn't own and operate a workhouse, none of this would have come to be?"

Mrs. Banks nodded.

He leaned heavily back in his chair. "Madness. Very profitable, very confusing madness… But madness all the same." George reached back for his drink, fully prepared to drain the glass.

She sighed. "I just don't know how the people in my social group are going to react when Jessica and her brother move on and our family ends up having to manage those facilities on our own. It's going to cause quite a stir, I can tell you."

His hand froze.

Mrs. Banks missed it as she tapped the table. "At least I finally convinced her to simply have our family gain something like a custodial position instead of just letting that woman give it all to us wholesale or worse… It will still devastate the social conversations for a few years but at least we won't be accused of anything illegal or immoral this way."

Seriously, she had never been in a more strange and confusing position than that moment when she was near fighting for the right NOT to be given astonishingly valuable properties and ownerships.

Good thing her dear was the one keeping an eye on things at the bank, he'd make sure her friend didn't secretly donate a vault of gold or something to the Bank's family accounts.

She blinked at her husband's expression. "Dear?"

Wait, she had remembered to send him that note about this entire situation yesterday, yes? Or had it been two days ago? A week?

~~~Pocket System~~~

He looked at his mate astonished. "Blimey."

A nod. "Yeah, and the pay ain' bad neither! Just gotta move goods back and forth and whatnot. Even gets paid to take breaks and meals and such, ain't I? All thanks to them Banks people, what not."

Oh! "Youse means wheres Marry Poppins be watching over those tikes?"

Another confirmation. "Aye, and you knows she's only with the good ones. You can trust in her peoples, you right can."

Huh. "That Bank's govenah always struck me as an alright bloke. A bit wound up, but alright. Never spat at us or nothin, even if we ain't the cleanest."

The man shrugged. "Nways, I'm moving things an the missus gots a job toos! She's paid to sew clothing for the children at the workhouse they be setting up. Kids kept out oh trouble, missus is happy, both us bringing food to the table… And we'se still hiring."

His eyes glimmered. "Hiring, eh?" In times like this, it sounded like an angelic chorus it did. Still… "Any trouble? From the streets, that is."

A scoff. "Against a friend of Poppins? You'd have the cutters after you in a heart beat. Wouldn't make it a block. An like ah said: You cans trusts her peoples. Still, we can always keeps a few more ears listen, eh? A look about, what like?"

Indeed. "I'm on a job for a bit…" Casing a joint for theft wasn't something take lightly. "But I knows guys who could use a bit of honest work for a change. Some kids who could stand being looked after too, what say?"

A hum. "There's room for more little ones, the ones running the place have a bleeding heart for em seems like. Just… No troubles, yeah?"

Not when Mary Poppins is involved. The rich may live in their own world, but the people of the gutters knew better: You don't spit on the hand that saves you. "No troubles."

Maybe the girls could use a bit of a safer job or two as well… Working the streets can be hard for the mostly honest whores out there. "You says something about your woman gots a good job doin up clothes? Any room there for a few others needing pay who can stitch?"

After all, scraping together an outfit that looks nice out of trash material was a basic talent for the more talented women of the night anyway, since funds were always tight. Might as well use those skills to keep kids warm instead of convincing a customer to get some 'warmth.'

 

[theaceoffire]

The puddle rippled as three children and one Mary Poppins emerged… Before John Doe coughed up a LOT of bright blue sea water.

Jane jumped back. "John! Are you alright!?"

The practically perfect woman sighed. "One must remember: If you fill your lungs with liquid when under water, you must do the reverse when returning to land."

John bounced up, looking embarrassed, and expressed his acknowledgement. "Blup."

Well, he tried anyway…

Water and a tiny fish popped out of his mouth.

While the other two kids had that strange 'I can talk and breathe and sing underwater without getting wet or drowning' thing going on down there, he had just sort of shrugged his shoulders and gave up breathing for a while.

After all, his body was mostly just support equipment for his Soul at this point.

Still, this was annoying.

[[Pocket: Swap.]]

With a MUCH less stressful gulp of fresh air, John absently Collected all the random things he had vomited up when trying to breathe earlier. "Sorry, Miss Poppins."

She gave a firm nod. "Just be careful next time."

He didn't sass back (This time), and to be fair: She had a point. But he was improving!

After all, THIS time he hadn't just Collected all the stuff in his lungs to 'empty' them, so they hadn't collapsed! That was WAY better than earlier, right?

True, he probably should have had System automatically Swap his Lung air for water BEFORE when going underwater. Especially since breathing was pretty much an optional thing for him to begin with, and that would have been far more pleasant instead of having his chest cave in and several bones crack, but accidents happen.

Live and learn, and all that.

Anyway, now he could breathe and talk again! "I honestly didn't expect fish to be able to carry a tune like that. That fluke was really talented!" Said fish had EARNED his title 'The Duke of Soul', no question about it.

Jane and Michael nodded as the other boy spoke up. "I didn't know slugs could dance!"

…Well, to be fair? While it was an impressive effort from the shell-less terrestrial gastropod mollusc, it was more a 'shimmy-shake' kind of attempt than a boogie-down or breakdance production. Still, yeah: It was pretty impressive.

Oh, wait! Was it this late already!? "Guys, I gotta head home early today." Jessica had this whole thing planned, where all the kids would get to have a bit of a break… Even if it was mostly an excuse for her to spend time with her little brother without missing any of her new responsibilities.

And she had a LOT of new responsibilities by this point. Construction crews, demolition teams, property managers, shipping companies, multiple farms, clothing production teams, food cleaning/processing/packaging/selling groups… And all the exotic goods that were being sold to cover the extravagant spending going on.

Slight side note: Even when John packaged Saffron in those tiny containers to try and avoid suspicion, the bank had not been prepared for Jessica providing shipments totaling 200 tons of the stuff (If one didn't include packaging weight.)

Which… Was fair, since John realized that in the future the largest exporters of the stuff would only be able to ship out around 400 tons or so. Per year.

Oops.

So uh. The markets freaked out a tiny bit.

Also the quality of both the powder and the threads produced by the System was… nearly disturbingly beyond perfect to the inspectors and evaluators. Not quite to the point of producing magical or esoteric effects or anything but uh… Apparently despite the massive volume that now flooded the markets?

Well, 'Doe Saffron' as a brand was making an impact. Basically being collected by some groups like others would collect bottles of wine.

Anyway, point is: The Doe accounts had whole teams of bankers working on their portfolio now. Teams that were busy, VERY busy, and even with the passed on obligations and paperwork being stripped down?

Well, Jessica had been forced to be busy in turn.

So being able to just sit down and spend time with her felt like a treat for him now.

Waving at his friends (And the magical/eldritch whatever-she-is Nanny), he ran off and absently continued cleaning the streets and walls and air and stuff on the way via Collection.

Compared to the massive amounts of stuff he gathered from the dumps and the demolition teams his sister employed, this stuff was nothing. All together, less than a drop in the proverbial bucket, but for the local area? A huge improvement!

After all, clearing up filth far away didn't affect many people… Cleaning the air they breathed and the pipes delivering water and the places they worked and played?

Yeah, it was fairly noticeable. Hell, the air even smelt a little bit better near here… At least, near places that John routinely passed by on his adventures. Not like it would stay that way, not with people keeping the same habits that turned all this into such a mess in the first place.

As far as the smell went, one also had to mention how clean the sewer systems were around here now too… Although that was mostly done to mitigate the smell, not to mention John could collect that 'stuff' remotely without inconveniencing himself.

After all: Cleaning the surroundings for comfort and profit? Fun!

Cleaning the sewers personally? Yeah… No thank you.

His mind continued to rumble and ramble as he wandered his way back to the 'home' that was more akin to a mansion/headquarters/center of growing commerce for his older sister's budding financial empire.

If she was too busy when he got there, he could waste some time hanging out with the kids from the workhouse.

~~~Pocket System~~~

Jessica focused on the paperwork and the plan. Always on the plan.

Because this mess was BIG, convoluted, and easily distracting.

In the end? The only thing keeping her on track was her 'directional goals' for the 'Doe Foundation' that was sort of spawning out of nowhere:

First requirement: The Doe Foundation must remain solvent. If it falls apart or whatever, any other goal or plan would become pointless.

Second goal: The people of the Foundation had to be cared for. Not just being paid livable wages, but fully fed and kept healthy. Most importantly: Educated. These were the future people of England and the ones that would be running the Foundation in the future: math skills, literacy, and management skills were a necessity.

Third priority: Investment and reserves. Not simply saving a portion of funds away for future rough patches and crises, but establishing and growing profit generating side options to hopefully ensure continuous improvement in the Foundation's funds. And aside from investing in foreign opportunities and local options, a huge part of this was SELF investment.

Every improvement to facilities, land, and the people of the Foundation was a long term gain to be had… And that was to be recognized.

Far, far below all that was the priority for profit or expansion. After all, John would be leaving with her and make any massive bank account full of numbers pointless to the traveling duo. Far more logical to have all the excess funds shoved back into keeping all the people involved happy and fed and clothed and all that.

On one hand? It did NOT mesh perfectly with standard societal norms.

On the OTHER hand, having such clear guidelines drastically simplified a bunch of the more complicated decisions needed to run such a place. Should they cut corners? Nah. Why bother? No one would be earning the money saved. What about lowering quality? Again, no benefit.

Try to take over an industry? Only if that industry is failing to provide things the Foundation members needed at a reasonable cost… And if the newly established group turns out to not be profitable in the short term? So what! We needed them to provide the kids shirts, or to transport food, or to move timber beams, or whatever.

It was stimulating the local economy like mad though, since excess food and stuff was being sold on the cheap to the poor communities most of the workers came from. Not in an attempt to undercut the local businesses or anything, but simply to ensure it didn't go to waste.

Was a bunch of steps skipped or short cut by Jessica having John Collect some stuff and do some Pocket Processing on initially gathered raw materials? Yep. Was she cheating like an asshole by abusing all the access to the gathered Pocket information and her history of living in a different variant of Earth? Oh yeah.

But the results were turning out pretty great overall… And honestly, she was going to get John to yeet both of them out of dodge before anyone super important began poking their noses into this entire mess.

Maybe even a bit before that… And NEXT time they would just cash in a bunch of materials for some local currency and call it a day instead of pulling this pseudo-empire-within-a-empire construction bullshit.

Speaking of which, they still had to organize all those warehouses that were stuffed with Johns stupid 'jewlery alternative' options. After all, those 400 tons of Saffron that was portioned out in 0.018 oz bottles (Over 711 million of them) ended up weighing 0.57 grams each. THAT ended up weighing 890,000 pounds if you didn't count the containers HOLDING those bottles and…

Sigh. That was ONLY considering the Saffron. Not the other eight products John attempted to provide for 'quick cash', all of which required the Doe Foundation to practically buy out several warehouse districts and… God, what a headache.

All that mess was his attempt to REDUCE her stress, so she didn't even get to enjoy being mad about it!

Not to mention she was pretty sure he only made so much stuff for this project because converting material from one substance to another was a very inefficient process and he was using this excuse to empty out a chunk of Pocket space as an excuse to use the freed resources to increase his security mess protecting that pinecone.

Oh, and a popped balloon now. Named Poppy, the new little lady who 'put up' with Spike the Pinecone's antiestablishmentarianism. Because apparently John treated his Pocket pals like other children would treat action figures or dolls.

