LOSS in stock collapse 10 BILLION

October 29, 1929

RUNS on BANKS! Depositors DEMAND CASH as experts urge AGAINST PANIC

December 20th, 1929

LAYOFFS! Harvard GRADS join BREAD LINES on the streets of NEW YORK

February 5th, 1930

DEPRESSION hits UK! UNEMPLOYED march in PUBLIC PROTESTS.

March 18th, 1930

Western Union Telegraph Company
BOAT REPOSSESSED - CURRENTLY HOMELESS - NEED HELP - RICHARD

Western Union Telegraph Company
WIRING MONEY NOW - GET TICKET - COME TO BEDFORD - STAY WITH US - INDIANA

Richard looked up at the almost sickeningly picturesque home standing before him. Its red brick foundation, white boards, and black shingles all seemed fresh and new. The hedges and grass weren't the best trimmed, but there were curtains in the windows, an oak tree in the back yard, and plenty of friendly neighbors with their welcome mats out in front of their doors.

His head dipped slightly as the sound of a car door being closed came from behind him. Indiana stepped out, still in his neat college suit. Fortunately, the other man was kind enough to grab Richard's suitcase - carrying all of his worldly possessions - from the trunk before he could turn around to do it himself.

"Home sweet home," Indiana said with a grunt, hefting the suitcase, "We did up the guest room, just for you."

"Thanks," Richard said, trying his best to put on a smile as he followed the other man up the stairs and into the house.

Just after setting foot through the front, Richard spied a familiar face through the window of a side door. Anna sat at a table, across from the single whitest man Richard had ever seen, who gave him a curious glance. Anna, for her part, perked up immediately, looked towards the man for a nod of approval, before shooting off her seat to run towards him.

The first honest sense of joy came over Richard as he crouched down and opened his arms. Anna jumped into a hug, nuzzling her muzzle against his neck before breaking off and saying, "Hey Uncle Rich!"

"Hi Anna, how're you doing?" he asked, standing back up.

Indiana gave the two of them a small smile before proceeding up the stairs with the luggage, leaving the two of them alone. The ghostly man at the table opened a book and looked down into it, squinting his eyes slightly and otherwise remaining silent.

"Been pretty good. Just doing my Civics course with Mr Sanders!" Anna said, rocking back and forth on her hooves a bit, "Oh and yesterday I helped do up the guest room for you! How long are you gonna stay with us, Uncle Rich?"

"Just for a little while," Richard said, hoping to believe himself, "That your private tutor over there?" he asked, pointing towards the man at the table.

"Yep! That's Mr Phillip Sanders! He's originally from Oxford, but he came over here to be with his wife!" Anna chirped, looking over her shoulder towards him. His eyes remained down at his books, "He's cold as ice on the surface but he's a real swell guy when you talk to him more."

"I bet," Richard nodded, before taking a step towards the stairs, "I want to see this room you all have laid out for me."

There was a fully equipped bathroom at the end of the hall, a hall closet full of worn-but-comfortable linens, a study, two used bedrooms, and one guest bedroom. A Queen-sized bed was placed underneath a window, facing out towards the right side of the house. Indiana waited for them, leaning up against a wall next to Richard's suitcase. A dresser with a mirror sat in a corner, a closet was sat open in another, and the floor was carpeted in green. Several cards sat on the dresser, which Anna immediately ran over next to.

"Are those my cards?" Richard asked, walking over to Anna and peering at the artwork on display. They were, indeed, the hand-made cards he'd sent to her for every single birthday since she was 4.

"Yep! I kept each and every one!" Anna puffed out her chest proudly.

"She's always loved your art, Rich," Indiana commented, pushing off from the wall and strolling across the room, "I'll go and prepare dinner while you make yourself at home. Anna, you'd better get back to school."

"Right," Anna said, trotting her way past Indiana and through the door.

Richard, now alone in the guest room, took the card he'd made all the way back in 1924. Turning it over in his hands, a small tear came to his eye as he brushed a thumb over the stiff, watercolor-coated cardboard.

