It was the morning after Reggie, Hyacinth, Tegan, and Nel had gone to investigate the mysterious machine and spent the night drinking. Nel woke up feeling like he was dying though he knew it was just a hangover. He pulled a potion from his magic space and downed it. A few seconds later the hangover faded away and Nel felt normal again. He got up from the bed, which Nel had no recollection of returning to, and sat down on a nearby chair next to a desk. The desk was extravagantly decorated and was made using the finest wood available in the elven forest. The desk, the chair, the bed, and even the dresser, were all things Nel always traveled with.

Nel pulled a small square black stone from his magic space and set it on the desk in front of him. He then placed a small spherical purple crystal about the size of a golf ball onto the center of the black stone where there was a small indentation for it to not roll off. Nel checked his watch and seeing that he still had time, he pulled a small piece of wood from his magic space along with a knife and began carving an intricate pattern into the wood. A couple minutes later the crystal began to blink as though it were indicating a notification on a phone.

Setting the wood and knife down, Nel touched the crystal with one finger. Slowly, a mist flower out of the top of the crystal forming an image of an elf. "Greetings, Nel. Prompt as always, I see. Please report your findings thus far."

"Greetings, Mattias. I have much to report and it is not good news. I was able to investigate the machine directly last night. It is worse than we feared. The incursion is on a level which has never been seen before and seems to be directly related to the machine's operation. It is unclear if it is just a side effect or if it is somehow being done on purpose but we definitely need to closely monitor the situation." Nel sounded extremely unnerved as he delivered the report.

"That is bad news, indeed. Do you think this is the work of him?"

"There is no evidence to support that but it's not outside the realm of possibility. Intentionally creating an incursion seems extreme, but his methods were always extreme. Since you are asking, does that mean you have found proof he is still alive?"

"No proof yet but it's a feeling I can't shake off. There are plenty of rumors and other circumstantial evidence but I am operating as if he is still a threat."

"It is definitely possible given we never found a body. How could we? The whole place was basically atomized."

"Indeed. Do you need additional resources?"

Nel thought for a second before shaking his head. "No, not currently. I wouldn't even know what to request since we still don't know much about the situation."

"Ok, but don't hesitate to ask if you need something. This has the highest priority right now and we are able to dedicate anything necessary to ensure your success."

"I appreciate that, but it's too early for any of that. I do however have a question. Has there been any reports of an incursion elsewhere?"

"Not to my knowledge but I see what you are saying. It's a bridge between worlds so it must lead somewhere. I will have a team look into it. Is that all?"

"Yes, that is all. I will speak with you again at our next scheduled linkup."

"I have no doubt you will. However, if the situation becomes more dire, do not hesitate to contact me immediately."

"Understood." Nel touched the crystal again and the misty image dissipated into nothing.

***

It was gonna take Gary a week or two to make the geothermal generator for Reggie, once the parts he asked for are delivered. Luckily the parts were relatively common, and the ones that weren't he was able to put a rush on so it wouldn't be more than a few days before Gary could start working on it. Reggie was still worried about the investigation ending and the building opening back up before then but there was nothing he could do about it.

Meanwhile, Reggie had plenty of internal documents from Marlino Corporation to go through. The files Nico was able to get ended up being a lot more than Reggie copied onto his USB drive. Nico had said he was kicked out of the system fast but the amount of information he got made it seem like their definitions of fast were not the same. Because there was such an overwhelming amount of files to read, Reggie bought laptops for Hyacinth and Tegan so that they could help, but he first had to teach them how to use the laptops.

"Ok, now that you have done the initial setup, I should be able to give both of you a portion of the documents." Reggie plugged his USB drive into Hyacinth's laptop. "Click on that icon there. Good. Now double click the dive symbol." Hyacinth learned pretty quickly and soon had copied a portion of the files onto the hard drive of the new computer. "Ok, Tegan, your turn."

"Yeah, yeah. Just plug it in already." Reggie moved the USB drive to Tegan's laptop and she repeated the steps Hyacinth had done. "Ok, which files am I taking?"

