Jessica was suddenly and disturbingly alert, awake, and standing in an unknown location. Dark, late night/early morning, a small park or... Oh. Considering the tombstones in the distance, a cemetery.

Lovely.

Her brother was trying to look as small and innocent as possible. Which was VERY concerning, but at lest she knew where he was. "Sitrep?"

John nodded. "Current location secured, no living witnesses within several blocks, time is 3:09 am and we are currently located in... Uh. One second..."

He glanced at something unseen. "California? Huh. Didn't expect Hell to be so close to here... Maybe because of Hollywood?"

She stared at her brother, making a mental note to circle back around to that later in the conversation... But for right now, she had a larger concern. "Why do I feel so strange right now?"

John blinked. "I uh... Do not know? What kind of strange? I need way more context than that if you want any sort of useful reply."

Jessica carefully shifted her twinging arm for a better look. "I feel like newly purchased furnature that has just been stripped of its protective plastic. Even my eyebrows feel slightly too clean and too new, and I can almost HEAR my organs and body functions stutter and jerk as they begin operations."

He hesitated... Then winced. "Ohh, yeah, that is probably my fault. After you finished decontamination I had you go through a cleansing routine. Just as a safety precaution! Not because I was delaying your deployment into the world to avoid the consequences of my actions and past choices!"

Uh huh. "Is that why I am wearing new clothes?"

John shook his head. "No, your old stuff was so contaminated it just got recycled and I got you replacement stuff instead of leaving you nude outdoors in this fall weather. Much faster that way, it's what I do with my discarded bodies: Toss it out and get something new that's crisp and clean!"

He noticed her shock and quickly assured her. "Not with YOU though, I assumed you still wanted your original meat suit and wouldn't want me modifying it or enhancing anything until you were sane and conscious and all that."

She stared at him, and he tried not to fidget.

He coughed. "Also, you said not to experiment on your body without prior consent and explained that 'Not saying no' didn't count and... Yeah, you have nothing to worry about!"

Deep, calm breaths. "So we went from that contaminated muppet place to here and you did NOT alter my body? Other than cleaning it, I mean."

John winced. "Yes and no? Yes to not altering your body at least! You are 100% yourself guaranteed, I promise! You can trust me, I'm not a doctor!"

Nope. "I'm going to check the logs."

John jerked back. "WHAT!? I mean, uh... Why bother? The logs are so boring and dry and repetitive, I'd just wipe them all out if I were you and start with a fresh set ready to use! I mean, partially written logs are so infuriating, all that random text and imagery and video evidence and stuff, am I right? Let's just toss it out."