Richard was almost entirely sure he had been fed better slop while on rationing aboard the Safe Travels. He tried not to wear his emotions on his sleeve as he looked down into what he believed was an attempt at a vegetable stew. The components of the stew were too hard and obviously undercooked. There was an almost tongue-wringing amount of salt mixed in with the broth and for some ungodly reason it seemed the pepper had been directly applied to the vegetables while the salt had not been. The only forgivable part of the meal was the garlic bread, which he was fairly certain had been purchased from a bakery.

Sure, the logical part of his brain told him to be thankful he wasn't on a breadline. However, the emotional part of it bemoaned the waste of entirely good, fresh, and supple ingredients in such a travesty of a simple dish.

"So what happened to your boat, Uncle Rich?" Anna asked, somehow entirely unphased by the state of her food despite being a ten year old who, by all rights, should still be flipping bowls at the slightest taste of spice.

Richard was glad for the excuse not to take another spoonful. Lowering his spoon back into the soup bowl, he said, "The bank lended me money to pay for something in return for me promising that if I couldn't pay them back, they could take the boat. I couldn't pay."

"Was that because of the crash, Dad?" Anna asked, chewing on some of her bread and giving a side-glance towards her father, who was somehow happily eating his barely-cooked pepperballs-in-water.

Indiana paused, looking between the other two at his table for a moment, before eventually nodding, "Yeah. It was."

"My friend Bob says that his dad's bank had to go and get a bunch of money from a bunch of people, because they didn't have enough money to pay all the people who wanted to get cash from the bank," Anna scrunched up her muzzle, "Mr Sanders gave me a really long explanation that I didn't really get."

"Well the bank gives money to a bunch of people, right?" Richard said.

Anna nodded.

Continuing, he explained, "They get that money that they give to people because people give them money to keep it safe. So say that your Dad gave a bank fifty dollars to put in his account. And then your neighbor also gives that bank fifty dollars. That bank then loans me fifty dollars.

"If then your dad wanted to take his fifty dollars back, the bank could still do that for him. But if your neighbor also wanted to take the money back at the same time, and I hadn't given the bank all its money back, the bank doesn't have any money."

"So then they have to go after Richard to get their money back, or else they're in big trouble," Indiana muttered, taking a crunchy bite out of a piece of broccoli suspended in his quickly cooling broth.

"Huh, okay..." Anna looked down, then started to frown, "Didn't you say we also borrowed money from the bank, Dad?"

Indiana's lips drew into a line. Richard and him shared a glance across the table, before his gaze slowly panned back towards Anna, "We did."

"Is the bank going to come for the house like they did for his boat?" Anna asked, ears lowering.

That question struck a cold silence in the dining room. Indiana's hand paused, spoon still lowered into the soup as he broke eye contact, staring blankly down at the cloth coating the table. Eventually, though, he shook his head, "The bank still has to follow the law. The law says that if I keep working and giving the bank money like I have been before, they can't come and take anything from us."

Richard spoke up, trying his best to calm Anna as she gave an uncertain look down into her stew, "Anna, your father works as a professor. Because he's real smart, they pay him twice as much as I would get on a good day. You'll be fine, okay?"

Anna didn't look completely convinced, especially as silence descended onto the table again. In all truth, the adults at the table knew she was right to be worried. It was only a matter of time until the layoffs hit academia. With Indiana still being a junior at Marshall, he dreaded every piece of correspondence from the board and sweated through every review before his seniors.

Indiana, fortunately, changed the subject before the atmosphere could become abysmal, "Speaking of work, Rich. I might have some work for you, while you're getting on your feet."

"Mhm?" Rich asked, tearing off a strip of garlic bread to eat.

"The tutor usually takes care of Anna during the day. Summer break's about to come though, and usually that time I'd hire a sitter while I'm working. I figure if you could keep an eye on her while I'm at work, I'd just pay you rather than her."

"How much are you going to charge for room and board?" Richard asked, voice completely honest in its curiosity.

"Nothing," Indiana shrugged, "You're staying here as my friend, and if you do work to keep Anna safe then you deserve to be paid normally for that as well."

Richard's job search for quick and easy employment around Bedford was not the most fruitful. The town, being a college town, had little in the way of working-class jobs for African-Americans in the best of times. Now was not the best of times. The town center had more closed storefronts than street sweepers and anything at Marshall College was way too far out of his league.

