Confused at why his grandfather had suddenly logged off again, Benji also followed his example and went to swiftly log off to see what was going on. He jumped out of his capsule and sprinted toward the old man's bedroom, seeing that his Father was sitting down on the floor, leaning against the wall in the hallway, and when Benji stepped inside, he couldn't believe his eyes.
"What… the hell… is going on..?" He asked confused, staring at the scene in front of him, of Sophia standing in front of Benjamin's capsule crying while the old man was laying inside of it, looking as if he literally merged with the, highly modified, capsule through numerous cables and tubes. And the worst of it all was one thing.
Benji wasn't sure if he was hallucinating, or if he was really seeing the truth of what was going on. Either way, he was horrified.
"I guess… we should have this conversation now, huh?" Benjamin muttered out and called his son to come in from the hallway, so that he, Benji and Sophia could sit down around the capsule, as Benjamin wasn't supposed to leave it just yet.
"Yes, I'm pretty sure we should…" Benji muttered, while Tony slowly came into the room and sat down on his Father's bed, while the old man began to speak.
"When I was in the hospital, it was quite quickly found that something horribly went wrong with me. The biggest issue being… the tumorous growths within my arm." Benjamin explained quietly, and Benji and Sophia stared at their grandfather in disbelief. "Tumors? W-Wait, what the hell are you talking about?" Benji asked confused, and Benjamin swiftly continued.
"I apparently didn't have them for all that long, but they increased the pressure on my already injured muscles and bones, and then at the Barbecue… I broke my arm when I slapped Michael… Or rather, my bones completely splintered apart in numerous places. And the places around those fractures were exactly where the pressure was the highest, so my flesh was pressed directly into the bones and basically cracked them up more any time I moved my arm. And then, the knife that was stabbed into my arm was the last straw, and it severed misplaced integral muscles in my arm." The old man told them, before looking to his right with a bitter expression.
"They really, really tried all they could, which is why it wasn't done immediately, but… In the end, my arm hat to be amputated." Benjamin told them, and while he was speaking about all of this, the smile that he had on his face prior to this had basically completely disappeared at this point.
"Just like that..?" Benji asked with disbelief spelled onto his face, before the old man nodded his head. "Just like that. My arm has been messed up for a while now. It was a wonder I could even use it to the extent that I could. And now… It just gave in. Luckily, the tumors were only inside my arm, and not anywhere else in my body. I'm as healthy as ever, I just have a limb less compared to before." Benjamin told them, before he looked down at his body, only now really noticing the reality of what this situation looked like.
"And then why are you hooked up to all of this now? Grandpa, please, stop lying to us!" Sophia exclaimed, but Benjamin shook his head. "I'm not lying to you this time. I was operated yesterday, obviously they want to monitor me. The cables are just there so that every part of my condition can be seen by the doctors at the hospital at all times. The tubes give me the pain meds that I need as well as just some regular nutrients that my body may be lacking. I'm not allowed to leave the capsule at the moment, but at least once a day, a doctor will be coming to check on my condition properly. This is just cautionary, really."
With frowns on their faces, Benji and Sophia looked over at Tony for confirmation of all of this, and he swiftly nodded his head. "Yes, he's telling the truth this time. He really is fine, I was there during the conversations with the doctor. This is just regular procedure, although maybe a bit more extreme than usual, because your grandfather is pretty old already, and this kind of situation doesn't happen often, with someone requesting to have the treatment done at home, within a piece of high-tech machinery." Tony answered, before Benjamin nodded his head.
"Exactly, I… I'm… I'm…" The old man tried to say, although he seemed to be getting more tired and tired every second all of a sudden, before Tony turned to Sophia and Benji again. "Seems like the pain meds are kicking in. Dad, go on and sleep for a bit, or rather, go play that game for a while. If you need anything, just call for me." Tony said with a smile, before the old man slowly nodded his head and leaned back inside of the capsule, before Benji closed the capsule for him, and the old man started the game with his last thoughts before he would have dozed off anyway.
And so, quietly, Benji returned to the capsule, while Sophia went back to the livingroom, where Kim was waiting for her. The two of them were going for a walk around town, before she heard some people gossiping about her Grandfather's condition, like people do in any given situation. One of them seemed to be a nurse at the hospital, and spoke about the amputation, so Sophia tried to immediately call her grandfather.
He didn't pick up, of course, but Sophia then swiftly called her uncle instead, who let her know that he came home already. So, with Kim's full support, she then practically sprinted back to the house, where she managed to see the people from Prime industries leaving at the same time as the medical team, as they had to collaborate in the setup for everything.
