It was half an hour ter before Danny, the first of the boys returned. Once again freshly showered and wearing both a morose expression and a new pair of pants. "What happened?" Diana asked delicately. His face turned dower as he sat on the couch. He was clearly in no mood to discuss what happened. James returned to the living room several minutes ter, and Danny's face turned sour. He had returned wearing new clothes and mysteriously freshly showered. How he did it, Diana wasn't willing to choke the answer out of him so early in the morning. Nevertheless, she had plenty of time to think about what happened and was more than ready to lecture him on respecting other’s bodily autonomy. The entire time Danny gred at his brother across the couch.

  “Seriously, I cannot believe you. I give you a pass for st night and the first thing you do in the morning- Your father might not even recognize me!” Diana had been going on for several long minutes and would have continued if not for James’ usual demeanor.

  James couldn’t help but respond, “You’re not exactly unhappy about it.”

  Hearing this Diana found it hard to retort as she wasn’t completely displeased with the results. However, Enough sass! No more games for the rest of the day, you’re going to be cleaning the mess outside and you’re helping him." Diana said turning and pointing towards Danny.

  “Come on! Why!?” Danny wined, why did he have to get dragged into this?

  “Someone has to watch him.” Diana retorted to her grumbling son.

  “That was already on the list for today, can't just leave that burn pile in the pasture and there's the possibility that thing can somehow sprout from the ashes.” Not just for the sake of the cows but in case the tree creature was capable of reproduction. He would also need to retrieve the Grave Traps that were likely at the bottom of the burned mass and check if they were still functional. (They don’t have batteries in game, so I wonder if they're a one-time use?)

  Shock and worry had spread across the faces of the other two. “It could do that!?” Danny shouted jumping up from his seat.

  “Don’t know, I do know that eucalyptus does so the possibility exists.” The methods for how such a creature reproduces was as much a mystery as its sudden appearance. “Regardless we're going to need a bunch of stuff to deal with the pile,” James said, standing up from the couch and looking towards the TV that was still in the middle of a menu. A thought occurred, “By the way, do you want to py a prank on Dad?”

  Diana couldn’t believe what just came from her son’s mouth, "As you said; Dad might not even recognize you." Diana was taken aback by the devil's whisper as James approached the TV once again progressing through the menu and retrieving the remaining the st Stamina Vessel. Holding it out towards her a torrent of expressions streaked across her face before a bright blush followed by a grin which she attempted to hide. Handing over the Vessel James went over and grabbed his brother before dragging Danny outside, leaving their mother with the Stamina Vessel and her mental turmoil.

  Once they were outside, “You’re a real ass you know that?” Danny said finally able to voice his frustrations.

  “Yup. But I’m your ass.” James replied with a smug expression. “If you're that upset by it, we can go on a little trip ter, now go get the skid steer even if I start pulling things out of my ass there’s at least several hours of work.” James directed him before turning around.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’ve gotta go collect the main body and some power tools,” James said before returning to the house, taking a moment to chuckle at his mother gingerly holding the Stamina Vessel with outstretched arms before heading to his room for a dozen more minutes. Once he was finished stocking the bags he returned outside, to see Danny driving around the Skid Steer (a small compact version of a tractor). Danny had swapped out the bucket for a set of prongs to stab and tear into the burnt mass.

  Seeing that Danny was in the middle of tearing the mass into more manageable smaller parts James decided to find his spot a short distance away before dumping out the contents of the first bag on the ground various axes and chainsaws (one had a yellow exterior with heavy bdes) crashed down on top of each other. Once it was empty he set it aside before taking a few paces away from the tools putting his arms into the remaining bag, he started to pull. With a heavy heave a rge burnt log shot out from the bag smashing into the ground. Once it was out James picked up one of the many hatches from the pile and started work on getting rid of the leftover branches. Hacking and chopping away at the charred exterior. Having been burnt the branches broke apart with little effort. Once he had finished chopping the leftover branches James started up one of the chainsaws and started cutting into the burnt charcoal exterior. Even after being burnt to a crisp the exterior was still surprisingly resilient. Cutting through the center took some time even with special machinery. Having cut his way into the trunk James was expecting to discover something but there wasn’t much left, it truly had been burnt to charcoal. Other than its size around 10 feet tall and around 3 feet in diameter, it was burnt too finely for any useful information to be gathered. Once that was finished, he continued cutting the tree into smaller sections before eventually joining his brother as they started tearing apart the mass.

  While they were tearing apart the mass, a car pulled into the driveway and their father returned. Unbeknownst to them while they worked.

  Time passed quickly as the two worked, slowly breaking down the mass into more manageable sections and then smaller branches to be stored away in the Item Bags. Morning turned to noon and was quickly followed by a golden sky as dusk approached once again. After many hours they had finally cleared out the charcoal from the field.

  "Haa~ Finally finished” Danny released a sigh after a long day of hard work. Then a thought occurred to him. Did we have to do all that work If they could just shove the whole thing inside the item bags in the first pce?

  Seeing his expression James asked, “Did you figure it out”?

  This only served to confuse him further, “What?”

  “Haa~” James also released a sigh, there was no hope for his brother. Standing up straight James started stretching having finished their work, “Alright, now that that’s done, I’ll be away for a while.” James said as he pulled out a rge hand-sized pill-shaped object with a yellow band, pressing the plunger on the top before tossing it onto the newly cleared area. Within a matter of seconds, significant heat started to build up before a rge puff of smoke and and steam appeared.

  “There is no fucking way.” Danny couldn’t believe his eyes. Out of the puff of smoke, a dome-shaped house appeared. On the house was a number 1 and below that were two words:

  CAPSULECORP.

  END

  Addendum:

  SpoilerDiana didn’t know why she agreed she felt flustered and more skittish than a schoolgirl. Perhaps it wasn’t just her appearance that changed. Sitting there in the house, it felt like time had grown to a crawl as her arms grew tired from holding the Stamina Vessel at arm’s length and away from her chest. Keeping it away from the chest seemed to prevent it from being absorbed.

  Then she heard the door to the house open as Ronald returned. “Honey, could you come here for a second?” She asked trying to adjust her voice. A wide grin appeared on her face as the door to the bedroom opened.

  [colpse]

  Spoilerkidmonkey94

  If you don’t know what a Skid Steer is, they are also called a Bobcat.

  [colpse]