Fortunately, though, he considered himself blessed that despite being back at square one once again, after building and saving for so long after getting out of prison. For one, the local church was tolerant of his presence. Second was, of course, Indiana's kindness in allowing him to stay for as long as he wanted until he could get back onto his feet. Third was the fact that, due to the previously mentioned kindness, he didn't need to submit himself to bottom-of-the-barrel work at a mill or factory for less than minimum wage. Now that it was Summer, he could spend time with Anna, slowly collect enough cash to buy some respectable clothes, and look for a more permanent position.

The biggest thing he needed to do before he could achieve that, though, was feed his adoptive niece a real dinner.

Anna sat on a nearby table, writing something in a big, leather-bound journal that she had been gifted as Richard stood in front of the pantry. Opening it, he clucked his tongue, looking back and forth across the shelves, "It confounds me sometimes why your father buys fresh vegetables."

"Why's that weird?" Anna asked, mumbling as she continued to scratch away at the paper with her pen.

"No disrespect to Indy, but he is a culinary trainwreck," Richard sighed, shaking his head before grabbing an onion, two carrots, potatoes, and celery and placing it on the counter, "If he got a position as a cook, there'd be a mutiny the next day."

"Huh?" Anna finally looked up from her book, tilting her head.

Richard dropped it, deciding not to elaborate as he instead raised a hand and gestured her over with the beckon of a finger, "Come here," he said as he opened a drawer and grabbed a knife, "If you learn a bit of cooking, maybe you can eventually take of for your father. I doubt you could do worse than him."

Anna hovered placidly over his shoulder and watched as he diced the onion, peeled and cut the carrots and potatoes, and diced the celery. At the very back of the pantry, nestled right next to a spider's web, Richard found a golden prize of a can of vegetable broth. After swatting Anna's hoof away from grabbing the temporarily unattended kitchen knife, Richard hoisted a pot onto the stove and started the burner underneath it. Butter was soon added, beginning to sizzle very softly.

Letting the pot heat and mincing some garlic, Richard placed it and the garlic on a plate and dumped it into the pan, explaining, "This is what they call sauté."

"That sounds French!" Anna said, nodding her head sagely.

"Probably is. French people invented cooking, you know?" Richard said, using a barely-used spatula to even out the aromatics on the pan, "The vegetables burn really quickly, so you have to be careful and just cook them until brown."

"What're you gonna do with the rest of the stuff?" Anna asked, sniffing a few times as the garlic and onion released their aromas.

"I'll cook them too. It's important to layer the flavors," Richard recommended, taking the plate of the other vegetables and dumping them in soon afterwards, "This way the sharp flavors of the onion and garlic intermingle with the more mute ones evenly."

Anna flew to one of the upper cabinets, grabbing the salt and pepper, "You need these right?"

"Not until we're ready to flavor," Richard said, continuing to gently even out the vegetables while is other hand went for a can opener.

"Dad just puts them in first," Anna said, looking down at the two shakers in her hooves.

"Well your father doesn't know everything," Richard shot back, "He's what my old French bunkmate would call: les incompetent."

Anna raised an eyebrow, "Hey! I thought you said he was smart."

"Smart people are often pretty dumb in certain areas, your father happens to be a bit lacking in terms of cooking," Richard said confidently, taking the shakers from Anna and giving her the opened can, "Pour this in."

Uncertain, but silent, Anna did as she was told. Richard gave her a spoon as he increased the heat on the burner. She was told to gently stir, all while he prepared a few herbs to sprinkle in. They were added in, and after the pot boiled the heat was decreased to reduce the stew to a simmer.

"You can make this yourself, you know?" Richard said, before pausing and eventually adding, "Except for the part where you cut the vegetables. You need to practice before you do that part."

Anna tilted her head, "Mr Sanders said that girls usually get taught how to cook, but Dad said I was to be taught like I was a boy."

"Nothing wrong with learning how to cook. I'm not a woman, but I can probably cook better than most," Richard said, reaching up to scratch the side of his head. His fingers met a short fuzz of hair, indicating to himself that he needed to shave it again.

"Did you get taught how to cook in school?" Anna asked, skimming a bit of the froth from the top of the stew with her spoon, as she had been instructed to.

"No. I learned how to cook because it was the only way I could get out of the boiler room on my old steamship," Richard sighed.

