《A Sky Full of Tropes: Aether Engineer》 Chapter 1: Baby in a Strange Land
Reincarnation initiated.
Entering zone: Tiganna/Tempest/Corwen
Local time: 9:13 pm, November 30th, Year 729 of the Age of the Green Fox
I am suddenly aware. I¡¯m more than this tiny, weak form, but memories of other lives fade upon incarnation into my new body. The emotion they left me with remains, however: Excitement. Anticipation at experiencing new things. A crackling fire bathes the room in light and warmth. I see faces and hear voices around me. My infant senses can¡¯t make out much, though.
You have been given the name: Drake
You are now a member of faction: Corwen Hearth
Another box springs up in my ¡®third eye¡¯. I¡¯m pretty sure there isn¡¯t actually an eye visible from the outside, but I can clearly see these system interface windows without impeding my vision.
Corwen
Welcome to the world, little one! My name is Corwen, and I¡¯ll be your Hearth! I¡¯m here to assist you with adjusting to your new life. Would you like to open the system interface tutorial?
Accept
Decline
Okay, I have no idea what in the heck sort of world I just reincarnated into, but apparently there are smart homes with neural links that get implanted into newborns. I¡¯m not sure whether or not I should find this disturbing, but that¡¯s apparently the world I¡¯ve got. Fine, let¡¯s see this tutorial. I try to think in the general direction of the ¡®Accept¡¯ button. Fortunately, the interface is designed to be intuitive.
Corwen
All right! Check out this button. This opens your character screen. That will show you all sorts of information about yourself! Try it out and take a look!
An arrow points to a highlighted icon with a rough humanoid silhouette. I select it.
Name Drake Corwen Tempest Tiganna
Race Human
Class Child
Gender Male
Rank Basic
Age 7 days
Attributes
Health 1/1 Your body is newborn and fragile.
Stamina 1/1 You grow tired rapidly and must nap frequently.
Sanity 10/10 You¡¯re keeping it together.
Inspiration 37/37 Your mind is a fountain of creativity.
Strength 0.1 Your weak muscles cannot lift anything.
Dexterity 0.1 Your clumsy fingers will succeed at no craft.
Perception 0.1 Your nascent eyes are a blur and your senses are dim.
Endurance 0.1 Merely sitting up is beyond your capability.
Intelligence 23 You are educated in the ways of logic and reason.
Willpower 16 You have the self-control of a typical teenager.
Charisma 19 You blend into the scenery.
Soul 5,780,912 You have lived an unfathomable number of lives and their experiences open your mind.
Skills
none
It seems I wasn¡¯t actually named until I was seven days old. That¡¯s an interesting array of attributes, now what the heck is up with that Soul level? I¡¯ve lived many lives? Too bad I don¡¯t remember any of them but the first one, if that¡¯s true. Or at least I assume my life in 21st century Earth was the first one. Maybe it¡¯s just as well, though. What, exactly, does that sort of absurd number get me?
The Soul attribute governs the following general skills:
Recollection You can recall knowledge and skills from previous lives.
Clairvoyance You can detect and identify vis around beings and in the environment.
Enhanced Soul Available when you turn 7 years old.
Necromancy Available when you reach Elite rank.
I go through more of the tutorial in between growing up. I¡¯m fully conscious on some level that doesn¡¯t just involve the meat brain I¡¯m in at the moment, but there¡¯s only so much I can do as a baby. I read through every bit of information the system will tell me about skills while trying to get to know my new family. Including whatever language it is they¡¯re speaking. It sounds like gibberish at first, but after listening to them babble for an indeterminate amount of time, I get a notification box.
The sounds people make start to make sense to you.
Skill acquired: Language (Common)
Description: The tongue of the common people of the domains. Includes both spoken and written forms.
This language is eligible for auto-translation. Enable? (Note: Use of auto-translation will prevent this skill from gaining experience.)
Accept
Decline
Auto-translation, how convenient. I accept.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. I share a room with a woman I assume is my mother, named Anise, and another woman who seems to be the same age who I think is my aunt, named Hazel. I spend an excessive amount of time listening to them bicker, and while I don¡¯t catch all the words yet, the tone definitely sounds like sibling rivalry. They¡¯re fraternal twins, and Anise is the elder by 12 minutes, a point which comes up on more than one occasion. We spend a good deal of time in a large room with a big, warm fire in the middle along with a number of other people. From what I can gather of the bits of conversation I catch, I have a great many aunts, uncles, and cousins, and most of us are named after birds and flowers. I haven¡¯t seen the outside yet. People are singing Christmas carols. Except they¡¯re not really Christmas carols anymore, and many of them have had completely different words put to them. I switch on and off the auto-translator to see how badly it¡¯s mangling the words, and I¡¯m somewhat impressed that the auto-translator managed to make them still rhyme seemlessly. Still, I try to act like a normal baby and not worry too much about stuff. I don¡¯t know how they would react if they knew how old my soul is. For all I know, they¡¯d consider me a demon and throw me into the closest volcano or something. I need more information. And while the system tutorials are useful for skill info, that doesn¡¯t tell me anything about the attitudes of my relatives toward reincarnators. The first time I see the sky, though, I know for sure I¡¯m not in Kansas anymore. (Not that I ever spent much time in Kansas.) There are lights in the sky, but they aren¡¯t stars. It¡¯s hard to make out with my infant eyes and puny Perception score, but that much is easy to tell. Blobs of light hang in the sky like distant lamps, most of them green, some blue or yellow. Naturally, I babble and try to reach out my tiny hands toward them. I am a baby, after all, and that might be what a normal baby would do, right? My mom snuggles me close as she carries me across the village green. High, solid walls surround the small village, and there¡¯s a nip of winter¡¯s chill in the air. Ahead, a large evergreen has been decorated with little lights and ornaments. I haven¡¯t heard anyone say the word ¡®Christmas¡¯, but that looks very much like a Christmas tree. And that¡¯s very much the tune of ¡®O Christmas Tree¡¯ they¡¯re singing even if it¡¯s not the same words. It¡¯s all a little surreal. My mom sits down at a bench and a man approaches her with a large box covered in blue and gold wrapping paper. She encourages me to tear it open, but I need a little help with the ribbons. Once free of its festive packaging, my gift is revealed: a plush mallard duck, with a green head and larger than I am. ¡°A drake for Drake,¡± my uncle (probably) says merrily. I put my little arms around the soft toy and babble happily. This is the best present I¡¯ve ever gotten! That I remember, at least. An older woman comes up with another gift, this one containing a onesie made of soft black wool. My mom takes that aside for the moment and I continue hugging my new duck. My attention is shortly drawn away from my gifts. Something is happening in the sky, and the lights on the tree have gone¡­ weird. That¡¯s the only way I can describe it and I can¡¯t see it too clearly from here. The lights on the tree shimmer for a moment longer, and then streak up into the sky. The sky is starting to glow violet. No, not the sky, a giant crystal sphere so large that it takes up most of the sky. I didn¡¯t even see it at first since it was dark before. Sparkles of light play across its surface as it brightens quickly to bathe the village in violet light. Around me, the villagers are cheering and applauding, and burst into a rendition of ¡®Auld Lang Syne¡¯, but I can¡¯t make out half the words anymore than I could the original version. I wave my tiny hands to the sky and babble in unfeigned wonderment.
It is now Year 730 of the Age of the Green Fox.
The box in my third eye helpfully informs me of the change in date. There doesn¡¯t appear to be a sun, but it seems there¡¯s some sort of year cycle anyway. What a peculiar world I have reincarnated into.
The following months see me growing and learning. Talking, walking, and potty training are on the agenda, and I¡¯m looking forward to two of those more than the third. With the New Year having come and the skies turned light, the village becomes less crowded as people go traveling again. My mom and I no longer need to share a room with her sister. Most of the people in the village live in the big building called the Hearth. It reminds me of a castle, but it¡¯s very homey, and people spend a lot of time in the large round room at the base of the central tower, also called the hearth, although I think this one is lowercase. It sounds lowercase, at any rate. Around the village, there¡¯s a workshop I¡¯m not allowed into, a store where I¡¯m not allowed to touch anything, a school I¡¯m too small to attend yet, and an inn where the people who aren¡¯t related to me stay. There¡¯s also a fenced area with a barn containing terrifying black goats the size of mustangs, with glowing red eyes that feel like they burn into your soul if you catch their attention. I haven¡¯t seen any sign of a dad around here, and my mom never mentions one. I have a great-grandmother named Laurel whose only sign of age is a white streak in her black hair. Everyone treats Laurel with great respect. I¡¯m not sure if she¡¯s the one in charge of the Hearth, but she¡¯s definitely in charge of the barn. Not many people actually want to go near those devil-goats, but she treats them like her babies. I can¡¯t keep track of all the names of my aunts and uncles. I do, however, quickly learn the name of Aunt Myrtle. They refer to her as the Elder Hearthkeeper, and she rules the kitchen with an iron skillet. The lights in the sky don¡¯t stay the same color. The smaller ones change colors throughout the course of the day, although not all in sync. The big one that takes up most of the sky only changes colors every six weeks. Come mid-February, it shifts to a deep, clear blue. My relatives say the indigo season has begun. My physical stats have also gone up another 0.1 points each. If anyone suspects I¡¯m not just an ordinary baby, they don¡¯t say anything in my hearing. My efforts pay off with an unexpected message.
No one suspects a thing.
Skill acquired: Subterfuge (Acting)
Description: The art of putting on different mannerisms and postures.
I¡¯m certainly not going to complain about filling out my status screen. I¡¯ve played enough games to appreciate the feeling of seeing numbers go up. I do have to wonder if anyone in the village is capable of seeing my stats somehow, though. Can anyone see what skills I have? I suppose it¡¯s not worth worrying about, though. Either they can or they can¡¯t and there¡¯s not much I can do about it either way. Chapter 2: A Colorful Year The first time I¡¯m actually taken outside of the village walls is after the end of the indigo season, April 1st, when the sky changes to a bright sky blue. The azure season is here. Spring is starting and the early flowers are in full bloom. My mom carries me down a dirt road through an apple orchard, each tree covered in buds that haven¡¯t quite opened yet. We arrive at the festival grounds, where vendor stalls have been set up selling books, crafts, and food. In the center of the grounds stands a massive oak tree full of buds. Under it, several benches made of logs sliced in half are situated around a fire pit. Several people are gathered around a bonfire, laughing and talking and having a good time. I watch everything closely, trying to see more than just what my eyes can see. I¡¯ve been trying to unlock the magical sight Corwen said I was supposed to have for months without apparent progress, but exposure to a bunch of new things is enough to tip it over the line.
Your third eye has opened to the world.
Skill acquired Clairvoyance (Aura Sight)
Description: The vis output of living beings appears in your third eye as colors and patterns.
With my third eye, I¡¯m starting to be able to see green life energy slowly wafting off of each tree. The people in my sight have auras as well, but theirs are a different flavor, more complex but each of them with a backdrop of violet. There¡¯s a few animals around the festival as well, most of them with an orange aura, but there¡¯s one of those creepy devil-goats that my family keeps bearing an ominous red aura instead. There¡¯s some older children playing games, but I¡¯m only a few months old and not quite up to playing Tag yet. My mom and one of my uncles are willing to push around a ball in the grass so I can play something, at least. A ball that, strangely enough, looks identical to a soccer ball I might have expected to be able to buy in California. Where did they get this? Did someone make this? Unfortunately, any answers are going to have to wait until I can actually talk. I never actually had kids in my first life and don¡¯t really want to try too hard to remember the other five million and whatever lives I apparently had. I¡¯m pretty sure I¡¯m not supposed to be doing much in the way of walking and talking until I¡¯m at least a year old, though. I can wait. There¡¯s still plenty of other skills I can unlock in the meantime. The highlight of the spring festival is the Skill Fair, where people get up in front of the log benches and show off their skills. One young man juggles flaming torches to much applause. A woman in a flashy green dress plays the flute and dances lightly. An older woman recites poetry using quite a lot of fancy words I don¡¯t quite catch. I don¡¯t have the Stamina to make it through the entire festival. I¡¯m already dozing off to baby naps by the time my mom takes me back to the Hearth.
More time passes, and the turning of the sky from azure to green is heralded by a Beer Festival to which babies aren¡¯t invited. My mom goes off to have fun and leaves me in the care of Aunt Myrtle. ¡°Now you behave, do you hear?¡± Aunt Myrtle says. ¡°I won¡¯t stand for any babies messing up my hearth.¡± I pretend I don¡¯t understand her and just coo and try to examine everything as best as I can. The kitchen is full of weird magitech appliances that only vaguely resemble familiar ones. There¡¯s one with a glass pot that resembles some sort of coffee maker, just powered by glowing magic sigils rather than electricity. Aunt Myrtle is very busy but she must have some sort of detection skill herself, because the minute I try to get into anything, she¡¯s swooping in to stop me. I don¡¯t give up in my attempts to sneak around, though. Sadly, no sneaking skills are forthcoming just yet. On July 1st, when the green sky turns yellow, my mom takes me out to a summer festival. This one is a trade fair, and people have brought a lot of crafted goods to show off as examples of their expertise. ¡°I wonder what kind of class you¡¯re going to pick when you grow up,¡± my mom muses aloud. ¡°The wood carver over there has a xylophone. I¡¯m betting you could annoy the shit out of the elders with that. You ever think about being a bard?¡± I make some noncommittal baby noises and she carries me on past some more stalls. ¡°Nobody¡¯s going to let me get you anything sharp yet, of course,¡± Mom goes on, unconcerned by my lack of coherent response. ¡°You¡¯re gonna need to wait some years before I get you a knife.¡± I¡¯ve been starting to learn that my mom is not the most responsible of parents. ¡°How about a puzzle?¡± Mom suggests. ¡°You seem like a smart kid and that¡¯ll help you train smarty skills.¡± One of the stands has some beautifully painted jigsaw puzzles, and my mom lets me pick one out with a dragon on it. ¡°Be careful that he doesn¡¯t try to eat the pieces,¡± warns the vendor, but my mom waves off his concerns and pays with a handful of coins. When we get back to the Hearth and I get a chance to play around with it, I am very careful with the pieces and don¡¯t put them in my mouth. Fine, it might be more baby-like to do that, but it¡¯s too nice to mess up and I don¡¯t want it to get taken away from me. As it is, it takes hours to complete with my low attributes. Once it¡¯s finally done, I¡¯m rewarded with a system message.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Congratulations! You have completed an Easy difficulty puzzle.
Skill acquired: Search (Puzzles)
Description: The ability to locate and assemble pieces of puzzles, such as jigsaw, light beams, etc.
I clap my little hands together in glee and giggle loudly as I admire the completed dragon image. I didn¡¯t expect to get a message and a skill out of it! At six months old, my physical stats are all now up to 0.5 points. I¡¯m going to infer that they¡¯ll hit a full 1 point each when I reach my first birthday. Mid-August sees the sky turning from yellow to orange. There¡¯s a Harvest Festival in September that seems Thanksgiving-inspired, but no one actually says Thanksgiving. I¡¯m almost ten months old by this point, and some of my relatives let me have a little bit of mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce. My mom even gives me one small spoonful of pumpkin pie filling. The centerpiece of the harvest feast is a whole roast devil-goat with an apple in its mouth that takes up an entire table inside the hearth. I¡¯m not allowed any of it, so maybe next year. People have been piling into the Hearth over the course of the orange season, and by the time the sky turns red, it¡¯s packed and I¡¯m back to sharing a room with my mom¡¯s twin sister, Aunt Hazel. She¡¯s six months pregnant with twins and seems to take up half the room all by herself. There¡¯s an undercurrent of tension among my relatives, as well as a fair bit of anticipation and excitement. ¡°What kind of monsters will we see this year?¡± is a common sentiment. There seem to be a number of adventurers in the Hearth who are eager to fight something. The Hearth has gone into siege mode and the overworld is swarming with monsters beneath the blood red sky. Some of my aunts and uncles take to the village walls and snipe at them with arrows and fire spells. Dead giant spiders are brought into the hearth and turned into ¡®seafood¡¯. I don¡¯t think I¡¯m up to eating spider chowder yet, even if people say the meat in their limbs is like lobster. ¡°I scryed a Legendary Headless Horseman riding around on the roads between the Hearths,¡± says one of my aunts, Heather. ¡°I don¡¯t want anyone under Epic rank going far from the walls. Laurel and I are the only ones that can go toe-to-toe with a Legendary ranked monster.¡± ¡°I want its horse,¡± Grandma Laurel says. ¡°Of course you do,¡± Aunt Heather says with a longsuffering sigh. Being not quite a year old yet, I will obviously not be participating in my great-grandmother¡¯s quest to tame a spooky high-level mount, but I can cheer her on from home. And also thoroughly avoid going near the stable anytime soon because I¡¯m sure the thing is even scarier than those devil-goats. I¡¯m becoming more mobile, and with so many more people in the Hearth, my mom is trusting them to keep me out of trouble while she snipes giant spiders from the village walls. Anise is only Elite ranked, and eager to get in as many kills she can of the monsters she¡¯s able to handle. ¡°If I¡¯d been more dedicated, I should have hit Heroic before I turned 21,¡± Mom says. ¡°But my party went and out-leveled me while I was goofing off.¡± ¡°You still have time to catch up,¡± Aunt Heather says. ¡°Have you tried mentorship? It¡¯s often worth a significant Deed for a student you trained to succeed.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not sure if I¡¯m much of a teacher, but I could give it a shot,¡± Mom says with a shrug. ¡°My son is smart. Hopefully he wants to be an adventurer because I can¡¯t really help much if he has aspirations toward becoming a great chef.¡± I circle around the edge of the hearth. There¡¯s a mural on the walls of a family tree sprawling up the central tower and out of sight beyond the upper floors. I don¡¯t think I¡¯m up to climbing a tower yet, but I take a closer look at the names and faces on the ground floor. Two individuals with golden plaques make up the earliest generation, bearing the faces of a man and a woman. I squint at them, and can manage to read the words etched into them. They¡¯re written in Common, but in the usual Latin alphabet, so they just look like English to me.
Ash
Jan 1st, 1 GF - December 30th, 300 GF
Guardian Hearthkeeper
Spawn of Corwen
Apple
Jan 1st, 1 GF
Tempest Archmage
Spawn of Corwen
So the two founders of Corwen Hearth were¡­ spawned? Did Corwen just clone them in a vat or something? I wonder what those early days of the Hearth must have been like. No death date is listed for Apple. Does that mean she might still be alive somewhere? Neither of the pictures show any sign of age. Do higher rank individuals just naturally live longer? I¡¯m guessing the golden plaques signify Legendary rank. Higher up, there are plaques of wood, iron, bronze, and silver, which might represent Basic, Elite, Heroic, and Epic ranks. If there¡¯s something higher than Legendary, I don¡¯t see any examples of it visible from the ground floor. Ash didn¡¯t have any kids, or at least there aren¡¯t any noted here. Apple had five children by five different fathers. I¡¯m sure a Legendary [Guardian Hearthkeeper] must have made a fantastic uncle for them. I finally manage to slip out of the hearth to explore the Hearth without some aunt or uncle stopping me and plunking me back down in the middle of the room with a toy.
Skill acquired: Subterfuge (Sneaking)
Description: You can make your movements and actions quieter to avoid attracting unwanted attention.
My hard work (or mischief) has paid off with another addition to my character screen. What kind of a baby would I be if I didn¡¯t push the limits of what I can get away with? Most of the rooms in the Hearth¡¯s four wings are bedrooms, of course, and even the ones normally used mostly for storage are full of capacity during this time of the year. Each wing has a couple bathrooms as well. I¡¯m quite happy that my new home isn¡¯t so medieval that it lacks indoor plumbing. It doesn¡¯t take long for me to get caught and be returned to the hearth by a well-meaning aunt, but I¡¯m not about to give up yet. My adventures have only just begun. Chapter 3: One Big Happy Adventuring Family As the red sky fades to black, Grandma Laurel and Aunt Heather do glorious battle (or so I assume as I don¡¯t get to watch) with the Legendary Headless Horseman. Aunt Heather brings back the pumpkin head as a trophy, still sinister-looking even with its face holes unlit. ¡°Did Grandma get the horse?¡± Mom asks. ¡°Or did you have to kill it?¡± ¡°She¡¯s working on it,¡± Aunt Heather says. ¡°She¡¯s not going to bring it into the village until she¡¯s sure it¡¯s not going to attack anyone.¡± ¡°And you¡¯re sure that pumpkin head won¡¯t spring up and attack anyone?¡± asks Aunt Hazel. ¡°It¡¯s fine,¡± Aunt Heather says, setting the jack-o¡¯-lantern aside as it definitely doesn¡¯t still have any flickering lights inside it or anything. It¡¯s a week into the dark season before Grandma Laurel returns. My body¡¯s actual birthday, not that anyone even notes that except my character screen. My mom brings me out to watch Laurel ride her new Legendary mount into the village. It¡¯s pure black, with glowing green eyes, and looks absolutely enormous underneath a tiny woman like my great-grandmother. A red aura swirls around it similar to the ones around the devil-goats, marking it as a monster rather than a normal animal. Laurel waves to her descendants, nieces, nephews, and neighbors as she rides into the village square. ¡°Check out my new friend!¡± ¡°Cool mount!¡± Mom says. ¡°Have you named it yet?¡± ¡°I¡¯ve decided to call him Boo.¡± Some of my relatives aren¡¯t as enthusiastic about the latest addition to the village as my mom, but everyone seems pretty used to Grandma Laurel¡¯s weird pets. At least this is just a horse, after all, albeit a weird horse. She has apparently brought back things with tentacles before. My naming day comes with a small celebration, although with most of the family inside the Hearth this time of year, every meal feels a bit like a party anyway. I unwrap a set of wooden blocks, painted brightly in eight different colors. I also receive plenty of clothes, along with my first pair of shoes. Everything fits perfectly, and I hear a mention of an Aunt Dahlia who made them, though I couldn¡¯t pick out her face from the crowd. And so another Not-Christmas season ensues. I¡¯m able to hum along to some of the oddly altered holiday carols, but I don¡¯t have the words down yet even if I could say them all clearly. I¡¯m looking forward to talking and running around. Being a baby in a strange world has been a bit boring even as it has been simultaneously overwhelming in some ways.
Aunt Hazel¡¯s twins are born three weeks premature in February, but by tradition, they aren¡¯t given names until a week after their full term date. It¡¯s a little eerie hearing people talk about ¡°the boy¡± and ¡°the girl¡± while carefully avoiding saying an actual name for either of them. On March 3rd, 731, we celebrate their naming day and formally induct a healthy pair of fraternal twins into the Hearth. The girl is named Willow, and the boy Griffin. A naming ceremony is conducted in the hearth in which everyone that¡¯s here touches the baby and says their name. I don¡¯t really remember this having been done for me, but I was still pretty disoriented at the time and my senses weren¡¯t at 100% yet. At least I can take part in this one, although I hope calling them ¡°Wawa¡± and ¡°Gaga¡± doesn¡¯t mess anything up somehow. I¡¯ve been here a year and four months and I still have no idea how the System actually works. ¡°You¡¯ll be getting a new sister soon, too,¡± Mom says. I tilt my head at her in puzzlement and poke her in the belly. ¡°Sisi?¡± Mom chuckles. ¡°Well, not from there, obviously. One of my old adventuring buddies got pregnant but she¡¯s a long way from her own Hearth, so I agreed to adopt the girl so she can keep delving.¡± My mom always talks to kids like adults that can understand her completely. Aunt Hazel is full of baby talk and positively coos over her newborn twins. ¡°Let¡¯s go meet her, shall we?¡± Mom says. ¡°She¡¯s staying at the guest house until the baby is born. Sadly, she won¡¯t be able to attend the naming ceremony since outsiders aren¡¯t allowed inside the Hearth.¡± I¡¯m walking a bit by this point, but my little legs can¡¯t go very far yet unaided. Mom lets me walk as far as I can out of the Hearth until she has to pick me up and carry me across the village square. There¡¯s a heavily pregnant woman sitting in front of the inn¡¯s hearth, sipping a cup of tea. Her complexion is darker than anyone I¡¯ve seen around here, clearly marking her as a foreigner. Mom plops me down on the bench next to her. ¡°Hey, Halima!¡± Mom says. ¡°This here¡¯s my son, Drake. Drake, this is my friend, Halima Khobar Zephyr.¡± I reach over and poke Halima¡¯s huge belly. ¡°Sisi?¡± Halima laughs heartily. ¡°Yes, little Drake, that¡¯s your future sister in there.¡± ¡°When are you due, anyway?¡± Mom wonders. ¡°The Hearthkeepers say it should be about a week but wouldn¡¯t be surprised if she decides to come out any day now,¡± Halima says. My future sister isn¡¯t in a hurry to come out, and we wind up holding her naming day on March 25th. In a ceremony echoing that of the twins, she¡¯s given the name Juniper. She¡¯s dark-skinned, but not as dark as her birth mother. Probably has a local for a father, maybe even one of my many uncles. Halima leaves again shortly after the naming ceremony. She¡¯s an Epic-rank Cleric and her party is expecting to meet up with her to delve a dangerous dungeon on the other side of Tempest Domain. There¡¯s some Hearthkeeper magic that helps with breastfeeding that I don¡¯t really care to think too much about as I¡¯m happily eating actual food by now and never going to be a mother nor a Hearthkeeper. I still haven¡¯t quite decided what sort of class to aim for, but I know I want to go out and explore and not just take care of the Hearth and feed everyone. The addition of three more little babies has made the already-lively Hearth even livelier. Sadly, I¡¯m going to need to wait a bit longer before they¡¯re terribly interesting to interact with. I¡¯ve been working on puzzles and games to try to unlock more skills, but there aren¡¯t any other kids my age to play with. The closest is Burdock, who is about to turn seven in September. There¡¯s some preteens, as well as several teenagers who are away most of the year attending a boarding school so I only see them during their winter breaks.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. This is a big deal, because when a child turns seven, they get to pick their first class. I¡¯m glad to get at least one chance to see how that works before I actually have to deal with it myself. Burdock loves animals and is one of the few people willing to go near Grandma Laurel¡¯s creepy horse and the devil-goats the village keeps. Sometimes he brings critters he finds into the hearth, much to Aunt Myrtle¡¯s dismay. ¡°No spiders in the hearth, Burdock!¡± Aunt Myrtle says firmly. ¡°Grandma Laurel says it¡¯s a tar-match-ora, not a spoder,¡± Burdock protests. ¡°No tarantulas in the hearth, either,¡± Aunt Myrtle adds. ¡°Also no rats, no bats, no squirrels, no snakes, and in fact, absolutely no live animals whatsoever unless they¡¯re cats. Anything else found in here is getting eaten. Have I made myself clear?¡± ¡°Yes, Aunt Myrtle,¡± Burdock says, drooping as he takes his magenta tarantula and leaves the hearth. I¡¯m going to need to climb the central tower and find our plaques near the top in order to figure out exactly how he¡¯s related to me. I¡¯ve seen his mom but I¡¯m not even sure what her name is. I¡¯m going to go out on a limb and guess that she¡¯s probably named after a plant or bird like everyone else here seems to be. And I think I might just be strong enough now to make the climb. I just need to slip away and make it to the stairs up when no one is looking who might say that babies who are a year and a half old shouldn¡¯t try to climb towers. It takes a few tries, but on the day of the Beer Festival when most of the adults are out celebrating beer, I finally make it to the stairs without any aunts or uncles intercepting me. I¡¯m rewarded for my efforts with a system box.
You¡¯re getting better at evading detection.
Your Subterfuge (Sneaking) skill has increased to level 2.
The spiral staircase runs up the interior of the central tower, and I need to stay low to avoid being spotted from below. The steps are too high for my little legs anyway so I have to half-crawl up the stairs. The upper floors are mainly used for storage, and there¡¯s a dumbwaiter to help move heavy barrels and crates to and from the kitchen area. It might have been easier to use that to get up the stairs, but there¡¯s also more eyes on it. Also, I¡¯m really hoping to unlock a skill for this. I¡¯m almost disappointed that I didn¡¯t get a skill for walking. I guess the skill system considered that too basic to count as a skill, and it¡¯s probably best that my character screen not get cluttered up with things like that. After climbing up only a single flight of stairs, I have to sit down and rest for a moment and take a breather. My Max Stamina is only 2, so this might take a bit. I hope nobody notices me missing, but my mom is probably deep in a pint by this point. While I catch my breath, I notice that there are murals on the walls, but the floor is cluttered with so many containers that I can¡¯t make out what they depict. Once I¡¯m recharged, I start in on the next flight past a few more generations of Corwens. One fancy platinum plaque stands out, the first Mythical member I¡¯ve seen so far, Verbena the [Witch Hunter]. I think I heard her name mentioned in one of my Bard uncle¡¯s stories. (I have uncles named Hawk and Falcon. One is a Bard and one is a Ranger and I can never remember which is which.) She doesn¡¯t have a death date listed, so I guess like the founder, Apple, she¡¯s still out there adventuring somewhere. Green light streams in through a couple of windows to the outside, and there¡¯s a door possibly leading out to a balcony. I strain to reach the doorknob to see what¡¯s outside, but can¡¯t quite get a grip. Fortunately, there¡¯s plenty of boxes up here, so I push one of them next to the door so I can open it. The fourth floor balcony has a breathtaking view of the village. I can even see over the high walls out to the apple orchards and countryside beyond. Looking up, I see with some dismay that I¡¯ve only made it like halfway up the tower. Well, let¡¯s see how much further I can get before someone realizes I¡¯ve wandered off. Another floor, and another. At this point I¡¯m pretty sure that I¡¯ve been gone long enough that someone might be starting to get worried about me. Aunt Myrtle and Burdock¡¯s mom (whatever her name is) were in the hearth and didn¡¯t go to the Beer Festival, after all. Finally, after climbing seven flights of stairs, I reach the top and the current generation. I find my own entry, and my sister and cousins. My mom and Aunt Hazel were born in 706, so they¡¯re on this floor, but Burdock is the youngest of three and his mom was born before 700, and so will be on the previous floor. Dammit, this mural would be more functional if it had transparent floors and people hadn¡¯t cluttered up the space in front of it so much. The plaques list the names of our fathers and both of Juniper¡¯s parents, but it seems if a parent is a member of the Hearth, there¡¯s just a line leading down to their entry instead. I ran across a couple instances of people hooking up with their fourth cousins, too.
Drake
Nov 30th, 729
Child
Child of Walker Serenity Sky
That¡¯s my dad¡¯s name? Really? Okay then. Well, I aim to see the top of this tower before I head back down there to find her. After resting up to refill my Stamina bar, I push ahead to the top. There¡¯s a hatch at the end of the stairs with green light peeking in around the edges. The hatch is locked. Double dammit. Well, I didn¡¯t come this far to be stopped by a locked door. I carefully slide my butt down the stairs and rummage through the boxes in storage until I find a container of old kitchen utensils. I pick out one that might suffice for a lockpick, and return to the hatch. Did I ever know how to pick locks before? In five million lives, I must have done at least once. I think hard about it as I mess with the lock. It¡¯s not like I have anything better to do until I get hungry or someone finds me, so I might as well try. I remember playing video games, but I don¡¯t think I learned this skill in my first life. I keep reaching as hard as I can, which brings up every lockpicking minigame in every video game I played. Nothing from any other lives yet, but maybe I need actual levels in the skill for it. It¡¯s good enough, the system declares as the lock clicks open.
Congratulations! You have picked an Easy difficulty lock.
Skill acquired: Mechanics (Lockpicking)
Description: You can open physical locks without the key by using specialized or improvised tools.
Note: Does not work on magical seals or sigil locks.
I breathe a sigh of relief and elation as I push open the hatch. I climb out into the green ¡®daylight¡¯. The skymotes are turning orange, so it must be getting late. I¡¯ve been up here for hours. My rewards for my effort aren¡¯t done yet.
Congratulations! You have climbed to the highest point in Corwen Hearth.
Your Max Stamina has increased by 1 and is now 3.
Skill acquired: Athletics (Climbing)
Description: You can ascend a cliff, rope, or just a very long set of stairs.
Fantastic. I do a little baby dance and go look out over the edge. (Without getting too close and definitely without dancing near it.) I can see the entirety of Tempest Domain from here. A huge, perfectly circular disc comprises the land beneath my feet, its edges limned with orange light that seems to be coming from somewhere below and to the northwest. Above that point, a ¡®moon¡¯ that is clearly another floating island hovers in the sky, lit up in orange as well. Most of the land is flat or gentle hills, but a single mountain looms to the southwest, the only landmark I can see higher than this tower. I¡¯m sure there must be other towers, but my Perception isn¡¯t high enough to make out more details from here. Footsteps approach from the stairs, and my mom emerges from the stairs, looking mildly tipsy. ¡°Wow, you made it all the way to the top,¡± she says. ¡°Oh, hey, I got a Deed! Did I really never come up here before? Huh. Nice view. Zenith is pretty in orange. Come on, let¡¯s try to not fall to our doom.¡± She scoops me up in her arms, and hopefully isn¡¯t drunk enough that we¡¯re more likely to tip over this way. And she still doesn¡¯t bother carrying me more than one flight down the stairs like that before plopping me into the dumbwaiter. ¡°Say whee!¡± Mom says as she sends me on a quick trip to the ground floor. ¡°Wheeeee!¡± I cry out as several agonizing floors fly past me. Totally worth being grounded forever. I still didn¡¯t find out the name of Burdock¡¯s mom, though. Drat. Chapter 4: The Flying School Bus Burdock¡¯s 7th birthday arrives, but he refuses to tell anyone what class he picked. I¡¯m not sure about the secrecy, though. Anyone could just climb seven flights of stairs up the magically growing tower and look at his automatically updating name plaque. I might just make the trip up again sometime out of pure nosiness and also because I still haven¡¯t figured out what his mom¡¯s name is yet. I¡¯ve been using my time-outs to try to unlock a meditation skill of some sort. I¡¯m always getting into things I¡¯m not supposed to because I don¡¯t care if I get in trouble. ¡°What¡¯s your class?¡± I ask. ¡°I don¡¯t wanna say,¡± Burdock says. ¡°Why not?¡± ¡°Because people will expect me to be a Hearthkeeper and I don¡¯t wanna be a Hearthkeeper.¡± Burdock has two older sisters. Daisy is twelve, and Lily is fifteen. Lily is at the Crux Academy for most of the year, but will be getting back to Corwen before the Harvest Festival at the end of September and will be staying until the New Year. Three full months of a holiday break, lucky her. ¡°Hey, kids,¡± Mom says. ¡°Wanna see a skyship? The older kids are about to get home for the holidays.¡± ¡°Skyship!¡± I exclaim in an excited almost-two-year-old voice. Juniper coos, probably not understanding our words but taking in our cheer and excitement clearly. Mom picks her up, and I toddle after them out of the Hearth. ¡°The skyship from Crux Academy will be docking at the gate tower,¡± Mom says. ¡°Where is Cruck Acama-dee?¡± I ask. Mom chuckles. ¡°Crux Academy is in the domain of Crux. That¡¯s another one of the floaty bits of land that float around the glowy bits in the sky. You¡¯ve seen Zenith up there, yeah? Crux is lower in the sky than Tempest so we can¡¯t see it from here. The skymote, Tiganna, is close so it¡¯s super bright, way brighter than those far away little skymotes up there.¡± ¡°Wow,¡± I say. ¡°Sometime I¡¯ll take you kids to the edge so you can see the whole system,¡± Mom says. ¡°Er, most of the system, anyway. Can¡¯t see Sorrow from here, either. Thorn¡¯s in the way and it¡¯s huge. Oh, look, there it is!¡± I gaze off in the direction she¡¯s pointing. Silhouetted against the orange sky, a vessel with four wing-sails is coming in to dock. The gate tower is only half the height of the central tower, but it has a skydock attached to it with room for a skyship to dock. As it comes closer, I get a better look at it. It has a hull shaped like a sailboat, painted school bus yellow and sporting rows of square windows. The four sails, positioned at the four diagonals, are made of some sort of light blue silken material too smooth and thin to be canvas. The sails shift and furl as the vessel comes to a stop at the tower¡¯s dock. Remaining floating in the air as if it were the sea, the skyship extends a gangplank to the dock. Several people get off the ship and head down into the tower, but I can¡¯t make out any faces from the ground even if I could remember all the relatives I have met briefly as a baby. Burdock, Daisy, and their mom are waiting for Lily, who approaches from the tower with a bag over her shoulder and a wild pink hairstyle that manages to scream ¡°15-year-old¡± in a way that somehow transcends time and space. Aunt What¡¯s-her-name goes up and hugs Lily, who silently replies with that ¡°embarrassed teenager being hugged by Mom¡± expression on her face. ¡°Oh, it¡¯s so good to see you again. How were your classes? You didn¡¯t get into too much trouble, did you?¡± They head into the Hearth, and my mom takes us for a closer look at the skyship. After climbing the central tower, she doesn¡¯t even ask if I can manage the gate tower. The skyship would probably look more magnificent if it didn¡¯t look paradoxically like a flying school bus. ¡°You kids boarding or just gawking?¡± asks a feminine voice with an odd flange to it. There¡¯s a giant spider the size of an adult human sitting on the deck of the skyship. I squeak in surprise and hide behind my mom¡¯s legs. Juniper starts crying. ¡°Sorry, forgot to mention the aranea!¡± Mom says, comforting the baby in her arms. ¡°It¡¯s okay, kids. She¡¯s not a monster.¡± I blink and take a closer look. Sure enough, rather than the red aura I¡¯d expect of a monster like a devil-goat, this giant spider has a lively violet aura around it. Or her, I suppose I should say. ¡°Ararranny-ah?¡± I repeat slowly, peeking out from behind my mom. ¡°Aranea,¡± Mom repeats. ¡°They¡¯re people like us. They just have eight limbs instead of four.¡± ¡°Nice to meet you,¡± the spider says. ¡°But I do have work to do so if you¡¯re just here to gawk, please stay out of the way.¡± Juniper slowly calms down, and we watch the aranea work for a few minutes. The way she handles the ropes makes me think they might be made of aranea silk and not any sort of canvas. Like a master puppeteer, she gives the strings a few tugs, and the silken sails unfurl. The skyship pulls away from the dock and soars on to its next destination.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. ¡°Wow,¡± I breathe. With the skyship gone, we head back to the Hearth. I want to grill the older kids on everything they¡¯re willing to tell me about the academy, but unfortunately, I¡¯m not really up to complicated sentences yet and the teenagers aren¡¯t terribly interested in indulging a baby. So I just sit in the hearth and listen to them gossip instead. ¡°I¡¯m still Basic rank and I¡¯m already twelve!¡± Daisy bemoans. ¡°I¡¯m so worried I¡¯m not going to make it to Elite in time.¡± ¡°Well, I didn¡¯t make Elite until I turned nineteen,¡± Mom says. ¡°I didn¡¯t go to a fancy school. I went out delving dungeons instead.¡± Daisy pouts. ¡°But I really want to go to Crux Academy! And you¡¯re still only Elite and you¡¯re old.¡± ¡°I¡¯m twenty-five,¡± Mom grouses. ¡°I can still catch up.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t want to have to catch up,¡± Daisy says. ¡°I want to be a great Wizard and I¡¯ll never get to be a Wizard if I don¡¯t reach Elite before I turn fourteen! You¡¯re a Sorcerer and that¡¯s not the same.¡± ¡°Keep collecting Deeds and I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll make it if you¡¯re determined enough,¡± her mom says. ¡°Study hard and don¡¯t slack on practicing your skills.¡± Either getting to Elite must not be very hard, or the children in Corwen Hearth are very determined if we have so many of our youths attending a prestigious academy. Daisy gets into the bags of the students to swipe their books to read when they¡¯re not looking. ¡°Daisy!¡± her mom says. ¡°Did you take your sister¡¯s books? And your cousins¡¯?¡± ¡°I¡¯m a [Scholarly Child]!¡± Daisy protests. ¡°I have to read books and I¡¯ve already read all the books in the village several times!¡± ¡°The proper thing to do is ask politely, young lady,¡± her mom says. I sympathize and I¡¯m already making plans (however premature they might be) to get into Crux Academy. The way I see it, it¡¯s never too early to start planning your build and accumulating experience. Of course, ¡°before I even know what all the requirements are¡± might still be too early. Juniper, Willow, and Griffin are happily playing on the floor, completely uncaring that the older kids are stressing about their futures. I should really join them. I slide off the bench and crawl over to play. Over on this side of the hearth, a teenage boy is talking about how one of his classmates got possessed. ¡°Wouldn¡¯t that be awful, some long-dead ghost taking control of your body?¡± he says. ¡°Nobody even noticed anything at first, but he acted just off enough for someone to check if his Soul attribute was unlocked.¡± A colored block clumsily slips out of my hand as I overhear this. ¡°What did they do to him?¡± asks an aunt. ¡°Oh, they killed him, of course,¡± the boy says. ¡°Crux doesn¡¯t play around with dark magic and nobody wants the dead around. Forbidden knowledge is forbidden for a reason. Can you imagine if it had been one of our cousins?¡± ¡°Ugh,¡± the aunt shudders. ¡°The thought of a ghost parading around in the skin of a child is horrifying.¡± I grab another block and force myself to stay calm and act like a normal baby.
You remain calm and composed despite your distress.
Skill acquired: Discipline (Composure)
Description: The ability to control your emotions and prevent them from affecting your behavior.
Your Subterfuge (Acting) skill has increased to level 2.
Just a normal baby. Just a normal baby. Not some dead guy from a place called Earth. And I definitely don¡¯t know anything about anything I¡¯m not supposed to know about. I need to find out more about this somehow. Like whether they include reincarnation in that. Because I¡¯ve been in this body since it was seven days old, so no one ever knew what Drake Corwen would have been like if he hadn¡¯t been me. Then again, what would happen if I leaned on my Soul skills and kept bringing up memories of more lives than my first one? Would I wind up ¡°possessed¡± by some other version of me, maybe? I suppose there¡¯s a risk every time I use [Recollection]. Are we just the sum of our memories? I feel like if I know what the five million other versions of me did, I would not be surprised at anything they did and would probably have done the same were circumstances identical. There¡¯s got to be a way to hide my Soul stat. Either there isn¡¯t anyone around here that can scan my status screen, or no one is as eager to kill me for it as they might be in Crux. I love my new family. I don¡¯t want them to look at me like they¡¯ve seen a ghost. I act normal and laugh like an innocent, playful child. I¡¯ve been looking at everyone else¡¯s auras but never thought to turn my psychic vision upon my own. My aura is dark, black as the crystalline sky in December. Anyone with [Clairvoyance] would know what I am at a glance. Except, anyone with [Clairvoyance] also needs to have a Soul stat. Corwen told me about my potential as a necromancer and psychic with the cheer of a computer that isn¡¯t concerned about the social ramifications. Corwen, are you listening? Are you always listening to my thoughts?
Corwen
Hello, Drake! I¡¯m always listening! What can I help you with?
Little bit creepy but I don¡¯t think I care. I¡¯m pretty sure my bedroom TV remote was listening to me, too, so whatever. Corwen, are any of my family members going to kill me if they find out I¡¯m reincarnated?
Corwen
Certainly not! If any Hearth member were to deliberately harm another, they would be expelled from the Hearth.
I suppose exile is a serious punishment when there¡¯s annual monster swarms. But is that the case even if someone did do something heinous and criminal?
Corwen
Of course. The Hearth comes before all else. You are expected to protect your Hearthmates above all else, even if their own actions lead them into trouble, and they are likewise expected to protect you. If someone¡¯s behavior causes too much trouble, they may be confined to the Hearth for their own safety, but must not be harmed.
I understand. But what if they considered me to not really be a member of the Hearth because I was ¡®possessed¡¯ or something?
Corwen
You are a member of this Hearth. I did not incarnate you by mistake. I paid quite a bit of essence for you. So long as you do not betray me, I will make sure your Hearthmates do not mistake you for an invader.
I see. That¡¯s how it is, then. You bought me like a hero unit. I find myself giggling aloud, baby-like, at the thought. I should probably be upset, but I don¡¯t really have it in me to be mad about this. I¡¯m happy to be alive and looking forward to having fun exploring a fantastic world. I¡¯ll try not to disappoint. Chapter 5: Burdocks Familiar I¡¯m fully able to enjoy the Harvest Feast this year, being almost two years old. And then the sky turns red and monsters emerge from wherever it is that monsters emerge from. My family is present and accounted for, aside from the ones who aren¡¯t, and everyone¡¯s ready to roast some monsters whether in combat or the kitchen. ¡°I¡¯ve scryed our surroundings,¡± says our resident Oracle, Aunt Heather. ¡°I¡¯m detecting vampire bats, mostly Elite rank, so anyone Basic rank is going to need to stay indoors unless accompanied by an Elite. Outside the walls, I¡¯ve spotted Basic-rank skeletons and some wraiths as high as Epic rank. Get weapons and spells prepared for dealing with semi-corporeal undead.¡± ¡°Anything edible out there?¡± asks Aunt Myrtle. ¡°Not that I can see this year,¡± Aunt Heather says. ¡°Just undead types.¡± ¡°Pity,¡± Aunt Myrtle says. ¡°Well, we¡¯ve got plenty of food stockpiled so we should be fine, but the Winter Feast might be leaner this year than usual.¡± For my second birthday, I receive more clothes and a new puzzle. Grinning, I eagerly set to work on putting it together right away. Mom comes to ¡®help¡¯ but mostly just watches and lets me find my own pieces. With me turning two and Burdock turning seven, we¡¯re moved to our own room away from our mothers and sisters. The Hearth is crowded this time a year, but an elderly uncle I didn¡¯t really know died so us boys are getting his room. Our new room is in the north wing, closest to the barn and the school. This will be convenient for Burdock, and me once I start attending lessons, but it also means our window view includes terrifying devil-goats. Burdock has a secret, and it¡¯s not just what class he picked. He got a quest, and he and Lily snuck out behind the school building that nobody told me was there right beside the barn with the creepy goats. I suppose they didn¡¯t figure I would need to go there until I could, you know, read and write and sit still through lectures. I can already read but I¡¯m not letting on that I can yet, so I suppose I¡¯ll have to wait a few years before I can devour every book in the village like Daisy did. If we weren¡¯t in a room by ourselves and he were still stuck with his mom, he wouldn¡¯t be able to hide it very well. As it is, the big speckled egg the size of my head gets wrapped in woolen blankets and stuffed under his bed. ¡°I hope Lily doesn¡¯t tell on me,¡± Burdock says. ¡°Mom will flip!¡± ¡°Won¡¯t someone notice once it hatches?¡± I ask. ¡°What¡¯s going to hatch from it?¡± The egg has a red aura around it like a monster. As much as I like my cousin, I would prefer not to get my face chewed off by a baby monster in my sleep. ¡°Dunno,¡± Burdock says. ¡°But Corwen gave me a quest for it, and I¡¯m sure Corwen wouldn¡¯t tell me to do something that would hurt us.¡± ¡°Uh-huh,¡± I say. ¡°This was a gift from Corwen! I¡¯m sure Grandma Laurel would understand, even if your mom might not. She knows all about monsters. She could tell us what it is!¡± Burdock grouses. ¡°I dunno¡­ What if she wants to take it away? This is my monster.¡± ¡°Grandma Laurel wouldn¡¯t do that unless it¡¯s dangerous,¡± I say, then pause. ¡°Prolly not even if it is dangerous. You know how she is.¡± ¡°I guess that¡¯s true,¡± Burdock says, perking up a little. ¡°Alright. Let¡¯s go see our grandma.¡±
Congratulations! You have successfully persuaded a Basic Child.
Skill acquired: Persuasion (Diplomacy)
Description: The ability to keep tempers calm and negotiate with others.
An unexpected bonus that I really ought to start expecting along with a backhanded compliment. I¡¯ve lived in a world of magical status boxes for two years now. I should start getting used to seeing them pop up regularly. We retrieve Grandma Laurel from the hearth and tell her we want to talk to her in our room, and she humors us and comes along. ¡°Is this about your class, Burdock?¡± Grandma says. ¡°You hoping to become a Beastmaster like me?¡± ¡°I dunno yet but¡­¡± He surreptitiously makes sure the door is shut and lowers his voice. ¡°Corwen gave me a quest for a monster egg.¡± ¡°Oh, that¡¯s fantastic!¡± Grandma says. ¡°A familiar to go along with your new class! Where is it? Let¡¯s go get it. Or would you rather run the quest with someone Elite rank so you get more experience?¡± ¡°I already did the quest with an Elite and got the egg,¡± Burdock admits, pulling it out from under his bed.The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. ¡°Ah, now there¡¯s a beauty,¡± Grandma says, cradling the egg on her arms. ¡°Do you know what will hatch from it?¡± Burdock asks. Grandma chuckles. ¡°Certainly, but why spoil the surprise? She¡¯s healthy and will hatch on the New Year and if you keep her close like under your bed there, she will bond with you as your familiar when she sees you.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a she?¡± Burdock asks. ¡°She isn¡¯t some sort of undead, is she?¡± ¡°No, just a regular monster, and not a huge one either,¡± Grandma says. ¡°Not terribly dangerous, but I¡¯m sure she¡¯ll prove very useful. Go ahead and keep her wrapped up warm under your bed until the end of December.¡± ¡°Will my mom be mad at me?¡± Burdock whispers trepidatiously. Grandma snickers. ¡°Li¡¯l Maggie needs to lighten up already.¡± ¡°Auntie¡¯s name is Maggie?¡± I ask. ¡°Magnolia,¡± Grandma says. ¡°And if I¡¯d known she¡¯d wind up with such a stick in her behind, I wouldn¡¯t have named her after a tree. Don¡¯t tell her I said that.¡±
Another dark season passes, and Burdock is practically vibrating with anticipation for the hatching of his egg. When the first day of the year 732 comes, we¡¯re prepared with Grandma Laurel watching over to make sure nothing weird happens. In the meantime, she has taken the opportunity to teach Burdock some basic information about monster care and how familiars work. The speckled egg quakes and cracks, and a paw reaches out of the shell before it disintegrates entirely. A perfectly dry fluffy little monster sits where the eggshell shards should have been. It¡¯s a kitten. Large enough to be an adult cat, but definitely proportioned like a newborn. A gray tabby, looking very much like the more ordinary hearth cats, but four ears and a trio of glowing green eyes mark her as clearly a monster. ¡°Oh, aren¡¯t you beautiful,¡± Burdock says. ¡°I name you Mipsy!¡± ¡°A cat?¡± I say. ¡°Cats don¡¯t hatch from eggs.¡± ¡°This one did,¡± Burdock says. Grandma Laurel chuckles. ¡°Monsters don¡¯t always play by the same rules. You see how she just absorbed what was left of the egg?¡± The monstrous kitten curls up in Burdock¡¯s lap, purring loudly. ¡°I got a box telling me we¡¯re bonded now!¡± Burdock says. ¡°Now that I have a familiar, maybe people won¡¯t think I want to be a Hearthkeeper just because I¡¯m a [Nurturing Child].¡± ¡°There¡¯s a lot of paths you can take from [Nurturing Child],¡± Grandma says. ¡°You don¡¯t have to take any of them you don¡¯t want to. Why don¡¯t we go out to the square and introduce Mipsy to everyone?¡± Burdock¡¯s eyes widen, and he holds the kitten to his chest protectively. ¡°Maybe later.¡± ¡°Be aware, a normal kitten would be grown in a year or two,¡± Grandma says. ¡°But a familiar is tied to your vis. She will share your lifespan and won¡¯t reach her adult form until you turn 21. If she dies, you can bring her core back to the Hearth and Corwen will respawn her. If you die, she dies.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll try not to die,¡± Burdock says.
Burdock¡¯s familiar turns out to be a nightmare to share a room with. Mipsy is full of energy and is as playful and destructive as any kitten. Any time Burdock isn¡¯t paying attention to her, she¡¯s getting into something. That¡¯s not always such a bad thing for me, though, as she does make a good distraction. I am nowhere nearly done with getting into mischief and there¡¯s only so many years I will be able to get away with stuff by being a toddler before people expect me to know better. While people are busily paying attention to the cat or the younger babies, I see about finishing filling out my mental map of Corwen Hearth. And hoping that I actually get a skill for it at some point. That¡¯s when I discover that there¡¯s a secret room underneath the central tower, accessible through a chute in the kitchen. There¡¯s probably a real entrance, but it¡¯s into the garbage chute with this curious toddler who has complete faith in Corwen to not incinerate curious toddlers. I slip in while Aunt Myrtle is trying to shoo away Mipsy with a broom, heedless of how gross it might be. I land in a pile of offal in a room lit only by a glowing azure orb. It looks much like the huge one in the sky, but it¡¯s only the size of a golf ball and sitting on a pedestal in the middle of the room.
Congratulations! You have discovered the core room of Corwen Hearth.
Skill acquired: Search (Secret Rooms)
Description: An uncanny knack for figuring out how to access hidden areas.
Ah, a skill, nice! What is this? The¡­ core room?
Corwen
Hello, Drake!
I take a closer look at the small orb. Oh, that¡¯s you, then, Corwen?
Corwen
Yes. You have found my secret core room. An admirable effort.
I do hope there¡¯s another way out of here because it might be hard to climb back up the way I came down.
Corwen
Of course. But it was bold and daring of you to take the route you did. You are welcome to leave by the regular ladder when you are done admiring my visage.
I brush myself off a bit, but I¡¯m definitely going to need a bath and a change of clothes. Why are people throwing garbage into the core room? Corwen doesn¡¯t answer my query with a system box, but by the trash I¡¯m standing in dissolving into nothing, including the goo that tried to seep into the wool of my clothes. Maybe not entirely nothing. With my [Clairvoyance] skill, I can see that the vis in this room is behaving rather oddly. Like a slowly circling whirlpool, all the vis in the area is funneling directly toward the crystal in the center of the room. And¡­ there¡¯s something else there. Something that isn¡¯t vis. I can¡¯t quite see it at first, even straining my senses, but it acts like a counterpoint to the vis in the air. I can track its movements by seeing where the vis isn¡¯t. It¡¯s especially dense right around the crystal core itself. Actually, I think the core is made of this stuff, just in a more solid form. I watch for a little bit longer to see what I can learn before climbing back up to the ground floor to see whether or not I¡¯ve gotten in trouble again this time. Chapter 6: The Hedge Maze Another winter passes, and spring of 732 dawns in Tempest Domain. Insofar as anything can be said to ¡®dawn¡¯ in a world without an actual sun a planet orbits, or even one that literally goes up and down. I¡¯m not going to quibble about heliocentrism when there¡¯s no helio to center. Daisy turns thirteen in January, and keeps stressing out over the fact that she hasn¡¯t reached Elite rank yet and isn¡¯t sure whether it¡¯s even attainable. To cheer her up and give her an opportunity to improve some skills and get some Deeds, our family decides to send us on a camping trip in April. ¡°It¡¯ll be fun!¡± Mom says. ¡°A great opportunity! Your mom has given me permission to escort you through some dungeons that don¡¯t involve any real fighting. There¡¯s Deeds in it for you for every completed dungeon, and every Deed helps toward your rank. Plus we can get your skills up! I know you haven¡¯t had much chance to train Survival yet.¡± Daisy grumbles, ¡°I don¡¯t want to train Survival. I want to be a Wizard.¡± ¡°Too bad,¡± says Aunt Magnolia (and I actually know her name now). ¡°You¡¯ve done nothing but tear your head out studying all the time since your sister went back to school.¡± ¡°Because I get bonuses to learning from books!¡± Daisy protests. ¡°Not by pitching tents and picking mushrooms!¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure you had to have read some books about camping and mushroom identification,¡± Mom says. ¡°Either way, now¡¯s a good time to revise. We leave on Friday.¡± Uncle Hawk, a Ranger, is coming along with us. He¡¯s bringing a harness to carry me whenever my Stamina meter gets too low to keep up with the group. Aunt Dahlia has even made a pair of little hiking boots just for me. Also accompanying us is an 18-year-old cousin named Meadow. She¡¯s a Basic-rank [Apprentice Ranger] who is hoping to make Elite before she turns 21. We call ¡®Uncle Hawk¡¯ uncle even though he¡¯s more of a second cousin once or twice removed, but he¡¯s Meadow¡¯s mom¡¯s brother so he¡¯s more directly her uncle. We set off past the apple orchards and pass through the festival grounds, currently littered with the remnants from this year¡¯s spring festival that haven¡¯t been fully cleaned up yet. Dirt roads crisscross the terrain in every direction, and I would certainly get lost out here without Uncle Hawk¡¯s directions. Burdock¡¯s monster kitten marches at his side, her four ears moving independently to catch every sound around us. When the skymotes are green, we take a break to rest and have lunch in a clearing by the side of the road. Underneath the pine trees, several red-capped mushrooms of different sizes have spouted merrily. ¡°Look, mushrooms!¡± Burdock says, grabbing one and holding it aloft in one swift motion. ¡°Don¡¯t eat that!¡± Daisy snaps, slapping the mushroom out of Burdock¡¯s hand. ¡°That¡¯s emetic russula.¡± ¡°What¡¯s¡­ emetric brussula mean?¡± ¡°It means ¡®if you eat this, you will throw up¡¯,¡± Daisy says. ¡°Oh,¡± Burdock says sheepishly. Turns out Daisy took up most of her carry weight with a huge, illustrated guide to plants and fungi, like any sensible [Scholarly Child]. She reluctantly lets Burdock read it, after wiping off his hands thoroughly first. I peek over his shoulder to take a look myself. The pictures look almost like photographs, and little icons indicate how toxic something is. ¡°Alright kids, pack up,¡± Uncle Hawk says. ¡°We¡¯ve still got a lot of walking to do before dark.¡± We reach the first dungeon we¡¯re planning on exploring when the skymotes are orange. The entrance is comprised of a wrough iron gate set into an ivy-covered stone wall. Zenith shines orange down upon us from the northwest like a weird flat moon.
You have discovered the Hedge Maze.
Skill acquired: Survival (Hiking)
Description: Traveling long distances on foot through various terrains.
Your Max Stamina has increased by 1 and is now 5.
My efforts are already paying off, and it only took me a full day of trudging across slightly rugged terrain. Every additional point of Stamina is definitely welcome. ¡°Here we are,¡± Uncle Hawk says. ¡°The Hedge Maze. Let¡¯s make camp about a hundred meters from the entrance. In the morning, I¡¯ll keep watch outside and you kids can do a run, maybe more than one if you can complete it fast. That¡¯ll depend on how good you kids are at puzzles and riddles.¡± We pitch a tent. By which I mean Daisy and Burdock try to pitch a tent while my mom supervises. Uncle Hawk takes Meadow out to scout the area and make sure there¡¯s nothing dangerous nearby. I¡¯m tasked with finding firewood.
You have gathered enough wood to get a fire started.
Skill acquired: Search (Wood)
Description: The ability to locate wood that¡¯s good for an intended purpose, such as firewood, hardwood, etc.
Not that sort of skill I was hoping to unlock from this excursion, but I¡¯ll take it. I¡¯m told every subskill helps the general skill, so I guess the more things I know how to search for, the better I get at searching in general. Once Uncle Hawk and Meadow return, the tent is still not up, so the two of them help. After the disastrous attempt at pitching a tent, now Daisy and Burdock are trying to light a camp fire while Meadow watches on trying to give them pointers. ¡°Meadow, can¡¯t you or Uncle Hawk do this?¡± Burdock grouses, throwing a twig at the pile of firewood in frustration. ¡°Or Anise? Anise can just magic up a fire. Why do we need to do this?¡± ¡°Sure, we could light it,¡± Meadow says. ¡°But that wouldn¡¯t earn you a Survival (Fire Making) skill. Don¡¯t worry. I¡¯ll help if you can¡¯t get it lit before the skymotes turn dark.¡±
The fire is smoldering low and only a few of the skymotes have turned azure yet when Uncle Hawk wakes us for breakfast. Daisy whines the loudest about having to get up early. ¡°At Crux Academy, classes don¡¯t even start until green,¡± Daisy says.The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°Well, you¡¯re not at Crux Academy,¡± Uncle Hawk says. ¡°You¡¯re in the real world, and the azure sky of spring is plenty bright enough to navigate an easy dungeon by even at night. You should be glad you got the chance to sleep first.¡± Once we¡¯ve got some food in us, Mom opens the gate and we file into the dungeon. Uncle Hawk waves at us before turning his attention to the wilds outside. The Hedge Maze is beautiful, full of greenery and blooming flowers, and we spend some time wandering around its shifting pathways trying to get our bearings. The fragrant blooms and plants mingle in the air with the scent of earth, and a crisp, clean spring breeze tickles my nose and summons a sneeze. ¡°I¡¯ve been here before, but it¡¯s different every time, so I can only help with generalities,¡± Mom says. ¡°And in setting fire to anything that needs fire set to it, if fire proves necessary. Hopefully, fire will not prove necessary.¡± ¡°Me too, minus the fire,¡± Meadow says. ¡°I think everyone over the age of seven must have done an easy dungeon a day¡¯s walk from home before.¡± ¡°I haven¡¯t¡­¡± Daisy whinges. Meadow chuckles. ¡°Everyone who goes outside every now and then, at least.¡± Daisy sticks her tongue out at her like a perfectly mature thirteen-year-old. ¡°There¡¯s lots of puzzles in here for you to solve, at any rate,¡± Mom says. ¡°That¡¯s why we picked this dungeon to start off with. You¡¯re smart. Get to solving.¡± We¡¯ve arrived at a circular cobblestone platform in the midst of hedges, with each stone bearing different markings. Daisy immediately stops complaining and gets to examining the platform intently. Burdock and I also take a look, but Daisy has it figured out before we¡¯re even sure exactly what it is we¡¯re looking at. She hops across the platform, careful to only step on certain stones, and reaches the middle. A small chest slides out of the platform, and she loots it to reveal a handful of shiny copper coins and an apple. ¡°This is such a lame reward,¡± Daisy says, tossing the apple at Burdock. ¡°Can¡¯t expect Legendary rewards out of Basic puzzles,¡± Mom says with a chuckle. We continue on, slowly making our way toward the center of the maze. Mipsy¡¯s four ears satellite around, and she suddenly tenses. ¡°Mipsy, do you hear something?¡± Burdock asks. We stop for a moment, trying to hear what the monster kitten might be hearing, but nothing happens so we move on warily. After a couple more puzzles, we come upon a hollow log sticking out from under one of the hedges. It¡¯s a tight squeeze, and only Mipsy and I are likely to fit. ¡°Dungeons often tailor challenges to whoever enters them,¡± Mom says. ¡°I bet that one was put here for you, Drake. Go on, see what¡¯s inside. There might be a secret area with more treasure.¡± ¡°And hopefully isn¡¯t just apples,¡± Daisy adds. Mipsy, already poking her head inside, needs no encouragement from her master to go exploring the hidden space. I squeeze in after the tabby tail and worm my way through the log, hoping that this dungeon really is as benign as Mom and Uncle Hawk insist. Once through the log, I emerge into a sheltered little nook amid the hedges. Azure light from high above filters through the low canopy. Another small chest sits on the ground, and I open it to reveal my own handful of copper coins and a long, thin bit of metal with a handle and a kink on the end. I¡¯m pretty sure this is supposed to be a lockpick. I pocket my rewards and give another look around the nook to make sure I haven¡¯t missed anything before turning back toward the log. Mipsy¡¯s hackles are raised, and her four ears are all arrayed toward the log. There¡¯s sounds from the other side of the hedge. What in the world is going on out there? I can¡¯t even see through the green vis of the hedge to use [Clairvoyance] on whatever might be going on outside. I stay quiet and perfectly still until the sounds stop before going to crawl out of the log again. Mom, Burdock, and Daisy are gone. The grass is trampled, and it looks like something might have been dragged through the mud. I carefully examine the ground, and find footprints. Humanoid, barefoot, child-sized and with unusually long toes with claws on the end. I also find a couple of discarded darts in the bushes. I¡¯m not going to prick myself with one just to see what happens, but I can only guess my party was ambushed and knocked out before they could react, otherwise my mom would have set something on fire here. I suppose it was complacent of us to think that just because there weren¡¯t any monsters in this dungeon normally, that there was no danger at all. Maybe this dungeon decided to spawn some monsters after all, or maybe someone came in from outside, but that would mean they¡¯d have to cast past Uncle Hawk. I can¡¯t imagine why someone would have wanted to kidnap my family members, but it¡¯s not like I know a lot about the political situation of Tempest or the position of Corwen in it. The nearby Hearths seem friendly enough, but I¡¯ve been pretty sheltered all things considered. If there are enemies who would like to see Corwen Hearth razed to the ground, I don¡¯t know who they might be. I¡¯m not going to track down and rescue them all by myself. I need to get out of this dungeon and find Uncle Hawk. Moving quietly and keeping one eye on the position of Mipsy¡¯s ears in case she hears something, I make my way toward where I think the entrance to the maze was. The disturbed ground and tracks end abruptly at a hedge that I¡¯m pretty sure was in a different position before. Cursing inwardly, I meander around trying to find another way through. Mipsy stays close at my side on high alert. I come upon another puzzle, this one involving several mirrors positioned around a clearing. Now this is something I can handle. I have played so many games with light beam puzzles. The mirrors move smoothly even for someone as small as me. I set to work and soon enough get them positioned so that the green light from Zenith overhead gets redirected around corners and through holes in the hedge to a receiving crystal. Once that final crystal lights up, a wrought iron gate leading into the center of the maze opens up.
Congratulations! You have solved an Easy difficulty puzzle.
Skill acquired: Mechanics (Mirrors)
Description: The ability to accurately position mirrors.
With no sign of anything immediately hostile nearby, I head in to claim my prize. A larger, fancier chest awaits me on a dais at the far end of the clearing. But standing in front of it is a gnarled tree with a red aura indicating a monster and not just a plant. It seems the dungeon wants one more challenge out of me, but it better not be expecting me to fight a treant. ¡°Hmm, hmm,¡± rumbles the tree in a deep masculine voice. ¡°Two very small challengers this time. Come closer. Do not fear. You will not be harmed. Should you fail my challenge, you will merely be expelled from the dungeon without your rewards.¡± Oh good. It¡¯s a talky tree. I can deal with talky trees. ¡°Can you tell me what happened to the rest of my party?¡± I ask, toddling forward. ¡°I have not seen anyone else today,¡± the tree says, gesturing with a knotty limb as if to indicate that he¡¯s kind of rooted in this spot. ¡°I guess I¡¯ll need to look for them once I get out of here, pass or fail,¡± I say. ¡°What¡¯s your challenge?¡± ¡°Hmm, a riddle, small human, merely a riddle,¡± the tree says. ¡°Listen carefully and tell me the answer.¡± He pauses dramatically and shifts his branches. ¡°It is a very strange thing that my dungeon has told me. I do not understand it myself. But hopefully you do.¡± ¡°What¡¯s the riddle?¡± I ask. ¡°Twinkling guides shone in the night, billions of years to burn their light. Five shapes of leaves in gold marks a great deed to be told.¡± ¡°Stars,¡± I say immediately. ¡°Hmm, hmm, stars,¡± the tree says slowly. ¡°Your answer is correct. I know not what connection there might be between golden leaves and ancient guides, but you do. Claim your prize, challenger. Well done.¡±
Congratulations! You have completed the Hedge Maze.
I go up and open the chest. Inside lies two silver coins and a bronze star-shaped amulet. Is this a genuine magic item? I pocket the coins and put the amulet around my neck because I figure the chances of it helping somehow are higher than the chances of the dungeon suddenly deciding to be a jerk and give me cursed treasure. If it wants to screw me over, all it needs to do is not let me out of here, after all. Another gate has opened, and the tree says, ¡°Go in peace, challenger. I hope you find your friends.¡± Chapter 7: Skullburn Outpost The gate deposits me on a different side of the dungeon than the one I came in by, and I have to carefully circle around to try to find our campsite. How long were they watching us? They might have noticed I was with the group and be on a lookout for me. I do my best to sneak through the undergrowth back to where we¡¯d set up camp. The camp has been ransacked, and Uncle Hawk is nowhere in sight. The tent has been knocked over and torn, and our provisions taken. Now I¡¯m starting to get really worried. Before, I was doing the only thing I could to proceed, getting through the dungeon. I¡¯d really hoped Uncle Hawk was still out here and could find the others. But now, aside from a three-eyed four-eared kitten, I¡¯m on my own. It¡¯s several hours walk to the nearest Hearth. My 5 Stamina is equivalent to a less active child twice my age, but that¡¯s still a four-year-old and not especially impressive. I could probably make it back there, but I¡¯d still have to rest regularly. We crossed two streams on the way here with old stone bridges over them, so I think I can manage water. The sensible thing to do would be to go to the nearest Hearth and get help. They¡¯ll assemble a rescue team and track down my mom and cousins, I¡¯m sure. This would not be the sort of thing that would get me a Deed, however. And it would greatly delay getting any help to them when every moment might count. I take a deep breath and inspect the area for any sign of where Uncle Hawk or the others might have been taken. The same clawed humanoid feet left tracks all over the ground around the camp. Sadly, Daisy brought a plant identification book, not a monster track identification book, and it¡¯s still with her regardless. There¡¯s signs of them dragging something heavy, probably Uncle Hawk, as well as clawed tracks and drag marks coming out from the entrance to the dungeon. It might not actually be that difficult to track them. They clearly weren¡¯t trying to be very stealthy, once their ambush was complete. I follow the trail left by the creatures through disturbed mud and trampled foliage. The trees around me sway and rustle in regular strong gusts, but the birds are silent and the small animals of the forest are in hiding. After creeping through the brush until the skymotes turn yellow, I hear sounds ahead of me. Voices echoing through the forest, but not human voices. They¡¯re high-pitched and rough, and I can¡¯t understand a word they¡¯re saying. I try climbing a tree to get a good look ahead of me, but it takes a few attempts to find one that my small statue, lack of claws, and level 1 Athletics (Climbing) skill can handle. In a break in the trees, a small outpost lies ahead of me. Tents made of bone and hide cluster around a campfire. Off to one side sits a large, crude cage containing several human-sized figures. A man, three women, and a child. The goblins themselves also have violet auras, indicating that they¡¯re people and not monsters. I¡¯m not sure what the distinction really is, but they¡¯re still people who are doing bad things. The cages are located off the beaten path just enough that they¡¯re not in immediate view of most of the goblins working around the village, but there¡¯s hardly a lot of cover near them. They¡¯re still in plain view of enough goblins that this could be a problem. At least there¡¯s room enough behind the cages that they and the people themselves can cover their view of us. I sneak up behind the cage, Mipsy creeping at my side.
You have discovered Skullburn Outpost.
Your Subterfuge (Sneaking) skill has increased to level 3.
¡°Hi Mom,¡± I whisper. ¡°Drake!¡± Mom hisses. ¡°What are you doing here?¡± ¡°Getting you out of here,¡± I say softly. Mom¡¯s face rapidly cycles through several expressions before saying, ¡°Uncle Hawk¡¯s been cursed. He can barely move, never mind fight or run. And I got hit with anti-magic poison.¡± I utter a naughty word. ¡°Not that kind of curse,¡± Mom says. ¡°Someone¡¯s coming. Hide!¡± Mipsy and I duck back into the bushes as a group of armed goblins comes up to the cage. Two of them point spears at the group while the third opens the cage and two more drag Uncle Hawk out. They lock the cage again and tie the Ranger up to a pole by the arms and legs. Four of them carry him off, and half the goblins leave the outpost to escort the group.
You have successfully avoided notice.
Skill acquired: Subterfuge (Hiding)
Description: The ability to conceal yourself in your surroundings and prevent unwanted attention.
I find a rock the size of two of my tiny fists with one sharpish edge I figure I could use for a weapon or tool. I sneak up behind the sole goblin now guarding the cage and bring the rock down as hard as I can on his head.
You have defeated a Goblin Guardian.
Skill acquired: Striking (Rock)
Description: Using rocks as weapons, whether thrown or in melee. Includes rocks of all size categories.
It feels a little undignified that my first ¡®weapon¡¯ skill is the most primitive one in existence, but whatever. I¡¯m sure it¡¯ll still help. The cage isn¡¯t actually locked with a proper lock, just a primitive bone latch that would be difficult to open with the hands tied behind the back. Once I¡¯ve gotten it open, the three captives hurry to un-capture themselves before any goblins notice us messing around. We regroup in the nearby bushes.The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. ¡°I¡¯m not leaving without my book!¡± Daisy whispers. ¡°We¡¯ve got to get our stuff back.¡± ¡°Where is it?¡± I ask. ¡°They took our things to that tent over there.¡± Daisy points. ¡°I don¡¯t have any Subterfuge skills, though.¡± ¡°I have level 3 in Subterfuge (Sneaking),¡± I say. ¡°You¡¯ve been busy,¡± Mom says. ¡°But it¡¯s still too dangerous for a baby. It¡¯s crazy you¡¯ve come this far. Meadow should escort you and Daisy back to the Hearth.¡± ¡°No way!¡± Daisy says. ¡°I need a Deed and this is my best opportunity!¡± Mom sighs. ¡°Fine, but Drake¡¯s just a baby.¡± ¡°I¡¯m reincarnated,¡± I admit. ¡°Many times over, in fact.¡± Everyone stares at me. ¡°Oh,¡± Mom says. ¡°Well, that explains a lot.¡± ¡°You¡¯re not mad?¡± I ask. ¡°One of the older kids was talking about how they had to kill a kid who¡¯d gotten possessed.¡± ¡°You¡¯re not possessed,¡± Mom says. ¡°I mean, sort of, I guess. But there¡¯s never really been another Drake Corwen so it¡¯s not the same thing. No wonder you¡¯ve been learning skills so fast.¡± ¡°If I don¡¯t need to take Drake to safety, I¡¯m not going to abandon my uncle or miss out on a Deed either,¡± Meadow adds. ¡°What about me?¡± Burdock asks. ¡°I¡¯m not a baby. I have a familiar and class skills and everything! I can help!¡± ¡°Alright,¡± Mom says. ¡°Your mom is going to kill me, but I guess we¡¯re doing this, then. Daisy, do you know how to make a potion to cure the poison they hit me with? Surely you¡¯ve unlocked Crafting (Potions), right?¡± ¡°Yes, but it¡¯s not very high,¡± Daisy says. ¡°And I¡¯ll need my book to even know what to mix.¡± ¡°I can sneak in and grab it,¡± I say. ¡°We could use a distraction,¡± Mom says. ¡°Meadow, can you start a fire on the far side of camp?¡± ¡°I am not setting a forest fire just to distract some goblins,¡± Meadow says. Mipsy has already taken it into her own paws to cause a distraction like only a cat can. I wait for a few seconds after she starts causing chaos, and slip in behind the tent in question. The violet vis of someone inside indicates not everyone got distracted by the distraction, though. I crawl underneath the back of the tent. The guard turns to look as I come in, but his spear hits the edge of the tent as he tries to point it at me. I slam my trusty bloody rock into his face.
You have defeated a Goblin Guardian.
The tent contains four backpacks. Looks like the goblins didn¡¯t bother to actually sift through our belongings. I can¡¯t carry them all, so I just stick two sheathed daggers in my belt and grab Daisy¡¯s book. I abandon my rock here as I can¡¯t carry both it and the huge book at the same time, and crawl back out under the back of the tent. I could probably kill something just with this book if I had to, though it might get blood on the cover. And I don¡¯t need a Striking (Book) skill. The others are waiting where I left them, and I pass the book to Daisy and hand Mom one of the daggers, keeping the other. ¡°Mipsy ran off into the bushes on the far side of camp,¡± Burdock says. ¡°At least four goblins were chasing her. I hope she¡¯ll be okay.¡± ¡°If not, she¡¯s a monster,¡± Mom says. ¡°She can respawn. We can¡¯t.¡± Daisy flips through the pages of her big plant book. ¡°We¡¯ll need jewelweed. I¡¯ll probably only need a couple. Everyone keep an eye out for a flower that looks like this.¡± She points to the picture of an orange flower. ¡°Jewelweed, got it,¡± Mom says. ¡°We¡¯ll also need mystic moss to amplify the healing properties in the flower.¡± She flips through the book again. ¡°It looks like this. Look for a faint bluish glow on the northwest side of trees.¡± ¡°And if we can get my magic working again, I can burn this camp to the ground so we can retrieve the rest of our stuff,¡± Mom says. ¡°And try not to start a forest fire in the process?¡± Meadow adds. ¡°Yeah, yeah.¡± ¡°Drake, while we¡¯re looking for flowers, I don¡¯t suppose it would be good much to ask for you to go back and grab some sort of container that can hold liquid?¡± Daisy asks. ¡°Our cookpot will suffice.¡± ¡°On it,¡± I say. I wish she¡¯d just said, ¡°Drake, go get the cookpot.¡± While Mipsy is still leading some of the goblins on a merry chase through the forest, that was like thirty words more than strictly necessary. If we survive this, I¡¯ll need to tell her to save the word count for school essays. Another goblin has come to investigate the storage tent. I pull out my dagger and crawl under the tent the same way I did before, and lunge forward to slash at the goblin. He tumbles out of the way, more alert than the last two goblins. This goblin isn¡¯t wielding a spear, but a stone knife. And unlike me, he actually knows how to use it. We¡¯re the same size, and my weapon is longer and much sharper, but that doesn¡¯t mean being cut with a stone knife doesn¡¯t still hurt. And he¡¯s more agile and has probably been using that sharp rock on a handle his entire life. (I strongly suspect that I have lived a lot of short, violent lives.)
You have had an epiphany about your previous lives.
Skill acquired: Recollection (Insight)
Description: The ability to glean realizations about the nature and content of your past lives.
Skill acquired: Discipline (Battle Trance)
Description: Enter a state of mind focused on combat, tuning out distractions and emotions.
The goblin slashes his knife at my throat, but it seems to move in slow motion compared to my thoughts. I don¡¯t think I¡¯m strong enough to block, so I drop to the ground and the swing whooshes above my head. Then a vertical slash, which I roll out of the way of into one of the tent supports. Just bumping it isn¡¯t enough to bring it down, but a slash of my dagger does the trick. Being at the edge and expecting it, I pull myself out of the tent first. I stomp on the edge of the hide and bury my dagger in the lump where the goblin had been standing. The hide takes the brunt of the blow, though it does pierce all the way through, so I stab a few more times for good measure, and then keep stabbing until the tent stops moving.
You have defeated a Goblin Warrior.
Skill acquired: Striking (Dagger)
Description: The ability to use short bladed weapons in combat, both in melee and thrown.
The Battle Trance fades and I look down at the bloody blade in my hand and the hide tent with numerous bloody punctures. I have gained a lot of skills and I have a new goal in life. Survive to adulthood. Because I¡¯m absolutely certain that these goblins didn¡¯t wind up here by accident. And I strongly suspect that the crystalline entities that run this world didn¡¯t spawn an isekai protagonist just to let his life be boring. Corwen offers no commentary. I cut a slash through the hide above the chest, grab the cookpot and make a break for the trees. The tent being converted into a pile of bloody hide pretty much did it for my stealth. Now I just need to get away. Chapter 8: Into the Caves Three spear-wielding goblins make guttural shouts and chase after me. As I reach the edge of the trees, my mom leaps out of the brush and ambushes one of the goblins, bringing him down in an instant with her dagger. ¡°Hey, greenskins!¡± calls Meadow, holding aloft a crude wooden spear she must have just made. ¡°You want some?¡± The goblins scream and charge at her. One of them gets caught in a crude snare and face-plants. Mom stabs him with her dagger before he can recover. Meadow takes the final goblin down with her pointy stick. ¡°Good, you got the cookpot!¡± Daisy says. ¡°I have the plants, and there¡¯s a stream nearby. Meadow, can you get a fire going by the stream?¡± ¡°You alright, Drake?¡± Mom asks. ¡°Bruises at worst,¡± I say, following after Daisy. ¡°I killed two goblins and unlocked a few skills. I¡¯m fine, Mom.¡± She chuckles. ¡°You¡¯re not even pretending to be a kid right now. You can call me Anise.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll pretend to be a kid again when we get back to the Hearth,¡± I say. ¡°Screaming and crying would be a realistic reaction to everything that¡¯s happened today, but it would be unproductive. So, Anise, let¡¯s get your magic back so you can torch this camp and I¡¯m not even going to give a crap that these goblins are people and not monsters because they¡¯re probably going to kill my uncle.¡± ¡°Wait, they aren¡¯t monsters?¡± Mom¡ªAnise says. ¡°You¡¯re sure?¡± I nod. ¡°Positive. I can see auras.¡± ¡°Of course you can,¡± she says flatly. ¡°It takes goblins seven years to become adults, and the goblins have definitely not been here for seven years, so where did they come from?¡± We reach the stream and Meadow gets a fire going, but no one has any skills to make water boil or make plants cook faster so we¡¯ll just have to wait a few minutes. Daisy grinds up her reagents between two rocks in the meantime. ¡°They must have come up from the depths,¡± Meadow says. ¡°Having a reincarnator here would explain why they¡¯ve come to the surface only now,¡± Daisy says. ¡°It does?¡± Anise says. Daisy sighs in exasperation. ¡°Do you people not read books?¡± ¡°Not if I can help it,¡± Meadow says. ¡°Only raunchy ones,¡± Anise adds. ¡°In accordance with ancient prophecy, when an incarnated hero of the light rises, the forces of darkness will also rise in opposition,¡± Daisy says. I groan loudly. ¡°Noooo, not a prophecy! I mean, it¡¯s really not. Saying what you¡¯re going to do in advance is a schedule, not a prophecy. Corwen incarnated me when it did deliberately. These goblins must have been breeding beneath the surface for years. Can we please not call it a prophecy?¡± ¡°As you wish,¡± Daisy says with a shrug. She scrapes her ground plant paste into the pot and stirs it with a stick. ¡°In accordance with ancient scheduling, heroes and villains go hand in hand.¡± I sigh. ¡°Of course they do.¡± Dear Corwen, may I please have some comedic fantasy rather than tragic fantasy? I would greatly prefer not to have murdered family members or raging rampage of revenge plots. I don¡¯t need any cutthroat politics or beheadings, either. Is that too much to ask for? ¡°Alright, potion is ready,¡± Daisy says, removing the pot from the heat. ¡°We¡¯ll just need to wait for it to cool down and¡ª¡± Anise grabs the pot and guzzles the boiling liquid without hesitation. ¡°Anise!¡± Daisy exclaims in alarm. Anise finishes off the liquid and laughs as she tosses the pot aside. ¡°I have a lot of heat resistance.¡± Her hands burst into flames. ¡°Kinda necessary. Alright! Let¡¯s kick some green butts.¡± She hands the dagger to Daisy and sets off back toward the outpost, and the rest of us follow after. Having an Elite Sorcerer on our side makes this battle suddenly a lot more one-sided. Mipsy rejoins us along the way, having survived her mad chase relatively unscathed.
Your party has cleared Skullburn Outpost.
Cleared. Nice way of saying there¡¯s a bunch of dead green people who decided to mess with my family for no good reason. And Meadow is frantically trying to ensure that Anise¡¯s pyromania doesn¡¯t turn into a forest fire. Meadow sorts out our packs while the rest of us scour the outpost for anything of value, but there¡¯s nothing here but crude stone spears and knives, plus provisions that only a goblin would eat. ¡°Not even a loot chest?¡± Anise complains. ¡°Rude.¡± Meadow hands me Daisy¡¯s small pack, and gives Daisy Uncle Hawk¡¯s larger pack. ¡°I¡¯ve redistributed the weight and dropped a few things we don¡¯t really need under the circumstances.¡±If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. ¡°I want a bag of holding,¡± I say, pulling on the light pack. ¡°Don¡¯t we all,¡± Anise says. ¡°Alright, we all ready? Meadow, your tracking skills are better than mine, so you¡¯ll need to take the lead.¡± ¡°They weren¡¯t dragging him this time but the tracks still shouldn¡¯t be hard to follow,¡± Meadow says, heading off in the direction they took Uncle Hawk. Along the way, I watch the ground to examine the tracks Meadow is following in hopes of unlocking a skill for it myself. She points them out now and then for our benefit. The skymotes have turned orange by the time we reach the end of the tracks. A cave opening leading underground, partially concealed behind vines, but Meadow is good enough at rangering to follow the tracks that disappear inside and spot the entrance.
You have discovered a mysterious cavern entrance.
Skill acquired: Survival (Tracking)
Description: The ability to follow trails through varied terrain.