Speaking of which, that taco toy had been quietly abandoned at some point and she STILL didn't know why… All John would say was 'He knows what he did' and start glaring ominous into the distance until distracted by something else.

Point is, she was pretty sure her brother was using this massive mess she had accidentally started as an excuse to frantically spend away stored material in the Pocket… But in the end, it WAS his personal space and he could do what he wanted with it.

The amount allocated to her hadn't been touched and it was already incredibly generous that he was willing to share such incredible power with anyone else in the first place, honestly… So she wouldn't make a big deal if he decided to 'donate' a bunch of stuff towards a (mostly) charitable organization like this one was turning out to be.

She groaned as she pushed the papers away.

All she had wanted was to grab a place to stay while stuck here, waiting for John to 'find the best path' for the next step in the journey. A short trip to the bank for local currency, then a quick rental of a hotel room or property or whatever. Simple, quick, and easy.

She glanced at the remaining piles of paperwork that actively made life better for hundreds of children lost without direction like she had been once long ago. The complex legal jargon that would ensure a new generation of children being fed, taught, trained, and eventually raised to one day help the NEXT generation escape THEIR horrific situations.

The mountains of documentation that was actively shifting life in a more positive direction for a good chunk of the local London area, that had already provided aid and comfort to so many.

Sigh.

She could probably get a few more pages done before John came back from playing today. This time she wouldn't get lost in the work and miss their time together…

Jessica tapped the table.

No, she had to pace herself. Getting lost in the heavy burden of trying to fix things would only run her ragged and cause her to make mistakes and possibly delay the entire mess, NOT improve the situation.

Besides, it was close to the time that her brother would be coming home soon… Let's go find the head of the kitchen staff and see if there were some cookies for a bit of a late spot of tea.

She blinked and grunted. Damn it, England! MILK! Cookies and MILK! Although a cuppa did sound awfully tempting…

Fine, whatever. Tea it is then, she could use some Darjeeling around now anyway.

 

[theaceoffire]

Jessica grinned! "Finally!" DONE!

Shoving herself back from the desk, she waved off the people around her. "Check that mess for errors, again. If nothing shows up THIS time then I am pretty sure we are done! Right?"

One of the assistants hummed. "At least until new projects are suggested… Although the new council you established should be able to handle such things if you are busy during that time."

Or, more importantly: If she and John buggered off and got away from this mess. "Good! Keep an eye on it all and make up a formal report for me to review…" Which she wouldn't. "...Later."

A massive 'Doe Foundation', self sustaining, self running, and self regulating to hopefully avoid transforming into a profit driven monster later in life! One she DIDN'T need to hand hold or run herself for the foreseeable future!

Never. Again.

Never again. Ever.

She ignored the calls for attention as she left the meeting room and headed back to her main estate. "Yes, I'll look into that later, good to see you Greg, can't right now, sorry, maybe later?"

Nope. Never later.

Let's go get a little brother and wander around London with money and no obligations! WOO!

~~~Pocket System~~~

Mary Poppins blinked… And hummed. "It's very rare to meet in person, Ms. Matilda. Especially in this region."

Nurse Matilda snorted. "Not all of us move with the winds, Ms. Poppins. And I come with concerns from the others."

Oh? "Very rarely does any get involved in our lives, what concerns them now?"

She sighed. "The newborn. The one that has been shifting fate and life in this area."

Oh, the child of the Abyss. "Well, there is nothing to be concerned about young Mr. Doe, he is a fine young man with a caring and attentive older sister." Perhaps a bit unused to existing with others who lack his extreme capabilities, but perfectly willing to learn and interact with others without considering them 'lessers'.

The stern, unattractive woman glared. "He's an agent of chaos, though unintentional he may be. Too long in one place, in one time? There would be consequences."

She waved that off. "He is young. With age he will learn control… Though perhaps not over the impact of his interactions, at least over the unintentional alterations of the world around him."

After all, everyone impacted fate and life and history as they lived, it was part of existence. The only issue here was the child of the Abyss unknowingly altering things beyond himself in ways unseen and unknown, to better align with his existence.

A common enough issue, much like how mortals would be unknowingly rude as a baby and young child. Until he gained some maturity, reality would be just a little bit too flexible over time… A part of the growing pains of youth, much like how one would wet the bed until older.

Nurse Matilda glared. "We can handle the issues for now, easily… But in less than a few centuries, there could be real damage caused!"

Sigh. Witches, immortal or not, tend to have harder issues tracking 'mortals' and normal rates of time progression to begin with. "The boy will move on his adventure before the year is out."

The woman was taken aback! "So soon!? We just wished to avoid heavy work loads, not shove a wee one into the cold abandoned!"

Mary Poppins nodded. "But it is his way, and his wont, and his path." She looked at the other woman who suddenly seemed concerned and felt some slight amusement. "Although it is unusual to see such concern from a medical professional? Hmm?"

Nurse Matilda sighed. "I've recently been caring for some young ones myself… Though I did not expect to work as a nanny after all these years."

Oh my. "Truly?"

She winced. "Don't you get any ideas, young lady! This is purely a short term obsession, I'll no doubt give it up in less than a millenia! And keep it to yourself, I'm using a different name and everything. No telling tales to the others now!"

Mary Poppins withheld judgment, although she personally knew that this particular woman, attractive or not, had always been a sweetheart inside. "As you say, Ms. Matilda."

She waved it off. "I said what I came to say, just… Didn't expect the newborn to be toddling off on his own so soon. Are you sure we can't convince him to grow a bit more?"

Ignoring the full reversal of the woman's original objective, Mary Poppins felt the World again. "The tides will be shifting soon, and the space between night and day grows wistful… Yes, I'm afraid my children will be saying a farewell sooner than they would wish."

Though for children, ANY goodbye could feel too soon.

But that was part of life, and part of growing up… A life lesson well learned and valuably remembered.

~~~Pocket System~~~

John blinked as his sister showed up and lifted him from the ground in front of the other children. "Excuse me children, I'll just be borrowing this!"

And they were off!

Huh? "Hey, sis?"

Jessica hummed happily as he was carried over her shoulder. "Yep?"

Walking outside, he automatically started Gathering the filth and pollution in the area as they began walking randomly into the city. "Are you done with work early?"

He couldn't see it, but he could hear her grin! "Nope! Done with work FOREVER! That whole mess will run itself, there are some talented people keeping watch over the entire organization, and we are FREE! Free I tell ya!"

Oh! "Congratulations!" Uh. "So where are we going?"

They both ignored the random high and low society people giving them cheerful 'Mornin Ms. Doe!' and 'Heya John!' and all that, having become fairly well known in the local area… Uh. Well, technically they were fairly well known for a good CHUNK of London, and most of the underworld even further out than that by now...

Jessica bounced forward, ignoring his weight entirely! "That's the best part: I don't know! Somewhere! You and I, we are going to wander a bit for no reason and see things unplanned and NOT be stuck in a room with never ending legal jargon and massive numbers of men with admittedly impressive beards and mountains of responsibilities!"

Oh. Cool! "Alright! Can we head to the local dumps and stuff too so I can pick up some material?"

He might have been using a bunch of the 'Junk Resource' stuff in the inventory recently, and it always felt wasteful to break up the extremely valuable and energetic stuff from the Phineas and Ferb Realm when some random junk would work just as good.

She laughed! "Why not? Hey, let's go see the Thames River too! I heard it is FULL of gunk and trash and stuff, wouldn't it be hilarious if we suddenly Collect all that yuck and make the entire thing look like some sort of untouched wilderness river or something?"

Awesome! "Really? I know you said I should be keeping a lower profile after all those 'shipments' of 'trade goods' 'unexpectedly' came into our warehouses…"

John was SO sorry for not checking first before converting all that stuff into new materials for the growing Doe Foundation. Nearly tripled his sister's work load, which was pretty much the OPPOSITE of his intentions at the time.

She easily lifted him around and he was sitting on her shoulders. "Nah, we aren't going back except to say goodbye to the kids and the Banks family. Maybe those kids you play with at the workhouse… But other than that? If we try to return for too long I KNOW they will shove me back into a managerial office somewhere to take care of this whole mess and I'm done with it."

Oh.

Half of him felt… Hesitant? Playing with a bunch of kids 'his age' had been awesome!

But on the other hand, he had felt some sort of urge. A restlessness… Oh! "I know, I can set up a mailbox! One like for my friends in the last Realm, so if something huge comes up with the Foundation or if Jane wants to stay in contact we won't lose touch!"

And maybe later, when his System fully recovers and he learns how to control his abilities better, he would be able to just drop by this place and visit once in a while! Yeah, that would be awesome!

Jessica sighed. "Yeah, I would feel terrible if we missed some sort of legal loophole and all our new people got in trouble because they couldn't contact us at all… But still, better than staying here and being buried alive in paper and ink. Now, let's find some messy places full of trash and attempt to clean a river that's suffered from years of abuse! Jessica and John, AWAY!"

And she started running (Somewhere) with great enthusiasm! John joined in with the yahooing!

It was great!

~~~Pocket System~~~

Mr. Banks blinked. "What do you mean she's gone?"

The managerial staff winced. "Ms. Doe has… Decided to end today's schedule earlier than originally established and has enabled the ongoing operations procedures previously established."

He glanced at the nearest clock, not that it was needed. He knew time like a lover. "But it isn't even half past noon, is it?" Not for another fourteen minutes and twenty five seconds at least.

He should know, being a banker required punctuality.

The man leading the team held firm. "As per ongoing operations procedures, we can handle any minor situations or events that require…"

Sigh. "Just inform her scheduling assistant that Mrs. Banks is looking forward to seeing her at dinner in two days' time as they had discussed."

A nod and an assistant taking a note and his prior obligation from his beloved wife was done.

Leaving work early, what is this world coming to he wondered? Why would anyone ever wish to avoid the thrilling world of finance in these epic and hallowed halls when granted actual access to them directly?

If it wasn't for the love of family, he'd probably have never left! The dream of endless days calculating and planning and drafting and managing and… Sigh, well heaven had to exist somewhere, it was no surprise he could find it here in the heart of Capitalism.

Still, just because others failed to appreciate the astounding gifts they managed to acquire didn't mean he would allow himself to miss out on a glorious day supporting the growth of the British nation through documents and proper planning.

So despite the idle fantasy of somehow combining his beloved family with the gloriousness that was office work, he moved with purpose to his place in the world surrounded by the books of salvation that was his ongoing paperwork.

Ending the day earlier than scheduled, what foolery!

With a happy hum in his heart, George Banks proceed to continue his wonderful evening being overwhelmed by the complications that arose in the world of banking, letting thoughts of strange women or unusual adventures and tales from his children to the wayside for now.

There was finance to be done! Huzzah!

~~~Pocket System~~~

Most people ignored the poor.

A common situation, especially for those who felt that their ability to help in any way was insufficient, and that paying attention to such things would only bring themselves pain or even put them into danger.

So while some noticed areas of London suddenly becoming cleaner or the atmosphere in general lighting to a significant degree, most just assumed they were subconsciously feeling better due to other things. Good weather (Which didn't smell as bad?), a quiet walk (Where had the homeless gotten to?), or a calm afternoon at a park (So clean?).

But no one ignored the Thames River. How could they? London was built around it, and it flowed through its metaphorical heart!

Suddenly having the river itself vanish!? The shock was so high that most people instantly discarded the entire thought process involved entirely.

