The next day, Dorian was deep in the code of Stardew Valley, his concentration absolute. He was alone in the quiet apartment; Lyra and Marcus were at school, and Leo was with them. The only sound was the soft tapping of his fingers on the holographic keyboard.
He did not hear the front door hiss open, but he did hear the familiar, tired voice that followed.
"I'm home."
It was John. Dorian's head snapped up. His father was not due back for another two hours. John walked towards Dorian's room and knocked gently on the open doorframe.
"Come in," Dorian said, swiveling his chair around.
John stepped inside and stopped, his eyes widening slightly as he took in the transformed space. "Whoa," he said, a slow smile spreading across his face. "You have been busy."
Dorian chuckled, a warm, easy sound. "Cannot let you be the only one busy, can I?"
John smiled, then his gaze landed on the new, gleaming producer's desk. He stepped further into the room, his curiosity piqued. "What is this?"
"It is a producer's desk," Dorian explained. "It has been a good company to have."
John's eyes traced the complex array of controls, then landed on the sensor array protruding from the front. "What is that bit?"
"Oh, that is the sensor," Dorian said, a hint of pride in his voice. "This desk is equipped with a holo-sensor that can let you play several instruments just by scanning your movements."
"Whoa," John said, genuinely impressed. "Technology, eh? Even after all my ninety years of life, it can still amaze you."
"Well, just you wait what kind of progress there will be after I am done with my project," Dorian replied with a confident grin.
John laughed, a deep, hearty sound that filled the small room. "Hahahaha, that is good. It is good to see that passion in your eyes again, son." He flexed his own tired muscle and patted his bicep. "Do not worry about a thing. You focus on your project. I have still got a hundred more years to mine." He smiled, a genuine, unguarded expression of pure fatherly pride.
A small, sadden smile touched Dorian's lips. He felt a pang of love and sorrow for this man who worked so hard for them. "Take a rest for now, Dad. I will make dinner tonight."
John's face lit up. "Oh! My fellow miners, one of them got some harvest from their home planet, and he shared it with all of us. I already put it in the kitchen. Check it out while you can, see what you can make with it."
"Will do," Dorian said, his own curiosity now sparked.
As John left the room to finally rest, Dorian turned back to his project, a new, warm energy flowing through him.
…
A month passed. Dorian's new routine began the moment he woke up. Before anything else, he would think, System, and tap the Collect button on his song. Today, his total Resonance sat at 21,786,870. It was a staggering, almost incomprehensible amount, but without knowing how much a single Gacha pull would cost, it remained a meaningless fortune. For now.
After washing up, he would check his channels. His Stellarcast account, "Percival," had grown to over eighteen thousand subscribers. It might look like a lot, but in an interstellar society with trillions of inhabitants, it was a minuscule amount. Even his "Your Song" video, now sitting at a respectable two million views, was just a tiny speck in the waterfall of content that flowed through the network every second. Unfortunately, Stellarcast required a much higher subscriber count to monetize. But, there was good news. His Echoflow account had finally been verified as a real, human artist, not an AI, which meant that as of today, he would start generating a small, steady income from the streams.
Later that day, after waving goodbye to Lyra, Marcus, and Leo at their school, Dorian took a starliner to the mid-level. As he walked towards his destination, he saw Jakor just closing a deal with someone. "Thank you, Mr. Kop," Jakor said, shaking the customer's four-fingered hand.
He then saw Dorian approaching, and his face immediately soured into an expression of friendly annoyance.
"Eyy, my friend," Dorian said with a wide grin.
"Alright, stop with the pleasantries," Jakor sighed. "Go to the back. Ula will help you take it to your house." He pointed with his three-jointed arm towards a heavy industrial curtain.
Dorian nodded. "Thank you, Jakor."
"Yeah, yeah," Jakor grumbled. "Just pay it on time this time."
Dorian walked through the curtain into the back storeroom. He was met by the sight of Ula, a Neman who stood a full three meters tall, effortlessly lifting a heavy power conduit onto a high shelf.
Dorian had to crane his neck to look up. "Hey, Ula. Long time no see."
Ula finished his task and looked down, a slow grin spreading across his bearded face. "Oh, hello, little man. When did you stop putting tabs on my store?"
