Do I have much of a choice?

I sigh, then mentally select yes. it’s not like I have much of a choice after all, refusing literally means ****. The window displays one last message before the prompt minimizes.

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Quest accepted! Please be aware that access to your status screen, as well as most notifications, including achievements or skill gains, have been temporarily disabled until the evacuation is complete. The only interface currently accessible is the Inventory screen. To access your Inventory, simply think the word ‘Inventory’.

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I am a little annoyed by the restrictions, but can see why they are in place. Best not to get distracted during the evacuation after all. With my view of the kitchen returned, I see four anxious pairs of eyes looking my way for guidance. 'Right, I stepped up. What first? Party invites.' I look round at the expectant faces and say, “I’m about to send you guys a party invite, you need to accept it, ok?”

Not waiting for replies, I look inwards. 'The quest said I need to form the party first. How do I do that?' Following on from my success from earlier, I think 'form party'. This seems to do the trick.

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Party formed!

Party name: Adam’s Party.

Current members: 1/6.

Active party bonuses: None.

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I focus on sending each of my family a party invite, and smile as each of them receive a notification. Soon enough, the left-hand side of my field of view is now sporting the health and stamina bars of each family member. 'Neat, I can track their stat bars now. It’s a little intrusive though, won’t it get in the way?' As soon as I’ve had the thought, the wall of information disappears entirely, leaving only my status bars on display. A single thought is enough to bring the bars up again. 'Handy.'

“So, the fact that I can see you all here means you’ve all joined, that’s good! It means we're going to stick together now, no matter what.” Thinking out loud, I continue speaking. “We don’t have any idea what sort of environment we’re going to end up in, so its best if we prep as wide as possible. Mum?” “Yes honey?” “Please can you go get changed, preferably into hiking gear, then pack your clothes into your big hiking backpack? We don’t know what the climate is going to be like…”

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Information for the Party leader. Your evacuation destination has been pre-determined. The climate of the area you are being sent to can be described as Mediterranean, but experiences slightly more rainfall than the earth equivalent. Your forethought in considering different climates in your evacuation preparations has been noted, and you will be rewarded appropriately after the evacuation has been completed.

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“… Errrr scratch that, focus on warm weather gear stuff you’d expect to wear in a Mediterranean climate, but make sure to pack waterproof clothing too. Once your bag is packed, can you bring it back down to the kitchen?” “Sure thing, honey.” Now with a goal in mind, Mum scurries off. 'And then there were three.' I consider what we need next. This Inventory system could prove super useful, but without knowing how it works, as well as any limitations it has, it's impossible to plan anything with it in mind.

I look down at Emily, who I note with some small amusement, has yet to let go. “Hey, Em?” Head still buried in my chest, she replies with a muffled, “Yeah?” “Is your Uni overnight bag still dumped by the front door?” For a few seconds, the room returns to silence. Emily looks up at me, mouth agape, a look of pure incredulity plastered on her face. I match her look with a look of confusion.

A snort and a peal of laugher draws my focus to the rest of the room, where Lisa is grinning, clearly trying not to laugh. Ash, on the other hand, is practically guffawing. 'What did I say?' Emily’s look shifts to outrage and she wiggles in my arms as she practically yells, “The world is literally ending, and you’re giving me shit about being a little bit messy now!?!”

'Oh, errrrrrrr, whoops.' I grin sheepishly at my little sister, release her from my hug and reply, “Well, it has been there for three days at this point, but no, I want to test something.” “Fine! But you better not go looking through my shit!” She struts off huffily to fetch the bag, and I can only watch on, bemused.

I shake my head to clear it, there’s time for horseplay later, we’re on a deadline here. My attention returns to the two sisters left in the room. “you guys better go pack your stuff too ok? Change into some hiking stuff too, just in case. Boots as well, we’re a little past no shoes in the house.” Both girls hop to their feet. Ash gives me what has to be the worst salute I’ve ever seen in my life, a shit-eating grin on her face, before she say’s “Aye aye mister boss-man.”

I roll my eyes at her and say, “That’s Sargent boss-man to you!” She heads out of the room chuckling, Lisa in tow. 'Humour is good, it helps us forget the world is ending.' The stray thought sends my spirit hurtling again. 'Good going, Adam, you’ve made yourself sad again. Pull it together, we have shit to do!' Finished admonishing myself (at least for the moment), I head back towards the kitchen, I have some tests to run!

'First things first.' I stick on the kettle. 'Insert British people coping mechanisms almost universally involve cups of tea joke here, har har har.' Whilst that boils, I pick up the first object I find on the side, which happens to be a spoon. Focusing on said spoon, I think about putting it in my Inventory. The spoon disappears from my hand, nice! I think the word 'Inventory', and a text box opens up in front of me showing a 5x6 grid, the spoon I had stored sitting in the top left box. I focus on the spoon and picture taking it out of my Inventory, and suddenly it is back in my hand. 'Neat.'