Sophia sprinted into the bedroom of her grandfather, ignoring her uncle completely, and then tried to just rip the capsule open. In retrospect, she was aware that it was one of the dumbest things she's done lately, even including the escapade with her ending up drunk at the barbecue, causing the whole coming-out-situation to go bad.
"Hey… are you alright?" Kim asked in a soft tone, absolutely worried for Sophia, and she slowly nodded her head. "I'm… I… I don't even know what I am… That was pretty tough to look at…" She explained, so Kim swiftly stepped up to her and simply hugged her.
---
"Sorry about that, everyone… Guess it was something of an 'aftershock' of the long sleep.." Eisen explained with an embarrassed expression, but the others around simply sighed in relief when they noticed that the big guy woke up again.
"That's fine, it was just a bit sudden, that's all… And then Stahl also fell asleep…" Sky answered as he scratched his chin, and Eisen sowly nodded his head. "Yeah… Again, sorry. Anyway, I'm pretty sure Stahl should be waking up pretty soon as well, so let's wait for him for now, and then continue where we left off before?" Eisen suggested, and the others didn't seem to have an issue with it. So, in the meantime, Eisen looked over at the other originals.
"You four… Can we talk alone about something right now?" Eisen asked, and while the others looked at him confused, the four of them slowly nodded their heads. Xenia in particular stood up with shaking knees. Jyuuk tried helping her a bit, but she ended up wanting to do it alone, apparently.
And so, the five of them slowly made their way out of the room together and then up to the roof of the meeting hall, where they hoped to be able to talk in peace. Because Eisen wanted to fill them in now as well.
"Y-Yes..?" Xenia asked nervously, and Eisen just smiled at her. "I want to tell you what's going on, or what was going on with me before. To sum it up…" The old man said in a quiet voice, and then looked around at the others with a light smile. "My arm was amputated yesterday."
And suddenly, the four of them ripped their eyes open wide. "Wait, what do you mean it was amputated? You said you had issues with your arm, but from what you said, it didn't seem that bad…" Jyuuk asked confused, and Eisen replied with a nod. " Yes, I know. Because I didn't really tell anyone the whole truth about it. I just wanted to let you know, because despite our obvious age differences, I trust all of you completely, so I would just like you to know." Eisen explained, so the others slowly nodded their heads, although Xenia in particular was still quite messed up over everything.
The five of them continued speaking about all of this for another little while, but at the end of the conversation, Eisen asked Xenia to stay up there with him for another moment, as he wanted to talk to her privately for a little while about what had happened before, and the High-Elf quietly stayed behind, holding her own arms to keep herself from shaking as she looked at the ground.
"Xenia…" Eisen said calmly, and the young woman seemed to jump immediately at the mention of her name, before the old man simply placed his hand on his shoulder.
"You didn't do anything wrong, so don't think you did. I can't say I know how you feel, but at the very least I understand it. Fear is something horrible, and it can make you do things that you don't want to do. So I'm not angry, or upset, or even disappointed. I'm just glad that you got through this, and are trying to move on." The old man explained with a smile, before Xenia looked at him in surprise as she slowly started to tear up, and the two of them began to talk about some things. Xenia continued apologizing for two minutes straight even after what Eisen told her that she didn't need to. Then, they talked more about what had happened, and what was about to happen. And when they cleared all of that up, Eisen and Xenia made their way back into the meeting room as well, where Stahl was now also waiting again. And so, Eisen sat back down on his chair, where Caria and Melissa immediately tried to sit on his lap again, although they have been doing that for the last week or so that they have been asleep.
"Alright… I was told by Komer that we had to stop for a few days at the last town, although he didn't tell me why yet… What exactly was going on there?" Eisen asked curiously, as he really didn't know what had happened yet, and just wanted to move on from the heavy topics for a little while.
And before Eisen knew it, Stahl grabbed a bag that he had with him, and poured it out on the table. They were 20 small, translucent items with printings on them that Eisen recognized from literally every single coin there was, which made them official, actual money instead of just random crystals.
"Komer… Are those…" Eisen asked confused, and Komer nodded his head with a grin.
"A few things happened while you were gone. One, I found out that my current money-compression limit is at the Crystal Coin level. Two, I made a shit-ton of money for us. And three…" Komer said with a smug expression as he placed another bag on the table, revealing a few small ingots of a certain deep red metal.
And while Eisen's confused face morphed into an excited one, Komer crossed his arms and confirmed what this was. "…I got us a little bit of Maroon."