"Most of my friends go to the primary school down the opposite side of town from my dad's university," Anna explained, nostrils flaring as she took another whiff of the increasingly appetizing-looking stew, "Dad says I can't go because the kids will bully me. He says bullying is when you pick on people, beat them up and make fun of them because they're different or something."

"He's probably right," Richard said, pulling over a bar stool and sitting down with a sigh, "We'll let that stew simmer for about thirty minutes, or until the veggies are soft, then we'll season it."

"What was school like?" Anna asked, eventually coming to sit on the counter next to the pot.

"It was okay," Richard shrugged, "Don't remember much about it though. I had to get pulled out around seven."

"Why's that?" Anna asked, focusing still on stirring the pot - perhaps too aggressively, but Richard didn't feel the need to correct her about a relatively small mistake in the process.

"The school was new where we lived," he explained, "There used to only be a white school. As soon as the black school opened up, my mom dressed me up and sent me there to learn how to read and count. A year later, though, some people called the Klan came and set fire to the school while we were all inside. The police just watched, and they would've burned the whole thing down if the fire brigade didn't come and blast them with water. Bless their souls. After that, mom pulled me out of school and taught me everything she knew at home."

Anna tilted her head, "Why'd they do that? The people who set fire to the school?"

There was a pause as Richard considered his next words, before he simply said: "They just don't like blacks, plain as that."

"I think that's pretty dumb," Anna surmised, looking back down into the pot and stirring a few more times, "Maybe they need to read some more books and go to more schools, rather than burning them down."

"A lot of things about this world would be better if people read more books," Richard said, leaning onto the counter and looking over to the notebook still lying on the nearby table, "Speaking of, what're you writing? I thought you were on holidays."

"I was writing that for fun," Anna said, hovering over to the notebook and opening it. The well worn pages, soaked with ink, were filled with unsteady but legible handwriting (or should it be hoof-writing?). She held it out for him to read, saying, "Last year, Mr Sanders told me to write a short story, so I wrote about how Dad went and found out that the world was hollow on the inside and fought wizards. Now I'm writing about the time I went and found a dead guy in a mine!"

Richard hummed in curiosity, taking the book from her. Despite not being of any particular amount of education, Rich could tell the writing was fairly juvenile, messy, and ambiguously worded. Still, likely due to Anna's superior levels of education, it was better than anything he could write if he put his mind to it.

He was more of a painted art and poems man, anyway.

"Let me get you the completed one I wrote last year," Anna said, taking the book back and closing it, before zipping back up the stairs.

While he waited, he lowered the heat on the burner again. The vegetables were soft, now it was just to keep it warm for the rest of the time they were waiting for dinner. Eventually, the fluttering of wings turned him back around, and he was presented with a tattered, paperback notebook with a crude title scrawled on the front:

Indiana Jones and the Interior World

"Nice title," Richard said, taking the book and humming, "Makes him sound like some regular action hero."

"That's cause that's exactly what he is," Anna insisted, placing her forehooves on her hips as she continued to hover.

Richard looked over the cover, before giving a glance back up to Anna, "You know, every good book needs a good piece of cover art."

Indiana Jones later arrived, nearly dead on his feet, to his home an hour later. Walking through the front door, he was met with an aroma that he hadn't quite smelled since his childhood, coming home to his mother's cooking. His daughter and her sitter were already at the table, eating their stew while Richard painted something on a canvas.

Indiana's portion was already served, sitting at the head of the table, and rapidly cooking. Almost as soon as Indiana could kick off his boots, he had sat down and dug in.

Eventually, Richard turned his small canvas around, showing Indiana his work. It was a vague sketch of Easter Island, with tribal warriors armed with spears in the foreground, the starting vague sketch of what seemed to be Indy's own face, and a bold, illustrated title scrolling across the top. The text, a gradient of orange at the top to yellow at the bottom, read "INDIANA JONES and the INTERIOR WORLD".

Anna seemed to be delighted for it, and Indiana was more than happy to pose for a reference later for Richard to fill in his face.

"You should get it printed," Richard said, "Just one copy. That notebook will deteriorate very quickly, and it'd be a shame for it to go to waste."