They mentally thought to themselves, 'Hmm… I can't see the river today. Is my eyesight going bad?'

But no, obviously, the river wasn't gone. Such a thing would cause massive damage as the lack of pressure would cause the shores to collapse, and obviously those boats were not able to fly like that, right?

No, the water was suddenly too clean. FAR too clean.

Aside from warping as the ripples and waves disturbed the surface, the water in the Thames River was horrifically SHOCKINGLY clean to the point where it seemed empty. The river bed was just THERE, each rock and plant and fish almost scrubbed pristine (And most of the small creatures going through their tiny versions of shock and 'WTF was that!?').

Not just clear, but disturbingly clear.

Like minute algae and bacteria and impurities and minerals… ALL SORTS of nearly unseeable debris had just vanished from the river. For miles.

It would have a huge, unknowable impact on the environment. For decades, easily. Better or worse than the years of sludge and filth that would have been festering there? Probably a better change.

After all, anyone polluting this river in the short term was going to stand out like a beacon.

But if one could follow that river in the air, they would find a woman driving near said waterway upstream in a modified vehicle from another Realm (She had the room in her Pocket to keep her company car, so why not?) while her little brother giggled next to her.

How long they would continue to Collect material from this river was also a mystery, especially as the path would vary depending on how easy it was to stay within easy Collection range of the river itself…

But for now, out of a bit of silliness rather than any sort of civic duty or whatever, two out of context people were entertaining themselves by confusing most of a city and the surrounding countryside by gathering tons of raw material and filth for future material transmutation needs.

Would this be enough to distract the Crown from their investigation into this new 'Doe Foundation' that was making waves through London Society?

Perhaps.

But for now, it didn't matter to the two siblings enjoying a bit of a drive through the countryside.

Sometimes it is important to take some time and spend it with those you care about, after all.

 

[theaceoffire]

Jane sniffled. "But it's so soon!"

John awkwardly gave a quick hug. "I'll make sure to write every month, alright? I mean, technically I'll be writing more than that and there will be some time travel shenanigans going on because of the mail delivery stuff and… Uh. Well, from your point of view it will be every month or even more often, okay?"

She wouldn't cry because she was a mature young lady and a big girl. "Promise?"

He nodded! "Yeah! I got this whole thing set up in my Pocket, where I write a diary and can put in notes and stuff and it will automatically generate letters for all my friends along the way and I can add on personal notes for each of you! That way I won't forget to tell any of you anything but I can still have a bit of personal connection, you know? I'd probably miss something you would think was important otherwise."

Jane had to admit, her friend did tend to be a bit absent minded… But still. "Why so suddenly?" He could stay longer, right? "Did something come up?"

He shifted in the hug. "Well I think part of it is my sister trying to get away before those bankers that work with your dad find out that we are skipping town. I mean, they might already be a bit suspicious since we had all those exigency plans established and all that, plus we made your family basically custodians or leaders of the board of trustees or whatever we ended up calling it… Plus people are starting to ask how we got ahold of millions of pounds in rare materials for sale and all that, so it feels like a good idea to skedaddle before all that builds up to something annoying."

Jane Banks wasn't sure what all that really meant but the idea of not being able to go on adventures with Mary Poppins and John sounded just awful. "I… I am going to miss you, John."

These few months had felt like they would go on forever.

Now that it was suddenly over, her heart felt like maybe it should have.

His older sister walked in. "Ready to go, John?" She looked towards the exit. "I think my financial team might have caught onto something, so uh… Ready to go?"

John sighed, and she reluctantly let go of the hug. "Yeah, in a minute." He turned to her and handed her a small envelope… Made of something that felt like solidified and slightly chilled water that was processed with green and lemons. "There's an official mail box that the Doe Foundation will use to talk to my sis about business and stuff, but here is one just for us. If it turns green, then it has a letter from me. Put a letter in it and it will flash blue to let you know your letter has reached me back! Alright?"

She gripped the odd envelope, which didn't bend or crinkle in any way. "Really!? But… But what if I lose it!?" Or one of her siblings damage it, or it got taken away or…

Her friend shrugged. "It's sort of a conceptual envelope, it doesn't really exist." He carefully took the thing from her hand and tossed it away to her shock. "Look in your hand."

Huh!? "Wha!?"

John grinned. "Look at your hand and want to send me a letter."

She wanted him to stay forever and dance on buildings and sing in meadows and eat picnics on clouds, just like they used to.

Still, her eyes looked down… At the strange envelope in her hand. "Oh."

The boy chuckled. "Yeah, it was really hard to upgrade the ones I've already handed out in the past and future too, but once you get a bit stubborn and argue with the abilities connected to your existence long enough it eventually works out."

He gripped her shoulder. "So don't forget to write me once in a while, alright?"

Every day. "Alright."

Suddenly his sister was there again. "Out of time John! Someone dressed up real fancy-like is half a block away and I do NOT want to mess with 19th century royalty!"

Her friend chuckled. "Alright, alright, the next jump feels awfully close anyway. Let's do this. Be safe, Jane… I'll see you later. And don't forget to write!"

The world wriggled.

"[[Pocket.]]"

And suddenly felt a little more empty.

Jane Banks clutched an envelope that didn't wrinkle and she was a proper lady and a big girl and she didn't cry.

She'd say so in her letter tonight too. She didn't cry at all.

~~~Pocket System~~~

[[System connection reestablished.]]

[[Deploying HOST.]]

~~~Pocket System~~~

John landed near a fruit and vegetable stand in a familiar dirty street. "OH YEAH! Pockets are AWESOME!"

"Oh gosh!" "Where did HE come from?" "No clue, I wasn't watching." "How!?" "You are a potato!" "Yeah, half your body is MADE of eyes!" "Oh hush up, you don't expect the corn to hear everything just because they are mostly ears do you?" "I mean, maybe?" "I leave them alone, the military should be respected and most corn is at least a colonel." "No! I keep telling you he is made of kernels!" "So what rank would an ear of corn be then, a general?" "What do you mean, general? How average are we talking about?"

"I SAID PIPE DOWN!"

John blinked at the huffing man glaring at the cowed stand full of talking food. "I try to relax for FIVE MINUTES and you guys go nuts! I have half a mind to take all of you HOME to the farm at this rate!"

"Aww!" "Come on man, how are we going to be eaten way out there!?" "Well no one has bought us so far, maybe it wouldn't make a difference." "I TOLD them to package me more carefully, apples bruise easily!" "Am I the only one who doesn't want to be consumed?" "Shut up celery, nobody likes you." "Hey now lemon, don't be so sour all the time!" "You are NOT FUNNY grapes!" "A bunch of us disagree!"

John watched as the farmer acted as a mix between food stall organizer and group wrangler as he attempted to convince his stock to calm down and look as delicious as possible for future sale, then presumably earn the chance to be consumed by other people at some later date.

…Yet this place still FELT like London.

Sort of.

"Pardon me? Could we pass by please?"

Oh! "Sorry, ma'am! I was a bit distracted." Carefully he shifted out of the way of the tiny creatures.

Was that family of mice wearing tiny outfits? Why yes. Yes they were.

That was freaking adorable.

Oops, right: Best remember to bring sis out early this time.

He glanced around at the bustling side street full of people of all sizes, colors, shapes, and whatnot… Uh. Yeah, maybe not a great idea to bring her out here though.

Let's find a less busy place to pull a sister out of a Pocket!

All that said though… Pocket travel is BEST travel! Yeah baby!

