Ideally big enough to squirrel away his whole backpack, but he'll settle for something big enough for his laptop and notebooks.

For now, he'll work on moving the soil to collect any air bubbles that are already present together, just to get the hole started. Then he'll head back the surface and look for decently inconspicuous place for him to cut through the grass and start bringing down air and bring up loose earth.

He can occupy himself doing this for some time.

And he will! And once the hidey-hole's big enough, he'll collecting branches from bushes to reinforce the walls with.

And Arthur will start rereading one of his math textbooks, at least it starts getting dark.

It's a little over six hours in total before the Hearthkeeper returns. It is now midday in the garden (and in the rest of the refuge).

"I figured out how to move the angel around, and prevent it from entering designated spaces. For now, that's just private spaces where you wouldn't be able to open the door, and within about a few inches of people other than you. I won't have any difficulty handling any trouble it causes in the future. Thank you for your patience, Azzy."

Arthur has not been literally holding his breath for the last six hours, but the sigh of relief he lets out might make you think otherwise. "Thank you, Hearthkeeper. I'm sorry again for the trouble," he says as he closes the textbook and stands. "Do you know whether this has been enough time for the garden to be claimed?"

"If you leave your tent here, it will almost certainly count. If you don't, it will likely also count, but less certainly."

He nods. "I just really don't want to lose my stuff, but...I'd like to have pizza again for lunch, if I can. And maybe try and make friends."

"You wouldn't loose your stuff—I'd be able to retrieve it for you. You'd just loose this specific garden. I could find you a replacement that satisfies the same criteria, it just wouldn't be exactly the same."

He looks relieved, again, to hear that, and nods with a smile. "Thank you. Is there anything else I should do before I head out?" he asks, then adds, "uh, if it's getting close to lunch time. I don't know when people here usually eat."

"I don't think there's anything in particular you need to do before leaving. Mealtimes are highly variable based on personal preference, cultural practices, the differences in appetite and digestion between various species, etcetera. This time of day is a fairly common time for people to eat. Dinnertime, six to eight hours from now, is the most common time for people to eat, and the schelling point for social activity in the great hall."

He nods again. "I think I'll still get something to eat now, but I'll make sure to check back around dinnertime as well."

And, if it doesn't seem like she has more to say or want to take him anywhere, he'll head out and start trying to find the kitchen.

The hallway outside the door to his garden is different, but if he wanders around for a while eventually he'll run into another hallway with a few people walking through it, and if he follows them it's only a few minutes to the great hall (to which the kitchen is attached). There are maybe fifty to a hundred people present, either eating food at the tables or preparing it in the kitchen (which is actually quite large and has enough space for this). Most of them look human, human-ish, or humanoid, but there are also a few cats and people with various non-humanoid body plans.

The snake-person Arthur saw in here when he first arrived is eating at a table with a few other people he doesn't recognize.

Wow! It's ages since he was in a room with this many people. Maybe not since before he ran away and was still going to school. It's honestly a bit nerve-wracking, but also kind of nice? There's enough seemingly normal people here that he might be able to disappear into the crowd a bit.

He'll head to the kitchen, see if he can conjure up another frozen pizza from the cabinet and find a free oven to start preheating.

He can do that, or he can stick his pizza on the spare rack of an oven someone is already using at the temperature he needs.

Eeeh, he doesn't know if a magic oven works the same, but he knows he's run into trouble trying to bake his pizzas when there's other stuff in the oven at the same time. Maybe he can ask one of the other...refugees (?) about it. And about what a good word for 'the people living in the Hearthkeeper's Refuge' might be, but for now he'll stick with using an empty oven (and try and ward people away from using it while his pizza cooks).

Regardless, after retrieving his well-done pizza and acquiring a glass of milk, he'll return to the great hall and assess the tables to see if there are any groups that seem especially amenable to a newbie joining them.

Well, if he stands around with a plate of food looking for a place to sit, it will be obvious enough that he's looking for a place to sit, and someone will give him a friendly wave. There are a few free spots at their table.

Sure! An invitation is an invitation.

Who's he sitting with? And what were they up to, if anything other than just eating lunch?

A young human man and a young woman who looks human except for the blue fur covering her body. They seem to just be chatting and eating.

"Hey. I'm James."

He's speaking recognizable American English, surprisingly enough.

"And I'm Tasha. You're the old new guy, right? We heard you were in time dilation to solve some problem."

Arthur gives an embarrassed smile. "Hey, yeah. I'm Azzy. I have an, uh...I just call it my guardian angel, even though it's been more trouble than help in here, and it kept going into people's rooms. The Hearthkeeper got that all fixed now, though!"

He attempts to take a bite of his pizza and recoils as it's still too hot, which seems to remind him of a question on his mind. "How long has it been, on the outside? If you know."

"Two hundred fifty-ish days, I think? I don't know exactly when you arrived, I just heard of your existence through the rumor mill. It's always a minor event when someone new shows up, you know? And then when no one saw you and we found out you were, you know, it was kinda mysterious and interesting."

"And, if you want to keep it mysterious and interesting, don't tell anyone why you were in time dialation. We'd keep your secret." Tasha adds, with a wink.

The angel got him run through the rumor mill! God damn it.

"Uh. Any idea what sort of rumors were being milled? Depending on what they are, the truth might be preferable..."