Double nope. "Stand there, don't talk, I'll be done in a minute."

~~~Pocket System~~~

John was unfortunate... It took longer than a minute.

"...then you made a body out of edible plants!? WHY!? You were eaten near continuously for that entire..."

A lot longer.

Apparently, without her nearby or someone else in the area to provide 'context' and help him understand 'common sense', John had a tendency to 'not think things through' and 'get into trouble.'

"...You even called it Hell YOURSELF! WHY would you just agree to go to HELL!? Even if you DON'T believe in that religion or whatever, you don't deliberately go on a field trip to rob a legendary dimension of endless torment feared and internationally known by billions of people and..."

If nothing else, Jessica had brought up a few very good points. Plus in retrospect, it seemed a bit unfair for John to have all the fun and visit the interesting places while she was out of commission.

"...Wait, did you just steal an block of... What the HECK is 'Debby the Not-So-Ancient Debris Ore, Essence of Nether and Infinite Suffering'!?"

Oh! "That's Debby! She's my newest Pocket Pal! I'd bring her out to say hi, but I'm pretty sure that is a bad idea considering how close we are to a major entrance to one of the local Realm's many hell dimensions."

Debby was a darling, really... But until portable containment fields were better defined and implemented he couldn't risk letting her play outside his Pocket for some time. "Actually, I'm pretty sure she's the reason I found this place so easily. Something about her Essence made the Realm really stand out, you know?"

Jessica stared at John... Then back at the logs. "And what is this block of censored data scattered through the logs after that?"

Uh oh. "I'm not allowed to know... Uh." Please say no, please say no... "Are the logs for THIS Realm ALSO censored? Like, the recent stuff?"

She blinked at his tone. "Huh? Let me check..." Something shifted. "Nope, it's all readable."

Oh thank goodness. "Then it is fine! Don't worry about that other junk, it's not important anyway. The logs should have followed each censored section with a brief sanitized summary of the missing stuff anyway."

She scrolled back. "Half of these just say 'Run' a whole lot."

Yep. "That sums it up perfectly."

The graveyard fell into silence as his sister stared at the texts and pictures and video clips and audio samples... And the large number of scrubbed and classified sections within. "...Did it/they/them follow us when you left?"

Nope! "Nah, we're good. Moving from Realm to Realm is WAY harder than basic dimensional travel or going to alternate realities, several tiers more difficult. Even Realms that allow you to have crossover effects or 'travel the multiverse' or 'visit imaginary locations' are all self contained bubbles of infinity and potential, the System's method of transit is way above and beyond that."

According to the System, even those other things that came close, Entities called 'Planeswalkers'... Those were all contained within some sort of 'Gathering Realm' or something.

So it wasn't an issue.

Jessica blinked at his confidence. "Then... Why did you ask me if the logs were still being censored?"

Well duh. "Just because nothing can follow us doesn't mean I shouldn't check to be sure."

Because while being followed was very VERY unlikely, and theoretically impossible, that whole experience had been freaky and John was NOT going to risk ANYTHING.

She sighed and rubbed her head, which was fair. "Thank you for not experimenting on your new friend and following my earlier requests, John."

He blinked... And broke out in a grin! "Aww, thanks sis!"

Jessica nodded. "However, you are going to be getting no contaminated christmas socks for dessert for the rest of the week."

WHAT!? "WHY!?"

She stared at him. "It's not because you kept me in the Pocket being decontaminated, nor because you Collected the core of Hell and had to run to escape... It's that bit near the end."

Jessica pointed at the logs. "You were in danger. Your friends, Bessie and Steve were in danger... Heck, Steve was heavily injured. Yet before sending him home and running from death or worse, you stopped to go shopping."

John blinked. "Well, yeah? Those pork chops were life changing... Essence food is delicious!"

She tapped her foot. "No putting yourself and those you care for into deadly danger from now on, you should KNOW that I care more about your safety." Seeing his shock she sighed."Yes, even more than 'life changing' pork chops."

But...

Jessica raised an eyebrow. "You understand? In the future, you will put your safety and wellbeing first, yes?"

Aww, come on! "Even if there is really cool stuff I could get?"

The eyebrow rose higher. "Do you want to lose MORE dessert socks privileges?"

Sigh. "No, big sis. I'll be more careful in the future."

She nodded. "Good, I don't want you or your friends getting hurt."

John couldn't help but grumble. "I guess I can always just send a connection in the future when something like this comes up again, but I would have had to wait SO LONG to get those samples of Essence cookies and Essence cake!"

Jessica chuckled. "Sometimes it is better to wait a little bit rather than risk getting hurt and never getting to eat again."

Yeah yeah. "Got it."

She stretched, keeping an eye on the surroundings. "So... An opening to hell is nearby? Is that related to why 'Bill' tried to suck your neck and then exploded?"

John pointed. "Hell's entrance is that way, several miles out and some distance underground… And I think Bill might be a side effect of it at best."

He began counting fingers. "First of all, Pocket analysis says that Bill was a dead body being possessed by some sort of demon Soul thingie. If someone gets killed by a Bill, it infects the new host and shoves the local Soul out to take over."