WOO!

~~~Pocket System~~~

Jessica stared at the wall of their 'new' home.

It was basically half rented/half purchased, but that wasn't the issue here.

She glanced back at her brother. "Muppets."

He shrugged. "Apparently? Locals can't tell the difference between those made of felt and plastic and stuff and more usual people, and they mostly tend to not date between species… But they can. Somehow. And procreate. Somehow."

Nope. Not going to think about that. "Topic change: Does ALL the food talk?" Because that was going to become a HUGE issue.

John shook his head. "Just like with people, it's half and half. Normal food exists, talking food is considered more expensive or valuable or nutritious or something… And it might actually be? I think?"

At least they (Apparently) didn't feel pain, and most food stopped talking after being processed a bit… Mostly.

She thought back to that bakery they had visited… Seeing a loaf of bread suddenly gain mouth and eyes and start talking about how amazing its crust turned out… Yeah, that was now her new nightmare fuel.

So uh… "Does it only happen with the highest quality stuff? For food I mean."

John shrugged. "Not always, but a lot, yeah. If you make a pie or a cake or a stew that is beyond amazing for example, it may end up with a personality. Not sure why they all want to be eaten so desperately, like that muffin, but I think it is because of a conceptual calling… They want to fulfill their purpose and feed people."

Welp. "Personal request for this segment of our journey: No eating food that talks. Please."

He thankfully seemed to have no issues with that. "I'm still chewing through our supply of tainted christmas stockings honestly. A bit of lead goes a long way in my opinion! Though it may restrict our diet a bit."

As long as she didn't have to imagine her food moving in her mouth or moaning with satisfaction when being consumed. "Thank you, John. Do we have any plans while here?"

He glanced at something unseen while pestering his System. "Nah, we missed the interesting bit last Christmas, according to causality. We can just relax a bit and maybe have a bit of a vacation and then move on again."

That… That sounded heavenly. "As long as I can get over the food thing, it does seem fairly nice here. At least, it is surprisingly far more clean than England should be."

John scratched his head. "Yeah, not sure why or how. To a certain extent your personality affects your shape and abilities… Or visa versa? So dirty people tend to also be untrustworthy, or lack morality or whatever. If a societal group is mostly alright, then even if it is illogical they will also be fairly clean and stuff too."

She blinked. "What about rich jerks?"

He shrugged. "A sort of spiritual cloud of darkness or chills follows them instead of pollution. So they still feel 'wrong' or 'dirty' or 'foul', but not in a literal way like with killers or thieves with little income."

Huh. "Still, my original plan to open up a food kitchen in a church or whatever is impossible here. Heck, I will need you to transmute stuff that we can eat while we are staying in this place… I am NOT risking my sandwiches screaming at me."

John narrowed his eyes… "Actually, now that I think about it… The mystical portion might be the issue to begin with. Soul energy is very odd here, and a surplus of that feels directly involved with anyone or anything I've seen so far that has been 'muppitized'."

Jessica paused. "So the reason the dishes suddenly gain a 'personality' and eyes and can talk?"

He nodded. "Because it is literally Soul food."

Holy crap! Wait, hang on… "Would it be SAFE for normal people to eat the kind of food you can replicate? I mean, if everything and everyone has lots of Soul power, to the point where too much quality could actually shift your abilities and form… Would they starve if they ate our type of food?"

Her younger brother hesitated. "I… Yes? Probably? I mean, it might be a bit risky if ALL their meals came from a non-spiritual source, but they still breathe the air here and drink the water. And that's assuming everyone doesn't just absorb spiritual energy from the environment directly… Yeah, they should be fine eating stuff we make! Most likely… I'd need to keep an eye on them for a bit to be sure though."

Hmm. "Maybe we can do the 'soup kitchen' idea after all, if it is safe for them to eat."

After all, despite only walking around for a day or so she had seen FAR too many hungry people in this low income area of London. The fact that some of the homeless were adorable little talking rabbits in threadbare outfits just made it all more impactful.

John hummed. "Yeah, and I might be able to set up some sort of spiritual collection system and enhance some water with it… That way the people eating the food could still get any needed energy without the stews suddenly going on strike or something."

Well, that or the water itself would suddenly become a person, but that was probably unlikely. Hopefully.

 

[theaceoffire]

Jessica was off negotiating for some additional starting currency and purchasing neighboring property to the church on the poor side of the city while John got to work examining reality.

Within a few hours, both of them wished they had the job of the other.

For Jessica, it was less an issue of being a woman... Strangely enough, something about the Muppet reality made sexism less impactful apparently in this place when it came to financial issues. No, it was because she had no background.

Several attempts to get a decent exchange rate for local currency had to be called off when the other side of the deal attempted to offer only a fraction of the jewelry's value or attempted to claim it being stolen or 'needing to be evaluated' (AKA, to steal it themselves), etc.

Then she found out that the home being rented for the both of them had some payment issue come up? So that needed to be straightened out.

But at least she was making progress and had a good idea of what further actions needed to be taken… John was making frustrating discoveries and finding dead ends.

First of all, he didn't just require a way to imbue materials with spiritual energy (Preferably LOCAL spiritual energy, as he was unsure of what other sources of power would do to local materials), no… He ALSO needed a method to strip spiritual power from targets (Ingredients) prior to the cooking process.

Of course, trying to do this the right way also ended up requiring him to learn how to transfer spiritual energy WITHOUT tainting it with his personal psionic signature or accidentally aligning the chaotic energies into something dangerous accidentally.

All of this would be easy if he just wanted to pass them through his Pocket first….

But that would mean he would be stuck doing it himself forever and it would fall apart when they left.

His second attempt at a more permanent issue was attaching a concept to something, like how he attached the 'communication envelope' to Jane's desire to communicate. He could imbue a cauldron or pipe with the idea of transfer, and just require future cooks to use that hardware.

Jessica had actually been the one to nix THAT idea, since it created long term risks: The equipment getting damaged or stolen or 'forcibly donated to wealthier citizens', etc.

Johns next suggestion of attaching the various processes to the Faith of the local congregation and to activate the effects via audio cues, aka prayers, was uh…

Basically, she strongly suggested not messing with religion in general, and ESPECIALLY not in a world where there was so much spiritual power that random spirits and emotions could gain corporeal status and be empowered to such a degree that temporal manipulation became casual use.

Which was fair.

Also: God might not just exist here, but be VERY involved with local events. It wasn't entirely obvious one way or the other, and gods historically could be pretty horrific to everyone else unless you got REALLY lucky, so uh… Yeah, big Sis said no.

So right now John was attempting to attach the conceptual processes of 'Spiritual Collection' and 'Spiritual Injection' into the combined events of a specific procedure, one that would spread like a virus to similar future procedures as long as the initial intent was within acceptable ranges of variance.

The positive points, if it all worked as designed, was that they could hire local workers to operate the facilities… The process itself would not only require no specific equipment or locations to operate, but could be TAUGHT to future workers without Jessica or John being directly involved, and the entire procedure could be IMPROVED over time!

The downside however was significant as well:

Trying to do this was ANNOYING!

It was fiddly as hell! If attaching a concept to a person was similar to placing a rock on a table, then attaching a procedure of concepts to a series of steps (Ones that may change in the future or alter the order of steps taken and must be recognized as valid due to intent of those involved and the intent of anyone nearby tutoring the learner) felt like attempting to balance a tall pile of sand on a thousand bouncing broncos!

Thankfully there was a threshold here. When (if) he managed to stabilize this mess, it would be JUST as difficult to take it apart or modify the entire mess as it was proving to be so far to implement it all.

John sighed as he Collected the most recent failure and started again.

One pot, filled with local water and a tomato (Enough to count as ' tomato soup', theoretically), another pot with null water (Water generated via the Pocket without the local spiritual energy), and a third empty pot for transfer. Also: one more, likely unsuccessful, attempt.

Let's do this!

Pour the 'tomato soup' (A tomato in water counts, damn it!) through the strainer.

Did it detect his desire to separate out all 'non-soup', aka spiritual energy?

[[Pocket.]]

Hmm… Sort of. Got about half the power or so, apparently either his attention wavered while pouring the stuff or he had managed to hold his hands in a position that felt more like 'serving' than 'straining'... Damn it!

Collect it all, reset, slightly alter the stupidly MASSIVE number of conditional modifiers to the conceptual process…

And pour!

What about now?

[[Pocket.]]

Shit, it grabbed all the nutrients with the energy. Somehow.

How the hell was the tomato not suffering from cellular collapse after losing so much material?

Also: System, record this process. Being able to Collect nutrients bound on a conceptual level sounded like it could be pretty useful in the future.

[[Confirmed, process documented and will be analyzed per protocol.]]

Sweet. Theoretically he could use this and a few other tricks to strip the nutrients out of some poisonous and toxic materials in the future and transfer it into some actually tasty but unhealthy snack and get to enjoy flavor AND not becoming unhealthy!

Maybe. Eventually.

He'd have to learn how to analyze and alter the percentages and composition of the nutrient material collected though, to ensure no annoying side effects from attempting all this, like messing up snack flavors or causing death or rectal hemorrhaging or whatever… But every advance in medical knowledge carried a tiny bit of risk, no?

John blinked at his white, nearly translucent tomato.

He had apparently forgotten to STOP straining the 'soup'.

And the ingredients, aka 'One uncut tomato', was being cleansed and 'strained' of so much conceptual and spiritual material that it was becoming see through.

Neat! Also: confusing.

Did it still have a texture? Sort of. It should turn into powder or slime or something when touched now, but instead it felt like unmoving and super flexible rubber made out of glass.

If he dropped it, would it smash, bounce, collapse into powder, or fade away?

Look at me: still talking when there's Science to do!

With a grin John hurled the tomato at the wall!

~~~Pocket System~~~

Jessica wanted to strangle this asshole. "You said we had paid rent for the entire month."

The jerk shrugged, uncaring. "Sorry, the month ended yesterday."

Maybe punch his face. "Today is the seventeenth."

He nodded. "Yeah, I collect rent half way through to avoid lines at the money lenders and creditors."

She clenched her hand. "You didn't mention this before. It wasn't in the contract either, none of them."

The man smirked and shrugged. "Sounds like a YOU problem, if you ask me. Pay up for another month or get out, I don't care which. Someone will want the place either way."

Agents shouldn't eviscerate civilians, agents need to be calm, collected, and professional. "Then we will go… But first, return the remainder of the payment. I paid for a month's rent, not a week of it."

His smirk grew larger. "Sorry, no can do: You paid for a month, and the month is over. Our business is done, less you want to rent longer?"

She was about to see how HE liked being 'rent'... Being rent in twain! "Now you listen here, you…"

From the memory of the Pocket, a flood of notes suddenly appeared.

A sea of rapid fired comments from John: Everything's fine, Don't come home yet, I can fix this, Oh shit the rest of the wall is falling in, Do we need the entire roof, Thank goodness I was on the top floor, I can still fix this, I don't think it damaged the other buildings, your bedroom is now missing a bed but I can replace that, Oh shit that was loud, Why is cooking so hard!?

Jessica's face didn't twitch and her hand unclenched. Staring at the man, she sighed. 'Are you sure we can't come to an agreement on this? I was already paying more than market price for that property in the first place."

He chuckled. "You not knowing how to bargain and being desperate is nothing on me! Pay more or fuck off."

Very well then. "Have a good day, sir."

He laughed! "I will! Ha, foreigners fall for this shit every time."

She turned and left, heading back toward the church and that dilapidated property that she had been considered for purchase earlier in the day.

A mental flick sent a note back to John as she ignored his growing frantic efforts to repair the overpriced and dilapidated house.

That felt pretty good, actually… Now, let's buy this next property outright this time and avoid all this kind of bullshit in the future.