"Yours are the last four folders on the screen." Tegan seemed to not understand what he meant as she highlighted them then somehow moved them to another folder on the USB drive, making them disappear from view. "Umm..."

"Dammit, stupid device." Tegan scowled at the screen.

"It's ok, we just need to go find them and start over." Reggie quickly undid things and the folders returned to where they were before. "This time, click one at a time and drag it over to the desktop."

"What is a desktop? This is stupid."

"Just hold the button down then drag it outside this box on the screen. Alright, there you go. Now do it again for the other three." Tegan's scowl slowly turned into a smile as she successfully accomplished her task. "Great, now you can read through everything in those folders."

Reggie grabbed the USB drive from the side of the laptop and sat down in front of his own computer. The three of them spent the next hour in silence as they read through document after document. Nel made tea for them shortly after they started but didn't interrupt them. After the first hour, Hyacinth and Tegan looked visibly drained. "Let's take a break. This stuff is all super boring, though I am used to it from my old job."

"I don't know how you could do this every day. I feel like all the energy has been sucked out of my body." Hyacinth had a look of despair on her face. She pushed the laptop forward on the table to make room in front of her then promptly dropped her forehead on the table with a bang.

"I am with Hyacinth. This sucks. I would rather do anything else than this." Tegan had a similar look to Hyacinth on her face, though she didn't seem to have the need to bang her head on the table. At least not yet. Reggie stretched then got up and walked to the kitchen to make lunch.

"Everyone ok with sandwiches today? Not really in the mood to cook anything." Despite Reggie having experience dealing with corporate documents all the time, he still felt tired from the effort. He could see everyone nodding in response, though only Nel was actually looking in his direction. "Ok, glad you agree."

Reggie went to the fridge and pulled out a variety of sandwich meats and sliced deli cheeses, as well as a few condiments. Once he had moved that all to the counter, he went back and pulled some fresh lettuce and tomato from a drawer. Ten minutes later, all four of them were eating a sandwich per their own requirements which they called out to Reggie as he was making them. The mood was steadily improving as they ate and turned to friendly conversation before long.

Once lunch was done, they cleaned up and went back to reading documents. "Let's just do this for another hour or so. If you find anything interesting, write it down in a notebook." Reggie placed a couple notebooks on the table between them. Reggie had made a digital file for notes but hadn't added anything yet. So far, none of what he had read was useful. The room returned to silence again. Nel fell asleep on the couch as they sifted through all the files. His soft snoring was the only noise in the room besides the occasional mouse click.

A little over an hour passed, and Reggie hadn't found anything worth noting. He had finished reading through several dozen reports and proposals, but while they were all connected in some way to the project, they had no useful information. In fact, every one of the many proposals he had read were rejected by whoever was in charge of reading them. Some of them actually seemed interesting to Reggie, but they were all rejected for the same reason: not enough in the budget. A few actually seemed to have predicted the budget issue or known about it from previous rejections and offered cost-saving solutions, but all were still rejected.

Hoping to find at least something useful, Reggie decided to check one more document before calling it a day. He was immediately disappointed to find another rejected proposal. He slammed his laptop closed and let out a sigh. The sudden noise woke Nel, causing him to sit up straight to see what had happened. "Sorry, Nel. Just a frustrating search." Reggie looked over to see Hyacinth barely able to keep her eyes open as her head bobbed up and down fighting the sleep. Tegan seemed to have given up and was passed out on top of her laptop. "Let's call it for today. No need to torture ourselves further today."

Reggie's announcement seemed to have energized Hyacinth, who now seemed wide awake as she closed her laptop. "Let's do something fun. We have mostly been working since I showed up to this world. What's something we can do that wouldn't put everyone to sleep?" Reggie thought for a moment about what sort of entertainment options were in the area.

"We could go see a movie at the theater, but that's not much different from when we watch them here. How about Fun City? All kinds of fun stuff there."

"It has fun in the title so it must be good. Let's go, Sunshine!" Tegan had woken up just as Hyacinth suggested doing something fun and was fully onboard. She was halfway to the door already when Reggie had mentioned Fun City. Reggie saw no reason to argue so he followed after her with Hyacinth and Nel close behind.