Sketch commission by  bugmemory

His parents warned him about the necessity of getting a "real job." He was smart enough to study law or medicine. He could have gone into the family business. He could have had security, safety.

But you can't dissuade a wombat with an idea in his head. Emmet knew that universities were useless. They only taught you to follow the same paths that others had walked. Security and safety! Pah!

Anyone could read an academic journal. No need to plop your bum in a crowded lecture hall for it. If his hunches were accurate—and no one with a mind for "security and safety" would ever believe that they were—he would need to build from scratch anyway.

And the clock was ticking. He wouldn't be young forever.

The first thing he needed was a burrow of his own, somewhere away from prying eyes. Somewhere he wouldn't be disturbed.

Like everything that meant anything to him, he would need to handle it himself.