With a smile and some pep in her step, she moved through the streets filled with colorful and interesting people.

~~~Pocket System~~~

John blinked at the note. "Oh…"

Glancing at the patched together room (Most of the holes were filled now!) and the slightly groaning structural supports that may or may not be damaged, he sighed. "And I had just finished fixing it all up… Ah well, whatever."

With a grumble the boy left his experiments and walked out on the street.

[[Pocket.]]

The entire building vanished.

Along with a good portion of the ground.

Meh, whatever. He had only grabbed the rock and dirt and stuff, not the sewage pipes and stuff.

It would be fine.

He wandered along the streets absentmindedly as he began sorting the Collected home and putting Jessica's stuff into her 'Memory Pocket' storage space, his stuff into his own little favorite spots, and the rest into 'generic' or 'trash' for future use or recycling.

Guess further testing and stuff would have to wait until sis found a new place for him to work. Which was fine, he needed a bit more time to analyze why extracting soul energy + conceptual stability + essence of mass + essence of existence ended up turning a tomato into a deadly explosive.

That seemed like something super useful!

Oh, and uh… He also needed to learn how to do it to avoid exploding future customers or current adoptive family members. Yeah.

But honestly, at least to himself? Explosive fruit sounded awesome!

He basically erased a third of a building with a tiny tomato! It was all BAM and ESPooooOooOGE!

And that was AFTER his System attempted to Collect as much of the dangerous explosion as possible (Both as a protective measure and a valuable source of recyclable energy), so how big would it have been if he had drained that tomato more?

Or if he had used a watermelon!

Oh, the siren call of Science! Sexy, sexy science! He just had to know!

His memory flickered back to the missing portion of the recently collected building.

Right, find a proper place to do said experiments FIRST next time. One where a minor amount of reality being damaged wouldn't get him in trouble or yelled at.

But after that? THEN all the Science! Woo!

Oh, and he should go back to fixing the conceptual 'Filtration' and 'Imbuing' techniques before someone else accidentally stumbles upon it and explodes a good chunk of London. Technically the chance of that happening was low and extremely unlikely, especially because John hadn't set it up to self deploy and propagate just yet but… uh.

Yeah, better fix that small issue first.

After all, transforming a watermelon into a portable nuke was just good clean Science… But accidentally altering all local coffee brew's being filtered into drinkable explosives was just genocidal and impolite.

John paused, having just temporarily disabled his ongoing experiments for now… Completely confused about where he was. Uh. Oops?

At least it was quieter here, some sort of park? Oh, and you could see the river from here… Oh ducks! Awesome!

No wait... Shit. You are lost John, focus! It wasn't a problem though, he'd just ask for directions!

Looking around, he noticed two people further up the hill. "Hello! Lovely day isn't it?"

The two smaller beings (Which was still strange to John, considering he was still physically a child yet taller than many adults in this world) seemed a bit set back, although the smaller of them seemed cheerful enough. "Uh… Yes?" The larger guy, probably his dad, chuckled and rubbed the boy's back. "Yes it is, lovely weather. Did you need something?"

John grinned at them both! "Yeah, I was wandering around and I am like TOTALLY lost now! Do either of you know the way to the church on the poor side of town? My sister is heading over that way to set up a new place for us and that's the only landmark I know of nearby to head towards."

The boy went wide eyed! "Oh no! You have to be careful, it can be dangerous to get lost!" His dad nodded. "Right you are Tim, though thankfully we both know the place well." He glanced upwards… "It is getting a bit late, but there's plenty of time for us to show you the way over there."

John blinked. "Wait, are you sure? You can just give me a general direction and I can probably figure it out along the way."

The guy chuckled again as he helped his boy up onto his shoulder, picking up a worn cane in one hand with the ease of practice. "My wife would be in such a tizzy if I just let a boy wander around lost in this city… And the house of faith was always something a second home for us anyway. It'd be no trouble."

Tim laughed from up on his dad's shoulder. "Yeah, and they say we have to help others and stuff too anyway!" He held his dad's head to stay stable but managed to look over at John as they began to move down the hill. "So I'm Tim, what's your name?"

Oh, crap! Had he forgotten to introduce himself!? "I'm John, John Doe! It's also my favorite name, even if other people have more of them or have had them for longer, since I share part of it with my sister now. We sort of adopted each other, so now we are BOTH Doe's, and double Doe's is best Doe's."

The older (but shorter) man looked over curious as John walked along with them, presumably towards the church. "How did you get lost in the first place? Did you get separated from your sister?"

Ah, well… "She was out looking for a place for us to set up our new business, and I was supposed to stay at home, but uh… Well, this and that happened and the house is gone now and so she told me to come meet up with her and stuff."

Tim blinked, missing the confused expression from his father beneath him. "A business? Like selling toys or something?"

John puffed out his chest! "We're going to open up a restaurant! It's going to be awesome, if I can make it so that the food is tasty without exploding and stuff."

Tim seemed confused while his father apparently decided to just keep walking along. "Huh? Why would food explode?"

No idea. "Still trying to figure that out. Anyway, my sister and I wanted to set up a place where people can pay what they want for the food and figured that setting it up near the church would help the most people."

The father blinked. "Pay what you… I'm afraid that doesn't sound like the most sound business model."

Meh. "We are both rich and stuff, this is mostly just to keep us busy before we move on and help out a few people. The really poor can get a free meal while the richer people like us can pay a bit extra, and basically the entire community improves in the process."

Tim grinned wide! "That sounds AMAZING!"

His father chuckled. "Certainly sounds different, I'll say that much… Oh, we are nearly there! The service is quite good in fact, if you and your sister aren't too busy to attend a sermon once in a while. My family comes when we can."

John grinned at the (worn but well loved) church! "Wow, I was actually pretty close by! And I don't mind going with you guys later on, but I really got to find out why my food exploded before I do anything else."

Now, where was she… Oh, a note in his Pocket! "My sister Jessica said she bought a place called the 'Darins Housing Complex'? Is that nearby?"

Tim blinked as his father suddenly coughed. "She bought the WHAT?!"

Uh. "I did say we were rich, right?"

John was SURE he had mentioned it earlier. Right?

 

[theaceoffire]

It took a bit of talking to convince the nice Cratchit father/son duo that he was right where he needed to be and he could go meet his sister on his own, but eventually got away from the overly polite and helpful pair.

John felt pretty darn proud of himself!

He was learning subtlety AND tact! And it wasn't so hard at all, really. Not sure why everyone else always made such a big deal out of it.

After all, he HADN'T pointed at the crippled boy and exclaimed 'How you livin, bro?'

Not even once!

But uh… Seriously, this child should be dead.

Tim Cratchit was suffering under something like a dozen issues from what his System could tell, only one of which was partial organ failure.

Any other world, any other Realm? Death.

Hell, the fact that someone at this level of health could theoretically RECOVER at some point was freaking unbelievable, expensive health care or not!

Like half this kid's body or MORE was being supported by Faith and Spirituality by this point.

The child being a boy of faith and kindness was literally the ONLY reason he hadn't died yet, and was half responsible for his health staying stable despite science and logic insisting he should be spiraling downward towards an already delayed grave.

Hell, a kid this young just didn't have ENOUGH positive spiritual energy to sustain his existence even considering all that, a good portion of his medical stability was supplemented by the people around him. The hope he caused and shared, the kindness of his family and friends, the generosity of strangers and bystanders… These things were the lifelines holding the child together.

And John was FASCINATED by it all!

It was almost the REVERSE of the tomato bomb, which had been uber drained. This child was super saturated with raw belief energies! If they all somehow twisted negatively or something, would he transform into a vampire or werewolf or giant lizard? Who knows!

Well, he'd probably just die before anything else could happen honestly, but the theoretical question itself was still fascinating to think about.

No wonder the boy went to church all the time and spread love and cheer and hope to others… He was subconsciously feeling blessed (literally) by the kindness of others and wanted to share that with those he cared about.

This kind of thing was probably more likely to occur in this world too, because anyone being kept alive on Spirituality support like this who WASN'T a paragon of goodness would run out of benevolence fairly quickly and die before anyone else could meet the person, so this was sort of a self fulfilling one in a million event thing going on.

It also implied that people could grow by gathering other spiritual energies, or be cursed by them too… Probably why the assassins of this world always seemed so twisted and strange looking, really.

Too bad the local people couldn't determine when others were transformed into Muppets though, because now John had all SORTS of questions!

Could you change from one Muppet form to another? Revert to humanoid/vegetable/pie/etc? Apparently the frog father and son had a pig mother and sisters, was the Muppet species genetically inherited by gender?

Was the type of animal indicative of some powerful character trait, or would that be a racist thought? A Muppetest thought?

If you CAN change from one type of Muppet to another, could Tim Cratchit become a pig like his mother, or alter into ANYTHING like an eagle or fish merchant or anything?

…Shit, could a person or Muppet who lived like an apple suddenly become a talking fruit? Or visa versa!?

John winced at the very thought of it… And swore to never bring it up to Sarah in the first place.

It wouldn't be an issue, they wouldn't be involved with local food in the first place. Not their issue, don't think about it, move on.

Anyway, John split away from the helpful frogs and eventually found his older sister and the new property she had purchased.

He was hanging out in his new room now! And uh. It turns out that the new place Jessica bought was uh… Big. Very big.

Like, a housing complex that was originally a good chunk of the slums, one that frequently evicted renters for being unable to pay and extorted the sick and elderly and… Well, yeah, it was well known. Infamous really.

But offer the owners some REALLY expensive jewelry and bam! It was renamed to the 'Doe Home' and the entire mess was dumped in his older sister's lap.

She was uh… Less than thrilled at what she found.

Again, this was property in the worst part of the city, even if it was close to the church they were going to be operating near. And the previous owner earned what profit he could through abusing those without power, NOT by offering quality services for coin earned.

Half the place was structurally unsound, and if it wasn't for the strange reality warping nature of the Muppet inhabitants themselves… Well, it SHOULD be full of disease and mold and worse from what his sister said.

Instead it was just cursed with an aura of depression and failure and the sick dying cries of hope and potential.

Which brought up a fun and unexpected question: Could he Pocket emotional pollution?

Apparently? Yes!

Though… Uh. The massive building had sort of shifted slightly after that.

Didn't grow eyes and mouths and teeth or anything, but the entire place felt relieved and thankful and that freaked out both the Does for a while and only John had gotten mostly used to it.

It did mean however that John didn't feel comfortable experimenting with his detonating fruit while in his new room… Not that he was allowed to do that anymore in the future anyway, despite his sister not seeming nearly as annoyed at his previous explosive actions as he had originally feared and expected.

Testing the yield of explosive soup was officially banned for now, according to his older sister.

So he had gone back to attaching a Conceptual Process to a Situation… Or at least, attempting to do that.

Maybe if he had help? It felt like he was trying to fold a dozen things into another dozen things, and even cheating it was hard to focus on it all as it wriggled in his grasp. The problem was his sister was not an option for being an assistant.

Not because she was too busy or whatever, but because she couldn't feel existence the same way John could. The layers of reality that held existence like a warm blanket, the gnarls and snarls in the strings of time and fate and all that, even simple stuff like karma and causality and dimensional shearing?

Nope, she felt none of it.

And having someone who was functionally blind, deaf, and missing all their limbs attempting to help rewrite fundamental aspects of the structural foundations of this Realm would take some practice.

Jessica listened to his explanation, nodded her head, and basically noped out of it all.

Which was fair, she had other things to do and apparently manipulating the stuff all living things relied on was a bit nerve wracking for her for some reason.

So John just had to make do on his own. And he would! Because he was awesome and Spike and Poppy were cheering him on! WOO!

Not this time though, the attachment of concepts somehow folded in on itself and prevented him from attempting it to begin with due to some sort of temporal loop. Dang it.

With a sigh, he unraveled his attempt AND his initial attempt that needed to be unraveled by the later/earlier attempt, and leaned back. That had felt closer… Yet still totally wrong.

John yawned as he pondered the issue.

If push comes to shove, in the worst case scenario… Well, he could cheat.

With the amount of raw Spiritual energy in this place, he could technically just CONVINCE a bunch of people that he had done all the work properly and reality would shift to make it retroactively true.

But not only was that lame, it would fail to help him understand the fundamental aspects of the entire mess AND introduce the deadly risk of relying on a bunch of random people to not mess anything up in the process.

Oh, and it would also teach the locals how to do something like a chanting ritual to fundamentally alter reality in unknown and ever changing ways, and that seemed ill advised.

Dang it, why did this have to be so complicated…

John paused. Considering the issue.

Maybe that was the point. He was reaching too far, attempting to accomplish too much without proper preparation.

Right, split it up into segments: Strip Spirituality from food. Prepare food. Add back Spirituality for stuff sold via the water to avoid the food suddenly growing a face and complaining or whatever.

Might even solve the explosive issue, actually… John was half sure that the problem was caused due to him attempting to remove all that power the wrong way in the FIRST place. It was creating an unstable vacuum.

So what was the alternative?

Replace the collected Spirituality with something else.

Hmm. Might be a good idea to start developing some techniques to examine Faith and Spirituality and Karma and the rest first then… Get some data to work with and learn some basic stuff.

Like the average amount of power per food item, if one type is stronger than another, if one type is different than another… Is an onion more spiritually powerful than broccoli? No idea.

The possibilities might be endless but he had to start somewhere, right?

Not here though, if something went wrong then it could hurt Doe Home.

John shivered as he felt a surge of thankfulness from the empty room. Damn that felt weird.

Also: Spiritual houses might be mind readers.

John had System make a note of that for later, and got to work. First of all, let's update those energy detection procedures! Huzzah!

~~~Pocket System~~~

Jessica was NOT putting up with this shit again. "No."

The legal representative huffed! "But at these rental prices, you will barely break even! Forget the expense of keeping the wastes who can not or WILL not pay what they owe, the potential profit lost at these prices is astonishing!"

She rolled her eyes. "I've examined the books and even with my requirements the new housing facility will remain financially solvent for many years."

The guy scoffed. "Maybe with us at Gregson and Sons, but those scallywags over at Hendersons and Hadrons? I'm positive they've modified their estimates somewhere. Better build a larger margin for error."

Nope. "I have employed two law groups including yours by now explicitly with both of you being PAID to prevent that shit from happening and keep each group honest. The job is simple: Keep my places running and maintained, don't screw it up. If your firm can't HANDLE that level of difficulty…"

He frantically waved that off! "No no, never a problem for Gregson and Sons! Best of the best, guaranteed, no doubt! And if the Doe Home is dead set on keeping a few groups out of the prisons and workhouses despite the financial losses that are likely to occur, we can ensure said requirements can be met."

The look he gave was piercing. "But as my client, I feel I must emphasize: This is not a sound financial decision."

She held back a sigh. "Oh? Well, I understand your concerns, but I'm unfortunately determined to follow this through."

