Time passed and Vegis flew through another year at the job. It was very uneventful compared to the first year but change still happened. During the month-long breaks, Vegis and the others would just hang around and occasionally try new foods and games. The construction nearby was done by the end of the first break. The guards that watched the area were relatively nice but distant so the group never got close to any of them. When they returned to the southern labs, they arrived at the same time as everyone else so Vegis went to a small get together with Mac and the returning Clone Managers. It was a fun event with Coltman and some of the longer employed people brought over some light dope which surprised Vegis and the other more recent employees. Most drugs were allowed but still frowned upon to use when you are about to work. This was a government job so they had a more stricter restriction on drug use but it seemed like that these senior staff knew the limits better and made sure none of the ones who took it tried to give it to someone else.

  Only small events happened while they stayed in the south labs. Some folks got sick due to not eating properly, Vegis had to only restrain one biologist since they installed the sun rooms. Vegis didn’t like staying near them since he could feel the presence of the god actively rejecting him when he got near. The radical increase in Vegis’s capabilities and the new clone allowed him to not have to rely on surprise to restrain the animals but instead just pinning them down with V4 and having the others stab with the needle point spears or the tranq darts. Vegis split them so V1 and 2 would stay together and work on feeding while V3 and 4 deal with any request or other errands that needed to be dealt with. V4 in its original size would have a hard time dealing with the halls but it had gained the ability to compress its body near the tail end of the break. It still weighed the same but its smaller size made traveling the winding halls of the lab much easier and was actually advantageous in some ways since this allowed it to get the jump on things easier.

  Boreal really liked to roam the forest that engulfed the south east of the facility. The clones were now able to do most of the work by themselves so Vegis was often following Boreal to make sure that they didn’t do anything dangerous. They couldn’t feel the all consuming cold that filled the entire continent and so Vegis had to bring them in so Boreal wouldn’t get noticed. Mitra didn’t like the incredibly cold climate of the southern lab and mainly stayed inside. She is able to release a wave of heat around her but it took a lot of effort to constantly adjust the heat around her to be not scorching. This led to her not using it as much and wearing thick coats, robes, and a cowl most of the time they were here. Vegis bought a book for Boreal since they were starting to get into art but their location wouldn’t allow them to do research. On some of the walks Boreal would have, they would warp and manipulate some of the trees into taking the shapes of Mitra and Vegis. It started out very rough but over the months, they slowly got it closer and closer to the likeness of its guardians. Vegis didn’t need to keep a constant eye on Mitra now since she now knew the basics of history and culture while also knowing what she should conceal to the others.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  By the time they had to leave for break, Mitra had gotten the username of several of the other staff members to contact them and play some games. When they got back to the house, the outside of the buildings were done and now they just needed to do the internals of them. Some of the guards changed, the road was worn out, and the greenery got thicker, but the house remained the same. The auto garden harvested a lot while they were away and Vegis pondered if they should get an expanded version of it. Vegis decided they should interact with the city dwellers more since they didn’t know anyone there. Vegis had to spin some time looking if there were any daycare-like places that could both keep an eye on Boreal but also allow them to interact with other kids in person. Unable to find any that met his standards, Vegis eventually sent a message to Doel and Drake to see if they knew any groups that could do this task.

  It took a couple of days but eventually, Doel sent a message back with a link to a small group of former employees that started a daycare. Vegis sent his thanks and started to roam the website to gather all the information of the group and eventually registered Boreal into the daycare. The first day Boreal went to the group was also the day the Drakkin elder was arriving in the system. They stayed in their ship above the planet since the facility for them hasn’t been built yet. Vegis spent some time talking to Susan in other games she was connected to. Mitra would join in every once in a while but she mainly just lingered around the large rock that was placed in a far corner of the property. She would watch videos or transform and stretch her limbs.

  The return to the northern lab had a couple of hiccups due to the Elder interfering with some of the budget of the lab. They were requesting some rather expensive items and Drake was unable to stop them due to them holding a higher rank than them back in the home world. While in the planetary government, they hold roughly equal power, the Elder’s rank gave them power over Drake. This caused a small decrease in food quality and more food poisoning events but that was deemed less important than the comfort of the Elder. There was a wave of complaints about this while Vegis was there but it was ignored. Eventually, their quarters were built and they no longer had to mooch off the budget of the northern lab.

  Vegis spent the most of this time just trying to study information from the Maouin system but it was hard to read since the words were infused with magic, with both the symbol and mana stored in the letters required to have a full understanding of the language. This led to him taking lessons from Drake about the language in the Maouin system. Boreal kept in touch with his new friends from the daycare and Mitra spent time talking with people in the cafeteria to pass the time. This made her much more comfortable with talking to folks and she got some recommendations to play some new games. The clones were gaining more independence from Vegis but always remained obedient to Vegis and Mitra. They acted a little differently when they interacted with Boreal though. They seemed to try and spoil the kid and kept a close eye on them when they were near them.