2.1 Projects

It's the eve of Spooky Day, and that means dressing up and begging neighbors for candy.

Ray paints his face like a bunny's because he likes bunnies, while little sister Gysael chooses a gnome costume.

Awwww, family oriented hugs. "Good luck!" 

The first house they beg for candy at is that place Petra is staying.

Petra is happy to give her little siblings some candy.

Unfortunately, every other house is a bust. Either the residents are just leaving, are caught in routing failure, or, in this particularly harrowing case, in the middle of giving birth.

Terrified, Ray decides he will never have children!

Goopy GilsCarbo hosts a costume party. 

Unintentionally, Scarlett showed up in the same costume as Goopy.

Bandmate Paloma Giordano, now an elder, shows up in the same outfit as Goopy's sister Rhonda.

The presence of Paloma turns the party into a jam session.

More holiday fun. 

While Reggie works hard trying to theorize a way to help Rohane, Rohane is trying to pretend there is not a problem.

It's very easy for Reggie to become lost in projects. 

Vox and Reggie become adults on the same day Ray becomes a teenager.

Vox is... fluffier.

Not much has changed with Reggie.

And Ray looks very cute, everyone agrees.

Reggie graduates. He is voted Most Likely to Take Over the World.

"That has to be a joke," Rohane grumps.

"I thought Petra would show up," Greta frets. "Where could she be?"

Petra is busy these days, busking hard for the simoleons she needs to get her own place with Chad. The two were recently engaged.

"You know that book is for toddlers, right?"

"Do you want me to stop reading?"

"N-no! Please continue!"

Little did Vox know, sitting on Ray would ignite the biggest tickle war of all time.

"JOIN ME! WE WILL END EDUCATION!"

Rohane watches the floating duck machine appear in front of him. "Nope... no go."

Reggie, back turned, as it always has to be, throws up his hands in frustration. His brother's little magic trick doesn't care about any protection wards, any misdirection hexes, any energy draining artifacts he's created... it's as if the phenomena lies outside of space and time.

Rohane's eyebrows knit closer together in a frown. "On the bright side... your testing has forced me to improve my skills?" He can activate the power at will now, not just as an uncontrollable accident (though that also still happens; that's the problem). And he can summon specific objects—like the duck—if he tries hard enough.

1.15 I Spy

Reggie gets home from shop club earlier than usual.

He is surprised to find Rohane sniveling, surrounded by piles of junk. 

This is Reggie's surprised face.

"Rohane, what is this?"

"I don't even know! Just screw off! I'll deal with it!"

Reggie pauses, contemplating. "Your response indicates you are responsible."

"Don't tell me you caught me red handed and still think it was someone else," Rohane scoffs.

"What have I caught, exactly?"

Rohane punches his mattress harmlessly. "Sometimes it poofs away again, back where it belongs I guess? Other times it stays there and doesn't go away. So there's a place where I dump it." Sensing his brother still doesn't have a clue what he's talking about, Rohane sighs and explains, "Things start appearing around me when I get stressed out. It's been happening for a long time. It just never happens in front of other people. It only works when nobody's looking. I promise I'm not making this up."

Reggie studies the objects more closely. Some of the stuff is recognizable. There's the box with the sailboat on it, from downstairs, part of their father's theme collection. The duck toy is Ray's. The picture of the girl in the frame is the one usually sitting on their literature teacher's desk. Some of the books have a very obvious magical charge... but they aren't his mother's. He'd best find out whom they belong to. Fast.

"There must be some connection between you and the objects," Reggie theorizes.

"There isn't," Rohane growls.

"I can't imagine you haven't told Mother about this..."

"I haven't."

Reggie folds his arms. "And... why not?"

"Because Mom will think it's a sign the boogeymen are coming for us? And then we'll have to move to the other side of the world and hide in a cave and never eat pizza again?"

"Or she may attempt to help you control your abilities."

"I've asked her about teleportation before. All she knows is the stuff she already taught us. And no matter what I do, what protection ward I place on myself or the room I'm in, I can't block this out."

"And... why were you crying?"

"I wasn't crying."

"Yes you were."

"Because I'm a thief and it's going to end bad," Rohane says.

Reggie frowns, and carefully steps over the objects so he can sit on the bed with Rohane. "How is it you think you know what's to come?"

"I just got a weird feeling, man. Like I'm not supposed to be here."

Reggie sighs, not understanding. "Well. You are here. I'll help you reverse engineer your magic. We'll put a stop to this."

"You're staring at the demon girl's chest," Rohane mumbles.

"Is she there for some reason other than to be stared at?"

"Just seems like a bad time."

Reggie casts a number of spells on the hexed books, but they do not reveal their origins. Their owners remain a mystery. Regrettably, he's forced to obliterate them; it wouldn't do if they were owned by an unfriendly mage, who could use them to get to his family first. He hates to see knowledge destroyed, but it's what his mother would tell him to do, he's sure...

...but fixing Rohane's issues may not be as easy.

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Etc.: I heard Waldo is in that object pile somewhere.

1.14 Float the Duck

If Ray cares one way or the other that he's the only kid in his family that looks normal, there is no sign.

 YES!

 Project float the duck is clear for go!

Or not.

Reggie's parents rush to the porch to help him, but he's got it under control.

 Lazy rainy days...

...remembered as good times.

 Greta soaks up the waning summer warmth, as she sketches out in the garden...

In a few more mornings, she wakes to find the chill of autumn has arrived.

 Hey, you guys, those leaves were just raked up!

Adventure. Perhaps it has been too long.

The financial situation is decent. The Goldbeard family buys a house across town.

The carport and motorcycle came with the house.

The new place has lots more room to play.

Plus more space for Scarlett's collection.

And a nice kitchen.

There are three bedrooms instead of two, so the children still have to share, but the teenagers consider it an improvement to not have to sleep in the same room with their kid siblings or their mother's makeshift paint studio.

Old habits die hard. Their beds aren't bunked anymore, but Reggie still wants the one close to the ceiling.

Here's the younger kids' room.

And the other side of it.

Reggie and Rohane's room sits above the covered patio, shielding Scarlett's lasagna from the rain.

There's this covered verandah upstairs, too, accessible from the master bedroom.

Gysael thinks it's a good place to do homework.

Reggie is excited about all the new stuff there is to upgrade with magic.

Cleaning spells, fire proofing, or clog prevention? It's so hard to choose.

"Would you get your sparkles out of my game, you weirdo?" Rohane is not amused.

"They're staring at me." Gysael huddles close to her older brother Rohane on the school bus. Moving to a new house meant being assigned to a new bus route, and not all of he kids on this one are used to the blue-skinned Scarlett-spawn.

Reggie avoided this awkwardness by taking the motorcycle.

Greta calls this one The Last Ship. 

But which one is the last one? There are two ships there.






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 Etc.: The new house I moved the family into is one of the pre-built houses in Monte Vista. It was originally 2-bedroom, but I did some tinkering, adding a third bedroom above the kitchen, replacing the stairs with spiral ones, and knocking down a pointless wall or two.

BONUS: Reggie tries to prove his worthiness as heir by glitching himself on fire.

I don't know how this happened. He was doing his homework.

It went from 0% to 100% super fast, though, so my guess is this is a University Life nerd thing? He did his homework so fast it set him on fire? At least he looks as shocked about this development as me.