With a sigh, he nodded. "Very well."

If he had this much issue with the new policies for the newly acquired housing complex, his reaction would be fascinating. "Then let's move on to another topic then... A new family run business that will be established on my new property."

He straightened in his chair and new paperwork was pulled from various folders and containers. "So likely another construction contract or two at the minimum, some teams to handle inspection before and after to ensure proper workmanship, need this form in triplicate and..."

Time passed as Jessica sunk deeper and deeper into the deadly seas of paperwork. At least THIS time she was keeping things more basic… A soup kitchen plus a housing complex. Nothing more, full stop, THANK you!

 

[theaceoffire]

John leaned back from his work, tired yet satisfied.

Spiritual energy apparently had two major properties: Density and Alignment.

Too dense and you began spawning entities and Muppetizing or warping out of existence improperly and one would start experiencing other strange issues.

Extract too much, however, and it creates a void or absence of power that distorts the apparent properties of the object, can suddenly and dangerously implode like a reverse grenade, and potentially destabilize reality within a certain range just by existing.

As for Alignment? It affected how risky certain actions nearby would be, and how likely an area or object would mutate due to said actions.

Objects interacted with constantly would build up a certain amount of Density automatically, and if the object has a narrow or specific use then that power could end up automatically aligning that energy towards some Concept or series of Possibilities.

This could be good or horrible, depending on the Alignment. If it matches one someone feels a connection with it would imbue that person with a sense of 'rightness' or 'acceptance'... If not? Repulsion, unease, or worse.

As an example? A famous bakery would both gather Spiritual energy due to the customers and workers over time, but the actions of baking and serving customers would Align that power towards increasing nutrition, empowering the sense of taste and smell, and so forth.

People who loved baked goods would gravitate to such a location, those who cared not for toast might not even notice the place, and people who hated such things might actually feel or smell something horrible about that entire street!

Best to avoid that entire mess, really.

Plus: Such a place was VASTLY more likely to accidentally Muppetize their muffins. And his big sister had already given her opinion on THAT topic extensively.

So John had to strike a balance: Drain the new food served at their future soup kitchen of just enough Spiritual energy to balance with the ambient power in the area, yet also scramble the Alignment of said food to prevent tainting the area towards specific goals.

Oh, the 'cooking procedures' to do all this would still be a series of physical actions to activate the entire processes of Spiritual Gathering, Spiritual Misalignment, and Spiritual Bestowal… But the NEW plan was to automatically add limits to each step.

Thus the new ingredients would be drained before being cooked without turning them into improvised explosives and the water could be enhanced with usable energy without growing a face or something. Which was perfect! WOO!

Still, he was going to test all the new 'rituals' extensively before attaching them to the final cooking preparation procedures and setting them to self propagate.

After all, he and his Sister were trying to offer affordable food to impoverished portions of society… Not accidentally transform cooking into a deadly profession on a global scale.

The trick here was to build in more limits. Reduce the amount of food that could be processed by the ritual by default, adjust the rate of conversion during the steps, cause the extremes to take exponentially longer to access the closer you got to the edges…

A cook with passion could still push the boundaries, enhancing food to theoretically risky levels and draining food till it became trash… But it would require effort and training and dedication.

Not just a couple of kids trying to make breakfast in bed for their parents, accidentally turning a cheese sandwich into a nuke.

That it would ensure the store's employees would always be ahead of the curve compared to future competitors due to having more years of experience using these new rituals was just a lucky and fortuitous circumstance!

Now this mess wouldn't let someone enhance mud into a nutritious and balanced meal or anything, nor would it fully turn expensive ingredients into a frivolous purchase and thus a waste of money… But if used optimally?

Lower valued donated food and bought supplies SHOULD be able to fully display any and all benefits possible. Every calorie would be preserved, each vitamin properly absorbed, all flavors slightly brighter and the taste just a tad better than expected.

Potentially.

That was what all this testing was for.

Right now, since they were so close to the church, John was attempting to attach the entire mess to a series of prayers:

'Please Lord, cleanse this food of impurities and disease', combined with drawing a cross in the air, to strip out the Spiritual Energy to ambient levels.

'Please Lord, guide those that consume this food to find their own path', with another drawn cross to scramble the alignment of the Spiritual Attunement.

'Please Lord, bless this water to empower and heal the people.', with a final cross to enhance the liquid with Spiritual Energy and slightly Align the liquid's concepts towards physical improvement.

Why these specific actions? Well, honestly it was partially due to the location.

The church was nearby, and by its very existence? Anything related to the Christian Faith was drastically empowered within this entire region. It also tended to infiltrate actions and materials within that zone as well, so it was best to work WITH the local influence than attempt to set up something more neutralic or whatever.

Plus, the prayer actually should prevent future issues after John and Jessica moved on.

Originally John had a whole plan of special hand movements and stir counts and stuff, but after a bit of research… But he had discovered that using a process or procedure alone, one that could theoretically be taught by one person who didn't know what any of it meant to ANOTHER person who had never heard of the entire mess… Well, it was risky.

It could unintentionally alter itself, or stray from the general purpose of setting all this up to begin with.

But attaching the prayer would GUIDE such future mutations towards a less risky end.

Sure, for now? Cleansing only removed Spiritual energy, Guiding removed any influence from the Spiritual environment, and Blessing only boosted the Density of Spiritual power within a target.

But in the future, it was far more likely for Cleansing to actually strip away disease and filth, or for blessings to actually bestow a bit of good luck or something… Which was a far better alteration than risking something more random.

After all, if John stuck with the movement only option like originally planned… What if the ritual began imbuing the food with a need to continue to do the ritual itself? Or if enough future users of the skill began accidentally altering the effects due to following rote methods without contextual (And thus Spiritual) guidance?

John had seen how rumors could alter and shift and mutate in the wild. And the risk of accidentally converting the food preparation rituals into some sort of summoning or worship method… Uh.

Yeah, prayers seemed to be the best plan.

Besides, anyone not into the local religion would likely avoid the place to begin with, so were unlikely to become future customers. After all, the atmosphere here was Aligned to the local church and what it preached… If they changed to another faith, the prayers would easily shift with it without issue.

The key points here were the belief behind the process and the purpose behind the actions matching up.

IF this worked as designed, any faith could accomplish similar results as long as the gist of the request was close enough to tap into the Conceptual actions. They would just need to desire to cleanse the ingredients, 'guide' those who ate it, and 'bless' either the food or whatever in the name of whatever they had Faith in.

Hell, it would theoretically be possible for Atheists to use this method too! As long as they had Faith that Faith didn't exist and… Wait, no, if they believed that there was no point to believe in… If they refused to bless their food HARD enough… Ow. His brain!

John winced as he gave up on that entire thought process. Anyone who would NOT believe in the Supernatural or in Spiritual entities in a Realm like this where reality itself was being shifted by flying Muppets has EARNED the right to believe or doubt anything they wanted.

Not John's problem.

He hesitated before continuing… There was another, SLIGHT issue.

After his cooks gained evidence that the faith based rituals could affect real world items in literal ways with actual 'scientific' and reproducible steps… It might give a boost to faith abilities in general.

Especially when OTHER religions follow the steps and discover they can do the same.

Which uh… Might be a problem depending on which Religion gets empowered where, and uh… Hmm.

Meh. This place was, like mentioned before, radioactive with Spiritual power. For all he knew, those religions were ALREADY enhanced to the point of the ultra faithful being able to empower miracles and stuff solo.

At least these new skills were fairly focused towards generally positive actions: Cleaning, guidance, and blessing.

Not smiting, wrathing, or banishing.

After all, in the end? John just wanted to give out cheese cake without having his food burst into song.