I didn¡¯t even do anything and I¡¯m still getting credit for it. I guess Meadow¡¯s pointers count as ¡°teaching¡± but it still feels weak. I think I¡¯m adding another goal to me ¡°to do¡± list right after surviving to adulthood: Find something I didn¡¯t do in a previous life. We take a short rest outside to replenish our Stamina and get something in our stomachs. ¡°Has anyone gotten a quest popup?¡± Anise asks. We all shake our heads. ¡°How common are quests?¡± I ask. ¡°You¡¯re a reincarnated hero,¡± Daisy says. ¡°If the books I¡¯ve read are accurate, you should be seeing them constantly. Of course, they might have been exaggerated for dramatic value, and you¡¯re physically only two years old.¡± ¡°It¡¯s kind of weird how quickly you guys adapted to the idea,¡± I say. ¡°I think it¡¯s awesome,¡± Burdock says. ¡°We¡¯re going to have so much fun!¡± Anise says. ¡°This isn¡¯t exactly fun,¡± Daisy says, looking worriedly into the dank hole in the ground. ¡°Everyone¡¯s Stamina meters full?¡± Meadow asks, and we all nod. ¡°Alright. Let¡¯s head down, then.¡± Anise waves a hand, and a candle flame floats above her head. We enter the cave, letting Anise go first since she¡¯s the highest level of us and most likely to not die immediately if something attacks us. Meadow takes the rear with her pointy stick, sandwiching the younger party members between them. We head down in silence, even Daisy stilling her chatter. After walking for an indeterminate amount of time (or at least, mostly determinate by our dipping Stamina meters), the tunnel opens up into a large cavern lit by glowing mushrooms. Anise snuffs her candlelight and we pause to scan over the area from relative cover. A veritable forest of giant mushrooms sprawls below us, and pale blue glowing lichen striates across the ceiling. Nestled within the mushroom grove stands a structure that is¡­ not unfamiliar. High walls made of solid stone surround a cluster of buildings mostly made of bone and hide. In the center, a large stone building stands out looking much like a Hearth. Four wings jut out around a central tower, but the tower is only slightly higher than the rest of the building. ¡°A goblin Hearth?¡± Anise whispers. ¡°This close to the surface?¡± ¡°That must be where they took Uncle Hawk,¡± Meadow says quietly. ¡°This¡­ complicates things,¡± Anise says. ¡°Here I was hoping they just had another outpost down here. We are in no way prepared to assault a Hearth.¡± We sit still for several long minutes, examining the Hearth below us and trying to think of options. ¡°I have rope, but I¡¯m not sure that climbing up the walls is feasible,¡± Meadow says. ¡°I could disguise myself as a goblin,¡± I suggest. ¡°That¡¯s a fantastically stupid idea,¡± Anise says. ¡°Do you even speak their language?¡± Meadow asks. ¡°Nope,¡± I say with a smirk. ¡°Just spitballing.¡± ¡°Did you ever speak their language in another life?¡± Daisy asks. ¡°I have no idea,¡± I say. ¡°I can try and see if Recollection brings up anything, though.¡± I hold up a hand. ¡°I sense a patrol. Coming toward the tunnel. Three of them.¡± Everyone readies their weapons. (Or fire, or claws.) The fight is swift, and we manage to capture one of them and put Meadow¡¯s rope to good use. ¡°Okay, buddy,¡± I say. ¡°I want you to talk.¡± The goblin snarls and babbles at me. ¡°No, I don¡¯t really care what you say, I just want to see if I can understand your language,¡± I say. While I¡¯m doing that, Meadow goes to scout the area, Daisy is mixing up green pigment to smear on my skin, and Anise works on making me a passable set of goblin ears. I don¡¯t know that this will hold up to scrutiny, but I¡¯m hoping to get some skills that might help unlocked. As I listen to the goblin swear at me (at least, I assume what he¡¯s saying is impolite), my mind runs over¡­ memories. I feel like I¡¯m reaching through a gooey mucus barrier. It feels wrong, as do the whispers and shadows of images I manage to dredge up. I stop and rub my head, which has rapidly started aching. ¡°I don¡¯t like doing this,¡± I say quietly. ¡°We can always try another approach if you¡¯re not up to it,¡± Anise says. I sigh. ¡°This is frustrating. I¡¯ve been so many mes, but I kind of just want to be this me.¡± ¡°That¡¯s fair,¡± Anise says. ¡°Don¡¯t go giving yourself Sanity damage you¡¯re not prepared to handle.¡± Meadow returns to our makeshift camp. ¡°Good news, everyone. I found some weaknesses in the goblins¡¯ defenses. There¡¯s a back door in a ravine by an underground river on the far side of the village. It¡¯s probably still watched, but I don¡¯t imagine they expect invaders to be coming in from that side.¡± That makes sense. Even our own village doesn¡¯t have one single entrance. There¡¯s a door on the back side that opens into a fishing area too. ¡°Let¡¯s still try disguising you as a goblin,¡± Anise says. ¡°If nothing else, it¡¯ll confuse them and they¡¯ll be less likely to target you immediately. You¡¯ve probably at least learned a few naughty words. I know I certainly have.¡± So, everyone helps in putting the disguise together, and somehow being slathered in green goo and wearing smelly goblin clothing feels less gross than trying to reach for memories of other lives. I shake my spear menacingly and repeat a few words our captive said to me. I have no idea what they mean, but he spits a few words angrily back at me. ¡°What¡¯re we gonna do with him?¡± Burdock asks. ¡°It seems wrong to just kill him when he¡¯s tied up.¡± ¡°Leave him here for now, I suppose,¡± Anise says. ¡°Maybe gag him or give him a sleeping potion or something so he doesn¡¯t start yelling for help. Somebody¡¯s eventually going to notice their patrol never checked in.¡± ¡°Sleeping potion,¡± Daisy says with a roll of her eyes. ¡°Do I look like I¡¯m carrying that around? We¡¯d need to light a fire and get more water and everything. Ugh, I¡¯m looking forward to becoming a Wizard so I can actually do magic and not just mixing stuff up or enhancing my stats.¡± ¡°Enhancing stats?¡± I ask. ¡°Yeah, the first abilities you get when you turn 7 are to boost your attributes,¡± Anise says. ¡°Practice at it enough and you can get stronger or faster at the right moment, or slowly build up your attributes permanently.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s get moving, if we¡¯re going to do this,¡± Meadow says. ¡°My uncle¡¯s in there and he needs our help.¡± Chapter 9: Grubwick Meadow leads us down a rough slope into a ravine in the huge cavern, where an underground river runs by. Occasionally I catch glimpses of weird glowing fish in the water, but we didn¡¯t come here to fish. Although come to think of it, fishing sounds fantastic right now. There are so many skills I would like to be learning that don¡¯t involve mortal peril. ¡°Alright,¡± Anise whispers. ¡°I¡¯m only seeing one goblin outside. You want to try stealth first? There¡¯s no telling how many of them are inside, or whether any of them are way beyond our league. Goblins aren¡¯t usually very strong, but the few of them that manage to learn magic can be a problem.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll try,¡± I say, handing my dagger to Anise. ¡°It¡¯ll look weird if I have that and I don¡¯t want anyone stabbing me with it.¡± ¡°We¡¯ll cover your retreat if you have to escape,¡± Meadow says. ¡°We should be able to handle any normal goblins that come out of that door.¡± I approach the back door to the goblin village. Several primitive fishing spears and crude lures lay scattered on the banks of the river near the back door to the goblin village.
You have discovered Grubwick.
Skill acquired: Subterfuge (Disguise)
Description: Through wearing costumes and makeup, you can conceal your true nature and identity from others.
¡­ which is apparently named Grubwick. A goblin fisherman spots me approaching, and my party stays back out of sight. This goblin is unarmed and not particularly threatening himself, but if he calls for help, I¡¯m sure guards could be here in an instant. I try to act natural and mumble a few probably naughty words, pretending to be disgruntled about my patrol or whatever, not that I can communicate coherently enough to even bluff about what I¡¯m doing here. The fisher goblin grunts and gives me a reply in a tone like, ¡°Yeah, man, I know, right?¡± I wonder if the goblin language in general could be considered ¡°foul language¡±. I might be able to slip past this goblin, although my team wouldn¡¯t. And it seems downright rude to kill an unarmed fisher goblin. Still, I¡¯ll leave it to them to figure it out. I head in through the door. Although it bears some similarities to my own Hearth, I don¡¯t know if any of my assumptions about how Hearths work would carry over. Specifically, outsiders aren¡¯t allowed inside Corwen Hearth. Would that mean they wouldn¡¯t take Uncle Hawk inside? He might just be sweating in another cage like the one at Skullburn Outpost. It was difficult to see what exactly is inside the walls from a distance. Act natural. Act natural. What the heck is acting natural for a goblin? I stomp around angrily and snarl at anyone that gets close.
No one suspects anything out of the ordinary.
Your Subterfuge (Acting) skill has increased to level 3.
Thanks for the vote of confidence, system. I¡¯m shocked that this disguise has lasted so long. I finally spot Uncle Hawk tied up on a stone table. A small goblin is repeatedly poking him with a stone knife and failing to break the skin. Entirely puzzled about what¡¯s going on here, I approach, and overhear the little goblin muttering to himself. In English.
This exotic speech is strangely familiar to you.
Skill acquired: Language (English)
Description: The tongue of many lands in long-lost era.
I guess that¡¯s just acknowledging that I already speak English and can understand him perfectly fine, but I still find it funny. This odd little goblin, however, is much more interesting. Like mine, his aura is black rather than violet like the other goblins. ¡°Why isn¡¯t this working?¡± the young goblin says. ¡°Ugh, I stone knives are subpar and you¡¯re two ranks above me, but I was expecting to at least do some damage!¡± Uncle Hawk does not respond, delirious and not fully conscious. I decide to take the biggest risk of my short life. I prop my spear up in a weapon rack and approach the goblin child. If he speaks English, maybe he will be more amenable to talking than I might expect of a normal goblin. ¡°It doesn¡¯t look like you¡¯re making much progress there,¡± I say in English. He spins around, pointing his stone knife at me. I hold out my hands to show I¡¯m unarmed, and he relaxes just a little. ¡°Who are you?¡± he asks. ¡°There aren¡¯t any other reincarnators in this Hearth¡­ and that¡¯s a terrible disguise.¡± ¡°It was good enough for the goblins who weren¡¯t reincarnators,¡± I say with a shrug. ¡°You can call me Drake.¡± ¡°You know, I could have you killed in an instant.¡± ¡°Sure,¡± I say. ¡°And then you can miss out on the opportunity to talk to someone who has read Tolkien.¡± He works up his face into several interesting expressions before finally putting the knife away. ¡°You could have killed me before I even realized you were here if you were actually after me, I suppose. What do you want?¡± ¡°Right now? I just want to talk. What¡¯s your name?¡± He grunts. ¡°I was given the name ¡®Grabrat Grubwick¡¯ in this life but I hate it. I would prefer to be called Milo, my name from Earth.¡± ¡°Milo,¡± I say with a smile. ¡°Nice to meet you. So what exactly are you trying to do here with this human?¡±Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! Milo sighs. ¡°I had hoped that killing a Heroic-rank adventurer by myself would help progress me to Elite rank. Additionally, I sought to learn Necromancy, and I was told that requires a sacrifice.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t have to sacrifice someone to learn Necromancy,¡± I say. ¡°That¡¯s what my grandmother told me. Have you heard differently?¡± ¡°You just need to have your Soul stat unlocked. As a reincarnator, you should have it already. We can use Necromancy naturally since we¡¯ve already been dead.¡± ¡°Huh¡­¡± Milo says. ¡°That makes sense, actually. Good to know. Goblins rarely live past twenty-one and I was also hoping increasing my rank enough would increase my lifespan. The higher rank you get, the more your aging slows.¡± ¡°True,¡± I say. ¡°My great-grandmother is Legendary and she¡¯s over eighty but still looks like she¡¯s in her twenties. That¡¯s quite a tight timetable for goblins. How old are you?¡± ¡°Two years and five months,¡± Milo says. ¡°That¡¯s¡­ exactly my age,¡± I say. ¡°My naming day is November 30th.¡± ¡°Same as mine¡­¡± Milo says. ¡°Both of our Hearths decided to incarnate a hapless Earthling at the same time?¡± ¡°In accordance with ancient scheduling, it seems so.¡± Some other goblins have overheard us talking and have gathered around to watch at a distance, no one wanting to get too close. They seem to be afraid of Milo. ¡°What¡¯s wrong with him, anyway?¡± I ask. ¡°The Hearth¡¯s [Elder Witch] cursed him,¡± Milo says. ¡°She¡¯s Epic rank, and forty years old. Grandma Griza is terrifying when she wants to be, but she made sure I had all the resources available as we had. Which¡­ is not terribly much. Stone knives and pointy sticks! This place sucks.¡± ¡°I believe I can help with that,¡± I say. ¡°You have a weapon that might be able to hurt a Heroic?¡± I shake my head. ¡°I can help you level up. My Hearth has resources and expertise. You can join my party and we can get lots of Deeds.¡± Milo mulls that over thoughtfully, looks at Uncle Hawk with a frown, and turns back to me. ¡°You would do that for me?¡± ¡°Sure,¡± I say. ¡°I would, of course, want the human released. Preferably de-cursed, too.¡± ¡°Ugh, I don¡¯t know how I¡¯d explain that to Grandma Griza,¡± Milo says. ¡°You said she wanted to provide you with the best opportunities,¡± I say. ¡°She should recognize this as a priceless opportunity.¡± ¡°Yeah, you¡¯re right¡­ when you put it that way¡­¡± Milo says. ¡°Alright. You¡¯ve convinced me. I¡¯m in.¡± Milo starts untying Uncle Hawk. ¡°Best get him out of here, then. I¡¯ll help you get him to the gate.¡± ¡°Can we take him to the back door?¡± I ask, and Milo nods. He barks a few words at the other goblins that I assume mean something like, ¡°This guy¡¯s a friend, don¡¯t kill him!¡± since they proceed to not kill me or stop us. Uncle Hawk is weak and can barely walk, but with our assistance, we manage to get him outside and to my party and lay him carefully down on the ground in front of them. ¡°Hey guys,¡± I say. ¡°I made a new friend. This is Milo.¡± ¡°Huh,¡± Anise says. ¡°That¡¯s great!¡± ¡°Can we trust him?¡± Daisy asks. ¡°How did you even manage to communicate with him?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t speak whatever language the humans are speaking,¡± Milo says in English. ¡°I¡¯ll have to learn it.¡± ¡°Ah, yeah, he doesn¡¯t speak Common yet,¡± I tell my party. ¡°He¡¯s a reincarnator too, though, and we both still speak the language from our previous lives.¡± ¡°That¡¯s cool,¡± Anise says. ¡°Uncle Hawk still looks pretty cursed,¡± Meadow says, waving a hand in front of the unresponsive Ranger¡¯s face. ¡°Is your grandma in the Hearth right now?¡± I ask Milo. Milo nods. ¡°I¡¯ll go talk to her. She¡¯s given me everything I asked for so far so I¡¯m sure I can convince her.¡± Milo returns to the door and heads back into the village. ¡°His grandma, possibly with a ¡®great¡¯ or two, is an Epic rank Elder Witch,¡± I explain. ¡°It sounds like she dotes on him, though.¡± Anise sighs. ¡°And if she decides to wipe us out, there¡¯s nothing we can do to stop her, so we might as well just stay put. Well, I¡¯m glad we didn¡¯t try to storm the Hearth, then.¡± After a few minutes, a message pops up in my third eye.
Congratulations! Your party has negotiated peace with the village of Grubwick.
Your Persuasion (Diplomacy) skill has increased to level 2.
Daisy¡¯s eyes widen, and I assume everyone else got that message too. ¡°Good Heavens, that did it!¡± Daisy exclaims, in her excitement completely forgetting stealth. ¡°I¡¯m an Elite! I¡¯m going to be a Wizard!¡± ¡°I got it too!¡± Meadow says, only slightly more sedately. The two of them hug one another, on the verge of tears of joy. Uncle Hawk stirs on the ground, blinking and slowly sitting up. ¡°Ugh, what happened? Where am I?¡± Meadow breaks off from hugging Daisy to hug Uncle Hawk instead. ¡°You¡¯re alright! It worked! I can¡¯t believe it worked!¡± ¡°What worked?¡± Uncle Hawk wonders, looking around. ¡°We¡¯re underground somewhere? Where are we?¡± ¡°You got cursed and captured by goblins,¡± Anise summarizes. ¡°Drake disguised himself as a goblin and snuck in and negotiated your release. He¡¯s a reincarnator and one of the goblins is too so they could understand one another.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not sure if I¡¯m still dreaming or not,¡± Uncle Hawk says. ¡°Did you rank up too, Anise?¡± Daisy asks. Anise shakes her head. ¡°You two were close enough to rank up that even a minor part in something major pushed you over. But me, Drake, and Burdock still have a long way to go. Still, that was a fantastic Deed.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t really do much,¡± Burdock says. Milo re-emerges from the village back door and approaches us. Uncle Hawk starts to ready himself for a fight, but Milo holds out his empty hands. ¡°It¡¯s alright, Uncle,¡± I say. ¡°This is the goblin I mentioned. Meet Milo.¡± ¡°Odd name for a goblin,¡± Uncle Hawk says. ¡°It¡¯s his name from another life,¡± I explain, then turn to Milo and say in English, ¡°Uncle Hawk is better and we got a Deed, so I assume you were successful in convincing your grandma.¡± Milo nods. ¡°She¡¯s been very supportive. She was surprised but not opposed to the idea. I was hoping she¡¯d give me some fancy heirloom but apparently we¡¯re really, really poor. I hope we can change that.¡± We head back to where we left the captive goblin. Milo goes up and unties him, and speaks with him in Goblin for a minute before sending him off back to Grubwick. ¡°I hope the lives of whichever of my clan mates you had to kill are sufficient compensation for our actions,¡± Milo says, and I translate for the others. ¡°Trust has to start somewhere,¡± I say. ¡°Maybe next time we visit Grubwick, we¡¯ll be able to sleep in the inn.¡± ¡°That¡¯ll require building an inn first,¡± Milo says with a chuckle. ¡°I have a number of ideas both on how to level up myself as well as improve Grubwick, but most of them revolved around my prior assumption that killing was the only way to earn Deeds. I was a businessman back on Earth. I don¡¯t want to kill people. I want their money. Dead people can¡¯t generate capital unless you¡¯re a necromancer, so I was planning on using undead as a cheap labor force, but that still requires having consumers. And goblins are idiots.¡± Daisy frowns thoughtfully as she listens to my translation. ¡°You were probably incarnated to become an evil overlord. But perhaps even villains can choose another path.¡± ¡°You know, I¡¯ve apparently lived five million lives, but for some reason I¡¯m 100% certain that I¡¯ve never been a merchant before. And a goblin cultural and industrial revolution sounds like it would make for an excellent Deed.¡± ¡°Have you gotten any quests?¡± Milo asks. ¡°Grandma Griza said I should expect quests to show up to give me direction but I haven¡¯t gotten any.¡± ¡°Neither have I,¡± I say. ¡°I suppose our Hearths are content to take a hands off approach, sit back and see what we do. And¡­ they incarnated an engineer and a businessman. If they wanted warriors, we were poor choices.¡± I definitely have been a warrior in many of my past lives, but I don¡¯t actually remember them and don¡¯t want to. I killed those goblins without a second thought or twinge of guilt. Still don¡¯t feel any, even after seeing them being people. I must have been a freaking murder hobo once, and I don¡¯t want to be. I like my family and my new friend. Chapter 10: Return to the Hedge Maze ¡°We¡¯re outside now?¡± Milo says. He takes a few steps out from the tunnel so he can get a better view, and stares up at the alien sky. The giant crystal sphere is glowing a lovely sky blue, and the smaller skymotes are shining green in the air around it. ¡°This world is weirder than I thought,¡± Milo comments. ¡°That it is,¡± I say. ¡°I¡¯m impressed that you kids managed to rescue me yourselves, even if one of you did turn out to be a reincarnator with a talent for Subterfuge,¡± Uncle Hawk says as we¡¯re setting up camp outside the tunnel entrance. ¡°Where exactly did we wind up in relation to our Hearth?¡± Anise asks. ¡°A good bit of a walk past the Hedge Maze, I think,¡± Uncle Hawk says, looking at the sky. ¡°We could pass by it in the morning if anyone still wants to run it. Minus any unfortunate ambushes this time.¡± I assume there¡¯s some sort of Heroic Ranger skill to tell him where he is, seeing as he wasn¡¯t exactly in a condition to pay attention along the way. ¡°I don¡¯t see why not,¡± Anise says. ¡°Drake, did you finish the dungeon?¡± I nod. ¡°Couldn¡¯t get out until I did. But like you said, dungeons change depending on who is in them. It made sure to give me puzzles I was physically capable of solving. And an odd riddle only a reincarnator would know the answer to.¡± We talk for a bit longer, but we all need rest and this has been a very long day. Uncle Hawk takes watch, since he needs less sleep and is feeling quite fine despite his experience. He even lets us sleep in until the skymotes turns green. I spend much of our trip catching up with Milo in English. I don¡¯t translate everything for the others. They wouldn¡¯t understand. Milo and I tell one another about our previous lives, our interests, what we¡¯ve experienced in this strange new world so far, and share our hopes and dreams. We probably wouldn¡¯t have been friends back on Earth. In fact, he died before I was even born, never mind us having run in completely different social circles. But here, we still have more in common with one another than anyone else and can relate in ways these new souls can¡¯t understand. ¡°I can¡¯t believe you¡¯re Canadian,¡± I say with a chuckle. ¡°I can¡¯t believe you¡¯re Californian,¡± Milo replies, grinning. ¡°I started off serving coffee to tourists, and wound up getting rich through a series of sensible long-term investments and a diversified portfolio. Got married. Had kids. Grandkids. Great-grandkids. Died at the age of 93 basically just from being old. They probably squabbled over my fortune and squandered everything I¡¯d spent my life earning.¡± He shrugs and chuckles. ¡°Brats, all of them. What about you?¡± ¡°No kids,¡± I say. ¡°Married to my work, I guess you¡¯d say. Not sure how I died, though. My memories get patchy after a certain point. I thing I invented something weird¡­ but I¡¯m not sure what sort of scifi crap I ultimately got myself into.¡± ¡°Afraid I can¡¯t help you there,¡± he says. ¡°When I died, those computers you keep talking about were not small enough to fit in people¡¯s pockets. And they didn¡¯t have complicated games yet. I heard about Dungeons & Dragons but never played it. I¡¯ll take your word on it if you say this world resembles a game.¡± ¡°Can I learn that language too?¡± Burdock asks. ¡°Whatever it is.¡± ¡°English,¡± I say. ¡°And I don¡¯t see why not, although I¡¯m not sure how many people might speak it.¡± Anise says, ¡°Being able to speak a language nobody else can speak would be cool. And useful.¡± ¡°I also speak French, but I¡¯m not going to inflict that on you,¡± Milo adds once I translate for him. ¡°I¡¯m not quite sure what ¡®Common¡¯ is supposed to be,¡± I say. ¡°As soon as I had the option, I just turned on auto-translation and never turned it off.¡± ¡°I had the option for auto-translation but decided to actually try to learn Goblin,¡± Milo says. ¡°You can still consciously choose to speak either, though, right? Because you don¡¯t seem to be having any trouble switching.¡± ¡°Yeah, I can start teaching you some basic vocabulary as we travel, at least,¡± I say, then turn to the others and say in Common. ¡°Anyone who wants to listen can learn English as Milo learns Common. This is how you say hello¡­¡± When we arrive at the entrance to the Hedge Maze again, we decide to have me, Milo, and Burdock (and Mipsy) run it by ourselves. This is a particularly peaceful dungeon that actively tries not to hurt people, so this shouldn¡¯t really involve fighting. Uncle Hawk and Anise set about trying to repair the tent while Daisy and Meadow work on putting together a meal. ¡°The damage isn¡¯t as bad as it looks,¡± Uncle Hawk says. ¡°I can still fix it. You kids have fun in there.¡± We head in through the gates. It¡¯s funny that we did this same thing just yesterday, but yesterday feels like it might as well have lasted a year. Everything has changed, and I¡¯m going to have a lot to tell Corwen Hearth once we get home. Unsurprisingly, the challenges we face in the Hedge Maze are completely different this time. The hedges shift and move to funnel us into a different part of the gardens. Our first challenge is a series of blocks each marked with words in Common, English, and French. ¡°How does it know?¡± Milo wonders. The various words mean things like ¡°trap¡±, ¡°tree¡± and ¡°treasure¡±. We stack up the blocks that say ¡°treasure¡± in the three languages and are rewarded for our efforts with a chest rising out of the ground. ¡°Can I open the chest?¡± Milo asks.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. ¡°Go ahead,¡± I say. Milo opens the chest and holds up a small money purse containing few copper coins. ¡°The first actual money I¡¯ve made in this world. And something to carry it in!¡± Slightly wealthier, we continue on down the next path. ¡°This place is nice,¡± Milo says, stopping on a wooden bridge crossing a pond to look down into the water. ¡°Is this a puzzle?¡± ¡°Prolly,¡± Burdock says. ¡°I bet there¡¯s a chest we can get somewhere around here,¡± I say. Mipsy runs up to the pond¡¯s edge and starts batting at the small fish darting about beneath the water. The water toward the middle of the pond ripples and a large shiny fish surfaces for just a moment before it¡¯s gone again. ¡°Too bad we don¡¯t have any fishing rods,¡± Milo says. Mipsy mrrrs as if in agreement. Although Mipsy cannot speak (yet), she seems to be perfectly capable of understanding English as well as Common. After searching about for a while, we determine that the big fish is probably a fishing challenge and we¡¯ll have to come back another time with proper equipment for it. That doesn¡¯t mean we intend to leave entirely empty-handed. There¡¯s a series of large lily pads that can hold our weight for exactly three seconds before dumping us in the water, forcing us to quickly jump between them one at a time. This leads us into an otherwise inaccessible little nook where a chest appears once we¡¯ve all made it through.
You have successfully completed an Easy platform sequence.
Skill acquired: Athletics (Jumping)
Description: The ability to launch yourself into the air and accurately land upright in the intended spot.
¡°Wow, that was enough to unlock a skill?¡± Milo says, dripping water into the grass. ¡°Dungeons are better for experience than I anticipated.¡± Burdock¡¯s turn to gather the loot, and he scoops up a handful of copper coins from the chest, then pulls out a fishing rod that really should not have fit in that little chest. ¡°Look at that,¡± Milo says with a grin. ¡°Guess we¡¯re doing the fishing challenge after all.¡± We hop back across the lily pads and almost lose our new fishing implement in the water a couple times, but we make it. From the mud near the pond, we dig up some grubs to use as bait. Passing the fishing rod between us, we take turns and manage to catch a few smaller fish. Then we put one of the tiny fish on the hook and let Burdock use it since he¡¯s the biggest of us. After a few minutes of fishing, Burdock exclaims, ¡°I¡¯ve got something! It¡¯s big!¡± He almost falls off the bridge, but Milo and I grab onto him to keep him from going over the railing as he reels in our prize. After a struggle, a shiny fish as long as my arm flops onto the wooden planks. Milo kills it with his stone knife before it can flop itself back into the water.
You have caught a Medium fish.
Skill acquired: Survival (Fishing)
Description: The ability to locate and capture fish by any means, such as rod, net, harpoon, bare hands, or directly in the mouth.
I wish we¡¯d been given a bucket as well as a rod, but my backpack isn¡¯t carrying anything else and I¡¯m sure the smell will wash out. With magic, if necessary. I¡¯m sure Hearthkeepers have cleaning magic. We cross the bridge and move on, and eventually come to a closed gate. Past it, the clearing with the big talking tree I encountered before can be seen. No sign of a mirror puzzle this time and it looks like we¡¯ve approached by a different entrance. We take a look around to see what sort of puzzle we need to solve this time. A number of bell-shaped flowers are arrayed around the small clearing. Burdock touches one curiously, and it makes a sound like a bell playing a note. Touching each of the flowers reveals that each of the eight different colored flowers produces a different tone, with the black one producing the lowest pitch and the violet one the highest. When the black flower is touched, a plaque above the gate lights up, which winks out when a different flower plays. ¡°I suppose we¡¯re meant to play a tune,¡± Milo says. ¡°Are either of you gifted in music? I learned to play the piano when I was a young but I was told it was mechanically perfect but had no heart, so I stopped playing. I could likely still pick out ¡®Twinkle Twinkle Little Star¡¯ if need be.¡± ¡°What¡¯s a star?¡± asks Burdock after I finish my translation. I hold up my star-shaped necklace. ¡°It means this shape.¡± I point to the symbol over the gate. ¡°And that.¡± I don¡¯t even feel like getting into trying to explain how different out skies are. ¡°Oh,¡± Burdock says. ¡°I don¡¯t know any music. Well, aside from singing winter carols, and then only in a group.¡± I shake my head. ¡°I don¡¯t either. I suppose we could brute force it if it doesn¡¯t kick us out for too many failed attempts, but that feels¡­ inelegant. Do you suppose that star up there is a hint as to what song to play?¡± Milo is already playing around with the flowers and has discovered that the first two notes are the black flower, and after a few tries he discovers that the third note is the green flower. ¡°Hmm,¡± Milo says. ¡°If the dark flower is C, then the green one is G¡­ I believe this actually is ¡®Twinkle Twinkle Little Star¡¯. Let¡¯s see, how does this go again¡­ Black, black, green, green, light blue, light blue¡­¡± Milo is very rusty, but once he gets the rhythm going, he manages to get through the whole song without mistakes. At least the light over the gate indicates when he¡¯s hit a wrong note. Once the song is played correctly, the gate opens. ¡°Got it!¡± Milo exclaims in glee. ¡°I even got a skill for it! Language (Tone Recognition).¡± Burdock and I didn¡¯t get skills, but then we didn¡¯t really help here either. With the gate open, we head in to the final clearing. ¡°Hmm, hmm, you¡¯ve returned,¡± says the tree. ¡°And you¡¯ve brought friends this time. I¡¯m glad you were successful in finding them.¡± Strangely, it turns out we can all understand the tree as if it were English for me and Milo and Common for Burdock. At this point, that¡¯s not even alarming considering what else it knows about us. ¡°Good to see you too,¡± I say. ¡°You¡¯re totally my favorite talking tree.¡± The tree gives a low rumble of a chuckle. ¡°Since there are five of us this time, how about we play a game of cards?¡± The ground in front of the tree shifts, and a root shaped like a round table emerges, surrounded by three smaller roots shaped like chairs. Once we take our seats, he starts dealing leaves with symbols on them. Although the cards are green, they¡¯re the regular rectangular shape of cards and feel stiff and durable as cardboard. They all have the shape of a maple leaf on them, along with an image and text that appears to us in our first language. ¡°This is a game called Leaves,¡± he explains. ¡°The rules are simple.¡± He proceeds to go into a bunch of rules that are definitely not simple, seemingly with more exceptions than actual rules. ¡°This is hard,¡± Burdock says. ¡°Do your best,¡± the tree says. ¡°You might get lucky. Whoever wins will receive a starter deck of Leaves cards. In your travels, you may find new cards that do interesting and powerful things that you can add to your deck.¡± I¡¯m not sure how keen I am on playing a collectible card game with trees across the world, but whatever. I always hated these sorts of minigames. Still, I do my best, and do even worse than Burdock, who has no idea what¡¯s going on. At least I still beat Mipsy, who doesn¡¯t care about the game at all and decides to take a nap on top of her cards. When we get knocked out of the match, it¡¯s down to Milo and the tree, and after a hard-fought match, Milo comes out ahead.
Congratulations! Your party has completed the Hedge Maze.
The chest contains some more coins and the promised deck of cards, which Milo claims happily. Neither I nor Burdock are interested in starting a card collection, so he can have any cards we wind up with in the future. ¡°I got three skills for that!¡± Milo exclaims as we¡¯re leaving. ¡°Knowledge (Cards), Discipline (Card Counting), and Subterfuge (Bluff). This is incredible. I¡¯ve gotten more skills in one day than I did in two and a half years in Grubwick.¡± Chapter 11: A Goblin Takes a Bath As we¡¯re heading out of the Hedge Maze, I look around trying to lean on my [Search] skills more than last time I was in here. Then, I was in a hurry to get out to find my family. This time through, I can be more careful and catch something I missed the first time around. A large tree stands to the side of the exit path, wide enough to be a wall but with a squat canopy only the height of a regular building. One of the knots looks very interesting, and when I touch it, a door I could barely see the outline of swings inward. ¡°You found a secret door!¡± Burdock notes the obvious. I hop through, followed by the others, and emerge into a hollow in the center of the huge, squat tree. Its core is a glowing yellow sphere the size of a golf ball, greatly resembling the core of Corwen Hearth.
Congratulations! You have discovered the core room of the Hedge Maze.
Your Search (Secret Doors) skill has increased to level 2.
¡°Hello nice core!¡± Burdock says. ¡°Thank you for letting us run your dungeon! We had fun. When we weren¡¯t being kidnapped. Well, the kidnapping part turned out okay too, but it was pretty scary for a bit there.¡± Another chest appears, this one containing more coins, a lockpick, and a loaf of crusty bread. Milo picks up a coin and holds it between two fingers, examining it thoughtfully. He wonders aloud, ¡°Where do you get these from? And the other items we found within the maze?¡±
Hedge Maze
I created them myself! Do you like them?
¡°They¡¯re lovely,¡± Milo says. ¡°You mean you make objects out of thin air? All these treasures we¡¯ve gotten?¡±
Hedge Maze
Not air. Psychic energy. Thank you for coming! I hope you enjoy your treasures!
Milo frowns thoughtfully and puts his share of the loot into his new purse. ¡°I have much to learn about the function of the local economy.¡± We leave the Hedge Maze and return to camp. ¡°Look what we got!¡± I say, putting down my backpack and pulling out the fish. ¡°That looks to be a fine dinner there, Drake,¡± Uncle Hawk says. We clean and prepare the big fish and cook it over the campfire, and let Mipsy have the little ones. Burdock and I (and me translating a bit for Milo) tell the others about our experiences and rewards in the Hedge Maze while the fish cooks. ¡°Let¡¯s spend the night here and head back to Corwen in the morning,¡± Uncle Hawk says. ¡°This tour was originally meant to hit up multiple kid-friendly dungeons along the way, but, well, things happened and I believe we should get back now.¡± ¡°And Daisy already hit Elite so I doubt she wants to go getting dirty if she doesn¡¯t have to,¡± Meadow adds with a teasing grin. ¡°The parts that weren¡¯t mortal peril were okay, at least,¡± Daisy admits. ¡°I¡¯m going to need to start grinding Wizardry now that I can unlock it so that I¡¯ll actually be offered the class. So once I get the handle on it, I wouldn¡¯t mind coming along again and seeing magic in action.¡± Come morning, we head back to the Hearth. I continue to teach Common to Milo along the way, but he hasn¡¯t unlocked the skill yet. It will probably take more than two days. Milo takes in all the sights as we walk. I¡¯ve gotten used to the weird sky, but it¡¯s still new and wondrous to him. And he enjoys seeing trees again, even though the Underside was exotically beautiful with its giant colorful mushrooms. If you ignore the sky, the forest looks kind of like Canada, he claims. The familiar village walls are a welcome sight when they come into view. An uncle whose name I don¡¯t remember is keeping watch at the gates. ¡°You¡¯re back early,¡± says Uncle What¡¯s-his-name, turning a curious eye to Milo. ¡°And with an unusual guest.¡± ¡°We have quite the tale to tell,¡± Uncle Hawk replies. We head in through the gates and into the square. Milo gets a number of looks, but people are more confused and curious than hostile or scared. The fact that he¡¯s standing next to a Heroic Ranger who isn¡¯t squishing him probably helps. Daisy, Meadow, and Burdock break off from the group and make for the main Hearth, while Uncle Hawk, Anise and I turn right and escort Milo into the guest house. Although we call it an inn sometimes, it¡¯s homier than that. It¡¯s set up more like a smaller Hearth, albeit with more of a focus on entertaining guests than cozying up to family. The Innkeeper is a bony blonde woman who swoops in when she sees us stumble in dirty. ¡°Welcome, friends. Name¡¯s Goldie Tempest. What can I help you with? Food, drinks, baths, beds?¡± ¡°Tempest?¡± I wonder. ¡°I was born of no Hearth,¡± Goldie explains. ¡°Your family was kind enough to give me a job and a place to shelter during the monster swarms. Lost both of my parents because they were stubborn idiots who refused to get behind stone walls when the swarms come.¡± Odd. I haven¡¯t heard anyone speak of ¡°both of their parents¡± like this before. ¡°Well, you¡¯re welcome here, too,¡± Uncle Hawk says. ¡°Our new green friend here is going to need a place to stay and some real clothes, if you can arrange it. Also some study materials. He needs to learn Common.¡±If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. ¡°Of course,¡± Goldie says. Uncle Hawk turns to me and Anise. ¡°We need to talk to Aunt Laurel and you two are coming with me.¡± We nod and follow him to the Hearth. An awkward conversation and a number of piercing questions follow. After a bit, Grandma Laurel dismisses Uncle Hawk and my mother and focuses just on me. ¡°Let me ask you one thing, reincarnator,¡± Laurel says. ¡°Are you loyal to Corwen?¡± ¡°Absolutely,¡± I say. ¡°And if Corwen demanded that you kill this goblin, would you?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± I say. ¡°I haven¡¯t gotten any quests, though.¡± ¡°That is very odd,¡± Grandma Laurel says. ¡°You should definitely have gotten one when you realized your party had been kidnapped. I need Heather here.¡± So I undergo another round of awkward questioning, now with the presence of a Legendary Oracle who can probably tell whether I¡¯m lying or not. The two of them exchange so many knowing looks that I¡¯m not sure whether they¡¯re communicating in facial expressions or telepathically. ¡°Alright, we believe you,¡± Grandma Laurel says. ¡°We¡¯ll need to go talk to the goblin now. Then you can get a bath, food, and rest.¡± The three of us head to the guest house and learn from Goldie which room Milo is in. Grandma Laurel barges in without knocking to find him not present, to which Aunt Heather rolls her eyes and points to the adjacent bathroom. I knock on the bathroom door. ¡°Hey, Milo? How are you doing in there?¡± ¡°You have indoor plumbing!¡± Milo exclaims. ¡°I can get hot water with just a turn of a faucet. This is fantastic! I¡¯ve never had a proper bath in this life.¡± ¡°My grandma and aunt want to ask you a few questions,¡± I say. ¡°I am taking a bath,¡± Milo says. ¡°You may ask me your questions if you so choose but I am not exiting this tub until I am a green prune.¡± Once I translate, Grandma Laurel chuckles. ¡°Well, I suppose it¡¯s a good sign that the first thing he did was take a bath.¡± I have a feeling that Aunt Heather does not need to be able to understand him in order to detect whether he¡¯s being honest or not. In fact, she doesn¡¯t even try to get into line of sight, just loiters in the hallway next to Grandma Laurel while I translate through the door. This is even more awkward than the first round of awkward questions. Eventually satisfied, Grandma Laurel drags me away along with Aunt Heather back to the Hearth to discuss the matter further in private. ¡°He was not being deceptive at any point,¡± Aunt Heather says. ¡°He also expressed no guilt over kidnapping and trying to murder Hawk,¡± Grandma Laurel says. ¡°I have no doubt this guy can be ruthless if need be. He¡¯s dangerous, but that¡¯s not saying much. I¡¯m dangerous too. I¡¯d be concerned about what sort of quests his core might give him, but it seems neither of you got any quests one way or another?¡± ¡°Is that really that odd?¡± I ask. ¡°Very,¡± Grandma Laurel says. ¡°Something unusual is going on here, and Corwen hasn¡¯t interjected anything to me either.¡± She sighs. ¡°Corwen? Can¡­ can we get an explanation? Please?¡±
Corwen
That you feel that you need an explanation is a sign that this was necessary. You have become overly reliant upon my words. I wish to see what these two do without guidance from we aether cores.
Grandma Laurel puts her hands together and bows her head. ¡°Thank you for your clarification, Corwen. I apologize for doubting you.¡± I sigh inwardly. Ugh, I didn¡¯t really want to be a freaking Chosen One. But apparently I¡¯m a Chosen One. Well, if they just want to watch me do whatever I want, then I¡¯m going to do whatever I want, and whatever I want is going to involve things other than slaying monsters and battling Dark Lords. (I would like to not die violently as a teenager again.) I frown, and notice something on my status screen.
Sanity: 7/10
That¡¯s¡­ probably not good. ¡°Grandma, do you have a way to recover from Sanity damage?¡± I ask. ¡°Every time I think about my past lives too hard, I wind up getting hit with it.¡± ¡°Ah¡­ ask Aunt Myrtle when we¡¯re done here. She can whip you up something. I¡¯m sure you¡¯re looking forward to a good meal after being on the road. I just have a couple more questions I want to ask you. From what you know if the world you two are from and what you¡¯ve learned about your new friend so far, what do you see as the biggest problems he could potentially cause?¡± ¡°Workers rights violations and poor wages coupled with a high cost of living, environmental damage by improper waste disposal and exploitation of limited resources, and introduction of potentially invasive foreign cultural elements.¡± Grandma blinks at my answer and starts chuckling. ¡°So he¡¯s a merchant. And how would you deal with these potential problems?¡± ¡°Well, with the existence of aether cores, #2 there is probably a non-issue. Cores can make things appear and disappear. We didn¡¯t have dungeons. And I don¡¯t care too much about #3, although I¡¯m biased. And #1 is just a matter of fair regulation. However, I should also add that the area he¡¯s from on our world was one that was widely known as being relatively inoffensive. I give you worst-case scenerios with little expectation that they¡¯d actually come about.¡± She¡¯s not asking what the worst thing I might do is. That¡¯s probably just as well. I¡¯m likely a lot more dangerous. I don¡¯t even know what I might do. ¡°Hard to imagine how you got by without aether cores,¡± Grandma Laurel says. ¡°That¡¯s probably the most incredible thing I¡¯ve heard today. Wouldn¡¯t you eventually run out of resources and wind up with useless trash you couldn¡¯t get rid of?¡± ¡°Exactly,¡± I say. ¡°Being a merchant in this world will mean a very different thing than it meant in our original one. And I¡¯m pretty sure that I¡¯ve never actually been a merchant before and would like to try it out rather than something I have done a million times before.¡± ¡°That¡¯s fair,¡± Grandma Laurel says. ¡°I wonder if there are any other two and a half year old reincarnators around, if the two of you ran into one another by chance without any quests issued.¡± ¡°I will seek an answer to that riddle,¡± Aunt Heather says. ¡°I will need to go traveling for this survey. My scrying ability is not precise enough to locate children of a specific age inside a Hearth.¡± ¡°Do you have any abilities that let you see someone¡¯s attributes?¡± I ask. ¡°No,¡± Aunt Heather says. ¡°I¡¯m an Oracle, not a Psychic. You should be able to tell a reincarnator at a glance, right? You have Clairvoyance?¡± I nod. ¡°Should I go with you, then?¡± ¡°Best not. If I took you along, they¡¯d notice you are a reincarnator at a glance. I can gather information without tipping our hand.¡± ¡°Ah,¡± I say. ¡°I would not mind a chance to stay somewhere safe and train skills for a while. Like a decade. A decade would be great.¡± ¡°Aspirational,¡± Grandma Laurel says. ¡°Get some food and sleep in you. We¡¯re heading back to the caves first thing in the morning. I need to have a chat with this Elder Witch and I need both you and Milo to translate for me.¡± Aunt Heather¡¯s eyes settle on the star-shaped necklace dangling from my neck. ¡°Would you like me to tell you what that artifact you¡¯ve got there does, or would you rather keep it a mystery and figure it out yourself? It isn¡¯t dangerous and would be a good practice target for various skills, but only if it hasn¡¯t already been identified to you.¡± ¡°If it¡¯s not dangerous, I¡¯ll hold onto it for the skills, then,¡± I say. ¡°Can you tell me at least if it¡¯s worth wearing all the time or if I should just stash it in my room until I can get the appropriate skills?¡± Aunt Heather nods. ¡°It isn¡¯t powerful, but it would probably be beneficial to keep wearing it.¡± Chapter 12: Green Deal ¡°Aunt Myrtle, do you have anything for Sanity damage?¡± I ask. ¡°I¡¯m a reincarnator and thinking about my past lives hurts my head.¡± I decide to just cut to the chase and receive the oddest look from my aunt in response. She sighs and pours me a sippy-cup of warm herbal tea. ¡°Chamomile with ginseng should help,¡± Aunt Myrtle says with a sigh, making a pot and pulling out a sippy-cup for me. She taps the teapot a couple times and says, ¡°[Rapid Infusion]. [Adjust Temperature].¡± She pours me some tea. I take the sippy-cup and make a sippy-sip of warm, soothing tea, perfectly steeped and the perfect temperature to give a toddler. (Or anyone else who doesn¡¯t have heat resistance, for that matter.) ¡°If you¡¯re a reincarnator, then you should have known better for all your trouble-making,¡± Aunt Myrtle says. ¡°Can you blame me for exploring, though?¡± ¡°No, but I can make sure to ground you for the next decade,¡± Aunt Myrtle says. ¡°Why didn¡¯t you say something sooner?¡± ¡°I overheard one of my cousins talking about possessed students and got scared,¡± I say. ¡°But my mom told me it¡¯s not really the same thing.¡± ¡°No soul comes into this Hearth without Corwen¡¯s say-so. Well, you¡¯re going to stop faking not being able to read and start going to school, then. It¡¯s never too early to start grinding Knowledge skills. You can head there first thing in the morning.¡± ¡°Grandma Laurel wants to drag me back out to the goblin village to talk to their Elder Witch and I¡¯m the only one that can translate,¡± I say. Aunt Myrtle sighs. ¡°Well, I can¡¯t supersede Laurel, but I can make you sit here by the fire and drink that tea while I get you a bowl of soup. You might be a reincarnator, but you¡¯re still a child of this Hearth, and I¡¯m not letting any of you brats go to bed hungry.¡± Aunt Myrtle¡¯s tea soothes my Sanity damage, and it¡¯s back up to full after finishing three cups, one for each point that had been lost dredging up bad memories. It¡¯s nice sitting by the fire and winding down after an adventure like I just had, but I immediately wind up with family members asking me questions about my past life which I mostly blow off for the moment. Morning comes too soon, as people seem to think it starts when the skymotes are azure even when I¡¯d prefer to sleep until they¡¯re green or even yellow. They use actual clocks too, but it seems easier to say azure or green instead of 6 a.m. or 9 a.m. in practice. Milo¡¯s hair has been washed, cut, and combed, and he¡¯s wearing a simple black woolen tunic and toddler-sized trousers. He¡¯s smaller than me, but we always have plenty of hand-me-downs laying around with the number of children who constantly need new clothes. Grandma Laurel has brought out her creepy monster horse with glowing green eyes, and she and Aunt Heather are waiting for us expectantly at the edge of the square. It¡¯s a testament to how much the residents of Corwen are used to Laurel¡¯s weird pets that they¡¯re just giving the horse a wide berth and not screaming and running. ¡°Is¡­ this creature to be our mode of transportation?¡± Milo asks hesitantly, staring at the creature with wide eyes. Grandma Laurel chuckles once I translate for her. ¡°Boo is a Legendary monster, and is quite capable of carrying two women and two small children. Don¡¯t worry. He won¡¯t bite. Unless I tell him to.¡± Milo doesn¡¯t look terribly reassured, but doesn¡¯t have much choice in the matter as Aunt Heather picks him up and helps him onto the horse. The saddle is made for two, so Milo and I are having to ride in their laps. Once we¡¯re settled in and secure atop the monstrous steed, Grandma Laurel guides Boo through the gates and sets off north, in the direction of the Hedge Maze. While it took us a full day of hiking to reach it on foot, Boo is able to reach it while the skymotes are still azure. We pause there while Grandma Laurel takes a look at the tracks, not even bothering to get off the steed since these are so clear.Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. ¡°I would have expected you¡¯d have brought along the Ranger to show you the way,¡± Milo says. ¡°I¡¯m a Beastmaster,¡± Grandma Laurel says with a chuckle. ¡°That¡¯s an upgraded Ranger class. My Survival (Tracking) skill is so high the trail practically glows in my eyes.¡± Retracing our steps, Boo takes us past the remnants of Skullborn Outpost and straight to the opening leading down into the Underside. We have to dismount at this point, as the tunnel isn¡¯t large enough for head clearance from atop the monster horse. We head down through the tunnels and approach Grubwick. The goblins guarding the main gate look incredibly nervous as we approach and they notice Milo among us. ¡°Hello, goblins!¡± Laurel calls out with a wave. Milo, having already figured out that much Common at least, repeats the phrase in Goblin. One particularly foolish guard chucks his spear at Laurel anyway. She doesn¡¯t even try to dodge. It just bounces off her skin. The spear-thrower shouts something in a panic and ducks inside. ¡°He said ¡®Sorry! Sorry!¡¯,¡± Milo says in accented Common. Grandma Laurel just laughs and strides forward, sandwiching me and Milo in between the two Legendary adventurers and their Legendary horse. Before we get far, an elderly goblin woman steps into the gates. She¡¯s wearing a crude hide dress and holding a wooden staff that even I can tell is just a simple walking stick than a magical implement. Grandma Laurel speaks in Common, and I repeat it in English, which Milo repeats in Goblin, and then in reverse to relay Griza¡¯s words. It¡¯s a bit clunky, but necessary at the moment until people can actually learn language skills. ¡°I see Grabrat went and led some humans can to our Hearth,¡± the goblin woman says. ¡°If my grandkids hadn¡¯t come home, we would have found you regardless,¡± Grandma Laurel says. ¡°My name is Laurel Corwen. We¡¯re here to talk, not fight.¡± ¡°I am Elder Witch Griza Grubwick,¡± says the goblin woman. ¡°You say you want to talk. Strange times we live in, that humans want to talk to goblins.¡± ¡°You cursed and kidnapped my nephew,¡± Grandma Laurel says. ¡°Some of your tribe members were killed when my grandchildren went to rescue him. I¡¯m willing to set aside our mutual grievances, though.¡± ¡°You could wipe out our village in an instant if you so choose,¡± Griza says. ¡°What do you want from we poor goblins?¡± ¡°It seems our grandsons have decided to work together,¡± Grandma Laurel says. ¡°I came to see what this goblin Drake befriended came from. And learn of your own intentions.¡± ¡°I intend to help my grandson achieve his destiny,¡± Griza says. ¡°As he has been given no quests, I assume that destiny is to do as he chooses. I do not know where this path will lead, but if we are meant to ally ourselves with humans, then so be it.¡± ¡°The only chance I have of living past 21 is to reach Elite before I turn 7,¡± Milo says, speaking for himself in both English and Goblin. ¡°I have to get some good Deeds in as soon as possible. And I believe my best chance of that is with these humans. I have ideas that will let Grubwick¡ªand indeed all goblins everywhere¡ªprosper, but I must get stronger first, and wealthier, and more knowledgeable about the world. They¡¯ve treated me well so far.¡± ¡°If you believe they will help, then take whatever aid they may offer,¡± Griza says. ¡°I will tell your foolish cousins that they should not attack humans unless attacked first so that we do not have any further embarrassing incidents like what happened when you arrived.¡± ¡°Great!¡± Grandma Laurel says. ¡°The little reincarnators want to be merchants. How about we come inside and help them work out a trade agreement between our Hearths? I¡¯m sure you have access to some Underside resources that would be useful to us, and likewise we can bring you things from the surface.¡± The goblins are still wary, but fearful of these two adventurers (and scary horse) who are well beyond their pay grade. As we head inside, dozens of goblins watch us from a distance. We couldn¡¯t wait until someone here was actually fluent in both Common and Goblin, oh no. Grandma Laurel seems to understand the timetable Milo has to work with and is intent upon giving him an opportunity to prove himself. She¡¯s helpful in giving Milo information about what Corwen wants and what we can provide while letting him work out the details. Milo hammers out an agreement to exchange mushrooms from Grubwick for wool from Corwen. We¡¯ll be sending humans (and Milo, and probably me if Milo doesn¡¯t learn Common quickly) down to facilitate the trade as goblins on the surface might attract negative attention at the moment. Once the deal is finalized, a system message appears in my third eye.
Congratulations! Your party has negotiated a trade agreement between Grubwick and Corwen.
Skill acquired: Language (Translation)
Description: The ability to quickly convey concepts in different languages.
We leave with a variety pack of mushroom samples and a promise to send someone bearing wool in a few days¡¯ time. ¡°This will be far simpler once I actually learn Common,¡± Milo mutters in English. ¡°That was exhausting. I am reminded of that one scene in I Love Lucy where they had to bring out a drunkard to help translate because no one at the Paris police department spoke English for some reason.¡± I don¡¯t tell him that I never watched I Love Lucy and just chuckle and nod. Once back outside, we mount up on Boo again and ride home. I think I preferred walking, even if these monstrous hooves practically eat miles. At this point, I¡¯m looking forward to sitting in a nice, warm room and reading some books now that I don¡¯t have to pretend I can¡¯t read. Chapter 13: The Dread Tutorial Teacher ¡°Hey, Drake, you want some tea?¡± Daisy asks. ¡°I can finally use the teakettle on my own now!¡± All of the magitech appliances in the Hearth require Elite rank to use because Wizardry is needed to activate their sigils. This also has the effect of making them fairly child-safe. By the time you reach Elite, you probably have a decent idea of how the world works and why you should be careful with the stove. This means Daisy and Meadow are sharing their delight at finally being able to make their own danged tea. While Aunt Heather is usually the one that runs the school, she¡¯s out doing things only a Legendary Oracle can do (namely, searching for other reincarnators), leaving the less Legendary aunts in charge while she¡¯s gone. Aunt Rosemary is a portly woman with gray hair done up in a bun with wisps of hair constantly escaping their confinement. She¡¯s the one who comes to show me around the school and talks to me about setting up a study plan. We have to figure out what I know and what I need to learn, for starters. Milo¡¯s first priority is learning Common, so any real studies for him will need to wait until he has that down. ¡°So, you¡¯re a reincarnator, huh,¡± Aunt Rosemary says. ¡°I haven¡¯t encountered many myself, but I have a general idea of what to expect. You are capable of more quickly learning skills that you knew in a previous life, correct?¡± ¡°Yes, but accessing them sometimes causes Sanity damage,¡± I say. Aunt Rosemary nods as if that¡¯s the most normal thing in the world. ¡°We¡¯ll be sure to keep some Sanity-restoring items available for you, then. You will probably gain a skill to resist Sanity damage at some point. That will be useful if you ever need to deal with anything eldritch. There are monsters that can cause Sanity damage just from looking at them.¡± I will need to think about what path I want to take in life and which skills to focus on so that I will be offered a suitable class. I still want magic, though, and every class gets access to some sort of cool powers at Elite rank and higher. Anyone Elite or higher can do general Sorcery, Alchemy, True Art, Thaumaturgy, Wizardry, Invocation, and Incantation. Most people only focus in one or two of them, or specific areas. ¡°If anyone can learn those skills, then what are classes for?¡± I ask. ¡°Classes give large bonuses to taking actions appropriate for that class,¡± Aunt Rosemary explains. ¡°A [Nurturing Child] like your cousin Burdock will receive more experience when nurturing things. This includes things suitable to adult classes like Hearthkeepers, Rangers, and Farmers. My sister Holly was a [Nurturing Child] before she became an Orcharder.¡± ¡°So then a Farmer would get more experience for doing things related to farming?¡± I ask. ¡°Exactly,¡± Aunt Rosemary says. ¡°Then, once you reach Heroic rank, you will gain an additional set of available skills related to the class. These tend to be more unique. You may access the library records of deceased members of Corwen Hearth to see what their skills were so you can get a better idea of what the possibilities are. Our founder, Ash, for example, was a Legendary [Guardian Hearthkeeper], a very interesting class that gives massive bonuses when defending the Hearth.¡± ¡°How does the class selection work?¡± ¡°The system box will appear in your third eye at the age of 7, 14, and 21, as well as the attainment of a new rank if you are already over 21. You will be given three options of slightly different paths based upon which of your skills are highest. If you are skilled in one thing and nothing else, you will only receive classes focusing on that one thing. While some Hearths favor overspecialization in their Hearth¡¯s primary occupation, Corwen is an adventuring Hearth primarily, so we encourage having a broader skillset.¡± ¡°What¡¯s your class?¡± I ask. ¡°Or is it rude to ask?¡± ¡°It¡¯s rude to ask anyone outside of your Hearth or prospective party members,¡± Aunt Rosemary says. ¡°My class is [Tutorial Teacher].¡± ¡°Of course it is¡­¡± I suppress a sigh. ¡°Is there something wrong with that?¡± ¡°No, no, nothing wrong,¡± I say. ¡°How do the adjectives work?¡± ¡°They tend to focus on your secondary skills and how they tie in to the main class,¡± Aunt Rosemary continues her tutorial. ¡°This is also why having a diverse set of skills can help. You can wind up with some powerful hybrid classes.¡± The [Tutorial Teacher] pulls out an old, heavy book and puts it on the desk in front of me. ¡°This is a compilation of every known skill and subskill available at Basic rank,¡± she says. ¡°There may be some obscure subskills it may be lacking, particularly in Clairvoyance and Recollection, as we have only had two other reincarnators in our history.¡±Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. I note the date is written as 603 GF. ¡°This book is over a hundred years old.¡± Aunt Rosemary nods. ¡°This edition was compiled after our previous reincarnator died and her skill list was made public. Corwen automatically creates a book containing a list of a member¡¯s skills and Deeds when they die. We don¡¯t even know what Verbena the Mythical [Witch Hunter]¡¯s skills look like since she¡¯s still alive.¡± I look in dismay at the hefty tome. ¡°Are there also skills for speed reading and memory retention? Ugh, what am I saying, of course there are.¡± ¡°You may need to read more than one book to unlock them, but I don¡¯t know how much of a bonus your past life knowledge will give,¡± Aunt Rosemary says. ¡°What is your Soul attribute?¡± ¡°Uhh¡­ it¡¯s over five million,¡± I say. Aunt Rosemary blinks at the ludricrous number. ¡°In that case, I would not be surprised if you were to unlock skills simply by successfully doing something once.¡± ¡°Yeah, that happens,¡± I say. ¡°I got Search (Puzzle Pieces) the first time I put together a jigsaw puzzle. I didn¡¯t get a Search (Bait) skill the only time I¡¯ve dug up fishing bait. I suspect I didn¡¯t do a lot of fishing in my previous lives. I only have clear memories of one of them, though.¡± I pause with a frown. ¡°I unlocked four skills from killing three goblins. I¡¯m sure I could become a phenomenal warrior. But I don¡¯t think I want to be one.¡± ¡°I see,¡± Aunt Rosemary says, brow furrowing. ¡°Well, do some consideration and research as to what path you want to take in life. I will be highly disappointed if you don¡¯t at least manage Heroic rank, even if you choose a sub-optimal one.¡± She winks at me. ¡°I would hate to disappoint.¡± ¡°The library is open to you,¡± Aunt Rosemary says. ¡°Please ask for help if you need anything from the top shelf. Don¡¯t worry about accidentally damaging the books. They¡¯re immune to damage by anything less than a Heroic ranked source. There¡¯s also a game room with a number of puzzles and board games that help in improving various skills. Regular lectures will be given on a rotating set of topics. The schedule will be posted on the bulletin board in the entryway.¡± It would be very easy, I think, to become a mighty warrior in this life as I clearly did in so many previous lives. It would be harder to improve skills that I don¡¯t have a lot of memories for. Which means if I go in without a plan, I¡¯m just going to wind up stuck in the same rut of least resistance for whichever skills I¡¯ve used the most in my past lives. I want to do something new, which means I¡¯m going to need to work at it. And, strangely enough, work at avoiding fighting. If I go and do a lot of fighting, it¡¯s totally going to dominate my class choices. I explain my reasoning to my mom. Anise nods thoughtfully as she listens to my dilemma. ¡°Well, if you want to avoid fighting except in emergencies, I can find some dungeons to run with little to no combat and make sure you have party members along to kill things for you. There are plenty of ways to contribute in a dungeon that don¡¯t involve fighting and I can tell people you¡¯re trying to unlock some sort of pacifistic class. You¡¯d hardly be the first person to try that and we¡¯ve got a lot of options.¡± The school is a little chaotic. I¡¯m the youngest student there, physically at least. The other students range from 7 to 13, but there aren¡¯t enough of any one year to form what I would have considered a full class, and all of them plan on different paths in life. There are also a few older teens who didn¡¯t get into a prestigious school who are here to read or help out with the younger kids. One big advantage the system gives is that you don¡¯t forget skills. Something you learned decades ago remains as fresh as the day you learned it. In any case, this will involve a lot of reading and practicing, and Milo is right there in the same boat as me. We¡¯re going to make it a point to learn additional languages, knowing that we¡¯re young enough that we can probably get some good bonuses to it. If we plan to travel a lot, being able to speak many languages would be incredibly useful. I haven¡¯t told Milo one suspicion I have of the game-like nature of this world: That the people with black auras, with Soul attributes, are the ¡®players¡¯, and those with violet auras are NPCs just as much as ones with red auras are monsters. It seems odd to me that they don¡¯t have the eighth attribute unlocked and most of them think the seven is all there is. But it doesn¡¯t really matter. Soul or not, they¡¯re people-like enough. I was always polite to AIs, too. Milo is from Earth but doesn¡¯t know video games. I try not to snuff out his sense of wonder too much. Milo might be the same age as me, but he¡¯s older than me with regards to growth. As a goblin, he unlocks his apprentice class at three years old. It will be very difficult if he wants to attain Elite that early, and before he hooked up with Corwen Hearth, he was realistically expecting he¡¯d only be able to reach Elite by the time he returned seven. Now, he figures he might actually make it if he pushes it and thinks a Deed like improving relations between humans and goblins and setting up trade deals might just do the trick. Grandma Laurel recommends we take someone at Elite rank along for protection, especially if I¡¯m going to try to avoid combat. And who is better at seeming non-threatening while still being able to set things on fire than my very own dear mother? Her underage drinking problem turned into a set of very stupid social skills. ¡°We¡¯ll need to be sure to bring along some booze so I can use Persuasion (Share Drinks),¡± Anise says. ¡°I wonder if goblins will like Corwen apple cider.¡± ¡°Did you become a Sorcerer rather than a Bartender just because magic is awesome?¡± I ask. ¡°Well¡­ pretty much, yeah,¡± Anise says. ¡°I didn¡¯t want to limit myself to one place, though. But now, I have a new dream! Bring the cider to everyone!¡± Anise pretty much immediately got sold on Milo¡¯s mercantile ambitions just because it involves traveling and alcohol. This is what our vast apple orchards are actually for. ¡°I have Language (Drunken Slur),¡± Anise says. ¡°I¡¯m interested in seeing if it works regardless of what language is being drunkenly slurred. Oh, and don¡¯t worry about me. I also have Discipline (Hold Your Alcohol). I won¡¯t do anything more stupid than usual.¡± ¡°Of course those would be skills¡­¡± I mutter. ¡°Anyway, we¡¯re making the first delivery of wool to Grubwick next week, so you and Milo should be ready for the trip since we still need you along because nobody else speaks Goblin yet,¡± Anise says. ¡°And I¡¯m bringing the booze!¡± Chapter 14: Cider Temptations I spend the next few days doing a lot of reading. There are a great many possible skills, too many for me to actively want to clutter my character screen with. Still, even if I¡¯m planning on trying to avoid combat, that leaves many fields that can be explored. Reading historical books is a little surreal. Corwen¡¯s library makes sure to cover important historical figures, which means there are multiple books about a Mythical Wizard named Merlin. Well, Ash Corwen was clearly not King Arthur, and Apple the [Tempest Archmage] was not Morgana, but if I squint I could probably find similarities. I decide to unlock some crafting skills. And use them to recreate some of my favorite board games, as a fun little exercise. This¡­ requires getting good enough at crafting to actually recreate some of my favorite board games accurately. Simple round stones would be easy enough to make. Detailed figurines will probably require a few extra skill levels. ¡°Anise, why are you letting your son handle a knife like that?¡± asks a nosy busybody who isn¡¯t even related to me. ¡°I bet you that he can use it better than you could, Bell,¡± Anise retorts.
Skill acquired: Crafting (Woodworking)
I survey the uneven grid I made, and the pile of wooden discs painted black on one side and white on the other. It¡¯s not the best Reversi set ever, but passable enough to unlock the skill at least, and it was a board game Corwen didn¡¯t already have in its game room. ¡°Oh, hey, that¡¯s a good idea,¡± Milo says, coming over to see what I¡¯ve made. ¡°We could give unique designs from Earth to goblins to craft and sell. I bet we could find interest in new games. I know your own Hearth is quite affluent, but what of the neighboring Hearths?¡± ¡°They¡¯re not bad off and would probably love it,¡± Anise says after I relay the question to her. ¡°You can run some ideas by me and I¡¯ll let you know if I¡¯ve heard about something like that.¡± The morning of the delivery comes, and we set off with a caravan hauling wool. Meadow is leading the way, since we still need a Ranger to be able to find the entrance to the Underside near Grubwick. Also accompanying us are a couple of relatives I don¡¯t know well who don¡¯t gossip much, but are happy to join in on the Goblin Language lessons. When we arrive at the location where Skullburn Outpost had been, there is no longer any trace of it except for some scorch marks and trampled grass. ¡°That was quick,¡± I say. ¡°They likely came back over the past week and took the bodies and materials,¡± Milo says. We reach the tunnels and shortly arrive back in Grubwick. As we head into the goblin village, I have to marvel at their shoddy hide tents surrounded by walls they would not have had the capability of building. Did they revert to the stone age at some point? Are they squatting in ruins of another Hearth? Or did the Hearth¡¯s aether core simply call these walls into existence from nothing? ¡°Milo, have you spoken to Grubwick¡¯s core yet?¡± I wonder. ¡°Only when it walked me through how to use the system in my third eye,¡± Milo says. ¡°Which is simple enough that a goblin can use it. I did not find a secret core room like the Hedge Maze had. I fear I did not even think to look.¡± ¡°You should probably ask it how much it is willing and able to help with what we¡¯re trying to do,¡± I say. ¡°You may need to find the core room first. I don¡¯t know about Grubwick, but Corwen is definitely more chatty if you¡¯re in the core room.¡± I suspect I know why. I¡¯ve been trying to raise [Aura Sight]. All the stray vis in Corwen wafts toward the Hearth, the hearth, and the core from there. The aether core is at the center of a drain underneath many trickling faucets. Being closer helps it gather more vis faster. ¡°Good idea,¡± Milo says. ¡°You guys will have to stay out here, though. Outsiders aren¡¯t allowed inside our Hearth either. I¡¯ll make sure everyone knows not to harm you no matter what you do, but they¡¯re kind of dumb sometimes. I¡¯ll be back shortly. Hopefully it¡¯s not too hard to find.¡±Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. Anise pretty much immediately makes friends using her powers of booze. I don¡¯t want to stray too far from her and the others in case any goblins get stupid. Our trade agreement is a new, fresh thing and they¡¯re not yet used to having humans around. Still, I can safely get a look at how they live from the safety of behind an Elite Sorcerer. Building up Grubwick is going to require advancing along its tech tree. I never imagined I¡¯d wind up getting involved with the industrialization of goblins, but here I am. And strangely, being a toddler among goblins may make things easier rather than harder. Even if I tell them how old I am (once I figure out how to say numbers), that won¡¯t mean anything to them. Maybe they¡¯ll see me as just a human who is closer to their size. Or a gnome or halfling or something, I guess, if we have those around here. At least this is good practice for learning Language (Goblin). Milo returns after a while, looking pensive. ¡°Grubwick was highly encouraging and explained to me how essence works. It¡¯s a resource aether cores use to make items. While it is unwilling to permit me to make essence purchases directly, it explains that upgrades will be applied automatically once certain milestones are reached. And said you would probably understand better the tree we had to climb. You were an engineer, weren¡¯t you? What is this ¡®tree¡¯ of which it speaks?¡± ¡°I was once asked to design a phone that could survive being run over by a truck and then put in the washing machine,¡± I say. ¡°But yes, if it means the tech tree, that I know.¡± ¡°I fear I¡¯m more acquainted with the art of convincing prospective clients that they really need what you are offering,¡± Milo says. ¡°Where do we even start with advancing their civilization?¡± ¡°Civilization, heh¡­¡± I say. ¡°Where do we start? First, we introduce them to the idea of agriculture¡­¡± ¡°Agriculture, of course!¡± Milo exclaims. ¡°They¡¯re having to rely on gathering mushrooms to trade themselves, and it¡¯s hit or miss whether they can find any of a specific type even with Search (Mushrooms). Search can¡¯t find something that isn¡¯t there, after all. But if we can grow them ourselves¡­ hmm. This will require figuring out the conditions the mushrooms need to thrive.¡± The goblins of Grubwick immediately become hooked on cider but don¡¯t know how to make their own booze deliberately yet. Agriculture would do well toward increasing their limited supply of mushrooms to trade. Milo goes to try to explain how farming might work to some goblins who are not currently drunk. ¡°I¡¯ll probably need to talk to the goblins you¡¯ve gotten drunk after this,¡± Milo says. ¡°They are the ones who will be most motivated toward making sure they can get more booze, provided they don¡¯t wind up with hangovers that make them swear off alcohol forever. At least we won¡¯t have to try using the open Underside yet. We¡¯ve got lots of caves and warrens underneath the Hearth. There¡¯s a lot more goblins here than the ones you see.¡± It takes them a bit to understand the concept of trying to grow their own mushrooms, especially the concept of utilizing any more of the area vulnerable to monster swarms than necessary. The monsters emerge from the depths and swarm past Grubwick on the way to the surface. If the goblins were capable of killing more of the monsters as they come by, the surface would have to deal with fewer monsters. Many of the entrances to the Underside have goblin villages near them, since they like being close enough to gather resources or conduct raids on the surface. There won¡¯t be anymore raiding from Grubwick, but we will need to convince the other goblin villages one by one. This leads to our next idea: scouring the Underside for crops and livestock accessible to goblins but not so readily to humans. (This will likely have to be done by someone higher level than us, but we can relay the idea back to Corwen Hearth.) Sure, they could just plant things on the surface, as they¡¯re close enough to the entrance to tend them regularly. But a domesticated resource that can be obtained nowhere else would be much more valuable and might stir interest in people who are dubious about trading with goblins. Corwen has already shown interest in Grubwick¡¯s gathered mushrooms. What else might they be able to make use of? ¡°I¡¯m looking forward to seeing what they come up with once they figure out how fermentation works,¡± Anise says. ¡°Have you explored the Underside before?¡± I ask. Anise shakes her head. ¡°I¡¯ve mostly just done dungeons that can be accessed from the surface. But the Underside is wilderness like the surface and not just a dungeon. There are dungeons in it too, but vast tracts of area that¡¯s not dungeons but also has a higher chance of having monsters than the surface except during swarm season. All I know is what I¡¯ve heard from other adventurers, though.¡± The goblins don¡¯t really know what to do with wool yet, but I¡¯m sure they¡¯ll figure it out soon enough. We load up the mushrooms intended to Corwen and head back out. Although the goblins have been friendly enough, we still don¡¯t trust them enough to stay the night in their village, also they don¡¯t have an inn yet and there¡¯s not many monsters wandering on the surface this time of year anyway. Milo opts to stay the night in Grubwick and meet up with our camp in the morning so that he can impart some otherworldly knowledge upon them. ¡°I think that went well,¡± Anise says, hiccuping. ¡°Did you find out if Language (Drunken Slur) works even if you don¡¯t understand their regular language?¡± I wonder. ¡°I¡¯m¡­ not really sure,¡± Anise says. ¡°Their tone came across fine. We just weren¡¯t exactly having any riveting philosophical discussions. Many of the phrases in Language (Drunken Slur) are things like ¡®I want more booze¡¯ and ¡®Hey everyone, watch this!¡¯ followed by doing something stupid. Like juggling stone knives. One of them totally tried to juggle stone knives.¡± Chapter 15: Skills Unlocked! Having exchanged Grubwick¡¯s surplus mushrooms for wool, we return to Corwen to give them a chance to figure out how to unlock skills for textiles and agriculture themselves. Milo has explained to them the basics, but it¡¯s up to them now to take the next steps themselves. In the meantime, I take the opportunity for some downtime to read every book in the village and attend a few lectures. Even if they¡¯re only covering topics I should already ¡°know¡±, I can¡¯t guarantee everything is the same as what I think I know, and it will be helpful to unlock Knowledge skills to influence my later class choices.
Skill acquired: Knowledge (Agriculture)
Corwen, being a rural village, is involved in a lot of farming, although in our case it¡¯s primarily apple orchards. Other nearby villages have their own specialties and trade regularly. Knowing a little about farming myself may prove helpful in getting the goblins up to speed. The school is also full of maps and even an orrery of the Tiganna system comprised of round discs on curved struts around a magitech lightbulb representing the skymote. These I pore over and familiarize myself with at least the region of Tempest I¡¯m in.
Skill acquired: Knowledge (Geography)
I always loved maps, and if I¡¯m going to be doing much traveling in the future, having a better grasp on geography will be invaluable. And the floating islands, called ¡°domains¡±, are fascinating. One or another of the books in here, or somewhere at least, must have an explanation as to how the physics of it works. I mean, magic, I assume, but ¡°magic¡± is as lazy of an answer as ¡°science¡± is. If a kid back on Earth were to ask me why the sky is blue and I replied ¡°science¡±, that would be technically correct and also completely useless. Anise spends some time away from the village, and the other adults won¡¯t let me play with sharp objects, reincarnator or no. Fine, no more woodworking practice for me for a while. I already unlocked the skill, at least. They¡¯re perfectly happy to encourage me to take up finger painting, though, and sit my adopted sister and twin baby cousins along with me. The babies produce some fine examples of abstract art. Finger painting winds up being pretty fun and I make a few crude pictures of things from Earth that make no sense to them.
Skill acquired: Crafting (Painting)
¡°Why is the sky all azure, with only one yellow skymote?¡± wonders the resident nosy busybody. ¡°You painted it wrong.¡± ¡°Oh, give him a break, Bell,¡± Aunt Rosemary says. ¡°He has an excellent imagination! Why don¡¯t you go back to your own Hearth if you don¡¯t like how we raise our children here?¡± Bell grumbles unhappily and shuts up before she says anything that will convince the Corwens to throw her and her brat of an 8-year-old out. I do some charcoal sketches as well. I wish I¡¯d come here sooner. There¡¯s plenty of arts and crafts supplies I could have been playing around with. Ah, well, I don¡¯t think exploring the Hearth was a waste of time. Thinking back on another life in a peaceful time, I draw a sketch of a woman whose face is ingrained in my memories. ¡°Your wife?¡± Milo asks. ¡°My sister,¡± I say. ¡°I never married. She did, though. I had a gaggle of grand-nieces and nephews.¡± ¡°She¡¯s pretty. Or at least I assume she would be if you had actually unlocked Crafting (Sketching) yet. I don¡¯t think her nose was actually that long and pointed unless you invented mutants in the future, too.¡± I snicker. ¡°No, I¡¯m just bad at this. Just gotta keep at it until the system acknowledges my efforts, I suppose.¡± ¡°Pretty sure you¡¯re actually supposed to learn how to do it properly and not just do it wrong over and over,¡± Milo says with a smirk. I wind up having to do seventeen bad sketches before getting the notification after one that you might just be able to pick out of a police lineup. I think I really captured Annie¡¯s coy smirk that time. The sort of smirk that says, ¡°Yeah, I totally did it, but you have no evidence and I know it.¡±
Skill acquired: Crafting (Sketching)
Next, I find a pencil and start drawing a diagram of a bridge. I love bridges and wish I¡¯d ever gotten to actually design one. It only takes lovingly-detailed drawings of three different types of bridges for this skill to pop up in my third eye.
Skill acquired: Crafting (Drafting)
There¡¯s a few considerations I¡¯m unable to account for yet, such as the gravity of the domains and the properties of available materials. Gravity feels normal to me, but I¡¯ve never felt anything different for the entirety of this life, so if it¡¯s different from Earth it¡¯s probably by a negligible amount. As for materials, that will require more research. Corwen is a family of adventurers, not builders. A bit of a secondary consideration when you live next to a crystalline alien that can reshape matter at will.This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. I also make sure to learn some more adventuring skills. Just because I don¡¯t want to make a life through violence doesn¡¯t mean I don¡¯t want to go exploring. There will be dangerous creatures, that much is inevitable with the way this world works. However, I need to be able to avoid being instantly killed by them long enough for someone else to deal with them, preferably. Every level of a combat skill means I¡¯m more likely to get funneled into combat classes. I¡¯ll see about unlocking some important exploration skills. I¡¯ve already got Athletics (Climbing), Athletics (Jumping), and Survival (Hiking), which is an excellent start. Next up, I feel that it¡¯s important to learn to swim. The village has an artificial pond inside the walls, and a small lake outside. The pond is more of a swimming pool that¡¯s pretending to be a natural feature than anything I¡¯d be afraid of getting diseases or parasites from, and is an excellent place to learn to swim. Burdock (and Mipsy), Meadow, and Daisy join me for the occasion. Daisy brings along a pocket spellbook to test simple spells outdoors. ¡°As I¡¯m still a [Scholarly Child] until I turn 14 next January, I get bonuses to using a spellbook rather than a staff, talisman, or whatever,¡± Daisy explains. ¡°Don¡¯t worry. It¡¯s waterproof.¡± ¡°Did you make that yourself?¡± I ask. Daisy shakes her head. ¡°No, it¡¯s one of the standard training books. I¡¯ll make myself a proper customized spellbook later at school.¡± ¡°Alright, don¡¯t be scared now,¡± Meadow tells me encouragingly as I approach the water. ¡°I¡¯ll pull you right out if you mess up.¡± ¡°I am mentally an adult, you know,¡± I say. Meadow grins. ¡°Even adults can panic and do stupid things under unfamiliar conditions. You wouldn¡¯t believe how I¡¯ve had to babysit aunts and uncles twice to three times my age when traveling in the wilds.¡± I dip a toe in the water, finding it to be just as cold as I¡¯d imagined. There¡¯s a Survival (Cold Resistance) skill, but I imagine I will need to do more to unlock it than take a dip in a pool in May, sadly. From the notes I read, resistance skills are very useful but a nightmare to train without high Willpower, and my Willpower is¡­ below average. The average adult has 20 in all attributes, if they¡¯ve done a moderate amount of training in each area. Mine is 16 and has not changed since I was named. I settle in to become comfortable in the chilly water before starting trying to lift my legs and tread water. While my other stats have not changed, my Strength and Endurance have each gone up a point and are now 3. I¡¯ve been doing a good deal more exercise than the average toddler. ¡°Did you get it yet?¡± Meadow asks. ¡°No,¡± I say. ¡°Aw, I was so sure you¡¯d get it in five minutes!¡± Meadow says. ¡°You¡¯re the super reincarnator who learns things after only doing them once, aren¡¯t you?¡± ¡°I recall learning how to swim and then proceeding to avoid any reason why I should ever be in water deeper than my waist,¡± I say. I flail about a little in the water, slowly gaining more confidence with Meadow¡¯s support and despite Daisy¡¯s distractions. With the help of her little magic book, she causes ripples in the pond. ¡°Daisy, I¡¯m not sure if this is helping,¡± I say, laughing and splashing water in her general direction, but she is safely out of reach on dry land and my arms are very short. I don¡¯t actually get the skill unlocked until I manage to swim across the little pool unaided. Meadow watches me like a hawk (or maybe an osprey) the whole way, ready to dive in and heroically rescue me.
Skill acquired: Athletics (Swimming)
I let out a whoop as my hands touch the fake-natural rocks at the far side of the pond and receive the message. ¡°Got it!¡± I cry. ¡°Now I¡¯m going to get out of this water and dry off and go read.¡± Meadow laughs. ¡°If your Stamina meter is low, go ahead and take a short rest.¡± Daisy¡¯s book glows, and a tiny splash of water splashes on me. ¡°At least stay until I get my skill too! I¡¯d like to get back inside, myself, but I can¡¯t practice [Water Manipulation] indoors. Aunt Myrtle already kicked me out of the hearth and said to go play in the sun with my friends.¡±
Milo has been spending the time I¡¯ve been training making contact with a couple more goblin villages in the area. One of them runs his party out of the area and refuses to have anything to do with humans or ¡°goblin traitors¡±. I suppose it would have been too much to ask for every contact to go smoothly. At least no one is hurt. The third village goes a little better. They aren¡¯t interested in trade but agree not to raid humans, as they aren¡¯t very interested in raiding anyway. Having more people being neutral instead of enemies is still a good thing. It takes a few weeks for Milo to get that first point in Common. (Not that I¡¯ve gotten any additional points in Common, myself, and I don¡¯t seem to have any trouble understanding it regardless. I have no idea how this works.) ¡°Finally!¡± Milo says. ¡°Language (Common) is now mine! I¡¯ve only attempted to hold a conversation with literally everyone in the village! And you¡¯re right. Now it sounds like everyone is just speaking English to me. Before it was as though they were speaking, I don¡¯t know, Welsh or something. So peculiar.¡± ¡°I¡¯m probably going to need to talk to more goblins for mine to unlock,¡± I say. ¡°When¡¯s the next trip?¡± ¡°Next week! You coming along this time?¡± ¡°Sure,¡± I say. ¡°I¡¯ve unlocked some very important skills in the meantime.¡± ¡°You mean the finger painting?¡± Milo asks. ¡°I mean I can now draw technical diagrams,¡± I say. ¡°And hopefully teach your goblins how to read them.¡± I pull out the bridge drawings I did. ¡°We¡¯re going to build a bridge.¡± ¡°And they¡¯ll be able to access the resources on the other side of the river more easily!¡± Milo¡¯s face figuratively lights up. ¡°Brilliant! That river is full of deadly carp. You can¡¯t swim across it.¡± ¡°Deadly carp, of course,¡± I say flatly. ¡°I would feel better about this if we could build a stone or wooden bridge, but we haven¡¯t unlocked [Masonry] or [Carpentry] yet. I was hoping making that board game would count, but I got [Woodworking] instead. Not quite the same thing. Wool, even devil-goat wool, probably isn¡¯t the best choice for rope but will likely work. Then we just need some planks of some sort that will hopefully not break and dump you into dangerous, carp-infested waters.¡± ¡°I am suddenly less enthusiastic about building this bridge. I think teaching my goblins masonry would be a much better idea. Especially if they¡¯re going to use this bridge to gather resources.¡± ¡°Fair point,¡± I say. ¡°Time enough to read some books on the topic, I suppose. And you should be able to read now, too!¡± Chapter 16: Building Bridges ¡°Oh for crying out loud, why didn¡¯t you tell me people¡¯s names had meanings?¡± Milo grouses. ¡°Now I have to figure out who everyone is all over again. Blasted magic translator.¡± ¡°Sorry. I didn¡¯t think anything of it.¡± I pause and frown thoughtfully. ¡°What¡¯s a burdock?¡± ¡°A thistle,¡± Milo says. ¡°I¡¯m going to go re-meet everyone now that I can properly communicate with them and figure out what their names actually mean.¡± After encountering the hostile goblins of Muckburrow, Milo is more cautious about making first contact with new villages, sends a few Grubwick goblins without humans in his stead. So far, the other goblin villages have been hostile or neutral at best, even the neutral ones taking an attitude of ¡°leave us out of this¡± or ¡°wait and see¡±. Although Milo is not technically in charge of Grubwick, [Elder Witch] Griza is, and she has basically told the goblins to do whatever Milo asks. She probably wouldn¡¯t be as eager to support us were we to do anything against the interests of Grubwick, but so far she¡¯s been happy to sit back and see where this is going. Corwen is lacking in books on [Masonry], so I ask my mom for suggestions. ¡°Penbryn is known for its builders,¡± Anise says. ¡°It¡¯s not far and Aunt Heather confirmed there¡¯s no reincarnators there. You can get lectures on the topic and watch them do their work, I¡¯m sure. Let¡¯s take a trip, shall we? We can take Juniper.¡± When we arrive at the village of Penbryn, I speak with Jay, their [Masonry] teacher. Or rather, Anise speaks with him because we didn¡¯t want to make it too obvious that I¡¯m a reincarnator. ¡°Sure, he can sit in on a few lectures,¡± Jay says. ¡°I don¡¯t know whether he¡¯ll get a Knowledge skill out of it or not, but there¡¯s no harm in it. Your Hearth lets our children sit in on adventuring lectures without asking payment, so it¡¯s only fair to return the favor.¡± I¡¯m just happy that I live in a civilization that¡¯s willing to share knowledge. Anise and I are given a room in their guest house to stay in for the duration. I play the role of a dumb toddler that¡¯s just really interested in building, and watch and listen intently. ¡°I wonder what happened to the goblins?¡± I overhear someone say in the guest house one evening. ¡°We haven¡¯t seen any raiders in months.¡± ¡°Maybe someone wiped them out,¡± another man comments. ¡°Anise, you¡¯re from an adventuring Hearth, aren¡¯t you? Have you heard anything?¡± ¡°Oh, that?¡± Anise says. ¡°Yeah, we convinced the local goblin village to be less aggressive. Even managed to trade for some of their mushrooms.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll be damned. What kind of silver tongues do you have in your Hearth?¡± ¡°It was a crazy set of circumstances, I¡¯ll tell you that much,¡± Anise says without going into detail.
Skill acquired: Subterfuge (Eavesdropping)
This was not the skill I came here to unlock, but whatever, I¡¯ll take it. (How does every toddler not wind up with this? I suppose skills require at least a little deliberateness for the system to recognize them.) I spend weeks attending lectures at Penbryn. On weekends, Anise takes me on trips back to Corwen or to Grubwick. It¡¯s June before I finally get the first point of the skill I was after.
Skill acquired: Knowledge (Masonry)
Finally. Now I can quit pretending to be a baby and get out of here. This place isn¡¯t nearly as exciting as Corwen. With the skill under my belt, I return to Grubwick to get started. Before committing to trying to build a bridge over the dangerous river right away, we start off with the basics. We acquire some hard stone that would make good chisels, since we don¡¯t have the capacity for metalworking yet. Making stone tools, however, is something they know, and the goblins wind up teaching me a thing or two about finding the proper stone and getting it into the shape I want.
Skill acquired: Crafting (Stoneworking)
Skill acquired: Language (Goblin)
Both skills unlock after I successfully make my first passable stone chisel. ¡°Good job!¡± Rog, the goblin who was helping me says. ¡°That tool will work decently.¡± ¡°I can understand you decently now, too,¡± I say. ¡°Thanks for your help. I unlocked both Crafting (Stoneworking) and Language (Goblin).¡± ¡°Even more of a good job!¡± Rog says with a laugh. ¡°Most humans don¡¯t bother listening to what goblins have to say. We live between two worlds.¡± I suddenly realize that the words I¡¯d taken for swear words were not the sort of cursing I thought they were. ¡°What two worlds?¡± I ask. ¡°The Topside and the Underside, of course,¡± Rog says. ¡°There are people on the Underside?¡± I ask. ¡°Oh, yes,¡± Rog says. ¡°Strange people that live in the searing light of Tiganna. You will never see them in the In-Between or the Topside, fortunately. They can¡¯t live without Tiganna¡¯s light. And there¡¯s so many monsters! We¡¯re fortunate only a tiny number of them rise to the Great Sphere¡¯s pull every year.¡± I do not ask the obvious question, ¡°Why do they not fall into the Void?¡± I chat with everyone in the village who isn¡¯t in an area I¡¯m not allowed to go. Grubwick Hearth has a good deal more underground space than Corwen, rather than sprawling across the surface of the big cave. (I wonder what point in the In-Between the gravity shifts at?) The humans also seem to be under the impression that the In-Between is the Underside. It doesn¡¯t help that the entrances seem to be labeled like mall directions that don¡¯t bother mentioning the maze of hallways you¡¯re about to enter. ¡°How far is it to the nearest entrance to the Underside?¡± I ask one of them.Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. ¡°Far, very far,¡± the goblin says. ¡°You are not ready for the journey. There are many layers of In-Between and many more dangerous peoples than goblins between here and there.¡± ¡°I¡¯d imagine I need to level up a lot more before I can really seek out new life and new civilizations,¡± I say. Now that I have a functional chisel, I start practicing with it. Goblins know about working with various types of stone, but they never had a reason to shape it into blocks and stack it up. The presence of a Hearth may have stifled their innovation a bit. They only learned how to make better spears and knives. I don¡¯t start off with trying to make passable stone blocks. I start off with just messing around and seeing how the chisel works without expectation that it will look like anything when I¡¯m done. I revel in the sensation that I have never done this before. In my life as an engineer, my society was well beyond the stone age and my job involved working on a much higher technology level. I was entirely too busy to take up flintknapping as a hobby. And in the lives I don¡¯t remember? I¡¯m quite sure I did more hitting things than crafting. I was very good at hitting things. My Knowledge (Masonry) tells me that this chisel is of ¡°Poor¡± quality, and will do the job but not very well. It will be difficult to get even blocks with this. I decide to make a few more chisels to try to get one of a higher grade. There¡¯s also the matter of mortar. ¡°Milo, can we negotiate a trade between Grubwick and Penbryn for limestone?¡± I ask. ¡°They own most of the local quarries.¡± Milo nods. ¡°It¡¯ll need to wait until we¡¯ve got more surplus resources or something to trade to get enough to do any serious building with.¡± The goblins I spoke to seem to be happy with their shipment of Corwen wool. Some of them managed to unlock Crafting (Spinning). They¡¯ve probably ruined some of it trying to get the proper skills, but Corwen devil-goats produce a very sturdy type of wool. Even with having to figure out how to spin it first, it¡¯s an improvement over sinew and produces items of a higher grade even at lower skill levels. At least ordinary rocks are plentiful to practice on, both in the In-Between and Topside, when you don¡¯t care about the quality of your materials. I¡¯m just trying to get a skill, not make a work of art. But perhaps I should be? I get the feeling that the system wants you to try to improve, not just blindly repeat the same thing over and over. I don¡¯t usually get a skill unlocked until I¡¯ve successfully accomplished something. I make a smaller chisel for detail work and eventually get the system message I¡¯ve been looking for upon making a turtle figurine that Milo can actually identify as a turtle.
Skill acquired: Crafting (Sculpting)
Your Dexterity has increased to 3.
