While you were caring for Pebble, the beloved dog of your partner, Dandy, the unmistakable sound of clanking echoed from the basement once more. It was clear that Dandy was once again preoccupied with experimenting on Ichor, fully absorbed in his latest obsession.

No matter how much he might try to hide it from you, you always know. He’s perpetually marked by the stuff—his hands, his clothes, even the faint metallic tang that lingers in the air around him. And, of course, he never lets you join the others on supply or extraction runs, keeping you out of harm’s way as if that’s enough to make up for everything.

You’d think that after causing a literal epidemic, he’d take responsibility and work to find a cure, especially since it’s entirely his fault. But no—he’s too consumed by his experiments to care about the consequences.

Maybe that’s what he’s doing down there—trying to fix the mess he made—but you’ve never bothered to check. He’s been holed up in the basement nearly 24/7 these days, completely immersed in whatever secretive project keeps him away from the rest of the world.

You sighed, your thoughts drifting to what life beyond the walls of the GardenView Educational Museum might be like. "Real life," as the toon handlers used to call it when they were still around, felt more like a distant fantasy than anything tangible.