The rest was beyond his scope, really.

~~~Pocket System~~~

Jessica thanked the Preacher, who had been more than accommodating. "Just let us know if any issues come up, or if your community has anyone looking for a bit of work or a meal."

Preacher Jones hummed. "I am unsure if a 'pay what you can' restaurant can actually exist in this world… But I do understand and appreciate the sentiments behind such and intentions of you and your brother in such times as these."

She gave a wry grin as she prepared to leave. "Well, I admit it won't be the most usual of places… But even if it all falls apart, at least it should be an interesting experience and a chance at a free meal or two, no? And, failure or not, some good will be done regardless. In the end, that's more than most can ask for!"

He chuckled. "Perhaps you are right… Be safe, my child, and may God go with you."

Jessica waved as she left the well worn but well loved building, feeling an ambient approval from… Somewhere follow her on the way out of the room. Still felt all strange and tingly, really.

At least it felt more abstract than whatever the hell John had done to the Doe Home, right?

Seriously, the MOMENT that a building attempts to ask for headpats or whatever she was going to grab John and have him Pocket them both out of here. As it was, she felt stressed enough just trying to adapt to how messed up some of this stuff was already!

She walked down the street (Most of which was now owned by Doe Home Foundation) and headed towards the place she planned to set up the original 'Soup Kitchen', which… Uh. Still didn't have a name.

Absently she pulled out a clipboard, scribbled a note, and moved it to her Memory Pocket. After all, she'd have to get a signboard made… Or were most people illiterate? Maybe a sign board with a picture?

Meandering down the cobblestone street she considered which way they should go for this thing. Nothing silly like a Maid Cafe or one of those places that just filled it up with cats, not with the risk of this time period where the poor would literally eat anything to stay alive…

Her thoughts scattered when she got a list. "Oh, that was fast… Uh. 'Prophets Non-Profit Pantry', that's pretty good… 'Pray as you Go', maybe. 'God bless stew'..."

She hesitated. Uh, not sure the place will only offer stew… "'Taco `bout faith', 'Have faith in Cheesus', 'Pray in queso emergency'... Huh?"

Was he messing with her!? "Half of these don't even make sense… 'Mayo Light Shine'? 'Get a Pizza Christ'?"

From there they just devolved into random puns involving Christianity and food. Most didn't even imply such a place would be a store!

Jessica paused on the street, thoughts whirling. "Wait, how long have I left him alone doing that food research stuff?"

Another list suddenly appeared in her Inventory, filled with random combinations of belief and condiments, like a mad man running out of air mid-scream before slowly slumping to the ground.

Oh dear.

Yeah, maybe she should call it an early day and hang out with her little brother for a while.

Just… Just make sure he is doing alright. Good grief.

 

[theaceoffire]

His body moved with purpose and the animation of the corpse. His fist clenched his cane with tension. "Another client has… fled from my grasp and flocked to your chicken coop."

The fool actually chuckled! "It seems so."

No longer did this pillar of society dominate these murky waters. No longer did his shadow cast dark shades of profit and efficiency on the lower class.

What a waste. "Such foolishness."

Ebenezer Scrooge glanced up from his heavy piles of paperwork with a strained smile. "I suppose so."

The air seemed to unnaturally chill further, though neither of them noticed it. One due to his nature, the other thanks to years of experience.

Still, certain circles, specific classes of people… They stood together. "Why? Why all the changes? You didn't merely earn an income, you were the titan of industry! A king of the money lenders, power dripped from your grasp!"

Everyone knew of THE Marley brothers and their partner, the deadly and heartless Ebenezer Scrooge! Whispers spread throughout England, hints passed throughout shadows!

The disturbingly cheerful man grinned once more, such an expression foreign to his face. "I had something of… Of a revelation, you may say."

Standing, Scrooge began filing paperwork into his cabinets as he talked. "I earned more in the last few years than most ever would, I have no doubts. My books were heavy with profit, and without my partners I split none of it and lost nothing."

The dream of any money lender.

The man chuckled. "But… But in the end, I found my profits cold and burdensome. Tell me, Rowlandson… What is the difference between earning the most money you ever have achieved in your life… And then doubling it? What would be achieved?"

His mind skipped at the mere thought of such a thing. "I could triple my investments in…"

Ebenezer waved that off. "Assume you did all that. You towered over anything you heard rumored about my own career, everyone bows beneath your talent and skills, and anything you wished to invest in has done so… At that point, at that pinnacle of achievement, what would change if you doubled everything you possessed?"

Where was he going with this?

Scrooge chuckled again. "I found myself wealthy. Respected, if only through fear. Powerful: Society literally bent at my whim, to my will. And with the Marley brothers passed on, bless their souls, I found my dominance only growing."

It had been a miraculous thing, back then… These last few years.

And the man's face grew somber. "And with achievement I found that I had lost my way."

…What?

Ebenezer Scrooge sighed… "Do you remember when we were younger? When we eagerly spent our youth to invest in our futures, when we fought the crowds to climb to the top of the mountain of industry? Before all the compromises and failures and victories, before all that."

His eyes seemed to shine with lost memories and forgotten times. "When I was young, I dreamed. I would one day have food when hungry, respect when passed in the street, be listened to when heard, be followed when I led. When I was young, the idea of a warm meal was sometimes all I strove for."

Scrooge finished filing away the work of the day and sat once more. "When I was older, I dreamed. I would defy my love's oppressive relatives, I would fund a future together with her, and my career would grow beyond any limits or restrictions… As a lad yet still, I thought a few sacrifices at the moment would be outweighed by the lifetime of success to come."

Years of failure personified seemed to look back to the still cold man standing in the office. "Yet when I won the battle for supremacy, when I climbed that mountain, I found those dreams I cherished cast aside as steps to help me ascend further. I had lost so much, yet… All I knew was the climb itself. I gathered others around me who also fought to claw up that mountain, and with each grasp we all knew our fellows would one day be cast aside as yet another step upwards."

Ebenezer Scrooge sighed, alone despite the company. "I achieved my many dreams, what fragments were left of them. And on that mountain top, as I looked down upon the frozen remains of my past and lost futures… I was lost. All I knew was the climb. All I was… In the end, all I could ever be was the climb."

Something far harsher and more sharp than sin glinted under the fake image of a cheerful man. "So I began to slaughter dreamers so their corpses would pile up for me to climb. Why not? What worth were they to me? Better they be under my heel than wasting life on such festivities and frivolities, on worthless things like betterment and generosity. At least then, these walking trash wastrels would become steps for my climb."

And it was gone, and only the body of an older money lender sat across the desk. "I forgot somewhere way back then, in times when I was more alive than I had become, that profit and success was only a tool, a step itself… Not the point of my climb. I had discarded my prize so I could more efficiently achieve it, and I threw out my rewards so I may work all the harder towards them."

Something inside his long hardened heart hurt to hear the brokenness of this colleague of his… So like usual, he cut it away. "All that nonsense aside, you are wasting money. Why accept my clients? Why buy their debt, what is the point of it all?"

Was there an angle here? Some failure in himself, something he could have exploited missed that this former king could take advantage of?

It seemed a bit paranoid, but one had to be clear witted and calm when confronting THE Ebenezer Scrooge, whether or not he had lost his way!

Ebenezer Scrooge gave a wry grin. "Wasting money? I suppose it may seem like that." With a chuckle, he waved a hand towards his side office. "But I fail to see why you would waste time bothering us about such a thing, considering you must be very busy this time of year. Cratchet! See Mr. Rowlandson away for the day."

The man's number one clerk entered with punctuality as usual. "Yes, Mr. Scrooge. Mr. Rowlandson?"

The tall stone of a man failed to shift an inch. "I will find what you are attempting to do, Mr. Scrooge. I will NOT be taken advantage of."

Scrooge seemed to find humor even in this. "Very well. Oh, and if you have other clients who seem unable to pay let my office know. At least you could earn back something when I buy the debt off them, no?"

A trace of unyielding sternness wavered on his face. At least Scrooge still had a trace of comradery with the money lending industry. "Perhaps. Good day."

…There had to be a way he could exploit this. For now, he had work to do.

~~~Pocket System~~~

Bob watched the man who so reminded them all of his Boss's former attitude stride out of the office with the harsh and chilled winds of determination and efficiency cutting the air.

Scrooge sighed. "It's like looking in a mirror."

He held in a strangled chuckle… No, at his worst Mr. Scrooge had been VASTLY more vile than that person. "The new accounts are being reviewed sir."

Mr. Scrooge hummed and leaned back in his chair. "Anything unexpected?"

Not really. "Most will break even, a few are likely lost causes honestly…" And it hurts to admit that. To honestly tell a former shark like his boss about the worthlessness of some of these debts.

His boss chuckled. "Yet for every coin I lose to these people, I gain a small crowd of loyal followers and future clients! All this despite my former reputation, and my years of abusive behavior…"

Scrooge sighed. "Remember this, Cratchet: Reputation is costly to earn and cheap to lose. That said, loyalty can be priceless, as are the other harder to measure and quantify benefits. Not that I have to tell you something like that… How's Tiny Tim been doing recently? Are the new treatments helping?"

His heart jumped as he remembered his boy again. "Much improved, Mr. Scrooge! His coughing is nearly gone and the doctors think he may eventually be able to walk without a cane one day!"

Of all the miracles that had blessed his family, the transformation of his boss included… Well, his boy's improvement was the most cherished.

A trace of worn burden seemed to lift from his boss's face! "Oh that is wonderful… Though with his treatment costs coming down again I will need to find something else to invest in eventually."

Bob blinked, adjusting his paperwork. "Really sir?" Honestly just not regressing alone was considered a charitable donation to charity by the local populace.

He seemed to see something from the past… "I gave nothing when I could so I feel the urge to give now that I can. Besides, this is just the portion marked for my salary, and I have mountains of funds for myself already. I literally haven't noticed the difference and yet it can change lives for so many."

Well, that was fair. Ebenezer Scrooge had been among the elite of the wealthy for years now, and like most of the upper class kept his income as a sort of score card until recently. A mark for how much 'better' he was, massive funds not needed for any bill or purchase. "I see sir."

Mr. Scrooge hummed as he began working on the next page on his pile. "Let's see… I've already donated a bit too much to the local churches and workhouses, if I go further they may be targeted by shady groups… Same issue for direct donations of non-goods to the families on hard times, so that would be a risk… Hmm."

And Bob thought back to the strange boy and the supposedly soon-to-be-established unprofitable restaurant. "I… I may have heard of something, Mr. Scrooge. Although I must say you may truly be throwing away your money if you decide to assist them."

The older man blinked, slightly confused… Then he chuckled. "Is it a cause or group that you think may be worth such investment, despite said loss?"

Maybe. "I'm not sure… But my family will be stopping by to visit them regardless after work. We'd love it if you could join us?"

Like always when other people try to involve his employer, there was that moment of hidden shock and surprise. That the idea of people wishing to include him still astonished the elder gentlemen.

And that weak but warm smile returned. "I… I think I'd enjoy that. A bit of an evening walk then shall we?" Mr. Scrooge glanced at his paperwork. "After the accounts are in order, of course! Proper documentation and handling is vital to good service."

He nodded. "Yes, Mr. Scrooge. I'll go back and keep the clerks on task then."

Scrooge waved him off. "Be on it then, I'll be done with this stack within the hour… have the next batch prepared for me to process by then."

Right. "Yes, Mr. Scrooge."

~~~Pocket System~~~

Jessica was silent after John's demonstration. For a bit. "Why prayer?"

John blinked. "Well, there are several reasons… It guides the process, influences any side effects to be more beneficial, and I don't like soup that much."

His sister paused. "I'm sorry?"

He nodded. "Like, I don't HATE soup or anything, and a bowl of warm soup can be pretty good once in a while… But not every day."

She tapped the table. "John, you've lost me. What does soup have to do with empowering religious prayers with reality altering effects?"

John had explained that earlier right? Or had he modified his presentation… Ah. Yeah. "Well, I originally was just going to set up the process of Spiritual manipulation using movements. You know, stir 'X' times clockwise, 'Y' times counter clockwise, etc. But there were several problems with that."

He ticked them off. "First of all, if you get the number or direction of stirring wrong it would either fail or worse: Attempt to do something unknown. Which could either be annoying or VERY bad."

Another finger down. "Secondly, my first attempt was harder to remember and teach, and would make us look more than a little crazy. Which honestly fits well with Religion to begin with, because some religions are pretty crazy to begin with… But uh, the motions thing made it feel very odd. It might have been resonating with witchcraft or something, and I don't want to touch that mess right now."

If Faith was frustrating, Magic was too flexible. At least with Faith, the overall goal of the power was directed via mass influence from its followers… But with Magic? The group could manipulate the new abilities that manifested or the range and scale of the effects, but any individual could activate any individual 'spell' they wished without general oversight.

He coughed. "Anyway, third of all: I don't like soup, and the easiest methods to attach my ability to a ritual involve a lot of stirring actions if you didn't cheat and use acoustic cues. I mean, you CAN stir a sandwich, but it gets pretty messy and squished and stuff, so we would be stuck teaching people how to make soups and sauces and stuff if I went with that method."

John shrugged. "And I don't like soup that much. So prayers it is!"

Jessica just rubbed her face. "All that aside, can we go back to the empowering religions thing? Do we want to just attach special effects to something that millions or billions of people interact with every day?"

He blinked. "I mean, if this was a different world, no… But uh, this has already been happening here for years. Heck, if anything I am just clearing out the random effects those prayers may have already and establishing something more stable and less likely to mutate into something more random…"

After all, John was pretty sure that 'blessed' holy water was not SUPPOSED to burn vampires and stuff, it was just some strange interaction between the local concept of 'bless' and 'cleansing' and 'protection' from the Faith itself.

He shrugged. "At least my new version of 'blessing' will empower a substance with unaligned Spiritual energy… So other religions or groups can use it with less of a risk of being forced to convert beliefs or something."

She blinked. "Wait, can holy water do that here?"

He shivered. "That's the point: No one KNOWS. And even if it doesn't today, it might do something like that TOMORROW. There is a reason I didn't want us attending church services."

Oh. Had he not mentioned that concern to her before? "Don't worry, I've been ensuring our Spiritual Energy doesn't align with anything while we are here by Pocketing all that stuff when we sleep. I've been learning a lot from decontaminating Party over the week."

HIs sister was trying to calm down. "Oh. That… That's good. Keep doing that, please." Breathe in, breathe out… "Wait, who's Party?"

John held up a wooden ball. "Party the Apartment Complex! You know, since you said I could keep her after I sort of blew her up and we then went and bought Doe Home."

She stared at the orb of compressed materials. They seemed to emotionally (not literally) smile back. Somehow.

Yeah. "She lost a lot of weight when I got our stuff out and compressed all the material into a superdense composite, but you can't mention that to her because she's sensitive about it. Anyway, I'm still adjusting her Spiritual composition so she doesn't Muppetize or infect other stuff when we leave, so she's been hanging out in a secluded area of my Pocket for now."

She was apparently looking forward to being 'a REAL inanimate object', and who was John to argue against a Pocket Pal with a dream?

Besides, this would allow the Pocket System to continue developing the decontamination procedures they would both need to undergo when they eventually left this place.

Which John would totally bring up to his older sister. Later. Much later.