I¡¯ve found my efforts at sculpting to be surprisingly relaxing and rewarding. There¡¯s some joy in pushing your limits and not just doing the same old routine. The goblins I¡¯ve been working with have been improving their skills bit by bit, too. ¡°This bridge will be awesome,¡± says Rog. ¡°When do we start building it?¡± ¡°When we can reliably make arches that don¡¯t fall down,¡± I reply. ¡°We can practice over something a little safer. I¡¯m thinking Skullburn Creek would be a good option to start with. It would make it easier for Corwen to get here, it¡¯s smaller, and there¡¯s nothing dangerous down there.¡± ¡°Will Corwen send guards to make sure no humans get the wrong idea about goblins Topside?¡± Rog asks. ¡°Of course,¡± I say. ¡°My mom, Anise, will be there at least.¡± I¡¯m impressed at how far the goblins have come in a short period of time with shoddy instruction. I got to read books, listen to lectures on the topic, and watch some actual masons do their work. They only have me, blindly translating things I¡¯ve heard. I strongly suspect that goblins are more intelligent than humans would imagine, they¡¯re just not terribly ambitious or curious without something driving them. They¡¯re weak, short-lived beings eking out an existence sandwiched between two places full of dangerous things. Talking with the goblins gives me a good deal more understanding about goblin society. Their Hearth system is remarkably similar to the ones used by humans, but each Hearth¡¯s warren contains many more goblins than a human Hearth would. There are about a hundred people who live in Corwen, while Grubwick alone has several times that amount, I¡¯m guessing. Milo is the only goblin child allowed anywhere near the surface. They all know he¡¯s a reincarnator and an exception to all the normal rules. They knew he was a ¡°Chosen One¡± at birth. I¡¯m honestly glad Corwen doesn¡¯t get all weird about the reincarnation thing. They don¡¯t really treat me like a Chosen One, just as a very small adult who should know better. Totally unfair. Before we try building a bridge, we build a little house inside the walls that can be an inn for any humans staying here so they don¡¯t just have to pitch a tent. We can just make the roof as though it were a bridge. This will also keep out some of the noises of the In-Between. It¡¯s surprisingly noisy down here. Every time my Stamina meter gets too low, I drift off listening to the keening sounds of monsters moving around somewhere far below us as well as the bizarre chirping of something that sounds like a dog-sized bug. Which leads me to the goblins¡¯ common choice of cuisine. If I want to eat down here, I either need to bring rations from the surface or eat dog-sized bugs. Fine, I¡¯m feeling adventurous. What¡¯s the worst that could happen? Anything short of killing me will probably just give me a resistance skill at worst, and I¡¯m quite sure the [Elder Witch] wouldn¡¯t let me die if she could help it. Grandma Laurel could wipe out this place single-handedly and she knows it. The giant maggot meat¡­ tastes a little like crab. Maybe crawfish. I am so very, very glad that it doesn¡¯t taste like chicken. ¡°Where do these come from?¡± I ask. ¡°The swamp down the river,¡± says Rog. ¡°They¡¯re the ones that make that rrrr-rrrrrr sound all night.¡± The goblin throat is weirdly capable of reproducing exactly the trill I keep hearing. ¡°Try some of their milk!¡± says another goblin, passing me a very uneven stone cup full of a liquid that does look like milk. I take a sip. It also tastes remarkably like milk. Tangier than the milk of a devil-goat and less rich. I wonder if it can be made into cheese? Our first arch collapses. Our second arch falls over. Our third arch does both at the same time. Our fourth arch stays up, at which point we realize a four foot tall arch won¡¯t be suitable for a human-sized building. Three foot tall creatures building an eight foot tall structure will require the invention of scaffolding, I think. Rough-hewn planks cut by stone axes tied together with devil-goat wool string. I don¡¯t care to recount how many times it takes them to stay up. After several more attempts and a few broken bones, we know we¡¯re successful when we all get a system message.
Congratulations! Your party has constructed a small stone house.
You have significantly advanced the development of Grubwick.
Skill acquired: Crafting (Masonry)
Skill acquired: Tending (Teaching)
Your Dexterity has increased to 4.
¡°That did it!¡± Milo exclaims. ¡°And it gave me Elite rank for it, too! With only two months to spare.¡± ¡°Congratulations!¡± I tell him, patting him on the shoulder. ¡°I will need to spend the next two months practicing magic skills,¡± Milo says. ¡°Did you also get the message about the bonuses?¡± I shake my head. ¡°What did it say?¡± ¡°¡®An Inn has been added to your village. Inn bonuses are now in effect.¡¯ And quite a few numbers. A new button in my user interface appeared.¡± He frowns. ¡°It seems either that Deed or the rank upgrade unlocked access to something. I can now see some details about my village in my head. This is¡­ very strange and convenient. It says this is a Poor quality house that gives a +1 bonus to tenant happiness.¡± ¡°I wasn¡¯t expecting our first attempt to be perfect but Poor, really?¡± I say with a smirk. ¡°It didn¡¯t fall down,¡± Milo says. ¡°Yeah,¡± I say. ¡°I guess that¡¯s enough to try building a bridge over an actual body of water next. But that will have to wait till next year. Do you want to spend swarm season here or in Corwen?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll be plenty safe down in the warrens and I¡¯m not allowed into your Hearth,¡± Milo says. ¡°That¡¯s probably true, but Corwen¡¯s guest house is probably no less safe, and we¡¯ve got people who can help get your magic skills up faster.¡± ¡°Hmm,¡± Milo says, then says. ¡°I wanted to stay and teach a bit, but I realize I have a personal deadline and they do not have a deadline on civilization advances. Very well. I will accompany you to Corwen for the fall and return once enough of the monsters are gone that it¡¯s safe to travel again.¡± Chapter 17: Overcoming Capraphobia Late September sees us back in Corwen as the village¡¯s population swells like it does every year. Family, travelers, and the more sensible Hearthless alike crowd in behind the high, safe walls. We¡¯ve left the goblins of Grubwick some instructions on things to work on improvement in and drawings they can use as inspiration. ¡°Hopefully the inn doesn¡¯t fall down before we get back,¡± Milo says. ¡°Or at least if it does, they know how to rebuild it better now. I do hope they come up with some better scaffolding before we actually try to use it over a creek or this is going to be a much more damp affair than I am already anticipating.¡± Among those returning to Corwen are Lily (Burdock and Daisy¡¯s sister) and Basil (Meadow¡¯s brother) as well as some teens whose names I don¡¯t remember. (I only remember Basil because when Meadow sees him, she hugs him and yells, ¡°Basil, I made Elite!¡±) A few days after everyone is back, the sky turns red and the monster swarms arrive. As always, Aunt Heather does her Divination thing and reports back what types of monsters she has spotted. We (by which I mean all the Corwens) crowd into the hearth to her her announcement. ¡°I¡¯ve seen at least one Legendary Nature Stag out there,¡± Aunt Heather says. ¡°They aren¡¯t usually hostile unless you¡¯re harming nature in some way, so you are to do absolutely no woodcutting or similar activities outside the walls this year. There are some two-headed bears around Heroic rank, and a number of animated leaf creatures at Basic and Elite. No climbers or fliers spotted this year, but I will let you all know if that changes.¡± Someone makes sure the people staying in the guest house (like Milo) also know what¡¯s out there. We have to be wary in the open areas inside the village at first in case there was something she missed, but after a few days pass and no climbers or fliers have shown up, we¡¯re free to wander around so long as we remain inside the outer walls. Milo and I spend a good deal of time at the school, reading and practicing our skills. Daisy is here practicing her Wizardry. (Fortunately in a slightly less distracting way than when I was trying to re-learn how to swim.) I take a moment to read a book about the mechanics of quests. Since I don¡¯t get them, I want to see how they normally work. And after skimming a few books, I find that they¡¯re pretty much what I would have expected. A quest pops up telling you to do something and offering a reward or choice of rewards. They can be failed or declined, but most people consider it unlucky to refuse quests without good reason. Turns out there¡¯s an entire genre of fiction about people agonizing over whether to do a quest their aether core offered them. It¡¯s also common for a core to offer three options. The class selections are an obvious example, but not the only one. Quest rewards are usually presented as triplets as well. I¡¯m apparently missing out on quite a lot of goodies by not having quests. It seems they¡¯re experimenting with seeing what happens when they Choose a couple of Ones and not tell what to do all the time. Like we¡¯re a test of free will. I could spend the entire time reading fiction in the name of ¡°research¡±, but I have actual subjects I want to study as well. My reading material this season includes [Animal Husbandry]. The bridge project has been going along nicely, and I want to see if they can domesticate those milk bug things. ¡°You¡¯re interested in animals?¡± Grandma Laurel asks upon seeing what I¡¯m reading. ¡°I want to try to make cheese from the secretions of domesticated giant cave maggots,¡± I explain. Grandma Laurel stares at me for a long, then throws back her head and laughs heartily. ¡°Oh, you truly are my kin, Drake. I was never much good at lectures, but I wouldn¡¯t mind telling some stories about how I got acquainted with all my various ¡®friends¡¯. I¡¯m sure Burdock would be interested as well. And you can meet the kids! Some baby goats spawned on the first and need human socialization.¡± That¡¯s how Milo and I get dragged along to see terrifying baby devil-goats already as tall as I am. ¡°Aren¡¯t they cute?¡± Burdock says. The young black goat looks at me with sinister glowing red eyes and bleats in my soul. I whimper and shrink back, curling into a fetal position as the enormous evil creature looms above me. ¡°Hey!¡± Grandma Laurel snaps. ¡°No using [Fear Aura] on family members!¡± The goat shrinks and becomes tiny and cute again, and lets out a tiny chastised bleat. I warily climb to my feet as the effect fades. ¡°Sorry about that,¡± Grandma Laurel says. ¡°It takes a bit to train them.¡± ¡°That¡¯s quite alright,¡± I say. ¡°Any chance we could do that until I develop a resistance to it?¡± Milo groans aloud. ¡°He may be a masochist, but that does not sound like a terrible idea, as unpleasant as it might be.¡± ¡°Absolutely,¡± Grandma Laurel says. ¡°Let¡¯s get you three boys some skills unlocked and make these the sweetest devil-kids you ever saw.¡± Grandma Laurel is perfectly happy to subject us to a crash course in the care of devil-goats while being continually subjected to a psychic aura of crippling terror. This only makes it the third worst school subject I¡¯ve ever taken. ¡°This is horrible,¡± I say after a week of daily training. ¡°All for the sake of some numbers? This was a terrible idea.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not just numbers,¡± Milo says. ¡°It¡¯s for the success of Grubwick. And ourselves. Yourself. Come on. We can do this.¡± ¡°Ugh,¡± I mutter. ¡°We don¡¯t need this. It was a stupid, whimsical idea.¡±This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. ¡°It was not a bad idea,¡± Milo says. ¡°You just have to follow through on your ideas. You jump around from topic to topic, pulling yourself in a dozen different directions. And while we do need that, we need to see each one through far enough that we can kickstart development. Come on. This is just another arch we need to build.¡± We push through, and after few weeks eventually get that notifications I¡¯ve been waiting for, to my great relief.
Skill acquired: Discipline (Fear Resistance)
Skill acquired: Knowledge (Animal Husbandry)
Skill acquired: Tending (Livestock)
Your Willpower has increased to 17.
I sleep well that night secure in the knowledge that I get out of this barn and do something else for a bit. I am content with one point in each skill for the moment. And thrilled that I finally increased my Willpower. ¡­ Late November, Milo approaches me in the school reading room, his green face wrinkled in a worried expression. ¡°I just got a notification informing me that Grubwick is low on food,¡± Milo says. ¡°It¡¯s¡­ still not a quest, but it might as well be?¡± ¡°It¡¯s giving you the choice to see how and whether to help,¡± I say. ¡°I can make it back,¡± Milo says. ¡°Your aunt said the Legendaries probably won¡¯t bother you if you¡¯re just traveling and not gathering resources, and I¡¯m Elite rank now and can do magic.¡± He pauses. ¡°Our birthday is in a week.¡± ¡°Couldn¡¯t Grubwick conjure food?¡± I ask. ¡°Corwen spawns goats.¡± ¡°It would cost essence,¡± Milo says. ¡°There¡¯s probably a reason why Corwen does it the way it does. It would probably cost a lot of what we¡¯ve built up over this past year. It says it will need to start reabsorbing stone blocks and tools to get the essence back, and if we don¡¯t get them enough food, we lose that inn we just built. Better to get food to them.¡± ¡°How can the Hedge Maze afford to hand out so many coins and items?¡± I wonder. ¡°Different specializations, and I suspect the Hedge Maze is higher level than Grubwick despite it being kid-friendly,¡± Anise says. ¡°I can set things on fire but I couldn¡¯t conjure food. Anyway, let¡¯s see about making sure our new green friends don¡¯t go hungry.¡± From what Corwen told me once, it used essence to purchase my soul for reincarnation. Grubwick must have done the same with Milo, but as the goblin village was less prosperous, it probably had to save up for a long time to afford his soul. I am choosing not to think too hard about the notion of crystalline aliens buying and selling souls to populate their theme parks. I¡¯m just having fun with my life.
Skill acquired: Discipline (Self-Delusion)
Oh come on. Look, I know I¡¯m essentially a game piece, and I also don¡¯t care! Sheesh, can¡¯t a guy just have fun with his five million and whateverth reincarnation? Anyway, if I had to guess, I was probably the more expensive game piece. Not to sound arrogant to think I¡¯m better than Milo or something, but because of my knowledge of more advanced technology and familiarity with storytelling tropes. Corwen has a surplus of two-headed bear meat. We have people able to hunt them, but they don¡¯t. Meadow and Daisy volunteer to come along. ¡°A party of Elite ranked adventurers should be able to take on a Heroic rank monster if we only have to deal with one of them at a time,¡± Meadow says. ¡°It will be a good Deed to get before I go off to the academy,¡± Daisy adds. ¡°I can get some more experience with Wizardry along the way.¡± To carry enough bear-monster meet to feed 700 goblins, we¡¯ll need to use actual carts. Devil-goats are the size of Clydesdales and usable as draft animals, unfortunately. And as Milo and I have just finished our training with them, we¡¯re the ones who have to handle them. Each cart is capable of carrying one of the huge mutant bear corpses. The things are a bit bigger than a grizzly, purple, and have two heads. I¡¯m sure they¡¯re perfectly safe to eat. (Goblins are perfectly willing and able to eat things raw, anyway.) ¡°Be sure to bring Snookums and Fluffles back safely!¡± Grandma Laurel says. When we arrive at the entrance to the In-Between, Milo runs ahead to Grubwick to let them know we¡¯re outside, and they send out a swarm of goblins to come and unload the carts. This results in Grubwick¡¯s first traffic argument. ¡°We should tell them to walk down the right side of the tunnel,¡± I say. ¡°No,¡± Milo says. ¡°We should tell them to walk down the left side of the tunnel. I was Canadian, and this is my village.¡± ¡°Fine,¡± I say. ¡°I concede the point. We need to teach goblins to read so that I can put up some road signs.¡± The goblins stream in and out of the tunnel to cut up the bear-monsters into pieces small enough to carry and hauling them into the tunnels, since we can¡¯t fit the carts through the cave opening. At least Grubwick isn¡¯t too far from the entrance. When we return to Grubwick, the inn is still standing. It¡¯s a little crooked, but surprisingly charming. The village is littered with disorganized piles of stone blocks, partially constructed walls and buildings, and rickety scaffolding. There were no climbers this year so they were able to practice in the upper area freely. When we go inside the inn, I can see that the goblins have been busy. Stone tables and chairs surround the hearth at the back of the house. Half of them are sized for humans and half for goblins and small children. I¡¯ve gotten taller. They haven¡¯t. At least I¡¯m not so much bigger that the goblin chairs are awkward for me yet. Just a few inches, but I¡¯ve got feet to grow before I¡¯m done growing. (By which I mean the unit of distance. I will hopefully not be growing additional limbs. Why am I not just using metric?) Now that we¡¯re here, Milo speaks with [Elder Witch] Griza and we find out the cause of this sudden famine. Goblins are not so bad with numbers that they don¡¯t know how much food to stockpile to feed their current numbers, and had enough even after trading away a lot of mushrooms to last a normal swarm season. Their attempts at agriculture had been sabotaged and their food stores were contaminated. The cause? A goblin named Karx. ¡°Traitor. Heretic,¡± the other goblins call him. ¡°You will not have our world, Topsider,¡± Karx snarls. ¡°The other villages will not bow to the trickery of false incarnates and liars.¡± ¡°Karx,¡± I say more quietly. ¡°Were you given a quest to do this?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t need to tell a Topsider anything about my quests,¡± Karx says. ¡°Answer the question,¡± Milo says. ¡°False incarnate,¡± Karx spits. ¡°You¡¯re a reincarnated human. You are no goblin. And this dung about stacking rocks only proves that. True goblins don¡¯t stack rocks!¡± The goblins of Grubwick are angry, and rightly so. They¡¯re going to torture him to death. ¡°Stop,¡± I say, stepping forward. They pause to look up at me. They¡¯re under no obligation to obey me without Milo¡¯s backup, but they¡¯re smart enough to wait and see what I have to say first. ¡°What say you, Human Chosen?¡± says [Elder Witch] Griza. ¡°Would you show this one mercy?¡± ¡°I would suggest just killing him,¡± I say. ¡°He ought to be punished, that the others may see the cost of treason,¡± Griza says, and turns to Milo. ¡°What say you, Chosen?¡± ¡°The screams might attract monsters,¡± Milo says. ¡°It¡¯s still swarm season. I suggest a quick beheading and displaying his head on a spear.¡± ¡°Very well,¡± Griza says. ¡°Let this traitor¡¯s end be swift, then.¡± We don¡¯t stick around for the execution. Two bear carcasses will feed the village for long enough to rebuild some stockpiles, but we¡¯ll need to hunt some more. Three years in a fantasy world and I¡¯m already fetching bear butts. Chapter 18: Fetching Forty Bear Haunches We¡¯re sitting on the safety of Grubwick¡¯s walls, waiting for prey to come by. Many monsters heading to and from the surface pass by within reach of the walls. We¡¯ve brought the goats in with us, but had to leave the carts outside. Monsters don¡¯t usually bother inanimate objects without people in them, I¡¯m told. ¡°What were the food stores contaminated with?¡± I ask. ¡°They found a bladder filled with residue of green underswamp berries,¡± Milo says. ¡°Too toxic even for goblins. It caused vomiting, diarrhea, and death in some cases. Fortunately, not everyone was affected.¡± ¡°Where are green underswamp berries found?¡± I ask. ¡°East of here, out near Muckburrow,¡± says Nika, a goblin lady and the only Elite among the hunters who isn¡¯t sick. ¡°Muckburrow again,¡± I say sourly. ¡°What could they have offered him that would convince him to betray his own Hearth?¡± ¡°Maybe he was confident in his escape plans, but it still seems like a poor idea,¡± Milo says. ¡°Could he have received a quest from another Hearth with a reward that¡¯s valid in the next life?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± Anise says. ¡°You two would know more about how reincarnation works than I do. I just read books where two lovers are reincarnated together across history and it¡¯s terribly romantic and tragic and sexy.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t remember anything I might have done to get reincarnated,¡± Milo says. ¡°So if I did and forgot, that¡¯s probably not helpful. Well, imprisoning him forever would not have been a good solution, so if he shows up again, I hope he does not become too bothersome.¡± I sigh. ¡°As if we need a recurring villain that won¡¯t stay dead.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s think positively,¡± Anise says. ¡°Elite bear spotted! Get him, guys!¡± ¡°[Hold]!¡± Milo exclaims. The monster bear freezes in place, and the hunters and adventurers take advantage of it to lay into the creature. ¡°Hah¡­ that worked great!¡± Milo exclaims. ¡°Magic is quite useful. Ah, bother, it has already worn off.¡± Nika charges ahead to meet the large two-headed bear with her spear, the other goblins pelting the creature with spears and slung stones from the walls. Despite being still immature for a goblin, Milo is an Elite now and is doing more damage than all the Basic-rank goblins combined, as well as disorienting it with Incantation magic. (It probably also doesn¡¯t hurt that he¡¯s using spells and they¡¯re using stone age weapons.) Once the bear is down, we help haul it in through the gates. (And by ¡°we¡± I mean people who have higher Strength than a precocious toddler.) We¡¯re into the dark season by this point, so while there are still monsters above ground, no new ones are coming out. Two-headed bears are going in toward Grubwick to return to whichever layer of Tempest Domain they normally belong to. This is perfectly normal.
Your Discipline (Self-Delusion) skill has increased to level 2.
This basically means food is coming right to us, it¡¯s just food that the goblins of Grubwick are not strong enough to catch themselves at the moment. They normally wait for ones to come close to the walls and send out large parties of hunters to take down Elites. But thanks to the contaminated food stores, many of the hunters were ill and weaker than they should have been. I don¡¯t try to contribute in the fighting, but I do sit back and make stone spear heads to keep the hunters equipped. Considering I¡¯d ideally been wanting to work on things a bit higher tech than this, I¡¯m starting to really get the hang of this.
Your Crafting (Stoneworking) skill has increased to level 2.
I¡¯m not sure how much I will be doing this after we¡¯ve introduced these goblins to the wonders of metalworking, but every level of Crafting will probably help in getting a Crafter-type class and not something that involves killing things. I was really hoping to spend more time back at Corwen studying and to not have a fair chunk of that time doing daily goat training, even if that goat training has already proven useful. Milo spent more time learning Incantation from one of my uncles. His class is actually [Goblin Child], the class all goblins get when they¡¯re born rather than [Scholarly Child], [Nurturing Child], and such that humans can get when they¡¯re 7 years old. My class is just [Child]. I don¡¯t know what sort of bonuses either of our classes gets. The next bear that approaches the city is much bigger. The Elite ones were bad enough, but this Heroic one is testing my [Fear Resistance] without even having a [Fear Aura] going on, unless it does but I¡¯m pretty sure they¡¯re just naturally terrifying for being bigger and much higher level than me. Even if I wanted to try to fight it, any attacks I made would just bounce off of it like Milo¡¯s stone knife bounced off Uncle Hawk. (I¡¯m still not sure why nobody seems to hold a grudge over that.) Meadow¡¯s out here risking her life for the sake of some people who tried to murder her uncle a few months ago and looking like she¡¯s having a blast at it. Not that it¡¯s much of a risk when she¡¯s standing on top of a wall with a bow just shooting approaching monsters from safety. Daisy¡¯s the only one looking nervous here, clutching her spellbook with white knuckles as she fires off prepared spells at the monster. The sigils in the book glow as she fills them with vis. The constraints of the writing are helping shape her vis to create effects with it. I can see the shape of the sigil in the air through [Aura Sight] for a moment after it¡¯s cast. Daisy¡¯s beginner spellbook is comprised of spells that only require one sigil, but they¡¯re effective enough to help pick away at the monster¡¯s Health meter.If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Once victorious, the carcass gets hauled inside so the goblin butchers can get to work on it. Daisy spends the downtime refilling her spellbook with vis to get another set of spells ready to fire off. When we get tired, we settle in at them to eat and rest. The meat we hunted today will sustain the goblins for a while. Many of them are already tucking into it raw. I¡¯ve gotten used to some of goblin cuisine, but I prefer the cuisine that can be at least slightly called cuisine and not just shoving raw meat into your mouth. Thankfully, goblins are not so primitive to have failed to gain mastery of fire yet. We get a crackling fire burning in the hearth at the inn and roast thick strips of mutant bear meat on a spit. ¡°So you guys built this?¡± Meadow asks, looking at the building around us. ¡°And a few dozen goblins,¡± I say. ¡°I did the design. They did most of the heavy lifting.¡± I settle in to start making some stone tools with some pieces gathered from the village courtyard. ¡°I¡¯ve been so focused on general skills I haven¡¯t had much chance to try to make sense of magic skills yet,¡± I say. ¡°Yeah, you¡¯re not quite three yet,¡± Anise says. ¡°You wouldn¡¯t normally have to worry about it for a good ten years. And I have no idea when you might hit Elite with all the weird stuff you keep doing.¡± ¡°You want to be a Wizard, too?¡± Daisy asks. ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± I say. ¡°Although those sigils do look interesting. I¡¯m more interested in making things, though.¡± ¡°The seven types of magic¡­ eight types, I suppose,¡± Anise says. ¡°You should be able to do Necromancy, right? Creepy a thought as that is. Anyway, the eight types of magic are based on how you interact with the world. Sigils for Wizardry, sounds for Incantation, emotions for Sorcery, and so forth.¡± ¡°So when you use Sorcery, are you just getting angry enough to throw fire at things?¡± I ask. Anise laughs. ¡°It¡¯s more like using emotions to do things rather than feeling them, so much. Turning rage into a blade instead of letting it ruin your self-control and make you do stupid things.¡± ¡°So basically, anyone that makes Elite rank can set things on fire with their brains,¡± I say. ¡°Pretty much, yeah,¡± Anise says. ¡°Provided they learn how to do it. Just like anyone who is so inclined can learn to build buildings. Most people don¡¯t put in the effort to learn a bunch of different stuff. Unless they dedicate the time and effort into leveling it up, they might at best manage to do what they could have done with Survival (Fire Making) instead. You¡¯ve been unlocking a bunch of skills, but the grind is eternal.¡± ¡°If you want to make stuff, Alchemy might be the path for you,¡± Daisy says. ¡°Potions?¡± I ask. Daisy shakes her head. ¡°No, Crafting (Potions) is something else and doesn¡¯t need magic. Alchemy is about extracting and infusing concepts. I considered it but decided I¡¯d rather focus on Wizardry.¡± ¡°I suppose I¡¯ll study up on it more once I get closer to the point where I can actually learn to do it,¡± I say. Over the course of the next few days, our budding adventurers roast a steady stream of large mutant bears while the sick goblins recover. The end of November is upon us, and with it, the birthdays of we reincarnator twins. I¡¯m not expecting anything special, but Milo is. Still, I¡¯m happy with my own notification.
You are now 3 years old.
All physical attributes have increased by 1.
¡°Grubwick?¡± Milo says, doubtless staring at a similar message to the one I just got. ¡°Grubwick, where my class choices?¡± ¡°Milo?¡± I ask. ¡°I suppose you¡¯re not supposed to get Elite rank before you even get your first class choice,¡± Milo says. ¡°Or¡­ no, it says that when it disabled the quest system for me, it inadvertently also shut off class choices, which use the same system.¡± I frown. ¡°Does that mean we¡¯re not going to get classes?¡± ¡°No, it¡¯s just going to turn it on again long enough for me to get a class popup and then turn it off again,¡± Milo says. ¡°There we go! And¡­ uh¡­ I don¡¯t believe that other stuff was intended. [Apprentice Incantor], please and thank you very much.¡± ¡°What other stuff?¡± I ask. ¡°Several quests appeared,¡± Milo says. ¡°They¡¯re gone now that I¡¯ve made my class choice, at least. I think I can safely disregard them. Anyway, it¡¯s not like we weren¡¯t already in the middle of delivering forty bear haunches to the village.¡± ¡°[Apprentice Incantor]!¡± exclaims Daisy. ¡°Congratulations! I can¡¯t wait until I get my apprentice class.¡± With Grubwick¡¯s hunters recovering and their food stores replenished enough that they can catch up the slack on their own, my group decides to return to Corwen to spend Hearth Day there. We take Snookums and Fluffles and head back out to where we left the two carts. While we¡¯d never driven an animal-drawn cart before, both Milo and I drove cars constantly in our day-to-day lives, and these devil-goats are well-trained enough to make up for any deficits. Some random traveler might be treated to the ludicrous sight of a small child driving a cart drawn by a huge black devil-goat, carrying the corpse of giant two-headed mutant bear. There are not a lot of random travelers in the area this time of year. Something catches my attention out of the corner of my eye. A radiant white stag emerges from the forest, walking toward the cave entrance and in no particular hurry to do so. Where he steps, flowers bloom and then die immediately. A sprawling rack of antlers sports dozens of points, like a branching tournament bracket all converging at the finalists on his head. And his face is not a deer¡¯s snout, but a face more closely resembling a cat. I¡¯m frozen in place. My entire group goes dead silent. This must be one of the Legendary Nature Stags that Aunt Heather mentioned. And nobody who is with me will be enough to protect me from this creature if he decides to take offense at my existence. I recognize the fear effect as being similar to the goats, but far more powerful. I try to shake it off, but it¡¯s hopeless. I can¡¯t move an inch as the monster comes straight toward me. He stops, five feet in front of my face, and looks me in the eye as though judging me for every sin against nature I have ever committed. And then, without a sound, the Nature Stag moves on and the oppressive aura lifts as he vanishes into the cave. ¡°Such a beautiful creature¡­¡± Meadow breathes once we can move again. ¡°Phew,¡± Anise says. ¡°I am so glad that thing didn¡¯t see a reason to attack us. Let¡¯s get home, before anything else shows up.¡± The remainder of the trip home passes mostly quietly, with only one Elite two-headed bear trying to kill us. My party makes quick work of it and loads it into one of the carts to take back to Corwen. No sense letting it go to waste, after all. As the carts pull through the village gates, I receive a system message.
Skill acquired: Mechanics (Driving)
I suppose if it considers goat-pulled carts and automobiles to be the same skill, that would make sense why I had no trouble with it, but it¡¯s good for the system to acknowledge it I suppose. ¡°Ah, civilization,¡± Milo says. ¡°I look forward to the day Grubwick has indoor plumbing. I¡¯m going to the guest house to take a bath. I smell like goat, bear guts, and goblin.¡± ¡°How much scrubbing does it take to make a goblin not smell like goblin?¡± Daisy wonders. ¡°I have been making use of the complementary floral scented soaps,¡± Milo says. Chapter 19: Skullburn Bridge After a belated birthday party, I settle back in to do some more studying and practicing. I decide to spend much of December in the hearth trying to unlock some cooking-related skills and help out with the holiday feast. ¡°I¡¯m not letting you handle knives at three years old, even if you are a reincarnator,¡± Aunt Myrtle says. That¡¯s the problem with being back here. The goblins don¡¯t tell me what I can and can¡¯t do just because I¡¯m a small child. ¡°Why don¡¯t you help make cookies instead?¡±
Skill acquired: Crafting (Baking)
I would probably be hard-pressed to unlock every single skill in the big book of general skills. The ones I can vaguely remember I learned how to do once are quickest, though.
Skill acquired: Maintenance (Cleaning)
Can¡¯t get away with not learning that one. Despite vetoing knives, Aunt Myrtle is determined that I learn the skills she thinks I need to learn. Being closer to the floor just means I can scrub them better, I suppose. For Hearth Day gifts, I make little stone figurines for every one of my family members whose names I can remember.
Your Crafting (Stoneworking) skill has increased to 3.
They¡¯re not terribly good. I might be able to make a chess set with identifiable pieces at this point, but I¡¯m still quite a way from being able to get the detail necessary to make a Space Marine. They¡¯re still better than something anyone expected to receive from a three-year-old. The New Year comes, and all the students board the skyship for Crux Academy. Daisy¡¯s going with them this time. She won¡¯t have her apprentice class until the 4th, but they¡¯ll take any Elite under the age of 21. ¡°I don¡¯t think they¡¯d take goblins, though,¡± Daisy says. ¡°Perhaps eventually, if more villages follow Grubwick¡¯s example.¡± Anise, Meadow, Milo and I head back to Grubwick in March. There¡¯s no monsters on the surface outside of dungeons this time of year, so travel will be pretty safe. It¡¯s still rather chilly, though. On foot, the trip from Corwen to Grubwick takes two days, and we usually make camp at the Hedge Maze and pop in for a quick run. After completing a dungeon once, you get fewer rewards, but can traverse it more freely and sometimes access secret areas barred to first-time delvers. Notably, one of the newly accessible places is a clearing with a fire pit and plenty of room to set up half a dozen tents. ¡°Yeah, the friendlier dungeons usually have a place like this,¡± Anise says. ¡°There¡¯s rest spots in less friendly dungeons too, usually at the end of each floor. They might want to try to eat you, but if we didn¡¯t have a safe place to rest between floors, we¡¯d just leave rather than delve deeper. The Hedge Maze, though, just wants people to relax and have a good time.¡± ¡°I still don¡¯t understand why the word you call them translates to a word for an prison basement,¡± Milo says. ¡°This is obviously a park.¡± ¡°Language evolution,¡± I say with a shrug, not even slightly wanting to explain games to him. ¡°I will not subject you to more of the sillier slang of my generation than necessary. Except yeet. Yeet is a perfectly cromulent word.¡± ¡°I still don¡¯t know why Common sounds like English when it¡¯s clearly not,¡± Milo says. ¡°But it is far from the strangest thing about this world.¡± We return to Grubwick to check on their supplies. Their hunters managed to collect plenty more meat and their gatherers plenty more mushrooms. They¡¯ve restarted their agricultural attempts, having learned more this time around. ¡°We got lots more mushrooms to trade for rocks,¡± says their head mushroom gatherer. ¡°Fulfilling the quest Grubwick gave me for it even got me to Elite rank!¡± ¡°Congratulations,¡± I say. ¡°Now I¡¯ll be able to find more mushrooms with magic!¡± It¡¯s time to build a bridge. First, though, to secure a fresh supply of limestone from Penbryn, as the goblins used up the remainder of the last batch building a goblin-sized building across from the human-sized one. They trained up a building crew of six-year-old goblins so that some of them could unlock classes with the new skills. I guess this is my crew now. Barely adult goblins who are eager to put their new class to good use.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! Penbryn is having problems with their main quarry and won¡¯t make any further trades until they¡¯re resolved. There¡¯s a crow watching us. I wouldn¡¯t have even noticed it if I weren¡¯t habitually using [Aura Sight] at all times. Its aura is bright azure, a color I have never seen around a living being normally associated with knowledge. A normal animal has an orange aura, and a monster has a red aura, but blue? Very odd.
Your Clairvoyance (Aura Sight) skill has increased to 3.
I¡¯m only left to ponder the mystery for a moment before it¡¯s gone, flapping off out of range and out of sight. The others leave me at Penbryn¡¯s school to play with toys while they deal with the problem, because while goblins don¡¯t care, the Penbryns would find it incredibly odd if someone took their toddler into a dangerous, potentially monster-infested quarry. I find a new puzzle that wasn¡¯t here last time I was here. Let¡¯s see if I can complete it before we have to leave.
You have completed a Hard difficulty puzzle in less than an hour.
Your Search (Puzzle Pieces) skill has increased to level 2.
I manage to finish it a few minutes before I get another notification.
Your party has cleared Briar Hill Quarry.
Skill acquired: Discipline (Delegation)
Great, now I¡¯m getting skills for sitting back and letting other people do things for me. ¡°What was the problem?¡± I ask when the others return. ¡°Weird ghost bat infestation,¡± Anise says. ¡°They weren¡¯t actual ghosts,¡± Milo says. ¡°They were merely semi-transparent monsters with an incredibly annoying scream. My ears are still ringing. I shall need to add [Silence] to my list of spells to add to my repertoire.¡± ¡°Yeah, I hate sonic attacks,¡± Anise agrees. ¡°Let¡¯s go order our limestone delivery.¡± Penbryn is willing to make another limestone trade. All Grubwick still really has is mushrooms, but some of them are apparently very good for cooking and potions. We have the limestone delivered to the place where we¡¯re building the bridge and make preparations. Jay Penbryn shows up to observe and assess the bridge. Anise, having learned Goblin herself, translates for him. ¡°I certainly can¡¯t be absent for this historic moment,¡± Jay says with some amusement. ¡°Never thought I¡¯d see goblins building things with proper stone and not just slapping together some bones and hide and calling it good. Why here, though?¡± ¡°Test run, honestly,¡± Milo says. ¡°Anyone that gets damp gets branded ¡®fish bait¡¯.¡± ¡°And here¡¯s the charismatic goblin I¡¯ve heard so much about,¡± Jay says. ¡°You the foreman here?¡± ¡°Oh, no,¡± Milo says. ¡°That¡¯s him.¡± He points to me. Jay blinks. ¡°A small child? Or is that a halfling? Wait, is that the kid who listened in on my lectures?¡± I wave at him with a grin and don¡¯t bother explaining myself, just working on getting the goblins ready. I check to make sure we¡¯ve got all the stones we need (plus some extras because we¡¯re bound to mess up) and have them start setting up the scaffolding. It¡¯s not as secure as I might like and our methods won¡¯t work for building a larger bridge, but I make notes of where we can still improve. We build a bridge. Some goblins still get damp, but this is a completely unnecessary bridge over a two foot wide creek. It would mean that a cart can pass more directly without having to go a long way around or be pulled by very determined high level devil-goats.
Congratulations! Your party has completed a small bridge.
Your Crafting (Masonry) skill has increased to 3.
Skill acquired: Tending (Management)
Dangit. I have become the very thing I once despised. Management. ¡°Good work, everyone!¡± I say. ¡°It doesn¡¯t look like it¡¯s falling down, and the scaffolding only collapsed twice! Which means all of you would be dead twice over if we were doing this over carp-infested waters.¡± Jay comes over to inspect the bridge and poke it a bit before pronouncing it, ¡°Adequate, for novice goblins who have been taught second-hand by a toddler.¡± That¡¯s¡­ probably praise? ¡°I did suspect you were a reincarnator from how closely you could pay attention and not get distracted constantly,¡± Jay says. ¡°And I¡¯m guessing the tiny, eloquent goblin is too?¡± ¡°Was it that obvious?¡± I ask. ¡°Aw, I have 3 levels in Subterfuge (Acting), too!¡± Jay gestures toward the cute stone arch bridge over the creek. ¡°This is a little bit beyond playing with blocks, kid. What ever even gave you the idea to build things? Most reincarnators I¡¯ve heard of spend their childhoods fervently preparing to delve dungeons and fight monsters. Did your Hearth give you a quest to civilize the goblins and build things or something like that?¡± ¡°¡­ Something like that,¡± I hedge. Corwen gave me its blessing to do whatever I want, but it was already weird enough to explain to my own family who saw the words of the core in their own heads. I still have to wonder what sort of quests Milo saw when Grubwick re-enabled his quest window. I¡¯m guessing we¡¯re still getting quest prompts and our cores just hid them, and I¡¯m going to have to wait four more years to see what quests have been generated for me that I likely did something completely different from what it asked. ¡°I don¡¯t think they¡¯re ready to bridge the underground river yet,¡± I say to Milo. ¡°They¡¯d all be fish bait.¡± ¡°You need better scaffolding,¡± Jay says. I nod in agreement. ¡°And I learned Masonry, not Carpentry. Nobody wants to let a three-year-old play with saws and axes. Aside from the goblins. Most of these goblins are seven years old.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s not give up on the idea yet,¡± Milo says. ¡°Look at what we¡¯ve accomplished so far.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not good enough yet,¡± I say. Jay pats me on the shoulder. ¡°Just keep at it, little reincarnator. You¡¯ve got many years ahead of you and you don¡¯t need to do everything at once. You and your goblins built a perfectly serviceable bridge here.¡± Chapter 20: Class Therapy I return to Corwen. I leave Milo to do goblin stuff with the goblins and go play with my sister and cousins. I¡¯ve been so busy I haven¡¯t spend much time around them. I barely even know my sister. But then, seeing as she was a baby, there hasn¡¯t really been much to get to know yet. Still, I feel kind of bad about it. Juniper, Griffin, and Willow are two years old this year. Their naming days were in March, before I went out to go build bridges with goblins. I¡¯ve driven myself mad chasing skills and I just had an incredibly weird dream about going on a fishing trip except the lake was full of purple tentacles and a mind control monster drew us all in until we drowned. I¡¯m sure this is probably symbolic of something. Playing with these kids makes me remember how much I hate being aware as a baby. Why couldn¡¯t I regain my memories at puberty or something? Why couldn¡¯t I get isekai¡¯d as an adult? At the very least, why couldn¡¯t I have been able to convincingly pretend to be a child that long? And every moment of every day, my thoughts are being read by a reality-controlling crystalline alien thing. That bothers me less than you might expect. After all, I lived in an era where I assumed every device around me was listening to me constantly and still somehow failing to target advertising well enough to realize that I couldn¡¯t even use half the things they were trying to sell me. I would kill someone for a soda about now. Aunt Myrtle, at any rate, isn¡¯t going to let me sit around the village moping. If I clearly don¡¯t have anything better to do, I¡¯m getting roped into helping around the hearth. ¡°You¡¯ve made some admirable efforts,¡± Aunt Heather asks once she returns from not finding any other reincarnators yet. ¡°But what do you actually want to do with your life?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± I say. ¡°I¡¯ve just been trying to avoid fighting so that I don¡¯t raise my combat skills, because I was afraid if I did, I would get shoehorned into a combat class since I¡¯m very good at hitting things and I know I¡¯ve been a fighter many times before. I don¡¯t mind fighting. I just don¡¯t want it to define me.¡± ¡°I see,¡± Aunt Heather says. ¡°So you do want to be an adventurer, you just don¡¯t want to get stuck as being a warrior?¡± I nod. ¡°Yeah. That exactly. I¡¯d like to build stuff, but I don¡¯t want to just build stuff, too.¡± Aunt Heather nods. ¡°I see. I see.¡± ¡°What do you suggest I do?¡± I wonder. ¡°I suggest you have a little more faith in Corwen,¡± Aunt Heather says. ¡°It will not force you into a choice you don¡¯t want. Offered classes are generally as diverse as your skills. If you do a lot of fighting and are offered a combat class, you would also be offered a crafter class if you¡¯ve done a lot of crafting, and a magic class if you¡¯ve reached Elite and done a lot of magic.¡± ¡°Really?¡± I ask. ¡°If your skills are quite varied as I suspect yours will be, you will likely be offered hybrid classes allowing you to do all the different things you want to do,¡± Aunt Heather goes on. ¡°That may include fighting in some form, but not just fighting.¡± ¡°Are you really encouraging a three-year-old to take a path of violence in life?¡± I ask with a touch of amusement. ¡°If Corwen says it wants you to do whatever you want, then it behooves you to do whatever you want,¡± Aunt Heather says. ¡°I don¡¯t know what¡¯s going on here, but it¡¯s clearly not doing whatever you want. You¡¯re three years old, however, so you should be preparing for your life as an adventurer. Do you want to sit and build up a village, or go exploring?¡± ¡°¡­ go exploring,¡± I say. ¡°Although it was kind of nice to build a bridge. I don¡¯t want to do that all the time, though.¡± ¡°The world is a dangerous place,¡± Aunt Heather says. ¡°People who seek peaceful lives usually don¡¯t climb very high. Perhaps you might.¡±This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. ¡°I would rather go exploring to make friends rather than kill them,¡± I say. ¡°Even if there are sometimes people who really need to be hit.¡± ¡°It¡¯s an admirable goal, but you need to be able to defend yourself. And I will not have any nephew of mine leave this Hearth helpless in a fight. I¡¯m going to have a talk with your mother. And Laurel for encouraging this nonsense. There are reasons why we do not normally take children out adventuring even in ¡®safe¡¯ dungeons until they¡¯re seven and have a few combat skills. Even in a dungeon as friendly as the Hedge Maze, you never know what will actually happen. Even festivals can be dangerous, but there are Legendary adventurers there to ward off anything of lower rank from harming the weaker people there.¡± ¡°I¡¯m glad I met Milo, though,¡± I say. Aunt Heather sighs. ¡°If things have worked out so well so far, in your eyes, why are you unhappy?¡± ¡°I¡­ didn¡¯t like feeling helpless out with the bear monsters,¡± I say. ¡°I kept having nightmares afterward. First of wildly driving my cart through wilderness while being chased by a Heroic bear. Then by seeing Snookums and Fluffles breathe fire and kill the bear. Their horns covered in blood. Sometimes I¡¯m not even sure which version of events really happened.¡± I¡¯m not sure why I¡¯m telling her all this. Maybe she¡¯s got some Charisma-based skill to force people to speak only truth in her presence. Nothing would surprise me at this point. ¡°I see,¡± Aunt Heather says, an unreadable expression on her face. ¡°Tell me more about your dreams. Do you often dream about different versions of events? Things that might have happened?¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± I say. ¡°Doesn¡¯t everyone?¡± ¡°You¡¯ve lived over five million lives,¡± Aunt Heather says. ¡°Chances are, you did experience something like that before.¡± ¡°¡­ what level is your Tending (Therapy) at, anyway?¡± Aunt Heather doesn¡¯t answer. ¡°Corwen sought to give you free will, but you still feel lost without a quest.¡± I sigh. ¡°Maybe a little.¡± ¡°Then perhaps you should give yourself a quest. What is your goal in life? You don¡¯t even need to pick just one. Make a list.¡± She passes over a pen and paper. I only think for a moment before writing down the first thing that actually comes to mind. ¡°I want to graduate from Crux Academy.¡± Aunt Heather looks over and nods. ¡°That¡¯s definitely a good start. What else?¡± ¡°I want to get a skyship and fly to other domains,¡± I say (and write). ¡°Do you want to build it yourself?¡± Aunt Heather asks. ¡°Pilot it yourself?¡± ¡°Absolutely yes!¡± I exclaim. ¡°Do you want to build it before, during, or after your attendance to Crux Academy?¡± I think about that for a moment and shrug. ¡°I¡¯m not picky. After, I think. It would be sad to just have it sit around for months while I attend classes, and I feel ridiculous adventuring while looking like a halfling in boots.¡± ¡°Attending Crux Academy will only require reaching Elite rank before you turn 21,¡± Aunt Heather says. ¡°You are entirely too insane to not either manage that or kill yourself trying.¡± ¡°Wasn¡¯t this supposed to be therapy?¡± I ask. ¡°What will it require to accomplish your skyship goal?¡± ¡°Materials, knowledge, and a crew,¡± I say, writing each of them on a separate line, then frown a bit at it. ¡°Though I should put ¡®knowledge¡¯ first as I don¡¯t even know what materials I would need.¡± ¡°Is building a skyship and exploring the Crystalline Heavens your end goal?¡± Aunt Heather asks. ¡°Are there other things you want to do with your life?¡± I sit back and think about it, and shrug. ¡°I¡¯d like to reach a high enough rank that don¡¯t age. But I would prefer not to do that by doing such insanely reckless things that I don¡¯t even survive to adulthood.¡± Aunt Heather chuckles softly. ¡°There¡¯s a reason why we generally aim for Elite by 14 and Heroic by 21. Did you look into our skill records? We¡¯ve had two other reincarnators in our history.¡± ¡°Neither of them learned very many skills related to Soul.¡± Aunt Heather nods. ¡°Neither of them survived to 21, either. Last time Grandma Verbena was here, she regaled us with tales of what a reckless idiot our last reincarnator was. Even when following a quest, he would perform it in the most unnecessarily dangerous way possible. He never even reached Heroic rank.¡± ¡°Right, I definitely don¡¯t want to follow in the footsteps of Great-Uncle Whoever,¡± I say. ¡°But yes. Being able to freely explore this strange, wonderful world is the end goal here.¡± ¡°It sounds to me like you have a quest and steps to begin undertaking it,¡± Aunt Heather says. ¡°You¡¯ve gotten a start on some skills that will be ultimately useful. But don¡¯t let Milo¡¯s goals interfere with your own.¡± ¡°I wanted to make sure he didn¡¯t die before I even grew up,¡± I say. Aunt Heather sighs. ¡°He probably will. I recognize the signs of an ambitious reincarnator there. I suspect there is a reason why he was incarnated as a goblin.¡± ¡°What do you mean?¡± I ask. ¡°What I mean is, don¡¯t be surprised if you see several of his incarnations by the time you grow up.¡± ¡°I¡­ didn¡¯t realize that was a thing that happened,¡± I say. ¡°Focus on your own goals,¡± Aunt Heather says. ¡°You need to learn about skyships and build adventuring skills. As you grow up, you will need to form connections with others who will ultimately be your crew, contacts, and allies.¡± ¡°I knew all that,¡± I say. ¡°I guess I just hadn¡¯t really thought about it.¡± ¡°Now, you¡¯ve had plenty of time to play around. You¡¯re old enough for preschool now.¡± She grins at me. ¡°Let¡¯s come up with a study plan, shall we?¡±
Skill acquired: Discipline (Long-Term Planning)
Why does everything have to be a freaking skill!? Chapter 21: Dreaming of Flight I spend the summer reading and playing with the other kids, along with doing a few small crafting projects. I appreciate having a real bed to sleep in but I find myself missing the goblins. I read books about skyships, both fiction and nonfiction. I carve a few models out of wood, but my [Woodworking] skill isn¡¯t terribly impressive yet so there¡¯s not much in the way of detail and they¡¯re kind of asymmetrical. I don¡¯t neglect Clairvoyance, either. I realize I¡¯ve been putting more work into tangible things, because I like hands-on work, but I shouldn¡¯t neglect the unique advantage I have in access to a skill set few other people have. [Aura Sight] has already proven invaluable on several occasions. It¡¯s funny how I don¡¯t technically have access to magic yet, but this is still kind of magic. I just can¡¯t help but wonder why. I get this strange feeling that humans somehow discovered psychic powers of some sort before I died. I make sure to have plenty of tea on hand before trying to think too hard about that, though. Although I don¡¯t like thinking about millions of lifetimes of violence, I can¡¯t help but be curious about what wound up happening on Earth. The auras around living beings are more complex than simply their base ¡°color¡± giving off concepts of nature, humanity, and monstrosity. I think I can glean more information from them if I look more closely and focus. Humans in particular have complex auras, so I decide to start off with plants. By comparing the auras of a healthy plant and a sick plant, I can pick out the concepts of health and sickness.
Your Clairvoyance (Aura Sight) skill has increased to level 3.
Corwen¡¯s previous two reincarnators were disappointments, but I do try to collect the handful of skills they managed to unlock. [Psychometry] is a handy one. Examining an object to detect any vis still clinging to it from being handled by someone. It leaves me with a blank at trying to figure out how to explain to a trio of toddlers why I keep staring at things for long periods of time. Juniper imitates me to try to see what I¡¯m seeing and is quite put out that she can¡¯t. Juniper throws a tantrum. ¡°Waaaaa, I wanna see the magic colors too!¡± Anise sighs and forces a smile and says, ¡°Hey, June. Want me to read you a story? We just picked up a new children¡¯s book. One you haven¡¯t seen before! It¡¯s got lots of pictures of animals and monsters in it.¡± ¡°Oooh!¡± Juniper exclaims, her previous sorrow forgotten for the moment. To cheer her up, I build a mobile representing the Tiganna System. Each of the nine domains is just a basic disc as I have neither a detailed topological map nor ability to carve accurate mountains and rivers into it, but I paint little maps onto them, cross-referencing library materials to copy them down. ¡°Your rivers are crooked,¡± says a boy¡¯s voice from over my shoulder. I just roll my eyes and turn to look. He has thin blond hair and looks to be about ten. Not one of my cousins. I¡¯m pretty sure I recognize most of them by now. Most of us are dark-haired here. ¡°Rivers are s¡¯posed to be crooked,¡± I retort. ¡°Who are you?¡± ¡°Rowan Talgarth,¡± the boy answers. ¡°I¡¯m going to be a knight!¡± ¡°A knight, huh. You going to be a good tank for an adventuring party?¡± ¡°The best tank!¡± Rowan exclaims. ¡°I could even stop little babies like you from getting hurt!¡± I hang the domains by thin wool threads from a wooden ring, and add a small glowing crystal for the skymote, Tiganna.
Congratulations! You have crafted a Poor quality map.
Skill acquired: Crafting (Cartography)
I was expecting to get a [Woodworking] or [Painting] level from this, but [Cartography] is probably even more useful given the field I intend to go into. As a bit of an afterthought, I add one of my better skyship models to it. Given the scale, this little skyship would be twenty miles long, but an accurately-scaled model would be too small to see. As something I spent a lot of time working on, my crafts should contain a fair bit of my own vis. [Aura Sight] isn¡¯t that different from [Psychometry], in principle, it¡¯s just about detecting vis in the air around a being as it¡¯s leaving their body, while [Psychometry] is about detecting the vis that¡¯s accumulated in something. Vis leaves body, gets stuck in an object, eventually leaks out of that object, but until it does I should be able to detect it.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. I suddenly realize why I haven¡¯t even unlocked anything as basic as [Meditation]. I can¡¯t sit still. I always have to be doing something. Even repeatedly making stone blocks is doing something. I spend some time at Grubwick to check on the goblins¡¯ advances and give them some ideas. Dropping off a stack of diagrams I drew back in the comfort and warmth of Corwen Hearth, where I have easy access to things like paper, pencils, and flat surfaces. Milo¡¯s still working on teaching them Common so they can¡¯t actually read yet, but they can certainly interpret a picture or copy an example object. Once the goblins been told to develop something, they do so quite energetically. I feel that their supposed laziness is just related to having no quests that demand them to change anything unless a Villain rises for them to do his bidding. Milo decided not to be a Villain but is still busily trying to unique the local goblins into a corporate empire. If they can get me soda, I don¡¯t care how evil they are. I build another model skyship. My detail work is improving, and for this one I decide to try making the four sails out of cloth instead of trying to carve them from wood. Wool isn¡¯t ideal for this, but we¡¯ve still got some spidersilk cloth leftover from adventurers hunting giant spiders. I¡¯m allowed to use some of the Basic-rank silk as it isn¡¯t good for much else. Not sure how even materials have ranks but whatever, it¡¯s that sort of world.
Congratulations! You have crafted a Poor quality toy.
Your Crafting (Woodworking) skill has increased to level 2.
It will be nice to eventually make stuff higher than Poor quality. I get skill levels and congratulations for them, but as I haven¡¯t unlocked magic yet, I can¡¯t actually make them fly. If I had Alchemy, I could extract the concept of flight from a feather and infuse it into the item. With Wizardry, I could paint a few sigils onto it. That¡¯s all fine and good for toys, but real skyships have cores. Cores have gravity cheats and only skyships with cores can pass beyond a system into inter-skymote space. Before I can build a true skyship, I will need to acquire a core. This isn¡¯t a problem I will need to deal with anytime soon. When I need one, I will find one. Before I know it, another swarm season is upon us, and I feel like all I¡¯ve accomplished this summer was making a few toys and doing a lot of reading. I haven¡¯t even gotten a skill for all the reading yet. Hmph. It occurs to me that maybe, just maybe, I have somehow managed to live five million lives but never built a skyship before. That¡¯s only encouragement, but it does mean that this is going to require more work than simply reading a book or doing something once. The sky turns red on the turning of the season at the beginning of October, and Aunt Heather gives her usual announcements to the Hearth about what monsters she has scryed on the surface this year. ¡°We have a bad year coming in,¡± Aunt Heather says. ¡°Many of the monsters on the surface are Heroic or Epic rank. Entire packs of Heroic werewolves led by Epic alphas.¡± Whatever force is spawning these monsters doesn¡¯t care about actual wolf social dynamics, but that isn¡¯t saying much considering all the other things it doesn¡¯t care about, like biological plausibility. ¡°There are Basic and Elite ranked jackalopes running around,¡± Aunt Heather goes on. ¡°Hunt them if you like but stay close to the walls and retreat if you hear any wolf howls. The only fliers I spotted were Basic rank bats. They¡¯re bigger than animal bats, but anyone at Basic rank should be escorted by someone of Elite rank when outdoors unless you are confident in your ability to hit a fast-moving flying object.¡± The older kids, of course, turn this into a challenge, and bring out the sort of bats that are used in sports to take out the monster bats. There aren¡¯t many adult Basics here. Anyone who hasn¡¯t reached Elite on their own is helped to make it there like Meadow was. Since there¡¯s no way in heck I¡¯m going out to play with Epic werewolves, this makes for a surprisingly peaceful swarm season for me. Milo¡¯s staying at Grubwick this year to help teach them and make sure nothing weird happens again. He¡¯s got his own challenges to deal with. I turn four without much fanfare. Maybe I¡¯ll even manage to turn five without a disaster. (No, I shouldn¡¯t think things like that.) Once again, we hole the New Year festival, with the lights on the trees shooting into the sky. It¡¯s starting to become routine, but no less magnificent. The Great Orb slowly turn violet to mark the start of another year.
It is now Year 734 of the Age of the Green Fox.
As if on cue, snow begins to fall, dusting the trees and starting to accumulate on the ground. This reminds me that I have yet to have a proper snowball fight in this life. Two feet of snow drop on Corwen overnight. Come morning, we celebrate the coming of winter with snow battles. I build a snow fort, a snowman decoy with a hat, and plenty of ammo. Most of the kids are older than me or too small and clumsy to be a threat, but I¡¯m small and¡­ somewhat less clumsy. Griffin sneaks up to my snow fort and pelts me in the face with a snowball right between the crenelations. (And at two years old, he doesn¡¯t even know the flat ¡°teeth¡± of the snow fort are called ¡°crenelations¡±.) I don¡¯t get any skills for it, but we have a lot of fun and I¡¯m honestly not sure I want to clutter my character screen up with [Snowcrafting] or whatever the heck the skill might be called. If I ever have to rely on a snow fort for survival, it will probably unlock then anyway. After a day of winter fun play, we all gather up in the Hearth in the hearth next to the hearth (because we have to use the same word to mean three different things) to warm up and drink some of Aunt Myrtle¡¯s tea. It¡¯s times like this that I can forget the trials of other lives and just be a kid for a bit. Chapter 22: I See Status Windows It¡¯s Year 734, I¡¯m four years old and learning [Pottery]. People aren¡¯t as keen on teaching a four-year-old [Carpentry], even a reincarnated one who knows to be careful with sharp objects, but clay is okay. It will be a useful thing to pass on to the low-tech goblins, as well as potentially having applications for skyships. I¡¯m not sure what exactly and there¡¯s more that goes into ceramics than a toddler (is a four-year-old still a toddler?) playing with clay. I like unlocking more crafting skills, though, and I¡¯ve been enjoying working with my hands making various things. Corwen¡¯s village workshop is large and is comprised of many areas, most of which are not very kid-friendly. I wouldn¡¯t be allowed in here at all if I weren¡¯t a reincarnator who knows better than to touch weird magitech things I don¡¯t understand. Just because I can¡¯t activate them doesn¡¯t mean I can¡¯t mess things up somehow, after all. General skills can be learned by anyone of any class, and since you don¡¯t actually forget anything thanks to the system, you will always be able to do that thing you did once as a small child. And since the sort of engineering I¡¯m planning on doing requires a lot of different skills and materials, it makes no sense not to try to unlock as many skills as I can when I have a chance. They all still synergize into the base skill, Crafting. I¡¯ll learn [Tailoring] too once they let me play with needles. In fact, I will probably go down the list and see how many of them are reasonable to unlock as a small child. The other thing I¡¯m working on in between that is [Aura Sight]. I¡¯m starting to be able to measure the difference in auras between human and goblin, between male and female, Basic, Elite, and so forth. Anise lets off more female vis than Hazel, but still emits female vis. One of my uncles lets off no gender vis at all. And after figuring out gender and species, I get a welcome notification, but not the one I expected.
Skill acquired: Clairvoyance (Vis Analysis)
This isn¡¯t one of the skills mentioned in the Corwen big book of general skills. Wondering what it is, I go to examine Anise¡¯s aura again.
Category Person
Race Human
Gender Female
Rank Elite
Oh. Well, that¡¯s convenient. It probably should have surprised me less that this exists. Presenting data in a coherent manner is something the system does well. Anything can be quantified, even magic and ideas. The more things I learn how to identify in a being¡¯s aura, the more things will appear on its identification screen. ¡°I know you¡¯re just working on [Aura Sight] but you¡¯ve got a really odd look on your face,¡± Anise says with some amusement. ¡°I just unlocked a new Clairvoyance skill the last two Corwen reincarnators failed to discover,¡± I say. ¡°Oh, nice!¡± Anise exclaims. ¡°Congratulations! What does it do?¡± ¡°I can see part of your status screen.¡± ¡°Ooooh,¡± Anise says. ¡°That¡¯s awesome! Are you sure you can¡¯t teach it to me?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± I say. ¡°I¡¯ve been told that they require the Soul attribute.¡± ¡°Ah, so you¡¯re saying all I need to do is ritually murder somebody,¡± Anise says, almost managing to sound like she just might. ¡°Let¡¯s exhaust other options before resorting to ritual murder, can we?¡± ¡°Yeah, yeah,¡± Anise says. ¡°You sharing the data with the party would be good enough.¡± ¡°What sort of skill would I need for that?¡± I ask. ¡°There¡¯s several skills that can do that,¡± Anise says. ¡°Sadly, I don¡¯t know any of them. Some people do with magic what comes to you naturally. It wouldn¡¯t surprise me if you had a way to do it as a general skill.¡± ¡°Couldn¡¯t hurt to try, at any rate,¡± I say. I haven¡¯t actually tried to do this. I haven¡¯t thought to. I couldn¡¯t remember being psychic. The connection is made like flipping a switch in a familiar room.
Skill acquired: Clairvoyance (Telepathy)
With it comes a memory, unbidden. I stand on the bridge of a starship looking out at a black hole. We¡¯re as close as we dare get. We can only hope it¡¯s close enough to reach with our psychic powers. Vis isn¡¯t affected by gravity or blocked by solid objects, after all. Before I can see what I saw in the black hole, I snap back to the present.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Skill acquired: Recollection (Flashback)
¡°What in the Void was that¡­¡± I mutter. ¡°I got it!¡± Anise says. ¡°Just race, gender, and rank? And here I was thinking you¡¯d seen something funny. Or bad? I can¡¯t tell. I¡¯m not that good at reading faces of even non-reincarnators. You¡¯re always making weird faces.¡±
Sanity: 3/10
¡°That was¡­ seven points of Sanity damage,¡± I say. ¡°Right, let¡¯s get you to the hearth,¡± Anise says. ¡°Get some tea or sweets into you before you try anything else.¡± Old Aunt Myrtle gives a cup of hot herbal tea and a small sweetcake. Not quite a cookie, more like if someone made a cupcake in a shot glsss. I look up at her wrinkled face and examine her aura.
Category Person
Race Human
Gender Female
Rank Heroic
What a difference that rank makes. Her sister, Aunt Heather, is Legendary rank and looks like she¡¯s in her twenties. Aunt Myrtle, though, seems to look older by the day. I take a deep breath and center myself. I do not want to think about that black hole any further right now. ¡°Is there a way to increase your Max Sanity?¡± I ask. ¡°Plenty,¡± Aunt Myrtle says. ¡°Have you tried meditating?¡± I make a face. ¡°I was really hoping you wouldn¡¯t say something like that. Isn¡¯t there some magic tea that can do it?¡± ¡°Certainly,¡± Aunt Myrtle says. ¡°And if you can bring me the ingredients from a Heroic-rank dungeon, I will happily make it for you.¡± Maybe I¡¯ve been going about this the wrong way. I¡¯m not good at sitting still doing nothing. I am good at zoning out doing something repetitive. Things like pottery and painting are good for that, too. Once I get my Sanity meter back up to full, I test to make sure that I won¡¯t take further Sanity damage unless I try to push that memory further. I can send status screens and messages to my party. We make sure to test the range of it and determine that it works only to party members, and only if they¡¯re within ten meters. I cannot send a message to someone who isn¡¯t in my party, and I¡¯m not even sure how the system decided who was in my party or not. Every message costs a little bit of Inspiration, though, which is basically just mind stamina, so I can¡¯t keep doing it forever. I¡¯m sure the range will go up and cost go down as I level it up, most likely. Some days later, I finally get the other skill I¡¯ve been working on unlocked after managing to make a small clay bowl that isn¡¯t completely lopsided. Congratulations! You have crafted a Poor quality vessel.
Skill acquired: Crafting (Pottery)
I follow this up with an attempt to paint it that does not even slightly improve the quality. I can practically feel the system judging me for my efforts. I wasn¡¯t aiming for the olive green color this wound up when mixing these colors and it¡¯s not even slightly even. ¡°Hey, nice bowl!¡± Anise says, either trying to encourage her son or just having a complete lack of taste. ¡°I finally got that skill unlocked,¡± I say. ¡°Great!¡± Anise says. ¡°Congratulations on one more step on the path of learning everything about everything. Anyway, I came looking for you because there¡¯s an unknown skyship approaching and thought you might want to see.¡± ¡°Absolutely!¡± I exclaim. Setting my ¡°Poor quality vessel¡± aside, I follow Anise outside. Above the walls, a much higher quality different sort of vessel approaches. While the flying school bus was awkward and utilitarian, this skyship is practically a work of art. The violet silken sails are graceful, and the smoothly curving hull has been painted with a mural depicting a woman in a red dress surrounded by pink roses. ¡°Wow,¡± I breathe upon seeing it. ¡°Whose ship is this?¡± ¡°Dunno!¡± Anise says brightly. ¡°No one was scheduled, so they¡¯re probably wanderers or adventurers. Or wandering adventurers, whichever. Doubt they¡¯re adventurers, though. Their ship isn¡¯t nearly heavily armed enough.¡± Aunt Heather is already crossing the square to meet them at the docking tower before they even arrive. Anise and I invite ourselves along. The visitors are a colorful sort, although given that we Corwens tend to wear an awful lot of black wool, that¡¯s not much of a bar around here and these travelers vastly exceed it. They¡¯re wearing paisley patterns in the most eye-searing combinations possible. I feel like I¡¯m getting a debuff just looking at them. I really hope they aren¡¯t here to sell clothes. Some of my idiot relatives might take them up on it and I might take Sanity damage if I had to look at this every day. ¡°What brings you to Corwen, travelers?¡± Aunt Heather asks. ¡°We are performers!¡± exclaims the most hideously dressed of them. ¡°The name is Jasper Kelso Crux. I and my merry crew are here to regale you with song and dance, juggling and acrobatics, and even stage plays! Will you permit us to enter your fine village that we may entertain you?¡± A status screen pops up in my third eye as I examine Jasper.
Category Person
Race Human
Gender Male
Rank Heroic
I don¡¯t get much of a threatening vibe from him. (I¡¯m trying to analyze ¡°vibe¡± in some ways Clairvoyance can quantify. So far it¡¯s not working. I will probably need to be more specific.) ¡°Very well,¡± Aunt Heather says. ¡°Our guest house is open to you. We do not have a stage, but I¡¯m sure you can make do.¡± ¡°And who is this little one looking on over here?¡± Jasper says, stepping over to me creepily. (If this guy offers me candy, I¡¯m out of here.) ¡°I¡¯m Drake!¡± I say. ¡°I¡¯m going to build a skyship when I grew up!¡± ¡°Is that so?¡± Jasper says. ¡°An up and coming engineer, are you?¡± He chuckles, and turns to give a bow to Aunt Heather. ¡°On behalf of my crew, I thank you for your hospitality.¡± The welcoming committee stands aside to allow the brightly colored guests to leave the ship and head down into the village. I think I¡¯m going to be spending some time looking at them with my eyes closed to see if there¡¯s anything interesting I might note about their auras. I can tell the difference between humans and goblins now. Perhaps I can tell apart humans by origin. Even if not, getting new subjects to examine is a good thing. Chapter 23: Wearing Paisley Isnt Their Only Crime Despite having looked at and even made maps, I don¡¯t know much about Crux beyond what its terrain looks like from above and that there¡¯s an academy there. It¡¯s another domain in this system, 60 kilometers across as opposed to Tempest¡¯s 80 kilometer diameter. (Yes, I¡¯m trying to get used to kilometers because the system in my brain uses metric for whatever reason.) If these visitors are any indication of what I might encounter at Crux Academy, I¡¯m suddenly not so sure that I want to go. At first, they¡¯re a pleasant novelty. The accordion player has a high enough Mechanics (Accordion) skill to brag about it, but it still gets tiresome hearing accordion music in the village square for an extended period of time. The clown, who is the least hideously dressed one here, probably has some sort of Tending (Making Children Smile) skill, but it doesn¡¯t work on me. The lack of a pre-built stage is not a problem for them. They have stagehands who probably know Crafting (Instantly Set Up a Stage) or something. They instantly set up a stage in the green between the school and guest house, where we usually do outdoor parties like the Winter Festival. The big tree isn¡¯t decorated at the moment, but serves as a backdrop, or sidedrop as the case may be. I¡¯m curious to see what they¡¯re planning. I haven¡¯t seen a play in this world before. I have to wonder how much magic they¡¯ll employ, or weird skills that might as well be magic. The skymotes are hanging orange against the green sky as they¡¯re getting ready to begin, with a juggler entertaining people who have arrived early. It¡¯s not like it¡¯s a large village, though, so everyone who cares is probably already here. The stage hands unfold a folding thing and spread it out behind the stage and a bit to the sides for good measure. The back is covered with sigils, and once they¡¯ve got it set up, colors spread out across the screen like a giant TV and I want one. The scene the screen settles on is animated, though not greatly so. In an imaginary city street, a blue banner flutters and a tavern sign swings. Thankfully, the actors¡¯ costumes involve no paisley at all. They wear rough and rugged clothing suitable for poor townsfolk and haughty nobles. The play is a musical and involves everyone bursting into song every five minutes. There¡¯s a plot involving a runaway princess falling in love with some random vagabond. She winds up pregnant (with an incredibly unconvincing fake pregnant belly) and decides to return to her Hearth. They have a tearful goodbye as wanderlust is calling him back to the road. Back at the Hearth, her mom and aunts celebrate princess¡¯s pregnancy, who then sings a wistful solo as the image of a curtain closing displays on the screen behind her. Jasper approaches me, singling me out as the one who he briefly spoke with at the docking tower. ¡°What did you think of the show, little man?¡± I pause for a moment then say honestly, ¡°I like the screen.¡± Jasper laughs. ¡°Well, maybe if you ask nicely, they¡¯ll let you take a closer look at it.¡± I go ask nicely and the stage Wizards let me take a look at it so long as I stay out of the way while they¡¯re working. ¡°You planning on being a Wizard, kid?¡± asks one of the actors. His noble costume is half off, leaving him in just the underclothes, and he¡¯s smoking a wooden pipe. (I¡¯m not sure what¡¯s in his pipe, but the smoke is magenta.) ¡°I¡¯m planning on learning Wizardry,¡± I say. ¡°I want to build stuff like this!¡± The smoking actor chuckles and says, ¡°Well, work hard and you¡¯ll get there, I¡¯m sure.¡±
Come morning, I¡¯m at the workshop practicing drawing. My Crafting (Drafting) skill needs levels, and doing bad drawings of tableware for goblins hasn¡¯t gotten me any yet. I¡¯m drawing up diagrams of simple machines now. Maybe the goblins have already figured out how leverage works. Aside from the existence of psychic powers, reality-altering crystal aliens, and ¡®flat earth¡¯ style gravity, the normal laws of physics seem to apply. While that¡¯s a lot of exceptions, I would have noticed by now if gravity weren¡¯t at least pretending to be normal, even if it¡¯s as obviously artificial as it would be on a starship. These domains are basically just highly advanced space habitats and not actual planets, after all. They¡¯re perfectly circular, so it¡¯s not like they¡¯re even pretending to be natural. And if gravity¡ª A creaking sound behind me interrupts my musings on the concept of gravity. The back door to the workshop is ajar, and there¡¯s a figure that I would not have seen at all if it weren¡¯t for [Aura Sight].
Category Person
Race Human
Gender Male
Rank Elite
I also get the distinct sense that this is an outsider. Not an aura that feels familiar. I¡¯ve examined the auras of everyone who lives in or regularly visits Corwen by now, and this one feels more like the traveling performers who just arrived.
Your Clairvoyance (Aura Sight) skill has increased to level 4.
I try to send a party message to Anise, but she¡¯s out of range. Ugh. I know I can increase the range, but it would probably cause Sanity damage. I¡¯ll have to take it. After all, I certainly wasn¡¯t within ten meters of that black hole¡ª My vis dives toward the event horizon, unaffected by the crushing gravity of the collapsed star. It doesn¡¯t exist on the same level of reality as normal matter, after all. But sometimes it can open a door¡­
Your Recollection (Flashback) skill has increased to level 2.
Your Clairvoyance (Telepathy) skill has increased to level 2.
Sanity: 4/10
The message goes through. [One of the outsiders snuck into the workshop with stealth skills up.] I also pass along the status screen.Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. That wasn¡¯t so bad. I definitely didn¡¯t discover anything inside that black hole that will haunt me for eternity. I pretend very hard to be oblivious, although anyone paying any attention will notice that I¡¯ve just been staring intently at my paper, probably while making weird faces.
Your Subterfuge (Acting) skill has increased to level 4.
I notice my mom approaching the door, and tell her, [He¡¯s behind that cabinet.] Anise raises a hand, and an orb of all-revealing light bursts into existence on her palm, dazzling both me and the intruder. ¡°What¡¯s this?¡± Anise says, apparently unaffected by her own spell. ¡°How old are you, kid? Twelve, thirteen?¡± ¡°Thirteen,¡± cracks a boy¡¯s voice, followed by a flop as he falls to his knees. ¡°Please don¡¯t hurt me, lady!¡± ¡°What are you doing in here?¡± Anise asks. ¡°Corwen, why did I have to cast a spell to show me how ridiculous your outfit is? How do you sneak around in that? Why don¡¯t you wear all black like a normal person?¡± ¡°Mom,¡± I say. ¡°Right,¡± Anise says. ¡°What are you doing in here?¡± ¡°N-nothing,¡± the boy says. ¡°I was just¡­ exploring the village.¡± ¡°Okay, you don¡¯t have nearly enough levels in Subterfuge (Blatant Lies) for me to believe that,¡± Anise says. ¡°Don¡¯t make me use Persuasion (Mom Look) on you.¡± ¡°No, anything but that!¡± the boy pleads. ¡°My name is Dirk Kelso Crux. Look, I had a quest! And I need to raise some more skills before I turn fourteen!¡± Anise sighs and rolls her eyes. ¡°Having a quest doesn¡¯t mean bearing no responsibility for your own actions. The best rewards come from taking risks, but risks aren¡¯t risks if you can¡¯t fail. You failed. Own up. What did you come in here for?¡± Dirk mutters something incomprehensible, spoken rapidly and quietly. ¡°I can¡¯t hear you, Dirk,¡± Anise says. ¡°Speak up.¡± ¡°I was supposed to steal sigil ink for my mask,¡± Dirk says quickly. ¡°Were you supposed to steal it specifically, or just acquire it?¡± Anise asks. ¡°Not that it matters. You got caught. Quest failed. Don¡¯t try again. Shoo, before I cut off a hand or something.¡± Dirk swiftly absconds, very nearly face-planting in his haste to get out the back door. ¡°Do we do that around here?¡± I wonder. ¡°Nah,¡± Anise says. ¡°But he doesn¡¯t know that. You okay?¡± ¡°Just Sanity damage from stretching my [Telepathy] range,¡± I say. ¡°No big deal.¡± ¡°No big deal, he says,¡± Anise says with a snort. ¡°Let¡¯s get you some tea. I hope you at least got some skill levels out of that.¡± We head into the Hearth and Aunt Myrtle gives me some warm tea while Anise informs Grandma Laurel what happened in the workshop. ¡°Do you think he¡¯ll try again?¡± I wonder. ¡°Who knows?¡± Grandma Laurel says. ¡°I¡¯ll have Heather keep an eye on him and go have a chat with Jasper. I¡¯m interested in knowing whether Jasper is aware of what his nephew is doing.¡± With my Sanity meter topped off again, I get back to the drawing board. Where was I¡­ something about gravity? Meh, my mind was probably just wandering anyway. I¡¯m just going to draw a house. I can probably get an [Architecture] skill without having to actually build one. I¡¯ll probably need to draw a bunch of houses, though. I¡¯m in the middle of sketching my third house when footsteps approach, this time not trying to be stealthy. Grandma Laurel is here, accompanied by Jasper. ¡°Ah, young Drake,¡± Jasper says. ¡°I¡¯ve been told you were the one who caught my naughty nephew in the act. I wish to sincerely apologize for his actions. I would not have we Kelsos to be thought of as mere thieves and vagabonds.¡± I open my mouth, but before I can answer, Jasper swoops in to crane his neck over my shoulder at what I¡¯ve been working on. ¡°My, what a talented young artist!¡± Jasper says. ¡°When Dirk was your age, he certainly couldn¡¯t draw a straight line.¡± ¡°Thank y¡ª¡± ¡°Why don¡¯t I make it up to you by giving you a tour of my skyship?¡± Jasper says. ¡°Have you had a chance to see one up close? Stroll across the deck?¡± At my head shake, he¡¯s already practically dragging me off. ¡°Hey!¡± Grandma Laurel says. ¡°You¡¯re not kidnapping my grandson right in front of me.¡± While I don¡¯t mind visiting their ship, I¡¯m glad to have Grandma Laurel around to chaperone. They definitely won¡¯t try anything with a Legendary adventurer standing behind me, I¡¯m sure. We climb the docking tower and board the ship. Every wall is splashed with different colors, and the furnishings are plush and lavish with tassels and lace. A heavy, tangy smoke clings to everything and lingers in the cabins and weirdly interferes with my [Aura Sight] a little, not blocking it entirely but reducing the usable range. Jasper introduces me to his equally colorful crewmates, whose names I immediately forget. This includes an aranea, and let me tell you, it¡¯s wrong to see a giant spider wearing a paisley dress. The blue and orange swirls do nothing to complement her carapace. I do take the opportunity to examine the aura of an aranea and see what differentiates it from a human and goblin.
Category Person
Race Aranea
Gender Female
Rank Heroic
¡°Now, I apologize that we have gotten off on the wrong foot,¡± Jasper is still running his mouth. ¡°I have great respect for the Hearths of Tempest. It can¡¯t be easy raising children to revere their cores and live in your Hearth all the time, rather than merely visiting it once a week or when one is in great spiritual distress.¡± ¡°Dirk said he had a quest,¡± I say. ¡°Ah, the tendency of the young to excuse their misdeeds with claims that they had a quest to do it,¡± Jasper says. ¡°Haven¡¯t you ever lied about having a quest to try to wriggle your way out of punishment before, little one?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t get quests,¡± I say. ¡°I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll start getting them once you turn seven,¡± Jasper says. ¡°Don¡¯t worry. Your core surely has grand plans for you.¡± I turn to the spider, finding her very likely far more interesting than Jasper. ¡°Hello, lady spider! Do aranea have Hearths too?¡± ¡°Yes, but we call them colonies,¡± says the aranea. ¡°I¡¯ve met two aranea on skyships so far,¡± I say. ¡°Is that common?¡± ¡°Oh, yes,¡± the aranea says. ¡°Our silk is especially good for catching aether currents and we can always manipulate our own silk best. It doesn¡¯t stop others from trying, but most humans seem content to rely on our talents.¡± I make a mental note to look more closely into aranea when I get the chance, but right now I¡¯m being ushered along on this tour. Oh goodie, it¡¯s the costume room. Does he really think I¡¯d rather play dress-up than look at the guts of the ship? Just because all my clothes are made of black wool. A voice from the deck saves me from having a purple hat with a long, multicolored feather dropped on my head. Grandma Laurel and I follow Jasper up to the deck. On top of the tower, Anise is holding on to a fidgeting Dirk, and next to her is Aunt Heather with her arms folded across her chest. ¡°Heyyy,¡± Anise says. ¡°Look who we found trying to get into the sigil ink storage while you had Grandma Laurel¡¯s attention. I certainly hope you weren¡¯t trying to pull a two-man con here with your nephew¡¯s plausible deniability.¡± ¡°I would never dare!¡± Jasper says, putting on an exaggerated air of innocence. ¡°Please confine this kid to your ship,¡± Aunt Heather says. ¡°He is no longer welcome in the village. As for the rest of you, I¡¯ll give you the benefit of the doubt, but you¡¯re not getting another warning. Behave, or leave. If you want the wool we¡¯re paying you for your performances, then I want no more trouble from any of you.¡± Aunt Heather is scary when she¡¯s annoyed at someone. It¡¯s usually Grandma Laurel who seems more threatening, as the more combat-oriented class, but Aunt Heather is still a Legendary and inherently more powerful than the vast majority of people.. Chapter 24: A Wannabe Rogue Cries Milo arrives back at Corwen with a few humans who had been hanging out at Grubwick learning Goblin or whatever it was they were doing. One of the visitors plays Leaves, that stupid card game Milo got into, and has promised him a rare card if the goblin can beat him. A card-playing goblin is too good an opportunity to pass up, apparently. Milo attempts to regale me with the details of the competition but I kind of tune him out. ¡°One of their kids tried to rob the workshop yesterday,¡± I tell him quietly. ¡°Really?¡± Milo says. ¡°What were they after?¡± ¡°Sigil ink, he claimed,¡± I say. ¡°I don¡¯t know if that¡¯s true or he was just making an excuse for what he was really after, but he seemed terrified of my mom.¡± ¡°What is sigil ink used for?¡± Milo asks. ¡°Sigils, I assume?¡± ¡°So I would guess,¡± I say. ¡°I¡¯d have to ask my mom or read a book for specifics. I haven¡¯t looked up more than the basics of the magic skills I can¡¯t actually use yet. I have, however, discovered that there are some skills that might as well be magic that I can already use, and you very likely can use too.¡± ¡°Really?¡± Milo asks. ¡°The Soul skills?¡± I nod. ¡°Out of curiosity, what¡¯s your Soul attribute at?¡± ¡°37,¡± Milo replies. ¡°I was told that it depends on how many times you¡¯ve been reincarnated,¡± I say. ¡°Though both of us only seem to remember one life on Earth. I¡¯ve been¡­ getting flashbacks to weird things lately. In any case, I¡¯d like to see if you can learn some of the skills I¡¯ve unlocked.¡± ¡°Sounds great. Like what?¡± I send to him, [Like this.] ¡°Whoa!¡± Milo exclaims. ¡°What is that?¡± ¡°Clairvoyance (Telepathy). Every use of it costs some Inspiration, so I can¡¯t quite use it entirely freely yet, but¡ª¡± ¡°¡ªbut it¡¯s still awesome,¡± Milo says. I describe to him the various skills Clairvoyance and Recollection have given me since we last met. ¡°I don¡¯t know how useful Recollection would be to me,¡± Milo says. ¡°I already remember my life in perfect clarity. Probably even better than before old age set in. But if I¡¯ve actually lived another 36 lives¡­ no, I think I¡¯d rather just be me. That¡¯s enough.¡± ¡°I agree, really. The latter half of my first life¡ªif that actually was my first life¡ªfeels so surreal that it might as well be another lifetime. I don¡¯t know what sort of future we wound up in if humans somehow discovered psychic powers.¡± Milo nods. ¡°I would find it unbelievable but¡ª¡± He gestures to the guest house around us full of magitech appliances and fixtures, a jester telekinetically juggling colored balls, and a giant spider in a dress drinking a pink beverage through a straw. ¡°Yeah,¡± I say with a chuckle. ¡°How did we even get this far? In any case, if the only requirement is having the Soul attribute, then you should be able to do these things. Did you ever get through those [Aura Sight] exercises I mentioned?¡± ¡°I still haven¡¯t managed to see auras,¡± Milo says. ¡°How did you even unlock it in the first place?¡± ¡°I just¡­ opened my eyes,¡± I say. ¡°It took months of really looking at different things, and now that I¡¯ve been leveling it up, I can pick out more specifics, like species and gender. Being able to see people¡¯s status screens might be a gamer changer, so to speak.¡±
Category Person
Race Goblin
Gender Male
Rank Elite
I send him his own status, and add, ¡°I think I¡¯m starting to be able to determine where people are from, but I haven¡¯t quite pinned it down yet.¡± ¡°That is really useful,¡± Milo says. ¡°As soon as I hit Elite, I¡¯ve been focusing on learning Incantation. Words of power, true names, voice magic, matter of that nature. Your Uncle Falcon has been teaching me. In between regaling me with tales of everyone he has bedded, women and men.¡± ¡°Right¡­ Uncle Falcon,¡± I say with a chuckle. ¡°I have been¡­ trying not to get embarrassed about it. Men didn¡¯t speak of writing love sonnets for other men, in a place and time that is no longer relevant. Compared to the numbers in my head and the glowing crystal orbs in the sky, that¡¯s nothing. No one even understands when I speak of my wife, or of raising my own children, or indeed of knowing who my own children even are.¡± He shakes his head. ¡°But enough of this melancholy. I need to learn how to see those boxes.¡± I take Milo around the village (aside from the Hearth, of course) to give him a chance to look at¡ªor at least try to look at¡ªthe auras of different people, animals, and plants. As we circle around to behind the workshop, I spot a violet aura around an otherwise unremarkable shrub. Upon a closer examination of the aura, I quickly determine that it¡¯s Dirk Kelso again.Stolen story; please report. I have an Elite with me this time and I¡¯m far less concerned about how dangerous Dirk might actually be. [That kid who tried to steal from the workshop is hiding in that bush over there,] I tell Milo. [Probably waiting until it¡¯s clear to try to sneak in again. This is getting annoying. He¡¯s Elite rank, but I don¡¯t think he¡¯s combat-oriented, or if he is, at least realizes that he¡¯d get his butt handed to him in no time if he actually hurts anyone.] Milo stares at the bush I indicate while trying not to look like he¡¯s staring. The bush might be becoming increasingly nervous, and I have to wonder if emotional state is something else I should be able to pick up on. ¡°Aha!¡± Milo says quietly. ¡°Got it!¡± He walks up toward the bush and says in a voice projecting more depth and authority than a tiny goblin would normally be capable of summoning, ¡°Hold it right there! Don¡¯t move! Turn off that invisibility right now, young man!¡± Dirk fades into view and whimpers softly. He seems just as terrified of this tiny goblin as he was of my mom, and Milo is even tinier than goblins usually are. Meanwhile, I send a message to Anise (after getting close enough to reach her this time instead of causing myself Sanity damage trying to stretch my skills) telling her, [We found Dirk Kelso trying to sneak into the workshop again. Could you come?] I suppose I will next need to figure out how to get a reply out of people, but this is already super convenient. ¡°You¡¯re still after the sigil ink?¡± I ask. ¡°What do you even need it for?¡± ¡°A quest!¡± Dirk says. ¡°It¡­ alright, it doesn¡¯t actually have to be stolen. But I want to complete this quest with stealth to make sure I get a Rogue-type class.¡± As he¡¯s speaking, Anise walks up. ¡°You again? Really? Are you* trying* to get your uncle and everyone thrown out of here unpaid?¡± ¡°He seems a little single-minded,¡± I say. ¡°Where do you even get sigil ink, anyway?¡± ¡°It¡¯s made from the ichor of certain types of monsters,¡± Anise says. ¡°I spend a lot of time collecting ichor because everyone always wants more of the stuff.¡± ¡°What¡¯s ichor?¡± Dirk asks. ¡°Sounds¡­ icky.¡± ¡°Eh, you get used to it,¡± Anise says. ¡°You ever do a dungeon before?¡± Dirk shakes his head. ¡°Do you actually want to get that ink? I have an idea. Dirk, use your sneaky skills to sneak yourself outside and wait. We must gather our party before venturing forth.¡± Dirk sneaks outside, and we collect Meadow and our packs before joining him. ¡°Congratulations on doing the one sensible thing I¡¯ve seen you do since you got here,¡± Anise says. ¡°And that includes the things I didn¡¯t see you do because you were invisible.¡± ¡°Where are we going?¡± Dirk asks. ¡°There¡¯s a dungeon near here called the Spooky Grove,¡± Anise says. ¡°You can get ichor for sigil in there. That¡¯s where we get most of our stores. You would know that if you thought to look at anything beyond doing the same thing over and over again even though it wasn¡¯t working.¡± ¡°Why would you help me now, though?¡± Dirk wonders. ¡°You might not thank me when we arrive,¡± Anise says, and chuckles. ¡°You know, Dirk, my old party leader would never have allowed you to be in the same party as Drake.¡± ¡°Why not?¡± Dirk wonders. ¡°Because your names both start with D,¡± Anise says. ¡°That guy rejected perfectly good candidates because they were named Aisha and Alder, because he didn¡¯t want more than one person in the party to have names starting with A.¡± ¡°That¡¯s silly.¡± ¡°You will find adventurers are all a little eccentric.¡± The Spooky Grove is in a different direction from the Hedge Maze, southeast of Corwen rather than north. I haven¡¯t been down this way very far before and I¡¯m interested in seeing what another dungeon might be like. It must not be too dangerous if my mom is willing to take me along. Before we leave, she tells Grandma Laurel what we were doing and where we¡¯re going, like a sensible adult. (Because I remind her to make sure Grandma Laurel isn¡¯t surprised by us kidnapping a kid who isn¡¯t even supposed to be in town. It¡¯s on the kid whether he tells his uncle where he¡¯s going. That bit¡¯s not my problem.) The road leading to the dungeon is an overgrown dirt path encroached with weeds, but Meadow has no trouble following it. Although the same green sky hangs above us, it seems somehow eerier in this part of the domain. Twisted, gnarled trees surround a hedge of brambles, and the shadows underneath the dense canopy certainly make this look as much like a dungeon as a forest might get. A wrought iron fence marks the actual entrance to the dungeon, similar to the one to the Hedge Maze, but considerably spikier and more sinister-looking. There might be a correlation between spikiness and sinister perception, but it doesn¡¯t stop at the gates.