"I dunno, maybe once we have some spare money," Indiana murmured, hungrily downing another spoonful of the stew before giving a slow, calculating look over to the other man, "Rich... how much do I have to pay you to get you to cook every night?"

Richard didn't take his eyes off the canvas, but gave a hearty laugh instead, "Just give me money so I can get the right ingredients, Indy. Not having to suffer through your cooking is payment enough."

Anna snorted, then started to giggle furiously. Eventually, Indiana gave an exhale through his nose and smiled, nodding in surrender.

Richard continued to touch up his work late into the night, even after Anna had gone to sleep and Indiana had retired to his study to complete his quota of paperwork. Eventually, after completing just enough work to not feel guilty about procrastinating, Indiana walked down the stairs to the living room. There, Richard sat on the couch, delicately working on his canvas as it sat, propped up by a makeshift easel of books and other random trinkets sitting on top of the coffee table.

Indiana gave a quick glance towards the clock, spying the time as around a quarter-past-ten. Rubbing an eye, he made his way across the dining room and into the living room to take a seat across from his old friend.

"How's work?" he asked, brush quietly tapping against the canvas.

Indiana sighed, "They have me working on an extra class over the summer. They fired the guy who used to teach it - veteran of eight years at the head of that course. They don't even pay me any better, but I can't afford to complain."

"Not a time when you can afford to be picky about work," Richard muttered, before clicking his tongue and shaking his head, pulling his brush away from his canvas as he examined what seemed to be a mistake in his craft.

"I'm sorry about your boat, Rich," Indiana offered, leaning forward in the armchair with the slight squeak of its springs.

"I was finally at the top, Indy," Richard said, dipping his brush in water and slumping into the couch, "I was the skipper. Nobody could tell me what to do when I was out there on the water. I was making an honest living..." he shook his head, "Sometimes I wonder why God lets these things happen."

"I'm afraid I'm a man of science, not a man of the cloth," Indiana said.

"Ah, what would you know, anyway," Richard grumbled, "You've got it down, Indy. A good job, raising a brilliant young girl, have your own house... I'm just a poor, rotten man drifting aimlessly through the doldrum."

Indiana got up, straightening out his shirt, "I used to be pretty unhappy, you know. When I met you, I was fresh from the War, no family, working dead end at a restaurant for ten hours a day in a single bedroom apartment. Things'll get better, Rich, I'm sure," a pause, as Indiana half-turned back towards the double doors leading to the dining room, "Want cocoa?"

"Sure," Richard sighed, before adding, "Sorry for sounding bitter, it's just... it's a lot."

Indiana simply waved a hand of dismissal before walking to the kitchen to put a kettle on.

Woolley Hall, the main site of Marshall College's extensive anthropology and archaeological facilities, had long been awaiting the opening of a new extension. A small museum, replacing some of the old and outdated lecture halls that were being moved elsewhere. Significant investments from the National Museum, and charitable donations from famous names like the Donovans had slowly overhauled the old building, patching the leaks in its roof and its subsiding foundation, and rebuilding much of the architecture in the style of its original design.

The opulent and fantastic, though small-scale, museum and new archaeology lab had been set to open its doors in the new year. The date had been pushed back several months as the economy rapidly grew uncertain and administration began to reshuffle itself. Yet, despite all the difficulties, the new expansions to Woolley Hall opened to fanfare and visits from all of its various benefactors.

A full month after its opening, Marcus Brody, the National Museum's representative at Marshall and the curator of Woolley Hall toured through its exhibits. Walking side by side with him was Indiana Jones, using the mere thirty minutes he had between lectures to take his first look at one of the displays.

"Well, here it is, your first displayed work..." Marcus said, holding out a hand towards one of the glass cases. Inside, a restored piece of pottery lay. One of the pieces Indiana had retrieved on his fieldwork, "Astro expedition, yes?"

"Jastro," Indiana corrected, "It's nothing compared to some of the other pieces we got, Marcus."

"Yes. Stolen and sold off..." Marcus creased his forehead, "Did you ever manage to figure out by who?"

"I have my suspicions, just no evidence," Indiana shrugged, "I think it was one of my students, Sophia Hapgood, who did it."

"Ah well, not much you could've done about it, Indy," Marcus sighed, reaching out and tracing a finger on the glass. Several smudges and thumbprints had been left on the pane, leading him to mutter to himself, "We must rope these off so the students stop smearing their hands on the glass."