Another finger. "Then the possessed corpse sits there for a bit until it can gain sapience and becomes a newly born 'Vampire', but not the cool 'I turn into a cloud of bats' kind or the 'I sparkle in daylight version' uh… Mostly?"

John grumbled as he held up the next point. "See, stuff here doesn't work on Logic, Science, or Magic exactly… And it doesn't perfectly fit with Faith either. Not entirely. Everything in this place is formed thanks to Belief."

Giving up counting fingers, John threw up his hands! "Good or bad, as long as it is a POPULAR belief, it is more likely to exist here! Why do all the local vampires have most of the same weaknesses and habits and traits and stuff? Belief. Why are older one's stronger? They began to cause rumors nad legends empowering their belief. Why is there a portal to hell over there?"

John shrugged. "Either this city was built over the thing on purpose, or the fact that generations of students attending that high school HATED going to class caused their figurative 'This is Hell' collective unconscious opinion to transform into fact."

Jessica stared into the distance. "The entrance to hell is under a high school?"

John shrugged.

She seemed to remember something from the past. "Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Either there or under a DMV."

Yeah, well… John had never been to either of those so he'd just take her word for it. "Anyway, Belief apparently affects everything here to a disturbing degree. Sure, it means that churches and Faith get rewarded… But their Belief in all the BAD parts of their religions empower THOSE as well!

He idly Scanned the area… No more Bills nearby. "There is some upside, at least. Libraries are almost magical here, for example."

And his Pocket REALLY wanted him to visit a couple.

Jessica blinked. "Wait, what?"

John nodded. "Yeah, if you collect enough books together, people believe they can find the answers to their questions in some book SOMEWHERE in that place… So they do. Even if the actual book should be out of print, or impossible to translate, or whatever… Somehow you will stumble upon at least ONE copy that is at least barely readable that at least ONE person you know can translate into a language you can work with to get what you need."

To be fair, the less likely one is to find that solution the longer you would have to invest 'researching' and 'searching for the answer' before you'd find the one needed… But it was worth the investment of time and frustration if your need was great enough.

Jessica seemed very intrigued. "So what, we could just ask any question we want, look through a mess of old books… And stumble upon the right one eventually?"

John idly Collected some bugs that were trying to pester them both. "I'll need to grab a LOT of local books soaked in this Realm's Belief energies while we are here, and the effect would be drastically weaker when we head onwards to get you back home… But it would probably be worth the hassle."

She hummed. "Could we skip all that trouble and just try to find where our home actually is first? Using the 'ask anything and research' effect, I mean."

The fact that she said 'our home' made John feel warm inside.

But as for the shortcut? Nah. "Not worth it. By the time I'd find the answer the sun would have already consumed the rest of this solar system and you'd have been stored away to preserve your youth for who knows how long. Same thing for other near impossible questions, like how to become immortal with no downsides or difficulty or resources and stuff like that."

Jessica blinked. "You can become immortal here?"

Honestly, John himself didn't see the appeal. "Yeah, through many ways really thanks to all the stories and stuff that have been soaking in the World's Belief fields for all these years. Problem is that all those stories and legends have downsides and morality lessons and stuff, so you'd live forever but become really old, or live in endless torment, or get trapped for all eternity, or whatever."

Like, why bother? Just throw out your body and grab a new one, no reason to bother trying to make a single meat suit invincible when you can just replace them like disposable wipes.

Wait, no: Focus. "So! Entrance to a Hell that way, no idea which legend or religion is responsible for that one, local area is soaked with corrupt and corroded energies due to that, there is ongoing spellwork covering the entire town and I can feel a dozen or so arbitrary rules that incredibly powerful creatures HAVE to conform to with very few exceptions."

One of which was 'Try not to do shit during the day', as that apparently caused all sorts of 'luck' based problems and stuff because people Believed they were SAFE in the daylight. Though that wasn't the important one.

The important one was real estate. "So to take advantage of said arbitrary rules: Once the sun comes up and we can move around without stumbling into various Bills and Billettes, we need to get YOU a house."

Jessica blinked. "Wait, what?"

Yep. "If you own a house and live there, almost nothing can come inside without you actually inviting it. Period. Because your Home is safe, and people Believe that."

Don't even need spell wards or barriers or bullet proof glass or nothing! Just as long as you don't invite abusive family members, aliens, robots, or whatever into your Home? Safe.

John wasn't even entirely sure that earthquakes or fires or bombs and stuff could actually damage a location if enough people have lived there as a Home for long enough to build up a Legend or History. It was kind of nuts.

Oh, right! "By the way, while renting a house or apartment apparently counts? The more you 'own' a location, the better. So we should probably buy a house plus the land it's on. That way I can build under the Home myself using blocks to give us all the space and security we need while still taking advantage of the local rules."

Because building an 'extension' to a protected Home ALSO extended the special effects!

Sweet!