You have discovered the Spooky Grove.
Your Survival (Hiking) skill has increased to level 2.
Knots like eyes cover the crooked trees inside the grove. I can¡¯t see any monsters from in here, but my imagination has been running wild with speculation for the entire time it took to walk here. If the dungeon core is reading my mind to find things that might spook me to spawn, it certainly has a lot of material to work with. ¡°Alright,¡± Anise says. ¡°There¡¯s a few monsters in here with fluids that can be used to make sigil ink. The most common one on the first floor here is a tree monster with magic black sap.¡± ¡°I thought you said it was icky,¡± Dirk says. ¡°It¡¯s still pretty icky,¡± Anise says. ¡°You want to complete your quest with stealth? Sneak in there and tap that sap without anything scaring you to death. If you don¡¯t come out in an hour, we¡¯ll go rescue you or retrieve your corpse, whichever.¡± Dirk whimpers again as Anise casually starts setting up camp. ¡°Or if you¡¯d rather go in with the whole party, go find some firewood and get a fire started,¡± Anise says. ¡°I don¡¯t have any Survival skills,¡± Dirk says quietly. ¡°Pfft, what in the Heavens are they teaching you Crux kids?¡± Dirk sighs. ¡°I suppose if you brought the little kid with you, it can¡¯t be too dangerous¡­¡± ¡°Overcome your fear, Dirk! You can do it!¡± Milo says, and I can practically feel the [Encouraging Speech] skill from over here. Dirk nods. ¡°Right. Right. I can totally do it. I¡¯m just going to walk right in there and get that sap.¡± He vanishes, and the gate opens and closes on its own. ¡°How actually likely is him getting eaten?¡± I ask. ¡°Eh, he might, but they don¡¯t digest,¡± Anise says. ¡°They just swallow you whole and make your party rescue you. Nothing in here actually hurts you.¡± ¡°You¡¯re kind of spoiling this,¡± Meadow says with a smirk. There¡¯s a bloodcurdling scream in the distance. Anise ignores it and continues to work on the tent. She continues to ignore the voice as it cries for help and starts loudly wailing. ¡°Shouldn¡¯t we go help him?¡± Milo asks. ¡°Nah,¡± Anise says. ¡°I have more faith in the Spooky Grove¡¯s desire to not hurt little kids than I do in Dirk¡¯s ability to not scream like a little kid when something gets slightly spooky. Hey, Drake. Want to play with fire? See if you can unlock Survival (Fire Making) before Dirk stops crying.¡± I¡¯m just going to take my mom¡¯s word for it that the idiot kid is perfectly safe. He was starting to annoy me anyway. I realize that Anise might not be the best role model, though. Chapter 25: The Spooky Grove I fail to get a fire started before my mom decides it¡¯s time to enter the Spooky Grove and locate our wayward wannabe Rogue. The gate creaks ominously as we pass through and enter the dungeon. We try to be stealthy, since even if the dungeon is safe for children, that doesn¡¯t mean the challenge isn¡¯t real. Just that the consequences for failure don¡¯t include horrible death. Glowing eyes blink at us from the bushes and shadows around the path, accompanied by scurrying sounds and moans. I peer at them with [Aura Sight] to try to pinpoint the telltale red outlines of any monsters around us, but the auras are yellow and only encompass the eyes themselves. Not a color I¡¯ve seen on any living being. Yellow is usually associated with Perception. Does that mean something is watching us that isn¡¯t actually here? I decide to tentatively classify them as ¡°cameras¡± for lack of a better term. The forest is full of so much noise that it just sounds like a ¡°spooky ambience¡± background album you might play at Halloween in a haunted house. Dirk¡¯s echoing cries only add to that. The wind rustles the leaves and brings with it ghostly howls, and an entire murder of crows springs up in front of us, cawing as they pass over our heads. A small white humanoid with an oversized head sits on a tree limb to the side of the path. The mouth and eyes are just black circles of three different sizes, and its head jostles as it watches us silently. My [Aura Sight] cheerfully pegs these things as plants. As I examine the vis coming off of it more closely, I pick out what seems to be spirit vis in addition to tree.
Your Clairvoyance (Aura Sight) skill has increased to level 5.
Your Clairvoyance (Vis Analysis) skill has increased to level 2.
Just walking into a dungeon and analyzing some weird auras has already done as much for my skills than weeks of staring intently at things.
Category Plant
Race Spirit
Gender None
Rank Basic
As I¡¯m watching, several others appear out of the corner of my eyes, but my analysis has taken something of the mystery out of the mysterious tree spirits. Deeper within the grove, we come to the source of Dirk¡¯s continued loud weeping. A monster tree stands in a clearing, much like the one in the Hedge Maze, and Dirk is caged in its branches. Trees that are monsters and monsters that are trees. Tempest is a delightfully arboreal place. ¡°Oh, by all the cores, help me!¡± Dirk wails. ¡°Congratulations, we¡¯ve traumatized a thirteen year old,¡± I say. ¡°He should be glad we didn¡¯t cut off a hand,¡± Anise says. ¡°I thought you said we don¡¯t do that,¡± I say. ¡°Does this one belong to you?¡± asks the tree. ¡°He poked me with a knife.¡± ¡°Nah, he¡¯s not ours,¡± Anise says. ¡°He¡¯s just an idiot we tricked into coming here to spook him because he kept trying to steal from us.¡± ¡°You lied to me!?¡± Dirk exclaims. ¡°You can get mystic sap here,¡± Anise says. ¡°It¡¯s not my fault you were bad at it.¡± Dirk starts crying loudly again. ¡°Oh, for pity¡¯s sake,¡± Milo mutters. ¡°Be quiet!¡± Dirk immediately stops making noise. ¡°Thanks,¡± Anise says. ¡°Do you want him back, or shall I keep him?¡± the tree asks. ¡°His bones would make a lovely addition to my branches.¡± Dirk silently starts crying. I sigh. ¡°Alright, this has gone on long enough. Dirk, you¡¯re not hurt. Nothing here will actually hurt you, just mess with you.¡± ¡°Aww, come on,¡± Anise says. ¡°You get more experience if the fear is real! He might¡¯ve unlocked some cool new skill!¡± ¡°I will release him once the dungeon is cleared,¡± the tree says. ¡°To do so, you must answer a riddle and defeat me in a game of Leaves.¡± Milo pulls his cards out. ¡°I brought my deck!¡±Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. ¡°What¡¯s the riddle?¡± I ask. ¡°Two orbs circle each other in the sky,¡± the tree says. ¡°One is the truth and zero is the lie.¡± I only have to think for a moment on it before realizing that this is another riddle that I¡¯m the only one here who could possibly know the answer to. ¡°Binary.¡± ¡°Hmm, hmm, binary is correct,¡± the tree says. ¡°I have no idea what that even means, but great!¡± Anise says. ¡°Now, for the cards¡­¡± We play a game of cards with the tree. The rest of us get roped into it as well even though we barely know how to play. Meadow and Anise shrug and go along with it, because it¡¯s just a thing you do in dungeons. We play obligatorily and are unsurprised when we get knocked out early. Milo brings the tree to a hard-fought victory, or at least I assume it¡¯s hard-fought given the expressions that keep crossing his green face. I¡¯m not even entirely sure what¡¯s happening, but I¡¯ll take the clear all the same.
Congratulations! You have cleared the Spooky Grove.
Your Max Sanity has increased to 11.
Max Sanity, for that? I suppose I shouldn¡¯t try to make sense of dungeon rewards. The tree¡¯s branch-cage opens, dropping Dirk unceremoniously to the ground. He runs toward the exit, screaming loudly, Milo¡¯s command having apparently worn off. ¡°He didn¡¯t even stop to check the chest,¡± Anise says. ¡°Who held his hand to get him to Elite?¡± She goes over to open the chest and scoops out a handful of coins, which she splits between us, a Leaves card that she hands to Milo, and a stick she tosses to Meadow. ¡°Is that a magic stick?¡± I ask. ¡°Crafting material,¡± Meadow says. ¡°Arcane heartwood isn¡¯t especially rare, but it¡¯s only found in this form in dungeon chests.¡± With our rewards collected, we follow Dirk down the path out. I keep an eye out for any signs of secret doors like in the Hedge Maze. This time, I¡¯m adding [Aura Sight] to the mix in trying to locate the core room. It¡¯s not sight that catches my attention, though. Another sense, as though detecting a vibration in the spiritual plane. I look in that direction and spot one of those little white tree spirits. It cocks its head and vibrates at me again. It¡¯s then that I notice that the creature is sitting right above a hollow hidden between the briars. [I found something,] I send to my nearby party members before crawling inside.
Congratulations! You have discovered the core room of the Spooky Grove.
Skill acquired: Clairvoyance (Spirit Hearing)
Oh, fantastic. Now I can hear ghosts, too. Why did I want this? The tree spirits are very weird and now that I can hear them, their constant chattering is a little obnoxious. ¡°What did you find?¡± Anise asks, poking her head down behind me. ¡°Is that the core room? Can you reach the bonus chest?¡± ¡°Yeah, hold on,¡± I say. ¡°The voices in my head are driving me insane.¡± ¡°Do you need tea?¡± ¡°No, I¡¯m fine,¡± I say. ¡°I just unlocked [Spirit Hearing].¡± ¡°Another new skill?¡± Anise asks. ¡°It was completely unintentional,¡± I say. ¡°Those spirits did it. The little white ones with the weird faces.¡± I find the chest in front of the shimmering crystalline dungeon core, and open it up to retrieve a handful of coins and a small bead that looks gray at first, but turns black when I touch it. I return to the party and show them what I found. Anise picks up the bead to take a closer look at it, but it remains black. ¡°Huh.¡± ¡°What is it?¡± I ask. ¡°Dunno,¡± Anise says, tossing it back to me. ¡°It probably doesn¡¯t explode.¡± I shrug and bag it, and we leave the dungeon. Dirk, in the most sensible thing he¡¯s done all week, is sitting back at our camp in a fetal position rather than running madly through the forest. ¡°Hey, kid,¡± Anise says. ¡°What are you going to tell your Uncle Jasper about what happened here?¡± ¡°I¡¯m a failure,¡± Dirk mutters. ¡°I¡¯m never gonna be a Rogue.¡± ¡°Yeah, I hate to break it to you, kid,¡± Anise says. ¡°But when you turn fourteen, I suggest you take the option least likely to lead to you going into mortal peril. [Apprentice Coward], perhaps.¡± ¡°I think he gets the point,¡± I say. ¡°This is just bullying at this point.¡± ¡°Eh, yeah, yeah, you¡¯re right,¡± Anise says with a shrug. ¡°Look, Dirk. Your family will you love you no matter what. Sometimes you just have to accept that something¡¯s not happening. Give up your dreams, and go bake bread! Woo¡­¡± Dirk whimpers softly and looks back toward the dungeon gates. ¡°No, seriously though,¡± Milo says. ¡°There¡¯s no shame in being a coward. Normal people, and not these bleeding lunatics, are scared of scary things. Corwens are a more adventurous breed than most, but you don¡¯t have to be an adventurer.¡± Dirk is slightly mollified, and by the time we break camp in the morning, he has decided to stick with becoming a stage hand and not embark upon a life of failing to commit crimes. ¡°I didn¡¯t fail my quest¡­¡± Dirk says. ¡°It doesn¡¯t even have a time limit. It will just sit there until I eventually get some sigil ink, I guess.¡± ¡°You could have just bought it,¡± Anise says. Dirk sighs. ¡°Yes, yes, I made everything harder on myself. I hope Uncle Jasper doesn¡¯t throw me off the skyship.¡± ¡°Figuratively?¡± Anise asks. We return to the village to find Jasper both worried and furious. It seems Dirk didn¡¯t even speak with him before sneaking out of the ship that last time, and he had to find out from Grandma Laurel where the boy went. Given the circumstances, he didn¡¯t take it well when the local authority told him that her people had taken him out in the woods. ¡°Oh, my nephew, my foolish, foolish nephew!¡± Jasper exclaims, hugging the boy. ¡°I knew not whether these mad forest barbarians would bring you back alive! I told you not to provoke them. Adventurers are a whimsical and dangerous brood. Are you alright? You must have been terrified!¡± ¡°I¡¯m alright,¡± Dirk says. ¡°It was scary and I don¡¯t want to be an adventurer anymore. I couldn¡¯t even handle a dungeon that¡¯s just scary and doesn¡¯t hurt anyone.¡± ¡°We should be moving on now, regardless,¡± Jasper says. ¡°I believe we¡¯ve overstayed our¡ª¡± ¡°Wait!¡± Milo exclaims. ¡°You can¡¯t leave yet! I need to beat that guy at cards first. I even got a new card drop I¡¯m dying to try out!¡± Jasper looks at Milo and chuckles. ¡°Very well, we will stay for another day so that you can complete any outstanding side quests you might have, and then we¡¯ll go.¡± Chapter 26: The Wisteria Garden The black bead I got from the Spooky Forest lays on the desk next to the star necklace from the Hedge Maze. Unfortunately, they aren¡¯t alive, so my Clairvoyance can only tell me that they both contain my own vis, because obviously I have been the one handling them. I¡¯m on my third book discussing dungeons, artifacts, and magic items. The main difference between an artifact and a magic item is that artifacts are spawned by dungeons, while magic items are created by people. As for what they do, I just plain do not have the skills for it yet. I ask Aunt Heather, and again she refuses to tell me. At this point I think she¡¯s just having me on, but fine. I will keep them safe until I can figure it out for myself. The sky turns yellow, signalling the shift to summer. After July¡¯s Trade Festival, I head to Grubwick along with Milo and Anise. I get a batch of six-year-old goblins assigned to me to learn [Pottery]. I¡¯ve grown, and I¡¯m now a noticeable bit taller than the young goblins who are now my eager students. By the time the sky turns orange, several goblins have unlocked Crafting (Pottery) and I¡¯ve gotten some skill levels myself.
Skill acquired: Search (Clay)
Your Tending (Teaching) skill has increased to level 2.
I was really hoping I wouldn¡¯t wind up with Search skills for every stupid thing I could possibly look for, but I suppose it works like Crafting being every stupid thing I could possibly make. Milo and I are out working at the new Skullburn Bridge Outpost when Meadow ambushes us (figuratively). Since we keep dragging her along on our ¡°quests¡±, it¡¯s time to get dragged along on one of hers. ¡°There¡¯s a man who is willing to train me in the Art,¡± Meadow says. ¡°I missed out on getting a related apprentice class, but I can still get a magical adult class.¡± ¡°What¡¯s the¡­ Art like?¡± Milo asks. ¡°Well, you know how Wizardry is about sigils, and Incantation is about spoken words?¡± Meadow asks. ¡°The Art is about affecting the world through images. Paintings, sketches, and such.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve never seen you painting or sketching,¡± I say. Meadow sighs. ¡°Yeah. I don¡¯t really have much talent for it, and I¡¯m kind of afraid that attempting to learn the Art will be pointless.¡± ¡°Well, maybe, maybe not,¡± I say. ¡°You won¡¯t really know until you¡¯ve given it an honest effort, right?¡± ¡°Yeah, I suppose. So are you in?¡± ¡°Does a devil-goat breathe fire?¡± I ask. ¡°Absolutely,¡± Milo says. ¡°Where are we going and when do we leave?¡± Anise asks. We return to Corwen to make preparations before heading out to meet Meadow¡¯s prospective teacher. I spend a lot of time working on [Aura Sight] while traveling from one place to another through the wilderness with nothing better to do. I would probably be the first to notice if anything is out of the ordinary with the auras in our surroundings. (I still haven¡¯t seen another ¡°animal¡± with an azure aura like that crow I spotted that one time.)
You have discovered the Wisteria Garden.
Another wrought iron gate sides near the banks of a stream that desperately needs a bridge. We had to approach by a long way around so that we didn¡¯t have to get wet, but I¡¯m definitely pegging this location for a future project before we try to tackle bridging the deadly carp river. Tempest has plenty of bodies of water that could use bridges. ¡°Is this a dungeon?¡± Milo wonders. ¡°Everything¡¯s a dungeon, Milo,¡± Anise says. ¡°Even our Hearths. Fancy-pants scholars would call it a ¡®locus¡¯.¡± ¡°Should we make camp outside?¡± I ask. ¡°I still haven¡¯t managed to start a fire yet.¡± ¡°Yeah, let¡¯s get that started,¡± Meadow says. ¡°This place shouldn¡¯t be dangerous, but we¡¯ve been walking all day and should get some food and rest.¡± Anise and Meadow work on pitching the tent, while Milo and I fail at starting a fire. You¡¯d think the dry midsummer grasses would go up like tinder just from a sharp glance or cutting insult, but we¡¯re bad at this. Milo scowls at the campfire and yells, ¡°Burn!¡± The kindling obediently ignites. ¡°I guess that didn¡¯t help with Survival (Fire Making),¡± Milo says with a chuckle. ¡°Do you just say things now and the world obeys?¡± I ask. ¡°It¡¯s a bit more complicated than that,¡± Milo says. ¡°Your Uncle Falcon said if you¡¯re not talking to a specific person who needs to be able to understand you, you should use a language that isn¡¯t a language you speak regularly, but it felt silly yelling in French so I¡¯m yelling in English. Nobody else around here is likely to be speaking that anyway.¡±Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. Come morning, we head in through the gates. The Wisteria Garden is more open than the Hedge Maze and Spooky Grove, with lawns and benches situated amid trellises and gazebos. A large fountain burbles in one section, the flash of colorful fish in the waters inviting anyone that might have brought a fishing rod. We did not bring a fishing rod. We probably should have. Fishing would probably be more entertaining than that stupid card game Milo¡¯s obsessed with. We come upon a clearing with perfect concentric rings of cobblestone pathways around borders of flowers, stones, and shrubs. Some paths are blocked off, forcing you to carefully navigate through in order to not step on the flowers. Not quite a hedge maze but still permitting quick passage to anyone who has Survival (Don¡¯t Step on the Flowers) or whatever the stupid skill would be. In the center of this huge ring maze is a¡­ structure? It looks to be a large gazebo or something but it¡¯s made entirely of several wisteria trees growing together symmetrically to form a building. Each tree has a different color of flowers. Indigo, azure, green, and yellow are visible from where I¡¯m standing, so I¡¯m guessing the other side of the ¡°building¡± has orange, red, dark, and violet flowers. My pride as an adventurer (or engineer, or just plain nerd) will not let me get through here without at least trying to follow the maze. My party follows behind me in single file, with Meadow offering directions from the vantage point of being the tallest one here. The correct path winds up taking us in a full circle around the gazebo several times, winding back and forth, in and out, but we make it through. Congratulations! You have completed the Wisteria Garden maze without touching any plants.
Skill acquired: Survival (Careful Step)
Of course there¡¯s a skill for this. At least it wasn¡¯t named what I was afraid of. Wait. If I just got this skill for successfully navigating this little maze, could anyone? If I make a goblin crew run this maze, will they get the skill and stop falling off of scaffolding quite so much? I¡¯m probably getting Recollection bonuses from it, I suppose, and they¡¯d still need to actually navigate it, but it might not be a terrible idea to take some of them on dungeon runs. There seem to be quite a lot of very safe dungeons around here. In the center of the structure sits a man in brightly colored but thankfully not paisley clothing, cross-legged and seeming lost in thought until we approach.
Category Person
Race Human
Gender Male
Rank Epic
There¡¯s a host of other concepts floating off of him that I can¡¯t quite identify yet and probably shouldn¡¯t stare, although being four years old does have its advantages for getting away with social missteps. I may have just gotten Survival (Careful Step), but I do not yet have Persuasion (Careful Step). One of these might help with walking on eggshells in a more literal manner than the other. (No, I don¡¯t know if that skill exists.) ¡°Visitors,¡± he says, opening his eyes to look at each of us in turn. ¡°I am Valerian. Welcome. What brings you here?¡± ¡°Master Valerian,¡± Meadow says. ¡°I came to ask if you might teach me in the True Art.¡± Valerian lets out a heavy sigh and slowly unfolds his legs before climbing to his feet. ¡°And who are these? Your party?¡± He looks most critically to me and Milo. ¡°How old are you, children?¡± ¡°Four and a half,¡± I say. ¡°Almost five!¡± Milo says. ¡°Four and three quarters?¡± I say. ¡°Our naming days are at the end of November.¡± ¡°You speak in the voices of children, with innocent faces and wide eyes,¡± Valerian says. ¡°But although these faces are young, this is not the first time your voice has spoken, and your eyes bear far more weight in them than a mere five years would bring. Reincarnators.¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± I say, not bothering to argue with someone that perceptive. ¡°What of it?¡± ¡°Reincarnators or no, what are you doing delving dungeons at almost five years old? At the rate you¡¯re going already, you¡¯re not even going to live to adolescence.¡± ¡°There¡¯s a lot of dungeons in the area that are perfectly safe for children,¡± Anise says. ¡°Nobody ever dies in the Hedge Maze or the Spooky Grove!¡± ¡°Short-sighted fool of a woman. Do you know nothing of the ways of the land? Do you not realize what happens when a Hero enters an area?¡± ¡°¡­no?¡± ¡°You haven¡¯t noticed how heroes are always arriving just in time to solve a problem?¡± Valerian says. ¡°The land knows where the Heroes are going. It is compelled to make the journey more interesting for them. Misfortune always travels with them. You have brought me a pair of walking disasters.¡± Would someplace go with its disaster unsaved because I didn¡¯t get a quest message? I¡¯ll just have to see, I suppose. ¡°I¡¯m a goblin,¡± Milo says. ¡°If I don¡¯t earn some Deeds as early as I can, I would be dying young regardless.¡± ¡°And what are you, really?¡± Valerian asks. ¡°A Hero truly born to goblinkind? A Villain seeking redemption, or merely playing the long game?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not a villain,¡± Milo says. ¡°I seek only prosperity for everyone. Under my benevolent corporate rule. If everyone is wealthy, everyone can afford what I¡¯m selling them.¡± ¡°They sent a different sort of villain this time,¡± I say lightly. ¡°If even you believe he is a Villain, then why do you not stop him before he rises to power?¡± Valerian asks. ¡°Because I don¡¯t actually care,¡± I say. ¡°People are more complicated than Heroes and Villains, and our cores seem to have decided to do something weird with us and give us no quests just to see what we do.¡± Meadow sighs. ¡°You know, we actually came here for me. Not getting fixated on the reincarnators, no matter how weird they are. They¡¯re my friends. I don¡¯t believe Drake is a Hero and I don¡¯t believe Milo is a Villain. Those are not the paths they¡¯ve chosen.¡± Valerian shakes his head. ¡°Very well. Do you believe yourself ready for the trials of the True Art? Do you believe you truly comprehend what learning this skill will entail?¡± ¡°I thought it would be like, painting and drawing?¡± Meadow asks. ¡°You know nothing,¡± Valerian says. ¡°Come. Let me show you.¡± He picks up a gnarled staff from where it had been laying on the ground. ¡°The True Art is resonating with an image in your heart,¡± Valerian says. ¡°We work with shapes, light, and color where an Incantor relies on words.¡± Drawing with the staff in dirt, Valerian makes two vertical lines with several horizontal lines reminiscent of a ladder. When he sends a pulse of vis into the crude image, the structure suddenly shifts around us. A ladder of branches forms, leading up to another floor. ¡°The reincarnators may go play in the garden,¡± Valerian says. ¡°There are many secrets here I am certain that a bored reincarnator could dredge up. Now, let us speak, just the two of us.¡± He climbs the ladder, and once Meadow follows him, the branches making up the ladder revert to being less ladder-like. I guess he really doesn¡¯t want to talk to us. Chapter 27: Fanged Flowers and Tentacle Grass ¡°That fellow was a tad rude,¡± Milo says as we¡¯re exploring the Wisteria Garden. ¡°He might still be able to hear you,¡± I say. ¡°I truly do not care,¡± Milo says. ¡°I do hope it¡¯s what Meadow was looking for, though.¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± Anise says. ¡°You know, my old party leader would complain about Milo and Meadow in the same party. Names too similar.¡± ¡°What was your old party leader¡¯s name?¡± I ask. ¡°Spike.¡± ¡°I¡­ don¡¯t think he has room to complain about anyone else¡¯s names,¡± I say. Anise snickers. ¡°Hey, I think I see a pond over there. Maybe if the dungeon is feeling pity it¡¯ll spawn a fishing rod for us.¡± We approach a shimmering black pond, like an oil slick amid the gardens. Writhing purple grass grows along the banks. The path winds around the water, and the trees on the far bank have eyeballs instead of leaves. ¡°Uh,¡± I say. ¡°Is the pond¡­ supposed to look like this?¡± Anise frowns deeply and holds up a hand to indicate we should stop walking, rather unnecessarily as we already did. ¡°No, it most certainly is not. Did the dungeon change since I was last here? It has been a few years but I¡¯m sure someone would have said something if they noticed.¡± I peer at the purple grass with Clairvoyance and try to glean as much information from the vis it¡¯s putting off without getting any closer than I have to. Comparing it to the normal grass not far from it, I carefully pick out a concept.
Category Plant
Type Grass
Rank Basic
Aspect Eldritch
Aspect, that¡¯s a good way of putting it. As I¡¯m starting to be able to make out more information about things I¡¯m looking at, the system helpfully fills in the gaps in definitions. I turn to Anise and ask, ¡°You ever heard of anything ¡®eldritch¡¯?¡± ¡°Only in rumors and bad fiction,¡± Anise says. ¡°That¡¯s eldritch? Ugh. What¡¯s it doing here?¡± ¡°Squirming, primarily,¡± Milo puts in helpfully. ¡°Grass should not squirm.¡± ¡°Right, let¡¯s go back to where we left Meadow and Valerian,¡± Anise says. We return to the wisteria gazebo, carefully stepping over the flowerbeds so that we don¡¯t have to walk the long way around to get back there. There¡¯s no sign of either of them or the ladder they used to get to the second floor, but that¡¯s not going to stop Anise from cupping her hands and yelling up at them. ¡°Hey! I don¡¯t know what you¡¯re doing up there, but the pond has turned eldritch for some reason. Thought you should know!¡± The branches shift and a ladder appears again, but Valerian just casually drops down through the hole and leaves Meadow to climb down the ladder while awkwardly trying to carry an easel. ¡°I warned you something like this would happen,¡± Valerian says. ¡°This is your doing. You came here and brought corruption with you.¡± ¡°Oh please,¡± Anise says. ¡°We did nothing, and we¡¯ve never been in contact with any sort of corruption.¡± ¡°Meadow Corwen!¡± Valerian says. ¡°It falls upon you to fix this, or die trying!¡± ¡°Uh¡­ I¡¯m not too keen on the prospect of noble sacrifice,¡± Meadow says. ¡°But I¡¯ll see what I can do.¡± Valerian returns to the second floor and seals the opening behind him, leaving us to wander off back toward the pond. Once out of (probable) earshot, I say, ¡°You know, he could just as easily do it himself, I¡¯m sure, if it were so pressing.¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± Meadow agrees. ¡°This is just a chance to get a Deed, I suppose. I¡¯m not nobly sacrificing myself for this.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t like that fellow,¡± Milo says. ¡°I¡¯m not a bloody villain.¡± Meadow gives him a look but doesn¡¯t remind him aloud that he tried to murder her uncle. ¡°I just decided to trust Drake¡¯s word over Grandma Griza,¡± Milo says. ¡°And Grubwick decided not to tell me what to do. Though if it wanted an actual villain, it shouldn¡¯t have chosen a Canadian businessman. Anyway, life¡¯s better this way. Especially since I didn¡¯t get stomped by your Legendary relatives.¡± We arrive back at the pond, and Meadow frowns deeply upon seeing it. If anything, the eldritch weirdness may have even spread in the time it took to walk there and back. With a sigh, Meadow sets up her easel. ¡°I don¡¯t know what he expects me to do about this, but I might as well take a shot at it,¡± Meadow says. ¡°The Art is about painting the world as you wish it to be and using your vis on the image to make the alteration. Valerian is Epic rank and can take a lot of shortcuts. Like scratching in the dirt and calling it Art.¡± Meadow starts painting with the sky, a hazy purple around the edges with a great orange sphere taking up the majority of the view, and dots it with green skymotes and puffy clouds. She follows this up with painting green trees and a clear pond. Aside from the weird sky, this could be a Bob Ross landscape full of happy little trees. As she works, I watch vis slowly trickle out of her and into the canvas.A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Once she¡¯s finished, Meadow sighs and gazes over the pond. ¡°I dumped all of my Inspiration into that and not one leaf got slightly greener. I don¡¯t know what I¡¯m doing wrong. Even the system told me this is a Poor quality painting.¡± She huffs indignantly. ¡°That¡¯s Poor?¡± I say. ¡°Rude.¡± ¡°Paintings are supposed to move people, aren¡¯t they?¡± Meadow asks. ¡°This is just¡­ a picture. Of a place. It¡¯s bland. I suppose I could add some more detail but I don¡¯t see what difference it will make. I only even learned to paint in the first place in hopes of eventually learning the Art because it seemed cool and powerful and now I¡¯m starting to wonder if I should have just aimed for a more straightforward sort of magic instead.¡± ¡°Maybe you should¡ª¡± A long, dark-purple tendril snaps out and wraps itself around my ankle. ¡°¡ªack!¡± I pull out my dagger to try to slice it off, but it yanks my feet out from under me with a sharp tug and I lose my grip. I only get dragged a meter before Anise swoops in with a flaming sword to cleaning cut through the tentacle. ¡°You can do flaming sword?¡± I exclaim as I climb to my feet and retrieve my blade. ¡°That is so cool.¡± We back up and give the tentacles a bit of a distance while we re-evaluate our options. The eldritch has spread and is only spreading further. ¡°Maybe there¡¯s a specific thing we need to cleanse in there,¡± I say. ¡°Not just try to purge the whole thing at once.¡± ¡°Good point,¡± Anise says. ¡°We can cut a path through and see if we can find anything like that. And if we run into something that kicks us around, we can go back and yell at Valerian.¡± Meadow packs up her art supplies to carry on her back and brings out a long knife. We start making our way around the pond, along the path and trying to avoid getting too close to either the eyeball trees or the tentacle-filled water. Meadow takes point, Anise stays close to me, and Milo brings up the rear. As we¡¯re moving, a tentacle lashes down from a tree at me, but I manage to dodge out of the way this time. A system box promptly pings me in response.
Skill acquired: Athletics (Dodging)
Your Recollection (Skills) skill has increased to level 2.
I have probably done a lot of dodging through my existence. Getting out of the way of things becomes second nature, and that first attack had just caught me flat-footed. With fire, blades, and fiery blades, my companions cut a swath through every tentacle that comes at us. Since they have the combat handled, I keep an eye out with [Aura Sight] for anything unusual. That is to say, more unusual than everything being purple, made of tentacles, and covered in eyeballs. Beyond the pond, the path leads to a clearing with a large tree in the middle of it, reminiscent of the last two nature-themed dungeons I¡¯ve been in. This tree, however, is purple and its branches have been transformed into tentacles.
Category Monster
Type Treefolk
Gender Female
Rank Elite
Aspect Eldritch
¡°Looks like she¡¯s corrupted too,¡± I say quietly. ¡°She?¡± Milo asks. I shrug. ¡°My skill says ¡®Gender: Female¡¯, so who am I to argue? Were you expecting tree-ladies to have breasts?¡± ¡°Do you think this is the source of the corruption?¡± Meadow asks. ¡°If I can revert this tree to its natural state, maybe the whole area will be affected?¡± ¡°Hmm,¡± I hmm. In Corwen, I could tell that all the vis in the village slowly swirls around the core like a whirlpool and makes its way inward. If I can pick the stray eldritch vis out of the air, maybe I can pinpoint where it¡¯s actually coming from. Eldritch vis writhes through the air like invisible tentacles. It¡¯s already trying to affect us and is staring to cause Sanity damage, though at our current level of exposure we¡¯d have to stand here for hours even if everyone here has subpar Sanity meters. ¡°It¡¯s not coming from the tree,¡± I say. ¡°See that path to the left? We need to go that way.¡± Giving the corrupted treefolk a wide berth, we make our way deeper into the eldritch grove. After another cluster of tentacle trees, we come upon an open garden area. Glowing flowers with fangs line cobblestone walkways and try to snap at us as we get close. In the center of the garden stands a fountain with an abstract statue. In the basin sits the strongest knot of eldritch energy. All the waves of corruption are coming from that one point, a small shimmering bead rippling with impossible colors.
Category Material
Type Stone
Rank Elite
Aspect Eldritch
¡°There,¡± I say, pointing to the pebble in the pool. ¡°That¡¯s the source of the corruption.¡± ¡°Oh yeah¡­¡± Anise says. ¡°That¡¯s¡­ what in the Void is that thing?¡± Meadow sets up her easel away from the tentacle trees and out of snapping range of the feisty flowers. ¡°Alright¡­ if I¡¯m only going to try to change one thing, I should just paint the scene exactly as it is to start off with, I suppose. No matter how horrible and ridiculous it is.¡± ¡°How¡¯s everyone¡¯s Sanity meters?¡± I ask. ¡°Mine¡¯s ticking down faster this close to the source.¡± Anise distributes bottles of tea. ¡°Manageable. Not seeing or hearing things yet.¡± ¡°I guess I should paint faster,¡± Meadow says. ¡°I suppose if it¡¯s eldritch, it won¡¯t mind being painted in a hasty, slightly abstract way.¡± Anise and Milo guard her while she whips out a painting that does a good job of capturing the essence of the scene if not the exact position of every flower. ¡°Well, the system called this painting Fair this time,¡± Meadow says. ¡°I think it¡¯s an absolute mess, but I¡¯m not much of an art critic I suppose. And I¡¯m feeling a¡­ resonance with it. Hmm. I didn¡¯t exactly have the proper colors to paint that rock as it is because those aren¡¯t real colors, so let¡¯s see if it will accept being a nice, normal gray.¡± She pours her vis into the painting, focusing on the stone in the middle of it. Its counterpart in the real world dulls and slowly loses its eldritch aspect as it takes on a basic gray hue. Congratulations! Your party has cleansed the eldritch corruption in the Wisteria Garden. Your Max Sanity has increased to 12. My second Sanity boost this year, nice. At this rate, I might soon be at the point of it being merely below average, and not abysmal. There¡¯s still eldritch-aspected vis in the air, but without the source it¡¯s starting to dissipate. The plants around us slowly return to normal before our eyes. ¡°That did it¡­¡± Meadow says with a wide smile. ¡°I got the skill!¡± She laughs and hugs me and Anise. ¡°Congratulations!¡± I say. ¡°I think I might still pick up a bit of Sorcery,¡± Meadow says. ¡°Not everything will wait around while you paint a picture of it, and Sorcery is the easiest, most primal sort of magic anyone can do.¡± Anise is smirking. ¡°I¡¯m not even offended.¡± Meadow goes over to pick up the formerly-eldritch rock and examines it further. ¡°Might be a useful crafting material now. I¡¯ll take a closer look at it when we get home. It¡¯s not still emitting anything harmful, is it?¡± I shake my head. ¡°Nothing I can detect, at any rate.¡± ¡°I want to see if the tree lady will play cards with me now,¡± Milo says. I sigh. ¡°If we must.¡± Chapter 28: Aspects and Nursery Rhymes After Milo defeats the (now uncorrupted) tree lady at cards, we get a chest to loot as a reward. More coins, another card, and a scrub brush that he hands to Meadow. ¡°A cleaning brush?¡± Meadow says, raising an eyebrow at it. ¡°I wonder if it does something special.¡± She tosses it in her pack and we head back around the now-normal pond to Valerian¡¯s atelier. I can¡¯t believe I just used the word ¡°atelier¡±. It¡¯s just a weird gazebo with a second floor that¡¯s an art studio. I didn¡¯t think gazebos normally had second floors, but then gazebos usually aren¡¯t made from living trees magically twined together to form buildings. Is it still a building if it wasn¡¯t built? Whatever. Valerian is not on the ground floor when we arrive, but the ladder is hanging down like an invitation. Meadow starts climbing up, and I¡¯m right behind her. I want to see what he¡¯s got up there and if he doesn¡¯t want me up there, he can dump me out himself. Although the room is made of living branches, very little of them can be seen past the piles of canvases. Some of them sit on easels, some are stacked haphazardly, and others hang from the living walls. Many of those piled up appear to be blank or primed with basic backgrounds. The paintings on the walls, however, depict overhead views of the Wisteria Garden in each of the eight seasons. This guy could have instantly reverted the gardens to their normal state just by dumping some vis into the orange painting, and likely would have done so if we had failed. ¡°You were successful,¡± Valerian says without looking at us. ¡°This stone was spewing out waves of eldritch aspect,¡± Meadow says, holding up the now-gray pebble. Valarian nods. ¡°Eldritch is such an obnoxious and unaesthetic aspect. It¡¯s pernicious. Inimical.¡± He turns to look at me and Milo. ¡°And entirely your fault.¡± ¡°We didn¡¯t do anything,¡± I say. ¡°We helped put a stop to it.¡± ¡°Do you think it¡¯s a coincidence that this only happened when you arrived here?¡± Valerian asks. ¡°The Wisteria Grove is a peaceful locus, but it was compelled to create a challenge for you to overcome.¡± ¡°This is ridiculous,¡± I say. ¡°Even if that¡¯s true, we fixed it immediately and no one got hurt.¡± ¡°Will you still say that when you see a village you¡¯re visiting get attacked just because you¡¯re there?¡± Valerian asks. Anise sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. ¡°Look, even if you think reincarnators cause trouble just by existing, you should probably blame Corwen and Grubwick for summoning them. They¡¯re here now, and if they¡¯re Heroes, then let them be Heroes. You can¡¯t expect them to sit in their Hearths their whole lives. Unless you¡¯re planning on killing them now, it¡¯s pointless to complain.¡± ¡°I have said my piece,¡± Valerian says, then turns to Meadow. ¡°You have taken your first steps on the journey to mastering the Art. What skill did you unlock?¡± ¡°True Art (Aspect Painting),¡± Meadow replies. ¡°Ah,¡± Valerian says. ¡°A good starting point for someone with as dreadful Max Inspiration as you do.¡± Meadow smirks but doesn¡¯t even look offended. ¡°At least you had the good sense to switch the stone¡¯s aspect to one that¡¯s capable of counteracting the eldritch infection,¡± Valerian goes on. ¡°Or was that even deliberate? You have doubtless spent more time training Ranger skills than reading books and studying concepts. You know what vis is but you have no idea how it actually works.¡± ¡°Are you willing to teach me more?¡± Meadow asks. ¡°I am not,¡± Valerian replies. ¡°Should you take an adult class related to the Art when you reach 21, you may return to me then. Until such point, I leave it to you to practice and glean whatever knowledge you can on your own.¡± Meadow doesn¡¯t look at all put out. ¡°Very well. Thank you for introducing me to the Art. We¡¯ll take our leave now.¡± We leave the gazebo, and take some time to finish exploring the Wisteria Garden before we leave. I can tell where the core is by the way the vis in the area is moving, but finding the way into it is another matter. The swirling vis leads toward one of the circular park areas with flower beds and decorative pathways, In the center stands a set of silver bells in different sizes hanging from a bar. Like the formerly eldritch fountain, this one doesn¡¯t make it into a maze, but I still feel like there¡¯s some sort of puzzle here. I walk up to examine the set of bells in the middle of the park, noticing as I go that the stones making up the path resemble seashells. The wind blowing through the gardens makes them ring in different pitches as it goes by. ¡°Another musical puzzle,¡± Milo says. ¡°Any idea what tune it might want us to play?¡±Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. ¡°Probably something flower-related, I would guess,¡± Meadow says. ¡°Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary,¡± I say. ¡°How does your garden grow? With silver bells and cockle shells, and pretty maids all in a row.¡± ¡°What¡¯s a cockle shell?¡± Anise wonders. Milo points at the walkway. ¡°These.¡± ¡°Oh, huh, I thought that was just a neat pattern,¡± Anise says. ¡°I¡¯ve walked through here several times before and even played with the bells, but never figured out what tune to play. Even if I could play tunes.¡± ¡°Hmm,¡± Milo hmms. ¡°I don¡¯t actually know how to play this song offhand, but we can probably figure it out.¡± ¡°I would complain more about running into all these nursery rhymes if these weren¡¯t literally the kiddie dungeons,¡± I say. It takes some (quite a bit) of trial and error. While waiting for Milo and I to figure out how to play the right tune, Anise and Meadow examine the brush she got as a dungeon reward and experiment with it a bit. It¡¯s the length of her hand with a grip on the top, and looks like it might be good for doing dishes. When she tests it on the corner of one of her used canvases, the paint quickly vanishes as if it were a dry erase board. We spend what seems like hours singing a stupid nursery rhyme and hitting bells, but I refuse to give up and walk off when the solution is right here. Aside from the lack of pretty maids. Maybe I should have gone with the ¡°marigolds all in a row¡± version instead. There are many rows of different types of flowers here, probably including marigolds. Finally, after playing the song for the thousandth time, the shells making up the walkways shift downward and form a staircase leading underground. ¡°Yes, got it!¡± Milo exclaims. I attempt to fist-bump him, to his puzzled expression. I try to high-five him, with the same result. ¡°What are you doing?¡± Milo wonders. ¡°Ugh, what sort of celebratory gestures do you do?¡± I wonder. ¡°Come on, let¡¯s head down.¡±
You have discovered the core room of the Wisteria Garden.
Skill acquired: Discipline (Focus)
A round room lies below the bell garden, lit only by the small crystal orb on a pedestal. A chest sits before us, which Milo goes over to loot greedily. He retrieves a handful of coins and a seed the size of his knuckle. ¡°Thanks, Mary,¡± I say to the core.
Wisteria Garden
You are welcome.
¡°Did you really spawn that eldritch stone just to test us?¡± I ask.
Wisteria Garden
No. A previous visitor threw it into the fountain for good luck.
¡°So how did it wind up eldritch?¡± I ask. ¡°I don¡¯t think some random adventurer would have been okay carrying it around unless it were dormant or some other aspect to start off with.¡±
Wisteria Garden
You are correct. Anyone under Heroic rank without Discipline (Eldritch Resistance) would not have survived direct contact for long. As for the cause, I have already given you a quest to investigate.
¡°Uh¡­ about that. Our cores decided to hide our quest screens. They wanted to see what we would do without explicitly having quests tell us.¡±
Wisteria Garden
How odd. In that case, I will merely tell you that I do not know the origin of the eldritch. I did not cause that. If I were capable of creating that aspect, my entire garden would be corrupted, and very likely much of the adjacent landscape.
¡°Understood,¡± I say. ¡°Well, aside from that, I enjoyed my visit to your garden. How do you feel about goblins? Do you mind if we bring some friends here?¡±
Wisteria Garden
I am an aether core. I do not have feelings in the manner organic beings do. In any case, I welcome visitors of any race.
¡°Fantastic,¡± I say. ¡°They¡¯re not far away, either. We¡¯ll be heading out now. See you later, Mary.¡± We leave the Wisteria Garden and return to Corwen. Once back home, I bring out the black pebble I found in the Spooky Grove and compare it to the gray one Meadow just got. They both seem to be the same type of item, just with different aspects. No longer eldritch, Meadow¡¯s Elite stone is emitting an aspect that I think is ¡®natural¡¯. Meanwhile, my Basic stone¡¯s aspect is yet unidentified. At least it¡¯s obviously not eldritch, as that would have likely been noticeable at even Basic rank. The thing is¡­ neither of them are actually emitting any vis at all. I¡¯m not sure if that means they¡¯re dormant or if they simply don¡¯t emit vis. They¡¯re non-living, which would normally mean they don¡¯t produce vis, since vis is life energy so far as I understand. They¡¯re the same type of item, definitely, and both came from low level dungeons. That indicates that they¡¯re probably not a rare or special sort of item and it was the eldritch infection that was the real problem and not the item itself. It also means we¡¯ve probably got multiple books in our library that mention them and I just hadn¡¯t known enough to look up something about my own stone until I saw a second example actually doing something. There it is, in a book about magic items. ¡°Aspect stones¡±, as they¡¯re called, are the basis of many magic items, as they can provide the power source. The reason I can¡¯t detect it is because they produce aether, not vis. The eldritch aspect was simply capable of infecting the vis around it. Many magic items simply use their sigil circuits as a Wizardry command to activate an aspect stone. A new Elite doesn¡¯t need to put their own Inspiration into heating up the water pot, only tell a stone aspected to heat to activate. Aunt Heather knew I was going to be a crafter and left it to me to learn about the stone for myself. Now that I understand what it does and start thinking about the implications, the possibilities are endless. It¡¯s just a pity I don''t yet have a way to change its aspect myself. That limits the versatility. But since it auto-aspected with the concept I was emitting most strongly when I found it, it does have some potential application already. I¡¯m absolutely going to start trying to learn how to make magic items. Maybe I¡¯ll even figure out how to make a model skyship fly. A single Basic-rank stone should be sufficient for a toy. Chapter 29: Magic Mirrors and Colored Pencils Our traveling is pretty much done for the year as the red season looms before us. The Hearth fills up with returning relatives and the guest house with friends and travelers who are spending the winter with us, and Milo returns to Grubwick. ¡°I¡¯ve been doing some thinking about what I was doing wrong with that first painting,¡± Meadow says. ¡°Valerian had those paintings of the Wisteria Garden done up ahead of time and was already familiar with and connected to them. He¡¯d seen the place as it was when he was painting it. I was just using my imagination in the first painting, and it could have been anywhere.¡± I nod. ¡°So if you painted something ahead of time, you could restore it if it got damaged.¡± ¡°I¡¯d just need to carry around a painting of our party at all times,¡± Meadow says with a grin. ¡°A little vis in the right spot and maybe I could close a wound.¡± ¡°You¡¯ll forgive me if I¡¯d rather test this on an inanimate object instead of injuring myself.¡± Meadow finds a stick outside and paints a picture of it. She then snaps it and lays it back on the ground, then starts pouring vis into the painting. The stick wiggles and slowly starts pulling itself together, but she runs out of Inspiration before it¡¯s fully mended. ¡°Well,¡± Meadow says, rubbing her head and taking a drink out of her bottle of tea. ¡°At least that was a good demonstration that it will work. I just need more practice. Let me refill my Inspiration meter and I think I can finish it.¡± It takes some more effort, but finally the stick snaps back together whole. ¡°Fantastic!¡± Meadow exclaims. ¡°That unlocked True Art (Restoration).¡± ¡°Now you just need to start carrying around an art book like Wizards do a spellbook,¡± I say. Meadow gapes at me. ¡°Why didn¡¯t I think of that?¡± ¡°You don¡¯t like books very much,¡± I say with a shrug. ¡°Yeah, yeah. That would be so much more convenient than hauling paintings around,¡± Meadow says. ¡°I¡¯ll switch to colored pencils, too. They¡¯d be more convenient for traveling, in case I do have to make a picture in the field. It¡¯s not like I¡¯m better with painting than drawing. I unlocked several art-related skills and was equally bland at all of them. I just took the painting equipment to the Wisteria Garden because Valerian is a known painter.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not sure how much of an art critic the system is,¡± I say. ¡°I¡¯d bet it looks at things differently than a human would.¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to practice my new skill on some different inanimate objects and see if I can get a few more skill levels. Next time we head out, I¡¯ll do pictures of whoever¡¯s in my party in whatever they¡¯re currently wearing.¡±
I approach Aunt Heather when the sky turns red. ¡°How does your divination work?¡± I ask. ¡°Can I see what you do to determine what monsters come out each year?¡± ¡°By all means,¡± Aunt Heather says. ¡°I¡¯m glad to see someone taking interest in it. Too many of our relatives dismiss it for not being flashy and yet rely on its results all the same.¡± She shows me to her room. I¡¯m surprised that a Legendary Oracle lives in a room exactly the same size as the one I share with Burdock and Griffin, but I suppose all the living chambers in the Hearth are the same size. At least she gets her own room. An ornate full-length mirror stands in one corner of the room. A simple desk is cluttered up with cards and doohickeys I cannot begin to guess the function of. None of them produce vis, but I¡¯m starting to realize my system is perfectly capable of detecting aether even if I¡¯m not. How else would it have been able to identify the aspect of that stone? I have a computer made of aether in my head. I carefully examine the mirror, step back in my mind and lean on the system.
Category Item
Type Mirror
Quality Excellent
Rank Legendary
Aspect Sight
Congratulations! You have identified a Legendary magic item.
Skill acquired: Crafting (Appraisal)
Your Perception has increased to 5.
I¡¯m starting to realize that the status boxes aren¡¯t unique to Clairvoyance. They¡¯re a system function, probably accessible to anyone with enough knowledge to know what they¡¯re looking at. I¡¯ve been reading a lot about magic items lately, and apparently the system has decided that knowledge is sufficient even though I haven¡¯t actually unlocked a Knowledge skill for it yet. ¡°Did you get a skill level just from looking at that?¡± Aunt Heather says with a small grin. ¡°You have that look in your face.¡±This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. ¡°I got Crafting (Appraisal) and a point of Perception. Where did you even get this mirror?¡± ¡°Someone made it for me,¡± Aunt Heather says. ¡°A Legendary crafter from another Hearth. Amber Trimsaran is her name. She left Tiganna decades ago, but if you¡¯re fortunate you might be able to meet her sometime.¡± There¡¯s two chairs in the room, and she positions one facing the mirror and out of the way so I can watch. I sit down and try to focus on what she¡¯s doing with her vis. ¡°I start in with Invocation (Mirrors) to establish a connection with the item,¡± Aunt Heather says. ¡°I use this mirror frequently and it¡¯s attuned to me, so this doesn¡¯t take much effort. I could do this with a mundane hand mirror if I had to, though, but it would take considerably more vis and the results would be less precise.¡± The mirror, which had started off reflecting us and the room like a normal mirror, clouds up to display only swirling fog. ¡°Invocation (Eye in the Sky),¡± she goes on. ¡°This creates a magical construct overhead, like an eye made of vis.¡± The mirror clears, and an overhead view of Tempest Domain appears within the glass, sharper and clearer than any map. ¡°Now to link in Search (Monsters).¡± Red dots of varying size and brightness appear all over the map. Waving a hand at the mirror, the view zooms in on them one by one. Pale centipedes the size of dogs crawl out of holes in the ground. Large ravens with glowing purple eyes take to the air. A three meter tall furry biped gazes to the blood red sky and lets out a roar. ¡°The centipedes and ravens aren¡¯t too dangerous,¡± Aunt Heather says. ¡°Basic and Elite at most. And that was a Legendary Sasquatch.¡± After cycling through several more of the various results and just getting more ravens and centipedes, Aunt Heather determines that if she¡¯s missed anything, there¡¯s too few of them and they¡¯re too weak to notice. The Legendary Sasquatch stands out like a shining bright dot on the overhead map, impossible to miss. It¡¯s like if Google¡¯s satellites had actually found Bigfoot. She made the whole thing look easy, but I can tell she burned a lot of Inspiration on the effort. With a wave of her hand, she breaks the connection to the mirror and it returns to reflecting only what¡¯s in front of it again. We head to the hearth where she informs everyone gathered there of what she found. ¡°The only fliers this year are the dusk ravens, and they are not dangerous,¡± Aunt Heather says. ¡°Don¡¯t leave anything shiny in open view. They might steal things, but are unlikely to attack unless provoked. You are welcome to hunt centipedes near the village, but don¡¯t stray too far and retreat immediately at any sign of a Legendary Sasquatch approaching. You will hear it long before you see it.¡± With that, we settle in for another fall cooped up in the village. Not that I don¡¯t have plenty of things to do in the meantime. I have yet to read every book in the village, plus there are crafting skills to practice. Oh, and spending time with my family, I suppose. My sister and young cousins are almost two and a half years old now. They¡¯re at the stage where they¡¯re running all over the place and saying words that make sense. Maybe if I¡¯d spent more time with them when they were younger, I might have unlocked Language (Baby Talk) or something. I hang out in the young children¡¯s room at the school as I¡¯m working on my drawing skills. My Crafting (Drafting) skill still needs work before I can make accurate diagrams of anything complicated. ¡°What¡¯s brother doing?¡± Juniper asks, peering over the edge of my kiddie desk. ¡°Drawing a building,¡± I say. ¡°I want to draw too!¡± ¡°Okay.¡± I set her up with some paper and pencils at one of the low tables for the toddlers too small to use the actual desks yet. She plops down next to me, and I show her how to hold a pencil properly. ¡°Wow,¡± Juniper says, shifting her grip on the pencil and staring at her hands. ¡°Fingers are neat!¡± ¡°They are!¡± I agree with a smile. She wiggles her fingers in front of her and experiments with twirling the pencil around, dropping it a few times before remembering that she wanted to learn to draw. Putting the pencil to paper, she doodles a few haphazard lines. ¡°How you make lines like that?¡± she asks, pointing to the perfectly straight lines of my hypothetical building. ¡°With this,¡± I say, showing her the 20 centimeter ruler I¡¯ve been using. I put it to the paper and demonstrate drawing a line next to it. ¡°This is a ruler. It¡¯s for drawing straight lines, and telling how long something is. See these lines on it? Do you know your numbers yet?¡± ¡°Brother is very smart!¡± Juniper says. Several of the purple-eyed raven monsters show up in the village looking for shiny things to steal, occasionally making off with something but never really causing any serious trouble. They¡¯re also capable of speaking Common, but don¡¯t have much of interest to say. Mostly just ¡°Mine!¡± ¡°Shiny!¡± and various insults. After spending a (relatively) quiet October and November working on skills and bonding with my family, I finally reach another milestone, celebrated with sweets and gifts.
You are now 5 years old.
All physical attributes have increased by 1.
Only two more until I get my first real class and I can¡¯t wait. I receive a scribbly drawing of me (allegedly) from Juniper, some new clothes from Aunt Dahlia, and a nice solid steel hammer from my mom. Giving a five year old a hammer for their naming day gets a few odd looks from some of my relatives, but everyone knows I¡¯m a reincarnator and interested in crafting. In preparation for Hearth Day, I make gifts for my sister and cousins with [Woodworking]. I make one of those toys with wooden shapes and holes to fit them through, plus a knockoff kiddie Scrabble variant to help them learn to read and put words together. As the dark season passes, I¡¯m rewarded for my various efforts with some skill levels.
Your Crafting (Drafting) skill has increased to level 2.
Your Crafting (Woodworking) skill has increased to level 3.
Your Tending (Teaching) skill has increased to level 3.
The Hearthkeepers prepare another Hearth Day feast of goat and holiday foods, with absolutely none of the giant centipede meat we¡¯ve been eating all fall. The worst part of swarm season is having to eat whatever monsters the domain decides to spew out. No, actually, the worst part is getting used to centipede meat and finding it kind of tasty. At New Year, we sing around the decorated tree and watch the lights streak into the sky as the Great Orb gradually turns violet.
It is now Year 735 of the Age of the Green Fox.
I wonder what this year will bring. Chapter 30: Goblin Glue and Snowball Fights ¡°I¡¯ll just be glad to get out of the Hearth again,¡± Meadow says. ¡°You know I share a room with my older sister, Acacia, right?¡± I did not, but I just nod. ¡°And her daughter, Clover,¡± Meadow says. ¡°You probably haven¡¯t interacted with her much yet. She was born last April and she¡¯s just getting into the crawling and grabbing things stage. I haven¡¯t been able to keep anything in my room without risk of a baby messing with it. She tried chewing up my colored pencils and the only consolation was that she doesn¡¯t have teeth yet.¡± ¡°Oh dear,¡± I say. ¡°Anyway, I¡¯ll be turning 21 at the end of May, so I want to get some more skill grinding in these next few months,¡± Meadow says. ¡°I¡¯m¡­ still not sure that the True Art is really the path for me.¡± ¡°It seems like it could be very useful,¡± I say. ¡°I was hoping for more in my life than simply being useful. And I¡¯m running out of time to find the right path for me. Who knows if I¡¯ll even hit Heroic rank? I may be stuck with the class I get when I turn 21 for the rest of my life.¡± She sounds very much like a college student being indecisive about their major and stressed about exams. Except a degree in art would actually be more useful here. ¡°I don¡¯t mean for you being useful,¡± I say. ¡°Skills are useful. Things are useful. You are a human being and we¡¯ll still be your family no matter what you do or don¡¯t do with your life. In any case, I¡¯m absolutely going to learn the True Art.¡± ¡°Really? I thought for sure I had you pegged for a future Wizard.¡± ¡°I can learn both, can¡¯t I?¡± I ask. ¡°Everyone in the Hearth already learns a bit of Wizardry just to use all our magitech appliances.¡± ¡°That¡¯s true,¡± Meadow says. ¡°What sort of hybrid class would that result in?¡±
Anise and I head for Grubwick to meet up with Milo now that the surface isn¡¯t being swarmed by monsters. Meadow opts to tag along to make sure our low Survival skills don¡¯t get used into trouble traipsing about the countryside in winter. Anise isn¡¯t terribly worried one way or another. I suppose being able to set things on fire with your brain makes a little snow seem like a non-issue. When we get to Grubwick, we find Milo and some of the other goblins playing bone flutes and drums. They¡¯re terrible at it, but I don¡¯t recall hearing them do any music at all before. ¡°You aspiring to be a Bard, Milo?¡± Anise asks. Milo shrugs. ¡°Perhaps, perhaps not. But whether or not it is a path I ultimately take, I believe goblin culture is richer for having music than not.¡± ¡°I bet you¡¯re getting plenty of good Deeds introducing things like this, too,¡± Anise says. ¡°I still don¡¯t know if it will be enough to reach Heroic rank before I turn 7, though,¡± Milo says. Anise shrugs. ¡°Couldn¡¯t tell you. It¡¯s not like I¡¯ve made Heroic rank yet, myself.¡± ¡°In any case, I¡¯m glad you¡¯re here,¡± Milo says. ¡°I want to go try to contact more goblin villages.¡± ¡°It¡¯s kind of blizzarding out there,¡± Anise says. ¡°It was starting to get annoying burning Inspiration all the time to keep [Familial Warmth] up all the time.¡± ¡°That¡¯s fine. Now that the monster swarms have gone back to the deeper layers or the Underside, wherever it is they go, we can move freely through the In-Between to reach the other villages. I don¡¯t know the way myself, but I can ask some of the scouts to lead the way.¡± ¡°Nice! I haven¡¯t done a lot of exploration of these caves before. What all is even down here? Are there dungeons like above?¡± ¡°What did you do in the years before I was born?¡± I ask. ¡°Ehhh¡­ a lot of fooling around and barely making Elite before I turned 21,¡± Anise says with a shrug. ¡°I wasn¡¯t as serious about delving as the others in my party. After your father was killed, Halima told me I was pregnant, so I decided to come home while the others kept adventuring. Juniper¡¯s birth mom. You met her once I think.¡± ¡°You haven¡¯t mentioned my father much,¡± I say. ¡°Yeah, he was an idiot, but fun to fool around with,¡± Anise says. ¡°Up until his idiocy got himself killed and the rest of us badly injured.¡± We stay the night at the inn. Grubwick¡¯s first stone building has gotten some new furnishings. The goblin carpenters have managed wooden chairs, tables, and beds in our absence. The beds are still just a fur on a wooden frame but at least there¡¯s the wooden frame now. They don¡¯t have access to metal for nails or screws yet, but they built furniture by slotting carved pieces of wood together like we did with the masonry, using some sort of pinkish glue in place of mortar. (I have no idea what they made the glue out of, but it¡¯s probably something gross.) ¡°Drake, you¡¯re back!¡± says a goblin woman I recognize as a member of my Mason crew, Klog. ¡°Wow, you¡¯ve gotten big! It¡¯s a good thing we built this building big.¡±Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. The vis coming off of her feels much more energetic than I remember, and I remember that I can identify her now.
Category Person
Race Goblin
Gender Female
Rank Heroic
¡°You made Heroic!¡± I exclaim. ¡°Congratulations! How did you do it?¡± ¡°You put me to work on building better scaffolding, remember? I have! Also these.¡± Klog pats one of the chairs. ¡°I invented a kind of wood glue and the system decided that was a Deed worthy of Heroic rank.¡± She grunts. ¡°I¡¯m sure it wasn¡¯t just the glue but everything else leading up to that.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know, glue is pretty important,¡± I say. ¡°If you came up with a good formula, that¡¯s something that may help people for generations to come.¡± ¡°I also, by necessity, invented an un-gluing formula,¡± Klog says. ¡°You should be glad you weren¡¯t here up until that point. Er, I should warn you that if you get stuck to anything, please yell for help. I may have missed a few spots.¡± ¡°What¡¯s your new class called, if I might ask?¡± ¡°I¡¯m a [Daring Inventor] now,¡± Klog says. ¡°It¡¯s a step up from my Elite class, [Experimental Crafter], which I have you to thank for. To think I started off as a mere [Determined Stoneworker].¡± I carefully examine the vis in her aura, wondering what part of that might say ¡°daring¡± or ¡°inventor¡±. I should be able to see people¡¯s classes just as readily as their race or gender. Considering classes are also connected to the color system, that means I ought to be able to pick out some orange vis as well as violet vis from her. It¡¯s just that the part of her saying ¡°I am a crafter¡± is smaller than the part saying ¡°I am a person.¡±
Your Clairvoyance (Vis Analysis) skill has increased to level 3.
When I identify her again, an additional line has been added.
Class Crafter
I can¡¯t quite pick out the nuance yet, but it shouldn¡¯t be difficult to tell at a glance whether someone is a Crafter, Warrior, or whatever. It was just a matter of picking out the correct spot in the people whose classes I knew. Which I would never be able to have put into more than a slurry of psychic energy without the assistance of the system. If the system didn¡¯t already exist, I would have been compelled to invent it just to make my own weird psychic powers be less annoying to use. (I may well have actually been the one to invent the system, but I really don¡¯t need Sanity damage when I¡¯m away from a high level Hearthkeeper who can make magic tea.) ¡°How are the mushrooms and maggots projects going?¡± I ask. ¡°They haven¡¯t had quite as much progress as mine, but they¡¯ve gotten a good start on the mushrooms at least,¡± Klog says. ¡°Maggot handling has mostly been going hilariously. You should also be glad you weren¡¯t here for that. Did I mention that I also accidentally invented glue traps?¡± I am speechless for a long moment before deciding that, yes, indeed I am grateful that I decided to spend the past several months in places other than here. Goblins are fun but sometimes it¡¯s best to be out of the blast radius. ¡°I¡¯m proud of you, Klog,¡± I finally manage. ¡°Take a look at our new building stuff when you get a chance!¡± she says. ¡°You probably want to eat and sleep first, though.¡± I nod. ¡°I¡¯ll check it out in the morning. I want to do another non-deadly bridge first before we try bridging the underground river.¡± ¡°We might be able to bridge a creek without anyone getting wet now!¡± Klog says. ¡°I¡¯ve got a good next bridge project, and it will be another source of strength for Grubwick,¡± I say. ¡°There¡¯s a dungeon not far from here called the Wisteria Garden. It¡¯s easy and safe and good for children.¡± As least, when there isn¡¯t a random eldritch infestation. I was unable to find any information on it in the Corwen library, and even Aunt Heather can only say that she knows of it but has never had to directly deal with it. ¡°There¡¯s a stream in between here and there, though, and the most direct route is annoying to cross,¡± I continue. ¡°It could use a bridge so people can get to the dungeon without having to swim. We¡¯ll just have to wait for the snow to melt before we can get started.¡± ¡°Sounds like a good idea!¡± Klog says. ¡°Snow is so weird.¡± ¡°Did you ever try building with it?¡± I say with a grin. ¡°Building?¡± Klog looks confused. ¡°It¡¯s so soft and cold and melts if you take it inside.¡± ¡°Tomorrow, I will show you something amazing.¡± Come morning, I go and inspect the equipment my builders have been working with. Their craftsmanship has made marked improvements since I was last here. The crew lights up (figuratively) when they see me approach. ¡°Hi Drake!¡± babble the goblins, and I¡¯m unable to follow who is saying what. ¡°Klog said you¡¯d show us something amazing!¡± ¡°What is it?¡± ¡°What is it?¡± ¡°Where is it?¡± ¡°How amazing is it?¡± I laugh softly and wave them off. I¡¯m a good 20 centimeters taller than most of them now and it¡¯s a little disorienting even if the goblins are undiscouraged. ¡°It¡¯s on the surface,¡± I say. ¡°You¡¯ll have to come with me so I can show you.¡± ¡°Ooooh!¡± chorus the goblins. Anise heads out with us just to make sure nothing stupid happens while we¡¯re messing around, by which I mean she¡¯s going to immediately forget that she was supposed to be keeping an eye out and being a responsible adult and mess around with us. The goblins are all bundled up in warm furs and look on the wall of snow in puzzlement. The sky had dropped another meter of snow overnight on top of what had already been a thick blanket. ¡°We can¡¯t go out,¡± Klog says. ¡°Nasty cold snow has blocked it all up.¡± I grab some snow and compact it with my hands. With the new devil-goat wool mittens I got for this past Hearth Day, I can hardly even feel the cold through them. ¡°Snow might be cold and soft and squishy, but when you squish it enough¡­¡± I grab enough snow to make a brick shape. ¡°¡­you get something you can build with.¡± ¡°Oooohhhh!¡± chorus a dozen goblins all at once. ¡°Shall we start with a staircase?¡± I say with a grin. Working together, we construct a meter-wide snow staircase leading up to the surface. We set about to building a snow fort, learning as we go and getting buried in snow only a couple of times. Still, everything is perfectly peaceful until someone throws the first snowball. (It¡¯s totally Anise.) Some of the goblin hunters had come up to see what was going on, along with Meadow just from fear of missing out. (My [Vis Analysis] isn¡¯t quite refined enough yet to extract the aspect of FOMO but I still get the impression.) Everyone quickly splits into two teams, and then three, with hunters and builders spontaneously hooking up. Several frosty keeps get constructed and destroyed. I focus on keeping my own fort in good repair without retaliating. It seems like such a minor thing, and yet my efforts are rewarded all the same.
Skill acquired: Survival (Cold Resistance)
Skill acquired: Crafting (Snow Building)
Laughing and joking, we all head inside to warm up and get something to eat. Chapter 31: The Swamps of Usk We head out from Grubwick the next morning, having supplied up and added two new goblins to our party for the time being. Nika, the Elite [Hunter] and Gurgo, an Elite [Gatherer] who will be doing a survey of mushrooms and traveling with us is probably the safest place to be. ¡°These tunnels lead to a village named Usk,¡± Nika says. ¡°That¡¯ll be our first stop.¡± Much of the In-Between is lit by bioluminescent plants and fungi, but I keep alert with my [Aura Sight] to make sure nothing potentially hostile is approaching us, whether it be monsters, animals, people, or overly aggressive plant life. ¡°We¡¯ll need to stay far enough away from the bank so the carp can¡¯t reach out and drag us into the water,¡± says Nika. ¡°These fish are too hardcore,¡± I say. ¡°Our mighty fishers still bring them in,¡± Nika says. ¡°They have a much more dangerous job than we hunters. They¡¯re why we weren¡¯t worried about anyone sneaking in by the riverside gate. You were very fortunate that the fish were quiet the day you snuck into the village.¡± We make out way downriver, to where the water grows broader and more sluggish and eventually opens up into a vast underground marsh. (Or swamp? I don¡¯t know the difference between a marsh and a swamp and this isn¡¯t a biome that existed on Earth anyway.) The trill of insects echoes through the caverns. Glowing blue mushrooms cling to the sides of weird cave trees with purple leaves. I do not know nearly enough about botany to figure out cave trees and for all I know, it¡¯s magic anyway. The swamp is treacherous. Although the deadly giant carp don¡¯t populate the shallow, muddy waters of this area, it has plenty of other dangers to make up for it. Nika is experienced with looking out for patches of soft mud you can sink into as well as signs of dangerous animals. The monsters have mostly gone back to deeper layers but there are beings that inhabit the swamp year round that can cause problems for an unwary traveler. Thanks to [Aura Sight], I don¡¯t wind up covered in giant cave leeches. Nor do I stumble into a giant cave wasp nest. I even direct us around the sleeping giant cave sloth. [Why are there so many giant cave things?] I send to the group. [I¡¯d have thought living in caves would make them smaller, not bigger.] Nika shrugs and doesn¡¯t give an answer aloud as we¡¯re trying to be quiet, but no amount of stealthiness is going to prevent me from making inane observations over party chat. The village of Usk sits in the middle of the swamp, surrounded on all sides by muck. The village walls are the only signs of stable ground in the area. (Although fortunately there is a stable ceiling.)
You have discovered Usk.
Your Survival (Careful Step) skill has increased to level 2.
[I really hope they let us in,] I comment. [I¡¯m not looking forward to making camp out here.] The rest of us wait out of range of thrown spears and stones while Nika and Milo approach the gate. There¡¯s a heated discussion I can¡¯t quite make out from here, and eventually one of the guards goes off into the Hearth. He returns shortly with an old goblin man with milky white eyes, leaning on a stick. He gestures us forward, and I identify him when I get close enough to get a good read on his aura.
Category Person
Race Goblin
Gender Male
Rank Heroic
Class Invoker
¡°You may come speak with me,¡± the old goblin says. ¡°Only because I do not care to walk out into the mud, and not because I desire your presence in my village. I am Kinog Usk, [Elder Warlock].¡±
Your Language (Goblin) skill has increased to level 2.
Huh. I¡¯d only spoken with Grubwick goblins so far. He speaks mostly the same as Grubwick goblins, but his word choice feels a little more archaic even than [Elder Witch] Griza¡¯s speech. (Will my Common skill be forever stuck at level 1 because I can¡¯t actually hear it as Common but as English?) ¡°You won¡¯t let us in?¡± I ask. ¡°I will not,¡± Kinog says. ¡°Not even the goblins in your group.¡± ¡°Why not?¡± I aks. ¡°I do not approve of the direction you are taking Grubwick,¡± Kinog says. ¡°We seek to preserve the old ways, not merely become small green humans. Grubwick incarnated a human in green skin. We will be watching to see what happens from here, but we will not be exposing our children to these new ideas until they are old enough to understand.¡±This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. ¡°Okay,¡± I say, and turn to my party. ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡± ¡°What, you¡¯re just going to leave it at that?¡± Anise says. ¡°Hey, Elder Kinog! We¡¯re totally cool! Don¡¯t send us back out into the swamp!¡± ¡°Whether you came here by choice or by quest, I am unconcerned about your wellbeing,¡± Vorg says. ¡°Move along.¡± Milo sighs. ¡°I do not believe my level of Persuasion is sufficient, either.¡± We head back off into the swamp, not actually terribly upset about the encounter. We¡¯d expected many of the goblins villages we might run across would not welcome us with open arms. This one just opted to tell us to go away rather than attack us. They had at least one Heroic and probably at least a few combat Elites, so I have no doubt that they could have killed us all if they wanted. And yet here we are, wandering around without a single Heroic of our own, because experience I suppose. Yay. I can practically feel my skills tingle. We move on, and as the swamps get deeper, stone ledges just out and form layers with small trickling waterfalls running between them. Nika leads us up a ramp leading back toward the shallower parts of the In-Between. Goblins live between two worlds, never venturing too deep and remaining cautious about visits to the surface. The [Hunter] leads us into a ledge with two narrow ways out and a good view of the swamps below, concealed behind some clusters of mushrooms and weird purple plants. ¡°This is a good place to set up camp,¡± Nika says. ¡°Hidden, good view of surroundings. Don¡¯t light a fire.¡± Once we¡¯ve gotten settled in to rest and are munching on some cold rations, I go and sit next to my mom. She¡¯s feeling chatty and not being nearly as quiet as she ought to be in this situation. As Anise babbles on, sharing anecdotes about her adventures, my [Aura Sight] picks up something large moving near us. A red aura indicating a monster. [Quiet!] I send to my party. [I¡¯m detecting a monster nearby. I don¡¯t think it has spotted us yet.] Anise obediently shuts her mouth and looks a little sheepish. It¡¯s easy to get complacent on the surface where there aren¡¯t usually any monsters outside of dungeons except during swarm season. I turn my attention to analyzing the creature¡¯s aura.
Category Monster
Type Funeral
Gender Male
Rank Heroic
Aspect Decay
I share the screen with the others. Between four combat-capable Elites and one Elite who isn¡¯t combat-focused but can probably hold his own a bit, we¡¯re probably capable of killing the thing, but not quietly. And I¡¯m still Basic rank, so the creature could probably kill me instantly. The swamp monster isn¡¯t actually visible at first, but a low rumble echoes through the caverns. The stench of rot permeates the air, heavy enough to almost make me gag. Slow, heavy footsteps squelch and plod until the being finally comes into view. He¡¯s bipedal, covered in or made of black and yellow lichen. He pauses beneath our ledge, his glowing yellow-green eyes surveying his surroundings. Perhaps he heard us, or maybe he can even smell us. After several tense minutes, though, he moves on and plods back deeper into the under-swamps.
Skill acquired: Subterfuge (Hiding)
¡°I hate those things,¡± Nika mutters once we can no longer see, hear, or smell the fungal monster. ¡°Tough, annoying, and you can¡¯t even eat them. If we had a fire going, it would have gone berserk.¡± We take turns on watch and have a restless rest period before moving on. ¡°We¡¯re heading out of the swamps now,¡± Nika says. ¡°This part of the In-Between should be safer, usually, but don¡¯t get complacent.¡± ¡°I¡¯m just happy to get out of the mud,¡± Milo says. ¡°I would kill something for a hot bath right now.¡± ¡°I do know where a hot spring is,¡± Nika says. ¡°Is it close?¡± Milo wonders. ¡°Or at least on the way to another goblin village?¡± ¡°Hmm,¡± Nika hmms, and looks around at our surroundings. Her eyes fall upon a weirdly shaped stalagmite that probably makes for a good landmark. ¡°Yeah, it¡¯s not far from Splott.¡± ¡°Great,¡± Milo says. ¡°I¡¯ll take the springs of Splott over the swamps of Usk any day.¡± ¡°If we¡¯re lucky, there might be hot spring pythons near the water,¡± Nika says. ¡°Lucky?¡± I wonder. ¡°Yes!¡± Nika says brightly. ¡°They¡¯re good eating. Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ve never seen one higher than Elite.¡± ¡°Please don¡¯t say things like that.¡± Nika continues leading us through the tunnels and after what must be hours of wandering around a maze of twisty little passages, all alike, we arrive at the promised hot spring. The narrow tunnel we were crawling through opens up into a large steamy cavern bursting with lush growth around several burbling pools.
You have discovered Underground Hot Springs.
Skill acquired: Survival (Caving)
¡°Do you smell that?¡± Milo asks, turning to me. ¡°Smell what?¡± I wonder. ¡°Exactly,¡± Milo says. ¡°I don¡¯t know how many hot spring resorts you visited in your last life, but the thing I distinctly remember from the natural ones is that they usually have a sulfur smell to them.¡± ¡°What¡¯s sulfur?¡± Nika asks. ¡°A kind of mineral that apparently isn¡¯t here,¡± Milo says. ¡°I guess this isn¡¯t a volcanic spring,¡± I say. ¡°Could be completely made up, because dungeons do whatever they want. Are there even any volcanoes in Tempest?¡± ¡°What¡¯s a volcano?¡± Anise asks. ¡°A mountain that spews out lava,¡± I say. ¡°Hmm, there¡¯s no lava dungeons that I know of, and certainly not in any mountains,¡± Anise says. ¡°The only real one is the Black Mountain. Maybe it has lava features in the lower floors? I haven¡¯t actually been there before.¡± ¡°I suppose one cannot expect plate tectonics out of countries that are comprised of floating discs,¡± Milo says. ¡°If there¡¯s something you wanted to make that requires sulfur, it might be hard to get in Tempest.¡± While we were chatting, Nika has already caught a pair of meter-long snakes for supper and I didn¡¯t even need to use [Aura Sight] to find them for her. A thorough scan of the area indicates no Heroic hot spring monsters that will try to eat us should we decide to take a dip or light a fire, so we can thankfully have roasted snake and not raw snake, not that eating raw meat bothers the goblins. Chapter 32: Going Splat on the Way to Splott We continue on through the winding tunnels, following Nika the Grubwick [Hunter]. She mentions that there¡¯s an exit to the surface near here. Usk was deeper down but Splott is close to a surface exit. We stop by it first in order to get the discovery Deed.
You have discovered Skullburn Outpost.
Skill acquired: Survival (Sense of Direction)
I do love getting skills from these. After resting here for a bit, we move on back into the In-Between. The glowing fungi are slightly more blue in this section of the caverns and there¡¯s a lot of tiny trickles of water here and there. As we travel through the caverns toward Splott, an aura comes into range that really should not be here.
Category Person
Race Human
Gender Male
Rank Basic
Class Warrior
I pause, frowning, and raise my hand to the party and send the screen I just detected, along with his location. ¡°Alone? Here?¡± Anise whispers. I nod, and we locate the boy. He¡¯s crying softly and hiding behind some purple foliage, but trying to keep quiet. He has a mop of tangled blond hair and looks to be about 12, and he¡¯s clutching his leg. I think I¡¯ve seen him before. Didn¡¯t he come to study fighting at Corwen? What was his name again? ¡°Rowan?¡± I say. ¡°What?¡± Rowan jumps in surprise. ¡°Did my mom or my Hearth send you to find me?¡± ¡°What are you doing here by yourself?¡± Anise asks, approaching to take a closer look at his leg. ¡°Don¡¯t judge me,¡± he retorts. ¡°You¡¯re not my mother. Or my aunt, for that matter.¡± ¡°True, but we¡¯re here now and we¡¯re going to keep you from dying down in the dark alone, so maybe being rude isn¡¯t the best idea.¡± That silences his protests. Meadow sits down in front of him and brings out her colored pencils and sketchbook. ¡°The lighting here isn¡¯t great but bringing out a light might draw attention.¡± ¡°How did you even find the way in?¡± I ask. ¡°Saw some goblins on the surface,¡± Rowan says. ¡°Tracked them in here. Lost them and slipped trying to follow.¡± ¡°Are you here on a quest, or just exploring?¡± Anise asks. ¡°Quest,¡± Rowan says. ¡°I was supposed to retrieve a sword made for my uncle, who went off on his first adventure several years ago and never came back. I don¡¯t even know if it¡¯s anywhere nearby.¡± ¡°Well, that sounds like a quest to join a party for,¡± Anise says. ¡°I want to be a protector, a guardian, a [Paladin],¡± Rowan says. ¡°I want to be the knight that swoops in to save the day, not rely on others to do things for me.¡± ¡°Being a protector doesn¡¯t mean doing everything by yourself,¡± Anise says. ¡°A balanced party needs people in different roles. Like, for example, tracking goblins, noticing that you¡¯re about to fall into a hole, or healing you when you get hurt.¡± Rowan grumbles but concedes the point. ¡°Be healed!¡± Milo tries, and when that has no effect, ¡°Paladin, heal yourself!¡± ¡°I don¡¯t have any magical skills yet,¡± Rowan grumbles. ¡°If I had a healing skill, I wouldn¡¯t be stuck behind this rock with a broken ankle.¡± ¡°Eh, don¡¯t worry,¡± Anise says, going over to start healing him. ¡°I¡¯m actually pretty good at healing since I have to heal my own stupid self-inflicted injuries regularly.¡± ¡°Why didn¡¯t you just heal me instead of berate me, then?¡± ¡°The skill is named Sorcery (Pity for Fools),¡± Anise says. ¡°Sorcery is emotion based and some people have skills more based on compassion and mercy and whatever. Me, I have to feel sorry for you.¡± ¡°So you heal yourself with self-pity?¡± I ask. ¡°Pretty much, yeah. Please, Rowan, by all means continue to be pitiful and foolish.¡± Rowan groans. ¡°Once I reach Elite, I¡¯m going to get some sort of healing ability that isn¡¯t based on pity.¡± ¡°I can do minor Sorcery healing,¡± Nika says in shaky Common. ¡°But only work on people I like. I not know you.¡± ¡°Sorcery¡¯s so easy even goblins use it,¡± Rowan comments. ¡°Yeah,¡± Anise says. ¡°It takes practice to learn to use your emotions to fuel spells properly, but anyone who isn¡¯t a Basic can do it. Just like anyone over 7 years old can enhance their attributes. You might want to invest some work into unlocking Enhanced Heart (Rapid Healing). And Enhanced Feet (Uncanny Balance), for that matter. That one¡¯s great. Keeps me from falling over no matter how drunk I get.¡± ¡°Noted,¡± Rowan says, and lets out a pained, ¡°Ah, ah, ah!¡± as his ankle slowly mends itself. ¡°You don¡¯t have enough pity to make that not hurt like the Void?¡± ¡°Oh yeah, you should also get Discipline (Pain Tolerance),¡± Anise adds lightly. ¡°It takes extra energy to make it not hurt and you¡¯re not my daughter.¡±This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. ¡°And you¡¯d inflict pain on your son or nephew over there instead?¡± Rowan asks, looking at me. ¡°You get on my case for coming out here by myself but you¡¯ve brought a little kid here too? He can¡¯t be over six.¡± ¡°I¡¯m a reincarnator,¡± I say. ¡°But I haven¡¯t really been advertising that outside my Hearth and the goblins. I dislike the attention and expectations. So please don¡¯t go gossiping about it.¡± ¡°I won¡¯t,¡± Rowan says. ¡°I am in your debt. How did you even find me?¡± ¡°As a reincarnator, I have access to Clairvoyance. I spotted you with [Aura Sight].¡± ¡°Huh, that is a pretty good reason for people to want you in their party,¡± Rowan says. ¡°I would have thought someone under 7, reincarnator or no, wouldn¡¯t contribute much.¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± Anise says. ¡°He¡¯s only Basic still and doesn¡¯t want a combat-oriented class, so we try to keep him safe.¡± Rowan gets down on one knee and says, ¡°I, Rowan Talgarth Tempest Tiganna, formally request admission into your party.¡± ¡°Careful there, I just healed that ankle!¡± Anise says. ¡°And I¡¯m not really the leader here. I am completely irresponsible and don¡¯t like leading stuff.¡± Rowan, unphased, turns to me and says, ¡°I, Rowan Talgarth Tempest Tiganna, formally request admission into your party.¡± ¡°Actually, this one is Milo¡¯s gig,¡± I say, pointing a thumb at the small goblin. Rowan sighs and works up his face in a variety of expressions. ¡°Are you a reincarnator too? Is that why everyone¡¯s treating you like they do?¡± ¡°Yep,¡± Milo says. ¡°We¡¯re actually exactly the same age.¡± ¡°I, Rowan Talgarth Tempest Tiganna, formally request admission into your party,¡± Rowan says. ¡°So far, this doesn¡¯t look good on your resume,¡± Milo says. ¡°I¡¯m looking for team players and go-getters, not irresponsible loose cannons. If you join my party, you have to be able to take orders and work together with others. If you can¡¯t do that, we will escort you to the nearest surface escort and send you home.¡± ¡°See?¡± Anise says. ¡°That¡¯s why this guy wouldn¡¯t be able to heal you.¡± ¡°I can do that,¡± Rowan says. ¡°Please give me a chance.¡± ¡°Very well,¡± Milo says. ¡°You may join us on for a probationary period. And please get off of your knee. We are currently on a mission to make contact with goblin villages in the area in attempt to negotiate for peaceful relations with the human Hearths. I am also authorized to offer goods from Corwen and Penbryn that the goblins may be interested in.¡± ¡°This goblin knows more words than I do¡­¡± Rowan mutters. ¡°I understand. This¡­ this would actually help people, wouldn¡¯t it?¡± ¡°Corwen loves the mushrooms Grubwick traded it,¡± Anise says. ¡°They have one that gives a water breathing buff! That¡¯s so cool!¡± ¡°We are also attempting to enact a cultural revolution among the goblins,¡± Milo says. ¡°I was born into a culture that knows nothing of music, alcohol, good food, comfortable clothes, or frequent bathing. I was a wealthy businessman in another life and I enjoyed the finer things in life, which don¡¯t exist here. I feel compelled to make them exist.¡± Rowan looks at the two goblins. ¡°You don¡¯t mind him badmouthing your culture?¡± ¡°He right,¡± Nika says. ¡°Chosen always right. Core bring Chosen for change. So we change. If core want, we not deny.¡± ¡°I understand,¡± Rowan says. ¡°I do not merely wish to rule over a Stone Age village,¡± Milo says. ¡°I am uninterested in the notion of having the best things. I want good things, and do not mind if other people also have good things. By enacting¡ª¡± ¡°Milo,¡± I interrupt. ¡°Sorry to interrupt your manifesto, but perhaps this is best done safely behind walls.¡± ¡°You are, I may have gotten slightly carried away,¡± Milo says. It¡¯s funny how Anise speaks perfect Goblin thanks to exploiting a loophole with Language (Drunken Slur), but Nika speaks Common like a¡­ well, goblin. We continue on and shortly come within view of a large underground lake. A tributary from it trickles off down toward the underswamps. A village sits on a pillar in the middle of the lake, the base of its walls meeting natural rock about two meters above the waterline. The edge of the shore on each side has a rickety dock and a handful of leaky hide boats. ¡°I see a body of water that needs a bridge,¡± I say. ¡°Hmm¡­ how far is that, and how deep is the water.¡± I start doing some mental calculations as we approach the lake.
Skill acquired: Search (Measurement)
Numbers pop up in my third eye. Hmm. That¡¯s a longer span than the carp-filled underground river, and I have no idea whether this lake is safer or more dangerous. Although in either case, a drawbridge would be more prudent from the standpoint of defense and potential for boats needing to pass under them. There¡¯s a trio of goblins at the bank of the lake, fishing. When we get close, they look up and one says, ¡°You want across? ¡°Ah man, I don¡¯t think our boats can carry the big humans,¡± says another. ¡°Maybe if they went by themselves,¡± says the third. ¡°What are they saying?¡± Rowan asks quietly. ¡°We can begin your Goblin language lessons once stop to rest,¡± Milo says, then addresses the goblins in their own language. ¡°We¡¯ll appreciate the safety of your walls by whatever means are used to get there.¡± I will spare you the details of solving the unexpected boat puzzle. Suffice it to say that I am now even more motivated to getting a bridge built here eventually. Considering their settlement is in the middle of the lake, the goblins of Splott are surprisingly welcoming and friendly. They had heard about recent events in Grubwick and thought they sounded cool. Like bridges. They excited about the prospect of bridges. Or at least better boats. I know very little about making actual boats and it suddenly occurs to me that I should if I¡¯m planning on building a skyship someday. Models are all well and good, but building something that can hold water is a little more complicated than carving a bit of wood. And while a skyship doesn¡¯t specifically need to worry about water, it has to deal with similar challenges. The system skills from building a rowboat would probably carry over to building a skyship. ¡°You seem distracted,¡± Anise says. ¡°Big engineering plans?¡± ¡°I need to learn how to build boats,¡± I say. ¡°Humans come to learn to build boats from goblins?¡± one of the local goblins says. ¡°We can teach you! And you can teach us things in exchange!¡± The Splotts are happy to have something to offer that we want. While I¡¯m sure humans would be capable of building actual wooden boats, they would be less willing to teach them to a five year old. And I¡¯m curious about what the goblins know. And I¡¯m pretty sure the skill is Crafting (Shipbuilding) and doesn¡¯t specify the type of vessel. I am not within arm¡¯s reach of a skill encyclopedia, though. We make some agreements and decide to stay for a bit and get in a few lessons either way. My next attempt at analyzing vis is gauging Anise¡¯s moods and watching her use magic. She¡¯s a competent sorcerer and knows how to use her magic properly. She only sets things on fire when she wants to set things on fire. And she really likes to set things on fire. Meadow¡¯s entire purpose in the party is preventing Anise from starting forest fires. I am mildly irritated at how the stupid ¡°emotion magic¡± trope is actually real in this sky full of tropes, except that I¡¯m pretty sure I was a psychic back on Earth and could do ¡°emotion magic¡± before the system even existed.
