Calm before the Storm

Hailey quickly scrambled out of Grant's arms and ran over to the still stunned Frank before jumping up into the old mans chest and wrapping her arms around his neck.

As she hung from the old mans neck, she kept yelling "Grandpa!" over and over with tears quickly forming in her eyes.

A few seconds later, Frank managed to recollect himself and wrapped his big bulky arms around Hailey before he too began to cry.

The two embraced each other for a minute or two before Frank finally found his voice again.

"I'm so happy to see you Hailey! I thought the worst had happened!"

"I never thought I'd see you here Grandpa! When I visited your house, it was already destroyed and you were nowhere to be found! I looked everywhere for you as I moved around the area but I had started to give up hope! Where have you been?!"

Frank could only cough awkwardly at Hailey's words before explaining his situation and where he had been for the past few weeks.

He had never told anyone about the bunker in his backyard except for his neighbors that had actually seen it being installed a few years back.

So, when Hailey heard that he had in fact been at his house, in a sense, she was surprised and also a tad frustrated. If only she had been more diligent in her search, she would have eventually found the bunker entrance and subsequently her Grandpa.

But she had been overcome with grief at the time thinking she had lost her last remaining family and overlooked the possibility.

Hailey's parents had died in a car crash four years ago and her Grandpa had been the only family she had left so she was devastated at the idea of losing him; but due to the situation of the world, she had not let herself truly grieve.

Now, she was happy she had bottled up those emotions, because they had been unfounded in the end.

Grant watched the small girl and oversized old man banter, laugh, cry, and fight with a big smile on his face. Something about the way the two carried themselves and the way they reacted to the situation helped him to connect the dots that somehow they were related.

Although Grant had been friends with Hailey for many years, he had never actually met Frank before today.

Hailey used to tell stories about her Grandpa, but as most kids, she never mentioned his actual name and only referred to him as 'Grandpa' so it had taken Grant a moment to connect the dots with the stories and the way the old man carried himself.

Frank never came to the parties that were held by Hailey's family because he had been traveling for his work. Apparently he had been some big shot project manager in the construction industry working for one of the largest companies in the US so he traveled nearly all the time.

Knowing full well that the conversation between the two would probably last for hours, Grant slowly disappeared into the town and started making his way towards his house.

When he arrived, Ally and the kids were busy planning their next excursion into the city to look for survivors.

At some point, Ally had requested a map from Jerrod and had begun marking out areas where there had been rumors of potential survivors.

Of course, the leadership committee of their town also had a map and plan drawn up, but Ally preferred to stay out of the business of the leaders so she had requested one for herself as well.

Knowing full well that Grant would most likely accompany Ally on any excursion deep into the city, Jerrod had no issue with allowing her to make her own choices on where and what to do.

When the three of them saw Grant enter, the only afforded him a cursory hello and welcome back before once again passionately discussing their next steps.

Since Grant had full faith in whatever plan the three of them would inevitably come up with, he simply gave Ally a quick kiss before going back out the front door and heading towards the dungeons core.

It was time to see what upgrades he could afford for the dungeon.

He needed to expand on the total area of the town, especially with the speed at which the construction teams were creating buildings and then he also needed to create more area for farming and eventual animal husbandry.

He also had a few ideas for different areas of the dungeon that may become very useful in the future such as a sealed room to raise weaker monsters to basically spoon feed levels to the townsfolk who had earned the right through hard work and dedication to the town.

When he arrived inside the core room, Grant was surprised to see Skit sitting at a small table reading through what appeared to be different reports.

"Hey Skit, what are you doing here?"

Skit continued to look at the papers in his hands without even acknowledging Grant.

After being together for so long, Grant had started to understand how Skit was feeling without the skeleton even having to speak.

And at this moment, Grant knew, Skit was pissed off at him.

Clearly he had not appreciated the fact that Grant had dumped Hailey off onto him and then disappeared. But it was too late for regret when it came to that issue so Grant didn't bother to press the issue and simply walked over to the dungeon core and opened the menu.

{Welcome to the Dungeon Editor for the Earth side of the Earth & Renrarth Dungeon.

To view any of the following options, simply speak their name out loud or focus on them:

Dungeon Interior

Dungeon Layout

Dungeon Defenses

Transfer To Renrarth

Mana available for dungeon modifications or transfers: 9254}

Grant was pleasantly surprised by the amount of mana available for alterations. He had told Jerrod about the dungeon core and the fact that he should feed any and all mana cores into it so that they could improve their living space.

Of course, not many of the fighters were capable of fighting Enlightened Tier monsters and most of the cores had been donated by Grant himself, but the fact that the number was so close to 10 thousand meant that at least one or two other people had most likely contributed.

Thankfully the mana cores served no purpose when it came to personal strength or Grant was absolutely sure that people would begin to hoard them and not contribute them to the town.

Now that Grant had thought about it, he had never really spent much time talking to Jerrod about the specific details of how they were going to rate and reward the contributions to the town in the long run.

Obviously having a house and food right now were the most important things to the survivors. But the gratitude towards the people that provided those things would quickly die out and then they would want something more in return for their hard work..

But that was something they could address after the Earth entered onto it's Path and things began to stabilize.

So with that thought pushed out of the way, Grant focused on the menu floating in front of him and began to make as many alterations to the dungeon as he could afford.