Dorian laughed. "So, was it that hard to find my request?"
"It was not," Ula said, his voice a low rumble. "But nothing is hard for me." He then crouched down, a mountain of muscle folding onto itself until he was on the same eye level as Dorian. His smile was gone, replaced by a sharp, calculating look. "But this is not business on our usual scale, is it? Now, you tell me. How can you take delivery of something like this if you are getting chased by the Accord Legions, and your hands need to be steady enough for all of this not to be dropped?"
An awkward, cold sweat prickled Dorian's neck. He forced a laugh. "How about a five percent addition to what I already have on the tab?"
Ula stood back up to his full, intimidating height. "Ten."
"Seven," Dorian countered instantly.
"Ten," Ula repeated. "With the delivery fee."
"But Jakor said you would help me, anyway."
"Jakor is my employee," Ula stated, his voice flat. "I am the owner."
Dorian thought for a second, then met the giant's gaze. "Eight. With delivery."
Ula looked down at him, a long, silent moment passing between them. Then, the slow grin returned. "Deal." He held out a hand the size of Dorian's chest. They shook hands.
The cockpit of Ula's ship, a heavily modified freighter he called the Starcrest, was built for a Neman. Dorian sat in the co-pilot's seat, his feet dangling a good foot from the floor plates. Beside him, Ula piloted the bulky vessel through the lower level's tight corridors with a surprising, gentle precision.
"Is it not lonely?" Dorian asked, breaking the comfortable silence. "Being alone on your journeys, searching for parts all over the galaxy."
Ula side-eyed him, a slow, deliberate movement of his massive head. "Where is this conversation leading, little man?"
"I am just saying," Dorian continued, undeterred. "If you want, I could modify your whole Starcrest to have an autonomous AI. I can assure you, I can modify its core chips so it is not correlated with the Accord at all."
"No," Ula said, his voice a flat, final rumble.
"Okay..." Dorian shifted in the oversized seat. "How about a Compadre, then? You get me one of those PX heavy-lifter units. I can jailbreak it, and those PX units can help you carry the heavy stuff."
Ula was silent for a long moment, his huge hands steady on the controls. "I do not know," he said finally. "I am still hesitant about all those Gunnossian tech shits."
"Why?"
"Long story," Ula grumbled, and Dorian knew better than to push.
He looked out the viewport as they neared his home block. "That unit right there," he said, pointing.
Ula expertly parked the freighter in a temporary loading zone, the ship's landing gear hissing as it touched down.
"Let me help," Dorian said, already unbuckling himself.
Ula let out a low chuckle. "No need. Just lead me to your unit."
Dorian hopped down from the seat, landing with a soft thud on the floor. "Okay," he said, heading for the ramp. "Follow me then."
…
Ula placed the last heavy crate of components on the floor of Dorian's room with a soft, final thud.
Dorian tapped his wristband, authorizing the large payment. "And... paid," he said, a note of relief in his voice.
Ula nodded, his massive form seeming to take up half the room. "Thanks. Next time, give me more time, will you? At least let my team plan out the extraction of the desired items."
"I will remember that," Dorian promised.
Ula gave a final, approving nod and left, the apartment door hissing shut behind his immense frame. Dorian was left alone with his new treasures. He looked at the sealed, high-tech crates, a wide, excited grin spreading across his face. He rubbed his hands together.
"Hehe... let's upgrade the desk, shall we?"
He spent the next few hours in a state of pure, focused flow. The idea had come to him from the producer's desk: a direct, hard-wired connection for a Compadre. He would add that same function to his own gaming and tech station, allowing Leo to help with the mundane, processor-heavy tasks of game development, like compiling code or rendering assets.
First, he had to perform surgery. He tapped the hidden panels, and his desk's workshop flipped open. With a series of precise movements, he disconnected the power and began to dismantle the main console. The top panel lifted off, revealing the tightly packed, glowing guts of his custom-built machine.
He worked with the quiet confidence of a master craftsman. His soldering iron, a precision tool he had built himself, hummed softly as he desoldered the old processor unit. He carefully lifted it out and replaced it with one of the new, more powerful chips Ula had acquired, its crystalline structure gleaming under the light of his desk lamp. He added more memory, sliding the thin, silver wafers into their expansion slots.