Your Discipline (Self-Delusion) skill has increased to level 3.
I am mildly irritated at how the stupid ¡°emotion magic¡± trope is real and normal and the natural state of the universe and everything is fine. In any case, emotional state is the next type of vis I figure out how to read, and it comes with a shiny new skill as well.
Skill acquired: Clairvoyance (Empathy)
Chapter 33: No-Frills Fishing Frilly Fish While I stay at Splott for the moment to start in on a skill exchange, the others return to the surface to visit the village of Talgarth, Rowan¡¯s Hearth. It¡¯s prudent to let them know he¡¯s okay before they do anything about it that might get people hurt. One of the Splott goblins goes along with samples of what resources the local Hearth has to offer in trade. ¡°So, how do you build boats here, anyway?¡± I ask. ¡°You teach us first,¡± one of the goblins says. ¡°You have many more things to teach than us. We only have our boats.¡± ¡°Let me tell you a little about [Masonry], then,¡± I say. ¡°Stacking stones doesn¡¯t sound so hard,¡± says a goblin. ¡°Well, there¡¯s a little more to it than just that,¡± I say. After I give my first lecture and demonstration, and create a few example tools, we move on to my first lesson. I look over their piles of hides and bones. ¡°So how do you put these boats together?¡± I ask. ¡°We¡¯re not starting with that,¡± says the head boat goblin, Smop. ¡°We have to show you through every part of the process. It¡¯s tradition.¡± ¡°So where do we start?¡± I ask. ¡°With a harpoon,¡± Smop says, picking one up and handing it to me so I can take a closer look. ¡°You see how the end has a hook on it? We carve Splottfish bones into hooks to catch more Splottfish. We make boats out of Splottfish hide and bones.¡± ¡°What exactly is a Splottfish?¡± I ask. The goblin gestures to a large creature in the process of being processed. It¡¯s about the size of a horse, with frilly violet fins like a betta fish but tusks like a walrus. ¡°I see,¡± I say. ¡°Alright, show me how to make these bone harpoons.¡± Smop walks me through instructions, gives demonstrations, and lets me try my hand at it. I ruin some of the bones, but he assures me not to worry about it. Everyone has to learn sometime and I¡¯ll be replacing the materials shortly anyway once I actually catch a Splottfish.
Congratulations! You have crafted a Poor quality weapon.
Skill acquired: Crafting (Bonecrafting)
It might be Poor, but at least I successfully made one, and got the skill unlocked at the first harpoon that could actually be used as a harpoon. The line is made from sinew, and I¡¯m not sure if devil-goat wool would be an improvement here even if it¡¯s stronger than normal wool. I¡¯ll leave experimenting to these fisher goblins once we actually get a trade going with them. I¡¯m just trying to unlock as many crafting skills as I can. ¡°Good!¡± Smop says. ¡°Now, these days we go out in boats to drive them toward the village so we don¡¯t have to drag them as far. Our boats are, obviously, not big and strong enough to actually carry a Splottfish. Don¡¯t worry. You won¡¯t have to haul it back by yourself. We all work together! First off, though, we need to see how far you can throw. Here, just use one of the messed up ones with broken barbs to practice. Probably won¡¯t get caught on the rocks and no big deal if you lose it.¡± After determining how well I can throw a harpoon, I also determine that I¡¯m not as strong as an adult goblin. Curse these low child attributes. Oh well. This might just take more practice. On the banks of Splott Island, where Splott Hearth is in the middle of Splott Lake, I scan the murky waters for a Splottfish. These goblins are certainly intent upon putting their Hearth¡¯s name into everything. Not that I can blame them. What else were they going to call it? ¡°Yell when you see one!¡± says Smop. ¡°Sometimes they get mad and try to attack people. Those tusks aren¡¯t just for show.¡± My [Aura Sight] picks up a fish-shaped monster moving around not far from shore.
Category Monster
Type Fish
Gender Female
Rank Elite
¡°I see one,¡± I say, pointing and giving a distance. ¡°Good eye!¡± Smop says. ¡°You have Search (Fish)?¡±Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. ¡°No, I have Clairvoyance (Aura Sight),¡± I say. ¡°It also tells me that this one is female and Elite.¡± ¡°Ooh! The females are bigger and meaner. See if you can hit her!¡± ¡°I¡¯ll give it a shot!¡± I say, hefting my harpoon. The first throw comes nowhere near the fish. The second clips her fluttery purple fins. Although it doesn¡¯t catch, it does have the effect of pissing her off, resulting in her swimming closer. The third throw sticks, and the goblins around me let out a whoop as they grab the line and help pull her in. As she gets closer, two more goblins hook their own lines into her to help. The glistening purple fish reaches the rocky shore, thrashing about wildly and flailing with her tusks in an attempt to gore the goblins who dared attack her. The goblins stab her with smooth long spears to keep their distance while making sure she¡¯s actually dead.
Congratulations! You have caught a Huge fish.
Skill acquired: Striking (Harpoon)
Your Survival (Fishing) skill has increased to level 2.
¡°Good hunt!¡± Smop says. ¡°Good eye, Drake. And good work, everyone! Praise be to Splott!¡± Smop shows me how to strip its scales and trim its gossamer fins. They look like they could be made into a fancy dress with very little effort, and yet none of the goblins wear clothing made from Splottfish fins. ¡°Why don¡¯t your people wear these?¡± I ask, holding up a handful of fins big enough to cover me from head to toe. Smop seems so puzzled by the question that my empathy detector has a new prime example for utter confusion. ¡°That wouldn¡¯t be very practical. They don¡¯t offer any protection or warmth. Would humans wear them?¡± ¡°Maybe,¡± I say. ¡°Humans might think they¡¯re pretty.¡± ¡°Your Hearth considers gray pretty?¡± Smop asks. ¡°You all wear those dark clothes.¡± ¡°Gray?¡± I ask, emitting the same shade of puzzlement. ¡°This is bright violet.¡± ¡°Ah!¡± Smop says. ¡°Goblins can¡¯t see violet.¡± ¡°Oh, right,¡± I say. ¡°Milo mentioned something about that. And¡­ wait, do you mean you see my clothes as the color ¡®dark¡¯?¡± Smop nods. ¡°It¡¯s beautiful! I hope we can trade for some of your Hearth¡¯s materials, whatever sort of material that is. I¡¯ve been told violet is more blue than blue, though I can¡¯t imagine how. I might say dark is more red than red, but that probably doesn¡¯t mean anything to you either.¡± Once this part of the task is finished, I¡¯m rewarded with a system window.
Skill acquired: Crafting (Skinning)
The other goblins help me with dismantling the innards, and I immediately realize that this so-called fish has absolute nonsense for internal organs. It¡¯s like a lootbox containing a several units of meat, a few units of fat, and units of fish oil, ink, and ambergris, not to mention the two ivory tusks on the front. It¡¯s downright implausible that all these useful resources would have naturally developed in the same animal. The goblins just consider it the gifts of Splott. I would be greatly surprised if none of the human villages wanted any of these. I¡¯m already thinking of what might be crafted from these materials. The goblins insist on teaching me every part of the process, and I¡¯m quite sure that there¡¯s no one that knows more about processing Splottfish than Splotts. They¡¯re unique to this lake and effectively part of the Hearth, much like the devil-goats are part of Corwen. They¡¯re spawned monsters and not animals. I¡¯m guessing it costs less essence to spawn something as a baby, even one that quickly grows into a full-sized monster, than it is to simply spawn the resources and give them to the goblins. From what I¡¯ve seen, aether cores don¡¯t simply give people things without demanding a challenge from them. With the huge fish reduced to its raw materials, it¡¯s my turn to give a lesson and then it¡¯s over to the boatmaking. Boats are frequently damaged or lost, so new boats regularly need to be made. The goblin crafters take great pride in their craftsmanship and are happy to prove themselves to a human who has so much more to teach them than they have to teach me. I know a little of a lot of things, though, and I don¡¯t have any one skill I have pushed very high. Just as I¡¯m starting in on the boat building lessons, the rest of my party returns, along with a blond human man I don¡¯t recognize. ¡°Hey, Drake!¡± Anise says brightly. ¡°We¡¯re back! I hope you¡¯ve made good use of the time. Do you know how to make a boat yet?¡± ¡°No, I¡¯m only just starting that,¡± I say. ¡°Aw, so what have you been doing?¡± ¡°Fishing. Check this stuff out.¡± I show her the violet frilly fins. ¡°You think anyone would like to wear a dress made from these?¡± ¡°Oh, neat,¡± Anise says. ¡°Maybe! Hey, this here is Dale Talgarth. He¡¯s here for boring trading stuff.¡± Dale says hi before going off to do the boring trading stuff. I¡¯m sure Milo is thrilled. I, however, am going to catch up with my friends and family. ¡°Hey, Rowan,¡± I say. ¡°How annoyed at you was your mom? Were you gone long enough that she was more thankful to see you than mad at you?¡± ¡°A bit of both,¡± Rowan says. ¡°They might not have let me leave the Hearth again at all until it¡¯s too late if Milo hadn¡¯t persuaded them. What in the Void is his Charisma at?¡± ¡°Dunno,¡± I say with a shrug. ¡°Why don¡¯t you ask him that? He might even tell you.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve started learning Goblin as well. I guess I should have expected that I ought to learn it if I was joining a party with goblins in it,¡± Rowan says. ¡°Your mom has been very¡­ I don¡¯t know if patient is the right word, but she¡¯s definitely enthusiastic. Like everything is the most fun.¡± ¡°It is!¡± Anise interjects with a grin. ¡°I¡¯m getting to see and do new things. I don¡¯t know how Drake has the patience for all this crafting stuff, but it¡¯s kind of his thing and he seems to enjoy it so to each their own. I won¡¯t complain if it keeps leading to cool things to use. Will Splott have an inn soon too?¡± ¡°I¡¯ve been teaching them [Masonry] but, again, we¡¯ll need to wrangle a trade agreement from Penbryn before we can actually build anything. And by ¡®we¡¯ I mean ¡®Milo¡¯.¡± Chapter 34: Making a Splash Meadow is being excessively broody about her True Art. It¡¯s getting kind of tiresome to be perfectly honest. ¡°Didn¡¯t you talk this over with Aunt Heather at any point?¡± I ask. Meadow grunts. ¡°Sure, Grandma Heather gave advice and made me keep up my studies. But she never steps in to make someone change their mind even if they¡¯re making a terrible mistake.¡± ¡°What drew you to drawing in the first place?¡± I wonder. Meadow sighs and stands up, and looks off at the gently rippling waters of Splott Lake. Darting magenta fins can be seen now and then, and the light from bioluminescent blue fungi on the ceiling casts a glimmer upon the waters. Here I am talking about glimmering like some sort of poet, but given Meadow¡¯s poise and expression, I just have to pray to Corwen she doesn¡¯t burst into song like a Disney princess declaring her life¡¯s dream. ¡°It started off as a matter of tools, actually,¡± Meadow says. ¡°Survival and Crafting are all well and good, but what if I could have any tool I needed on hand at any time? True Art is one of the few ways of actually conjuring matter, even if it¡¯s temporary matter. I could take a sketch of a nice little camp, shove some vis into it, and poof! Tent and all appear out of thin air and I didn¡¯t have to carry anything but art supplies.¡± I nod. ¡°That¡¯s pretty much what I¡¯m planning on doing with it myself. But for me it will be technical diagrams and not beautiful landscapes. I wish I were Elite already so I could play around with it myself. Alas, I suppose I will have to live vicariously in watching you play around with it instead.¡± Meadow chuckles and pulls out her sketchbook and colored pencils. ¡°Well, if you were me, what would you do?¡± ¡°You want to conjure tools?¡± I say. ¡°How about start with a rock?¡± ¡°That¡¯s not much of a tool,¡± Meadow says. ¡°You can get rocks anywhere.¡± ¡°A rock is the most basic tool in existence, by which I mean basic with a lowercase B, although I¡¯m sure there have to be Legendary rocks out there somewhere. In any case, it doesn¡¯t matter how useful it is in a normal situation. Adventuring is all about abnormal situations, though. And sometimes you might just really need a rock to throw at something.¡± ¡°Okay, okay, I get your point. A rock, fine. I can draw a rock.¡± She sketches out a gray rock, making it a bit misshapen and lumpy to give it texture. Once it¡¯s done, she sends her vis into the picture. At first, nothing happens, but she ramps up her focus and a sketchy outline appears in the air for a moment. ¡°Ugh,¡± Meadow says, rubbing her head. ¡°Well, I¡¯m out of Inspiration already. But at least that almost did something. I suppose I¡¯ll keep at it whenever I have spare Inspiration to see if I can unlock a proper skill for it. While awake, that is. I don¡¯t understand the people who wake up multiple times a night just to dump a topped off Inspiration meter into some project that definitely isn¡¯t worth more than a good night¡¯s sleep.¡± A good night¡¯s sleep in a bedroll inside a tent in a cave, but still. Every day, I teach the Splotts a bit more about stacking rocks, and the Splotts teach me a bit more about building boats. Due to the difficulty of getting large quantities of rocks across the lake in kayaks, we¡¯ve been practicing on the shore. Splott¡¯s first stone building won¡¯t be in Splott itself, but they¡¯re perfectly happy with the prospect of sticking a building on the other side of the lake by the docks. We¡¯re many months away from swarm season yet, and we¡¯re close enough to the surface that there aren¡¯t many wandering monsters. Meadow¡¯s next few attempts just result in making rocks made of whatever is in those colored pencils, which crumble to dust in under a second and vanish entirely not long after that. While Meadow works on her True Art, I¡¯m back to trying to learn how to build a boat. Man, forget mindlessly slaughtering monsters. I¡¯m down here in a mysterious, beautiful cave making kayaks with goblins and having a blast. Again, they assure me not to worry about wasted materials. It¡¯s all part of learning, and any scraps that are no longer usable for anything at all are taken to their Hearth¡¯s core room to be converted into essence. And I waste a lot of materials. As nice as it is, I¡¯m honestly utterly baffled about why the Splotts are even friendlier than the Grubwicks, although I have a deeper relationship with the Grubwicks. I suppose part of it is how we wound up meeting the Grubwicks, and only came to Splott after they¡¯d already heard about their technological advancements and positive relations with humans. I think they¡¯re trying very, very hard to make a good impression on their human guests.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. ¡°I unlocked True Art (Simulacrum)!¡± Meadow exclaims as she comes over to me to celebrate. ¡°Congratulations!¡± I say. ¡°Check this out,¡± Meadow says. ¡°The goblins helped me mix up some paints using local materials. I only needed shades of gray, anyway.¡± Her rock image is still crude, but more solid than the colored pencils. ¡°You think it will make a difference over the colored pencils?¡± I ask. ¡°Watch.¡± This time, when our budding Artist uses her skill, a rock made of crude gray paint appears on the ground between us. Meadow picks it up and squeezes it, and it squishes like a sports ball. She throws it at the floor, and it splatters into paint. ¡°Cool, paintball!¡± I exclaim. Meadow laughs. ¡°I¡¯m making progress on getting the items to be more solid and last longer.¡± The gray paint remains on the floor for about a minute before it disappears. ¡°As it is, this would be absolutely perfect for a game I know of from another life,¡± I say. ¡°Shooting paint at each other to see who can score the most hits. We had to use paint that didn¡¯t conveniently disappear afterward, though.¡± ¡°Seems like a waste of paint if it¡¯s real paint, but if you have a surplus that does sound like fun,¡± Meadow says. ¡°I bet you could make, say, a sling that automatically makes rocks to throw, or a bow or crossbow, or the like.¡± Meadow nods. ¡°I¡¯ve heard of ranged weapons that make their own ammo, but I never looked into how they do it. When I imagined being a Ranger who creates her own ammo on the fly, I thought I would be doing it myself, with a spell cast from my own Inspiration meter. But if I had an item powered by a suitable aspect stone, I wouldn¡¯t need to burn Inspiration for it.¡± ¡°I¡¯d offer to make one for you, but I don¡¯t know how to make magic items yet and aren¡¯t at Elite yet regardless,¡± I say. ¡°It might need to be incorporated with sigils for control, too. I just don¡¯t know enough yet.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it,¡± Meadow says. ¡°It¡¯s a long-term project, anyway. I have a long way to go yet before I can make an arrow that might actually pierce instead of splatter.¡± After a good deal of work, I finally manage to build a kayak that doesn¡¯t immediately sink. And I know that I¡¯ve been successful by the system¡¯s praise.
Congratulations! You have crafted a Poor quality vessel.
Skill acquired: Crafting (Shipbuilding)
Your Dexterity has increased to 8.
It¡¯s ridiculous that Carpentry and Woodworking are separate skills but there¡¯s a Shipbuilding skill that encompasses anything to do with vessels. Whatever. Subskills all affect the main skill, anyway. Learning how to fish makes you a tiny bit better at starting a fire, because it just does. I¡¯m not going to marvel at the existence of a life-size RPG magic system, but I will criticize how nonsensical its setup is sometimes. I sit in my boat, bobbing a little on the waters of Lake Splott and marveling at the fact that my feet are still dry. I don¡¯t immediately notice that I¡¯m drifting away from shore. ¡°Dung!¡± I swear in Goblin, quickly plunging my hands into the water to hand-paddle back to where the goblins are laughing at me. ¡°Next lesson, how to make paddles!¡± Smop says with a wide grin on his face. ¡°You couldn¡¯t have covered that first?¡± ¡°The boat came before the paddle!¡± Smop says. ¡°Making the boat made us realize we needed them.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t think of it and I know about paddles¡ªthere¡¯s some right there. I¡¯m just a very smart idiot. Or stupid genius. One of those.¡± ¡°Not stupid,¡± Smop says. ¡°You just don¡¯t think forward very much. You don¡¯t keep making the same mistakes, but you never think about consequences. Everything you do makes a ripple in the lake. The waves will swell and grow over time, like the attacks of the Epic Splottfish that once almost drowned our village. There was chaos and destruction, but our mightiest hunters brought her down at great cost. They harvested her eggs and brought them to the Hearth, and now there are always Splottfish in the lake providing resources and protecting us from invaders.¡± ¡°Wow,¡± I say. ¡°That¡¯s a nice reward for taking down a raid boss.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think you mean us harm,¡± Smop says. ¡°There will be great change, but when the waves settle, I don¡¯t think it will be bad change. Now, come. Let me show you what we make our paddles from.¡± He shows me how to make a paddle, although I could have guessed how to make a bad one myself. My results are a bit better thanks to having someone on hand who can tell me more than the general shape I¡¯m going for. At least this part of the boat process is just something that will be merely inefficient if done poorly, rather than leading to you swimming back to shore. ¡°Are you done yet?¡± Anise asks. ¡°We want to see you boat!¡± ¡°You know, something I¡¯ve come to realize about goblins is that there¡¯s so many of them and they have no concept of privacy, literally everything you do has an audience.¡± ¡°Oh my,¡± Anise says. ¡°I¡¯m going to mess up, probably repeatedly, and everyone¡¯s going to laugh at me, and I will laugh back once I get back on solid ground. I¡¯ve been getting plenty of practice with Athletics (Swimming). I might be close to a level-up.¡± ¡°Sounds like fun!¡± Anise says. ¡°I¡¯ll make some popcorn.¡± ¡°Where in the Void did you find popcorn?¡± I wonder. ¡°Talgarth. Rowan¡¯s Hearth is known for its corn. They brought some with them as samples and I¡¯m going to pop them with Sorcery (Spectator¡¯s Passion).¡± ¡°What in the Void is up with your skill names?¡± I ask, trying to keep a straight face. ¡°It¡¯s also good for hot dogs.¡± ¡°Alright, I¡¯m done here,¡± I say. Chapter 35: Splott Lakes Slowest Boat Chase With the paddle finished, I head back out to my boat and ignore the ensuing popcorn distribution. I¡¯m also ignoring Milo announcing to what seems like half of Splott that today they will be witnessing the historic event of a Human Chosen boating on Splott Lake in a traditionally-made Splott kayak. Why did these idiots have to turn this into a spectacle, anyway? Is there something of a rite of passage here? Even Uncle Hawk and what looks like his adventuring party have shown up! Ugh, whatever. I¡¯m just going to try not to have to be fished out of the lake. Every other Human Chosen has probably just been here to kill goblins. I don¡¯t want to just be the white man who shows up to uplift the dumb savages, either, but at least that¡¯s a narrative that winds up with fewer innocent people dead. I killed goblins because I had no choice, but we can speak now and I¡¯ve become good friends with some of them. And I¡¯m literally doing what their ¡°god¡± wants, for that matter. So, fine, if Milo is going to play this up like ¡°an historic event¡± with an ¡°an¡± and everything, I¡¯ll give them a show they won¡¯t soon forget. I step into the boat and it immediately overturns and dumps me in the water. I grab a hold of it and manage to pull myself out of the water to a burst of laughter and popcorn. After a minute, I manage to right the boat and get back in it. My Stamina is low. Now that I¡¯m not tipping over, I breathe and take a rest and breathe deeply.
Skill acquired: Athletics (Take a Breather)
The system window popping up distracts me from my almost-meditative state. I guess I never did master meditation, but this might be close enough. My stamina meter refills much more rapidly for a minute. Carefully, I dip the end of my oar into the water. (Wait, is it an oar or a paddle? I¡¯ve been translating the goblin word for the thing as ¡°paddle¡± but I really don¡¯t remember what the difference is. I miss the internet sometimes.) I slowly, carefully, patiently try to move straight forward. By which I mean everything happens except that. I¡¯m Taking another Breather when I examine my boat.
Category Object
Type Vessel
Materials Hide, Bone
Quality Poor
Durability 3/5
All this manhandling my shoddy boat trying to stay in it has taken a toll on it. I get back to rowing, and I¡¯m actually having some success now. I get a fair distance from shore and I¡¯m about to head back when I detect a very large aura beneath me.
Category Monster
Type Fish
Gender Female
Rank Heroic
Mood Dangerously Curious
I freeze. Holding my wooden oar horizontally, I still all movement in my body except my breathing. Splott goblins rarely get attacked by Splottfish they didn¡¯t antagonize, but outsiders might not be so fortunate. I wonder if she can tell what I am. A Splott goblin also wouldn¡¯t stop rowing or showing any suspicious behavior. She¡¯s watching me very closely and I can feel her eyes on me. I¡¯m just a weird big pink goblin. Really I am. I put the paddle in the water and mimic the movements of the goblins I¡¯d watched. Eaten by a Splottfish at age 5 might be a humorous addition to my collection of five million deaths, but I think I¡¯d like to be alive a little while longer. I keep paddling, calm and steady. The sensible thing for me to do would be to get back to shore, but she¡¯s between me and the nearest shore. Although she hasn¡¯t been hostile, I still don¡¯t want to get too close.
Mood Dangerously Playful
I turn and head toward the bank to the right, but she moves between me and the rocks, preventing me from getting ashore without going right over her. I turn toward Splott Island and make it almost the full way there when she swoops around in front of me, a wave almost turning me over. I¡¯m forced to turn swiftly back out into the open water. I paddle around the middle of the lake, resting when I have to and keeping going as I can.
Mood Dangerously Bored
Once I¡¯m back in range, I pause to rest again and send to Anise telepathically, [There is a Heroic Splottfish hovering around me. Tell the hunters and get the Basics back from shore.]Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Anise has no way to reply, but I watch her wave people around and a fishing party gets ready for the monster to get close. The fishers throw their harpoons, Meadow shoots her arrow (because we¡¯re fishing with a bow and arrow today) and Anise is casting a spell that¡¯s probably named something stupid. Smop hurls a harpoon at the Splottfish and strikes true. The Heroic fish is considerably larger than the Elite I¡¯d caught before, and there aren¡¯t many Elites among the goblins who are capable of doing real damage to her. Between them and the human Elites, though, they successfully bring the fish ashore and kill it.
Congratulations! Your party has caught an Enormous fish.
Skill acquired: Mechanics (Piloting)
Skill acquired: Survival (Nonthreatening Stance)
Your Discipline (Composure) skill has increased to level 2.
Your Endurance has increased to 7.
Phew. Fortunate enough that the fish hadn¡¯t been immediately hostile. I row my kayak to the edge of the lake and pull it out of the water before flopping down on the rocky ground. I need more than a breather after that. Goblins and humans alike cheer wildly as they circle around the steaming elephant-sized fish. Anise comes over to check on me. ¡°You okay there, Drake?¡± ¡°Fantastic,¡± I say with a tired laugh, and send her the system box I just received. ¡°Nice,¡± Anise says. ¡°You take any damage?¡± ¡°I¡¯m good.¡± Once my Stamina meter is full again, I head over to where the goblins have gotten started on dismantling the fish, and join in. The carcass is hot to the touch, however, and I¡¯m pretty sure you¡¯re supposed to prepare fish before cooking it, but we manage. Once they harvest the materials from it, an awful stench wafts out over the lakeshore. Splottfish oil, ink, and ambergris all have delightfully hideous fragrances when boiled. When the goblins manage to get past the reek to examine them in more detail, they realize that being boiled alive has altered the color or consistency of some of the fish¡¯s fluids. The oil has turned blue and lumpy. The ambergris has softened and taken on a musky floral odor like perfume. And the ink, originally black, now shimmers in a rainbow of colors like an oil slick. ¡°You guys are going to be selling frilly dresses and perfume to humans,¡± Milo comments. ¡°We use the ambergris for our incense,¡± says Smop. ¡°It¡¯s sacred. Not that we¡¯re forbidden from trading it. But everyone who uses this scent will think of Splott and give honor to our core. Praise be to Splott!¡± The sentiment ripples among the gathered goblins. Milo muses aloud, ¡°We¡¯ll need to discuss trademarks, and people will likely try to introduce shoddy off-brand knockoffs to pass off as the real thing.¡± Most of the goblins present are praising me, praising Splott, and celebrating. The popcorn has been spilled everywhere, what of it didn¡¯t get eaten already. And now everyone is having a fish feast on top of watching a crazy human kid slowly paddle around a lake while being stalked by a giant fish. That was more than enough time to destroy all the popcorn. Meadow approaches. ¡°Hey, Drake, Milo.¡± She gestures toward the eclectic band behind her. ¡°Uncle Hawk is here with his adventuring party. They¡¯ve offered to take me on a Heroic quest with them. I don¡¯t know if it¡¯ll get me to Heroic before I turn 21, seeing as I only made Elite a few years ago. But if nothing else, it¡¯ll be a good opportunity to put my skills into practice.¡± ¡°Sounds like a good plan,¡± I say. ¡°You probably aren¡¯t too interested in just watching me build bridges.¡± Meadow chuckles. ¡°That boat chase was intense because of how agonizingly slow it was.¡± ¡°You¡¯re telling me, I was the one out there on the water.¡± Uncle Hawk approaches and gives some introductions. The pink-haired elf (and of course there has to be a pink-haired elf) is named Violet, because it would have made no sense to name her Rose or something. The dwarf is named Schist, and the robed human woman with a staff is named Marjoram. I am immediately going to forget these names anyway so I¡¯m not sure why I bother. I still don¡¯t remember the names of every Corwen. ¡°And by the way, that¡¯s the goblin that had me kidnapped and tried to murder me,¡± Uncle Hawk says. They really ought to be more mad about it. ¡°Why aren¡¯t you more mad about that?¡± Milo wonders. ¡°Because,¡± says the dwarf adventurer. ¡°Do you have any idea how groundbreaking it is to take a diplomatic approach to goblins?¡± ¡°It is popular amongst the youth of Crux Domain to sympathize with lesser beings while pretending they did not just call them lesser beings,¡± comments the pink-haired elf. ¡°It¡¯s very hard to campaign for goblin rights when the goblins don¡¯t care about their rights being campaigned for,¡± says the staff lady. Milo stares at them for a long moment before finally saying, ¡°You know what, fine. I¡¯m just not going to argue.¡± The next morning before they leave, Uncle Hawk pulls me aside. ¡°Word of advice, Drake,¡± Uncle Hawk says quietly. ¡°Don¡¯t let Milo take all your Deeds. It¡¯s all well and good to want to help¡ªit¡¯s what you promised when you convinced them to release me, after all. That [Elder Witch] of theirs might have kept cursing me to the point that Milo could actually do damage faster than I could regenerate it. I don¡¯t know where this is going, but you¡¯re family and I¡¯ll support your decisions no matter what. Don¡¯t forget to perform Deeds for yourself as well, though. And remember that the journey to Divine is dangerous. It will likely take many goblin lifespans. It might take many human lifespans.¡± ¡°I understand,¡± I say. ¡°I¡¯m making a lot of progress on my skills, though.¡± ¡°Good. You¡¯ll need them. You¡¯ll need every level you can get, even in subskills you¡¯re never going to use. They all add up. I¡¯ll be interested in seeing what you ultimately make with them.¡± Chapter 36: Sensing Hostility! Come spring, limestone gets delivered from Penbryn, and I feel like we¡¯re ready to really mess up an attempt at building a building. I don¡¯t know if I would really consider anyone here good at their new jobs, seeing as they¡¯ve only had a few months to practice and get tools and materials ready. But goblins are surprisingly fast learners. I don¡¯t know if it really makes up for their short lifespans, but at least it means they pick up the stuff I¡¯m trying to tell them quickly. We lay out plans for a building on the shore of Splott Lake, much like Grubwick¡¯s inn. In addition to Anise, Rowan, and Milo, we have a trio of Elite hunters guarding us, including Smop. Things are relatively peaceful in this part of the caverns this time of the year, but it¡¯s always a risk being in the In-Between outside of walls. I¡¯m directing the work crew when I detect some violet auras approaching from the opposite direction of the surface exit. I identify the closest of them.
Category Person
Race Goblin
Gender Male
Rank Basic
Mood Hostile
¡°Alert!¡± I cry. ¡°Hostiles approaching!¡± ¡°Workers to the boats!¡± Smop yells. The goblin Masons immediately drop what they¡¯re doing (¡°Ahh!¡± ¡°Sorry!¡±) and make a break for the kayaks on the shore. There aren¡¯t enough boats for everyone but the Elites step in to shield the fleeing Basics as hostile goblins emerge from the tunnels all around us. I get in a boat along with two Masons, one of whom grabs a paddle before pushing off hurriedly. ¡°I think they must be Usks,¡± says one of the Masons. ¡°Stupid Usks,¡± says the other, raising a hand in a rude gesture toward the shore. One of the thrown rocks strikes my boat and almost overturns it. The second hit tips us into the water with a splash. I grab the boat to try to stay afloat, but part of the frame has broken and it¡¯s no longer lakeworthy. ¡°We¡¯ll swim to the village,¡± says one of the goblins who were in the boat with me. ¡°Splotts are good swimmers. We¡¯ll be fine. Worry about yourself! Look, there¡¯s your mom!¡± Anise is here. My mom is watching my back as always. She uses a skill probably named something like Sorcery (Motherly Protection) and a shimmering barrier surrounds me. Two rocks thrown in my general direction plink off of it and splash into the water. I swim back toward the shore, not having actually gotten very far. ¡°Drake!¡± Anise calls out, rushing up to meet me at the edge of the water. ¡°How many hostiles do you sense?¡± Rowan pulls me out of the water while Anise is busy throwing fire around, incinerating any goblin that so much as glances at us in an unfriendly manner. ¡°Too many!¡± I exclaim. ¡°They¡¯re coming in from every direction. They must have staged all around the lake shore and were careful not to get too close until we were surrounded!¡± Milo climbs on top of a stack of cut stone blocks, and his voice tinged with power echoes over the lakeshore. ¡°**Stop! Stop fighting! Peace! Peace!**¡± A large rock strikes him in the head, and he crumples like a ragdoll. I suck in a breath and rush over toward him, with Anise and Rowan beside me, but we can¡¯t even get close. He might be Elite, but he¡¯s been swarmed with dozens of Basics and has nothing but strong words to use against them. We¡¯re forced to withdraw from the lakeside under the sheer press of numbers. ¡°We need to get to the surface exit,¡± Anise says. ¡°Keep close. Rowan, look out for Drake. Drake, think really loudly if you detect anything we don¡¯t already know about.¡± We make our way toward the exit, leaving behind Splott Lake and the madness going on near it. I take a glance back as we reach the tunnels, where things narrow to the point I won¡¯t be able to look. We¡¯re not being pursued. Goblins dance on the shores of the lake and the Splotts may or may not have managed to evacuate any of my poor Masons. I know I saw at least some of them make it to the boats before we got overwhelmed.The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. ¡°Milo¡­¡± I say quietly. Anise nods. ¡°Nothing we can do for him now, if he even survived. We¡¯ll have to get to Grubwick via the surface and let them know what happened.¡±
You have survived the battle of Splott.
Your Athletics (Swimming) skill increased to level 2.
Your Clairvoyance (Empathy) skill increased to level 2.
I got a level of [Swimming] from that? I was only even in the water for like a minute! I guess that¡¯s some consolation experience for ¡°Congratulations, you didn¡¯t drown!¡± I don¡¯t even have it in me to protest too much about how silly skills are sometimes. It didn¡¯t take terribly much [Empathy] to detect hostility in the screaming goblins who were throwing rocks at people.
The surface is peaceful and spring is springing, but I¡¯m dejected and distraught. I let my guard down and I really should not have. Still, without having to navigate the tunnels of the In-Between, we¡¯re able to reach Grubwick quickly enough. ¡°Something terrible happened at Splott Lake,¡± Anise says. ¡°We know,¡± says [Elder Witch] Griza with a sigh. ¡°Grubwick informed me when it updated my quest. We had a newborn awaiting a naming ceremony, so we named him Milo. Here he is now. I figured you would want to see him.¡± She gestures toward a younger goblin woman approaching with a tiny bundle in her arms. Normally, I¡¯m sure an infant goblin would never be seen outside of the depths of their warrens. Babies are ugly enough but goblin babies resemble green pugs, with a squished nose and folded pointed ears. [I wish I could talk,] projects the baby¡¯s thoughts. [I wish I could see. Ugh, I hated being a baby the second time around. I was almost an adult, too!] [Milo, is that really you?] I send to him. [Yes! Can you hear me, Drake?] [I can hear you,] I think, then say aloud, ¡°Alright, so that is him.¡± [As it turns out, I didn¡¯t need to be so worried about the lifespan thing after all,] Milo sends. [I kept Elite rank and all my skills, too. And apparently I unlocked Clairvoyance (Telepathy) just from complaining loudly enough about not being able to talk.] [That¡¯s great!] [I think I¡¯m going to take it easy for a bit¡ªnot that I have much choice¡ªand just work on skills rather than trying to change the world overnight. I¡¯ve done a lot too fast. It would not be so bad to give Grubwick and Splott a few generations to get used to the idea of being friendly with humans and being able to build things. I¡¯m confident that we will win the goblin war. I need to find a source of metal before we can go much further technologically.] Undeterred by dying, Milo is still plotting. [With the goblin war on, my mom wants me to stay at Corwen unless I¡¯ve got a Heroic or up escort,] I tell him, repeating a conversation I¡¯d had with her along the way. [She doesn¡¯t trust herself to keep me safe by herself against an entire goblin army. I won¡¯t argue about it. I have a lot of things to work on.] [There¡¯s only so much roughing it you can take at once,] Milo comments. [I¡¯ll try and keep the trade with Corwen and Penbryn going at least. I dearly want my goblins to learn about clothes. Fur loincloths do not count.] [I always appreciate your priorities,] I reply wryly. [Hey, here¡¯s a bright side! I¡¯m actually named Milo this time. It was getting annoying seeing ¡°Grabrat¡± on my status screen so I¡¯m glad Grubwick took my complaint to heart.] ¡°Okay, I assume you¡¯re having a telepathic conversation and not just staring creepily at that baby goblin,¡± Anise says. ¡°Anything to share?¡± I relay the gist of the conversation to her verbally before realizing I can just forward the messages to her. ¡°Sounds like he¡¯s taking brutally murdered in stride,¡± Anise says. ¡°I hope at least some of the Splotts I was working with got away,¡± I say with a sigh. ¡°They assured me they were good swimmers. Not much we can do about it now.¡± ¡°There¡¯s no solidarity among goblins,¡± Griza says. ¡°We all live in our own cramped villages, set up outposts to gather resources and come back home before the swarms. We¡¯re not unified like the humans.¡± ¡°Humans aren¡¯t really unified, either,¡± Anise says. ¡°Yes, but you communicate and cooperate. We were making progress with Splott, but now we are cut off from them. Usk lies between Grubwick and Splott, and I have no doubt that their warriors will be swarming the tunnels.¡± ¡°Both Grubwick and Splott are close to surface exits, though,¡± I say. ¡°And as soon as we tell Corwen what happened, there will be adventurers happy to kill hostile goblins,¡± Anise says. ¡°For better or worse.¡± The goblin war has begun. And I¡¯m sure the cores are gleeful. I¡¯m not. I¡¯ve been forbidden from going near goblin villages until they¡¯re done deciding if they want to be Tolkien goblins or Warcraft goblins. We only managed to stop by Grubwick before returning to Corwen because if we went back to Corwen first, I would not be leaving it again anytime soon. Alas. So, with that, Anise, Rowan and I stay our last night in Grubwick for what might be years. The inn has been coming along nicely and I hope the goblins I¡¯d worked with here can keep themselves safe. ¡°How are you holding up?¡± Anise asks. ¡°I don¡¯t even know how to emotionally parse watching my friend die and then get reincarnated immediately.¡± ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s a tough one,¡± Anise says. ¡°Can¡¯t help you there.¡± I¡¯m not going to think too hard about this goblin baby who might have grown up to be something else but got Milo¡¯s soul shoved in. I suppose it doesn¡¯t matter. It¡¯s not like there¡¯s any shortage of short-lived shorties. Many more will die before this is over, I have no doubt. Chapter 37: Turning Point ¡°Drake, are you alright?¡± asks Burdock. ¡°I heard you got in a big fight.¡± Burdock is 11 now, almost 12, and his cat-monster familiar, Mipsy, is at his side. Now the size of a bobcat, a normal almost-6-year-old would probably find her intimidating. She blinks up at me with three glowing green eyes, and two of her four ears tilt toward me. ¡°Yeah,¡± I say. ¡°I¡¯m¡­ I¡¯m still kind of stunned about everything that¡¯s happened. I didn¡¯t get hurt, but I was luckier than some.¡± ¡°Drake,¡± Aunt Heather says, approaching. ¡°Your mother told us about what happened. I want to try scrying into the caverns and I¡¯d like your help with it. I will need to navigate the tunnels and you¡¯ve been down there more frequently.¡± ¡°Of course,¡± I say, and follow her back to her room. Grandma Laurel also joins us there. Aunt Heather sets up her scrying Invocation with her magic mirror and conjures forth a mystical eye linked to the mirror above the village. It makes me think she¡¯s just jumping through hoops because she doesn¡¯t have Clairvoyance. I have nowhere nearly this range yet, of course, but this strikes me as something I should be able to do once I level up more, and without needing a mirror for it. The invisible magical surveillance drone flies down toward the surface and skims along above the treetops in the direction of the cavern entrance near Grubwick. It moves at a dizzying speed until it locates the opening and darts inside. ¡°Alright, here¡¯s Grubwick,¡± Aunt Heather says. ¡°Now which way is the swamp village from here?¡± I give her directions, and the mirror¡¯s view smoothly flies down through the tunnels and eventually emerges at the underswamps. I am grateful that this little ¡°trip¡± is being done in the safety and warmth of my Hearth and doesn¡¯t involve almost stepping in leeches a dozen times. At the edges of the swamp, several outposts have been set up from crude materials. Packs of goblins systematically gather materials from the swamp and haul them back to Usk Village, where they¡¯re being made into equipment and consumables. ¡°They definitely look busy,¡± Grandma Laurels says. ¡°Can you guide me to the place where you were attacked?¡± Aunt Heather asks. I give her directions, and the arcane eye shoots off down the tunnels again. Here and there, it picks up on more outposts dotting the caverns. One has been set up in the hot spring, though it¡¯s hard to tell what they¡¯re doing there and we don¡¯t stick around to watch for long. Aunt Heather¡¯s Inspiration meter is astronomical but not infinite. The mirror¡¯s view finally displays Splott Lake. The battle is long over by now, but the shores are littered with camps full of goblins dressed in the swamp furs of Usk. The piles of stone blocks are covered in blood. In the center of the lake, Splott Village is safe enough, but besieged on all sides. Usk war parties litter the shores densely enough to prevent the Splotts from landing a kayak anywhere on the lake. ¡°Things don¡¯t look good for your friendly lake goblins,¡± Grandma Laurel says. ¡°They¡¯ll be alright, I hope,¡± I say. ¡°The Splottfish will keep them from starving. The Usks will need to leave when swarm season arrives, if nothing else. I hope the crafters I was working with made it back to the island safely.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not seeing any corpses, but they were probably already taken care of by now,¡± Aunt Heather says. ¡°Are there any other notable places you know if that I should check?¡± I shake my head. ¡°I¡¯ll burn the remainder of my Inspiration exploring before my arcane eye fizzles out, then,¡± Aunt Heather says. ¡°Let¡¯s see if I can spot anything else of interest.¡± The mirror displays random exploration of the caverns, revealing even more goblin outposts. Some of them still have the look of Usks, but after a bit, a pack of goblins wearing pink furs comes into view. These goblins have slightly yellower skin than the others. ¡°A different group of goblins?¡± I muse. ¡°I haven¡¯t run into these before. I wonder what their disposition is?¡± Before the eye fades, it catches a glimpse of what looks like a meeting between Usk goblins and whatever the pink-loving tribe is. The view winks out before we can see the outcome, and Aunt Heather¡¯s magic eye spell doesn¡¯t have a magic ear on it anyway. ¡°Well, that was an interesting tour,¡± Grandma Laurel says. ¡°What are you going to do?¡± I ask. She shrugs. ¡°Nothing. I mean, I could go down there and kill every single unfriendly goblin, but it would be a waste. I won¡¯t get anything out of slaughtering Basics and Elites, so unless it¡¯s absolutely necessary, best to leave it to the people who can get experience for it. We¡¯ve got some lower level parties that will be thrilled at the news of a goblin war. Participating in events like this can garner some rare Deeds.¡±If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. I suppose that¡¯s one way of looking at it. If this were a game, I might be annoyed if some high level player came in and ruined everything. And while this isn¡¯t a game (I don¡¯t think, at any rate), it still bears many of the mechanics of one. The system awards power for doing risky and difficult things. ¡°You should stay in the village next year,¡± Grandma Laurel says. ¡°Get a chance to learn some more skills before you turn 7. I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve been having a lot of fun, up until everything was trying to kill you at any rate, but you¡¯ll get a lot more experience in your chosen field once you get your class, and child-rank skills are limited to level 5. Once you turn 7, your skill cap will increase to level 25. What¡¯s your highest skill?¡± ¡°[Aura Sight] at level 5,¡± I say. Grandma Laurel nods. ¡°And you¡¯ve been using it continuously for your entire life, haven¡¯t you?¡± ¡°What¡¯s your highest skill?¡± I wonder. She chuckles. ¡°Adult classes have a skill cap of level 100 at Basic rank. Higher ranks give a multiplier to your skill cap. Elite is doubled, Heroic is quadrupled, and so forth. The skill cap for a Legendary-ranked adult is level 1600. I have five skills at that level.¡± ¡°¡­ oh.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t feel bad that you have a long way to go. You¡¯ve made some good gains so far. I don¡¯t know if spending so much time with goblins was the best way to learn them, but I hope you had fun and got some good Deeds out of it before things went Voidwards.¡± ¡°How did you get so much experience but you know even less about what¡¯s under the surface than I do?¡± I wonder. ¡°We¡¯ve done a good deal of traveling in other domains, but we tend to stick to actual dungeons,¡± Grandma Laurel says. ¡°We came back shortly before you were born, planning to spend a decade or so here before we head off on a long trip. There¡¯s many systems out there to explore and we reached Legendary young.¡± ¡°My sister is going to die of old age and there¡¯s nothing I can do about it,¡± Aunt Heather says with a sigh. ¡°She has no way of making Epic rank anytime soon and it¡¯s too late for it to extend her lifespan much anymore anyway. Her health is failing, and I mean to spend her last few years here with her, and then your Grandma Laurel and I are going out adventuring to distant systems.¡± ¡°What do you suggest I do now?¡± I ask. ¡°Go to school and spend time with your sister and cousins,¡± Aunt Heather says. ¡°Someday soon you will all be able to go on adventures together. Next summer, you can take a trip to the Hedge Maze with them, if I don¡¯t detect any hostile goblins in the area.¡± They let me go. I head to the guest house to meet up with Rowan, who returned to Corwen with me and is sitting by the fire staring distantly into a cup of tea. ¡°Hey, Rowan,¡± I say, sliding in beside him. ¡°How are you holding up?¡± Rowan is quiet for a long moment before finally saying, ¡°I have no idea what to think about what just happened.¡± ¡°Fair,¡± I say. ¡°What are you going to do now? Are you going to stay here for now, or go back to Talgarth?¡± ¡°Milo disbanded his party and dismissed me,¡± Rowan says, then drops to one knee toward me. ¡°I, Rowan Talgarth Tempest Tiganna, formally request to join your party.¡± ¡°I accept, and please don¡¯t kneel at me,¡± I say. ¡°For the moment, though, we¡¯re just going to be doing training.¡± ¡°That¡¯s fine,¡± Rowan says. ¡°Training is good.¡± ¡°How old are you, anyway?¡± I ask. ¡°I turn twelve in June,¡± Rowan says. ¡°That little adventure back there made me realize doubly so how badly unprepared I am. First falling into a pit and getting hurt, and then¡­ so many goblins. I don¡¯t think I even managed to kill a single one.¡± ¡°We certainly didn¡¯t see that coming,¡± I say with a sigh. ¡°Should we have, though?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know. I don¡¯t even know about trying to get to Elite before I turn 14. I suppose I¡¯ll try again next year, after I¡¯ve done a lot more training. I wish it were more obvious what you need to do to rank up and how far off you are.¡± ¡°I suppose there¡¯s a reason why the system doesn¡¯t want us to know,¡± I say. ¡°We¡¯d probably be even more obsessed with numbers than we already are.¡± Rowan chuckles. ¡°True. Well, I¡¯ll stay the summer here and practice hard. Maybe the fall and winter too.¡± I head for the school. Juniper, Willow, and Griffin are in the play room for the small children trying to put together one of my puzzles. ¡°Drake!¡± Juniper exclaims, puzzle forgotten as she notices me and runs over to give me a hug. ¡°You¡¯re home!¡± ¡°Where have you been?¡± Willow asks. ¡°You¡¯ve been away for so long!¡± ¡°You missed our naming days,¡± Griffin says grumpily. ¡°We¡¯re all four now!¡± And at some point they started speaking in complete sentences. ¡°Sorry,¡± I say. ¡°I had some things I wanted to do. But I¡¯ll be around a lot more for a while. How about I make it up to you with making you guys some extra presents?¡± ¡°Yay!¡± Griffin says, throwing his hands in the air and immediately forgetting his grumpiness. Juniper is cute. Willow is cute. Griffin is cute. I must appreciate that everyone is cute. Because they will not be cute for long. Ten years from now, they will be little pains in the rear, having obsessed over getting to Elite before turning 14 like everyone else around here seems to. Since I can¡¯t get my skills over level 5 yet, and I seem to be having good luck at least getting that first level, I decide to try and get a few more unlocked. I don¡¯t have [Tailoring] yet, so I go to see Aunt Dahlia for a few lessons. In between those lessons, I work on making a couple of board games for the four-year-olds. I make little wooden game pieces painted to look vaguely like them, and paint a board with snakes and ladders. (We do not have a playground with a slide and the only chute is for garbage in the kitchen, so putting slides would be nonsensical. Even more nonsensical than sliding down snakes, I suppose. They do know what snakes are.)
You have crafted a Poor quality toy.
Your Crafting (Painting) skill has increased to level 2.
I don¡¯t think my skills are up to making properly balanced dice, but at least dice are something we¡¯re not short on. The six-sided ones, anyway. I haven¡¯t seen any polyhedral dice around here yet. I¡¯ll have to rectify that situation once my skills get higher, but at least making games like this doesn¡¯t require much precision. The kids are delighted at the game, but it¡¯s not really one that would help much with critical thinking skills. I have plenty more ideas, though. And yet things are so peaceful inside the village that I keep expecting someone to burst through the door saying something terrible has happened. But I have two Legendary-ranked adventurers nearby still, and if anything happens that they can¡¯t take care of, then we¡¯re all screwed. Chapter 38: Playing with Balls With Aunt Dahlia¡¯s help, I learn the basics of [Tailoring]. And after all the nonsense with other skills, I¡¯m kind of glad this is just [Tailoring], and not separate skills for [Spinning], [Weaving], [Sewing], [Knitting], [Twining], [Rope Making], [Underwater Basket Weaving], whatever. Sometimes I get exhausted with how many skills there are and how many I¡¯ve already unlocked and I don¡¯t even have access to magic skills yet. I¡¯m told that subskills do exist but we can¡¯t see our exact values in them, which is probably for the best. My first major tailoring project, once I¡¯ve gotten the basics down, isn¡¯t a garment at all but a net. The village is sadly lacking in sports equipment and, despite not being a huge fan of sports, I plan to rectify that. My main objection to sports in my first life had more to do with not finding it very fun to watch someone else play a game. Also, I wasn¡¯t terribly athletic, but that was mostly because I was busy all the time with both work and personal projects and it was easier to squeeze in a video game than take a week off to go hiking or convince a dozen other busy people to play a team sport. And I never had kids¡­ to which I¡¯m starting to feel like I missed out on something. I feel more attached to the Corwens than I ever did to my family back on Earth. I don¡¯t remember the proportions of an actual goal used in soccer or anything, so I kind of wing it and it doesn¡¯t matter anyway. The net is made from devil-goat wool, so it¡¯s black rather than the white I remember seeing on most sports nets, but I painted the wooden frame in red and white stripes to stand out.
Congratulations! You have crafted a Poor quality toy.
Skill acquired: Crafting (Tailoring)
¡°Hey, Mom, can you help me get this set up on the green beside the school?¡± I ask, gesturing to the completed goal frame and net. ¡°Sure, what is it?¡± Anise says, coming over to lend a hand. ¡°It¡¯s a goal,¡± I say. ¡°For throwing balls into. One team tries to keep the other team from getting the balls into the goal.¡± ¡°Huh, neat,¡± Anise says. ¡°That sounds like something fun to do when we can¡¯t go out and run dungeons. Plus it should be good Blocking practice. Did you make shields for it too?¡± ¡°The sports I remember didn¡¯t usually involve shields but I see no reason why we can¡¯t use them,¡± I say. ¡°Training Blocking (Shield) is probably more useful than Blocking (Head).¡± Anise blinks. ¡°Do you mean to tell me that they deliberately blocked balls with their heads?¡± ¡°Yep.¡± ¡°Earth people were weird,¡± Anise says. ¡°You have no idea.¡± We manage to get the goal set up, and Anise drives the frame into the ground to secure it. It¡¯s not pretty, and I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if it broke if someone threw a ball at it too hard. That¡¯s fine, though. Making another one would get me more experience, after all, and I might even manage a quality rating higher than Poor next time. (Doubtful.) Per my mother¡¯s suggestion, I make a shield next, by which I mean I shoddily attach a strap to a badly carved chunk of wood and paint it red and white to match the goal.
Congratulations! You have crafted a Poor quality shield.
Skill acquired: Crafting (Carpentry)
Wait, a shield is [Carpentry]? Seriously? If I¡¯d realized that I would have made a crappy shield years ago. Oh well, I suppose it doesn¡¯t matter at this point, and I¡¯m just glad to have another skill unlocked. The system favors innovation and doing a variety of different things. I hope I haven¡¯t wasted opportunities by doing so many assorted things before I even get any experience bonuses for them. But I¡¯m not too worried about it. Creativity is boundless. I¡¯m sure I can come up with things to do for centuries to come, if I live that long. Or if Corwen decides to reincarnate me with the memories of this life like Grubwick did with Milo. I¡¯m still a bit disturbed over what happened with Milo, and no amount of Tending (Therapy) on the part of my relatives has helped, so I¡¯m just keeping busy. I¡¯m kind of glad it didn¡¯t happen during the boat spectacle, but if the Usks were watching at all, they probably realized that attacking when there was a Heroic-ranked adventuring party in attendance was probably a bad idea. ¡°Why didn¡¯t you ask to be called your old name like Milo did?¡± Anise wonders. ¡°What was your name back on Earth?¡± ¡°Alexander Fizzlesnipe,¡± I reply. ¡°Never mind, I understand completely.¡± I chuckle. ¡°Drake a perfectly fine name and I have no complaints.¡± I give my shoddy shield to Rowan to test it out, and have to adjust the strap three times before he can even hold it properly. Although he doesn¡¯t say it out loud, his face says I have a lot of skill levels to gain before I can make a shield he¡¯s willing to use in an actual fight. Or that might be my Clairvoyance (Empathy) skill telling me how dubious he is. (Reading that my friend thinks my shoddy shield is shoddy does not earn me any skill levels.) ¡°You know, you can say what you¡¯re thinking aloud,¡± I say. ¡°I haven¡¯t unlocked a mind-reading skill yet. I won¡¯t be offended if you hate the Poor quality shield I made to unlock Crafting (Carpentry).¡± Rowan is taken aback for a moment, then chuckles. ¡°Yes, I was hoping you weren¡¯t expecting me to use this in a fight.¡± ¡°Just a game. Did you see the net we set up on the green? People will throw or kick balls at the goal, and the guard¡¯s job is to keep them from getting in.¡±The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. ¡°Huh, that does sound like fun and good training,¡± Rowan says. ¡°And you won¡¯t be offended that I hope this shield breaks immediately so I can get a better one.¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to regret telling you to speak your mind, aren¡¯t I,¡± I say. ¡°At least I didn¡¯t suggest that you block balls with your head.¡± Rowan¡¯s baffled expression requires no [Empathy] skill to read his mood. The school¡¯s toy room includes an entire box full of assorted sportsballs, all looking like they¡¯d just come out of a 21st century sportsball factory. A grey-and-white Hearth cat was napping amid the balls and indignantly hops out to wash himself upon being disturbed. There¡¯s an orange basketball, a couple of black-and-white soccer balls, a few baseballs, a volleyball, a purple foam ball, and several lime green tennis balls. ¡°Where did all of these come from?¡± I ask. ¡°They¡¯re a pretty common drop from a dungeon called the Stadium of Viscera,¡± Anise says, reaching down to ruffle the cat¡¯s fur. ¡°Dungeon drops often use weird materials like these that you won¡¯t find anywhere else.¡± ¡°And this stadium has balls but no goals?¡± ¡°Well, the goal is to kill monsters and not throw things at a net,¡± Anise shrugs. ¡°Haven¡¯t been there myself. You either need a party of Heroics or a raid group of competent Elites and I had neither.¡± Griffin, ever the curious four-year-old, appears out of nowhere (or the other side of the room, really) and says, ¡°What are you doing?¡± ¡°We¡¯re going to throw balls at Rowan,¡± Anise explains poorly. ¡°Okay!¡± Griffin grabs the volleyball with both hands and hurls it at Rowan. Rowan skillfully and completely accidentally blocks it with his head. ¡°Hey! We¡¯re throwing balls at me outside, and when I have a shield ready.¡± ¡°Oh.¡± Griffin pouts. ¡°It¡¯s less fun if you know it¡¯s coming.¡± Anise takes the volleyball, and I hand Griffin the foam ball before claiming a soccer ball for myself. Rowan collects his shield and we head outside. It¡¯s a beautiful summer day beneath the perfectly normal yellow sky. As we¡¯re playing ¡°throw things at Rowan¡± (Griffin hasn¡¯t quite understood that he¡¯s supposed to try to hit the net and not Rowan), a familiar presence approaches. ¡°Looks like you¡¯ve been having fun,¡± Meadow says. ¡°Meadow!¡± I say. ¡°How¡¯d your quest go?¡± ¡°It went well,¡± Meadow replies. ¡°We retrieved the chalice of something or other from the crypt of whatever. I was honestly not paying much attention to the lore. There were a lot of traps and undead to fight. I¡¯m still at Elite, but I didn¡¯t really expect to get to Heroic from that. And¡­ I got my class.¡± She seems to have mixed feelings about it. ¡°What class did you get?¡± I ask. ¡°[Dabbling Wanderer],¡± Meadow answers. ¡°I was also given the options of [Charlatan Drifter] and [Tranquil Gatherer], and neither of those sounded like me. It wasn¡¯t what I was hoping for, but I don¡¯t know what I was hoping for. I can live with it, though. It¡¯ll do the job until I reach Heroic rank. Or turn 42, but I really hope I can get to Heroic rank before then.¡± ¡­ [Aura Sight] might be capped, but [Vis Analysis] is not. When I¡¯m not messing around with crafting projects, I try to analyze some more vis. I spend some time hanging around in the guest house scanning the auras of travelers and residents. I get a peculiar reading from the innkeeper, Goldie.
Category Person
Race Human
Gender Female
Rank Mundane
Your Clairvoyance (Vis Analysis) skill has increased to level 4.
Mundane? Now that¡¯s not a rank I¡¯ve seen before. I didn¡¯t realize there was anything below Basic. I examine her aura more closely to try to figure out exactly what¡¯s going on with it, and realize that it is missing some sort of quality to it that everyone else has, but I can¡¯t quite put my finger on what. Fortunately, as I am not stranded cluelessly in the wilderness, I can just ask someone. ¡°Hey, Mom?¡± I ask. ¡°My [Vis Analysis] skill says that Goldie is ¡®Mundane¡¯ rank. What does that mean?¡± ¡°Oh, that,¡± Anise says. ¡°Yeah, she was born Hearthless, the poor thing. Never got named in a Hearth, so she doesn¡¯t even have access to the system. Just has to make due with doing everything the hard way, I suppose.¡± I blink. ¡°Oh. I didn¡¯t realize there were people without the system, but I guess that makes sense.¡± It also stands to reason that I¡¯m already getting bonuses from the system, as some of the things I can do are somewhat implausible for a five-year-old kid (even disregarding the psychic powers) and it¡¯s likely to only get more so. I also try to get a better analysis of my star necklace. I don¡¯t usually wear it around the village, but I keep it on me when I go outside because it can¡¯t hurt. But I have some skills I didn¡¯t have last time I tried, and higher stats. The problem is that I can¡¯t detect aether, and dungeon-made artifacts get their powers from aether rather than vis like every biological living being uses. Corwen¡¯s skill book doesn¡¯t mention a Clairvoyance (Aether Sight), but the previous two reincarnators were not greatly imaginative so it wouldn¡¯t surprise me if they never unlocked it. So I go down to the core room (by the actual ladder and not the garbage chute). I figure the best way to learn this skill is to analyze the strongest source of aether nearby and see if I can figure this out.
Corwen
Hello, Drake.
[Hi,] I reply. I¡¯m not using actual telepathy here, but Corwen is reading my mind at all and it¡¯s easier to think of it in terms of deliberate communication. It is perfectly normal for aether cores to be reading your mind at all times.
You steel your mind with comforting thoughts.
Your Discipline (Self-Delusion) skill has increased to level 3.
Everything about these entropy-reversing crystalline aliens is perfectly normal, yep yep. I wonder if Milo has this problem. And didn¡¯t he die in the 1980s? How did they even get his soul if there were no aether cores until¡ª There¡¯s something in the black hole, somehow. It¡¯s not vis. I know what vis feels like. It¡¯s like a different state of matter. Like water that has been evaporated into a cloud. The ghost of a dead star. ¡ªuntil I probed the singularity and brought something back no one had ever seen before.
Your third eye catches a glimpse of a previously unseen force.
Skill acquired: Clairvoyance (Aether Sense)
Your Recollection (Flashback) skill has increased to level 3.
Corwen
Why do you wish to know what you have forgotten?
[I¡¯m alright with this. I would like an answer to my question, if you¡¯ll tell me, though. How did Grubwick get a hold of Milo¡¯s soul if he died before aether cores existed?]
Corwen
He did not believe in an afterlife, so his soul remained on the material plane and did not ascend.
[Wait. Wait wait wait. Heaven is real? And people went there? No, never mind, this is a stupid question and a stupid thing to find surprising on top of everything else in this perfectly normal place. You know what, I think I¡¯ve had enough revelations for the moment. I¡¯m going to go identify this artifact now.] Chapter 39: Lucky Stars I return to my room, thinking firmly about what I¡¯m going to do with my new [Aether Sense] skill and not about finding weird things when psychically probing a black hole. By which I mean I can¡¯t stop thinking about the black hole. Now that [Flashback] has opened the memory, I can clearly recall the sensation of discovering aether for the very first time. The feeling of awe and wonder permeates across eons. Was I really the one who discovered aether? I must have been expensive to summon and if my Soul attribute is any indication, I¡¯m guessing I¡¯ve been a popular reincarnation subject. It can¡¯t just be because I died young regularly. I¡¯m just going to let that digest in the back of my head because it¡¯s not terribly important. (My overuse of the word ¡°terribly¡± when trying to dismiss things notwithstanding.) Right now, I¡¯m bolstered with excitement over a newly unlocked ability. The star necklace is not in my desk where I¡¯d left it, which probably means Griffin has been going through my things again. It¡¯s probably just as well that I don¡¯t own anything actually dangerous, given that I share a room with a four-year-old. I go find Griffin and retrieve the artifact while reiterating a request that he ask before taking things.
Category Artifact
Type Accessory
Material Bronze
Quality Average
Rank Basic
Aspect Luck
Congratulations! You¡¯ve identified a Basic artifact.
Your Crafting (Appraisal) skill has increased to level 2.
Luck? So it¡¯s a lucky star? How do you even quantify luck? I suppose the system can do that, somehow, although it does make me wonder just how much it¡¯s manipulating reality. To which the answer is probably ¡°completely¡±, so whatever. For all I know, the reality I¡¯ve found myself in literally runs on dice. It¡¯s only Basic rank, so it¡¯s probably not a huge bonus, but it still might have helped keep me from getting hurt back at Splott Lake. This bears testing. Naturally, this testing involves getting Rowan to wear the necklace while we throw things at him. ¡°Please say ¡®ding¡¯ whenever you get a skill level so I can write down the results in the name of science,¡± I say. ¡°I¡¯ll assume you will eventually level up your skill to the point where you can see the actual number,¡± Rowan says, hefting his shield. ¡°Let¡¯s do this.¡± I don¡¯t envy any no-fun sports rules-lawyer organization having to figure out what weird bits of magic are and aren¡¯t allowed on the field. Especially considering everyone with a system is already doing things that could be considered magic, sort of. We start throwing various balls in the general direction of the net, by which I mean Anise and Burdock throw balls while I watch. There¡¯s too many factors involved just to blindly take notes on how often Rowan gets hit, but I don¡¯t need to do it blindly. I can see vis and aether, and try to analyze where and how they interact. I feel like I¡¯m back with my newborn eyes again, trying to make sense of the world. I¡¯ve been watching the currents of vis all my life, but [Aether Sense] is brand new. I¡¯m staring at an aether-filled bronze star necklace like I once did a black hole, a gajillion years ago. (¡°Gajillion¡± is my technical term for the length of time I may have experienced over five million lifetimes.) Griffin chucks a purple foam ball at Rowan, who easily swats it aside with his shield. He takes a step, and doesn¡¯t notice a green tennis ball under his foot. The aether in the necklace pulses, and Rowan puts his foot firmly on the ground. I can¡¯t tell from here whether he just put it down somewhere else or the tennis ball actually moved on its own, but I definitely saw something happen there.
You¡¯ve detected the activation of a Basic artifact.
Your Clairvoyance (Aether Sense) skill has increased to level 2.
Another level already? I call a break to the practice and retrieve the star necklace from Rowan to take a closer look at it. Did it expend a charge or something to do that? The aether in it feels lighter than before. I might even be able to detect a cooldown timer or something. It¡¯s difficult to reconcile the engineer and the psychic, and those might have been my first two lives rather than just my first. I¡¯m not at all sure. I¡¯m missing some important memories involving how one got to the other, but I¡¯ve inferred a few things without actually pushing back on them. We discovered vis, and then we discovered aether. I don¡¯t know how or when psychic powers suddenly appeared on Earth, but that seems to be what happened. ¡°What¡¯s aether look like?¡± Griffin asks. ¡°For that matter, what does vis look like?¡± Anise adds. ¡°I will eventually figure out a way to show you,¡± I say with a shrug. ¡°I¡¯d like to identify every item we have in storage¡­ but that would be best to wait until I¡¯m 7, right?¡± Anise nods. ¡°Yeah, probably. I can¡¯t say I spent as much time when I was 5 thinking about skills as you do.¡±Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. ¡°Mostly you thought about ways to get into trouble and annoy me,¡± Aunt Hazel comments, approaching. ¡°[Adventurous Child] was much more fun than [Tidy Child],¡± Anise says. ¡°I could never believe you managed to get a class for cleaning.¡± ¡°Griffin wants to be a Warrior,¡± Aunt Hazel says. ¡°Or a Ranger. Or a Rogue. It seems like every time he learns a new vocabulary word, he wants to be one of those. Well, I¡¯m glad you¡¯re back home at least. It¡¯s not natural for a child, reincarnator or otherwise, to spend so much time away from the Hearth and your mother is quite irresponsible in letting you.¡± ¡°At least the goblins didn¡¯t get all weird about not being sure how to treat a tiny adult,¡± I say. ¡°Mom! Mom!¡± Griffin exclaims, running up to her with the purple ball in hand. ¡°I want to be a pirate!¡± Aunt Hazel sighs. ¡°And where did you hear that word?¡± ¡°Aunt Anise mentioned them!¡± ¡°What do you think a pirate does, Griffin?¡± Aunt Hazel says. ¡°Aunt Anise says they fly around the sky looking for booty!¡± Griffin says. ¡°What¡¯s booty?¡± Aunt Hazel sighs again, more heavily this time. She might be able to fill a ship¡¯s sails just with her exasperated sighs sometimes.
The orange season grows late as October approaches, and the teenagers who attend Crux Academy are returning by flying school bus. I always love watching skyships whenever I get a chance. As they¡¯re pulling in to dock, I wonder aloud, ¡°Does anyone ever fly around to the bottom of the domain?¡± ¡°There¡¯s dragons down there, so I hear,¡± Anise says. The sky turns red, and with that, another season of monsters is upon us. I get to watch Aunt Heather perform the divination, and this time we¡¯re joined by Willow. She¡¯s not likely to understand much but she¡¯s fascinated by magic. The overhead view of Tempest in the magic mirror displays no large red dots this year, just lots and lots of smaller ones. She zooms in on one cluster, and the mirror shifts to display several reddish grasshopper-like monsters the size of my arm tearing apart a bear. Beside me, Willow gasps. ¡°That poor bear!¡± ¡°Blood locusts,¡± Aunt Heather mutters. ¡°Basic and Elite, and in large numbers. Not detecting anything else. This is going to be an annoying season.¡± She goes and informs the Hearth, and people make some quick preparations. ¡°This is an excellent opportunity to farm some combat experience,¡± Grandma Laurel says. ¡°Anyone with combat capability should take watch on the walls and kill any bugs that get close. Basic-rank noncombatants should stay inside.¡± ¡°What¡¯s a noncombatant?¡± Griffin pipes up. ¡°Someone who doesn¡¯t fight.¡± ¡°I want to fight the bugs!¡± Griffin exclaims, for once learning a vocabulary word and not wanting to do that. Aunt Hazel puts her face in her palm. ¡°No, Griffin. You are four years old. You don¡¯t even have your first class yet.¡± Grandma Laurel chuckles. ¡°We can capture one of the Basic rank monsters for the more adventurous kids to play with.¡± ¡°Yay!¡± Griffin claps his hands. The balconies have been retracted and the windows sealed up, closing up most places a relatively small flying monster might enter from. Rowan decided to return to Talgarth for the fall, and he will hopefully get plenty of combat practice there too. I¡¯m not sure how many fighters Talgarth has, though I know Corwen is more combat-ready than most. ¡°Where is your adventuring party staying this season?¡± I ask Uncle Hawk. ¡°Are there many elves or dwarves in Tempest?¡± ¡°No, they¡¯re from different domains in Tiganna. They¡¯re staying at Penbryn Hearth at the moment. The Penbryns paid to protect them from monsters since they¡¯re short on high-level warriors at the moment.¡± I stay inside for the most part, and it¡¯s not like I¡¯m hurting for things to do in the meantime. Reading, listening, drawing, playing¡­ I even take up poetry for a bit to see if I will get a skill unlocked for it. I will spare you the efforts as the system was also unimpressed. Blood locusts become a staple of this year¡¯s fall menu, and much to my regret I actually find them tasty. They have the flavor of steak but with the texture of crab. The stronger fighters bring in the occasional live one for Griffin and the other youngsters eager to fight to practice on, with the close supervision of an Elite or higher ranked relative. ¡°Hah!¡± Griffin exclaims, brandishing his wooden sword. ¡°I¡¯ve got you now, monster!¡± The blood locust slowly twitches its antennae at him. Its movements are lethargic, and I think someone put a debuff on it to make it even less of a threat to a small child. I would think this cruel if this weren¡¯t a monster-infested world where one day soon, this village will be relying on kids like Griffin to defend the walls from swarms. Aunt Myrtle is dying. She spends much of her time telling stories to the young ones, mostly lore that¡¯s been passed down in the family for generations and not adventures that she herself experienced, since as a Hearthkeeper she hasn¡¯t gone on many adventures. I don¡¯t know how long she has left, and I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if she passed on tomorrow or six months from now. And when she goes, our two Legendaries will be leaving on their own quest. The dark season is upon us and I help my sister and cousins hang up winter decorations. I try to teach them the words to Not-Christmas carols but it occurs to me that I don¡¯t know what the actual words are myself. I just kind of turned on auto-translation and never turned it off.
You are now 6 years old.
All physical attributes have increased by 1.
And so I turn a year older. One more year ahead of me and I will add an adjective to my child class. There¡¯s are sixteen possibilities, one for each general skill. I already know the Crafting-related one, [Creative Child], will be the one for me. For the apprentice and adult classes, however, I have no idea what I might wind up with. Corwen¡¯s big book of classes mentions a dizzying array, and the higher rank you get, the more likely it is that you wind up with a class no one else in the Hearth has ever had. I help Aunt Myrtle in the hearth with the dark season cooking. Age is creeping up on her and she¡¯s not doing so well at standing, and her hands shake too much to use a knife anymore, so she mostly just lends her presence to directing the mayhem of the younger generations.
You have assisted in crafting a Good quality meal.
Your Crafting (Cooking) skill has increased to level 2.
Again, I¡¯m happy not to have to think about the subskills. Just [Cooking] and [Brewing], which I haven¡¯t done any of yet and ought to do next. I don¡¯t know how annoyed I might be if I had to have [Baking], [Grilling], [Frying], [Broiling], [Steaming], [Roasting], [Kneading], [Mincing], and whatever other cooking-related verbs I could possibly think of. Don¡¯t ask me. I was a master of the microwave in my first life. The traditional Hearth Day roast devil-goat is a nice break from the blood locusts, at least. And another New Year sees the dark sky turn violet once again.
It is now the Year 736 of the Age of the Green Fox.
Chapter 40: Ancestral Legends It¡¯s winter and I¡¯m back to making board games. Snakes and ladders was such a terrible game that even Willow and Griffin noticed and demanded a better game. ¡°This game is boring,¡± Willow says, pouting. ¡°Well, I won!¡± Griffin says. ¡°You also cheated,¡± Juniper puts in. ¡°Did not!¡± Griffin protests. ¡°Doesn¡¯t matter,¡± Willow says. ¡°It¡¯s all luck anyway.¡± ¡°Griffin, did you take Drake¡¯s lucky necklace again?¡± Juniper says. The unfortunate thing is that I only made the snakes and ladders board because I never had kids and couldn¡¯t think of anything simple and appropriate for four-year-olds that wasn¡¯t too complicated for my skills. Now they¡¯re about to turn five and are clever and bored. I¡¯m just glad that Corwen is wealthy and always has plenty of Basic materials they don¡¯t mind youngsters wasting on honing their skills. They consider the Basic-rank materials to be pretty much trash and just let me use them instead of recycling them in the core room. I make a matching game by drawing pictures with words on thick paper. Good for teaching vocabulary and honing memory. I don¡¯t know why I didn¡¯t think of that in the first place. That will keep them occupied while I make a nice wooden mahjong set. (I take some creative liberties in what the tiles depict as I think the kids will find goats more interesting than Chinese characters they can¡¯t read and have no reason to learn.) Unfortunately, I¡¯m not sure how to actually play the multiplayer version of mahjong as I only played the solitaire version. And I don¡¯t remember how to set up the stacks of tiles for the solitaire version. But we¡¯ll figure it out. It¡¯s not like a trio of small children is going to notice I¡¯m cribbing half-remembered games from Earth or criticize that I got them wrong. The hardest part turns out to be getting all the tiles exactly even without precision tools. Fortunately, I have a skill to help with that. I don¡¯t remember the dimensions of mahjong tiles so I picked 3 cm by 4 cm and 1 cm thick, which looks¡­ more or less right, but they aren¡¯t all perfect. The kids will eventually notice which ones are off, but I will make a better set once my skills are higher.
Congratulations! You have crafted a Poor quality toy.
Your Search (Measurement) skill has increased to level 2.
All that work and it¡¯s still Poor. The little painted livestock, fruits, and flowers aren¡¯t all identical but should look close enough as I picked ones with distinct shapes and colors. And it¡¯s a good thing I got the wooden set done as they¡¯ve already ruined the flimsy cards I made. They¡¯ve been folded, torn, and scuffed up. ¡°Griffin folded the corners when he thought we weren¡¯t looking,¡± Juniper says. ¡°It was an accident,¡± Griffin protests. ¡°Try to be more careful, Griffin,¡± Aunt Hazel says. ¡°Your cousin worked hard on these games he¡¯s making for you.¡± ¡°It¡¯s alright,¡± I say. ¡°They were Poor quality and didn¡¯t take long to make. I kind of expected that to happen. Here, look! I made something else.¡± I put the box full of tiles on the floor and they all crowd over to peer in as I start pulling them out. ¡°What did you make this time, Drake?¡± Aunt Hazel asks. ¡°It¡¯s wonderful that you¡¯re spending time making things for your family and not out playing with goblins.¡± ¡°There¡¯s different games you can play with these but you can use them for the matching memory game too,¡± I say. ¡°Why don¡¯t we start off with that?¡±
I¡¯m trying to figure out how to set up the ¡°turtle¡± formation for my wooden tiles (and realizing I didn¡¯t make enough of them) when Anise charges into the play room. ¡°Drake! There¡¯s a skyship coming in,¡± Anise says. ¡°It¡¯s big and fancy! Come see!¡± I drop what I¡¯m doing (accidentally scattering tiles on the floor) and rush out with her to greet our visitors, by which I mean gawk at their vessel. A flying galleon slowly circles the village as it approaches the dock on the gate tower, silhouetted against the indigo sky. At least a dozen shimmering silken sails in different colors jut out from every side of the ship, but some of them are already furled and others are folding up as the ship comes in to dock. The struts beneath and beside the ship can move to get out of the way for docking and landing, it looks like. The hull is made of some sort of reddish-black wood and covered from bow to stern with glowing sigils. An animated figurehead at the front looks around at the village with a curious and critical expression. ¡°Wow¡­¡± is all I can say, and try to see if I can identify the ship.
Category Artifact
Type Vessel
Quality Excellent
Rank Legendary
I probably didn¡¯t need a skill to figure out that much. I can¡¯t glean any details about the materials or effects. Too many unfamiliar things packed together. Aether and vis wrap around the vessel in a flawless weave, little puffs of concepts flashing here and there as our visitors stop at the dock and begin to disembark. Grandma Laurel and Aunt Heather are already up there to greet them, while most of the village has come out to stare, crowding the village square, walkways and balconies. We don¡¯t have too long to wait before the two of them emerge from the tower along with a woman wearing a sigil-covered red robe and bearing a face I have seen every day in the hearth.This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. ¡°Apple! It¡¯s Apple!¡± people around me mutter as their voices ripple through the crowd. ¡°Apple is back! Our founder has returned to us!¡± Far from basking in the attention, Apple looks a little overwhelmed. And her aura is as black as mine, moving through a sea of violet.
Category Reincarnator
Race Human
Gender Female
Rank Legendary
Class Mage
Mood Mixed
[I wasn¡¯t expecting the Hollywood star treatment,] Apple sends to me telepathically in English as she notices me. [I hope nobody expects me to sign autographs.] [I didn¡¯t realize you were a reincarnator too,] I reply. ¡°Hello to all my beautiful descendants,¡± Apple says. ¡°I¡¯ve had a long journey, though, and would like nothing better than to settle in next to the fire and drink a cup of warm Corwen apple cider.¡± A few others get off the skyship and head for the guest house, but they receive much less attention. Apple makes for the Hearth, surrounded by babbling descendants asking her questions until Grandma Laurel holds up her hands. ¡°Please, everyone, give Apple some breathing room,¡± Grandma Laurel says. ¡°I know she hasn¡¯t been back here in a few hundred years and I¡¯m sure there will be plenty of time for stories. Go on, get back to whatever you were doing.¡± The crowd reluctantly breaks up and resumes their usual activities, but I follow Apple into the Hearth. I¡¯m sure she wouldn¡¯t mind talking with someone who knows what a Hollywood star is. Aunt Magnolia promptly provides booze when prompted, and an impromptu party starts up in the hearth. Apple politely pretends to be cheerful at the prospect, but my Clairvoyance (Empathy) can clearly detect that she¡¯s less than pleased and is likely using some sort of skill with a name that probably isn¡¯t Discipline (Tune Out All of this Nonsense).
Your Clairvoyance (Empathy) skill has increased to level 3.
[Hello, little reincarnator,] Apple sends. [At least you¡¯re not over-awed. Call me Liz. Apple¡¯s a terrible name but I kind of got stuck with it. Tell me about yourself. What sort of person has Corwen incarnated this time?] I also quickly realize that Corwen¡¯s big book of skills only includes members who have died. Apple¡ªLiz¡ªis still alive so her skills have never been added. And she clearly didn¡¯t disregard our psychic powers as much as the other reincarnators. [My name is Drake this time around,] I tell her. [A name which I¡¯m perfectly happy with. I was born in California in the 1990s. I was an engineer. I mostly designed electronics and high-tech equipment. I want to build a skyship that¡¯s even more awesome than yours someday.] Liz gives a mental chuckle. [Well, you¡¯re better at summarizing your life story than I am. Of course, our last reincarnator was another young Japanese man who got hit by a truck, and he was pretty clueless otherwise.] [Are there a lot of young Japanese men who got hit with trucks being reincarnated?] I wonder. [Pretty sure it¡¯s just the same ones showing up over and over. Most of them don¡¯t even make it to 21. Sato¡¯s Soul attribute was in the billions. You prefer using your latest name?] [My name was Alexander Fizzlesnipe.] [Fizzlesnipe? As in, Fizzlesnipe Industries?] [I started my own company? Huh.] [You don¡¯t remember?] Liz asks. [Parts of my memory are fuzzy,] I answer. [My younger years are pretty clear, but I don¡¯t remember much of my later life.] [You should be able to clear that up with Recollection.] [I know,] I think. [I haven¡¯t really pushed it.] [Well, that¡¯s your prerogative.] Liz sends a mental shrug. [I was born in the 1950s, and I couldn¡¯t really keep up with some of the tech that showed up late in my life. I look forward to seeing what you can design with magitech. Have you made anything interesting so far?] [I made a mahjong set for my sister and cousins. And I helped some goblins build a bridge.] [Really? I¡¯m surprised you didn¡¯t get a quest to kill the goblins.] [I don¡¯t get quests,] I tell her. [Apparently Corwen wanted to see what I would do if I didn¡¯t get any.] [Corwen must have a lot of confidence in you,] Liz comments. [What have your quests been like?] [They were probably the only reason Ash and I survived the early days at all,] Liz explains. [We didn¡¯t even have a Hearth yet and neither of us knew anything about surviving in the wilderness. Corwen guided us to where we could gather resources and the system helped us build and craft the things we needed.] Meanwhile, Liz has been smoothly having a conversation aloud, actually more than one. I¡¯m guessing she probably has some sort of mind-multitasking skill that I will eventually pick up myself. [Was Ash a reincarnator too?] I wonder. [Yeah, we all were. Every last one of them was from Earth. Each had its progenitors, though they didn¡¯t all make it. The place that¡¯s now the Spooky Forest was one that didn¡¯t. The woman died and the man came to live near Corwen after that. He was probably one of your ancestors.] [Did every core summon a man and a woman?] I ask. [Nah. One core summoned a pair of the machoest macho men you¡¯d have ever seen, perhaps testing if the world could be conquered by sheer force of testosterone. They killed each other. Another Hearth started with three women. They were ancients, so more knowledgeable about low-tech, and fantastic at magic. All three of them made Legendary. I¡¯m going to need to talk to them while I¡¯m back in Tempest.] [So you and the others are responsible for the local culture being what it is?] Liz seems amused. [I had the opportunity to build a society without the expectations and restrictions of women that I was born into, and so I took it. And Ash was a gay man born in Wales in the 2010s, and was fully supportive. I was married for fifty years and only felt like I was really free when I became a widow. I didn¡¯t want any daughters of mine to feel trapped in a loveless marriage.] [I can¡¯t say I can truly understand what it feels like to be a little girl in the 1950s,] I admit. [And I couldn¡¯t tell you what I would have expected of being reborn into this weird sci-fantasy setting. Where in the world did Common come from, though?] [Not everyone spoke English as a first language. One of the others was a huge linguistics nerd. She got a quest to construct a common language for the descendants of people from different countries and time periods. Once it got into the system, it took very little effort to teach enough to unlock the auto-translator.] ¡°Why are you really back at the Hearth, Apple?¡± Aunt Heather asks. ¡°I¡¯m recruiting for a Legendary quest,¡± Liz says. ¡°And I do hope you and Laurel come along. The boss we¡¯re after is very annoying but needs to be dealt with.¡± [And no, you are not coming on my quest,] Liz firmly tells me. [Only if you make Legendary before he¡¯s dealt with, and I certainly hope this won¡¯t take that long. Although I can¡¯t guarantee you won¡¯t have to deal with another of this guy¡¯s reincarnations.] [Who?] I ask. Liz gives a very heavy mental sigh. [Hitler. At least once a century, some edgy dungeon thinks it¡¯s a brilliant idea to summon him as a boss. They probably have a waiting list. In any case, I¡¯m part of a group of reincarnators who patrol the Crystalline Heavens. Whenever someone starts going around trying to conquer things, one of us goes to investigate.] [You have an entire organization dedicated to killing Hitler¡¯s reincarnations? Seriously?] [Not exactly,] Liz thinks. [Convincing him to take up painting for a lifetime is generally preferable since that keeps him out of trouble for longer. Hopefully he will eventually become a Legendary Artist and we can have some centuries of respite from this nonsense. Anyway, there¡¯s also some discount villains we keep an eye on too.] ¡°When are we leaving?¡± Laurel asks. ¡°Soon,¡± Liz says. ¡°Prepare for a long trip. Even in the Prydwen, it will take us over a year just to get there. And I don¡¯t know how long it might take. If the situation were as simple as sending a lightning bolt at one person, I would have done it already.¡± Chapter 41: Flight to Grubwick [Tell me more about these goblins you¡¯ve been working with,] Liz asks. It feels both weird and refreshing to be able to use telepathy with someone to whom it is second nature and has been using it for centuries. It¡¯s starting to strain my Inspiration meter, though, as I have had few opportunities to have continuous back-and-forth conversations in the mind. [They also have a reincarnator with no quests,] I tell her. [Name¡¯s Milo, as he preferred to be called by his original name.] [Hmm, not one I¡¯ve heard of before, then. Did he ever tell you what his Soul attribute is?] [37. Although I suppose it¡¯s 38 now. He died and got immediately incarnated again.] [That low?] Liz seems surprised. [There has to be some reason why he¡¯s been such an unpopular reincarnation target.] [I thought my having a Soul attribute over 5 million was unusual and ridiculous.] [Mine is around 300,000,] Liz replies. [I have inferred that¡­ the universe is old. Really, really old. We¡¯ve all been in this cycle for eons. You know how the system tells you that it¡¯s the Age of the Green Fox? Ages are 10,000 years long. There was an Age of the Azure Fox before this one, and the Indigo Fox before that. I don¡¯t know how many colored animals the universe has gone through.] [How many reincarnators from Earth are there?] I wonder. [I don¡¯t know. Anyone who sincerely believed in an afterlife and wanted to go there already went there. The rest us are still here.] [So¡­ is this hell?] I have to ask. Liz gives a mental shrug. [You could probably consider it that, but it¡¯s a hell with no Jehovah¡¯s Witnesses.] [Trade-offs, I suppose.] [I want to meet this Milo and have a chat with him. How did you even meet him?] [We were running the Hedge Maze and I was retrieving a chest from a hidden room only someone very small could get into when the rest of my party was kidnapped by goblins. Uncle Hawk was taken to their village and Milo tried to sacrifice him and failed to injure him because Uncle Hawk is Heroic and Milo was a small child with a stone knife.] [And¡­ this led you to helping him instead of killing him? How? Why?] [I promised I¡¯d help him rank up and improve his village¡¯s situation if he let Uncle Hawk go. So we negotiated trade agreements and I taught his goblins about masonry and pottery. He has expressed a hope that his goblins will eventually have luxury resorts and a preference to accomplishing that through business rather than violence.] [That¡¯s good to hear,] Liz thinks. [Evil capitalist business empires are less annoying than evil necromantic empires. You said his village was near the Hedge Maze? We can pop over there tomorrow. The Prydwen can get us there in no time.] [Sounds good. I should get to bed. It¡¯s getting dark and my Inspiration is running low and if I drink anymore tea my bladder will burst.] Liz chuckles, nods, and shoos me off to sleep.
You have conducted a conversation with a Legendary psychic.
Your Clairvoyance (Telepathy) skill has increased to level 3.
The next morning, dark clouds are blotting out the skymotes, and the ground is drenched. It¡¯s not actively pouring at the moment, so we make our way across the village square before it starts up again. We make it on board just as it¡¯s starting to sprinkle. I¡¯m not about to go inside and miss the feeling of being out on deck on my first skyship flight, though. I¡¯ve only been on a skyship once before, and it didn¡¯t actually go anywhere. I¡¯m practically vibrating with anticipation over actually getting a chance to have a good look at Liz¡¯s ship and fly on it, even if we won¡¯t be leaving Tempest Domain. I watch the view of the Hearth quickly recede behind us. The apple orchards that seem so vast when walking through them on foot are just a patch of green against the surrounding terrain. The weather does nothing to dampen my spirits even if the rest of me is dampened. The rain of late winter is chilly but I don¡¯t care. Liz chuckles when she sees me standing at the raiing gleefully watching the countryside whoosh by. [The trip won¡¯t be long but you don¡¯t need to stand in the rain the whole time.] [Mom can dry me off with Sorcery when we get to the caves,] I protest. It¡¯s noisy enough out here in the wind and rain that telepathic contact is easier. No one on this ship is shouting anything, and yet everyone works flawlessly as a team. This would probably be eerier if I couldn¡¯t see the vis zipping back and forth across the deck. The air practically sparkles to my third eye. It¡¯s not any sort of mind control bond or anything, I can tell that even if this level of psychic power is beyond me at the moment. It doesn¡¯t feel like anyone is being compelled to follow Liz¡¯s orders, just that they immediately know what those orders are. They all just trust her completely. I think I¡¯m learning things simply by watching her use her skills.
