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!