Indiana creased his forehead, looking around. With just one sweep of his eyes, he spied discarded cigarettes, smears of mud and dirt piling up under the seats. Humming, he said, "Custodians are slacking. Only a month into operation and this place is looking run down."

"Custodian, singular," Marcus shook his head, "I'm afraid with how shaky the opening of Woolley has been, there was only room in the budget for minimal staff," he followed Indiana's eye, kicking a discarded cigarette with a shoe, "With things going how they are, though, we're losing more money than we're saving by turning all our patrons away with the mess."

"Seems pretty simple. Just hire another cleaner," Indiana said, mind wandering to his next classes as he rubbed his chin and began to wander.

"If the board had their way, they would just have me add some more overtime onto my current staff," Marcus scoffed, "Crack the whip, as some might say. Bollocks. You're right, though, I should put out an ad in the paper for someone to work the nightshift. Surely we'll get applicants lining up after a single circulation, in this economy..."

Indiana paused his wandering, turning around, "Hey, actually... do you mind if I give a recommendation for you to interview first?"

"...And then add the white sauce evenly across it, like you're painting the sheet," Richard instructed calmly, watching as Anna copied his movements on the pasta base. The spoon, coated in the cheesy, creamy sauce they had just finished whipping up, moved back and forth as it slowly evened out the first layer of their pasta.

Ever since Richard had gotten the ability to search out and buy his own ingredients, he had gotten the opportunity to tutor Anna on more and more complicated meals. Slowly, Anna herself had realized just how much she had been missing out in terms of food. She assumed that it took a lot more to make a good meal, which was why they charged so much for good food at restaurants.

Indiana, while initially having blushed a lot at his own skills being made into a bit of a joke, had eventually leaned into the idea. It definitely helped that the quality of dinnertimes had skyrocketed ever since Richard had taken over the cooking. If he could've had the money to spare, Rich suspected Indy would've just hired him on as a full-time caterer.

"When I go, you gotta know how to make this yourself," Richard said, guiding her hooves as she layered on the savories for the central parts of the lasagna, "Or else you're going to have to go back to contending with your father's cooking."

"Will we still be seeing each other, Uncle Rich?" Anna asked, taking another sheet of pasta and layering it on top for the final part of the dish.

"I'll be living by the church," Richard muttered, "They don't got a pastor, so they're renting out the parish at the back."

"It was real swell having you, Uncle Richard," Anna said, placing the cheese on top and keeping her eyes down on her work as she hovered next to the preparation area, "If it means anything, I hope you get your boat back someday."

"You know..." Richard began, pausing before eventually saying, "I'm starting to think maybe I don't need a boat to be happy."

"Well yeah, but I still hope you get your boat back," Anna rolled her eyes, as if it was obvious.

The front door squeaked open, Indiana stepping through it. It was Saturday, so as usual he was a few hours early back from the university. He approached the kitchen, taking a whiff of the raw pasta as it was inserted into the oven, holding something behind his back. Anna, to preoccupied with guiding the glass dish into the oven, only offered a "hi" as she did so.

"Did your friend come back about that job?" Richard asked, leaning back on the counter and eying the object held behind Indiana's back.

"You got it, of course," Indiana chuckled, "Not exactly a very competitive job in terms of required skillsets."

"Thanks Indy, for everything," Richard said, giving a smile.

Anna looked between the two of them, mirroring his smile as she closed the oven door and folded her forelegs. Eventually, though, her eyes were magnetized towards the secret item her father was keeping from her. Coyly, Indiana swayed back and forth a few times before eventually revealing the item.

"Your demo copy came back from New Haven today," Indiana said, holding out a crisp, new hardcover copy of a book. On the front was a copy of Richard's original cover art design, and inside was the story of Indiana Jones and the Interior World, preserved forever.

Author's Note

the next four chapters will each cover one of Anna's important people as we wrap up the final stages of her development before Temple of Doom finally kicks off!

I want to say, while Doom isn't my favorite original trilogy entry, I'm actually very very proud of what I've done with it.

Also, i might trade Fate of Atlantis's slot with Great Circle's. If I included both, I think they would crowd each other out for character development time and such.