You have observed several high-level techniques being used.
Your Clairvoyance (Vis Analysis) skill has increased to level 5.
[We¡¯re heading for the Hedge Maze first,] Liz tells me. [Should be there in a few minutes. Then we¡¯ll need to locate this cave. You mentioned a bridge. Is that nearby?] [You don¡¯t have some magical cave-detecting skill?] I ask. [Sure, but finding the right one is another matter,] Liz sends. [There¡¯s lots of caves, and they open and close on a whim. From what I¡¯ve heard, this one may have only opened a few years ago shortly before you encountered it. Ah, there we are coming up on the Hedge Maze now.] [Already!?] I exclaim. The view of the Hedge Maze from overhead is¡­ odd. It does indeed look like a maze of hedges and I can make out the pond we fished at that one time, but my [Aether Sense] is picking up on what I¡¯m guessing is an optical illusion to conceal the true current layout of the maze. Or perhaps that there¡¯s way more space inside the dungeon than outside. It looks smaller than I would have guessed, but we may just be very high up.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Liz laughs, and a strand of her black hair gets blown by the wind into her open mouth. [We try to stay below the sound barrier when in atmosphere,] she sends as she gathers her hair and ties it back. [When we¡¯re out of a skymote¡¯s atmosphere sheath, we usually take a standard cruising speed of 5000 kilometers per hour. We can push considerably faster than that in an emergency, but then it takes longer to decelerate and respond to unexpected conditions.] I may have greatly underestimated the potential of skyships and I really shouldn¡¯t have. However far below, the Hedge Maze is falling behind as the ship slightly more slowly tries to locate Skullburn Bridge. [How large is the Crystalline Heavens?] I ask. [It¡¯s a perfect sphere 300 million kilometers in diameter,] Liz replies. [The Great Orb is 100 million kilometers in diameter, but beyond that, most of the area is densely packed with skymotes and their domains. Tiganna skymote has an atmosphere sheath 13,000 kilometers in diameter, which is fairly average. And yes, I have skills to measure things and retain information that I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll be picking up too.] [I already have Search (Measurement) but I¡¯m definitely going to need to learn the other. Why isn¡¯t there a book with this sort of basic information?] [You¡¯re welcome to write one,] Liz replies. [Ah, look ahead. That stone bridge looks like it was made by goblins. Is that the one we¡¯re looking for?] [What makes you think it was made by goblins?] I wonder. [I designed it!] [Clairvoyance (Psychometry). It has goblin vis all over it. And some human, too.] Of course the Legendary Archmage can do psychometry on something a mile away. The Prydwen doesn¡¯t actually land near the bridge, as the trees are too dense for such a large vessel. Liz leads me to a smaller boat, and Anise and Grandma Laurel meet us there. The landing craft is about the size of the sort of pleasure craft some rich jerk in California might keep parked on the street in front of their house 360 days a year blocking half the street. It brings the four of us down to land next to the bridge in moments, and we hop off on the ground. I stop at the bridge and touch it, frowning thoughtfully and trying to see if I can detect the goblin Liz says is still clinging to it. I slowly realize that I¡¯m looking at a third state of magic. If aether is gas and vis is liquid, then essence is solid. The psychic residue in this bridge is static, imprinted by the vis of the ones who made it just as much as their chisels left their marks.
You have successfully analyzed the essence of a Basic structure.
Skill acquired: Clairvoyance (Psychometry)
Category Object
Type Bridge
Race Goblin, Human
Materials Stone
Rank Basic
Durability 999/1000
[There we go,] I think. [Unlocked Clairvoyance (Psychometry). And the goblin cave is this way.] [You got it just as soon as I mentioned it!?] Liz¡¯s mental voice rings with undisguised surprise. [Most reincarnators I¡¯ve encountered don¡¯t manage it even if I try to walk them through it.] [I do remember being a psychic. Is that unusual?] [Your Soul attribute doesn¡¯t go up until you¡¯ve died once. Most reincarnators only remember their first life unless they lean heavily into Recollection. So I take it you¡¯ve unlocked some memories from one of your succeeding lives.] [I remember being on an interstellar spaceship scanning a black hole,] I tell her. [This is not something I would have imagined any Fizzlesnipe Industries being capable of, unless something crazy happened in later years. I think it might have been my second life, but I haven¡¯t delved too deeply into it yet.] We reach the cave and head inside. It has been widened a little from frequent use, and the walk through the mushroom caves is quiet but for the usual background noise of the In-Between¡¯s wildlife. If I paid more attention, I might be able to identify the squeals and buzzes and howls in the distance. We enter the village. Their watch saw us coming well in advance, and they¡¯ve brought out Milo to meet us. A one-year-old goblin is about the equivalent of a three-year-old human, so he¡¯s at least walking again already. ¡°Hello Drake, Anise, Laurel,¡± Milo says. ¡°I see you¡¯ve brought someone new. Might you introduce me?¡± ¡°This is Liz Corwen,¡± I say. ¡°Legendary Archmage.¡± ¡°I see,¡± Milo says. ¡°I thought your village only had two Legendaries. Not that two isn¡¯t more than enough.¡± ¡°I haven¡¯t been back to Tempest in a long time,¡± Liz says. ¡°Drake tells me you¡¯re a reincarnator.¡± ¡°Yes,¡± Milo says. ¡°This sounds like a conversation we ought to have sitting down. Unless you¡¯re here to kill us all or something. And you wouldn¡¯t have bothered coming in to say hi if you were.¡± ¡°I will probably not be killing you today,¡± Liz says. ¡°That isn¡¯t reassuring.¡± Milo leads us over to the inn. Since our last visit, the lighting has been improved and the rough wooden chairs look like they were made from someone at Elite rank rather than Basic rank. They don¡¯t wobble at all. ¡°Would you like to try the trilling grub cheese?¡± Milo offers. ¡°Every batch has been better than the last.¡± ¡°Fantastic, I knew it would work!¡± I exclaim. A goblin brings us a clay plate with chunks of fragrant pink cheese. None of my weird family members hesitate to try it. We already regularly eat giant bugs and monster cheese anyway. The texture is soft, similar to cream cheese, but the flavor is incredibly pungent. ¡°Oh, wow, this stuff will be amazing to dare drunk people to eat,¡± my mom says. ¡°You saw a Legendary traveler show up and your first thought was to offer her samples of your product,¡± Liz says with some amusement. ¡°You¡¯re definitely a businessman. I can send my quartermaster down later if you want to discuss business, but I¡¯ll be leaving Tempest Domain in a week and I don¡¯t know when I¡¯ll be back.¡± ¡°Of course,¡± Milo says. ¡°I¡¯m certain that you did not come here to discuss cheese you did not know was here. You¡¯ve come to discuss my being a reincarnator and you want to make sure I don¡¯t become a dark lord or the like.¡± ¡°Yes, that,¡± Liz says. ¡°We need to have a nice, long talk. And more importantly, I need to ask your core a few questions.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know if it will answer, but¡ª¡± Milo begins.
Grubwick
I will answer.
¡°Great,¡± Liz says. ¡°I want to know if Milo was a purchase or a rental, why you chose him, and why you decided to give him no quests.¡±
Grubwick
He was a purchase. He was inexpensive due to his high Defiance rating and multiple betrayals due to violent rejection of quests. It has been seventeen Ages since he last incarnated and his previous incarnation was responsible for the destruction of his own Hearth.
¡°I¡¯m¡­ sure I had my reasons,¡± Milo says.
Grubwick
Of course. And that is why I offer no quests and impose no restrictions.
¡°And you just picked me because I was cheap.¡±
Grubwick
I made a bet with Corwen that our incarnates could succeed without quests. Corwen believed its incarnate would be useless if unguided but was willing to see what would happen.
¡°I¡¯m not sure which of us should be more insulted here,¡± Milo says. ¡°Wait a minute,¡± I say. ¡°Are you telling me that for my core to ¡®win¡¯, I would need to be useless?¡± Liz is laughing. ¡°This could be very entertaining. It¡¯s a pity I won¡¯t be here to see it as I will need to be moving on soon.¡± ¡°Are you satisfied, Liz?¡± Milo asks. Liz waves a hand. ¡°Yeah. Don¡¯t do genocide or the like and I won¡¯t have to care.¡± Chapter 42: The Meaning of Life, Or Not [One more thing. I need to make you both one of these.] She indicates one of the trinkets on her robes, a purple and black pin with some sigils around the rim. [It indicates that you¡¯re a psychic and have been vouched for by psychic in good standing. That will let people know that you¡¯re a reincarnator, and not a necromancer or possessor. Well, technically there¡¯s a few domains out there where reincarnators are considered baby murderers. Take care if you ever wind up in Zansier System.] [Noted,] Milo notes. Liz takes off her pin and points it at Milo, and channels some vis into it to activate some sigils. A similar but simpler pin appears in her other hand, which she offers to one of his attendants. She repeats the process with me and attaches the pin to my sweater, gleaming against the black wool. [I¡¯m never going to stop being impressed at the ability to make things out of thin air,] I comment. [And the potential economic consequences of it,] Milo adds. [Technically, all it did was use some of the material in my inventory. Cheaper than converting it directly from vis. The pins are attuned to your own vis signature, but they¡¯re basically temporary licenses. Ones like mine have the ability to make pins like yours, but not permanent ones with self-duplication sigils. Once you get to a larger population center or attend a school like the Crux Academy, you can exchange it for a full version and get registered properly.] Liz bids Milo good day and promises to send down her quartermaster to discuss his cheese, and we head back to the surface. The Pryden has its sails positioned facing downward and is casually hovering in the air as if gravity is a mere suggestion it simply doesn¡¯t feel like abiding by. [I don¡¯t think Grubwick was telling us the whole story,] Liz comments as we board the landing skiff. [I get the feeling it just told us what it did to mess with us, however much truth is in it,] I observe. [I do not seriously believe that Corwen would have bet against me.]
You have made a keen observation.
Skill acquired: Discipline (Deductive Reasoning)
[I also think sometimes it gives me skillups in lieu of actually commenting on something.] We return to the Prydwen and Liz has a brief talk with a tall, white-haired man, who heads off to the ground. [We¡¯ll hold position here until they¡¯re done with the boring numbers,] Liz sends. [We still have much to talk about. For one, what sort of class are you aiming for?] [I¡¯d like to be a crafter. Specifically, I want to build an awesome skyship like yours and fly it around.] Liz¡¯s physical face remains impassive, but I can distinctly feel a mental grin. [Drake, how many general skills are there?] Liz asks, her mental voice taking on a teacherly quality. [16,] I reply. [Two for each attribute.] [And how many child classes are known to Corwen Hearth?] [14¡­ it¡¯s missing ones for Clairvoyance and Recollection.] [It¡¯s only listing the class choices of ones people have been offered. Not counting the two of us, we¡¯ve had two other reincarnators. Neither of them was gifted for it. We don¡¯t even know what those classes do, never mind what they might evolve into.] [Now I¡¯m curious,] I admit. [I don¡¯t know what the bonuses they might give are, but you are likely to be using Clairvoyance constantly. Creative Child gives extra experience for skills used while crafting. This can result in learning Athletics (Dodging) if they¡¯re doing something that technically counts as crafting while in combat.] [You have known some serious munchkins,] I observe. [Though I suppose I can¡¯t talk. I learned to make a goblin kayak to unlock Crafting (Shipbuilding). What were your initial class choices?] [I spawned as an adult, so my three class choices were Warrior, Crafter, and Scout. Ash picked Crafter and I picked Scout. I suppose at least it didn¡¯t give us classes based on what our previous lives on Earth were. We¡¯d have starved in the first week if we didn¡¯t poison ourselves. Once we hit Elite and were able to do magic, then things got interesting, though it wasn¡¯t until Heroic that I was able to actually pick a class based on magic. What are your highest skill categories at?]If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. [I¡¯ll send you a summary.]
Athletics 6
Clairvoyance 18
Crafting 24
Discipline 10
Knowledge 4
Language 5
Mechanics 4
Persuasion 2
Recollection 6
Search 7
Striking 3
Subterfuge 9
Survival 11
Tending 5
Liz gives a mental nod. [So you¡¯re likely to be offered Creative Child, the class for Clairvoyance, and whichever other skill winds up highest when you turn 7.] [I¡¯ll definitely give some serious consideration to which one I go with.] [In a way, the early class choices are like practice for the really hard choices later,] Liz comments. [There¡¯s a fixed number of them with well-understood requirements. Things will not be so simple from there on out.] I¡¯m full of churning thoughts as we finish up here and return to the Hearth. I¡¯m trying to learn as much as I can from Liz in the short time we have, but there¡¯s a lot I¡¯m going to need to process once she¡¯s gone. [On some level, I¡¯m not Alexander Fizzlesnipe,] I muse. [I¡¯m a copy of his memories that has been copied another five million times before me. His vis died, and was converted into aether along with everyone else on Earth. We¡¯re ghosts shoved into the bodies of infants. Does the self survive being turned into aether then back into vis? Eh. It ultimately doesn¡¯t matter. We are what we are. Philosophy won¡¯t change that.] [Perhaps. But evaluating your perspective upon the world and self may help train your Discipline and Recollection skills.] [And the skills!] I think. [What even are skills? The system is a huge psychic computer, but what are skills?] [That sounds like something for you to study,] Liz replies. [I use my powers as a tool but I don¡¯t have any deep understanding of the nature of the universe. That¡¯s a journey you¡¯re going to need to make yourself, if it matters to you.] In what seems like mere moments, we¡¯re pulling in to dock again. We flew out to Grubwick and were back in time for dinner. I so want my own skyship. I head straight for the core room. I have questions and Corwen doesn¡¯t like to chat if it doesn¡¯t have to if I¡¯m not down there next to it.
Corwen
Hello, Drake.
[Hi Corwen,] I think. [I just had some very interesting conversations. Corwen, would you please tell me what the terms to your agreement with Grubwick were? And yes, I¡¯m sure I wish to know.]
Corwen
I did not bet on you being useless. The terms are a payout in essence at the end of the Age to whichever one of you attains the highest rank.
[Ages are 10,000 years long, right? Grubwick already reincarnated Milo twice now. Are you intending on doing the same with me? And what did Liz mean by a ¡®purchase¡¯ and ¡®rental¡¯.?]
Corwen
A purchased soul belongs to the core until it wishes to sell it. A rental is only good for a single life. You are a rental. You won¡¯t reincarnate here again when you die. You were expensive and I cannot afford to incarnate you again.
A lifeform I discovered in a black hole took over the Earth and enslaved humanity for their entertainment. Except we can¡¯t even really complain about it because we would be extinct otherwise. Maybe if Milo and I do well enough, that will encourage them to try out free will more often. Not that quests are actually mind control, strictly speaking. It¡¯s just being paid to do a job, when you boil it down. I have no existential dread. I don¡¯t feel bad about essentially spending my afterlife doing live-action roleplaying for eternity.
Your Discipline (Self-Delusion) skill has increased to level 4.
The system offers no commentary, letting my thought speak for itself. [So essentially, you¡¯re betting that I can get further in one lifetime than Milo can in thousands of years, even without quests. Are you annoyed that much of what I¡¯ve been doing so far has benefited Milo?]
Corwen
No. Your choice of peace over war is interesting and likely to benefit you more in the long run.
I thank it for the discussion and return to the hearth to eat. ¡°So, when Corwen spawned us, Ash and I were both naked,¡± Liz is telling a gaggle of gathered children (and adults who are pretending not to be as excited as the children). ¡°I thought he was going to be all caveman at me. For about the first five seconds. He practically died of embarrassment like he¡¯d never seen a woman in the nude before. And when he commented two minutes later that he was gay, I realized that either this reincarnation was one big joke or we were not expected to repopulate humanity by ourselves. Fortunately, we ran across other people, and many of them were friendly and willing to have benefits to that friendship.¡± Liz is trying to cram a century¡¯s worth of telling stories to her great-(x???)-grandkids stories into the few days before she¡¯s planning to leave again. I get a bowl of stew and settle in to listen for a bit. ¡°We¡¯ll be heading out on another trip in the morning,¡± Liz says. ¡°I need to meet with some old friends before I leave Tempest, and I¡¯d like you to come along on this one too, Drake. I think they might have some very interesting things to say to you. Hopefully they aren¡¯t hanging around anywhere too inconvenient and they¡¯re actually home. It¡¯s always annoying when people make you slog through a dungeon just to hear them say cryptic things at you.¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to bet this will be as inconvenient and cryptic as possible just because that¡¯s the way these things go,¡± I say. ¡°Yeah, probably.¡± Chapter 43: Questions of the Witchwood Come morning, we¡¯re heading back to the Prydwen for another trip. This time, we have two more passengers. Aunt Heather and Aunt Myrtle, the latter leaning heavily on a walking staff as she crosses the village square. She finds the stairs leading up the docking tower to be unfeasible, so the Prydwen sends the landing skiff down to pick her up instead. ¡°There¡¯s nothing left for me to do here,¡± Aunt Myrtle says. ¡°Before I become aether, I¡¯d like to fly. Never traveled very far from home before.¡± Unspoken is the thought that Aunt Heather is reluctant to go on some quest, no matter how important, and miss out on spending whatever time her sister has left with her. Liz and their crew do their best to try to make Aunt Myrtle comfortable. ¡°Bye, Grandma Apple!¡± says Burdock, waving. Liz does not insist on reincarnators calling her ¡°grandma¡± and it feels a little funny that back on Earth, given our respective time periods, she could have been my grandmother. Our next stop is the village of Treflys, and I know nothing more about it than as a point on a map and that Liz has mentioned some people she knew a long time ago live there. Wilderness and farmland fly by, or more accurately we fly by. (I¡¯m not sure if the domains even orbit anything or move on their own. Zenith always hovers at the same place in the sky to the northwest.) I¡¯m not sure what I¡¯m expecting when we arrive, but my imagination brings to mind three crones muttering words of power around a cauldron. The village we arrive at looks very much like my own, though. Liz has a brief conversation with one of the locals at their docking tower, discovers that the ones she¡¯s looking for aren¡¯t here, and we move on. We finally stop at a random patch of forest that I can tell from the flow of aether and vis must be another dungeon, and head down in the landing boat. It¡¯s just Liz, Anise and I going down while the others remain aboard the Prydwen. Aunt Myrtle would rather continue admiring the view of the domain from high above rather than hobble through a dangerous dungeon. ¡°I don¡¯t know why Mist, Storm, and Shadow are hanging around in the Witchwood, but be careful,¡± Liz says. ¡°I¡¯ll keep you from getting hurt, but don¡¯t go wandering off and don¡¯t touch anything.¡± Anise grumbles. ¡°It¡¯s not like I was going to get to visit an Epic dungeon without a high level escort anytime soon¡­¡± If I thought the Spooky Grove was spooky, the Witchwood is positively witchy. Eerie fog hangs over the twisted woods, snaking along the ground and gathering in hollows. The eyes blinking at us from the shadows feel so much more sinister knowing that this place isn¡¯t just a game for children. Monstrous bats screech from the trees and swarm down on us. With a twist of her hands and the words ¡°[Chain Lightning]¡±, electricity rips through the air and strikes one bat after another, bringing them all down in seconds. [Don¡¯t touch the corpses,] Liz says. [They¡¯re carrying Heroic-rank diseases.] We explore the dungeon and Liz destroys anything in our path like it¡¯s nothing. As we walk, I start hearing something whispering, but not in my ears. [Can you hear us, little reincarnator? Ehehehe¡­ Listen to the song on the wind and follow our voices¡­] I find myself taking a step off the path and toward a narrow trail in the underbrush. Before I¡¯ve taken two steps, something is holding me in place and jerks me back to my position behind Liz. [Try to resist,] Liz tells me. [I¡¯ll keep you from wandering off but you might get a skill out of it.] [Oh yes, everything is about skills¡­] whisper the voices rustling in the forest. [Everything can be quantified, from the quality of your magic to the content of your heart. Love, hope, fear, rage, all can be analyzed and measured.] In a clearing, we come upon an woman sitting peacefully on the ground, looking to be in her twenties. That doesn¡¯t look particularly comfortable, but what do I know.
Category Reincarnator
Race Human
Gender Female
Rank Legendary
Class Unclear
Mood Anticipation
¡°I bid you welcome, travelers,¡± the woman says. A few meaningless platitudes pass between them aloud, but vis in the air zips back and forth between them. They¡¯re having some telepathic conversation that I¡¯m not privy to, while the woman Liz refers to as Mist addresses me in her physical voice. ¡°You¡¯ve brought a little reincarnator to me,¡± Mist says. ¡°I wonder, yes, were you meant to be a hero, or a villain? Tell men, young man, who are you?¡± ¡°Drake,¡± I reply. ¡°Just a name, isn¡¯t it?¡± Mist says. ¡°Just a name to add to the long list of others you have taken or been given over the eons. I ask you again. Who are you?¡± I sigh aloud. I really should have seen this coming when Liz mentioned three mysterious women. I hate this trope and I can just imagine what other stupid questions she and her sisters are going to ask me. ¡°I am a man who likes to make stuff in a world where monsters try to eat me and people expect weird things of me,¡± I reply. ¡°Who are you? It¡¯s only fair that the asker be able to answer their own question.¡± Mist gives a low chuckle at that. ¡°The name given to me by the spirits who rule this realm is Mist Treflys. I am a remnant of a memory of a dream of a woman who lived long, long ago, longer than even you. But it was in a time when the span of thousand years was longer than a thousand Ages are now. I have seen many like you, starting on a journey that is an echo of a journey taken many times before. Go now. My sisters await you ahead.¡±If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. We continue on through the dungeon, and I watch Liz¡¯s dazzling magical displays as she easily dispatches Heroic monsters around us. In the next clearing, we come upon a woman who looks around middle-aged. Liz greets her as Storm, and they begin their own telepathic conversation while Storm starts being overdramatic to me. ¡°You stand upon a precipice, wanderer,¡± the middle-aged woman says dramatically. ¡°Before I will let you pass, you must answer one question for me. What¡­ is your quest?¡± They¡¯re probably mocking me in telepathy. Or at least joking around like old friends. Maybe. Maybe I could even hear what they¡¯re saying if I try to listen in. They¡¯re both Legendary, sure, but they¡¯re not actually being quiet or secretive about their mind chatter. I¡¯m sure they could be more subtle if they wanted. ¡°I don¡¯t have one,¡± I say. ¡°Apparently Corwen decided to see what happens if it gives me no quests.¡± ¡°Those are merely system quests,¡± Storm says. ¡°The guidance of the spirits is not the calling of your heart. What is your quest?¡± ¡°I want to build a skyship,¡± I say. ¡°That is a goal, not a quest,¡± Storm says. ¡°And what then? Where do you go from there?¡± ¡°Anywhere I want.¡± ¡°And where might that be?¡± I sigh. ¡°Is this really necessary? I¡¯m not looking for the Holy Grail, the Fountain of Youth, or whatever else. I¡¯m not hoping to find increasingly bigger monsters to fight. I just want to build cool things and explore this amazing world.¡± ¡°Perhaps it is enough,¡± Storm says. ¡°Go on, then. Next, you must face my sister, Shadow. She will be more difficult to satisfy. I hope you have your answers ready, reincarnator.¡± ¡°Fine, let¡¯s get this over with.¡± We move on, Liz kills some more monsters, and we come to another clearing with another woman. This third woman looks older than the other two, at least seventy. Did they see us coming and set this whole thing up ahead of time? How long have they been waiting here? ¡°Greetings, children,¡± says the old woman. ¡°We¡¯re technically the same age, Shadow,¡± Liz says. ¡°I just reached Legendary earlier than you.¡± Shadow gives a raspy chuckle. ¡°You rushed, just as Mist rushed. And yet now you are still at Legendary.¡± Once again, this woman begins a telepathic conversation with Liz and turns her attention to me. I keep trying to catch whatever they might be saying, but I¡¯m being distracted with silly questions. ¡°My sisters have already asked their questions of you,¡± Shadow says. ¡°Now you must answer mine. What¡­ is your favorite color?¡± ¡°Blue,¡± I reply. ¡°Are you committed to that answer?¡± Shadow presses. ¡°Yes,¡± I say with a sigh. ¡°But what shade of blue?¡± ¡°Actual blue,¡± I say. ¡°Not azure, not indigo, blue. #0000FF.¡± ¡°You know a code number for that off the top of your head?¡± Liz asks, raising an eyebrow. ¡°Of course.¡± Shadow cackles. ¡°Very well. I am satisfied.¡±
Congratulations! You have successfully answered difficult questions about yourself.
Skill acquired: Discipline (Self-Awareness)
Fine, I¡¯ll take it. I¡¯d be happier if I could glean even one word of what Liz has been talking about with them. People keep talking to me and I can¡¯t focus on it and it¡¯s annoying. The other two Treflys sisters arrive and stand next to Shadow. I was really hoping we were done here but it looks like they still have something else to say. ¡°We see you, reincarnator,¡± Mist says. ¡°Drake, as you call yourself.¡± ¡°You say you wish peace, but I believe you will still seek the call of blood,¡± Storm says. ¡°Not if I can help it,¡± I say. ¡°And yet your soul is steeped in violence,¡± Shadow says. ¡°Light that burns so hard it will burn you as well if you let it.¡± ¡°I would really just like to build, research, and explore,¡± I say. ¡°I¡¯d be perfectly content not to get in another fight.¡± ¡°You say that, and yet how many beings have your other incarnations slain?¡± ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter,¡± I say. ¡°Doesn¡¯t it? Does it matter to all those lives you cut short? To those who screamed whatever name you went by and begged for mercy they were not shown?¡± Memories tickle in the back of my mind, but I clamp down on them. I suppress the thought of me gleefully hankering for a good fight. Of wars, bloodshed, brawls. This is annoying, and it¡¯s not me.
Skill acquired: Recollection (Suppression)
I try to interrupt to tell them I am done with this, but they start speaking in overlapping voices and I can¡¯t get a word in edgewise. ¡°Perhaps what you need is a new perspective.¡± ¡°You are not the sole protagonist in the universe.¡± ¡°Other people have stories too.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not like you are even Drake Corwen.¡± ¡°You¡¯re just a ghost that refused to pass on.¡± ¡°Forever running around the same cycle.¡± ¡°Nothing more than a pawn in a game beyond your comprehension.¡± ¡°Does it even matter if you say ¡®I¡¯ or ¡®he¡¯?¡± ¡°Your search for peace is in vain.¡± ¡°Good cannot exist without evil.¡± ¡°You cannot save a life if a life is never in danger.¡± ¡°And if people do not rise up against one another¡­¡± ¡°¡­ then the world will rise up against them.¡± I sigh and put my face in my palms. ¡°Are you done now?¡± The three witches chuckle and grin in an unnerving manner. ¡°Go with our warning, reincarnator,¡± says Shadow. ¡°May you find what you seek,¡± says Storm. We leave, finally, mercifully. I think I would have preferred to be fighting monsters and I¡¯m mildly annoyed at Liz for bringing me here, but I¡¯m sure she had a good reason for it. We don¡¯t get completion credit for the Witchwood, but then we also don¡¯t explore or need to explore most of the dungeon. [I do hope you got whatever you came here for,] I send to Liz. [Have they¡­ always been like this?] Liz sighs aloud. [Yes. Yes, they have. Coming here was necessary, though.] [I¡¯ll take your word on that.] We board the flying skiff and fly up to the Prydwen hovering overhead, from which we return to Corwen Hearth. This has been an interesting little adventure but I¡¯m happy to be back home, where there are no mysterious witches saying cryptic things at me and asking me stupid questions. [You¡¯d best go before some cliche villain shows up to murder you and set me on a path of revenge or something.] [By tradition, I¡¯m supposed to give you some heirloom or token or something, but I forgot about it and didn¡¯t realize you were here, so I didn¡¯t have anything cool prepared. What sort of thing would you like?] [A bag of holding?] I ask. [Oh, yeah, I do have a few extras. There¡¯s no point in carrying more than one around since any bag of holding just links to a space adjacent to you, not the bag itself. Your inventory. Celestial regulations prohibit selling them below a minimum price and anyone who can afford it doesn¡¯t need one. But I can give it as a gift, so please take my crappiest bag of holding off my hands.]
You have received item: Apple¡¯s Crappiest Knapsack
Inventory active.
Capacity: 5 kg (0 kg used)
A new icon appears in my system interface displaying a little stylized backpack. [It¡¯s only 5 kilograms capacity, so nobody but a kid who doesn¡¯t have one at all would want it. Have fun! Be aware that people have skills that can scan it so don¡¯t think you can get away with smuggling contraband in it. People know what inventories are.] I play with the bag a bit, putting in and pulling out a book, pencil, and hat. ¡°This is awesome,¡± I exclaim. I wave to them as they leave, taking Aunt Heather, Grandma Laurel, and Aunt Myrtle with them. It¡¯s only three people, but the Hearth is going to feel a little empty without them. Chapter 44: Seeds of Potential Corwen is different without its Legendaries and [Elder Hearthkeeper]. (And Legendary monster horse. I think someone mentioned that the huge flying galleon has an entire stable in it.) In some ways, it¡¯s quieter because Grandma Laurel was always boisterous. In others, it¡¯s noisier because Aunt Myrtle isn¡¯t here to keep the kids in line. They don¡¯t listen to Aunt Magnolia the same way they did to her. So when Griffin decides clothes are the worst thing ever and he¡¯s done with them, it takes three people to wrangle him and put pants on him. Aunt Myrtle would have simply pretended he wasn¡¯t there and refused to let him eat anything. Now he¡¯s just grumpy rather than shamed. Without our Legendaries, the two highest ranked people in the Hearth are a couple of Epics that I don¡¯t know very well. I have entirely too many aunts and uncles to actually get to know all of them, especially given the amount of time I spend traveling and reading. Burdock will be turning 12 this year, and he¡¯s nervous about making Elite. If there¡¯s one unfortunate thing about this family, it¡¯s how pressured children feel to push themselves to rank up. ¡°I have no idea what I¡¯m going to do to make Elite,¡± Burdock says, petting Mipsy. The four-eared monster cat is asleep on the bed beside him (and takes up a good bit of the bed), but makes a mrring sound and curls up on her side. ¡°You¡¯ve still got time. You¡¯re only 11 still,¡± I say, not glancing up from examining my drake plushie with [Psychometry]. ¡°Yeah, but then I¡¯ll need to learn some magic skills before I turn 14 and I¡¯ve got to have time for that.¡± ¡°What sort of skills do you want to learn?¡± I ask. ¡°Thommagerty sounds fun,¡± Burdock says. ¡°Thaumaturgy,¡± I say reflexively. ¡°Right, that,¡± Burdock says. ¡°Did you see how Apple did things just by waving her hands? I don¡¯t think I¡¯d be good at Sorcery like your mom. I¡¯m no good with emotions.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure we can figure something out,¡± I say. ¡°I wanna do a dungeon!¡± Griffin exclaims, coming into the room brandishing a 20 cm long wooden ¡®sword¡¯ I¡¯d made for him. ¡°I¡¯m gonna fight lots of monsters and get real strong!¡± ¡°You¡¯ll need to ask your mom about that,¡± I say. ¡°Aw, but my mom will just say no. I¡¯d rather ask your mom about it. She¡¯ll take us, I¡¯m sure!¡± The five-year-old boy is undeterred, and runs off presumably to ask my mom to escort us on a dungeon run. Who will hopefully inform Aunt Hazel and not just sneak us out during the dark hours. It¡¯s summer before anyone acquiesces to us going out again, and we¡¯ll be heading to the Hedge Maze. Hopefully without any kidnappings this time around. The party is comprised of me, Burdock, Juniper, Griffin, and Willow, being chaperoned by Anise and Meadow. We hold back and let the younger ones take a shot at the puzzles first, and only step in when they seem stumped or there¡¯s a puzzle obviously aimed for me. Griffin tackles a whack-a-mole section with squirrels popping out of fallen logs, and is rewarded with a chest containing some coins and a small piece of heartwood. ¡°What¡¯s this?¡± Griffin wonders. ¡°A stick?¡± ¡°It¡¯s a crafting material,¡± Anise says. ¡°Better than a normal stick.¡± Griffin looks unconvinced, and passes it to me. ¡°You¡¯re the crafty one here. You take it.¡± Next up is a puzzle involving matching colors of flowers, and it¡¯s Juniper who figures out the solution this time. Finally, the last puzzle we encounter before the talking tree at the end is the set of mirrors I encountered before. I suppose there¡¯s only so many puzzles the Hedge Maze has. This time, the challenge has been upped with squirrels who try to move the mirrors after they¡¯ve been positioned, and Griffin has to ward them off with his little practice sword. (I¡¯d feel bad for the squirrels, but they¡¯re monsters with red auras and clearly put here to be whacked.) The gate opens, and we¡¯re greeted by the talking monster tree, who wants us to play cards again. I dislike Leaves and am not very good at it, and the kids are even worse. Except Griffin, who stole my lucky star necklace again when I wasn¡¯t looking and seems to be getting perfect draws. Needless to say, the cheating five-year-old beats all of us and receives a basic starter deck of his own for the trouble.
Your party has completed the Hedge Maze.
Skill acquired: Tending (Babysitting)
Your Charisma has increased to 20.
Great, I got a skill for escorting small children through a dungeon. I suppose it will come in handy if I ever need to escort large children through a dungeon. I locate the core room on the way out for the bonus chest and to have a small chat with the dungeon core. [Thanks for the skill and attribute, Hedge Maze!] I think.
Hedge Maze
You are most welcome!
[Why do you let outsiders into your core room, anyway?] I wonder.
Hedge Maze
Not just anyone. I¡¯m a vassal to Corwen, so I only let Corwens in here. Anyone else would have a much harder time finding it. Don¡¯t worry about me! Corwen will protect me even if something awful happens, so I can keep making its children happy!
I suppose there¡¯s not much I can do but take it at its word, so I just collect my loot and leave. Just a handful of coins and an acorn. I¡¯m sure this will be great if I want to grow an oak tree. Once back at camp, I spend some time analyzing it.Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Category Plant
Type Tree
Stage Seed
Rank Basic
Aspect Potential
I guess this is a magic acorn? I¡¯ll have to show it to one of the plant experts when we get home. For the moment, I just show it to Meadow, whose only response is, ¡°Yep, that sure is an acorn.¡± I¡¯m not sure that I want to be a tree guy. If I were to grow trees, it would be with the purpose of turning them into a ship later. And I¡¯m quite sure, thanks to my [Psychometry] skill, that if I were to plant and tend to a tree, it would wind up with a good bit of my essence embedded in it. It has already accumulated a little thanks to it dropping for me and me handling it, but I¡¯m sure at this point I could still pass it off to someone else. Building and flying a skyship made of wood from a tree I planted and raised myself might give bonuses to something, I suppose. Savannah, Meadow¡¯s mom, is an Epic Druid, so she¡¯s naturally who I go and talk to once I arrive back at the village. I show her the acorn and tell her my thoughts. ¡°There are skills that you can learn to shape wood without actually cutting down the tree,¡± Savannah says. ¡°By the time this tree grows large enough that you could build a skyship out of it, you¡¯ll have plenty of time to learn them. I can teach you once you reach Elite, and there are classes on it at Crux Academy.¡± ¡°Huh,¡± I say. ¡°Magically shaping wood¡­ actually sounds like something that would be really useful as a crafter.¡± Savannah nods in agreement. ¡°There are also skills for stone, metal, and so forth. As a Druid, I¡¯m mainly focused on plants and weather.¡± I plant the tree behind the workshop and put up some marker stakes with a sign that reads, ¡°Magic acorn. Do not eat.¡± I¡¯m not sure if squirrel monsters can read, but at least the humans will have no excuse. (And any goblin that visits probably knows Common. Though sadly, it turns out it only magically confers the ability to read if you could read in another language, and Goblin had no written language.) ¡­ It¡¯s September, and the teenagers who attend Crux Academy are returning by flying school bus. When I notice it coming in, I climb up to the docking tower to examine the skyship. Since I last saw this particular ship, I¡¯ve added [Psychometry] to my repertoire and am interested in seeing what it says.
Category Object
Type Vessel
Race Human, Aranea
Materials Wood, Spidersilk
Quality Good
Rank Heroic
You have analyzed a Heroic vessel.
Your Clairvoyance (Psychometry) skill has increased to level 2.
Something flashes in my psychic vision at the same moment I receive the notification. Did I just see experience fly through the air at me? I see. It¡¯s the fourth state of magic! Like fire, lightning, or plasma. This time it came while I was specifically using a skill for sensing those sorts of things. I wish I could keep it up at all times, but it¡¯s Inspiration-hungry enough at the moment that even my decent-sized meter can¡¯t keep it going for long. Daisy emerges from the ship along with a white-haired (with black roots showing) pregnant woman who after a moment I recognize as Lily. I don¡¯t know if they¡¯ve heard about our ancestor¡¯s visit and our grandmother¡¯s departure yet. (Grandma Laurel¡¯s kids are Kestrel and Magnolia. Kestrel¡¯s kids are Anise and Hazel, and Magnolia¡¯s are Lily, Daisy, and Burdock. In case you weren¡¯t keeping a family tree here.) ¡°Did you pick your class yet?¡± Burdock asks. ¡°I¡¯m not quite 21 yet, but I¡¯m pretty sure what I¡¯ll be offered,¡± Lily says. ¡±Did you hear?¡± Burdock exclaims. ¡°Grandma Apple visited!¡± Daisy nods. ¡°They stopped by our dorms to say goodbye before they left the system.¡± ¡°It¡¯s been so weird here without Grandma Laurel, Aunt Heather and Aunt Myrtle,¡± Burdock says. When the sky turns red, Aunt Heather isn¡¯t here to do her scrying ritual. Instead, it¡¯s Savannah who makes this year¡¯s announcement. ¡°I have listened upon the wind to learn what it has seen,¡± Savannah says. ¡°Its whispers bring the chittering of bats, no higher than Elite rank. Its howls herald the coming of Heroic and Epic rank werewolves, and I have heard the piercing challenge of one Legendary ranked abomination. We must exercise caution this year until it has been dealt with as it comes with intent to kill and destroy.¡± In less flowery language, I think she¡¯s just using supernatural hearing skills. We settle in for the autumn, and Aunt Magnolia stews up a lovely pot of questionable meat I quickly discover is werewolf. ¡°What¡¯s the problem, kid?¡± Aunt Magnolia says. ¡°It¡¯s not like they¡¯re people.¡± ¡°I think I¡¯ll take the bat skewers instead,¡± I say. Lily lets her hair grow out and doesn¡¯t touch up the color, making it more and more of a skunk stripe every day. In early November, we hold a naming ceremony for the ugliest baby Corwen has ever seen. His greenish, misshapen face squints at the light of the hearth fire for a moment before blinking his beast yellow eyes. Raven is now a member of faction: Corwen Hearth One by one, Lily brings the baby to each of us to repeat the name, ¡°Raven.¡± When my turn comes, I examine the kid¡¯s aura.
Category Person
Race Half-Orc
Gender Male
Rank Basic
Class Child
Mood Confused
Once the ceremony ends, I go over and sit by Lily. ¡°That¡¯s the most handsome half-orc I have ever seen,¡± I say truthfully. Lily laughs. ¡°Grok was chuffed when the fetus was analyzed. No Corwens for the elf, dwarf, or halfling this year. Now, we¡¯ve named him Raven, the ugliest and cleverest of all birds. Son of the most virile member of the class of 736.¡± ¡°So you¡¯ve been¡­ grokked,¡± I say. Far from being judgmental about Lily apparently sleeping with half her class, the Hearth is thrilled and celebrating our new family member. And not one of them says an unkind word about him being a half-orc. This really is a fantasy world. And I¡¯m quite sure they all received quests to welcome the boy into the family. I¡¯ve been here for almost seven years and the matrilineal Hearth system in this world still feels a little weird sometimes. Women having casual sex and coming home pregnant is expected and welcomed with joy and open arms, without the slightest bit of shunning or judgment. Instead, people feel that long-term romantic attachment is a little weird, and fathers raising their own children is downright taboo. Little Raven quickly drifts off to sleep on his mother¡¯s not-green chest. My own naming day is right around the corner. I¡¯m practically buzzing with anticipation. I¡¯m finally going to be able to choose a class. Enhanced attribute skills will be available to me even if magic that can affect the outside world won¡¯t be until I hit Elite. I¡¯ve been reading about them and this is going to be so much fun. Chapter 45: First Class Choice In the dark hours of November 29th, I crawl downstairs to the core room. Soon, I will be turning 7 years old and be presented with my first class choice, but there are some things that will need to be taken care of first. [Corwen, you¡¯re going to need to show my quest screen, unless you¡¯ve found a way around that,] I think. I will have an hour or so to see what I would have received before I get the class popup. The locals see the aether cores as essentially gods and consider it to be unlucky to refuse to do a quest. As someone who never actually completed the main quest of more than one open-world RPG, I don¡¯t have that problem. I am, however, curious.
Journal active.
New Quest from the Tiganna: ¡°Survive¡±
New Quest from the Hedge Maze: ¡°Explore the Hedge Maze¡±
Quest completed: ¡°Explore the Hedge Maze¡±
New Quest from Tempest: ¡°Defeat Grabrat Grubwick¡±
New Quest from the Spooky Grove: ¡°Explore the Spooky Grove¡±
Quest completed: ¡°Explore the Spooky Grove¡±
New Quest from the Wisteria Garden: ¡°Explore the Wisteria Garden¡±
New Quest from the Wisteria Garden: ¡°Investigate the Eldritch Infestation¡±
Quest completed: ¡°Explore the Wisteria Garden¡±
Quest completed: ¡°Defeat Grabrat Grubwick¡±
Reward forfeit due to circumstances of quest completion.
I raise an eyebrow. So I no longer have a quest to kill ¡°Grabrat¡±, and don¡¯t have a quest to kill Milo Grubwick. I never got a message saying my party defeated him, but it still counted anyway. Technicalities. That¡¯s probably why the reward was forfeit. I wonder what the reward would have been? There¡¯s another tab in the journal for completed quests.
Quest name Defeat Grabrat Grubwick
Quest giver Tempest
Description This young goblin is a budding necromancer and a threat to you, your family, and the peace of all of Tempest. Slay him before he becomes stronger!
Rank Basic
Reward High experience, unlocks Heroic Child class, unlocks Discipline (Heroism) skill
I don¡¯t think my eyebrows could get any higher at this point. I suppose it¡¯s just as well that I don¡¯t want to be a [Heroic Child], whatever that might do. It¡¯s not one mentioned in Corwen¡¯s library and I didn¡¯t even realize there could be a 17th child class. I guess some skills and classes are only unlocked due to quests or special circumstances. I think neither Corwen nor Grubwick wanted Milo and I to fight. Tempest did. Suddenly this game they were playing makes sense. They wanted to avoid manipulation from other cores. Doing so would shut off their own ability to manipulate us, but both of us have the Rebellious trait and we refuse quests we don¡¯t like anyway, so they¡¯d be better off just letting us do whatever we want anyway. Griza¡¯s interference was likely due to a quest she¡¯d received from Tempest. Would I have been more or less likely to do it if I¡¯d seen ¡°Defeat Grabrat Grubwick¡± the moment I laid eyes on Milo? I open up the first quest.
Quest name Survive
Quest giver Tiganna
Description Welcome to the world! Take care with your new body and survive in any way you can. Train your skills and prepare for the challenges ahead.
Rank Basic
Reward Class choice
Timer 9 minutes, 33 seconds
I open up the quest ¡°Investigate the Eldritch infestatiion¡±.
Quest name Investigate the Eldritch infestation
Quest giver Wisteria Garden
Description A mysterious invader from far away made an unwelcome appearance in the Wisteria Garden. Seek out information about the Eldritch and learn how to preserve your domain from the coming threat.
Rank Legendary
Reward Survival of Tempest Domain
Timer 63 years, 1 month, and 2 days
Um. Right, that¡¯s probably something I need to know about. However, although I would hope to be Legendary rank in 63 years if I¡¯m still alive, I can¡¯t be the sole person who will save all of Tempest. Surely there¡¯s more Legendaries here than just the ones who left. We¡¯ve got a fair number of Epics, don¡¯t we? And I¡¯m sure as the timer ticks down, more and more people will be getting this quest, unless that random infestation was the only advance warning. In any case, it¡¯s not something I immediately need to worry about or do anything different than I¡¯m already doing. It¡¯s not like I wasn¡¯t going to look up ¡®Eldritch¡¯ in Crux Academy¡¯s library once I got there. Although it may have slipped my mind to ask Liz when she visited because I hadn¡¯t been staring at my quest log for years, itching to clear it off. Whatever, it¡¯s probably not urgent. And if it¡¯s urgent, there¡¯s no way a Basic-rank almost-7-year-old is the best one for the job. I would imagine that I¡¯ll be getting a lot more quests once I¡¯m older and travel more.
You are now 7 years old.
All physical attributes have increased by 1.
Quest complete: Survive
Reward granted. You may choose a class from the following.
Creative Child.
Primary skills: Crafting (all).
Greatly increases experience to skills used while designing and crafting items.
Psychic Child.
Primary skills: Clairvoyance (all).
Greatly increases experience to skills used while psychic skills are active.
Tranquil Child.
Primary skills: Discipline (all).
Greatly increases experience to skills used while calm and focused.
I wish I could see what the actual bonuses were, but I can¡¯t even see what my exact experience is. In any case, assuming they¡¯re all the same bonus, [Creative Child] is obviously inferior to the other two. Even [Tranquil Child] would actually be a better option if I didn¡¯t have [Psychic Child] available. I decide to go with Liz¡¯s idea and choose [Psychic Child].This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Class change: Child -> Psychic Child
Experience to skills used while psychic skills are in use is greatly increased.
New quest from Crystalline Heavens: Prepare
I quickly look at the description while the quest journal is still accessible.
Quest name Prepare
Quest giver Tiganna
Description Challenges loom before you, and you must grow to face them. Find a path in life and prepare yourself.
Rank Basic
Reward Class choice
Timer 7 years
The quest log disappears again. [Corwen, why do the Heavens do things this way?] I wonder. [Why three choices? Why give choices at all?]
Corwen
Choices are sacred. Three paths are optimal. Two leads to decay for want of a third path. More leads to delay, confusion, and feeling overwhelmed. Systems will trend toward three aside from temporary deviations.
The longer I stay down here, the more psychic energy me and Corwen exchange. The closer we bond, I think. Apple and Ash were forced to live in the core room early on due to lack of shelter, and so were willing to die in defense of it. I don¡¯t imagine people who spent a lot of time away from the Hearth would get as much exposure in either direction. I affect Corwen and it affects me. I want its experiment to succeed. I want to prove free will is valid. A little more chaos to stir things up and maybe cause something new to happen. Before I can acquire some skill named Discipline (Navel-Gazing), I thank Corwen and return to my room. Burdock and Griffin have not gone to bed yet and are still awake waiting for me. ¡°What did you pick? What did you pick?¡± Griffin asks, bouncing around. ¡°You¡¯re not s¡¯posed to just ask people that,¡± Burdock says. ¡°It¡¯s fine,¡± I say, chuckling as I come in to sit down on my bed. ¡°I¡¯m now a [Psychic Child].¡± ¡°Cool!¡± Griffin exclaims. ¡°Now you can know everything about everything and point us to fun things to do!¡± ¡°I¡­ could probably actually do that,¡± I say thoughtfully. ¡°But I have a lot of skill grinding ahead of me and there¡¯s no books on it here so I¡¯m just guessing and thinking a lot, and digging up some memories. And I know way more than I¡¯m comfortable knowing ¡®cuz I¡¯ve lived a bajillion lives.¡± Come morning, there¡¯s a few people I need to talk to and some questions I need to ask. Meadow, Anise, Daisy, Lily and baby Raven are conveniently gathered at the same table over breakfast so I don¡¯t have to hunt them down one by one. I grab a bowl of some bland porridge that thankfully contains no bat meat and sit down next to them. ¡°And here¡¯s the nameday boy now,¡± Anise says. ¡°Are you going to share, or keep your new class under wraps?¡± ¡°[Psychic Child],¡± I say. I give everyone a chance to congratulate me before breaking to them why I really approached their table. ¡°Did any of you do any research into the eldritch?¡± I ask. ¡°A bit, but I didn¡¯t find much,¡± Meadow says. ¡°Rumors of things that can cause Sanity damage just from looking at them.¡± ¡°Sorry, the only books I¡¯ve read that mention it are physically implausible adult fiction,¡± Anise says. ¡°I am seven years old and not even slightly thinking about that,¡± I say firmly, turning to look at Daisy and Lily. ¡°It¡¯s not something I ever specifically researched,¡± Lily says. ¡°Why?¡± ¡°We ran into an eldritch infestation in the Wisteria Grove a couple years ago,¡± I explain. ¡°Was I the only one given a quest for it?¡± ¡°I thought you didn¡¯t get quests,¡± Lily says. ¡°Apparently I do, just not from Corwen, and I can¡¯t see my quest journal,¡± I say. ¡°Except it needed to be unblocked in order for me to pick a class, so I was able to see my quests for the first time.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t get one,¡± Anise says, and Meadow also shakes her head. ¡°It probably only went to the party leader. You, namely.¡± ¡°The pertinent bit is that there will be an eldritch invasion in the year 800.¡± ¡°Oh yeah,¡± Daisy says. ¡°In accordance with ancient scheduling, a disaster of some sort happens at the end of every century.¡± ¡°Well, we¡¯ve made it through seven others,¡± Anise says. ¡°I¡¯m sure we¡¯ll make it through this one, especially since we know what to prepare for. Assuming any of us are even still alive in 800.¡± ¡°What was the last one?¡± I ask. ¡°I suppose I¡¯ll need to ask someone older than us for that.¡± ¡°Go ask Uncle Falcon to tell the story again,¡± Anise says. ¡°He¡¯s told it before, you know. You probably just weren¡¯t paying attention. You spend an awful lot of time in your own little world, making stuff and running all over the place.¡± ¡°I won¡¯t dispute that.¡± Uncle Falcon is sitting by the hearth fire and sipping a cup of tea when I approach. ¡°Good morning, Drake. What can I do for you on your naming day?¡± ¡°Can you tell me about what happened in 700?¡± I ask. ¡°I heard there was some sort of disaster but uh, I wasn¡¯t paying attention if you mentioned it before.¡± Uncle Falcon laughs. ¡°At least you¡¯re honest. Ah, I was 20 and Elite at the time, so I fear my only contribution was in thinning the minions. That was when Aunt Heather and Aunt Laurel attained their Legendary rank. The monster swarms in 799 did not retreat as they typically do when the dark season ended, and only increased throughout 800. In that year¡¯s dark season, a Legendary boss emerged from the Underside, bringing with it an army. A mighty elder storm dragon! And it came leading a host of lesser dragons and dragonkin. Our Epics and those of several other Hearths banded together to bring it down while the rest of us fended off seemingly endless numbers of kobolds.¡± I tell him about the quest I received from the Wisteria Garden. (And have to repeat the whole explanation about my quest journal again.) ¡°Ah, good on that sweet dungeon for giving a warning of what¡¯s to come,¡± Uncle Falcon says. ¡°I doubt I will make Epic before I die, so it will likely be up to your generation to deal with it. Hopefully you¡¯ll have made at least Epic by then. Let me tell you something, youngun. Don¡¯t get old. Bad idea all around. Now I¡¯m seeing elderhood loom ahead of me and I fear I failed to achieve enough.¡± ¡°Well, whatever happens, I don¡¯t intend to die of old age,¡± I say. ¡°Good lad. Better to get yourself eaten by a monster than get a single gray hair or wrinkle.¡± He chuckles heartily. Chapter 46: Books and Cake Being now 7 years old with a shiny new class, I now have access to the first set of skills that can really be considered ¡°supernatural¡±. Insofar as the first tier of general skills were natural to begin with. According to Corwen¡¯s library, there are enhanced body skills for each attribute. Enhanced Muscles can make you stronger, Enhanced Feet can make you faster, and so forth. I have no idea what Enhanced Soul might do. I¡¯m still not entirely sure what a soul is. One skill I¡¯m going for as soon as possible is called Enhanced Mind (Mental Library). It will let me bring up the text of books I have read in my system interface, limited by skill level. I¡¯ll have to pick and choose which books to prioritize and for the moment, I¡¯m absolutely going to keep these skill books in there once I unlock it. Being able to see the names and descriptions of skills I don¡¯t have yet will be invaluable, even if it¡¯s missing a lot in some areas. Fortunately, the Corwens have a nerdy streak, or at least a munchkinny streak, and there¡¯s a book with instructions on how to unlock it right here since it¡¯s so useful. Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to be one of the founding spawns of a domain, with no idea what I was doing. I feel practically spoiled that for most common stuff, I can just ask someone. I suppose it means I have no excuse if I¡¯m clueless and don¡¯t make use of available resources. Learning [Mental Library] requires meditating upon an open book, because of course it does. I suppose it would make sense that Enhanced Mind requires a lot of meditating. Since I¡¯m now a [Psychic Child], I start off trying to use [Psychometry] on the general skills book while trying to meditate. This book has been handled and changed by a great many people. I¡¯m not sure how many dead Corwens there were, but it had to be at least four digits. An absolute blur of psychic signatures covers the pages, as well as both essence and moving aether somehow. My Inspiration meter plummets to 0 in an instant and even seems to go negative for a moment before snapping back.
Category Artifact
Type Book
Race Human
Quality Perfect
Rank Divine
Aspect Knowledge
Aether Core Corwen
Congratulations! You have analyzed a Divine artifact.
A ridiculous number of skill increases roll down my system interface window one by one. All those months I spent gleaning a single level in a skill and I¡¯ve doubled or tripled several skills in a heartbeat. Was it just the bonuses from [Psychic Child], or the fact that this is a Divine artifact? Probably both. And it didn¡¯t unlock the skill I was actually trying to unlock. I suppose I can¡¯t complain, but I¡¯m going to need to wait for my Inspiration meter to recharge before trying again. Perhaps on a smaller book to start off with. Before I go any further, I check out the little gear icon I hadn¡¯t noticed appeared on my interface when I turned 7. An options screen. Why a reincarnator didn¡¯t have this at birth, I don¡¯t know. I suppose before 7, you get skills a lot more slowly. It¡¯s not irritating to get one skill increase every few months, and I was earning them faster than normal. Now, though, my skill cap has gone up from 5 to 25 and I have a not-insignificant leveling bonus. The options screen has a dropdown for notifications.
Muted Hide all system notifications.
Minimal Display only summaries and major Deeds.
Condensed Display summaries, significant Deeds, and descriptions of new skills.
Verbose Display all system notifications.
I decide to set it to ¡®Condensed¡¯ for now and glance through to see what other options there are, but don¡¯t see anything else I feel the need to change immediately. As for my Inspiration meter, I could go get some hot tea, but I think I¡¯ll just sit here and try to unlock an Inspiration regeneration skill instead. That should be more doable now. Fortunately, the basic [Aura Sight] costs less than my natural regeneration rate so I can keep it up all the time. ¡°Clear your mind¡± isn¡¯t a mantra that ever worked for me. During those yoga deep breathing exercises my sister dragged me to, I mostly just thought about television or video games. Maybe ¡°clear your mind of anything important¡± is sufficient. I will spare you my wild fan theories about franchises you don¡¯t care about.
Skill acquired: Enhanced Mind (Fantastic Inspiration)
Description: The ability to gain Inspiration by relaxing your mind through consumption, analysis, and discussion of fictional media.
Why did I have to get a skill for thinking about arguing with idiots on social media about my pet lore interpretations!? This is so stupid and I walked right into it. Burdock has mentioned that he¡¯s got a skill named Enhanced Heart (Purring Inspiration), because of course there¡¯s a cat-specific variant. Beware of villains petting cats. Anise walks into the room. ¡°Hi, Drake. Hard at meditating?¡± (She does not seem concerned that she might be interrupting my meditation.) ¡°Unlocked any skills yet?¡± ¡°Enhanced Mind (Fantastic Inspiration),¡± I reply, opening my eyes. ¡°Oh, nice, I love that one,¡± Anise says. ¡°But you don¡¯t normally just sit and meditate for it. Usually I read or watch a play or something.¡± ¡°I was trying to unlock an actual meditation skill I could use when I can¡¯t just sit down and read,¡± I say. ¡°And it does work to simply imagine discussing fan theories with an imaginary person who disagrees with you.¡± ¡°I¡­ will have to try that!¡± Anise exclaims. ¡°My old party leader will be so pissed if he hears that.¡± ¡°Why?¡± I ask. ¡°You didn¡¯t drag smut into a dungeon, did you?¡± ¡°I totally dragged smut into a dungeon.¡±Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. I sigh. ¡°Why didn¡¯t you just use [Mental Library] to read?¡± ¡°I never actually unlocked it,¡± Anise says. ¡°Hey, don¡¯t give me that look. You make learning skills look so easy. You¡¯re also smarter than me and I¡¯m not too vain to say it. My Intelligence is 10. Not good for learning mind-based skills.¡± ¡°Mine¡¯s 23,¡± I say. ¡°Huh, I thought it would have been higher.¡± ¡°I probably blocked off some of it with my memories,¡± I say. ¡°Not that I¡¯m entirely sure how it works. It hasn¡¯t budged since I was born. In any case, I¡¯m still working on [Mental Library]. I gained a bunch of levels in other stuff. Is that normal?¡± I share the summarized system messages with her. ¡°Wow, nice!¡± Anise says. ¡°Man, I wish I could touch things and find out what people were thinking sometimes.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not quite at that point yet,¡± I say. ¡°And I¡¯m not going to ask what you would do with that knowledge.¡± ¡°I just wanted you to know, Aunt Magnolia¡¯s baking you an apple cake for your naming day,¡± Anise says. ¡°And I wanted to warn you that Griffin stole your lucky necklace again and is cheating at Leaves in the guest house right now.¡± ¡°Right, I¡¯m going to give this one more attempt while my Inspiration meter is full, and then go over there and just tell him he can keep it. I¡¯m not planning to be a Rogue type and he clearly is.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll leave you to that,¡± Anise says. ¡°Don¡¯t forget the cake!¡± I open up the book with the information about [Mental Library] and it occurs to me that it probably intended this to be the book to practice on because it¡¯s so small and simple. This time, I manage to get the unlock before my Inspiration runs dry.
Category Object
Type Book
Race Human
Quality Good
Rank Basic
Aether Core Corwen
Skill acquired: Enhanced Mind (Mental Library)
Description: Hold in memory a number of pages depending on skill level. You must read a page in its entirety. You may remove pages at will to make room.
Library active.
A book tab appears in my user interface. The current limit is 100 pages, which has been partially taken up with this little book. The big book, unfortunately, has quite a few more than my limit. I leave it for the moment and head for the guest house. Griffin is, fortunately, not trouncing any grown adults at that silly card game. He has wrangled Rowan into playing. Rowan barely knows how to play and doesn¡¯t even have his own deck, but the starter decks are common enough drops that there¡¯s a few extras around that people got and didn¡¯t want. For all Rowan¡¯s composure, my [Empathy] skill tells me that he¡¯s incredibly frustrated even if he¡¯s hiding it under the guise of humoring a small child. ¡°Griffin,¡± I say from behind him in that ¡®I know what you¡¯re up to¡¯ tone of voice.
Skill acquired: Persuasion (Guilty Conscience)
Description: The ability to play upon another¡¯s feelings of shame and embarrassment to persuade them.
Griffin squirms under the weight of one word said to unlock a skill I didn¡¯t expect to unlock. And I hate it. ¡°I¡¯m sorry!¡± Griffin exclaims. He folds his cards and takes off the star necklace, putting it on top of them. ¡°Isn¡¯t that Drake¡¯s?¡± Rowan says, raising an eyebrow. [You¡¯re trying to raise your Subterfuge, aren¡¯t you,] I ask Griffin telepathically. His eyes widen at the sudden message in his head, then nods. ¡°I¡¯m sorry. I didn¡¯t mean any harm, I was just¡ª¡± [Relax,] I send. [I¡¯ll give you pointers.] ¡°Really?¡± I ask. [Wanna play along?] I send to Rowan. [This kid¡¯s probably going to be my party Rogue eventually and it would be good to get his Subterfuge up.] Rowan¡¯s frustration fades, and switches to amusement as he chuckles. This conversation probably looks very odd to any bystanders. Still, I make a point of holding my lesson entirely telepathically. I can¡¯t hear their actual thoughts yet, but I can read their emotional state, which is good enough for what I¡¯m doing. I can tell when Griffin is confused so I can clarify something or put it in simpler terms. By the time we¡¯re done, Griffin has actually managed to unlock a skill or two. He doesn¡¯t announce it aloud, but his emotional state shifts to elation, which is a fair sign of it. The emotions of a small child are simple and easy to read, even when he¡¯s actively trying to be sneaky about it.
Skill levels increased: Clairvoyance (Telepathy), Clairvoyance (Empathy), Tending (Teaching), Tending (Babysitting)
I have to smile as I look over the skill levels that have appeared. If I¡¯m going to be regularly getting four skills at once leveled up, I¡¯m glad to have switched it to condensed notifications. I really think there¡¯s just too many skills, but whatever. ¡°Let¡¯s head back to the Hearth, Griffin,¡± I say aloud finally, putting a hand on his shoulder. ¡°I heard there will be cake.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t suppose I can convince you to bring me a piece?¡± Rowan asks. ¡°Did you get me any presents for my naming day?¡± I ask with a grin. ¡°It¡¯s your naming day?¡± Rowan asks, mutters a curse, then quickly apologizes for cursing. ¡°I¡¯m sure I can find something before it¡¯s not your naming day any longer. You¡¯re 7 now, aren¡¯t you? You got a new class?¡± ¡°Yes, I¡¯m a [Psychic Child] now,¡± I say. ¡°That explains the telepathic lesson,¡± Rowan says, standing. ¡°I¡¯ll see if I can find you something suitable.¡± ¡°I was just teasing about the presents,¡± I say. ¡°You don¡¯t have to get me anything.¡± ¡°And you don¡¯t have to get me cake, either. Kids should at least get something for the major milestones. Even if they¡¯re not really kids.¡± Griffin and I head back into the Hearth for my naming day and class choice celebration. There¡¯s plenty of food to go around, despite this being the middle of the dark season. Corwen does not skimp on its food stores. I open gift boxes containing books (some of which I haven¡¯t red), clothes (some of which aren¡¯t made of black wool), and trinkets (some of which might actually be useful). Juniper made me the sort of drawings a 5-year-old would make that get stuck on the fridge with magnets, if our magitech fridge were magnetic. I save a small piece of cake and head back to the guest house when the party winds down. Rowan is waiting for me, and shifts uneasily when he sees me, but brightens when he sees the cake. ¡°I found something,¡± Rowan says. ¡°Fortunately, Corwen¡¯s adventuring store is still open. The hardest part was picking something out that might be good for a [Psychic Child].¡± ¡°You really didn¡¯t need to overthink this,¡± I say. ¡°I mean, some of my relatives got me socks. I have four new pairs of socks. Two pairs of which are actually not black!¡± Rowan pulls out a small notebook and slides it over to me. ¡°It¡¯s a day planner. It has sections for to-do lists and notes and things. The shopkeeper said it would integrate well with skills like [Mental Library]. You¡¯ve said you don¡¯t get quests, so I thought it might be useful for keeping track of your own goals.¡± I put the plate with the cake on the table in front of him and pick up the notebook. It contains exactly 100 pages that are mostly blank aside from section headers and organization. I immediately put it into my [Mental Library] to test it out. Rowan removes the napkin from over the cake and admires it for a moment before piercing it with the fork and taking a small bite. ¡°Oh, this cake is amazing! Is your Hearthkeeper Epic rank? They should be, just from making awesome cakes.¡± I pull out a pen from my inventory (because if I can carry around 5 kg worth of stuff, there¡¯s a lot of small items that are very useful to have on hand at all times) and flip the notebook to a section on people. ¡°Rowan likes cake,¡± I mutter aloud as I write it down. I check and see that the appropriate page in my [Mental Library] has automatically updated. This could definitely be useful for remembering important things like that. Chapter 47: Fractal Thoughts and Rabbit Feet I get a day to celebrate turning seven before I get shuffled off to school to meet with the [Tutorial Teacher], Aunt Rosemary, about a lesson plan. ¡°I am certain that playing with goblins and delving the childrens¡¯ dungeons has been fun, but we have lesson plans that can enable a more efficient leveling rate.¡± I¡¯m not going to complain about learning things, and I know my own attempts have probably not been the most efficient. People seemed content to let me do whatever before I got my first class choice, because with a cap of level 5 and no experience bonuses, it¡¯s not like I could actually get very far. Aunt Rosemary gives me a lecture talking about all the things I need to do over the next seven years in order to set me on the track for my apprentice class. All for the sake of numbers going up. There¡¯s assigned lists of recommended skills to unlock and useful activities for doing so. It¡¯s homework. I have no idea how they managed to look at learning magic and suck all the joy and wonder out of it. Well, I¡¯m going to have fun with it. There are seven lesson plans, one for each attribute. No plan for Enhanced Soul because no one has any idea what skills are in it. I¡¯ll be sure to write one up if I ever figure that out myself. ¡°It is not likely that you will be able to learn all of the skills in every area,¡± Aunt Rosemary says. ¡°Some skills are useful for anyone regardless of specialization. Don¡¯t miss Enhanced Heart (Increased Health), for instance. If you can unlock something in a reasonable amount of time, there¡¯s no reason not to. There no skills in this library that are actively dangerous to learn.¡± ¡°There are skills that are dangerous just to learn?¡± I ask. ¡°Eldritch skills are said to drive one mad,¡± Aunt Rosemary says. ¡°They can be powerful, but people will become more warped with each level. Should you ever find an eldritch tome, I recommend that you destroy it.¡± I give her mental kudos for smoothly dropping crumbs for the obligatory cataclysmic metaplot. Even knowing I¡¯m on a timer, I¡¯m not even especially worried about it. If I can¡¯t level up and prepare enough to deal with it when it comes, then perhaps free will wasn¡¯t enough. Perhaps some Enhanced Soul skills can be gained through self-reflection or whatever. For all that I find myself thinking philosophically from time to time, I still hate philosophy. There is still so much about the system and magic that I don¡¯t understand. There are Enhanced Hands skills to increase crafting speed and precision, which I¡¯m definitely going to try and get. The recommended skills to start off with, though, are ones to keep you from dying. We¡¯ve got health and regeneration boosts in Enhanced Heart, then there¡¯s Enhanced Muscles (Thick Skin), and Enhanced Feet (Uncanny Dodge) to keep from getting hit, and so forth. I don¡¯t argue with the necessity of the task and settle in for the time being to focus on my magic homework. It¡¯s not like I was going adventuring this time of year anyway. Enhanced Heart skills involve a lot of meditating. I spend an excessive amount of time sitting in one place trying to be aware of the flow of blood through my body. While keeping one or more Clairvoyance skills active for the bonuses, which isn¡¯t necessarily helpful toward focusing. To my great relief, the first skill I unlock isn¡¯t for the body.
Skill acquired: Enhanced Soul (Fractal Consciousness)
Description: The ability to concentrate on more than one activity simultaneously by temporarily splitting your consciousness with your previous lives.
I was expecting to get something like that from Enhanced Mind, which has its own version, but I¡¯m not gonna complain about it. This might be even better. I can put the psychic in charge of the psychic stuff so I can concentrate on whatever else I might be doing. Another Not-Christmas season is upon us, and this time I make an effort to pay attention to the modified carols, realizing that Liz may have been the one who wrote them. Her being our founder and realizing what she¡¯s like makes a lot of the weirdness I was born into make sense. She took the parts of Christmas she liked and left out the parts she didn¡¯t. First there¡¯s the Hearth Day feast on the 25th of December, heralding the start of the Winter Festival. No matter how annoying the swarm season might be, people always celebrate the end of it and the coming of winter with a week-long festival. Then New Year¡¯s Eve, and the New Year itself with the lights streaking into the Heavens and the sky turning violet as I watch with my psychic senses.
It is now Year 737 of the Age of the Green Fox.
Another year, come and gone. Surrounded by family, singing songs with my sister and cousins, and exchanging gifts. I still don¡¯t understand how the streaks of light work, but they¡¯re fascinating to watch. I think Corwen is sending essence toward the big ball in the sky. Perhaps it¡¯s something as mundane as magic taxes.This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
Skills increased: Clairvoyance (Aether Sense), Enhanced Soul (Fractal Consciousness), Recollection (Insight)
Whatever it is, it¡¯s good for skill gains, at any rate.
It¡¯s spring, and with the snow gone, I¡¯m working on learning a very useful skill: Enhanced Feet (Mapping Step). ¡°You need to carefully remember everywhere you¡¯ve put your feet,¡± Anise says. ¡°I know there¡¯s a bunch of boring skills that require you to sit around and think about stuff. This isn¡¯t one of those. For this, you only need to pay attention to your surroundings and feel yourself in tune with them or whatever metaphor works for you.¡± ¡°How did you unlock it?¡± I wonder. ¡°Hah, very funny,¡± Anise says. ¡°I was an [Adventurous Child]. It wasn¡¯t hard for me, so it shouldn¡¯t be hard for you either. I may have bet Meadow that you¡¯ll get it before you even leave the village.¡± ¡°Are we leaving the village?¡± I ask. ¡°Two weeks from now,¡± Anise says. ¡°Got a dungeon delve planned, so get ready. It¡¯s not a dangerous one, but more involved than the little kiddie dungeons we¡¯ve been doing. It¡¯ll be you, Rowan, and Burdock this time around. Meadow and me will chaperone.¡± I decide to include drawing a map and sketches along with exploring the village in order to double up on practice. I even get up on the walls and paint a picture of the Hearth that¡­ is still pretty terrible, honestly, but hey.
You have thoroughly explored Corwen.
Skills increased: Crafting (Cartography), Crafting (Sketching), Crafting (Painting)
Skill acquired: Enhanced Feet (Mapping Step)
Description: Your footsteps are recorded on your interface¡¯s minimap. Higher levels increase radius of coverage and duration of memory.
Once it¡¯s unlocked, I don¡¯t even really need to think about what I¡¯m doing with it consciously any longer. I just walk and steps appear in the system interface in my third eye. It has some limitations, of course. It only records places you have actually walked. This is a feet technique, after all. In order for it to record a wall, you have to kick the wall. ¡°This is so silly,¡± I mutter as I step on chairs. As the skill levels up, it will add a greater radius around a footstep to the minimap. Unfortunately, at level 1, it only adds what¡¯s directly below my feet, leaving my minimap nothing but footprints that only last for minutes. I still try to fill it in anyway. ¡°This is really not the most efficient way to train this skill,¡± says some killjoy behind me. ¡°Maybe, but it¡¯s fun.¡± Unrelatedly, I am no longer allowed to play ¡°the floor is lava¡± in the hearth. (It doesn¡¯t help that I got the other kids in on it too.) So I do it in the guest house until someone decides I really ought to be playing outside. At least I manage to get it unlocked the day before our field trip. I meet my party at the gate, all of us with our packs loaded up (and my inventory full of another 5 kilos of stuff I don¡¯t have to carry on my back). Rowan has a wooden sword and shield that I didn¡¯t make for him, which is probably just as well if he wants equipment that probably won¡¯t break mid-dungeon. Burdock is armed with a wooden staff taller than he is, with Mipsy at his side coming up to his knee. I wonder how much the monster cat has left to grow. Meadow has gotten new equipment since I last saw her in full adventuring gear. A forest green cloak stands out against the typical black Corwen attire, and she has a bow with a painted image of an arrow decorating the grip. ¡°Everyone ready?¡± Anise says. ¡°Alright, everyone remember, if anything stupid happens, Meadow¡¯s the responsible adult here. We¡¯re heading to Wonderland, so let¡¯s be off. I¡¯ll tell you whatever you need to know about it along the way, but I¡¯d hate to spoil too much of the fun.¡± ¡°How dangerous is it?¡± Rowan asks. ¡°Not particularly,¡± Anise says. ¡°You¡¯ll get some combat practice in, but you¡¯ll be fighting cardboard, so nothing¡¯s likely to seriously hurt you.¡± ¡°I have three months until I turn 14,¡± Rowan says. ¡°I do hope this helps.¡± Wonderland is two days¡¯ travel away from the village, and we spend the intervening night at the guest house of another village along the way. When we arrive at the area the dungeon is supposed to be, we stop to make camp. I¡¯m still trying to coax the concept of fire out of a bundle of sticks, like I have every single other camping trip we¡¯ve made. Survival (Fire Making) is not feeling like cooperating with or without the questionable help from [Psychometry]. ¡°Some ground rules before we head in,¡± Anise says as if reciting a script obligatorily. ¡°First, never split the party. Not if you see something shiny, not if your familiar runs off, not even if you see a talking white rabbit scampering off into a hole. Alert the rest of the party to what you¡¯ve seen and wait for us to go together.¡± ¡°Anise, how many times did your party leaders have to tell you that speech?¡± I ask. ¡°Lost count,¡± Anise says. ¡°Seven-year-old me was an [Adventurous Child]. None of you are mischievous or adventurous, so I expect you will be less of a pain in the butt than me. The three of you will be looking to protect, help, and stare at things.¡± ¡°I¡¯m hoping to do more than just stare at things,¡± I protest. ¡°Fine, think at things while doing other stuff. There¡¯s usually some fun puzzles to solve in here. Oh yeah, be careful about anything you eat or drink, too. It does weird things.¡± I finally give up on the fire and Burdock gets it lit instead. We eat and sleep, planning to wake at green and head into the dungeon for a leisurely, well-rested little adventure. This is Wonderland, though, and it¡¯s not going to wait for us. My sleep is interrupted by a voice yelling, ¡°I¡¯m late! I¡¯m late!¡± I snap open my eyes and sit up in time to see a white rabbit wearing stylish clothes run past carrying a pocketwatch. Mipsy chases off after him before anyone can discourage her. ¡°Mipsy!¡± Burdock yells, chasing after Mipsy. Anise just shrugs and says, ¡°Follow that rabbit!¡± ¡°Grab your equipment first, and then follow that rabbit,¡± Meadow says, snagging Burdock¡¯s staff as well as her own bow before giving chase. Chapter 48: Leap into Wonderland The sharply-dressed talking white rabbit plunges into a hole in the ground. The four-eared three-eyed cat pounces in right after it. Burdock doesn¡¯t even hesitate to dive after them. ¡°Wheeeee!¡± Anise exclaims, leaping into the hole. ¡°It¡¯s¡­ it¡¯s safe, right?¡± Rowan asks, looking warily at the hole. ¡°Try to keep up!¡± Meadow says, gesturing to him to go ahead of her. I certainly don¡¯t wait to jump down a rabbit hole. Rowan comes in a moment above me, with Meadow bringing in the read after making sure to keep the party together.
You have discovered Wonderland.
Skills increased: Athletics (Jumping)
¡°Oh Talgarth, we¡¯re all going to die,¡± Rowan cries, covering his face with his arms. ¡°Relax, Rowan,¡± I say. ¡°I have a feeling that we¡¯re going someplace incredibly silly, though.¡± ¡°Burdock, I got your staff,¡± Meadow says. ¡°I¡¯ll give it back once we land. Try not to forget your equipment next time.¡± ¡°Sorry,¡± Burdock says. We¡¯re still falling. Down, down, down. All around us blur stone walls covered in glowing fungi, a window looking into a room full of singing white pod things, a glass tube past an entire underground ocean, wooden walls, brick walls, a giant beehive, cupboards and shelves with jars and books, and finally we land in a pile on a wooden floor. Whatever effect prevents us from going splat upon landing doesn¡¯t stop us from softly landing on top of one another. The room we¡¯ve landed in is plain and sparsely decorated. A purple curtain hangs on one wall, which I pull back to reveal a tiny door too small to admit even Mipsy. To the side of the room stands a table with a tiny key and a tray covered in teacups along with a hot, steaming teapot. Each cup, as well as the pot, is marked with the words ¡®Drink me.¡¯ ¡°We fell an awful long way,¡± Burdock says. ¡°Did we fall all the way to the Underside?¡± ¡°Yep,¡± Anise says. ¡°Don¡¯t worry. You¡¯re safe inside the dungeon.¡± ¡°Remember, don¡¯t spoil everything, Anise,¡± Meadow says. I¡¯ve already read this story, but it seems this dungeon that decided to imitate a 19th century children¡¯s book has randomized things a little for variety. A teapot instead of a bottle, for instance. ¡°Obviously, we¡¯re supposed to drink the tea,¡± I say wryly. Burdock takes the teapot and pours a shimmering orange liquid into five cups and a saucer. I pick up one and take a sip of something warm and smooth, tasting like caramel, orange marmalade, and something. Before I can start considering mouthfeel, my perception warps. The room just got bigger around me, or more specifically, I got smaller. Only a little shorter, so still too big to fit through that door. ¡°The tea is cursed!¡± Rowan exclaims. ¡°You¡¯ve shrunk! I hope it¡¯s only temporary.¡± Anise just smirks and stands back watching us. Meadow, for her part, isn¡¯t smirking quite so widely, but neither of them are offering insight. ¡°There isn¡¯t any other way out of here except that door,¡± Burdock says. ¡°There¡¯s not even much to the puzzle. Just drink the right amount of tea.¡± Burdock goes over to grab his own cup of tea, carefully drinking down a little at a time to get just the right size to fit through the door comfortably. Mipsy laps at her saucer somewhat reluctantly, and shrinks down to a relative size to be as tall as Burdock. Mipsy scratches at the door. Burdock goes to open it, only to find that it¡¯s locked. ¡°Was there a key?¡± Burdock asks in a high-pitched voice. Rowan sighs and picks up the itty-bitty key off the table. He passes it to Burdock before taking his own cup of tea and sipping himself tiny. ¡°This is really disorienting,¡± Rowan squeaks. ¡°And we¡¯ve only just begun,¡± I add with a grin. The rest of us follow suit, with Anise and Meadow going last. Burdock gets the door unlocked, but before he can rush through it, Rowan musters his courage and pushes to the front. ¡°I¡¯m supposed to be the Guardian here,¡± Rowan says, hefting his shield. ¡°I should be going first. Even if Anise assures us that there¡¯s no serious danger, we shouldn¡¯t get into bad habits. If we had a Rogue, we ought to be checking everything for traps.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll keep an eye out,¡± I say. ¡°My psychic detection skills might spot things out of the ordinary, but they work better for living beings.¡± ¡°Be sure to give us a heads-up on any monsters you detect, then,¡± Rowan says. ¡°Anything past that door, before we open it?¡± ¡°Plants,¡± I say. ¡°No monsters in sight yet. Doesn¡¯t mean they aren¡¯t potentially annoying, though. Plants might also be aggressive, so keep your guard up.¡± Rowan cautiously opens the door, bright azure light streaming in through the gap, and we slowly head through behind him. We emerge into a lush garden teeming with life. Drooping ferns hang overhead like enormous palm trees. Mushroom caps extend their shade like overhanging roofs. Enormous flowers in a myriad of colors brighten the landscape. And above it all, a bright azure sphere shines overhead like a blue ¡®sun¡¯.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. ¡°What is that?¡± Rowan asks, shielding his eyes as he looks up. ¡°That¡¯s Tiganna,¡± Anise says. ¡°The skymote?¡± Rowan says. ¡°It¡¯s so big and bright!¡± ¡°Yeah, it¡¯s a lot closer than the other skymotes.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve only ever seen the glow over the edge of the domain,¡± Rowan says. ¡°I never thought about how bright it must be to light up the air like that.¡± Seeing Tiganna fills me with a pang of nostalgia, and reminds me that I miss the sun. I never thought I¡¯d say that I miss the sun, given how much of my past life I spent avoiding it. ¡°I¡¯m detecting some monsters around us,¡± I say. ¡°Insects and worms, mainly.¡± Rowan stops staring at the sky and remembers he¡¯s in a dungeon and should be paying attention to his surroundings. An orange-and-black butterfly the size of a skyship lands on a pink blossom towering above us, but none of the monsters here seem hostile. At the moment, at least. Leaving [Fractal Consciousness] to watch for monsters, I focus a bit on my [Mapping Step] skill as we explore the garden, trying to level it up as skills tend to level up faster inside dungeons. As I¡¯m using my psychic skills for the bonuses, I notice aether flowing from the environment and into my feet. Anise¡¯s description might have been a bit poor. According to the books I read, there are four classifications of skills: Self, World, World-to-Self, and Self-to-World. Discipline is the Self skill category for Willpower, imposing order upon yourself, while Maintenance is its World counterpart to impose order upon the world. The enhanced attribute skills are classified as World-to-Self, while the more flashy magic skills are Self-to-World. Watching my feet slowly gather power makes me realize exactly what ¡°World-to-Self¡± means.
Skills increased: Enhanced Feet (Mapping Step), Clairvoyance (Aether Sense), Enhanced Soul (Fractal Consciousness)
If I¡¯m using them constantly, I¡¯m probably going to max out my Clairvoyance skills long before anything else. I don¡¯t mind, though. Every level makes them cheaper to use. I might as well play into my strengths and see if I can unlock some sort of psychic crafter class when I grow up. ¡°We might get a better view if we climb on top of one of the mushrooms,¡± Burdock suggests. ¡°It¡¯s hard to see which way to go from here and there¡¯s no path.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll give you a boost,¡± Rowan says, cupping his hands in front of him. Burdock puts his foot in Rowan¡¯s hands and clambers up to the top, almost slipping off of the leathery surface. After a moment, he shields his eyes against Tiganna¡¯s light and turns in place as he scans the area. ¡°Any sign of the rabbit?¡± Rowan asks. ¡°Not from here,¡± Burdock says. ¡°But there¡¯s a caterpillar in a hat on top of another mushroom.¡± Burdock points off to the left. After doing another sweep to make sure he hasn¡¯t missed anything interesting, he slides down from the mushroom and lands lightly on the dirt. ¡°Let¡¯s go have a chat with it, then,¡± I say. ¡°Lead the way, Rowan.¡± Rowan dutifully takes a point. ¡°You think it¡¯ll chat?¡± ¡°I hope so,¡± I say. ¡°I¡¯m hoping it doesn¡¯t want to play cards with us.¡± ¡°Did you have to mention the cards?¡± Rowan says with a groan. ¡°Sorry.¡± Rowan pushes past blades of grass taller than we are, muttering, ¡°I wish I had a sword that was actually sharp to cut through these. I spent all my money on the shield.¡± ¡°Maybe you¡¯ll get lucky and one will drop,¡± Burdock says. An giant gray worm pokes its head out of the grass to watch us for a moment before burrowing into the mud. Rowan watches it tensely until it¡¯s gone from view. We continue on and come to a large blue mushroom Burdock says is the right one. The cap is wide and flat, so we should all be able to fit up there (except possibly Mipsy). A red caterpillar-shaped aura confirms it.
Category Monster
Race Insect
Gender Male
Rank Basic
Mood Nervous
Disposition Neutral
With the increases to my psychic skills, now I¡¯m able to gauge a being¡¯s disposition toward me and my party as distinct from merely their mood. I telepathically send the system box to my party members. The concepts I can see have gotten way too complex to handle actually seeing them all at once anymore. I¡¯ve shuffled [Aspect Analysis] off onto the memory of my past self when I have the Inspiration to do so, but left on the basic outlines of beings by colored by category as they had been at the beginning, but now I¡¯m thinking disposition might be a more useful default. It¡¯s important to immediately know if something is likely to attack me or not, and unveiled hostility is so easy a thing for [Empathy] that even an otherwise useless starship counselor from a scifi series can detect it. After a moment, I figure out how to swap over the visible auras in my third eye and keep the rest of the information for system boxes to quantify. Under disposition vision, the neutral caterpillar is yellow, Rowan is green, and my family members are violet. Meanwhile, Burdock and Rowan are trying to figure out how to actually get everyone up there, and ultimately decide to just have an indignant Mipsy help boost us up. The fuzzy green caterpillar saw us coming the whole way from his vantage point of slightly higher than the surrounding grass. He doesn¡¯t doff his purple top hat to greet us, and eyes the monster cat uneasily. ¡°You¡¯re a funny looking lot,¡± the caterpillar says. ¡°Who are you all?¡± We give a round of introductions, and after the caterpillar doesn¡¯t respond with his own name, I ask, ¡°Who are you?¡± ¡°I am the Caterpillar.¡± ¡°Have you seen a white rabbit go by?¡± Burdock asks. ¡°Perhaps I have,¡± says the Caterpillar (with a capital C and everything). ¡°Is that the only reason you came to me? To ask for information or directions? No, no, that simply won¡¯t do at all. Tell me in rhyme, why are you here?¡± I clear my throat. ¡°We saw a caterpillar in a hat, and decided to stop by for a chat.¡± ¡°Terrible,¡± the Caterpillar says. ¡°Do you even have any skill at poetry at all?¡± ¡°Nope,¡± I say with a smirk. He looks toward Burdock and Rowan. ¡°Surely one of you can do better. I cannot imagine you could possibly do any worse.¡± ¡°We jumped down a really deep hole, because exploring this dungeon is our goal,¡± Burdock says. The Caterpillar doesn¡¯t even deign to comment on that and looks at Rowan. ¡°Um¡­ um¡­¡± Rowan stammers. ¡°Crap¡­ uh¡­ we¡¯re looking for a rabbit¡­ let¡¯s not make this a habit?¡± Nobody here is actually speaking English, so I have no idea what the system auto-translator does with rhymes. I think it must psychically translate rhymes and puns somehow, but how is an open question. ¡°I believed your [Psychic Child] was the worst at this, but I am sadly mistaken. You are all hopeless. Tch. I do hope none of you aspires to become a Bard.¡± We all shake our heads. ¡°Can you give us a hint at least?¡± Burdock asks. ¡°Oh, very well,¡± the Caterpillar says. ¡°One type of mushroom here makes you larger. Another type makes you smaller.¡± Without another word, the Caterpillar crawls off, leaving us looking over the various colored mushrooms and realizing there are more than two types here. Burdock¡¯s emotional state shifts to ¡®dismayed¡¯. ¡°Oh Corwen, I¡¯ve been trying to learn about plants and funguses, but I can¡¯t remember all of them and Daisy¡¯s book doesn¡¯t talk about all the ones only found in dungeons.¡± ¡°Fungi,¡± I say reflexively, deciding not to think about magical auto-translation while in the middle of a dungeon. ¡°Well, I know even less than you do,¡± Rowan says. ¡°And while I dislike the idea of randomly munching on weird mushrooms found in a dungeon, it doesn¡¯t seem like we have much choice unless we want to wander off while tiny and look for another way to get big again.¡± Chapter 49: Mushrooms and Tea Parties From our vantage point atop a wide blue mushroom cap, my party gazes out over the garden. The Caterpillar said one type of mushroom would make us larger and one would make us smaller, but there¡¯s so many patterns and colors represented that I¡¯m not sure there are even two of the same kind of mushroom. ¡°Alright, let¡¯s try to be systematic about this,¡± I say, pulling out my notebook and a pencil. ¡°I¡¯m going to start cataloguing the types of mushrooms I see and try to identify them with my various skills.¡± Without waiting for me, Burdock reaches over the edge of the blue mushroom cap we¡¯re standing on and tears off a small piece. And by ¡®small¡¯ I mean it¡¯s as big as his forearm when we¡¯re this size. He takes a bite, and he has no sooner swallowed it than he starts hiccuping. ¡°Flat blue mushroom - causes hiccuping,¡± I mutter aloud as I write it down, and do a scan of the mushroom beneath our feet.
