The Ventureweaver

While the Lantern Was Home

I want to write this down while the feeling is still close enough to touch. The last stretch at home changed me. I spent it with my family and with all of you, and it felt like time finally let me breathe. There were mornings when the house was quiet, just the little sounds of life moving from room to room, and I could sit with a cup of coffee and open The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge like an old map. Other days were loud and warm and messy and perfect, the kind of days that only happen when you forget the clock and actually live in the same room together. I was home because I had to slow down. Surgery will do that to you. It forces you to ask questions you usually dodge. What am I doing. Who am I doing it for. What would I miss if it all stopped. I do not recommend the pain, but I am grateful for the lessons that came with it. Rest taught me more about work than work ever did. It taught me to listen, to my own body, to my family, and to the tiny voice that still wants to build worlds out of words.

In that time, I became a programmer again. Not the person who stares at a problem until the screen blurs, but the kid who wants to see what happens if you nudge the rules. I remembered the first thrill of getting a room to print just right, the goofy pride when an NPC line lands, the quiet joy when a loop closes, and the world actually holds together. I also became an artist again. Not because I painted anything, but because I started paying attention. The light on the kitchen table. The rhythm of footsteps down the hall. The way fear and hope both feel the same at first. All of that made its way into the game.

The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge has always been my stubborn little miracle. It is a place I can go when the real world starts gnawing at the edges. While I healed, the Labyrinth became a room in my house and the house became a room in the Labyrinth. I would write a description of a forest path and then go fold laundry. I would fix a directional link and then make lunch. It all flowed together. Work and love and code and story. I did not know life could feel that honest. And you were there for it. Your messages. Your patience. Your faith that this strange project matters. Without you and without this game, life would lose a lot of its color. That is the truth. There is a comfort in knowing that somewhere out there, someone is reading the same line I just wrote and seeing the same lantern flare to life. We have shared a lot of rooms together. We are only getting started.

Now I am heading back to the workforce. I am going to show up on time and do the job. I will do it with a steady hand because my family deserves that and because the work is honest. But I want you to know that you are not getting rid of me. I carry all of you with me. You are in my pocket like a lucky coin. You are the reason I keep the notebook open. You are the voice that says try again, there is one more room to write, one more corner to polish, one more path to tie in. My day job will get my hours. The Labyrinth will keep my heart.

Those days at home taught me to treasure small things. A working compile. A sentence that bites. The sound of my kid laughing at something I did not mean to be funny. It taught me that art is not a career ladder. It is a practice. You show up. You make the thing. You try to tell the truth. Some days it is hard. Some days it is pure electricity. Either way, you keep going. That is what being an artist feels like to me now. That is what being a programmer feels like too. You build. You break. You fix. You learn. You build again.

So here is the promise. We keep going until the wheels fall off. We will add rooms. We will shape new maps. We will make the nights stranger and the mornings softer. We will meet people who are lost and give them names and let them haunt us for a while. We will keep the tone human and the world hand made. No paywalls. No tricks. Just the game and the people who care about it.

To my family, thank you for letting me heal in the middle of our life. To all of you, thank you for walking these paths with me when I could not walk very far in the real world. I am back at work now, but the lantern is still on my desk, and it still glows. When the day is done I will come home, sit down, and light it again. Then we will step back into the dark and see what waits just beyond the next turn.

Keep the lantern lit.