Next came the new hardware. He used a small, handheld plasma cutter to neatly slice an opening in the desk's chassis. Into this, he fitted the new Compadre docking port, a circular array of magnetic clasps and data connectors. With a steady hand, he soldered the dozens of tiny connection points, creating a seamless, integrated link between the dock and the desk's mainboard.
Finally, he installed the physical monitor. He mounted a sleek, black 16K resolution screen on a new articulated arm at the back of the desk, positioning it just below the existing holographic projector.
With everything in place, he reassembled the console. He took a deep breath, a flutter of nervous excitement in his chest, and hit the power button.
The desk came to life with a soft, satisfying chime. The new physical monitor sprang to life, its 16K resolution so crisp and clear it looked less like a screen and more like a window into another reality. The holographic monitor above it shimmered, brighter and more stable than ever before, its response time now instantaneous. And on the side, the newly installed Compadre dock glowed with a soft, inviting blue light, waiting for its partner.
Dorian leaned back in his chair, a tired but deeply satisfied smile on his face. His forge was complete. Now, the real work could begin.
…
Dorian's fingers moved in a final, decisive sequence. He initiated the command. Build: Execute.
He watched as the compiler spun to life, its progress bar a thin, glowing line on his new 16K monitor. Lines of code scrolled by at an impossible speed as the system took all the disparate pieces of his creation, the thousands of pixel art assets, the hours of original music, the complex web of NPC logic, and wove them together into a single, cohesive whole. A playable application.
This was the moment he had been waiting for. Almost five months of relentless, solitary work, all leading to this. The progress bar hit one hundred percent, and a new icon appeared on his desktop: a simple, pixelated parsnip. The first alpha build of Stardew Valley was complete.
He would not upload it to any of the public game platforms, not yet. First, he needed to do a beta test, to hunt for the inevitable bugs and glitches that were surely lurking in his code. As he was about to launch the application for the first time, the familiar hiss of the front door broke his concentration, followed by the cheerful voices of his siblings.
An idea, brilliant and simple, sparked in his mind. He rushed out of his room, a wide, excited grin on his face.
"Lyra, Marcus, come here for a sec! I need your help!"
They followed him into his room, their chatter dying down as they saw his transformed workstation.
"Did you buy another new desk?" Lyra asked, her eyes wide as she took in the gleaming new monitor and the integrated Compadre dock.
Dorian chuckled. "It is the old one, but I gave it a bit of a makeover to be better. Anyway, that is not important. What is important is that I need you to test out a new game I just made."
"You made a game, brother?" Marcus asked, his eyes lighting up with pure, unadulterated excitement.
"Sure did," Dorian said, his pride swelling in his chest. He pulled two stools up to the desk, placing them in front of the new monitor. "Alright," he said, the pixelated parsnip icon beckoning them from the screen. "Who wants to play first?"
⋘ 𝒍𝒐𝒂𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒅𝒂𝒕𝒂.. .⋙
🎮: Stardwey Valley: ████████▒▒ 85%
🎬: -
♬: - Your Name – Elton John (ch.9)
⋘ 𝒍𝒐𝒂𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒏𝒆𝒘 𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒆 𝒅𝒂𝒕𝒂.. .⋙
Neman: The Neman are a towering, ape-like humanoid species from the geologically unstable death world of Nema. Forged by a planet that is actively trying to kill them, Neman culture is a testament to resilience, valuing pragmatic survival skills and personal history above all else. They are not a founding race of the Accord, but their unparalleled ability to operate and thrive in the galaxy's most hazardous environments makes them a vital, if misunderstood, component of its industrial and military might.
Appearance: Neman are incredibly tall and powerfully built, with long, strong limbs and a dense musculature perfectly suited for climbing and high-gravity environments. Their height is their most notable feature; a two-meter Neman is considered short, with the average adult standing closer to 2.5 meters. Facial hair is the cornerstone of Neman identity and status for both males and females. It is a living record of their deeds. A Neman's beard is never cut but is instead intricately braided and woven with charms, beads, or metal rings. Each ornament signifies a major life event.
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