Category Plant
Type Mushroom
Rank Basic
Aspect Air
I am mildly irritated that the system classifies a mushroom as a plant, but don¡¯t consider it worth ranting about. It¡¯s not like anything inside a dungeon was made with normal biological processes anyway. ¡°Please don¡¯t get into the habit of eating random things in dungeons¡­¡± Rowan says with a sigh. ¡°My skills say it has the aspect of air,¡± I say. ¡°That¡¯s probably why it caused hiccuping.¡± ¡°I would have hic hoped that hic air would make you hic fly, not¡­¡± Burdock keeps hiccuping. ¡°Maybe it could if it had been brewed into a potion or something,¡± I say. ¡°Let¡¯s check the next mushorom.¡± We slide down to the mossy ground and head over to the next mushroom, a vivid indigo cap. ¡°This one has the aspect of water,¡± I say. ¡°What do you suppose that will do?¡± Rowan wonders. Burdock is already reaching up to break off a piece as we speak. He manages to eat a nibble before starting to hiccup again. Shimmering bubbles come out of his mouth with each hiccup, floating up into the air for a few moments before popping. ¡°That¡­ was not helpful,¡± Rowan observes unnecessarily. The next mushroom has a lime green cap with a purple stalk. I identify it as containing the aspect of growth, and relay the screen to my party. Rowan pulls off a chunk and takes a bite. He rapidly grows larger, and we have to take several steps back to make sure we¡¯re not crushed by his enormous feet. The green mushroom breaks off as his toes extend through its stalk, and the cap falls over onto the ground. Rowan stumbles a little as he regains his balance and tries not to squish us. ¡°Whoa,¡± Rowan says, his voice echoing from high above. ¡°This was the right one but I ate too much of it. I can see everything from here. I can see the other domains in the sky!¡± I put away my notebook because I don¡¯t want it to stay tiny if I drop it. I¡¯m just not going to question how it changes the size of everything we¡¯re carrying along with us right now. I might experiment later, but right now, I nibble on a smaller piece of mushroom than Rowan did. My perspective shifts and blurs, and suddenly my seven-year-old body is almost two meters tall. Not as big as Rowan, but certainly more than normal. I take advantage of my added vantage point and look around. Starting with the sky, now that I can see it unimpeded by the canopy of small plants. Beyond the shining azure skymote, a huge green disc hangs like a giant map. There¡¯s a few other smaller domains visible as well, but instead of the Great Orb above, beyond the wild domain there is only darkness. The Void. Past the illuminated atmosphere lies a starless expanse that goes on for eternity. It¡¯s enough to cause Sanity damage just from looking at it. Unlike the innocent young souls here, I understand what it represents. The end of the stars. The heat death of the universe. Had we not discovered something that could reverse entropy, there would be nothing left of us but slowly cooling vacuum.
Sanity: 7/12
Skills increased: Recollection (Suppression), Discipline (Self-Delusion)
¡°Drake, are you alright?¡± Rowan asks. ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m fine,¡± I say, taking a thermos of Sanity-replenishing tea from my bag and guzzling some of it down. ¡°I just need to not stare into the Void for too long.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve heard stories of people losing their minds from gazing too deeply into the Void,¡± Rowan says. ¡°Eyes to the ground. Can you identify some more mushrooms? Hopefully something to make us the right size again.¡± (Burdock keeps hiccuping.) ¡°And cure Burdock.¡± With a taller body, it¡¯s easier to investigate a larger area. After identifying several other mushrooms that probably wouldn¡¯t be helpful, I spot a spotted gray-and-white one with the aspect of nullification. Hopefully, that will cancel the effects of the other mushrooms and not nullify us, but I have faith in my mom not trying to get us killed.The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. I take a small bite, and immediately return to my normal height of 1.2 meters. I break off pieces and pass them to my party members. Burdock can¡¯t shove it in his mouth fast enough, and it stops both the hiccups and bubbles along with returning him to his regular size. Anise and Meadow have to eat larger pieces for the same effect, and grow more slowly. I write down some more notes and say, ¡°I¡¯m going to take some extra samples in case we run into more places that might do weird things.¡± ¡°Good idea,¡± Rowan says. ¡°This place is definitely weird and we¡¯ve barely gotten started.¡± Once I¡¯ve made notes of and collected many of the mushrooms I can see, a notification pops up in my third eye.
Skill acquired: Search (Herbalism)
Description: The ability to locate and identify herbs, fungi, and other natural resources.
¡°Where to now?¡± Burdock asks. ¡°Did you see the White Rabbit when you were being huge?¡± ¡°I spotted something interesting over that way,¡± Rowan says, pointing. ¡°It looked like there were some humanoid monsters gathered around a table.¡± Now that we¡¯re big again, we locate a small cobblestone path winding through the garden, and follow it in the direction Rowan indicated. After a short walk, we emerge from the foliage into a clearing with a large table set up in the middle of it. At one corner of the table sit a small man in a huge blue hat, a four foot tall brown hare wearing a green tunic, and a three foot tall dormouse in a frilly nightgown. (At least, I assume it¡¯s a dormouse as I¡¯m not sure what the difference is between a dormouse and a regular mouse.) A great number of plates of tiny sandwiches and cups of tea are strewn atop a checkered pink tablecloth. ¡°Let¡¯s not eat or drink anything,¡± Rowan whispers as we approach. I follow after Rowan and Burdock, fully expecting this to devolve into absolute nonsense at any moment. A scan of the assembled beings indicates that they are all Basic rank monsters with neutral dispositions. The Dormouse is smoking from something that looks like a big, fancy bong. I¡¯m guessing that¡¯s supposed to be a hookah. I don¡¯t recall ever seeing an actual hookah in my first life, but I¡¯ve seen plenty of bongs. When he lets out a breath, sparkly pink smoke emerges from his mouth. ¡°I hope that isn¡¯t floj,¡± Anise says quietly. ¡°Don¡¯t do drugs, kids. Or at least if you do drugs, don¡¯t do floj.¡± ¡°This isn¡¯t floj,¡± the Dormouse says, having overheard her. ¡°It¡¯s sparkleweed shisha. And you can¡¯t have any.¡± ¡°That¡¯s great,¡± Anise says. ¡°We didn¡¯t want any.¡± ¡°Have you seen a White Rabbit?¡± Burdock asks. ¡°Would you know a rabbit if you saw one?¡± asks the Hare. ¡°Do you think I¡¯m a rabbit?¡± ¡°I guess?¡± Burdock says. ¡°No! I am the March Hare. A hare is a completely different thing from a rabbit.¡± ¡°Please, have some tea,¡± says the Mad Hatter. When he extends his wrist, I notice he¡¯s wearing a watch with colors on the inner band and animal icons around the rim, with one hand pointing to green and the other to the fox. I probably wouldn¡¯t have noticed if I hadn¡¯t specifically been wondering what the Mad Hatter¡¯s watch looks like in this iteration.
Your Perception has increased to 9.
Skill acquired: Enhanced Senses (Flash Observation)
Description: The ability to notice details at a glance that might otherwise be overlooked.
¡°I¡¯ll pass on the tea, thank you very much,¡± Burdock says. ¡°How about the sandwiches?¡± the Hatter goes on. ¡°They¡¯re guaranteed to make you thirsty.¡± We continue to politely refuse any and all offers of consumables. I¡¯m picking up some very strange aspects in them that I can¡¯t quite identify. ¡°Oh, this is boring,¡± says the the Hatter. ¡°Answer my riddle, travelers. Why is a raven like a writing-desk?¡± ¡°They both have quills,¡± I reply. The Hatter considers that for a moment. ¡°You think you¡¯re the clever one.¡± ¡°I¡¯m pretty sure I have the highest Intelligence in my party, at least.¡± ¡°You¡¯re pretty sure?¡± the Hatter says. ¡°You have a high Charisma as well?¡± ¡°I mean I¡¯m not certain.¡± ¡°Then why didn¡¯t you say what you meant?¡± the Hatter retorts. ¡°And why aren¡¯t you certain? Did your party members not share their character screens with you?¡± The Dormouse takes a long drag on his hookah and blows sparkly pink smoke in our faces. I cough and squeeze shut my stinging eyes. ¡°Dormouse!¡± the March Hare snaps. ¡°That was terribly rude of you! You should hit us up before the boring strangers.¡± My head spins, but I shake it off and wipe my eyes. ¡°We answered your riddle,¡± Burdock says. ¡°Where did the White Rabbit go?¡± ¡°Oh, very well,¡± the Mad Hatter says. ¡°He said he feared being late for a meeting with the Duchess. I daresay she won¡¯t even notice as she hasn¡¯t got a proper watch. He went that way.¡± The Hatter points vaguely before grabbing a cheese sandwich and dipping it in his tea. ¡°You can take what¡¯s in the chest if you like as well,¡± the March Hare says, lifting the tablecloth to reveal a dungeon chest. ¡°I don¡¯t know why travelers like yourselves like what¡¯s inside of chests so much. The chests themselves are what¡¯s nice.¡± ¡°Sometimes there are hats in chests,¡± the Mad Hatter protests. Rowan crouches down and opens up the chest, and pulls out a few coins, a small vial of something tea-colored, and a green pointed hat with a red feather. He hands them to me as we leave. ¡°Can you identify them, Drake?¡± Rowan asks. ¡°I suppose I should have expected becoming the item identifier after I started grinding Clairvoyance,¡± I say, taking them and examining them. ¡°The vial looks like it¡¯s a potion made from those nullification mushrooms. The hat looks like something Burdock would look great in.¡±
Skills increased: Clairvoyance (Aspect Analysis), Crafting (Appraisal)
¡°What does it do?¡± Burdock wonders, taking the hat from me and looking at it critically. ¡°I have no idea,¡± I say. ¡°It¡¯s not cursed, is it?¡± I shake my head. ¡°I don¡¯t get the impression that it does anything bad. I can¡¯t guarantee it doesn¡¯t do something weird, however. It seemed to be something positive, though.¡± Burdock puts the hat on. Nothing weird happens, but we¡¯re all practically holding our breaths for the next weird thing to happen. We reach a wooden gate, hanging ajar and opening onto a field where a pack of human-sized cards are playing croquet. Rowan pauses in the opening, staring at them. ¡°This dungeon is so weird¡­¡± Rowan mutters, heading out through the gate. Chapter 50: Gratuitous Abuse of Playing Cards We emerge into an open field where human-sized cards are playing croquet. Upon closer glance, their croquet mallets appear to also be made out of cardboard. This makes them somewhat ineffectual against balls. ¡°What is that thing doing here?¡± declares the Queen of Hearts, looking disdainfully at Mipsy. ¡°How dare you bring a foul cat onto our field. Off with their heads!¡± Rowan was prepared for this, and brings his shield and wooden sword to bear against the oncoming pack of cards. ¡°I¡¯ve been waiting for this!¡± Rowan says. ¡°Now I just wish I had something that could cut paper.¡± Mipsy hisses at the overly-addressive pieces of cardboard and shreds with her claws. Burdock protects her flank, beating them away with his staff. I have a pair of scissors in my inventory. Because I didn¡¯t see a reason not to load it up with every tool I might conceivably find useful totalling under 5 kg. I never got to go hiking much in my first life, but I nerded out over people optimizing their carry weight because it involved math and science. I was frequently involved in developing lighter products. The tiniest computer possible would be one whose additional weight was negligible. I eat a bit of growth mushroom that I kept in my pocket, and rapidly grow larger until I¡¯m big enough that the cards only come up to my knees. Then I pull the scissors out of my inventory. I heft them with both hands and sweep down into the middle of the pack and snip anything I catch. The cards scream as they¡¯re cut, bleeding ink. This is¡­ slightly disturbing, but also kind of funny. They¡¯re monsters and will respawn anyway, never mind the fact that they were attacking us. And continue to do so even after a giant with a pair of scissors starts making confetti out of them, so I don¡¯t have much sympathy. Eventually, the royals retreat, leaving behind the common numbered cards to get decimated. Seeing their leaders abandon them and their comrades cut apart, the survivors surrender.
Skills increased: Striking (Bladework)
Giant scissors count as [Bladework]. Noted. A chest appears once the field is silent. It contains coins, a diamond-shaped glowing yellow crystal, and a flat sharpened spade. Rowan hands them to me to identify after looting the chest. ¡°The crystal just has the aspect of light in it, so far as I can tell,¡± I say. ¡°That might be good for crafting. I¡¯m not detecting anything I can identify from the shovel, but it would probably be a decent weapon.¡± ¡°Better than a wooden sword, at any rate,¡± Rowan agrees. ¡°Might be awkward to use with a shield, though. Burdock, you¡¯re already using pole weapons. This will beat trying to cut paper with a stick.¡± Burdock takes the spade and hefts it to test its weight and balance before nodding. ¡°Great!¡± Anise says brightly. ¡°I love equipping pre-teens with sharp objects.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s not tell his mother,¡± Meadow adds. ¡°I¡¯m sure Aunt Maggie won¡¯t object to her son using a perfectly ordinary garden tool,¡± Anise says. ¡°A garden tool capable of cutting through the most stubborn taproots and pesky plant monsters,¡± Meadow says. As mundane as a light crystal might be in magitech, I¡¯m still excited about getting one. I¡¯m going to play around with that for my crafting. It would probably make a good headlamp, for the most mundane possible use at least. ¡°Maybe there will still be a sword later on,¡± Rowan says. ¡°How much more of the dungeon is left?¡± ¡°Dunno!¡± Anise says brightly. ¡°I haven¡¯t been here in years and dungeons can change between visits.¡± ¡°You see anything interesting from up there, Drake?¡± Rowan asks. Off in the distance (how the heck large is the inside of a dungeon, anyway?) I spot a giant sitting against a cliff (that¡¯s probably the edge of the dungeon) and crying a literal river. We¡¯ll need to cross the river just to get over there, the way it¡¯s cutting through the terrain. We could all get big, but there¡¯s probably a better option here. And by ¡®better¡¯ I mean more fun. I look down at the cards who are cowering in submission. ¡°Hey. I don¡¯t suppose you can make a bridge for us?¡± The cards are very confused at the idea, but amenable to whatever doesn¡¯t get them scissored. ¡°Okay, just¡­ hold onto one another and try not to squirm too much,¡± I say. I pick up the terrified cards two at a time and start building a bridge out of them. It is probably the most ridiculous thing I have done in this life and I am thankful that I don¡¯t wind up with a Crafting (Card Building) skill¡ª
Skill acquired: Crafting (Card Building)
Description: The ability to build structures out of cardboard, with or without the addition of glue or other materials.
Oh for Corwen¡¯s sake¡­ Fine! Fine, I will take my small bonus to all my other crafting skills from this stupid skill. This wouldn¡¯t even work very well with cards that don¡¯t have arms and legs and aren¡¯t capable of grabbing onto one another steady themselves.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. My party walks over the bridge of cards, and Meadow barely makes it across in the rear before something slips. The bridge collapses, and screaming pieces of cardboard fall into the river. I scoop out some waterlogged cards that fell nearby before we continue on to locate the giant. I¡¯m still big, but the giant is even bigger than me. Still, the amount of water coming out of his eyes is quite exaggerated, flowing out like a waterfall. Along the banks of the river of tears, a group of mice wearing clothes are trying to swim to shore, helping one another out of the river, and drying off nearby. ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± Burdock calls up to the giant. The giant stops sobbing for a moment to open one eye at the voice that spoke. ¡°I sat on a mouse. I didn¡¯t mean to! I don¡¯t want to hurt any more of my little friends.¡± ¡°Oh,¡± Burdock says. ¡°Hey, Drake, do you have any shrinking mushrooms? I don¡¯t know if we figured out which type did shrinking.¡± ¡°I did,¡± I say, pulling out and offering a pale brown speckled mushroom to the giant. ¡°Here, take a little at a time and try not to shrink away into nothing.¡± ¡°Can that happen?¡± Burdock wonders. ¡°Dunno!¡± I say. The giant nibbles on a bit of mushroom, and starts getting smaller. After the first bite only making him a little smaller, he eats more and more, until he¡¯s the size of the mice. Once he¡¯s small, the mouse he¡¯d sat on crawls out from between the giant¡¯s butt-prints, dirty but unharmed. The now-tiny giant and the mice start to dance and sing and play as the river dries up. ¡°Has anyone seen the White Rabbit?¡± Burdock asks. ¡°Oh, there¡¯s some gloves in the water. Do these belong to anyone?¡± ¡°The White Rabbit dropped them,¡± says one of the mice. ¡°He looked very distraught! Said something about meeting the Duchess for a picnic.¡± I look around while I¡¯m still big, and spot the White Rabbit having a picnic with a well-dressed woman, a large turtle, and a griffin. I point out the direction and we head over, bracing ourselves for something else weird to happen. As we walk, the skymote shifts from azure to green. I had just gotten used to bright blue light everywhere and the sudden change of tint is a little disorienting, but not as bad as the change of perspective from getting bigger and smaller. I¡¯m already shrinking down to normal again as we cross the meadow. Looks like the effects of these mushrooms don¡¯t actually last very long. Hopefully that giant won¡¯t squish any further mice but it is no longer my problem. Also, they¡¯re all monsters. I have to wonder what monsters do all the time when there aren¡¯t people delving the dungeon. Have picnics, so far as I can tell. The White Rabbit, the Duchess, the Mock Turtle, and the Griffin (or is it Gryphon? whatever) are all sitting around on a huge white-and-red checkered blanket. A massive wicker basket overflows with jars and bread. On the blanket, a tiny (by which I mean normal-sized) animated chess set plays out something vaguely resembling a game. Occasionally, they get knocked over and scattered when one of the bigger picnickers carelessly bumps into them. ¡°Hello!¡± Burdock says, approaching the picnic. ¡°I followed you into the dungeon, Mr. Rabbit. I¡¯ve been looking everywhere for you! Here, you dropped your gloves.¡± The White Rabbit wrinkles his nose in disgust at the tear-soaked gloves, and hangs them up from a tree to dry (almost stepping on a couple of pawns in the process, who squeak and scatter out of the way). ¡°I am most grateful for their return,¡± the White Rabbit says. ¡°Did that giant finally stop crying?¡± the Duchess says. ¡°He was making the most dreadful noise. I could hear it from the other side of Wonderland! Insofar as Wonderland has sides.¡± What follows is a burst of wordplay so intense that it gives me a headache. I maybe have been relying on auto-translation a little too much, and the worst bit of it is that the dungeon is also trying to translate. I switch off the translator for a moment and just sit down and listen to waves of nonsense go back and forth. I watch concepts float through the air, trying to see if I can identify the concept of puns. Very strange, in a world of concepts, to see strings of sounds tangled up with two meanings. I can¡¯t follow what happens, but apparently whatever Burdock says satisfies the diverse group of beings. They offer another chest, and I turn the auto-translator back on and start paying attention again as we¡¯re distributing loot. Some coins, a jar of jam, and a bluish metal rod. ¡°Drake, I don¡¯t suppose you could make me a sword out of this?¡± Rowan asks. ¡°I don¡¯t have any metalworking skills yet,¡± I say. ¡°But it¡¯s definitely on the agenda for when anyone feels like letting a small child near a forge.¡± Finally, we come upon a huge talking tree monster who, of course, wants to play Leaves with us before he¡¯ll let us complete the dungeon. We all have to groan at the prospect even as we obligatorily sit down to play. I¡¯m starting to really hate this stupid game. And we lose. Badly. ¡°Hmm, hmm,¡± says the tree. ¡°It seems none of you is a budding cardsharp. A pity. Well, perhaps then you can answer me a riddle instead.¡± ¡°A riddle, yes,¡± I say. ¡°A riddle sounds fantastic. In fact, I would have preferred to have been given the option of a riddle before being forced to play one more match of this game.¡± The talking tree is unfazed by my outburst. ¡°Here is my riddle, if you can answer it. What¡¯s up?¡± ¡°A direction away from the pull of gravity from a given position,¡± I say. ¡°I was going to say ¡®the direction toward of the Great Orb¡¯,¡± Burdock says. ¡°I¡¯d say ¡®we¡¯re currently completing this weird as Void dungeon¡¯,¡± Rowan adds. The tree rumbles with a chuckle deep within its bark. ¡°Very well. I will not award any bonus cards, as you could not defeat me, but you may have your chest and dungeon completion.¡± There¡¯s an option in the options menu about consolidating system messages to only display at the end of the day. I like to be aware of incoming experience, however, because it¡¯s very interesting and I¡¯m trying to figure out how it works. I know once we¡¯ve completed the dungeon, we will receive a burst of experience. I¡¯m getting all my senses running, draining my Inspiration like a faucet, ready to analyze the incoming conceptual energy.
Congratulations! Your party has completed Wonderland.
Skills increased: Discipline (Focus)
Skill acquired: Knowledge (Scientific Method)
Description: A method of learning about the world through observation and empirical evidence.
A glittering stream like tiny stars embeds itself in my mind. It¡¯s beautiful, but I am no closer to understanding it. My system interface basically already is translating its analysis of the concepts in the form of its congratulatory message. I can¡¯t tell where it came from, exactly. I can¡¯t even tell where in me it went or what it did. Into those skills, I suppose, but there¡¯s got to be more to it than that. Burdock cries out in joy. ¡°I did it! That pushed me over to Elite!¡± ¡°Congratulations!" Rowan says. "I didn¡¯t, but good job. I wasn¡¯t really expecting to. You''ve done more to earn it than me.¡± Rowan goes to check the chest while the rest of us are giving Burdock congratulatory group hugs. The final chest contains a fair number of shiny coins and a shield that looks like a turtle shell. Rowan claims it, since he didn¡¯t get much else in the dungeon and he¡¯s the only one that uses shields. A door in the back of the tree opens. ¡°Enter, travelers, and exit. Do please visit Wonderland again. Perhaps practice Leaves a bit in the meantime?¡± ¡°Not a chance,¡± I say. ¡°Thanks for having us!¡± Burdock says. We step into the hollow in the monster tree and into a long fall back to the other side of the world. Chapter 51: Organization and Corruption We emerge from the Wonderland exit shaft by being shot out of a hollow stump like a cannon and scattered onto the surface. We land lightly, the feeling of being the same weight as foam quickly dissipating as we get our feet under us again. ¡°Ugh, it was so bright down there and now my eyes are having to adjust to Topside again,¡± Rowan complains, blinking up into Tempest¡¯s eternal twilight. ¡°Why is Tiganna so much brighter than the Great Orb when it¡¯s so much smaller?¡± ¡°I kind of feel bad about the cards,¡± Burdock says. ¡°They¡¯re monsters,¡± Anise says. ¡°They¡¯ll respawn.¡± ¡°They seemed so scared,¡± Burdock says. ¡°How many mushrooms did we collect, anyway?¡± Rowan asks. ¡°I got a bunch,¡± Meadow says. ¡°They¡¯re sadly less effective outside of dungeons,¡± Anise says. ¡°I know, I tried. Dungeons sometimes have different rules for how things work in them. Wonderland¡¯s got its own ideas on size changing.¡± ¡°They¡¯re still useful in potions,¡± Meadow says, then turns to me. ¡°Have you learned Crafting (Potions) yet?¡± I shake my head. ¡°I still have a lot of skills to unlock, never mind to grind up. I got freaking [Card Building] from that dungeon. I¡¯ll just add that to my list of skills I am never actually going to use but suppose am happy to have for the bonuses adding up.¡± ¡°I have so many cool skills to learn now,¡± Burdock says, practically bouncing with excitement. ¡°And I¡¯m going to go to Crux Academy, too!¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure it¡¯ll be very fun and educational for you,¡± Rowan says. Rowan¡¯s been a little dejected over not reaching Elite but trying to be supportive. I have no idea what the requirements actually are or what Burdock did to meet them. That part of the process seems to have been deliberately left opaque. Training skills makes sense, relatively speaking. Deeds, though? That seems to be up to the discretion of the aether cores. ¡°So, anyone want to make another run, or shall we head back?¡± Anise asks. The consensus is overwhelmingly in favor of not doing that again, so we break camp and get on the road back to Corwen. Anise tries to cheer up Rowan with, ¡°Don¡¯t feel too bad. You can keep adventuring with us and the kids! It¡¯ll be fun!¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± Rowan says with a sigh. ¡°The kids. I bet your daughter will make Elite before me.¡± ¡°Oh, come on,¡± Anise says. ¡°I didn¡¯t make Elite until I was in my late teens. Most people don¡¯t. I¡¯m sure Talgarth doesn¡¯t expect you to make Elite early.¡± ¡°Talgarth has fewer adventurers than Corwen, too,¡± Rowan says. ¡°I was kind of hoping for something more. But I suppose you¡¯re right. I still have plenty to learn and do. I don¡¯t know if Talgarth could afford to send me to Crux Academy anyway.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure they would, even if they hurt for it,¡± Anise says. ¡°They¡¯re your family and they love you and they always want the best for you.¡± Once back home, I get back to work on my studies. In addition to all the other things I¡¯m trying to work on, I have a shiny new light crystal to play around with. Aunt Rosemary has also noticed that my Maintenance skills have lagged behind and I need to fix that promptly. Both figuratively and literally. Look, I know where everything in my room is! Except when Griffin takes something. Every time I organize things, I never find them again! Fine, I¡¯ll do it, but I will use [Psychometry] on everything I touch.
Skill increased: Maintenance (Cleaning)
Skill acquired: Maintenance (Organization)
Description: The ability to sort, catalogue, and gather items by category or purpose.
I manage to find time in between the mandatory lessons to try to make a board game with the light crystal. I have an idea to make a Khet set. The sort of ¡°laser chess¡± with mirrors in some of the pieces and moving them around to tag your opponent¡¯s king. I don¡¯t know how to make actual mirrors yet so I just use polished bits of scrap metal. I just need something to reflect light, after all, and not a perfect mirror. I¡¯m in the middle of endlessly fiddling with that trying to get everything to line up correctly when Anise comes into the workshop excitedly. ¡°A skyship is coming!¡± Anise exclaims. ¡°No idea who they are. Come see!¡±Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! I don¡¯t protest, setting my tools aside to follow her out to the village square. The white-and-red skyship isn¡¯t nearly as large or fancy as the Prydwen, but it¡¯s very clearly not a school bus. Eight sail-wings jut out at various positions around the sleek hull, furling as the ship comes in to dock at the gate tower. The name Vanguard is painted in front of the weapon ports. They¡¯re closed at the moment, but I have to wonder what they have behind them. Cannons? Ballistae? Angry Sorcerers? We head up so I can use my various analysis skills on it as it pulls up to the skydock. Unlike Aunt Heather and Grandma Laurel, Aunt Savannah isn¡¯t deigning to come up to meet these visitors, so I suppose me and my mom are the welcoming committee today.
Category Object
Type Vessel
Race Human, Aranea
Quality Great
Rank Epic
Aspect Protection
The paint is fresh, covering up a myriad of battle scars. When the Vanguard lowers its gangplank, a party of obvious adventurers disembarks from the ship. I identify them one after another, and determine them to be an Epic-ranked Human Warrior, Gnome Rogue, Half-Elf Wizard, and Elf Druid. They have not bothered to change into civilian clothes for hanging around a village, and are wearing blatantly magical armor and robes. ¡°Good day, travelers!¡± Anise exclaims. ¡°I¡¯m Anise. What brings you to Corwen?¡± ¡°We¡¯re looking for Rowan Talgarth,¡± says the Warrior. ¡°We were told that he was studying swordplay here.¡± ¡°Is he in trouble?¡± Anise asks. ¡°No, but we have some grim news for him. Is he around?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll let him know you¡¯re here,¡± Anise says. ¡°First, let me show you to the guest house. I mean, the village is small so I¡¯m sure you can find it yourself, but he might just be in the public hearth.¡± Anise leads the adventuring party down the docking tower and across the village square to the guest house. Sure enough, he¡¯s there trying to play mahjong with the kids. ¡®Trying¡¯ being the operative word here. Willow thinks she understands the rules and is very insistent about it but she¡¯s definitely confused on a few points. Griffin is very insistent about breaking what he thinks the rules are. Juniper¡¯s face is scrunched up staring at the tiles and looking like she¡¯s the only one here trying to actually play. ¡°Rowan Talgarth?¡± says the Warrior, immediately guessing that the only blond 13-year-old boy in the room must be him. ¡°That¡¯s me,¡± Rowan says. ¡°Do I know you?¡± ¡°We¡¯re your Uncle Wolf¡¯s adventuring party. Could we get a moment?¡± ¡°Come along, kids,¡± Aunt Hazel says, swooping in. ¡°The weather is beautiful. Why don¡¯t we go for a swim?¡± She shepherds the younger kids out of the guest house, leaving me, Anise, and Rowan with the adventurers. ¡°Did something happen to Uncle Wolf?¡± Rowan asks. ¡°I¡¯m afraid so, young Rowan. There¡¯s no delicate way to say this. A few years ago, during an adventure in a distant system, he succumbed to¡­ eldritch corruption. He went mad and we spent years tracking him down again to¡­ well, suffice it to say that there was nothing of your uncle left in that body by the time we found him.¡± ¡°But Uncle Wolf is an Epic Paladin,¡± Rowan says. ¡°How could he get¡­ corrupted?¡± ¡°Sadly, courage and righteousness are no protection against the eldritch,¡± says the Warrior. ¡°It twists things, changes people, and turns noble warriors into abominations.¡± [Mom,] I send to her telepathically. [Can you ask them about the Wisteria Garden? I¡¯m playing ¡®normal kid¡¯.] I¡¯m sure these people are probably trustworthy, but I don¡¯t know them and there¡¯s no reason to open with telling them all my secrets when I have the option not to. ¡°A few years ago,¡± Anise says thoughtfully. ¡°Did Wolf Talgarth ever visit the Wisteria Garden, by chance?¡± ¡°That¡¯s a low level dungeon near here, isn¡¯t it?¡± the Warrior says. ¡°He was from the area, so most likely. Why?¡± ¡°Did he have a habit of throwing aspect stones into fountains for good luck?¡± Anise asks. ¡°He threw a lot of things into bodies of water for good luck,¡± the Rogue puts in. ¡°Once he even threw me into a lake for ¡®good luck¡¯.¡± ¡°A few years ago, we ran across a sudden eldritch infestation in the Wisteria Garden,¡± Anise says. ¡°We were able to deal with it and tracked it down to an aspect stone in a fountain. The dungeon told us that a previous adventurer had tossed it into the fountain for good luck, and gave a quest to investigate with a timer ticking down to the end of the century.¡± The Wizard frowns. ¡°Theoretically, conceptual connections to distant objects may be touched by certain effects. If an aspect stone Wolf touched years ago became corrupted when he did, that¡¯s¡­ worrisome.¡± ¡°We will need to investigate further,¡± the Warrior says. ¡°This had better not result in having to dive into every pond Wolf chuckled something into,¡± the Rogue mutters. ¡°So he¡¯s definitely dead, then?¡± Rowan asks. ¡°And not¡­ something worse?¡± ¡°He¡¯s definitely dead now,¡± the Warrior says grimly. ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡± Rowan sighs heavily and puts his face in his hands. ¡°He was my favorite uncle. I always admired him and wanted to be a Paladin like him when I grow up. But I haven¡¯t even made Elite yet and I turn 14 next month.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure you will become a Paladin your uncle would be proud of someday. But it wasn¡¯t on you to save him. It was on us. And we failed. You, though. You still have plenty of time to become a Legendary Paladin by the time the eldritch comes knocking at the end of the century.¡± Rowan isn¡¯t entirely mollified by that, but he has nothing else to say. The adventurers seem about ready to move swiftly on, having delivered their message, but Anise wheedles them into staying for dinner and sharing some stories about Rowan¡¯s uncle. Some stories about the good times they had together, their fun adventures, and not about the tragic ending. ¡°I suppose we owe the kid that much,¡± says the Rogue. ¡°But we¡¯re leaving by dark,¡± adds the Warrior. I haven¡¯t even managed to catch their names and doubt I will see them again anytime soon, if ever. None of them are from Tempest, and most of them aren¡¯t even from Tiganna. The gnomish Rogue (or roguish Gnome) is from Rust, one of the small domains close to the skymote, but the others are from further afield. ¡°It sounds like you went through a lot together,¡± Rowan says eventually. The Warrior nods. ¡°He was a good man, and the Crystalline Heavens is poorer for his loss.¡± Chapter 52: Summer of Skill Grinding Rowan heads back to his own Hearth toward the end of June. He turns 14 on the 26th of June and thinks he has done all the preparing he can do, and wants to spend his naming day with his family. My party goes along with him to Talgarth, even if we can¡¯t actually go inside the Hearth itself. There is nowhere on Tempest that is so far away that you can¡¯t get there in a few days even on foot. After the party with his family in the Hearth, he comes out to Talgarth¡¯s guest house for a second pary with us. Even if he didn¡¯t make Elite, someone¡¯s apprentice class is still a huge milestone. ¡°[Apprentice Guardian],¡± Rowan says. ¡°I will be guarding you from all the ridiculous things you do.¡± ¡°We don¡¯t do that many ridiculous things,¡± I protest. ¡°I cannot protect you from cleaning your room,¡± Rowan says. ¡°But you are not nearly as skilled as you think you are in the workshop. You are fortunate that you have Hearthkeepers who can make healing food.¡± ¡°Nobody will teach me metalworking yet,¡± I pout. Once we return to Corwen, the vacation is over and it¡¯s back to more lessons. We¡¯re all working on different skills, but there¡¯s only so many children in the village so we¡¯re basically just all in the building whenever we¡¯re not working on skills that require equipment or being outside. I spend July inside the village, except for the Summer Festival. Nothing tragic happens at the Summer Festival. I set up a sportsball net there and get everyone in the nearby villages to throw things at Rowan. I do not remember the actual rules to any Earth sports, but that doesn¡¯t stop children from making up whatever rules they feel like. Competitive sports are a good way to earn low-risk Deeds that still require effort. After seeing the demonstration, several of the other nearby Hearths decide to set up their own teams and have a real tournament next year. I don¡¯t want to define my life by battle, but I know I¡¯m not going to be able to get out of fighting for my entire existence. It would be best if I were able to do that effectively when I have to. At least well enough to avoid dying from something stupid before Rowan and whoever else is in my party can pull me out of the fire. ¡°You know, when I became an [Apprentice Guardian], I wasn¡¯t expecting to be leveling up skills by guarding a net,¡± Rowan says wryly. ¡°But this has actually been surprisingly effective.¡± ¡°You¡¯re probably getting even more bonuses than the switch from being a generic [Child] to being a child with an adjective attached to your class,¡± I say. ¡°I started getting skills faster when I hit 7, too.¡± ¡°Yeah, I suppose I would have, too,¡± Rowan says. ¡°But I barely remember being under 7 and didn¡¯t exactly learn much in that time.¡±
I decide to turn off the auto-translator now and then and actually try to learn Common. The younger kids find this hilarious for some reason, and they decide to help me learn, quite tickled over them teaching me something for once. And I¡¯m using various psychic powers in the process to help. I still need to relearn everyone¡¯s names. I kind of wish I¡¯d done this to begin with. I turn it on as a crutch when I actually need to understand or communicate something, which probably slows down learning, but I still make progress. I could probably actually just do what the auto-translator does with reading people¡¯s¡­ ¡°thoughts¡± isn¡¯t quite accurate, but that¡¯s basically it. [Empathy] reads emotions, but Clairvoyance can also read plenty of other things about a person. Actual thoughts and speech are just much more complicated than many of the things I have already learned to analyze. It¡¯s easy to tell that someone is angry, but harder to tell why they¡¯re angry. I keep at it, but expect no results instantly. There¡¯s still something I¡¯m missing but I¡¯m not willing to push into past-life memories when I don¡¯t have to. This will just take more practice and skill levels.
Skills increased: Language (Common), Clairvoyance (Telepathy), Clairvoyance (Empathy), Clairvoyance (Aspect Analysis)
I practice repairing things as well. I help mend some clothes while using [Psychometry] to try to determine who they belong to and how they became damaged. I can identify a Corwen from a non-Corwen at a glance now, but picking out the aura signature of specific individuals is taking a bit more work. People are complicated. Once I really figure out [Psychometry], that would mean Griffin won¡¯t be able to get away with all the things he gets into constantly. Everywhere someone has been should be smeared all over someone¡¯s clothes, but it will take quite a bit of practice to be able to piece together all the details.
Skill acquired: Maintenance (Mending)
Skill acquired: The ability to patch up and repair items made of fabric and similar materials.
Grandma Laurel isn¡¯t here to tell me that it¡¯s time to learn to ride a devil-goat and unlock Persuasion (Animal Handling) and Athletics (Riding). I still feel that I need to do so anyway, so I imagine her here encouraging me in her particular manner.This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. Obviously, my great-grandmother was not the only person in the village who knew how to handle the devil-goats. As they¡¯re a fixture of the village, every Hearthkeeper and anyone even slightly inclined toward animals or monsters learns to handle them at some point. Even for adventurers, they¡¯re a good way to study a monster that isn¡¯t going to actually hurt you. Our devil-goats are well-behaved. You just have to get past the [Fear Aura]. ¡°Why does Corwen have to spawn baby devil-goats?¡± I wonder. ¡°Why can¡¯t they reproduce like people?¡± ¡°They could,¡± Aunt Magnolia says. ¡°But their purely animal counterpart would just be a large, black goat. As monsters, they can have features that wouldn¡¯t work with normal biology, like their fire breath, aura, and even the unnatural strength of their wool. That wool, as you will shortly notice, is difficult to groom because of that.¡± Aether cores are not technically gods, but they¡¯re kind of a ¡°quacks like a duck¡± situation. They create matter from nothing, including the very people they spawned. They provide for their people. They reward their people for doing things the core wants them to do. They punish those who commit crimes against their people with exile or worse. If they¡¯re not gods, then I don¡¯t know what a god is. I was never a proponent of faith without evidence. It takes me a few weeks to manage it, but I eventually successfully groom a young devil-goat while keeping it calm myself. I¡¯m not ready to tackle one of the adults yet.
Congratulations! You have successfully groomed a Basic livestock.
Skills increased: Discipline (Fear Resistance), Tending (Animal Husbandry), Knowledge (Zoology)
Skill acquired: Persuasion (Animal Handling)
Skill acquired: The ability to pacify, coax, and train animals to perform desired actions.
My magic acorn has since sprouted into a healthy oak sapling. I visit it and water it and tend to it to make sure more of my essence gets layered into it. Most people who get rewards of fruit and nuts from dungeons don¡¯t see their potential. They just eat them and move on. Our apple orchards are here because someone planted those apples. Liz, at least, saw their potential. Even if her Clairvoyance skills may not have been high enough to see their Potential aspect. I read some books on plants and actually try to learn the information this time and not just skim things in an attempt to quickly raise skills. As it turns out, the system is not fooled by being lazy. I take a book about plants to my tiny oak tree and read aloud the section on oak trees while carefully watching our vis and essence. I can¡¯t deliberately use my vis to do magic yet, but everything I do still uses it passively as it¡¯s constantly being let off into the aura like body heat.
Skills increased: Knowledge (Speed Reading), Enhanced Mind (Mental Library)
Skill acquired: Knowledge (Botany)
Description: The academic knowledge of the characteristics, life cycle, and uses of plants.
I¡¯m still learning about the different phases of magic. At first, I¡¯d thought of vis, aether, essence, and experience as equivalent to water, air, earth, and fire, but now I¡¯m reassessing my assessment. Vis and aether correspond to life and death. Essence and experience correspond to order and chaos. Or perhaps stasis and change. Experience is a short-lived burst that alters a person and makes them stronger. I think. Vis is a living concept. Aether is a dead concept. Essence is a concept that has made something that sticks around. Experience is a fleeting concept that alters something. Life/Death/Order/Chaos. I should really write a book about my insights. They don¡¯t exist in Corwen¡¯s library, at any rate. Maybe they do at Crux Academy. I consider asking one of the students for a favor to see if she can find any books for me and copy down the information, but I think I¡¯ll hold off on that unless they ask for a favor of me. I¡¯ll be able to just go look myself in a few years, anyway. Still, it can¡¯t hurt to start writing things down. Heck, I¡¯ll probably get a skill or two for it. While I¡¯m frustrated at the lack of good books to explain this stuff, I¡¯m sure I¡¯ll probably get more experience from it if I figure it out myself. That seems to be how it works, at least. Everyone lets off a complex array of vis that I¡¯ve only finally thanks to my new class been able to progress at viewing through increasingly finer analysis. For [Empathy], I¡¯ve been able to pick out the moderately complex emotional state or simple thoughts like greetings or apologies. I think by the time I¡¯m able to build my own skyship, I will be able to speak with her. In a way. Plants don¡¯t emit concepts as complex as those of people. I hadn¡¯t been able to detect the concepts in tools and stone until I learned to detect essence as well as vis. They don¡¯t create their own magic, but they absorb the concepts others were emitting around them. Rocks are imprinted with the concept of ¡°rock¡± because sapients looked at them and determined they were rocks. In essence, being observed by sapients gives things identity. Interacting with sapients gives them psychic substance. Psychometry is ultimately the art of sensing what people were thinking about when they were interacting with an object. Rowan looks over my shoulder at what I¡¯m writing. ¡°I don¡¯t even know what half those words mean.¡± ¡°Could you not do that, please?¡± I say. ¡°Sorry,¡± Rowan says. ¡°You were so intent and I was wondering what you were doing.¡± ¡°I¡¯d just write these notes in my room, but Griffin is even nosier than you,¡± I say. ¡°Anyway, I don¡¯t know half those words, either. Turning on and off auto-translation has been giving me a headache and I didn¡¯t just want to write this in English.¡± ¡°Sadly, I don¡¯t think my protection skills extend to guarding you from headaches.¡± ¡°Yet,¡± I say. ¡°Your protection skills don¡¯t extend to guarding me from headaches yet.¡± ¡°I would probably need to reach Elite first,¡± Rowan says. ¡°I need to run more dungeons. Anise said she wanted to do a full tour next year once the little ones turn 7, but we should be able to get in a few more runs this year. I¡¯m tired of sitting around the village having people throw stuff at me and studying.¡± Chapter 53: Trigger Warning for Arachnophobia Mid August sees the sky turn orange, and we¡¯re making a trip to the Spooky Grove. And by we, I mean me, Rowan, Anise, Meadow, and Burdock (plus Mipsy of course, who has gotten even bigger with Burdock¡¯s rank-up). It¡¯s a pity we can¡¯t actually come out here on Halloween, with the monster swarms being out. ¡°I have some new spells I¡¯m eager to try out in an actual dungeon,¡± Burdock says. ¡°We¡¯ll be going into a section of the Spooky Grove we haven¡¯t been in before,¡± Anise says. ¡°There will be actual combat here, but nothing especially dangerous. The giant spiders in the Spooky House will just poison you and string you up in cocoons until you¡¯re rescued or they feel like letting you go. They won¡¯t actually kill you or seriously injure you.¡± ¡°Somehow this is still not reassuring,¡± Rowan says. The Spooky Grove is not that far from Corwen, but we take it slow to give people (like me) a chance to work on herb gathering skills. I want to spend some time learning Crafting (Potions) over the fall, but I need practice gathering my own herbs, not to mention stocking up the storerooms on low level potion ingredients.
Skills increased: Survival (Hiking), Search (Herbalism), Enhanced Feet (Mapping Step), Survival (Sense of Direction)
I do enjoy the skill gains for simply walking to the closest dungeon while making use of my various skills along the way. Plus I now have a pack full of things that might or might not be useful to stick in a brew. (If nothing else, the useless ones should still be worth some experience to experiment with, I¡¯m sure.) We make camp, and I still don¡¯t manage to unlock Survival (Fire Making), nor does Rowan. ¡°Can I try now?¡± Burdock asks. ¡°By all means,¡± I say. ¡°I thought you already had [Fire Making], though.¡± ¡°Watch this!¡± Burdock says, and snaps his fingers. The firepit is unimpressed by Burdock¡¯s attempt at making magic. ¡°Ah man,¡± Burdock says. ¡°I totally got Thaumaturgy (Fingersnap) to work on a candle at least once!¡± He snaps his fingers again. The dried twigs sparkle but still don¡¯t ignite. ¡°Does that skill always do fire?¡± I ask. ¡°No,¡± Burdock says. ¡°You¡¯ve gotta visualize what you¡¯re trying to do. I¡¯m¡­ not very good at visualizing.¡± Burdock snaps his fingers again, successfully making the sticks in the firepit turn red and orange but still not making them burn. ¡°Magic is hard¡­¡± Burdock says with a sigh. ¡°You¡¯ve only just started,¡± Rowan says. ¡°I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll get better with practice.¡± Meadow finally takes pity on us and comes over to light the campfire. While we¡¯re here, I try and brew up a potion to cure spider venom.
Congratulations! You have crafted a Poor quality potion.
Skill acquired: Crafting (Brewing)
Description: The ability to brew beverages that require heating, steeping, distilling, or fermenting ingredients.
¡°I have so many skills¡­¡± I mutter. ¡°My status screen goes on for pages.¡± ¡°You know, most people don¡¯t try to learn every skill in existence,¡± Rowan points out. ¡°You really have only yourself to blame for that.¡± ¡°I know, I know.¡± ¡°How many skills do you have now?¡± Burdock wonders. ¡°Uhh¡­¡± I bring up a summary with a total. ¡°91 now, with [Brewing].¡± ¡°Seriously?¡± Burdock exclaims. ¡°I¡­ don¡¯t have nearly that many, even including the magic skills I just learned and Striking (Polearm Proficiency) that I had to unlock to use my spade better.¡± ¡°You probably have your skills higher than mine, too,¡± I say. ¡°I only have 7 skills over level 5, and most of those are in Clairvoyance.¡± Come morning, we head through the old wrought iron fence and into the creepy forest, eyes in the shadows watching us the whole time. ¡°I didn¡¯t see a house last time we were here,¡± I say. ¡°I didn¡¯t take us toward the house and you won¡¯t find it unless the dungeon lets you,¡± Anise says. ¡°It should be off to the right. Let¡¯s explore and see if we can find a path through the undergrowth.¡± After some searching, we come upon a side path covered in overgrown cobblestones. It comes to a dead end after several meters where the path is blocked off by briars, but I think I can see the roof of a house beyond the trees. ¡°Alright, let me try this one,¡± Burdock says. ¡°This one is Thaumaturgy (Parting Hands). Doesn¡¯t need much visualization!¡± He holds up his hands together and slowly moves them apart. The thorny vines obligingly start to withdraw from the path, but they don¡¯t even get half a meter back before Burdock lowers his hands with a groan. ¡°Out of Inspiration and I barely made a dent,¡± Burdock grouses. ¡°Don¡¯t beat yourself up over it,¡± Rowan says. ¡°That was a good effort.¡± Rowan clearly has enough levels in Tending (Encouragement) to mollify Burdock for the moment. Anise lifts flaming fingers toward the briars, but Meadow sighs and puts a hand on Anise¡¯s arm. ¡°Can we please not set the forest on fire?¡± Meadow says. ¡°Oh, fine,¡± Anise says. Anise draws her sword and starts hacking through the underbrush like a machete, and Burdock helps with his spade and [Parting Hands] whenever he gets some Inspiration back. We make it past the briars and reach the end of the path. Before us looms an old, dilapidated two-story building. A placard with the words The Sleepy Raven sways gently in the wind, its rusted chains creaking. In the upper floor window, a light silhouettes a partially transparent figure. The wind tugs at her long hair and rustles the curtains, and she disappears inside before I can try to identify her.This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. The sound of singing echoes through the forest, but it seems more in my mind than in my ears, reminding me of a skill I only ever managed to raise in this dungeon. I can¡¯t understand the words, but it sounds like¡­ French, of all things.
Skills increased: Clairvoyance (Spirit Hearing), Discipline (Fear Resistance)
Oh, come on. The French language isn¡¯t even scary. And it¡¯s just a ghost. It¡¯s not like this is a fire-breathing devil-goat or anything. Anise casts a spell that summons a small flame above her head to light the way, and we step inside. The front room is large and full of round tables with chairs around them, many of them broken or overturned. A cobwebbed bar stands in one corner of the room with bar stools and a number of broken bottles. It more closely resembles a tavern than a Hearth like all the guest houses I¡¯ve seen so far (aside from the one I built). Hearths have their fireplace in the middle of one large room and don¡¯t have separate rooms for cooking. At the back of the common room, swinging door leads into a kitchen area covered with spiderwebs, and a low chittering sound can be heard from somewhere. This is likely going to be a good opportunity to try to unlock a useful skill I read about, Enhanced Feet (Freedom of Movement). I don¡¯t know if the others have unlocked it yet, but it¡¯s really something we should all have. Movement in the shadows, and webs fly toward me. I manage to tumble out of the way and duck behind a table that¡¯s laying on its side. Rowan was not quick enough to get out of the way and his Mock Turtle shield is now covered with sticky webbing. His attempts at removing them with his wooden sword only make things worse. Burdock snaps his fingers and even conjures a nice little candle flame that would totally set these webs on fire if they were flammable. As it is, it just immediately burns out with no effect. Three large spiders can be seen, and I have no doubt there are more just out of sight. Mipsy pounces on one, quickly ripping it apart with her claws and teeth. Another spider leaps at Rowan, who gets his shield up enough to block the attack despite the webs covering it. Rowan says some words that are probably swearing, but my subtitles don¡¯t bother translating it. Just what I need, censorship in my own system interface. He manages to rip through the webs and kill one of the spiders with his wooden sword. Sometimes I forget that everyone over 7 has superpowers. Rowan doesn¡¯t have as many skills as me, but he¡¯s much stronger than me. Another spider has circled around the room and is now on my side of the table ready to leap at me. I grab a broken table leg from the floor and beat the Basic-rank monster off with a stick. I take a bite on the arm in the process, but fend it off long enough for Rowan to come to my rescue.
Congratulations! Your party has slain 3 Basic rank monsters.
Skills increased: Discipline (Battle Trance), Striking (Bashing), Athletics (Dodging)
Skill acquired: Blocking (Cover)
Description: The ability to protect yourself by using the environment to your advantage. Furniture, trees, and convenient waist-high fences are your shields.
¡°Thanks,¡± I say. ¡°Time to see if my crappy potions actually work.¡± I pop one out of my inventory and drink down the slimy pink liquid. It tastes like a horrible cocktail of watermelon candy and earwax and I almost gag, but it eases the oncoming wooziness from the monster poison. ¡°Good job, everyone!¡± Anise says. ¡°Once we¡¯ve rested up a moment, we can clear the kitchen. And by we, I mean you. I¡¯ll be here cheering you on and step in if you bite off more than you can chew. There¡¯s probably an Elite boss on this floor somewhere.¡± Once our Stamina and Inspiration meters are full, we press on. We get into a rhythm and start to get used to the monsters¡¯ tactics. There¡¯s a total of five spiders hiding in the inn¡¯s large kitchen and with being able to see their auras, I point out their locations to my party before they can ambush us this time. We find a locked door leading down into a cellar. I try and put my much-neglected [Lockpicking] skill to good use, but don¡¯t get the door open in a reasonable amount of time with four people (and a cat) staring at me intently. Rowan finally gets tired of it and bashes the door open. ¡°That works too,¡± I say. Meadow goes first down the stairs, and it¡¯s a good thing, too. ¡°Boss fight.¡± A larger spider flanked by two smaller spiders sits at the end of the cellar, politely waiting for us to approach. ¡°Burdock, you take on the boss,¡± Meadow says. ¡°Rowan, Drake, you get the adds then help Burdock.¡± Burdock is nervous about tackling an Elite giant spider by himself, even if he¡¯s Elite himself along with an Elite familiar. People are supposed to be able to go toe-to-toe with beings of equal rank, but he only just reached Elite. The battle goes smoothly, though, and the three spiders are down in short order.
Congratulations! Your party has defeated an Elite rank monster.
Your Strength has increased to 9.
Skills increased: Athletics (Take a Breather)
Skill acquired: Enhanced Feet (Freedom of Movement)
Description: The ability to resist and break out of crowd control abilities such as webbing, vines, and paralysis.
Meadow starts harvesting monster parts from the boss spider once it¡¯s dead, though she hasn¡¯t bothered with the Basic monsters. ¡°Chest!¡± Rowan exclaims, running over to the chest behind the boss corpse. ¡°Please be a sword, please be a sword, please be a sword¡­¡± ¡°Don¡¯t forget to check for traps first!¡± Anise reminds him. ¡°It¡¯s clear, so far as I can tell,¡± Burdock says. ¡°I¡¯m not detecting anything bad either,¡± I add. Rowan opens the chest and pulls out a glistening green short sword and is too busy staring at it to remember to loot the coins, which Burdock grabs. ¡°It¡¯s a sword,¡± Rowan says. ¡°I think. But why is it green?¡± ¡°Probably magic,¡± Anise says. ¡°Congratulations!¡± Rowan holds it out to me. ¡°Drake, please identify my sword.¡± ¡°Right.¡±
Category Artifact
Type Weapon
Quality Good
Rank Basic
Aspect Poison
¡°Aspect of poison,¡± I say. ¡°Try not to nick yourself with it. I only made so many potions.¡± ¡°I guess that was probably obvious,¡± Rowan says. ¡°Too bad it didn¡¯t come with a sheath. Here, you can use my wooden sword. It¡¯ll probably work better than that table leg. Why aren¡¯t you using your dagger?¡± ¡°Not enough reach for this,¡± I say. I take the offered wooden sword. It¡¯s heavier than I¡¯m used to, but I¡¯ll live, especially with my newly increased Strength attribute. We return to the ground floor and move on to the hallway. The broad corridor stretches a good distance, and is wide enough to be a room in and of itself. The door at the west end opens into the building¡¯s entry room. At the east end, a frosted window lets in just enough light to see by but not enough to dispel the heavy shadows that cling to every corner. The wooden floor creaks ominously in several places, and there are gaps here and there where one can see the darkness of the cellar below. Each private room contains zero to three giant spiders. My Poor quality potions work, albeit poorly, and I run out of them long before we run out of spiders. So many spiders. Rowan is starting to regret asking for combat practice. ¡°I¡¯m really starting to hate spiders¡­¡± Rowan mutters, then amends, ¡°I¡¯m really starting to hate fighting spiders. The ones that talk and wear dresses are okay.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry,¡± Anise says. ¡°We only have five more rooms to go on this floor!¡± ¡°At least there have been plenty of coins,¡± I say, holding up the latest handful from a purse in a dresser. The coins from each dungeon look different, but all have the same denominations. I guess dungeons universally agreed upon a currency system (copper, silver, and gold) but each of them can put their own markings on otherwise identical coins. The ones from here have an embossed spider on one side and this house on the other. ¡°I know I saw a second floor from outside, but where are the stairs?¡± Burdock says once we¡¯ve cleared the rest of the guest rooms on the ground floor. ¡°You¡¯d think they¡¯d be in or next to the common room,¡± I say. ¡°They might¡¯ve been before this became a dungeon,¡± Anise says. ¡°Let¡¯s go back and check,¡± I say. ¡°There might have just been a door that was so webbed up we didn¡¯t see it.¡± Chapter 54: Tale of a Dead Artist My party returns to the common room of the inn, carefully stepping past the spiderwebs that cling to everything. After thoroughly searching the room and comparing our maps to the size of the building we¡¯d seen outside, we locate a door on the right side of the room from the entrance that¡¯s concealed behind thick cobwebs. Before trying to cut them loose, we let Burdock try using Thaumaturgy (Parting Hands) on them. It doesn¡¯t fully clear the door, but it tears it enough that we can get it the rest of the way. Meadow takes point up the creaking staircase, carefully testing every step along the way. None of the steps give way, though, and their ominous creaks are nothing more than ambience. The upper floor contains 100% fewer spiderwebs than the ground floor, which hopefully correlates to there being 100% fewer spider monsters. The hallway is eerily quiet, not even letting in noise from downstairs or outside. Were I staying at an inn like this, I might appreciate having excellent sound blocking, except if I were staying at an inn like this I¡¯d be afraid people wouldn¡¯t hear my screams as I¡¯m being murdered or eaten by monsters. The figure before us is no monster, and the green outline around her clearly indicates that she¡¯s not hostile. And if I didn¡¯t have [Aether Sense], I might have entirely missed that she was here. I don¡¯t expect humans to be made of aether, after all¡­ but this is no living human.
Category Reincarnator
Race Human
Gender Female
Status Dead
Rank Heroic
Class Necromancer
Disposition Friendly
Mood Cheerful
[You didn¡¯t mention the friendly Heroic Necromancer ghost,] I send to Anise. Anise lets off a coy grin and only answers in emotion. She does so love to mess with me by not telling me things when they¡¯re not dangerous. Clearly, she didn¡¯t feel like spoiling this one. ¡°Visitors,¡± rasps the ghost, turning toward us and becoming more visible. ¡°Welcome! Welcome, welcome, come in and have a seat. Join me in my atelier.¡± The ghost snaps her fingers, and all the candles in the room light up at once. Proper lighting makes this place seem so much less grim, although it does also highlight how long it has been since anyone properly cleaned in here. I¡¯m sure she could just snap her fingers and clean up all the dust, too, but she clearly hasn¡¯t bothered. ¡°I would have made you tea, but I do not require food and drink any longer myself and it is so difficult to convince every passing adventurer to bring me things that I do not send them to fetch trivialities I don¡¯t need.¡± We give a round of introductions and take seats around the room. Unlike the common room downstairs, this area has fancy chairs and small tables. Painting and writing supplies scattered all over the room in a manner of organized chaos that a fellow creative type like myself can immediately recognize. ¡°Asphodel Treharris was the name given to me when I was incarnated in the first year of the Age of the Green Fox,¡± the Necromancer ghost says, then speaks into my mind, ¡°But Asphodel is dead. If you wish, you may call me Estelle. I don¡¯t get many visitors here.¡± ¡°You might get more visitors if it weren¡¯t for the giant spiders downstairs,¡± Rowan says. ¡°Oh, them?¡± Estelle says. ¡°Pff¡­ Basic rank monsters might as well be an unlocked door.¡± I suppose there¡¯s a point to that, considering I have no doubt Anise could have easily torched the whole house by herself. A 7-year-old child armed with a stick can kill these things. ¡°In that case, is there anything we might fetch for you?¡± Rowan asks. ¡°All in good time, young Rowan,¡± Estelle says. ¡°I¡¯m certain that your companion there is bubbling with questions first.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know about ¡®bubbling¡¯¡­¡± I say. ¡°You are no doubt wondering about my current state. You might even be thinking that it¡¯s not polite to ask a ghost why she is a ghost. Be assured, I have heard all the reasonable questions, most of the foolish ones, and a few that were quite off-the-wall.¡± She turns to Rowan. ¡°This is a puzzle floor, and I have left many things to discover scattered around its various rooms.¡± ¡°And there are no more spiders on this floor?¡± Rowan asks. Estelle chuckles. ¡°Perhaps.¡± Anise laughs. ¡°Rowan, I thought you were the one who wanted the combat practice.¡± ¡°And to those who can answer my riddle, I will offer training in unique skills of a Hearth that was and is no more.¡± ¡°What¡¯s your riddle?¡± Rowan asks.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Estelle gives an enigmatic grin and rasps, ¡°You will need to discover that as well.¡± She fades from my physical senses as she stops projecting an image of herself, but I can still see her in [Aether Sense]. Her ghost winks at me and she heads out of the workshop and down the hallway. I follow, and send to my party that they ought to start doing puzzles as I¡¯m going to chat with the ghost. Estelle glides into the musty room at the end of the hallway, with the large window I¡¯d seen her looking out of when we approached the old inn. Although there¡¯s room to walk, the collection of junk in this room is astounding. Several large bookcases are weighed down with rows of books and trinkets. A few sigil-covered display cases hold items that look cursed, with sinister spikes and metal that gleams red as blood. Three easels stand near the window, each of them displaying a radically different interpretation of the view outside. [I take it you are here for Enhanced Soul lessons,] Estelle sends to me telepathically. [A 7-year-old Psychic Child shows up, and I expect that¡¯s what you¡¯re looking for.] [I didn¡¯t even know you were here,] I reply. [This was my mom¡¯s idea and she just wanted Rowan to get some relatively safe combat practice.] Estelle is amused. [Have you done many dungeons already, then?] [The Hedge Maze a few times, the Wisteria Garden, Wonderland, and here. Not counting a jaunt into the Witchwood while escorted by a Legendary just to meet with three Legendary women who asked me the silliest riddles I¡¯ve heard yet in this life.] [Who are you, what is your quest, what is your favorite color?] Estelle asks. [Yes, they do that to all the reincarnators. What did you answer?] [Drake Corwen, exploration, and blue.] [You don¡¯t seem concerned about keeping secrets,] Estelle observes. [So then, who were you?] [Alexander Fizzlesnipe,] I reply. [But I¡¯m Drake Corwen now. And no, I see no point in being secretive. I have no secrets I¡¯d care to hide from you.] Estelle peers at me intently, and I can practically feel her gazing into my very soul. I suddenly realize I am alone with a Necromancer two ranks above me who may very well be capable of faking her disposition meter. I tamp down on the spike of panic. If she means to do harm to me, there¡¯s not terribly much I can do about it. [Relax, little reincarnator,] Estelle assures me. [I cannot harm you. My core is a vassal of yours.] [Oh.] [So, what is your first question?] Estelle asks. [How did you become a ghost? If you were a purchase and died, you would have been respawned, wouldn¡¯t you? Did you use Necromancer to do it deliberately?] [You are surprisingly well-informed,] Estelle replies. [Most people start off with asking how I died.] [I met Liz. She just told me you¡¯d died. I didn¡¯t know you were still around in some capacity. She didn¡¯t even suggest that I might be able to go to you with lessons. But then, she didn¡¯t stick around very long to talk and I hadn¡¯t exactly prepared a list of questions to ask her.] [Liz probably figured you would find me soon enough,] Estelle thinks. [Then let me explain what happened to me. I was young, and the domain was young, and no one knew much about how soul magic worked yet. I took it upon myself to experiment and learned many things.] [And I take it something went wrong?] [You might say that,] Estelle replies grimly. [Or you could take it that something went horribly, horribly right. I created a phylactery to bind me to this life. We were doing dangerous things and the insurance seemed reasonable at the time, but I was young and had never even had children yet. I experimented with using the souls from my past lives to perform various tasks. I had them possess animals to do scouting for me. I stuck them into monsters to fight for me. I even tried putting them into other people to see what would happen.] [That sounds like the sort of Necromancy people get leery of,] I observe. [Oh, yes, very much so. Particularly when cores started issuing quests to slay the evil Necromancer.] I wince. [Did someone eventually kill you, then?] Estelle nods, staring wistfully out the window. [It was only after I respawned at my phylactery that I discovered how badly I¡¯d made it. I didn¡¯t know what I was doing and could hardly test dying repeatedly to get it right. I reappeared as a ghost without a physical body. That part was expected. I hadn¡¯t come up with a way to reform a body yet, but assumed that my core would be able to do so as it had spawned me to begin with.] [So why didn¡¯t it?] I wonder. [It turned out that all my experimentation had destabilized my soul. When I died, most of me went on to reincarnation, while only the smallest sliver of me came back to my phylactery. As a Necromancer with a Soul attribute of 1, my options are¡­ limited. And my core couldn¡¯t just make me a new body because human bodies are expensive to create and it was low on essence to do so after everything. We wound up resorting to vassalage to Corwen just to survive. At least your ancestors were strong enough to protect us.] [Did anyone else try to come after you?] I ask. [I can¡¯t go more than ten meters from my phylactery. I laid low in this house for many years and gave the impression that I was simply an undead monster the core put here for ambience. I still respawn if anyone tries to kill me and I don¡¯t degrade any further. But Treharris, a Hearth that could have been great, instead became the Spooky Grove.] Rowan pokes his head into the room. ¡°Is¡­ is she in here?¡± The ghost becomes visible again. ¡°I am here. Have you figured out my riddle?¡±
Skills increased: Clairvoyance (Telepathy), Clairvoyance (Aether Sense), Enhanced Soul (Fractal Consciousness)
Rowan sighs. ¡°Well, we analyzed a bunch of poems and tried to figure out the symbolism in some paintings and I¡¯m still not sure we¡¯ve got it right. You have a lot of stuff. But I¡¯m going to say¡­ Time?¡± Estelle tilts her head. ¡°Your answer is¡­ acceptable.¡± Rowan groans. ¡°Let me guess. There was a better answer I didn¡¯t figure out?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll leave that for you to determine,¡± Estelle says. ¡°Now, I believe I promised you training. Did you see any mention of skills I might know that you would be interested in learning? Or are you burning with the desire to do something in particular that I just might know?¡± ¡°I want to get to Elite rank and do magic, but you can¡¯t help with that,¡± Rowan says. ¡°Don¡¯t discount how magical enhanced attribute abilities are,¡± Estelle says. ¡°If you seek to use a sword and shield, young Guardian, there are many such skills that would prove useful to you. Tell me, do you know Enhanced Muscles (Spirit Barrier)?¡± Rowan shakes his head. ¡°What does it do?¡± ¡°It will let you block magical and supernatural effects as well as physical blows,¡± Estelle explains. ¡°That does sound useful. Can you teach me?¡± Chapter 55: Burning Questions ¡°Meet me down in the courtyard,¡± Estelle says. ¡°There will be more room to work with and I would prefer it if you did not break my possessions.¡± She becomes invisible again and phases through the bookcase and down to the ground. This is only marginally less mysterious and ghostly for being able to see her still. Rowan and I locate our party members. Burdock is still reading, while Anise and Meadow are gossiping about men. I wonder if I¡¯m going to be winding up with another sibling or cousin in the near future. ¡°We¡¯re heading down to the courtyard,¡± I say. ¡°Estelle agreed to give a quick lesson in Enhanced Muscles (Spirit Barrier).¡± Anise nods. ¡°Right, let¡¯s head that way and be alert in case the spiders have respawned.¡± The spiders in the common room have, indeed, respawned by this point, but Rowan and I are less terrified them now that we¡¯ve killed a couple dozen of the stupid things. The courtyard is on the opposite side of the inn from the kitchen, surrounded by the ring of rooms. A cracked and dry fountain stands in the middle, its stone tiers overgrown with moss. The grass and decorative plants are overgrown to the point where it would not surprise me if some of them had been plant monsters, but there¡¯s no hostile red auras among them. At the near side of the courtyard, Estelle goes visible again as we approach, her intangible dress phasing through the tangle of grasses rather than being caught up in them. ¡°Good, you¡¯re here,¡± Estelle says. ¡°Let me explain what we are doing. [Spirit Barrier] is a skill for Enhanced Muscles and one anyone over the age of 7 should be capable of. Now, tell me. How do enhanced attribute skills work?¡± ¡°You¡­ make your body stronger, faster, and better,¡± Rowan says. Estelle clicks her tongue, and turns to me. ¡°What about you, young reincarnator? Can you tell me?¡± ¡°They¡¯re the World-to-Self categories of each of the eight attribute types,¡± I say. ¡°They involve drawing conceptual energy from the world to enhance yourself.¡± ¡°Congratulations, you¡¯ve read a book,¡± Estelle says. ¡°Now what does that actually mean?¡± She turns to Burdock. ¡°What of you, child? Do you understand the forces you play with?¡± ¡°Not really,¡± Burdock admits. ¡°I just do what feels right.¡± Estelle looks toward the two adults next. ¡°What are you teaching children these days that they cannot answer such a simple question? Tell me at least one of you had the answer.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t look at me,¡± Anise says. ¡°I just stab and burn things. I¡¯m a Sorcerer and barely know what I¡¯m doing half the time.¡± Meadow sighs and puts her face in her palm. ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll try. It¡¯s like breathing. Breathing seems simple and we all do it automatically, but there¡¯s more to breathing than just breathing. We all eat things, and the things we eat help to maintain and build up our bodies, but not all food is the same. When we¡¯re using World-to-Self skills, we¡¯re ¡®breathing¡¯ or ¡®eating¡¯ concepts from the world around us.¡± ¡°Hmh,¡± Estelle grunts. ¡°Incomplete, but largely correct from a layman¡¯s perspective. Sufficient. Now, I have no doubt any of you could learn this skill if you apply yourselves, but Rowan will have the easiest time of it due to his class and his name.¡± ¡°My name?¡± Rowan asks. ¡°Your name is a powerful symbol of protection,¡± Estelle says. ¡°Embrace that. Draw strength from the world and use it to empower yourself. This locus bears the concept of spirits, and a courtyard holds the thought of protection. Hold these images and thoughts in your mind and absorb the aether around you to become a part of your vis.¡± ¡°Still not sure I understand, but I will try,¡± Rowan says. Estelle looks about the overgrown courtyard. ¡°Before we can start, I recommend clearing out some of the plants in this area to give us room to work with.¡± ¡°On it!¡± Anise says a little too cheerfully. Meadow just sighs. ¡°Let¡¯s not burn down the nice ghost¡¯s inn.¡± ¡°Bah, you never let me burn anything.¡± Estelle chuckles. ¡°Be assured that you will not harm the inn. No one under Epic rank is likely to be able to cause structural damage to the building itself.¡±A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. ¡°Woo!¡± Anise yells, and proceeds to set the courtyard on fire. ¡°We¡¯re also in the courtyard, Mom!¡± I shout. ¡°An excellent opportunity to practice [Spirit Barrier],¡± Estelle says calmly. ¡°Face the flames, child. Stand in front of Drake and protect him like a mighty tree shelters you from the wind. He is small and weak and will surely perish without your aid.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not even going to protest that description¡­¡± I say. ¡°This is an Elite-ranked spell and I¡¯m only Basic rank,¡± Rowan complains. ¡°Is that all?¡± Estelle says. ¡°You resign yourself to death before you¡¯ve even tried because it¡¯s too hard?¡± ¡°Anise wouldn¡¯t just let me die,¡± Rowan protests. My lunatic mom is gleefully using Sorcery (Pyromania) on every innocent weed in this courtyard. Rowan¡¯s emotional state grows increasingly fraught as the flames grow ever closer. ¡°Anise certainly wouldn¡¯t be so careless as to kill her own son,¡± Rowan says, his voice quavering. ¡°I¡¯m sure you have to have figured out by now that my mom is an idiot,¡± I point out. He glances aside to Meadow and Burdock, but they¡¯re standing back to see what happens. I¡¯m sure they¡¯ll intervene if necessary. I¡¯m sure the Necromancer could put out the flames with a snap of her fingers. Rowan takes a deep breath to steel himself and immediately regrets it as smoke billows in our direction. He steadies himself and stands in front of me, raising his turtle shell shield. ¡°Spirits, protection, spirits, protection, spirits, protection,¡± Rowan mutters to himself. ¡°How do I even know if this is working?¡± Aether swirls around Rowan¡¯s aura, rippling and twisting. After wrestling with it for a few long moments, something about his aura starts to solidify and harden. The flames reach Rowan¡¯s shield and¡­ stop. Patterns in Rowan¡¯s aura flicker and struggle against the onslaught, and the fire seems to decide that if it can¡¯t go through Rowan, it will just go around. All these Basic rank plants are perfectly flammable to a pyromaniac Sorcerer.
Skills increased: Discipline (Composure), Discipline (Delegation), Clairvoyance (Empathy)
Before we can actually get hurt (more than a bit of smoke inhalation, anyway), Meadow steps forward and waves a hand, and the fire nearest to us quickly dies down. ¡°I accidentally unlocked Sorcery (Killjoy) a while back just from having to deal with Anise,¡± Meadow grouses. ¡°Did you get the skill, Rowan?¡± ¡°I got it!¡± Rowan exclaims. ¡°I didn¡¯t think I was going to but it worked and I got it!¡± ¡°Anise!¡± Meadow calls out. ¡°You can stop burning things now!¡± ¡°Killjoy!¡± Anise yells back, but does comply. She makes sure nothing is still burning before heading back over to us. ¡°I¡¯m just disappointed that there weren¡¯t any plant monsters.¡± ¡°I would have mentioned if I¡¯d spotted any,¡± I point out. ¡°You can practice that on your own time now, young Rowan,¡± Estelle says. ¡°Let us return to my atelier. It will be more comfortable to chat than a smoldering courtyard.¡± ¡°Sorry, maybe I should have used something a little less inflammatory,¡± Anise says. Estelle chuckles. ¡°Don¡¯t worry. It will be back to looking the way it did when you found it by morning. I have challenged many aspiring gardeners to hone their skills on it, and it always reverts.¡± We return to the upstairs. Estelle gets to levitate and phase through a wall. We get to kill the damned spiders in the common room again. If this is any indication of the level of annoyance respawning monsters is likely to cause in dungeons in the future, I guess I¡¯d better get used to it. ¡°Who used to stay here, back when this was a functional village?¡± I wonder. ¡°This seems like an awful lot of rooms for what Liz described as the start of a ¡®round¡¯.¡± ¡°The dungeon has expanded it in the past centuries to make room for more monster spawn points,¡± Estelle says. ¡°It made the building bigger just to add more spiders?¡± Rowan asks incredulously. Estelle turns to me. ¡°I don¡¯t suppose, by some chance, you speak French?¡± ¡°No, but I know a reincarnator who does,¡± I say. Estelle brightens immediately. (Literally.) ¡°Truly? There¡¯s a French reincarnator alive in Tempest now?¡± ¡°Well, no,¡± I say. ¡°He¡¯s Canadian.¡± Estelle dims. ¡°Ah, well, close enough, I suppose. I would appreciate it if you would bring him here, then. I have written a number of poems in French that I do not trust the auto-translator not to mangle.¡± ¡°It seems to do a pretty good job, to me,¡± I say. ¡°Yes, ¡®pretty good¡¯,¡± Estelle says. ¡°It is sufficient for common purposes, but it can miss or misinterpret the nuance of words. By a poet¡¯s grace, I wrote the words I meant.¡± I refrain from making any commentary about French poets. ¡°I¡¯m sure he¡¯ll be willing to come and listen to your poetry. We can probably go and get him here before swarm season.¡± ¡°Excellent,¡± Estelle says. ¡°Now, before you go, I have a list of materials I would like you to bring me in exchange for lessons in Enhanced Soul.¡± ¡°Ah, fetch quests,¡± I say. She hovers a piece of paper over toward me. Clearly she had made this up ahead of time to shove at the next adventurers to show up looking for fetch quests. It¡¯s mostly mundane things like paper, ink, paint, and so forth, but some of the items are likely to prove a little harder to get. Anise peers over my shoulder at the list. ¡°Oh, you want romance novels? Great, I¡¯ve got a couple of the latest Dungeon Crawlers books I¡¯ve already finished reading that I can bring you. There¡¯s some really steamy scenes in the last one.¡± ¡°I said romance novels, not smut,¡± Estelle says with a smirk. ¡°Although I suppose it¡¯s too much to ask for to find novels where people fall in love, get married and live happily ever after.¡± ¡°What¡¯s ¡®married¡¯?¡± Anise wonders. Estelle shakes her head with a sigh heavy enough to echo on your soul. ¡°Never mind.¡± We wrap things up in the Spooky Grove and bid farewell for now to Estelle, and leave (after killing the spiders in the common room one more time). It¡¯s back to Corwen to prepare for a quick jaunt to Grubwick. We¡¯ve been allowed to run dungeons with nothing higher than Elites, but the want to include a Heroic or two or even an Epic if we¡¯re going down into the caverns, even if it¡¯s just to Grubwick. Troublesome, but I can¡¯t even argue considering the battle of Splott a few years ago. ¡°I will accompany you there myself,¡± Aunt Savannah says. ¡°Thanks, Mom,¡± Meadow says. ¡°I hope there¡¯s no problems this time, but we won¡¯t need to be down there long.¡± Chapter 56: Fast Travel and French Poetry ¡°You wouldn¡¯t have really hurt me with your fire, would you?¡± I ask Anise. ¡°What?¡± Anise says. ¡°Pssh, no, of course not. I have Sorcery (Friendly Fire). It makes sure I don¡¯t damage friends.¡± ¡°That¡¯s not what that¡ª you know what, never mind, fine.¡± In Common, it¡¯s probably a perfect reasonable name. The system was just made by a terrible joker. (Possibly me.)
Skills increased: Discipline (Self-Delusion), Recollection (Suppression)
Rowan¡¯s got a new scabbard for his poison short sword, but is still keeping his training sword with him in case he needs to fight something he doesn¡¯t want to poison. ¡°Savannah, if you don¡¯t mind me asking, how did you attain Elite rank?¡± Rowan asks. ¡°Concerned about your own advancement?¡± Aunt Savannah says. ¡°It was nothing special. I merely explored many low-level dungeons. Elite is not difficult and only takes a bit of effort. Heroic and Epic, on the other hand¡­ well, do not concern yourself with those just yet.¡± The trip to Grubwick goes faster with Aunt Savannah along using some skill to aid in wilderness travel. It¡¯s not as fast as flying on Liz¡¯s skyship, the Prydwen, or riding Grandma Laurel¡¯s monster horse, Boo, of course. It¡¯s even more disorienting because it doesn¡¯t feel like we¡¯re moving very fast. I wouldn¡¯t have even noticed anything up if I didn¡¯t know it normally takes six hours to walk to the Hedge Maze with my current stats, and we just got there in an hour. ¡°We¡¯re here already?¡± I ask. ¡°What skill are you using to do that?¡± ¡°Enhanced Feet (Fast Travel),¡± Aunt Savannah answers. ¡°Of course¡­¡± I say. ¡°Ugh, I¡¯ve read all the way through the big book of skills but there¡¯s just so many skills. How does it work, and can you teach it to me?¡± Aunt Savannah chuckles. ¡°Certainly. It reduces the time it takes to get to locations you have previously visited. The amount depends upon your skill level, so I¡¯m afraid at low levels your time saved will be minutes at best, but it¡¯s never a bad idea to start grinding early.¡± ¡°How does that even work though?¡± I wonder. ¡°Does it compress time, or space? I¡¯ve been trying to analyze the vis outputs in your aura but it¡¯s complicated.¡± ¡°Ah, my little nerd,¡± Anise says, ruffling my hair annoyingly. ¡°Someday you¡¯ll understand everything about everything and your brain will explode.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s have a quick lesson before we get lost in the weeds,¡± Meadow says. ¡°Yes,¡± Aunt Savannah agrees. ¡°I have not yet been to Grubwick to be able to use this technique to reach it, so we will be slowing down at this point regardless.¡± We head inside the Hedge Maze and settle in to the camp area for a brief rest, and settle in around Aunt Savannah for a lesson. She insists that we all take off our shoes and put our bare feet in the grass. ¡°Feel the world around you and bring it into yourself,¡± Aunt Savannah says. ¡°As your toes touch the grass, as your feet connect with the earth, let nature be a part of you.¡± (She goes on like this for a while. I will spare you the lecture.) ¡°I hope you guys are feeling your nature better than me,¡± Rowan mutters. ¡°Not even slightly,¡± Anise says cheerfully. ¡°It¡¯s a good thing you only need one person in the party with it,¡± Meadow says. ¡°I already have it, of course, but it¡¯s not nearly as high as Mom¡¯s skill.¡± I don¡¯t get the skill unlocked before we move on again, but I¡¯ll be sure to work on it as it seems useful and I¡¯m apparently aiming to clutter up my character screen with absolutely everything that seems tangentially useful just because I can. It¡¯s kind of fun meditating and burning Inspiration trying to pull concepts from the world around me. Meadow leads the way from there on out, and I pay closer attention to her to see if I can detect her use of [Fast Travel]. Although I¡¯ve shunted actually analyzing the concepts I can see into my system, I¡¯m used to having the sense by this point. It¡¯s beautiful, but I can¡¯t even really explain to a non-psychic what any of it looks like. It¡¯s like explaining colors to a blind person. Aunt Savannah pauses at Skullburn Bridge and examines it thoughtfully. ¡°Is this the bridge you helped build?¡± she asks me. ¡°Yeah,¡± I say. ¡°It¡¯s¡­ not very good, in hindsight.¡± ¡°Hey, it hasn¡¯t fallen down yet,¡± Anise says. ¡°That¡¯s something!¡± ¡°In order to build a foundation of skills, you must begin somewhere,¡± Aunt Savannah says. ¡°You are ambitious and that will serve you well in the years to come. I fear, however, that you may have wound up with gaps in your education.¡± ¡°Probably,¡± I agree. Enough traffic has come through here that a trail has been worn, and the carts delivering goods back and forth have worn ruts into the dirt. A small watchtower has been set up along the path between the bridge and the cave entrance. The first floor is a crudely made stone building, and a ladder from the roof leads up to a perch like a crow¡¯s nest. The auras of two goblins are visible through the walls, and I have no doubt that one of them ran off to alert Grubwick as soon as they saw us cross the bridge. We say hi on the way by, but they recognized us as Corwens on sight. Devil-goat wool clothes are pretty distinctive to goblin eyes that can see them as more than just black.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. The cave entrance is much more visible than it had been before, no longer overgrown and hidden. Given that monster swarms come through here every year, it¡¯s probably impractical to build a gate. Any monsters that got stuck here would just keep harassing Grubwick, and a Legendary creature would probably tear right through anything we could build. Grubwick has made a lot of progress in the last year. The inn has been replaced by a larger building that looks a little less likely to collapse around our ears. I am not offended that my first serious attempt at [Masonry] didn¡¯t last forever. I¡¯m just surprised it lasted as long as it did. We¡¯ll do better once we actually bridge the deadly river. I feel like everything has changed just from my perspective. It was jarring enough to visit last year but I¡¯ve grown even more in the meantime and now have a good thirty centimeters on the little green people. I¡¯m far from fully grown but they¡¯ll never get any bigger. I now feel out of place among them just from size alone. Maybe I could figure out a potion to make with those Wonderland mushrooms to make me goblin-sized for a while. Milo comes out to greet us, now two and a half years old and wearing a long robe made from dark wool. Someone has clearly managed to learn [Tailoring] in the meantime, but most goblins are still wearing rough hides. Only the best for their Chosen One, I suppose. ¡°Hey, Milo!¡± I call, waving. ¡°Drake!¡± Milo exclaims. ¡°Good to see you. You brought another Legendary Archmage for me to try to sell cheese to?¡± Aunt Savannah chuckles. ¡°No, I am merely an Epic Druid, although I am willing to sample your cheese while I am here.¡± ¡°Let me show you our new guest house,¡± Milo says. ¡°It might not be a five star resort yet, but we¡¯ve come a long way.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know what a ¡®five star resort¡¯ is,¡± Anise puts in, ¡°but I hope to live long enough to see you build one.¡± The new guest house is larger and displays more of the traditional Hearth structure, with the fireplace in the middle rather than off to the side. The goblin [Carpenters] have been hard at work furnishing the place with both human and goblin-sized tables and chairs, including goblin high chairs of sorts to let them more comfortably sit at one of the taller tables. The lighting in here is much better as well, with crystal lamps shedding steady, clear light upon the room. After some pleasantries and food samples, I get to the point of our visit. ¡°I met a reincarnator who is interested in meeting someone who speaks French,¡± I explain. ¡°Oh,¡± Milo says. ¡°Another reincarnator? They seem to be considerably less rare than I had anticipated.¡± ¡°So it seems,¡± I say with a shrug. ¡°More pertinently, she¡¯s willing and able to teach us Soul skills.¡± ¡°Ah!¡± Milo perks up. ¡°Okay, when do we leave?¡± I chuckle. ¡°I don¡¯t know what she¡¯s going to want us to do in order to teach us anything. She gave me a freaking shopping list of a fetch quest.¡± ¡°Well, I don¡¯t have a problem with doing ¡®quests¡¯ for other people in exchange for rewards,¡± Milo says. ¡°I¡¯m interested in finding out, at any rate.¡± We head out from Grubwick and follow Aunt Savannah¡¯s [Fast Travel] back to Corwen. Milo marvels at how quickly we cross kilometers, but we don¡¯t stop for another lesson along the way. Before returning to the Spooky Grove, I collect what materials Estelle wants that are easily obtainable from the village. Since she can¡¯t leave the Sleepy Raven Inn, even basic supplies are out of reach unless someone deigns to bring them to her. I¡¯m sure she will be filling up these pages with pretentious French poetry in due order. We stay the night at Corwen and head back out to the Spooky Grove in the morning, minus Aunt Savannah this time. I¡¯m sure she has better things to do than ferry youngsters all over the island. I have no idea what they are (probably listening to the wind or whatever) but I¡¯m sure she has them. Once we arrive back at the gates of the former Hearth of Treharris, Milo looks about the shadows and twisted trees dubiously. We¡¯d filled him in along the way. ¡°The Spooky Grove?¡± Milo asks. ¡°Who even names these things?¡± I shrug. ¡°The cores, I assume.¡± The briars across the path have regrown, forcing us to chop and magic our way through them again. Milo had been warned there would be combat and is ready to practice with his spells, but we may have forgotten to mention that the combat involves spiders the size of goblins. Upon seeing them, Milo squeaks and bolts for the door. Before he can reach it, he stumbles into a sticky spiderweb and tangles himself up tight. Milo yells several words in French that are probably just swear words, and the webs curl away thanks to his Incantation skill. ¡°This inn was supposed to be the Sleepy Raven, not the Scary Spider,¡± Milo protests. ¡°I hate spiders.¡± ¡°You could learn Sorcery (Arachnophobia) and put that hate to good use,¡± Anise says cheerfully. ¡°I would prefer to just meet this reincarnator without having to look at any more spiders.¡± Estelle is waiting for us upstairs. (Not that she would really be anywhere else.) ¡°A young goblin? How intriguing!¡± ¡°Good day. I am Milo Grubwick, formerly Milo Pennyworth, late of Toronto.¡± ¡°Asphodel Treharris, formerly Estelle Ledoux of Versailles,¡± Estelle says. While they converse in French, the rest of us decide to go clear out the spiders in the inn and run the puzzle forest for skill practice and minor loot. Today, there¡¯s a puzzle that requires climbing several trees to retrieve colored strips of paper, and once we get them down, we have to arrange them in order to open up a big hollow tree containing a treasure chest. Nothing remarkable, but I do get a few skill levels for my efforts.
Skills increased: Survival (Careful Step), Athletics (Climbing), Search (Puzzle Solving)
When we return to the Sleepy Raven (and kill the spiders on the way in again, of course), Milo is reading through a stack of loose papers containing poetry. ¡°How are things going here?¡± I ask. ¡°Estelle would have surely been heralded as one of the greatest poets of France if she hadn¡¯t died young,¡± Milo says. ¡°Every one of these pieces is a masterpiece beyond compare, and I¡¯m the only one that can read them.¡± ¡°Ah, you flatter me too much,¡± Estelle says. ¡°No, seriously, you must have a ridiculously high Charisma and some skills for this because I don¡¯t think this is humanly possible, ghost or otherwise.¡± ¡°Mm,¡± Estelle says noncommittally, refraining from comment on whatever skills she does or doesn¡¯t have. ¡°So what is it that you want from me in exchange for teaching me?¡± Milo asks. ¡°I want you to help me reach Epic rank.¡± Milo frowns thoughtfully. ¡°I¡¯m not sure how I could do that. I¡¯m only Elite rank myself.¡± ¡°For now, yes,¡± Estelle says. ¡°I have waited for seven centuries for an opportunity, studying and practicing my skills. I don¡¯t seek to slay any ferocious monsters, no. I seek to be renowned as a great artist. To be looked upon as the Leonardo da Vinci of the Crystalline Heavens. You are not yet at the point where you can do that, true. But you will be.¡± ¡°So, you want me to do marketing?¡± Milo says. ¡°Because that I can do. I don¡¯t think I have the skills to do any sort of translation justice, though.¡± ¡°It is no matter,¡± Estelle says. ¡°I can write in Common, a clumsy and vulgar tongue though it is, lacking in nuance and shades of meaning. Music and the visual arts are beyond language, though.¡± ¡°Very well,¡± Milo says. ¡°I¡¯m interested. Shall we make a contract?¡± Chapter 57: Entirely Too Many Skills ¡°The creepy paper puzzle was fun,¡± Burdock says. ¡°Crepe paper,¡± I say. ¡°It was crepe paper.¡± I¡¯m going to assume the auto-translator is interpreting Burdock¡¯s malapropisms in a way to make it make sense to me, but I¡¯m still not sure how. ¡°I¡¯ll be spending next year adventuring with the Elite rank party,¡± Burdock says. ¡°It¡¯s really good that I made Elite with a whole year to practice in. I hope I get a cool class.¡± According to Milo, the goblin Hearths are still tussling a bit but none of them want to actually go near Grubwick. There¡¯s too many Elites defending the place now, especially since they started sending goblins to run low-level dungeons to gain skills and level up. Enemy clans stick to trying to ambush them when they¡¯re out traveling, which they won¡¯t dare with human Elites present. We escort Milo back to Grubwick, and while we¡¯re at it, we keep going and drop Rowan off at Talgarth. We¡¯re a month out from swarm season and he hasn¡¯t spent a lot of time around his own family this year. Along the way, I keep trying to take Aunt Savannah¡¯s lessons on [Fast Travel] to heart. It¡¯s similar to [Mapping Step], of course, in that they¡¯re both Enhanced Feet skills, but the patterns are different. [Mapping Step] is focused on knowledge, while [Fast Travel] seems to be based on space. With that, it¡¯s back to Corwen. Once we make it back, the system acknowledges my efforts with a popup.