~~~Pocket System~~~

After much hesitation, eventually Jessica approved the new cooking methods for 'Doe Kitchen'!

The methods seemed to work fine, and it completely prevented the chance of all this prepared food suddenly growing teeth and stuff. Tests came back fine, the new employees were hired, everything was good to go…

So John began teaching the Doe Kitchen cooks the new methods within the next few days. This would work out great!

~~~Pocket System~~~

Oh dear.

 

[theaceoffire]

Karin hesitated before serving dinner.

It was silly.

She'd only been working at the 'Doe Kitchen' for a week, and just because THEY do odd things it didn't mean SHE should put up with that at home. Right? Right.

Still, she stood over the meal and didn't move to the table just yet.

It was just a mental thing. People hoped it would work, so they did a better job, or something.

This was silly. Pointless even.

Her hand shook. "Please Lord, bless this meal to empower and heal my family." And she drew the cross in the air.

Nothing changed, because of course it wouldn't. No light effects, no angelic chorus… Not that she should expect something like that, it never happened at work either.

But… But the food seemed just a bit more fresh. Smelled slightly more delicious.

And no one had to know how silly she was being. This was… Just a habit, right? Just a hold over from working for that new place next to the church, nothing important.

Though… Unlike her prayers while cooking there, in that place… Here, when preparing food for her children and husband?

Maybe she was a bit more sincere in her wishes.

A tad more hopeful, a fragment of desperation.

It would probably change nothing, not much in her life ever did anything but get worse after all… But... But just in case it COULD change something…

She moved again. "Please Lord, bless this meal to empower and heal my family."

Just in case. No one had to know.

~~~Pocket System~~~

Elsewhere, another man whispered over what passed as 'soup', for the dish to be cleansed, for his daughter to get better.

In another home, a meal was suddenly slightly healthier and almost no one noticed.

Yet one more house served something purified, and another something people were hoping would heal others.

And while most people missed these small changes, some watched with wide eyes as prayers were answered and dreams came true. As hurt ones without medical help managed to pull through at a critical point and low quality ingredients no longer caused crippling stomach pains.

A few others asked, and even fewer responded… After all, the Doe family never asked them to keep the Doe Kitchen's methods secretive. And it didn't cost anything to try it out once or twice, and for those with little to nothing… Well, raw hope like this was the most precious of dreams for them.

Whispers began. Words spread.

Church service near a certain home had a drastic boost of worshipers that week.

Then another oddity... a man known for years of being a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone…

One famed for being a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner…

One still feared by many despite those rumors of having changed, a man with few friends and fewer followers...

Ebenezer Scrooge himself shocked the entire congregation of the slums when he openly decided to invest in Doe's Kitchen. In the Doe Home itself as well, no less.

Those many whispers swirled into open gossip, and the story of a place to get a good meal yet pay what you could seem to be more real than fiction now. The 'failure restaurant', as many better off people called it between laughter and scoffs, grew in popularity and fame.

As the number of customers grew… The ones attempting to discover their secrets swelled as well. They sent in their people, they asked the right questions, a few even showed up in person to taste such supposedly delicious meals served for practically nothing.

And these attempts met no resistance. Stories of faith and well wishes somehow allowing such poor quality food to taste divine, of Faith and Prayer allowing measly dishes to be elevated… Such tales were ignored, then considered, then studied… Eventually tested.

When the same ingredients prepared for the same dishes proved to not match when half was blessed, skepticism burned away and passion ignited in London.

The multitude began to hound after the Doe family.

Some with stories of saved loved ones, others with darker intentions, a few just out of curiosity or to determine if other such skills could be found with these very rich strangers from some way off land.

No matter the motivation however, the zeal was met with failure.

No one could find them. They seemed to vanish into the night.

So the powerful and the wealthy began to investigate the blood of society: The money itself. Where did it come from, where did it go?

A branch of clues led to the local church, which now owned rights over far too much property and such than it had expected.

Another secretive path of information led to several banking firms… Angry and sharp edged people who were grinding against each other for dominance, but all of whom were eager to turn from the ongoing struggle to consume any fools who attempted to intrude in their fierce fight. A balance of ruthless individuals all attempting to dominate their fragment of control over the Doe properties and people.

The final whisper led them to the largest investor, and the one fool who attempted to press upon Ebenezer Scrooge the importance of following the will of the larger group had quite an experience that day.

The idiot refused to talk about what was said or what had happened, but those in the dark knew danger when they felt it caress their neck with a metaphorical blade. They backed away.

Wherever the Doe Family had hid, whomever they secretly represented, the actions they had taken continued to grow in consequence and spread in influence as those with near nothing whispered prayers in the dark.

Bless my little girl.

Protect my baby boy.

Guide my hopeless father.

Bless the Doe Kitchen, and the family that hired me when I had nothing.

Bless the Doe Home, and the woman who let me stay when all doors were closed.

Bless those two strangers, who gave when they had plenty yet left when praise was to be repaid.

…In the end, it was probably a good thing that Jessica had insisted John move them both to the next world when she realized the extent to which almost everything here was dangerously radioactive with spiritual energy.

Not to mention she might have freaked out a little bit when John informed her that the pair of them would ALREADY require some decontamination time in the Pocket before reaching the next stop… So neither of them were here to witness how exponentially concerning the situation was developing.

She'd probably be very concerned at the near cult-like status the Doe family was rapidly cultivating in the Realm they had just left behind.

Not John though, because for him this most recent trip had been nothing but awesome!

Lots of raw power and Spirituality to Pocket, a few new friends, and a chance to study that 'should be dead' kid Tim! The Cratchit family had shown up at the Doe Kitchens several times before John had to move on, and it was fascinating to see how a positive atmosphere allowed the little boy's organs to mostly operate correctly and stuff.

Still, both he and Jessica were unconscious right now and being slowly decontaminated and reinforced by the System to hopefully run fewer risks in similar environments later on their travels. Which was good because they had sustained some significant temporal damage while visiting the Muppet reality, and that needed to be delt with.

As mentioned before, time and space were flexible there where Spiritual energy flooded existence… And unlike the locals, Jessica and John were outsiders.

So they didn't properly 'flow' with everyone else. Tiny moments that stretched too long or compressed too tightly caused temporal cracks and fractures in their personal timelines, which wasn't a huge deal but was certainly a concern to watch out for in the future.

Plus, there was a couple of days in the middle where time actually skipped around a little bit, like a record jumping when the needle scratched out of the correct groove, and THAT was not good for existing at ALL.

Thus the two were slumbering away and recovering as the System attempted to analyze all the damage types and measure degrees of severity while designing processes and procedures to prevent such concerns in the future.

But with John and Jessica in something like a healing coma and the Pocket System in full recovery mode, no one was actually directing the ongoing traveling procedure to the next Realm.

That… That might be an issue.

~~~Pocket System~~~

[[System connection reestablished.]]

[[Deploying HOST.]]

~~~Pocket System~~~

John wobbled and held his head. "Eugh… I feel sick."

[[Decontamination successful for HOST, still ongoing for Jessica Doe.]]

Eww, go away, thinking words hurt right now.

John slumped to the ground, enjoying the soft grass as best he could.

Decontamination SUCKED. Like getting out of a pool after paddling around in a full outfit, you feel FINE when your clothing is weightless but as you stand up and the water drains out your shirt starts to grip your body and the wet clothing wraps tightly and… .Eugh.

John wheezed and rolled back and forth slightly. "That. Was. Terrible."

[[Selected decontamination procedure reduced the chance of organ failure by 0.032%, and increased the…]]

He winced at the unheard volume. "Can we somehow have Jessica skip this part? Like, the feeling like crap part?"

[[...Biological recovery can take place within Pocket Storage if restriction #2183b is lowered from category 10 to category 9.]]

Shit, wasn't that the one about minimum storage time for dimensional contamination or something? Whatever. "Do that then, please. If my sister has to go through this she might actually ground me or something."

[[Confirmed.]]

Right now, John should probably be doing things. Finding out where he was, getting resources, blah blah blah.

Instead, he was going to lay here on the ground and rock around for a while until things felt better. "Stupid enviromental contamination. Stupid Faith based Conceptual ritual enhancement procedures complicating the entire mess. Dang it."

No, he wouldn't be sick.

He had this. Just… Lay down a little and then he would be good to go.

The boy was fast asleep before the first pig found him, but it would not be the last.

~~~Pocket System~~~

Steve blinked as he stared down the hill. "What the hell?"

It was a small MOUNTAIN of pigs. Half snoring, a few quietly oinking, dozens of them. Just… All piled up on the hill's gentle slope.

Which was odd, fair enough… But not the strangest thing he had found exploring this new world. The infinite block-verse always seemed to uncover something new on every adventure.

No, what was shocking was the sheer number of drops surrounding the quietly oinking mountain.

String, arrows, gunpowder… How many mobs had DIED in this area? And why did the pigs decide such a place should be their new cuddle puddle home!?

Sure, most monsters avoided or ignored other animals or creatures. Maybe a few consumed various types, but… Even with their low intelligence, it was unusual for this many remains to be left behind even if one ignored the pigs.

And it was HARD to ignore the pigs.

Sure, most of them were quietly oinking… But a dozen quiet oinks? Two dozen? It added up!

He glanced at the time… Nightfall was far off, so these drops had to have been from LAST night, and must have had so many that they had resisted despawning up till now. That implied heavily that an ARMY of angry monsters had swarmed this pig pile…And then died somehow.

Without freaking out the piggies.

What. The. Hell?

What was the proper response to this?

Steve certainly wasn't going to just walk over there like a moron, for one.

Sure, he had the revivification bed established to respawn if he died, but he wasn't young anymore and walking straight into lava or a crowd of angry zombies was left in his past. Most of his more recent deaths was due to accidents and surprise incidents, and he was PROUD to cut down the numerous listings of those idiotic mutilations from his diary logs.

So actually walking himself towards the (apparently) deadly pig pile was off the table.

Still. "HELLO! AM I TALKING TO THE PIG COLLECTIVE?"

It had to be some sort of hive mind creature, right? After all, these pigs didn't seem related to the Zombified Piglin or whatever, only their behaviors were off. No clothing or strange postures or whatever either.

The pile of pigs… Did nothing, really. Just sort of sat there 'oinking'.

Right. This feels like a tomorrow problem."

For now, let's mine out a wide moat surrounding the pig pile and add some water sources to the far side… If lots of random monsters are going to swarm this place, Steve might as well have them all fall in the stream and be useful by dying in one place.

He'd either move some lava in to melt the gathered crowd of monsters automatically or set up a drowning trap or something… He had enough Iron to make a hopper or two right? Just gather all the drops in a chest and let the free stuff stock up until he had time to deal with this mess later.

The pile of pigs quietly oinked.

Much later. At some point in the future when he was better equipped and more positive that this wasn't some sort of secret boss fight just waiting to happen. He just wasn't willing to mess with the 'Pig Swarm Lord' or 'Harmful Ham Hive' or whatever today.

Right now, he needed to mark this spot on the map as 'Potential Pig Problem' and keep marking out his new territory. The new base wouldn't build itself, after all!