Ok, next test. With a thought, the spoon is back wherever the hell it goes when I store it. This time, I leave the Inventory screen closed and skip straight to picturing withdrawing the spoon. ‘Pop’, one spoon in my hand. 'So, I don’t have to open my Inventory to withdraw shit? Nice!' Next, I fill a mug with cold tap water, then store that. I take a few moments, jumping around and wiggling as much as humanly possible (a surprising amount of wiggle, less so on the jumping), then take the mug back out, it's still full of water. 'Looks like I can store liquids to a degree. Sweet!' Now for the heat test. Right on cue, the kettle clicks off. I could try to make this super scientific, but I’m in a hurry. Instead, I simply fill two fresh mugs with the boiling water, store one, then stick a cooking thermometer in the other, making a mental note of the temperature.

I set a timer for ten minutes just as Emily walks back into the room with her overnight bag. She hands it over to me cautiously, before saying, “What the hell do you want with this, anyway? You better not look inside!” “I’m testing if we can use our Inventory system to store bags full of stuff, see what effect it has on Inventory slots, we might get away with filling our Inventories with a load of packed bags to cut down on space.”

I focus on the rucksack in my hands and let out a little joyful noise as it disappears into my Inventory. At Emily’s startled look, I reassure her. “Don’t worry, I’ve just put it in my inventory. Now, lets see… looks like it takes up two slots now. Still means we can store more stuff though, which is super handy. Hey… what does this button do?”

The little rucksack on my inventory screen had a little icon next to it, which I focus on and mentally push. In hindsight, what happens next is entirely predictable, especially considering the icon looks like a little open bag, but I was in full on ‘monkey has a new toy with lots of shiny buttons’ mode.

My Inventory blurred and changed. Now, rather than having one slot of mug with (hopefully) boiling water and two slots of backpack, my Inventory was now full of odds and ends.

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Inventory (10/30 slots filled):

• X1 Mug (Filled with water).
• X1 Backpack (Empty).
• X1 Towel (Used).
• X1 T-shirt (Worn).
• X1 T-shirt (Clean).
• X1 Jeans (Worn).
• X2 Bras (Worn).
• X2 Panties (Worn).
• X1 Bullet vibrator (23% Charge remaining).
• X1 Travel toiletries set. (Absorb? Y/N)

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'Oh… Oh no… Let’s pretend that never happened.' With a thought, I try reassembling the bag, hiding my sigh of relief when it actually works and all the items fill the rucksack, which is taking up two slots again. I summon the rucksack back and hand it to my wide-eyed sister. “How the fuck did you do that?” I explain how the Inventory system works, watching with a smile as a delighted sister pops the rucksack in and out of existence. 'Unfortunately, we have the end of the world to prep for, speaking of which…'

“Em, can you run to the garage and grab the tents, as well as any other gear you think would be useful? Just stuff it into your Inventory, then bring it all back here and dump it by the table, take a couple of trips if needs be. After that’s all sorted, change into your hiking gear and pack your big bag with clothes. We still have…” I quickly check the time remaining on the quest, “1h47mins, so we still have time to spare. Take some time and pack what you think will be useful, rather than what you can grab easily. Ok?”

I grab my phone as Emily runs off, opening up the family group chat, rolling my eyes at the dumb name.

Group: The Hills are alive (and have moved to Scotland).

Adam: Ems is grabbing the tents and other camping gear. Once you guys are done packing can you gather some things and dump them in the kitchen. We need all the bags you can find, rucksacks preferably, but those sacks we use for Christmas would also be perfect. I hate to ask this, but can someone else gather up any jewellery that you guys have, anything with gems or valuable metals would be perfect, we’ll need something that we can guarantee has value wherever we go. I’ll grab toiletries once I’ve packed, but if you guys think of anything else, add it to the pile downstairs and we’ll sort through it.

Lisa: No problem, Adam.

Mumsie: Ok honey, I’ve got one or two baubles that’ll fit the bill.

Ash: Yes, Sargent boss-man sir, I’ll get right on it!

Adam: Asshole.

Ash: <3

Realising that I’d forgotten to tell them about the Inventory system, I quickly update everyone with what I’ve discovered. The next half hour goes by in a blur of packing bags with whatever we think could be useful and practical in another world. Just in case, we pack what electronics we can. If they had power-ports we could use in our new world? Great. If not? Well, that's why solar-panel chargers are a thing.

Other than frantic packing, the only thing of note that happens is when I try to store another toiletry set in my Inventory. I was understandably flustered when I accidentally unpacked Emily’s bag, so had completely missed the option to ‘absorb’ the components of her toiletry set. The second time around I saw the message and accepted the prompt, then received the following message.

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You have absorbed the essence of items deemed essential on your world and have unlocked the following spells for you and your party as a result.

New Spell(s) learnt:

• Mage’s Toothpaste (Lvl 1).
• Mage’s Deodorant (lvl 1).
• Mage’s Shampoo (Lvl 1).
• Mage’s Toilet Paper (Lvl 1).

Please be aware that you will be unable to cast these spells until you are on a world with ambient Mana.

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So that’s a thing? Which is cool, I guess? With just under an hour left on the quest timer, the entire family is fully dressed in the kitchen, bags packed and ready to go. There is a universal ‘now what’ moment as our eyes search the room, raking our brains in an attempt to figure out if we had forgotten anything important. My gaze lands on a mug sat on the side, a little cooking thermometer poking out the top. Ah!