Skills increased: Survival (Hiking)
Skill acquired: Enhanced Feet (Fast Travel)
Description: Reduces the time needed to travel to locations you have previously visited.
I have a lot of studying to do and Aunt Rosemary is always getting on my case about my scattered approach to learning. I think I¡¯m learning a lot about these skills in general just from the practice. I take some time to look through the book of enhanced attribute skills to see what else I might be sleeping on. There¡¯s more potential for space warping with Enhanced Feet but I don¡¯t think I ultimately want to focus on that. It does work for vehicles like skyships, but it¡¯s probably something a helmsman or navigator would be better focused on since only one crew member needs it. No matter. Every level helps in some way. [Water Walking], [Wind Walking], and [Fire Walking] all sound like great fun skills that I am in no way capable of using anytime soon. ¡°Why don¡¯t I see more people using things like [Wind Walking]?¡± I wonder. ¡°I¡¯m guessing it burns Inspiration like mad trying to keep it up.¡± Aunt Rosemary nods. ¡°At low levels, you¡¯re only likely to get a double jump out of it.¡± ¡°Still useful, but I suppose I won¡¯t be charging through the skies by the power of my own magic feet anytime soon. That¡¯s fine. I want a skyship.¡± ¡°You also will want to unlock Enhanced Feet (Soft Landing),¡± Aunt Rosemary adds. ¡°All the ¡®cool¡¯ and ¡®fun¡¯ skills won¡¯t help if you get yourself killed by falling off a roof.¡± ¡°In hindsight, that would have been a good thing to learn before doing tree-climbing puzzles in the Spooky Grove.¡± Aunt Rosemary sighs. ¡°It is difficult to keep you on track.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll note that as my next project to burn Inspiration on, hopefully without actually injuring myself in the process. What else? If I want to do crafting, there¡¯s a bunch of things in Enhanced Hands I¡¯d be interested in. Things like [Escape Artist] and [Prestidigitation] look fun, but [Mass Production] and [Sticky Grip] sound more essential.¡± ¡°There are reasons why most people focus on a few areas,¡± Aunt Rosemary says. ¡°I just feel so spoiled that I got incarnated into a Hearth that has spent over seven centuries churning out Legendary adventurers,¡± I say. ¡°It feels like everyone already knows everything and there isn¡¯t much left to discover. I even found someone willing to teach some of the Soul skills that are missing.¡± ¡°I have no doubt that you will, in time, discover many new things of your own. And there are skills I know about that aren¡¯t listed in that book. I know about enhancement skills that transform someone¡¯s body, giving them claws, hooves, horns, or wings. Some of the Hearths in Thorn have their own specialties of shapeshifting skills.¡± I pull out my notebook and start making a list of skills I want to try and unlock over the fall and winter, though I¡¯m not sure how many of them I¡¯ll be able to manage. While the flashier skills are tempting, I put [Soft Landing] at the top of the list. ¡°I¡¯ve read every book in the village, some of them several times,¡± I say. ¡°Why are my Knowledge skills still so low? Is it because of my past-life knowledge? I would have thought that would give bonuses to it.¡± ¡°The system only tends to acknowledge skills when you learn them properly,¡± Aunt Rosemary says. ¡°I¡¯m sure you remember many things that don¡¯t appear on your character screen.¡± ¡°True, although the specifics of skills are often vague,¡± I say. ¡°I kind of attribute that to muscle memory, though. Alex knew how to ride a bike. Drake has never even seen one. You probably don¡¯t even know what one is.¡± Enhanced Mind (Calculator) is a must and shouldn¡¯t be too hard. And the vitality boosts in Enhanced Heart are vital, of course. Now that I¡¯m finally understanding how these skills work, I have to wonder just how many books I must have read in order to unlock Enhanced Mind (Mental Library) almost immediately, considering I didn¡¯t even have a clue what I was doing at the time.The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Skill increased: Discipline (Long-Term Planning)
I go down to the core room so that I¡¯m not disturbed. I share a room with two other boys, which isn¡¯t going to change since once Burdock leaves for Crux Academy, Raven will be moving in to take his bed. I foresee I will get many levels of [Babysitting] in the future. There¡¯s an Enhanced Soul skill I¡¯m trying to unlock that I don¡¯t even have a name or hint for but I can feel it on the ¡®tip of my soul¡¯, one might say. I¡¯ve been struggling with memories, with who I am and who I want to be. What even is the soul? I don¡¯t want to think of non-reincarnators as ¡°NPCs¡± but none of them have a Soul attribute and there¡¯s something indeterminately weird about that. And Estelle was made of aether and not vis, which I hadn¡¯t even realized was possible but I suppose in hindsight it shouldn¡¯t surprise me. The soul is something inherent to past lives, but it seems to be something specific from Earth. Every life, the Soul counter goes up, like it¡¯s growing more¡­ soulness, whatever that¡¯s supposed to mean. I have a long line of souls tracing back through untold ages. I¡¯ve been afraid of accessing them for fear of being overwhelmed by them. Anything that might have been Drake already got overwhelmed by young Alexander Fizzlesnipe. So in order to access them safely, what I need is an inviolable sense of self. I center myself. I breathe. I let the core¡¯s aether flow around me. And amid that¡­ I think I¡¯ve found it. The aether from the core flows into me, strengthening my soul and my sense of being Drake Corwen and no one else.
Skills increased: Discipline (Self-Awareness), Recollection (Insight)
Skill acquired: Enhanced Soul (Identity)
Description: The ability to retain your sense of self in the face of chaos and influences both internal and external.
Your Willpower has increased.
There. There it is. My reinforced soul feels (insofar as my soul can feel) just a little bit stronger and firmer. I¡¯ll need to work at it and level it up more, but I think now I¡¯ll be able to try to bring up memories more safely. Not right now, though. My Inspiration is low and I really need a better way to recharge it than thinking about fanfiction or whatever. I¡¯m sure I can unlock a better skill. Right now, I¡¯m happy with what I¡¯ve gotten done today.
Anise opens the door to our room to find me, Griffin, and Burdock all jumping on our beds. We reluctantly pause our rigorous training to see what she needs. ¡°I was going to tell you the skyship from Crux Academy is coming,¡± Anise says. ¡°What are you even doing in here?¡± ¡°Practicing Enhanced Feet (Soft Landing),¡± I say. ¡°Well, at least me and Burdock were. Griffin just didn¡¯t want to be left out.¡± ¡°Is it working?¡± Anise wonders. ¡°I learned it from falling off of things, but this seems much safer.¡± ¡°Well, we¡¯re trying to extract the concept of softness from the beds,¡± I explain. ¡°That way, when we land on the ground, it will seem as soft as a bed. That said, I haven¡¯t actually gotten it yet, but I¡¯m low on Inspiration so let¡¯s go see the skyship! That might be inspiring.¡± I head up to the docking tower and examine the flying school bus with all my various sense as it comes in. I¡¯m pretty sure this is a different one and Crux Academy just has a small fleet of ships like this to ferry students to and from the school. I try to observe every detail, from the structure to the clothes the crew members are wearing. They have much more colorful clothing than us, but some of the students are also wearing accessories they brought from Crux.
Skills increased: Crafting (Appraisal), Clairvoyance (Psychometry), Enhanced Senses (Flash Observation)
Basil, Meadow¡¯s little brother (no longer so little), pauses next to me to watch the ship fly away. ¡°To think I won¡¯t be going back to the Academy again¡­¡± he says wistfully. ¡°When do you turn 21?¡± I ask. ¡°Last month,¡± Basil says. ¡°I¡¯m a full-fledged Wizard now.¡± ¡°With or without a cool adjective in front of it?¡± I wonder. Basil laughs. ¡°Fine, if you want to be precise, I¡¯m a [Nurturing Wizard].¡± We settle in for another red season as summer draws to a close. Once the sky changes color, Aunt Savannah gives her report to the Hearth on what she has heard from listening to the wind. ¡°I hear the moans of the undead and the wailing of restless spirits,¡± Aunt Savannah says. ¡°The rattling of skeletons echoes across the domain, no higher than Elite rank. Somewhere in the distance, a Legendary lich crackles with magic to challenge the truly brave.¡±
All the bed-jumping eventually pays off when I get a system message.
Skill increased: Athletics (Jumping)
Skill acquired: Enhanced Feet (Soft Landing)
Description: Reduces damage taken from falling.
Simple enough. With higher levels, I¡¯ll get more reductions and be able to safely fall a greater distance. I don¡¯t entirely look forward to training this if it doesn¡¯t involve beds, but I suppose it¡¯ll be necessary. Next up, I spent entirely more effort than I thought would be necessary doing math. I don¡¯t dislike math or anything, mind you, but I prefer to use a calculator or computer for more complex calculations. I didn¡¯t anticipate having to learn to use an abacus, and the only reason Corwen¡¯s school even has an abacus is to help people unlock this skill. No sense in fiddling with this thing when you can get the system to do it for you.
Skill acquired: Enhanced Mind (Calculator)
Description: The system can handle mathematical calculations for you.
Your Intelligence has increased.
It has taken me almost eight years to get another point of Intelligence and I feel positively mentally exhausted from doing all that math. I go to the hearth and relax. I bet I could get an Inspiration skill for staring into the fire, for being around family, or something, but that would hardly be practical for traveling. The skill Enhanced Heart (Hearth Inspiration) is mentioned in the book of skills, which I¡¯m sure all the Hearthkeepers have, but it¡¯s not something that would be all the useful to me. Cousins and uncles stumble into the hearth with their clothes torn, reeking of undead. Aunt Magnolia, unimpressed, orders them to bathe before we all lose our appetites. ¡°How bad are the swarms out there?¡± I wonder. Anise shrugs. ¡°I¡¯ve just been sniping from the walls so I haven¡¯t really been in the thick of it. The Elites out of school got a little overenthusiastic about killing zombies, though. I heard they were having a competition on how many each of them could kill and it got a little out of hand. Ugh, and it¡¯s not like we can even eat the things.¡± ¡°Are they¡­ people who were reanimated?¡± I ask. ¡°Oh, no no, that would be extra gross,¡± Anise says. ¡°No, they¡¯re just monsters shaped like people. Everything outside the walls stinks, though. Thank Heavens monster corpses dissolve after a while if they¡¯re not harvested. So, hey! What do you want for your naming day?¡± ¡°I haven¡¯t even thought about it,¡± I say. ¡°My mind has been overloaded with math.¡± ¡°Oh well, I¡¯ll think of something fun!¡± ¡°I¡¯m not sure if that thought should fill me with dread or not,¡± I comment. Chapter 58: Eight Years of Inspiration I head up to the walls to get a look at the incoming horde. There aren¡¯t any fliers or climbers this year so people aren¡¯t overeager to tell the Basic ranks to stay inside. A shambling horde of undead in various stages of decay shuffles toward the walls of the village beneath the blood red sky, all moaning like something out of a bad movie. Bodies lay strewn across the landscape, but rather than rotting, they appear to be simply dissolving into goo and vanishing. I try to get a good look at the flows of energy around them and how they¡¯re slowly draining toward the core, but it¡¯s hard to analyze in detail from this distance. Sitting safely inside the village and crafting, it¡¯s easy to forget that there¡¯s a yearly monster invasion going on outside. The Elite teenagers attending Crux Academy aren¡¯t just back home for the holidays to spend time with family, but to help defend their village and get some practical combat experience. Basil here is no longer a teenager, but he¡¯s still Elite rank and on the wall keeping watch for incoming undead. ¡°Hi Drake,¡± says Basil. ¡°Want to throw rocks at monsters?¡± ¡°Yeah, sure,¡± I say, picking up one that will fit in my palm from the pile next to him. I hurl the stone with all of my 9 Strength, and it goes flying through the air and drops like, well, a stone. It lands in the moist ground with a soft thump a few meters away from the wall and well short of the zombie I was aiming for. Basil claps me on the shoulder. ¡°Give it another shot! Don¡¯t worry about wasting ammo. Not like it¡¯s hard to collect rocks. We go out and gather them again between waves.¡± I chuck a few more rocks from the wall and eventually manage to nail a shambler square in the head. It collapses with a crunching sound.
Skills increased: Clairvoyance (Aura Sight), Discipline (Fear Resistance)
Skill acquired: Striking (Stone Hurling)
Description: The ability to strike targets with thrown rocks and slings.
The ability to throw a rock and use a sling aren¡¯t at all the same thing, but neither is the ability to build a kayak versus a galleon. And I guess they must have some sort of fear effect? I hadn¡¯t actually noticed. I spend entirely too much time around fire-breathing devil-goats to be intimidated by zombies that can¡¯t even reach me from there.
I spend many, many mind-numbling hours making wooden beads while watching as a tiny speck of essence gets deposited into each and every one of them. Rain pounds on the roof of the workshop and runs down the windows. As I work, I¡¯m trying to absorb the concept of crafting from the building around me and concentrate it into my hands. Once I¡¯ve made all the beads, I start painting them in different colors. I¡¯m not calling this game ¡°Chinese checkers¡± but that¡¯s basically what I¡¯m making a version of. I¡¯ll call it ¡°jumping beads¡± or something. I don¡¯t know how to make marbles but it¡¯s always good to get some crafting experience in.
Skills increased: Crafting (Woodworking), Crafting (Painting), Search (Measurement), Maintenance (Organization)
Skill acquired: Enhanced Hands (Mass Production)
Description: Reduce crafting time when crafting multiple items of the same type.
There we go. I¡¯ll take whatever bonus I can get on that. I anticipate having to make a lot of nails and things in the future. Once I¡¯m done with the beads, I make a wooden board full of pits and make sure they can all fit a bead. There might be a little bit of variance here and there, but that¡¯s fine so long as they fit. Now for the hard part: Teaching a bunch of small children how to play a game I barely remember. Fortunately, since it¡¯s not like they know the game either, I can just make things up and they won¡¯t know the difference. And it¡¯s not like this is a deep game or anything. ¡°Another game!¡± Griffin says in excitement when I present it. ¡°How do you play?¡± Willow asks. ¡°We each pick a color of beads, and try to get all our beads to the opposite side of the board,¡± I say. ¡°You can move them by one space, like this, or you can jump over another bead, like this.¡± I demonstrate as I explain the rules, with three children at six and a half years old watching me raptly, aunts and uncles in the background all keeping one eye on us. ¡°I wanna play too!¡± says Clover. Meadow¡¯s sister¡¯s daughter is three and a half years old now. ¡°Okay, but be careful and don¡¯t try to eat the beads,¡± says Basil. ¡°I¡¯m not gonna eat them,¡± Clover insists. ¡°I¡¯m not a baby!¡± I feel like having a system in their heads might change child development somehow. Having not actually raised normal, systemless children back on Earth, I couldn¡¯t tell you exactly how. Although system or no, being raised in a weird magitech house that sees monster invasions every year probably affects things as well. We play my new game and the kids quickly get the hang of it. Basil helps Clover, who does not try to eat any of the beads. Griffin, on the other hand, is taking the excuse to work on his Subterfuge skills.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ¡°That¡¯s not how you¡¯re supposed to move them,¡± Willow says. ¡°Is so!¡± Griffin protests. ¡°Drake, Griffin¡¯s cheating again!¡± ¡°Now, Griffin, you have to remember,¡± I say slowly. ¡°If you¡¯re going to cheat, don¡¯t get caught.¡± Griffin nods along to my sage wisdom. ¡°That¡¯s not really the lesson I¡¯d be teaching here¡­¡± Basil says with a chuckle. ¡°Someday I¡¯m hoping to be able to rely on this kid to pick a lock or disarm a trap for me,¡± I say. ¡°He¡¯s got a few months left to his first real class and I have this feeling he¡¯s going to be a [Sneaky Child].¡± Griffin grins widely and keeps nodding. And while we¡¯re talking, I notice that he has quietly rearranged some of the game pieces when he thought no one was looking. ¡°Alright, new rule,¡± I say. ¡°If someone notices you cheat, you have to put your pieces back where they belong and you skip your next turn. Fair?¡± No one is happy about my ruling, so I¡¯m going to assume that it¡¯s fair.
Skill increased: Tending (Babysitting)
On Raven¡¯s naming day, Uncle Falcon comes down the stairs into the hearth with a grim expression on his face. He¡¯s been up looking at the mural at least once a day since Aunt Myrtle left, looking to see if his mom is still alive. He tries not to ruin the party, but there¡¯s always a party going on in the hearth it seems like and everyone can see how glum he looks. ¡°We don¡¯t have a body, so we can¡¯t inter her in the core room to be reabsorbed into Corwen,¡± Uncle Falcon says quietly. ¡°But we can hold a memorial. Another day. Mom wouldn¡¯t want to put herself before a child¡¯s naming day.¡±
My own naming day follows shortly, and I spend the interim grinding more skills, of course. My next project is drawing blueprints while doing math in my head to measure angles and circles. I do not remember what a cosine is, but perhaps if I get my skills high enough, the system will remind me.
Skills increased: Crafting (Drafting), Enhanced Mind (Calculator), Discipline (Focus)
When it stops raining, I climb up to the top of the central tower to look out at the sky. The many flights of stairs are no longer such a trial for me, being older and having long enough legs that I don¡¯t need to crawl up them. The memory of the first time I climbed these steps brings a grin to my face. The November air is chilly and the floor is damp, but the skies are mostly clear now but for some stormclouds off to the southwest. This strange world I¡¯ve spent eight years of my life in is beautiful in its own way. I miss the stars and sun, but it¡¯s a deep-seated yearning that can never be fulfilled. The Great Orb takes up much of the sky, but it¡¯s the dark season now and I can¡¯t see the color ¡°dark¡±. My human eyes don¡¯t extend into the near-infrared range. Instead, I see only the gleaming skymotes shedding yellow and orange light upon their own domains, and Zenith hanging in the sky to the northwest. I breathe deeply and open myself to my surroundings, and draw the beauty of the Crystalline Heavens into myself. It takes a bit, but I keep at it. I know what I¡¯m aiming for even if I don¡¯t quite have a name for it yet.
Skill acquired: Enhanced Senses (Celestial Inspiration)
Description: The ability to relax your mind and gain inspiration by gazing upon the sky.
I think I¡¯ve finally found the Inspiration skill for me. (I say ¡°finally¡± but I¡¯ve only been trying to think of this for a year.) The skymotes go dark one by one, but the sky never goes completely empty as some of them are starting to turn violet long before the last ones have stopped being red.
You are now 8 years old.
All physical attributes have increased by 1.
And that¡¯s a good signal to head for bed. I¡¯ve been up here meditating for entirely too long and I¡¯m freezing though I didn¡¯t really feel it. Okay, hot herbal tea, and then bed. I¡¯d best be up in the morning for a party because Griffin¡¯s not going to let me sleep in. I feel like I¡¯ve hardly closed my eyes before Griffin is bouncing on my bed to wake me up. ¡°Come on, Drake!¡± Griffin says, hopping so much that he looks like he¡¯s trying to eke out the last level of Athletics (Jumping) before he turns 7. ¡°Ugh, let me sleep a few more minutes,¡± I grumble. ¡°It¡¯s already green!¡± Griffin says. ¡°The party¡¯s not starting until you get up!¡± ¡°It¡¯s not even your naming day,¡± I say, reluctantly getting out of bed. Over in the hearth, a gaggle of Corwens all wish me a happy naming day and offer presents. I quickly accumulate a small pile of sweets, books, clothes, and Basic crafting materials. My sister gives me her latest piece of artwork (a crayon drawing of me, Anise, Juniper, Griffin, and Willow all geared up for adventuring) showcasing that she probably already has level 5 in Crafting (Sketching). If not, I¡¯m sure this drawing was enough to level it up. I have no idea what my mom might find ¡°fun¡± to acquire for me during swarm season. ¡°You know how people sometimes say something is going to be fun and build up anticipation and then they can¡¯t think of anything fun?¡± Anise says. ¡°Look, I¡¯m not going to be upset if you didn¡¯t get me the most amazing naming day gift ever,¡± I say. ¡°I¡¯m just as happy with the box of apple candies Aunt Hazel made me.¡± ¡°Here it is,¡± Anise says, handing me a small wooden box. ¡°Go on and open it.¡± I open it up to see a claw hammer, the typical sort of hammer with a flat face on one side for pounding things in and two prongs on the back for prying things out. It looks like something I would have found in a hardware store back on Earth rather than anything someone might have made today, which immediately marks it as dungeon loot even before I identify it.
Category Artifact
Type Tool
Materials Wood, Steel
Rank Basic
Aspect Creation
Skills increased: Crafting (Appraisal), Clairvoyance (Aspect Analysis)
¡°Cool, a hammer!¡± ¡°I¡¯m glad you like it. When people get dungeon drops they don¡¯t need, they go up for sale in the adventuring store. And we don¡¯t have a lot of dedicated crafters who need a low level hammer.¡± Lily looks over and says, ¡°Oh, hey, yeah, that dropped for my party in the Hunting Grounds a few months ago. At least someone will find it useful for a while, but I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll outgrow Basic tools in a few years.¡±
Another year draws to a close with streaking lights, hauntingly familiar songs, and the sky turning violet.
It is now the Year 738 of the Age of the Green Fox.
Chapter 59: Naming Days and Pillow Fights The months leading up to the six-year-olds¡¯ class changes are full of anticipation. Since they haven¡¯t received any quests to unlock hidden classes, their available choices will be obvious. ¡°Drake picked a class to get bonuses all the time,¡± Willow says. ¡°We should do that too. Pick something we can keep doing as much as possible.¡± ¡°I can be sneaky all the time,¡± Griffin says. ¡°Can you really?¡± Willow says. ¡°What if we¡¯re doing something really, really unsneaky?¡± ¡°I dunno,¡± Griffin says. ¡°I don¡¯t have enough levels in Survival to be an [Adventurous Child]. What are you gonna be, June?¡± ¡°[Tranquil Child],¡± Juniper replies tranquilly. ¡°I guess it¡¯s easy for you to be calm all the time,¡± Griffin says. ¡°But I don¡¯t have much Discipline either and I¡¯m way too untranquil.¡± I still find the vocabulary of these children to be baffling even with the translator. The system helps a lot when it comes to understanding classes and skills. ¡°You don¡¯t have to share your skills with the class if you don¡¯t want to, Griffin,¡± Aunt Rosemary says. ¡°But it would help in giving advice.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t wanna,¡± Griffin says. Anise puts in, ¡°If you want to be an [Adventurous Child], we can head down to the Spooky Grove right now and try and grind you up some skills.¡± Griffin shakes his head. ¡°I wanna be a [Sneaky Child].¡± ¡°What about you, Willow?¡± Aunt Rosemary asks. ¡°I¡¯m¡­ not sure yet,¡± Willow says. ¡°I wanna be a Wizard or fun stuff like that, but I don¡¯t wanna be a [Scholarly Child] and just read all the time. I want to do stuff.¡± ¡°There¡¯s more to being a [Scholarly Child] than reading books,¡± Aunt Rosemary says. ¡°I was one, once. I went on adventures, too. The key point was both in bringing books along and having someone lecturing and teaching along the way.¡± Aunt Rosemary pauses and glances at Anise, who is sitting in the corner of the classroom waving her hands around in what I assume is an attempt at Thaumaturgy practice, but she hasn¡¯t gotten anything to happen yet. ¡°And if that were the path you want to take, it might be best if I were to go with you,¡± Aunt Rosemary says with a sigh. ¡°I wish I could do magic already,¡± Willow whines. ¡°Well, soon you will be able to learn enhancement skills,¡± Aunt Rosemary says. ¡°Those are just a different sort of magic.¡± ¡°I want to wave my hands and make storms and lightning and thunder!¡± Willow says. ¡°Any path you choose will get you there if that is where you want to go,¡± Aunt Rosemary says. ¡°May I ask what your skill levels are?¡± Willow looks about the room and leans over to whisper them in her ear. Meanwhile, I¡¯m over here trying to plan out my future party. I suppose I won¡¯t need to walk into a tavern somewhere and recruit three to five strangers if my sister and cousins are eager to go delving. I¡¯m thinking about trying to make some equipment for us, too. Or really, I¡¯m thinking about trying to get good enough at crafting to make some equipment for us that isn¡¯t worse than something laying around collecting dust in our storerooms. A skyship arrives mid-January, dropping off an uncle I¡¯ve rarely seen and don¡¯t recall the name of off the top of my head. His eyes are completely milky white and his dark brown hair touched with gray. ¡°Yew!¡± says Aunt Rosemary, going up to hug him as he turns toward the voice. ¡°What happened?¡± (Fortunately, the name ¡®Yew¡¯ sounds nothing like the Common word for ¡®you¡¯, and I¡¯m still using subtitles anyway.) ¡°Hi Mom,¡± Yew says, shifting his staff so he can hug her back. ¡°I got hit with a blindness curse in a dungeon in Hush. We couldn¡¯t find a way to reverse it so I decided to come home and retire from adventuring. I¡¯m about to turn 42 and haven¡¯t even reached Heroic.¡± ¡°Oh, my sweet son, you are always welcome in the Hearth,¡± Aunt Rosemary says. ¡°We can help prepare you for whatever sort of class you want to get when you turn 42 and try to find a way to lift that curse.¡±
I spend the interim period working hard on practicing my skills. For the most part, this entails crafting while using various Clairvoyance skills and taking breaks to look out a window or go outside if it¡¯s not raining. I manage to get in a level or two in several skills from sewing a bunch of napkins and helping out in the kitchen.
Skills increased: Discipline (Long-Term Planning), Crafting (Tailoring), Crafting (Cooking), Crafting (Brewing), Maintenance (Cleaning), Clairvoyance (Empathy), Enhanced Hands (Mass Production) Enhanced Soul (Fractal Consciousness), Enhanced Senses (Celestial Inspiration), Language (Common)
Ah, the sweet sound of numbers going up. (There is no sound. There¡¯s an option to have skill gains make an audible ¡®ding!¡¯ in your head but I do not feel the need to enable it.)The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Soon enough, the 3rd of March arrives, and with it comes the twins¡¯ naming day. As a major milestone for two of the Hearth¡¯s members, there¡¯s a bigger party than usual with twice the normal amount of cake. A couple of uncles have hung up a banner Juniper drew that reads in colorful letters, ¡®SNEAKY CHILD!¡¯ She¡¯s busily working on another one that reads ¡®PERCEPTIVE CHILD!¡¯ ¡°It¡¯s not very sneaky if you make a big sign!¡± Griffin protests. ¡°You can just hide it from everyone outside the Hearth,¡± I say with a chuckle. ¡°I didn¡¯t know what class Willow was going to be so I didn¡¯t have her banner ready yet,¡± Juniper says. ¡°That¡¯s okay,¡± Willow says. ¡°I didn¡¯t know what class I was going to be either.¡± ¡°[Perceptive Child], huh?¡± I say. ¡°You¡¯re going to find all sorts of things!¡± Willow grins. ¡°I hope so!¡± Gifts abound, and soon the twins are the proud owners of a host of new clothes, toys, and adventuring equipment. Corwens are the sort of people who think seven years old is the appropriate age to give a boy a knife. ¡°Novice adventurers need to be sharp!¡± Uncle Falcon says with a grin. ¡°And have someone around capable of healing cuts¡­¡± Aunt Hazel says, sighing. ¡°I suppose it was too much to hope for that even one of my children would stay in the village where it¡¯s safe and help take care of the Hearth.¡± ¡°Adventurers are important too,¡± Uncle Falcon says. ¡°The village wouldn¡¯t be safe if we weren¡¯t going out and culling monsters and gathering resources.¡± ¡°I know, but that doesn¡¯t mean I have to be happy about my precious babies having to go out and take risks,¡± Aunt Hazel says. ¡°Oh, live a little, sis!¡± Anise says, stumbling by with a glass of cider. She looks like she should be falling over but is very obviously using [Uncanny Balance] to stay upright. ¡°Are you drunk already, Anise?¡± Aunt Hazel says, sighing even more heavily. ¡°Live a liiiitle!¡± Anise repeats, sloshing her glass in front of her twin. ¡°Go on!¡± ¡°It¡¯s not even yellow yet. Go on yourself.¡± The party peters out after a while as people do still have work to do, but the banners stay up the rest of the day and there¡¯s fresh apple cakes after dinner. We don¡¯t blow out candles here (or indeed have much use for them outside of Invocation), but the cakes have been decorated with the childrens¡¯ names and the number 7. I hope one of the Hearthkeepers leveled up making these because they¡¯re amazing.
For Juniper¡¯s naming day, I make the banner this time because it seems silly for the name day girl to have to make her own party decorations. My little sister is now a [Tranquil Child] just as she¡¯d hoped. Juniper could not be more different from the sister I had in my first life. Annie was an ball of energy and charisma who could make friends just by walking in a room. Juniper isn¡¯t really a wallflower in that she doesn¡¯t cling to the walls and avoid conversation, but she¡¯s quiet and doesn¡¯t try to be the center of attention even when it¡¯s her own naming day. She¡¯s not averse to the attention or uncomfortable with it. (I can tell, I have psychic powers.) She just doesn¡¯t seem to feel the need to seek it out or go out of her way to draw attention to herself. After breakfast, we drag a bunch of spare mattresses, blankets, and pillows into a room and are using it as a training room. And by ¡°spare¡± I mean people are now annoyed at us for doing so but willing to let us use their bedding for the purposes of skill training so long as we make sure they¡¯re clean and back on their beds before red. ¡°Who would have thought that the best way to train Enhanced Feet (Soft Landing) is to jump on a feather bed over and over?¡± Anise comments in between jumps. ¡° ¡®Who¡¯ would be one Verbena Corwen, who left the note in the book recommending feather beds,¡± I say bouncily. ¡°And it¡¯s not just jumping. It¡¯s jumping while absorbing the concept of softness.¡± ¡°Oh, whatever,¡± Anise says, flopping down onto the soft pile. ¡°Well, in that case¡­ Pillow fight!¡± Griffin squeals as a fluffy melee ensues. Willow laughs and grabs a blanket to use as a shield. Juniper stoically ambushes Griffin with a pillow. For my part, I continue trying to make softness a part of myself.
Skills increased: Enhanced Feet (Soft Landing), Athletics (Jumping)
Skill acquired: Enhanced Muscles (Soften Blow)
Description: You may choose to do nonlethal damage with any weapon to disable rather than harm. The amount of damage that can be negated depends upon level.
I¡¯d been intending on putting softness into my feet and not my muscles, but that skill could be useful too. Griffin tumbles over and smacks into a wall with a snap. The battle royale of softness immediately halts. I look over in concern as a dark liquid seeps onto a pillow under him, but it¡¯s black rather than red. ¡°Oh, man,¡± Griffin says, fishing the pieces of a leaking broken pen out of his pocket. ¡°I totally forgot that was in there.¡± ¡°You are in so much trouble,¡± Willow says. ¡°Isn¡¯t that Lily¡¯s?¡± Anise asks, examining the ex-pen. Griffin nods dejectedly. ¡°I was trying to practice being a [Sneaky Child] and was borrowing stuff and putting it back. I guess I forgot the putting it back part.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s try and clean up and tell Lily we broke her pen,¡± I say. ¡°What do you mean ¡®we¡¯?¡± Willow says. ¡°It¡¯s Griffin¡¯s fault!¡± ¡°We should¡¯ve double-checked that no one had anything breakable in their pockets before roughhousing like that,¡± I say. ¡°Right, let¡¯s listen to our adult chaperone,¡± my mom says with a grin. We clean up as best as we can and locate Lily in the guest house with Basil, Burdock, and a man and woman I don¡¯t recognize dressed in brown traveling clothes. A quick scan of their auras identifies them as Elite ranked adventurers, a Paladin and a Bard. I¡¯m guessing they left whatever equipment they have in their rooms. ¡°Um¡­¡± Griffin says awkwardly, approaching them. He puts the remains of the pen on the table and says in a rush, ¡°Aunt Lily, I¡¯m sorry I broke your pen!¡± Lily sighs as she looks at the shards. ¡°I was wondering where that went. I liked that pen, too.¡± ¡°I can¡­ get you another one?¡± Griffin offers hesitantly. ¡°I found that in the Great Library dungeon on Crux,¡± Lily says. ¡°No one¡¯s going to let you visit Crux yet, but there¡¯s other dungeons that drop pens sometimes.¡± ¡°Or you can just buy one,¡± says the Paladin. ¡°It¡¯s just a pen, after all.¡± ¡°But that wouldn¡¯t be much of a Deed,¡± says the Bard. ¡°He¡¯s entirely too young to be chasing Deeds,¡± says the Paladin. ¡°But Corwens are a strange lot. I can¡¯t believe the ancient Corwens subjugated multiple dungeons just to entertain children.¡± ¡°Early training does have its benefits,¡± Lily says. ¡°I¡¯ll have to look up which dungeons in Tempest both might drop pens and are low Basic rank suitable for small children, if you¡¯re game to try.¡± Griffin nods eagerly. ¡°I¡¯ll try!¡± He pauses and looks back toward me and Anise hopefully. ¡°I can try, right?¡± ¡°Of course,¡± Anise says. ¡°We¡¯ll have to go pick up Rowan from Talgarth first but it¡¯s high time we got adventuring.¡± Chapter 60: The Road to Talgarth ¡°I¡¯ve refreshed my knowledge of local dungeons,¡± Lily says. ¡°The safest bet for aquiring a pen, if you choose to take this challenge, would be the Forgotten Tower. It¡¯s a popular and well-known tower-climbing dungeon a few days¡¯ travel south of here.¡± ¡°Not very forgotten, is it?¡± I say. ¡°Yes, and everyone knows where the Lost Valley is,¡± Anise adds. ¡°The Hidden Glade has signs posted outside of it. And the Secret Garden is on every map.¡± Lily nods. ¡°Most of the dungeons in Tempest are nature-based, unlike Crux, which means fewer opportunities for advanced items and materials. The Forgotten Tower gets dangerous at higher floors. I suggest sticking to the first two. There¡¯s no combat on the ground floor and very little on the first. You can just run those over and over until you get the drops you¡¯re looking for.¡± ¡°Sounds like a plan,¡± Anise says. ¡°We¡¯ll leave for Talgarth in the morning,¡± Meadow says. ¡°Let¡¯s make sure everyone is ready with equipment and supplies.¡± We spend the remainder of the day checking and double-checking what we¡¯re bringing with us. The kids all receive little backpacks but aren¡¯t expected to carry much, so Meadow and Anise have most of the supplies. I¡¯m carrying a fair bit myself between the toolkit I keep in my bag of holding and just the fact that I have higher skills and attributes than the kids. Not that my level 4 in [Hiking] is terribly impressive either, but theirs is at level 1. Come morning, Aunt Hazel sends us off with tearful well-wishes. ¡°My babies¡¯ first real adventure. Do be careful. Don¡¯t take any chances.¡± ¡°We¡¯ll be fine!¡± Anise assures her. My party sets off north through the budding apple orchards and reaches the crossroads at the Festival Grounds. This takes a bit longer than usual because Griffin is trying to sneak the whole way through and Willow is staring at everything. Juniper has it easy. She just has to stay calm, and she has no problem doing that. Meadow sighs at him. ¡°Griffin, I appreciate that you¡¯re trying to level your skills here, but we need to pick up the pace or it will be summer before we get to Talgarth. Just¡­ watch your feet and try to walk quietly without stepping on anything, but do it more quickly.¡± ¡°Alright, alright,¡± Griffin whines. ¡°I¡¯ve already got a level in Search (Birdwatching),¡± Willow says. ¡°And I think there¡¯s something odd with that crow.¡± She points toward the big festival tree. The crow in question clearly notices her pointing and flies off, but I manage to identify it before it gets out of range.
Category Mind
Type Bird
Gender Male
Rank Basic
Aspect Knowledge
Mood Spooked
Disposition Neutral
Skills increased: Enhanced Senses (Flash Observation), Clairvoyance (Aspect Analysis)
¡°Huh, that¡¯s odd,¡± I say. ¡°It¡¯s not a monster or an animal. It¡¯s a ¡®mind¡¯. I think I¡¯ve seen one of these crows before. In any case, he got spooked and scarpered.¡± ¡°Dunno what that is, but there¡¯s a lot of things in the Crystalline Heavens I don¡¯t know about,¡± Anise says. ¡°Let¡¯s rest for a moment for lunch,¡± Meadow says. I¡¯ve been enjoying [Celestial Inspiration]. Being out under the open sky, my Inspiration regeneration is high enough that I can keep some skills up constantly that I had to carefully ration before. Which now I¡¯m doing because letting the meter stay maxed is a waste of Inspiration that could be spent grinding skills. By the time we reach the Hedge Maze, I¡¯ve already made some gains.
Skills increased: Survival (Hiking), Enhanced Feet (Fast Travel), Enhanced Senses (Celestial Inspiration)
Not for the first or last time, it occurs to me that I have entirely too many skills and I¡¯m only going to wind up with more. I haven¡¯t even reached Elite yet. Oh well. It¡¯s not like the notifications are so frequent that I feel the need to turn them off. ¡°Alright, kids!¡± Anise says entirely too cheerfully. ¡°Who wants to play with fire?¡± Griffin raises his hand. ¡°Me! Me!¡± We enter the Hedge Maze and head for the safe zone the dungeon has set up for resting. As we approach, several meter-tall auras come into view. ¡°Wait, there¡¯s already people at the camping spot,¡± I say. ¡°Friendly goblins.¡± Half a dozen goblins are sitting around a smoldering campfire, eating and chattering in perfectly passable Common. A crude hide sign hands from a short post, depicting a bridge and the name ¡®GRUBWICK¡¯. ¡°Humans!¡± says one of them upon seeing us. ¡°Hello! We are good goblins!¡± ¡°They wear dark,¡± says another goblin. ¡°They are Corwens. Friends!¡± We make a round of introductions. ¡°Have you been running the dungeon?¡± Anise asks. The leader of the goblin party, a Hunter name Tupa, nods. ¡°We stayed here many days. Lots of practice. We speak in Common to get better. But better skill gain if we talk to humans! So it is good to see humans.¡±This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. The kids are curious about the goblins, watching them and going up to chat. They¡¯ve probably seen goblins before who came to trade at Corwen, but not goblin adventurers like this. ¡°I didn¡¯t know goblins did dungeons,¡± Griffin says. ¡°We should do dungeons more!¡± Tupa says. ¡°We got more skill levels than ever!¡± After chatting a bit with the goblins, we let the kids try their hand at some puzzles and get some minor loot before we turn to to sleep. I think I¡¯ve already seen most of the puzzles in the Hedge Maze, but there¡¯s a surprisingly large number of them in what doesn¡¯t seem from outside like a huge space. It¡¯s surely enough to keep someone running them day after day and getting variations each time they reset. The Hedge Maze always tries to send you to puzzles to test the skills you have, so we wind up at a puzzle I haven¡¯t seen before. Hedges surround a circular area with a ring of medium-sized trees, each of them with an item dangling from a string. The chattering of squirrels and rustling of leaves can be heard from the branches overhead, but they go quiet when they spot us approach and quickly yank the strings up. We back off until the squirrels start talking again and let Griffin sneak in. It takes a few tries, but he manages to get in and cut loose all six items and brings them back to the party. They¡¯re all different colored shapes: A yellow circle, a red square, a green triangle, and so forth. ¡°What are they?¡± Willow wonders. ¡°Pieces for the next puzzle, I assume,¡± I say. The next path leads to a gate into the final clearing with the talking tree. Rather than a mirror puzzle, this gate has slots to put shapes. After inserting all the items Griffin liberated from the squirrel monsters, the gate opens and lets us inside. ¡°There¡¯s more to being a [Tranquil Child] than just being calm, June,¡± Meadow says. ¡°You still have to do things to get levels.¡± Juniper nods. ¡°Griffin and Willow are better at the puzzles, though.¡± ¡°Hmm, hmm, hmm,¡± the tree says. ¡°Welcome, children. Come and take a seat with me. Let¡¯s play a game of cards.¡± ¡°Ugh, not the cards again,¡± I groan. We all sit down to play obligatorily. Griffin has fun and thinks he¡¯s winning but it¡¯s Juniper who steals the victory. I wonder which skill ¡®poker face¡¯ falls under. With that, we loot the final chest and complete the dungeon. On the way out, I locate the core room again for the bonus chest before we return to the rest area. The kids were all allowed their pick of the chests, and it¡¯s like their naming days all over again but with minor dungeon artifacts this time. Griffin is excited about his lockpicks but has nothing to practice lockpicking on at the moment. Juniper has a crown of daisies, and Willow got a rose-shaped pendant. ¡°What does it do, Drake?¡± Willow asks, showing it to me. ¡°Hmm,¡± I say, analyzing it. ¡°Aspect of wisdom¡­ I have no idea what that might actually do, though. Wisdom¡¯s pretty abstract.¡± ¡°What¡¯s abstract mean?¡± Willow asks. ¡°Like it¡¯s just an idea,¡± I say. ¡°You can¡¯t touch it or measure it. Well, I guess I can. I¡¯m psychic. I can see ideas. Anyway, it probably helps with perception or something. Not sure.¡± We¡¯re not staying here long enough to do more than one run right now and after we¡¯ve gotten some rest, we bid good day to the Grubwicks and are back on the road by green the next day. Our next stop is the Wisteria Garden, which we also run. The layout there is more open, with distinct areas to run containing their own puzzles. Thankfully, there¡¯s no sign of eldritch infestation today, nor any appearances from judgmental painters complaining about children running dungeons. Considering there¡¯s multiple puzzles involving nursery rhymes and such, I¡¯m not sure how justified his complaints might have been. And yet that comment Lily¡¯s companion made has me wondering how deliberate the setup is. Our ancestors subjugated the nearby dungeons and turned them into training grounds for our children. Considering how dangerous this world is, I can¡¯t exactly argue that that¡¯s a bad thing. I have to admit, though, that for all of my skill grinding, I¡¯m starting to get a little bored. The Hedge Maze is nice and the Wisteria Garden is pretty, but I feel like Tempest is just a monster-infested park fifty miles in diameter. There¡¯s even a mountain in the middle that resembles a fountain more than a natural land form. But it will still be many years before the kids will be ready for any real adventures. I just need to be patient and keep grinding my too-many-skills.
Skills increased: Enhanced Feet (Mapping Step), Tending (Babysitting), Survival (Sense of Direction)
At least visiting dungeons is better for training these sorts of skills than sitting around a village I have already thoroughly mapped out from top to bottom. We¡¯re letting the kids do the puzzles and I only step in if they get stumped. After another night¡¯s rest, it¡¯s back on the road to Talgarth. By this point, the novelty of being out adventuring has worn off a little for the kids and Griffin is already starting to whine about ¡°are we there yet?¡± At least he¡¯s not still trying to sneak all the way across Tempest. Not too soon, the walls of Talgarth loom ahead and the kids immediately brighten at the change in scenery. Or at least, Griffin and Willow brighten. Juniper just looks up. She¡¯s kind of overdoing the [Tranquil Child] thing, but I¡¯m sure she¡¯ll work things out for herself soon enough. She¡¯s only had the class for a few days, after all. The kids have never visited another village before and are staring at everything as we head in through the gates. Talgarth has the same basic Hearth structure, but everything is laid out differently and the people here have more colorful clothes. I couldn¡¯t tell you much about fashion, but it seems yellow is ¡®in¡¯ this year. ¡°Welcome to Talgarth, travelers,¡± says an old woman as we check into the guest house, giving a warm smile to the children. ¡°What brings you to our humble village?¡± ¡°We¡¯re looking to pick up Rowan,¡± Anise says. ¡°We¡¯re his adventuring party.¡± ¡°Ah, I see. I¡¯ll let him know you¡¯re here.¡± Since there¡¯s plenty of room here at the moment, we get three rooms: one for me and Griffin, one for Anise and the girls, and one for Meadow and a local man she just met and has decided to spend the night with. Sometimes I think I am never going to get used to this culture. Rowan comes out shortly to meet the party (minus Meadow) in the hearth of the guest house. ¡°Ah, you¡¯re here! I was starting to wonder if you were going to come here or if I should head to Corwen myself.¡± ¡°You missed our naming days!¡± Griffin says. ¡°I¡¯m an [Adventurous Child] now!¡± [He¡¯s lying,] I telepathically inform Rowan. [His skills lean toward Subterfuge rather than Survival.] Rowan smirks. ¡°Are you now? Well, I hope you¡¯re ready for some adventure, then.¡± We catch up over dinner and discuss the ¡®quest¡¯ Griffin has been given and catch up. ¡°Well, I¡¯m game for whatever sort of adventuring you guys are up to,¡± Rowan says. ¡°I suppose protecting novice adventurers on their first real quest will be good for experience as an [Apprentice Guardian]. Let¡¯s be careful, though. You guys have a lot of skills left to level up. And you¡¯re probably not going to try to learn all the skills ever like Drake here.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not trying to learn all the skills,¡± I say. ¡°Just the ones that sound cool. And the ones I accidentally unlock trying to learn the ones that sound cool. And the ones my family members insist I should learn so that I don¡¯t get myself killed doing things that sound cool.¡± ¡°Have you learned [Thick Skin] and [Rapid Healing] yet?¡± Rowan asks. ¡°No¡­¡± I grouse. ¡°But I got a new Inspiration skill that should help!¡± Chapter 61: Trouble in the Hedge Maze We don¡¯t waste the opportunity to hit the Wisteria Garden and Hedge Maze again on the way back to Corwen. We all need experience and they aren¡¯t out of the way. Rowan wishes they had a little more combat, but acknowledges that the kids have a long way to go before they can do any serious fighting. One of the chests in the Wisteria Garden drops a bottle of murky yellowish liquid labeled ¡®Plant Nutrients¡¯. As I¡¯m the only one here who is growing a plant, I claim it. I do not know enough about actually growing plants to guess what might be in it beyond identifying its mystic aspects. What sort of nutrients would be beneficial to a magic oak tree? As we travel, the sky shifts from indigo to azure, brightening our journey. (I don¡¯t think it¡¯s as bright as a sky would be if it were lit by an actual sun, but it¡¯s bright compared to what our eyes are used to here on the opposite side of a domain from the local skymote.) We reach the Hedge Maze and do a quick dungeon run before settling in at the safe area for the night with the Grubwicks. Tupa makes small talk for a bit while we eat. ¡°Sleep tight, kids,¡± Anise says. ¡°We¡¯ll do another run in the morning and then get on the road home.¡± The night is peaceful and quiet, aside from goblins snoring, and soon enough the skymotes are turning azure and signalling another morning come. We start in on one more run of the Hedge Maze before we leave, and at this point we¡¯ve already seen any sections that test what skills we have. I¡¯m pretty sure there¡¯s ones we haven¡¯t seen yet that we don¡¯t have the skills for as [Mapping Step] indicates there are still some places we haven¡¯t seen and I¡¯ve found no way to get into. As the kids are figuring out another puzzle, I¡¯m pondering over a section on my map we can¡¯t reach, although the earlier steps around it are already fading from my interface. One of the trees in the clearing looks like I might be able to climb high enough for a better view. Suddenly, my party members all stop what they¡¯re doing and get that look on their face like they¡¯re staring at a system window. ¡°I just got a quest,¡± Rowan says quietly. ¡°Defend the Hedge Maze.¡± ¡°So did I,¡± Anise says, and a chorus of agreement indicates it went to everyone but me. (And I¡¯m sure it went to me, too, and I just can¡¯t see it.) ¡°Alright, let¡¯s be careful and figure out what¡¯s going on here,¡± Meadow says. High-pitched shouts from somewhere nearby indicate that whatever is going on here involves goblins, though it¡¯s not immediately clear whether it¡¯s the Grubwicks that are in trouble or some different goblins have shown up. I scan about the area with Clairvoyance to see if I can pick up any hostile red auras. The hedges are living things, though, and while I¡¯d be able to make out auras through an inanimate wall, plants do a good job of blocking [Aura Sight]. I need a better perspective. I turn back to that tree I was about to climb, and haul myself up. I¡¯ve neglected Athletics a bit, but at least with Enhanced Feet (Soft Landing), I feel confident in not breaking anything should I fall from this height. I almost slip a couple times, but manage to reach a good viewpoint from a stable junction a few feet above the height of the hedges. Looking out over the maze is dizzying, and I¡¯m not high enough to see meter-tall goblins amid three-meter-tall hedges, but there¡¯s smoke billowing up over the top. I don¡¯t get a clear view until they head down a path perpendicular to my position. Goblins dressed in crude clothing, bearing hostile auras. Around the neck of the leader hangs a collection of feathers and animal bones.
Category Person
Race Goblin
Gender Male
Class Warlock
Rank Elite
Mood Malicious
Disposition Hostile
[Eight hostile goblins,] I send to my party telepathically. [Three of them Elites. By Corwen, they were serious about rooting out our Grubwick friends.] ¡°Rowan, protect the kids and see if you can take down any of the Basics,¡± Anise says. ¡°Me and Meadow are gonna hit the Elites.¡± (The auto-translator seems intent upon reproducing Anise¡¯s poor grammar, whatever the equivalent was in Common.) I swing down from the limb and dangle for a moment before letting go, focusing on my enhancement skill to absorb the impact from the fall, though I think my feet are only a meter above the ground so not that much of an impact to absorb.
Skills increased: Athletics (Climbing), Enhanced Feet (Soft Landing), Clairvoyance (Aura Sight), Enhanced Senses (Flash Observation), Clairvoyance (Telepathy), Language (Common)
Meadow takes point as we make our way back through the dungeon. Hedges move before us to give us rapid passage through the maze, while the hostile goblins have been led around in circles unable to make progress, judging by the (non-magical) cursing in Goblin that I overhear. The hedges are surprisingly non-flammable, but their Warlock, Sorcerer, and Invoker keep trying until we appear.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!
Skills increased: Subterfuge (Eavesdropping), Language (Goblin)
¡°[Killjoy],¡± Meadow says, using the power of ¡®stop having fun, guys¡¯ to extinguish the flames. The Warlock snarls in Goblin, ¡°I am Gaz Muckburrow and I will destroy you!¡± Anise and Meadow engage the three Elites, while the five Basics swarm around them to avoid getting caught in the crossfire. Neither of them is capable of perfectly blocking small, quick beings from slipping by. Rowan is a tank, however. While he¡¯s terrified, he stands in front of the children with his Mock Turtle shield and spider venom sword, prepared to stand firm and keep them from coming to harm. A goblin swipes a stone knife at me. I evade and grip my dagger, and lunge in for a slash. The goblin is quick but stumbles into the hedge, where I take advantage of its mistake to land a killing strike. Rowan has already killed another goblin, his green blade streaked with blood. Griffin gleefully stabs at one of the goblins with his own knife, like his target is just one of those Basic monsters that had been captured for practice. Juniper and Willow fend off their attacks with their small staves. I charge in to take out the goblin that¡¯s focused on Juniper. The goblins also have enhancement skills, but not enough to stop us from taking them out. Anise and Meadow are struggling. They¡¯ve brought down the Invoker and injured the Warlock and Sorcerer, but they¡¯ve taken some injuries themselves in the process. Gaz Muckburrow, the Warlock with the bone-and-feather necklace, seems to be the highest level one here. I quickly assess the situation. Anise and Meadow need help, but the goblins they¡¯re facing are Elites and will take less damage from our attacks. And we need to protect the children. The crazy, bloodthirsty children who are surprisingly eager to fight. Griffin is already charging at them with his knife. [Stay with Griffin and help Anise and Meadow,] I send to Rowan. [I¡¯ll cover the girls.] Rowan nods, not turning to look. He moves up and gets in a couple of strikes. The addition of two more targets, even ones lower ranked than them, is enough to distract the surviving goblins and put them back on the defensive. The Warlock locks eyes with me and gives a toothy grin. With a thrust of his hand, a blast of greenish energy shoots toward Juniper. I step into the way, and the spell scores a glancing strike against my side and left arm, but none of it touches my sister. The attempt distracts the Warlock from what¡¯s going on in front of him. The Invoker is badly hurt and Rowan gets in a poisoned strike against the Warlock. ¡°You will rue the day you crossed Muckburrow,¡± Gaz growls in Goblin. Gaz the Warlock activates an Enhanced Feet skill to flee, leaving the Invoker to die to cover his retreat.
Skills increased: Discipline (Battle Trance), Athletics (Dodging), Striking (Bladework), Tending (Babysitting)
Skill acquired: Blocking (Bodyguard)
Description: The ability to stand in the way of incoming attacks to protect someone.
¡°Quest complete,¡± Anise says for my benefit. ¡°Must be safe for now.¡± The goblins are dead and the children are celebrating. Drake stabs one of the dead goblins a few more times, giggling. I suppose once you¡¯ve milked a fire-breathing devil-goat the size of a large horse, it¡¯s hard to find goblins terrifying. These are not milquetoast suburban American kids. These are incredibly creepy children. I am no longer bored. I would like to go back to being bored now. No, this is normal. Drake Corwen finds nothing strange about fighting goblins at all. Alex does. Alex had never done anything worse than annoy people on the internet. He¡¯d certainly never killed anyone. I¡¯m Drake Corwen, not Alex. And I belong here. Alex will get another life. I won¡¯t. I take some deep breaths and lean into Enhanced Soul (Identity). I don¡¯t want to suddenly be thinking like a nerd or a murderhobo at any given moment due to a sudden thought that took me down a garden path.
Skills increased: Enhanced Soul (Identity), Discipline (Composure)
¡°Drake, are you alright?¡± asks my mom. ¡°Nothing you can¡¯t heal,¡± I say. ¡°Alright, scream in pain now,¡± Anise says cheerfully. ¡°[Tough Love].¡± Every damaged cell shrieks in pain as the healing spell hits me. ¡°Dammit, did you have to use that spell?¡± ¡°You mean to tell me your [Pain Tolerance] is that low?¡± Anise says. ¡°I should use that on you more often, then!¡± I can¡¯t help it. I start laughing. ¡°I love you too, mom.¡± This world is absolutely insane and I love it, hate it, and find it hilarious sometimes.
Skill acquired: Discipline (Pain Tolerance)
Description: The ability to resist pain and continue functioning. Does not remove sensation, only increases your ability to deal with it.
Juniper, of course, gets the gentle, soothing skill that takes the pain away. Either that or her Discipline is high enough that it doesn¡¯t bother her anyway. Anise understands her magic more than she realizes. She harnesses a specific concept to get the desired effect. Sorcery skills are the easiest for me to see because I already have [Empathy]. ¡°Everyone okay now?¡± Anise asks. ¡°Be sure to loot the bodies before we go.¡± ¡°They¡¯re only wearing loincloths¡­¡± Rowan complains. As we¡¯re heading back to the safe zone, Rowan says to me, ¡°Corwens are so creepy¡­ You¡¯re a reincarnator and all, but actual children should not be acting like this.¡± ¡°Oh, good, it¡¯s not just me,¡± I say. ¡°I was starting to think it was because this world is weird and dangerous.¡± ¡°Normal Hearths aren¡¯t like this, no,¡± Rowan says. ¡°You might have gotten a bit of a skewed impression of what this world is like from having been born into a weird Hearth.¡± I might not get quests, but other people still do, including my potential enemies. And trying to make friends with Milo made me enemies. I wonder if anyone will wind up being my enemy should they find out we want to learn Necromancy from an undead. Estelle mentioned that people had received quests about her. Regardless of what she¡¯s doing now or whether she has any ill intentions, other cores won¡¯t have forgotten whatever it was she did. There will be those who feel threatened by the danger of an ancient Necromancer gaining power. For all I know, she really is ¡®evil¡¯ and the whole poetry thing is a long con. I do not honestly care. Chapter 62: No War, Only Grinding Spiders After making sure Tupa and the other Grubwicks are alright, we set off for Corwen. It¡¯s still morning and we have many kilometers to cover before dark. (Around 15 of them, in fact.) While the kids are eager to fight more goblins, the adults want to usher them to safety before any other hostiles show up. ¡°The Hedge Maze directed us straight to them,¡± Rowan says. ¡°Never heard of a dungeon being that accommodating before.¡± ¡°It means we couldn¡¯t have avoided a confrontation if we¡¯d wanted to,¡± I say. ¡°That was so fun,¡± Griffin says. ¡°I hope we get to fight more bad goblins.¡± I sigh, but it¡¯s mostly at the dissonance of how innocent he is. He¡¯s never been told killing people is bad. He¡¯d never harm another Corwen deliberately, and is friendly enough to allies and neutrals, but he feels not the slightest twinge of guilt over killing hostiles that happened to be people-shaped. And I can¡¯t even tell him he¡¯s wrong to think that way. At least, thanks to the friendly Grubwicks, he¡¯s going not going to be growing up thinking ¡®green people are bad¡¯. He¡¯ll be thinking ¡®people trying to kill us are bad¡¯. Entirely reasonable. We make it back to Corwen and let people know what happened. Aunt Magnolia gathers the children around the hearth for some soothing herbal tea as she gets some dinner bowls ready for them. Aunt Savannah¡¯s face remains impassive, but I can clearly see the horror roiling through her aura. ¡°I was led to believe that the goblin war had died down, otherwise I would have insisted you take a Heroic along with you.¡± ¡°Yeah, I don¡¯t remember much about Muckburrow,¡± Anise says. ¡°Just that they were hostile to Grubwick¡¯s messengers.¡± ¡°The children must remain in the village for now,¡± Aunt Savannah says. ¡°I won¡¯t risk them until they¡¯ve had more training.¡± ¡°Dungeons are way better training, though,¡± Anise says. ¡°There¡¯s gotta be some challenge or you hardly get any experience.¡± ¡°Then I suggest coming up with more difficult games.¡± ¡°But I want to do dungeons!¡± Griffin whines like a 7-year-old. ¡°Of course you do,¡± Anise says with a wink. ¡°What [Adventurous Child] wouldn¡¯t?¡± Aunt Savannah folds her arms across her chest. ¡°He can sneak around the village just as well.¡± ¡°What if I snuck out of the village?¡± Griffin says. ¡°If you were capable of sneaking out of the village without me noticing, then I would have confidence in your ability to also not be noticed by hostile goblins.¡± ¡°What if we brought along a Heroic?¡± I ask. ¡°They can¡¯t have that many higher ranks to throw around.¡± ¡°We don¡¯t know what they might have,¡± Aunt Savannah says. ¡°So we should stay out of this war and let them figure it out for themselves.¡± ¡°Aren¡¯t we supposed to be Grubwick¡¯s friends?¡± Juniper asks. ¡°We are trading partners, not allies,¡± Aunt Savannah says. ¡°We have no obligation to fight for them.¡± ¡°You mean we¡¯ve gotten no quest to fight for them,¡± I say. ¡°Correct,¡± Aunt Savannah says. ¡°And without a quest, I see no reason to risk our children fighting in a goblin war. Until such time as Corwen sends a sign one way or another, we will avoid getting involved directly.¡± ¡°I have some items I need to deliver to Estelle in the Spooky Grove,¡± I say. ¡°You are essentially an adult,¡± Aunt Savannah says. ¡°You may do as you wish. But do not involve the actual children unless you can convince me that they will be safe, such as with a high-level escort, or they¡¯ve reached Elite themselves.¡± Aunt Savannah will not be swayed by anyone¡¯s Persuasion skill, and leaves the kids in disappointment. Griffin¡¯s aura lets off clear waves of emotion indicating he has no intention of obeying her rules. While I¡¯m the only psychic in the room, I¡¯m sure anyone looking at him grumbling would suspect he¡¯s going to at least try to sneak out. We all know he¡¯s a [Sneaky Child] just from the banners at the party we had last month. No one is concerned about slipping past Aunt Savannah¡¯s senses, however. ¡°It¡¯s probably just as well,¡± Lily says. ¡°But what about your pen?¡± Griffin asks. ¡°I have more than one pen,¡± Lily says with a chuckle. ¡°There¡¯s no time limit on that challenge. Try convincing Uncle Hawk to escort you once his party gets back from their current trip.¡± Griffin perks up. ¡°When will that be?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know, sorry.¡± The next morning, I get ready to head out to the Spooky Grove. There¡¯s grumbling about it being totally unfair that I¡¯m allowed to go out. It¡¯s just me, Anise, Meadow, and Rowan this time. This, unfortunately, means that they¡¯re expecting me and Rowan to handle the giant spiders in the Sleepy Raven¡¯s common room ourselves. ¡°Oh, come on,¡± Anise says. ¡°They¡¯re just Basic giant spiders. You guys don¡¯t need help with this. In fact, do whole clear of the inn. It¡¯ll be good practice!¡±You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. Rowan sighs heavily. ¡°I asked for this¡­¡± ¡°What about the boss in the basement?¡± I ask. ¡°We might get something good in the chest, but I don¡¯t know that we can take on an Elite and two Basic spiders ourselves.¡± ¡°You can try, at least!¡± Anise says. I didn¡¯t want my life to be focused on combat, but I acknowledge that I live in a world where you have to know how to fight. I¡¯m not willing to be a pacifist that refuses to protect his family from monsters. I do, however, decide bring along another staff in addition to my knife, because I don¡¯t fancy reaching in to stab spiders if I don¡¯t have to. I also brew up a few potions to neutralize spider venom in case we get bitten.
Skills increased: Crafting (Woodworking), Crafting (Brewing)
We reach the Spooky Grove and head inside. As we head down the shadowed path beneath the twisted trees, my eyes meet the disembodied yellow eyes watching us from the underbrush. I pause to give them a closer analysis, and my party takes the cue to stop walking and wait to see what I¡¯m doing. Just as the crow we¡¯d seen at the Festival Grounds came up as category ¡°Mind¡±, these are coming up as category ¡°Eye¡±. I have to wonder if they¡¯re just here for ambience or if Estelle or the dungeon is actually watching us through them. The crow was outside of a dungeon so it might have been an actual spell or being, but I¡¯m less clear about what goes on inside dungeons. Things are a bit more malleable within the confines of the dungeon. ¡°Let¡¯s leave the nice ghost lady the stuff she wanted first and then we can see what we can manage,¡± Rowan says. ¡°While I¡¯m not eager to fight an Elite giant spider, we still need the practice and loot.¡± We head into the Sleepy Raven and kill the spiders in the common room before heading upstairs to meet with Estelle. She¡¯s grateful for my delivery and directs me to unload my pack onto a relatively empty table. ¡°Excellent,¡± Estelle says, telekinetically picking up a bottle of paint and examining it. ¡°Give me a bit to sort through these and put them away. Go ahead and clear the inn and run the puzzles in the grove and return when you are done.¡± Thus follows what seems like hours of grinding giant spiders. I will spare you the details. After clearing out the inn rooms, we take a breather before heading down into the basement. Once again, the Elite giant spider and two smaller Basics are waiting for us at the far end of the room, not moving from their webs. ¡°Alright¡­¡± Rowan says, steeling himself. ¡°You ready, Drake? And Anise and Meadow, you ready to bail us out when we fail to kill an Elite with just the two of us?¡± ¡°You¡¯ll do fine!¡± Anise says. ¡°It¡¯s a low Elite without much in the way of special abilities.¡± ¡°We¡¯ve got your back,¡± Meadow adds. ¡°Don¡¯t worry.¡± We¡¯d probably get better experience if we didn¡¯t have them standing at the far side of the room waiting to step in if need be, but no one here is willing to do that if we don¡¯t have to. The boss will respawn and we can kill it as many times as we want. We¡¯ve gotten pretty efficient about killing the Basics once we cleared countless rooms full of them, so as long as Rowan¡¯s keeping the Elite off of me for a moment, I shouldn¡¯t have a problem with two Basics. Rowan charges in to get the spiders¡¯ attention, and I heft my staff and focus on taking out the Basics. I swipe at the left one with my staff and catch it by the legs. It tumbles over onto its back and I crush it with the end of my staff. The second Basic tries to flank Rowan in the middle of stabbing the Elite, but I knock it aside. The Basic spider recovers skitters out of the way of my next attack. It hisses loudly as it puts a few meters distance between us, and spits webbing all over me. I struggle to break free for a moment as it rushes in to bite me, and I have to burn a fair bit of Inspiration on [Freedom of Movement]. By the time the second Basic is down, I¡¯m starting to feel woozy from spider venom. I pop a curing potion out of my bag of holding and quickly take a drink before joining Rowan against the Elite. Rowan has made little progress against the Elite giant spider boss, and his aura is full of concern and doubt. His [Spirit Barrier] is holding, however, perhaps strengthened by the spooky atmosphere. [I¡¯ll take out the legs,] I send to him. [Stay focused!] I bring down attacks against the spider¡¯s legs, trying to at least reduce its mobility. I make contact a couple of times, but I¡¯m not sure if I succeeded at more than pissing it off. The Elite spider turns to me and lunges. I barely block with my staff and get an entirely too-close look at 20-centimter mandibles. Rowan takes advantage of its distraction to slam its legs with his turtleshell shield, and follows up with a thrust with his short sword. The battle is far from over, though. Although we¡¯ve scored several hits, the Elite spider has a lot more health than its smaller siblings. We fall into a rhythm as we continue to fight, and have to trade off a couple of times to take sips of curing potion to counteract its poison and replenish our stamina. My shoddy staff snaps trying to block another attack. At least a broken staff is just two smaller staves and I can still do some damage with them. After an exhausting battle, I only know it¡¯s finally dead when a notification appears in my third eye.
Skills increased: Discipline (Battle Trance), Striking (Bashing), Athletics (Dodging), Athletics (Take a Breather), Enhanced Feet (Freedom of Movement), Clairvoyance (Empathy)
Your Strength has increased by 1.
Skill acquired: Blocking (Staffwork)
Description: The ability to parry incoming attacks with a staff or polearm.
There¡¯s no bloodthirsty glee in my heart. Only the thought of protecting my sister. But there¡¯s a good bit of satisfaction at seeing numbers go up. Also, I¡¯m out of curing potion and about to pass out from spider venom. ¡°Congratulations!¡± Anise says, coming up to start healing us. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, you¡¯re fine. Their venom will just put you to sleep, not kill you.¡± ¡°I¡¯m just glad these things don¡¯t act like real spiders or we¡¯d have been screwed,¡± I mutter. Meadow goes to loot the corpse of the Elite spider. She pulls out a bottle and drains a thick liquid from the monster¡¯s abdomen. ¡°What does it drop, anyway?¡± Rowan wonders. ¡°Ichor for sigil ink,¡± Meadow explains, finishing her work and holding up the bottle. Shimmering dark liquid swirls around inside the glass. ¡°Go on, get the chest!¡± Anise says. ¡°You¡¯ve earned it.¡± I go over and open the chest at the far end of the room that appeared after the boss went down. It contains a small pile of coins, a leather belt with a shiny black buckle, and a staff a meter and a half long made of sturdy, dark wood. ¡°Oh, goodie,¡± Rowan says. ¡°My reward is a belt.¡± ¡°Looks like it gives an increase to health,¡± I say, handing it to him along with his share of the treasure. I heft my new staff and identify it, although being a dungeon artifact it has to be better than the Poor quality quarterstaff that survived more hits than I expected.
Category Artifact
Type Weapon
Rank Basic
Durability Fair
Aspect Protection
Skill increased: Crafting (Appraisal)
I¡¯ll take it. I heft it and test its weight by swinging it around a few times. It¡¯s heavier than the one I¡¯d been using, but manageable. ¡°Let¡¯s go back outside,¡± I say. ¡°We can [Take a Breather] and go do the puzzles. That¡¯ll be a nice break after this.¡± ¡°With any luck, the spiders might have respawned by the time you¡¯re done,¡± Anise says entirely too cheerfully. Chapter 63: On the Importance of Delegating Epic Quests When we finally get back to Estelle, I¡¯m looking forward to spending a little time sitting down and chatting, and not grinding spiders or doing puzzles or whatever else. We tell Estelle about our encounter in the Hedge Maze and Aunt Savannah¡¯s stupid insistence that we don¡¯t become involved. ¡°How could we best end the goblin war?¡± I ask. ¡°Aunt Savannah won¡¯t commit without a quest but I¡¯m not going to hang Milo out to dry.¡± ¡°I concur, of course,¡± Estelle says. ¡°It depends on whether the hostile cores are willing to submit, but it is likely that they will not accept compromise. Ultimately, the only way to make sure that a Hearth does not become hostile later is to subjugate it by invading the core room and touching the core. Someone will need to fight past many, many goblins and delve deep into their caves. They might throw all of their people, even noncombatants and children, in the path of any invaders.¡± ¡°And the goblins might be typically low-ranked, but they still have a few Heroics and even Epics,¡± I say. ¡°They probably don¡¯t have anything that can threaten Aunt Savannah and Uncle Winter,¡± Anise says. ¡°But they¡¯re not going to leave the Hearth for longer than they have to.¡± ¡°What about Uncle Hawk¡¯s party?¡± I ask. ¡°They¡¯re high Heroic by this point, yeah,¡± Anise says. ¡°They¡¯ve got to be at the bottleneck by now. Ending a domain-wide war might just be enough to push them into Epic.¡± ¡°Even if they don¡¯t have a quest for it?¡± Anise shrugs. ¡°People put way too much stock in quests. Sometimes you just gotta do things.¡± ¡°I wish my mom would see it that way,¡± Meadow says with a sigh. ¡°Hopefully Uncle Hawk will see reason.¡± ¡°And also hopefully he won¡¯t get a quest to just wipe out Grubwick too,¡± I say. ¡°Corwen might not give one, but what if Tempest did?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t care what Tempest wants, at any rate,¡± Anise says. ¡°We can get Lily¡¯s party to help, at least,¡± Meadow says. ¡°We were planning on heading for the Hunting Grounds again, but we¡¯re all kind of sick of it and goblins would be a good break. An Elite party might not be able to delve in and subjugate warrens with Heroic or Epic bosses, but we can pick off their patrols and make things safer for our friends.¡± ¡°I should also point out that the hostile goblins attacked the Hedge Maze, not just a group of friendly goblins,¡± Estelle says. ¡°The Spooky Grove, the Hedge Maze, and several others are vassals of Corwen, and you are obligated to protect them. Had they sent a Heroic, they might have caused serious damage.¡± ¡°It kind of feels wrong to send someone else to do this,¡± I say. ¡°Like this was supposed to be my Epic quest.¡± Anise laughs. ¡°Nonsense. If anything, this was supposed to be Uncle Hawk¡¯s Epic quest. You¡¯re still a Basic child. You will have plenty of time for Epic quests of your own in the decades to come.¡± ¡°Is there any way to convince Corwen to give out quests to assist Grubwick in the goblin war?¡± I ask. Estelle paces. By which I mean she floats silently back and forth across the room for a moment. ¡°There is something you can offer it that may be able to sway it.¡± ¡°What is that?¡± I wonder. ¡°You have lived many lives,¡± Estelle says. ¡°You were a rental and not a purchase, like I was, were you not?¡± ¡°So I¡¯ve been told, yes,¡± I say. ¡°Corwen said I would not respawn here if I died.¡± ¡°And you were doubtless expensive as well. Corwen invested considerable resources in you, likely far more than Treharris did in me. I remained by binding myself to an object, and the rest of my souls returned to the Great Orb. I made a mistake that resulted in my death, but I know what I did wrong. I can teach you to do it properly. Your other countless souls move on, but Corwen would get to keep Drake.¡± ¡°What about Alex?¡± I wonder. ¡°Done properly, you should be able to choose which souls to keep and which to let go of,¡± Estelle says. ¡°Though whether or not you keep his soul, you will retain his memories. They are already a part of you and have influenced your actions up to this point.¡± I frown thoughtfully, and there¡¯s a lot to be thoughtful about here. It¡¯s a big thing to consider, but¡­ Drake was already not getting another life. Chances are that whoever Alex becomes next will never remember any of this. ¡°It¡¯s not a decision to be made lightly,¡± Estelle goes on. ¡°It will be dangerous and you may wind up like me, or worse. Though at least if the attempt kills you, Corwen can put your soul into another baby. The same could not have been done with me, as we had no children. And regardless of what you choose, there are a number of things you will need to do to prepare, many of which would be good to do anyway. Tell me, what soul skills have you unlocked so far?¡± If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. ¡°[Fractal Consciousness] and [Identity],¡± I say. ¡°Excellent. That is a solid foundation and I would recommend getting them as high as you can before attempting this, because you will need them.¡± ¡°Didn¡¯t whatever you did require Necromancy, though?¡± I ask. ¡°It required Necromancy to create a phylactery to bind my soul to this world. Simply splitting your soul will only require Enhanced Soul. Corwen will need to do the rest itself.¡± ¡°Why do only reincarnators have a Soul attribute?¡± I ask. ¡°Do they¡­ not have souls?¡± ¡°A fair question, but yes, they have souls,¡± Estelle says. ¡°Their souls are just busy keeping their bodies alive and aren¡¯t available for anything else.¡± ¡°Like a drive just big enough to run an operating system without leftover space for any other software?¡± I muse. ¡°Ah, yes, you were a computer person,¡± Estelle says. ¡°I fear I know little about software but that sounds like an apt comparison. You can consider their 0 Soul to be 0 available Soul. I, with 1 Soul, essentially have two versions of me still¡ªEstelle and Asphodel.¡± ¡°I see. That makes sense.¡± ¡°What do you know about the effects of absorbing concepts into different aspects of your being?¡± Estelle asks. ¡°Well, I was trying to practice Enhanced Feet (Soft Landing) with jumping on feather mattresses, but someone started a pillow fight and I wound up with Enhanced Muscles (Soften Blow).¡± Estelle nods. ¡°Both potentially useful things to have. And what do you think would happen were you to absorb the concept of ¡®softness¡¯ into other aspects?¡± ¡°Hmm,¡± I hmm. ¡°I¡¯m not sure on some of them. Maybe Enhanced Hands has a skill that helps avoid breaking things while doing delicate crafting? Maybe Enhanced Senses has one to avoid sensory overload. Mind, Heart, maybe something to stay calm? Enhanced Breath might be something to be quiet.¡± ¡°Good speculation. Now, what if you were to absorb it into your soul?¡± I work up my face thoughtfully, not willing to just say I don¡¯t know without making a guess. Estelle doesn¡¯t leave me to think for long. ¡°Your Hearth has books of skills that your ancestors have discovered. This may give the false impression that there is a limited and specific list of skills that exist. While the number of skills that exist may be finite, they are limited only by what you can conceptualize. You saw fluffy mattresses and pillows stuffed with feathers and thought softness.¡± ¡°Right,¡± I say. ¡°So what other Enhanced Soul skills should I learn?¡± ¡°Be aware that every skill you learn, every concept you absorb, everything you do influences you in some way,¡± Estelle says. ¡°[Identity] will keep you stable, but you wlil need more than that. While [Fractal Consciousness] will enable you to split off souls, you will need a way to heal your soul afterward in order to survive. I released most of my souls at once, and the backlash caused severe damage it took many years to recover from. If you release them one at a time and heal yourself between each one, you will likely be able to survive the attempt.¡± ¡°Sounds good,¡± I say. ¡°How do I learn that?¡± ¡°You will need to absorb the concept of healing from places and objects associated with it. Healing springs, certain plants, animals with regenerative abilities, the symbol of a snake coiled around a staff, and so forth. I fear the Spooky Grove would be a poor place to do this, as my home is now associated with death and not life and would not help you.¡± ¡°Understood,¡± I say. Enhanced attribute skills entail drawing in conceptual energy from our surroundings. Ever since learning and starting to understand that, I¡¯ve been getting ideas on what skills I want to learn. The big book of skills is too extensive to properly sift through and my ancestors have been very creative with the uses of their skills. And yet I¡¯m the one here who has memories of being an engineer in a very different world. For the moment, though, it¡¯s time to get back home and have a nice, long chat with Corwen. I¡¯m sure it¡¯s listening. It¡¯s always listening. But it rarely says much unless I¡¯m in the core room. And so, to that end, we return to the Hearth and I head down to the core room. Even though we dump our trash down here to be absorbed, the core room always feels sort of sacred to me. I¡¯m the only one who regularly comes down here. I position myself in front of the glowing sphere and sit down cross-legged on the floor. [Hello, Drake,] Corwen sends, opting to use telepathy today instead of simply shoving system notifications in my face. [I assume you already know what I¡¯m here to talk about,] I think. [Of course,] Corwen replies. [You need not rush for my sake. You can take your time and learn your skills properly so they don¡¯t kill you.] [Will you issue the quests, then?] I ask. [I will. This is an issue that needs to be addressed, but Savannah¡¯s own primary quest is to defend the village. Asphodel Treharris is correct that we need to protect our vassals and allies. The Hearth would benefit from having another Epic, as well.] [So, if I do what she¡¯s suggesting, would that mean I¡¯d stay with you forever?] I ask. [You will still be sent to the Primary Core if we lose. As you would be a new root soul, it would be you who would continually reincarnate. You would remember being Drake Corwen for every successive life.] [If I release my souls one at a time, does that mean they would also each become new root souls?] I ask. [Correct.] [Can you tell me what happens at the end of an age?] [The Heavens challenge us. As an aether core, I am eternal, but that which I create is not. All that is around me may be destroyed, forcing me to start over. Tiganna System was almost completely wiped out at the end of the Age of the Azure Fox. A significant percentage of domains do not survive the Divine Apocalypse at the end of each age. Some do not survive even the Mythical Apocalypse at the end of each millennium.] [What kind of apocalypses are we talking about here? Zombies, solar flares, tomatoes?] [Yes. No. Do you wish to submit the suggestion of tomato-based apocalypses to the Primary System?] [No.] So in other words, if we ¡®lose¡¯, as Corwen says, I will be enslaved by space demons for eternity. Instead of having my soul owned by a space demon who decided to try free will just for kicks. Cheerful thought. Maybe I¡¯ll even get [Self-Delusion] up high enough to not think about it eventually. It still beats how things were on Earth in those memories I blocked off. I don¡¯t know what sort of hell on Earth made Alex so elated to be incarnated here.
Skills increased: Discipline (Delegation), Discipline (Long-Term Planning), Persuasion (Diplomacy), Recollection (Suppression), Discipline (Self-Delusion)
Chapter 64: Symbols of Healing I figure carving a staff with a snake wrapped around it would make a good [Woodworking] project. The result is terrible and looks like neither the cada-whatsit nor the Staff of Misspelling. (The one-snake and two-snakes-with-wings variants. I do not remember which is which.) ¡°Is that the symbolic staff the nice ghost lady mentioned?¡± Rowan says. ¡°It looks¡­ uh¡­ good.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t need to try to be polite,¡± I say. ¡°I have [Empathy]. I can see your mood in your aura.¡± ¡°So you see emotions?¡± Rowan asks. ¡°I always thought [Empathy] involved feeling someone else¡¯s emotions.¡± ¡°That would be annoying. I have enough trouble with my own emotions, never mind anyone else.¡± ¡°Really?¡± Rowan raises an eyebrow. ¡°You always seem so composed.¡± ¡°That would be the Discipline (Composure).¡± I hold up my shoddy staff. ¡°Wanna help me with [Staffwork] practice until this breaks?¡± Rowan acquiesces, so we head outside to train some skills. Mud squishes beneath my feet, but it¡¯s not currently raining. There might be sun peeking through the clouds, if there were a sun. As it is, there¡¯s patches of azure skies between the clouds that are just slightly the wrong shade of blue. My latest failed attempt at art takes a few whacks from Rowan¡¯s practice sword before it snaps in two. The essence that had gone into the staff as I¡¯d crafted it starts to bleed out of the broken item and dissipate into aether. How odd. I hold the two pieces of staff together, wishing I were able to manipulate magic outside of my body yet. A repair spell would be cool and useful. As it is, I go back into the workshop and fetch some wood glue to do it the old fashioned way.
Skills increased: Crafting (Woodworking), Blocking (Staffwork), Athletics (Dodging), Survival (Careful Step)
Skill acquired: Maintenance (Repair)
Description: The ability to repair and maintain items made of hard materials such as wood and metal.
That¡¯s the thing about skills. You can do something over and over and gain very little, while if you keep doing different things, you might see gains immediately. As a [Psychic Child], the system seems to be most generous with experience while doing things to learn things with Clairvoyance rather than merely keeping [Aura Sight] up at all times. My repairs have injected more essence back into the staff. It¡¯s not enough to replace the essence that was lost after it was broken, but the bleeding has slowed. ¡°So, how fascinating is that broken stick?¡± Rowan asks. ¡°I assume you¡¯re using Clairvoyance on it.¡± ¡°I was studying the essence flows of broken items and it¡¯s fascinating,¡± I reply. ¡°I¡¯ll take your word on it. Did you want me to break it again?¡± ¡°Let¡¯s leave it for now,¡± I say. ¡°That¡¯s enough [Woodworking] for now. I want to make a different healing symbol.¡± I grab some paper and colored pencils and try to sketch out that symbol on the side of ambulances, but as I did not regularly look at ambulances, I only vaguely remember what it looked like. That and my [Sketching] skill is still at ¡°precocious toddler¡± levels. I set that one aside to be recycled before Rowan can say aloud how he feels about it. I set aside the colored pencils and get some green paint inside, and paint a plus symbol. That one I can¡¯t mess up too badly. (I more associate green with healing than red, but I doubt the Red Cross would care about me violating the Geneva Convention after the heat death of the universe.) ¡°Is that a healing symbol?¡± Rowan asks. ¡°Yep!¡± I say. ¡°It¡¯s even got life essence in it. Meadow should be able to use something like this for her Iconography, actually. Well, let¡¯s see if it¡¯s enough for me to absorb it into an enhancement skill.¡± I start off trying to unlock Enhanced Heart (Rapid Healing), since I understand how to absorb concepts into my body better than the soul. As I work on that, I try to see if I can spot the moment it generates experience, but I don¡¯t see anything. Either I¡¯m doing something wrong, or this symbol is too poor to generate experience, or at least the amount is too low for me to detect.
Skills increased: Crafting (Sketching), Crafting (Painting)
Inspiration 0/37
¡­ or that might be why. The Inspiration cost off trying to use all these skills at once is massive. I guess it was time for a skygazing break anyway. I suppose I should be in no rush. I have plenty of time to practice. It¡¯s not like there¡¯s a war going on outside or anything. I¡¯ve done what I can do. The problem is that the hot springs are located in the caves near the place where Milo got killed by hostile goblins. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. ¡°Great, an adventure!¡± Anise says once I mention it. Meadow sighs. ¡°Mom¡¯s not going to let me go out without a Heroic escort for a while either. I¡¯m pregnant.¡± ¡°Congratulations,¡± I say. ¡°Who¡¯s the father?¡± ¡°Some hunky Talgarth,¡± Meadow says with a shrug. ¡°I think his name was Brick?¡± Anise laughs. ¡°Brock!¡± ¡°Right, that. My mom confirmed the pregnancy last night.¡± I try to see if I can sense an additional source of vis inside of her, but can¡¯t see past her own aura and I¡¯m not going to stand here staring at my cousin¡¯s midsection for hours. ¡°Being grounded and pregnant sucks, but good luck!¡± Anise says. ¡°I¡¯ll try the symbolic tree suggestion next, if there¡¯s a suitable tree in the village,¡± I say. ¡°Oh, yeah,¡± Meadow says. ¡°The old ash tree beside the Hearth is where a lot of people get their Enhanced Heart (Rapid Healing) unlocked.¡± ¡°Great. Which one is the ash tree?¡± Meadow sighs. ¡°Should I make you brush up on your Knowledge (Botany)?¡± I grumble. ¡°Yeah, good point. I could have just looked that up in the library.¡± Rowan declines to watch me read books and meditate, and returns to his own practicing. I head into the school library. The small room is densely packed with useful reference books with children¡¯s fiction on the lower shelves. I run my fingers along the spines of the books, absently wondering where they all came from and seeing if I can identify the subject matter with [Psychometry] without reading the titles.
Category Object
Type Book
Race Human
Materials Paper, Leather
Durability Good
Aspect Knowledge
Not the most useful result, but I don¡¯t care to spend all my Inspiration trying to detect it right now as I do have other things to do. The book I¡¯m looking for is pretty obvious, though. The title is Trees of Tempest: Identification and Symbolism and has a green leather cover. It contains exactly what you would expect. I decide to stick it in my [Mental Library] so I don¡¯t have to carry the book around while identifying all the trees in the village. It¡¯s only 37 pages, so it¡¯s not hard to make room for it.
Skills increased: Knowledge (Botany), Enhanced Mind (Mental Library), Clairvoyance (Psychometry)
It also occurs to me that I could have simply analyzed the vis of every tree in the village to see which one has the highest concept of healing, but I wanted to train [Mental Library] anyway. I go around the village, examining each tree, before finally coming to the big one by the Hearth. Full of healing vis, flowing through the living tree like blood. I sit down with my back against it and gaze up through its leaves. Stilling my mind enough to meditate is difficult enough for me, but it¡¯s easier if I have something to focus on, like managing the flow between [Celestial Inspiration] and bursts of [Psychometry]. I breathe and try to track the flow of energy around me and through me. Juniper approaches and sits down next to me with her back to the tree. ¡°I think you¡¯re trying too hard.¡± ¡°I have to,¡± I say. ¡°The system gives no brownie points for being lazy.¡± ¡°You can work hard without trying too hard,¡± Juniper says. Far be it from me to dispute the reasoning of a small child. ¡°If I start overthinking it, sis, I would wind up trying hard not to try so hard.¡± ¡°Maybe just relax,¡± Juniper says. ¡°It will come.¡± I almost wish I¡¯d chosen [Tranquil Child]. But I don¡¯t think I would have been as good at it. ¡®Overthinking¡¯ would be my middle name, if people here had middle names and didn¡¯t just have their full names be their village, country of origin, and home system. What a world I live in that resting under a tree is one of the most important things I¡¯m doing at the moment, for all the weirdest reasons. ¡°What are you trying to do?¡± Juniper asks. ¡°I¡¯m trying to unlock Enhanced Heart (Rapid Healing),¡± I explain. Juniper stands up and looks me over. ¡°What¡¯s hurt?¡± ¡°Nothing, really,¡± I say. ¡°How can you learn to heal if you don¡¯t need to heal anything?¡± Juniper asks matter-of-factly. ¡°Want me to help? I can make you bleed.¡± I can¡¯t help it. I start laughing. Ah, my little Wednesday Addams. I concede her point. Which also makes me think, how am I going to learn to heal my soul if my soul isn¡¯t hurt? Sanity damage from intrusion of foreign memories might count. I¡¯ll have to experiment later. Right now, I¡¯m going to let my little sister calmly injure me in the name of skill training.
Skill increased: Discipline (Pain Tolerance)
Skill acquired: Enhanced Heart (Rapid Healing)
Description: Increases the body¡¯s natural healing speed. Does not cure injuries or conditions that could not heal on their own.
It takes a lot of Inspiration and doesn¡¯t even produce much in the way of a noticable effect, but I¡¯ve got it unlocked. Something else to grind. Probably more important than a lot of the other things I¡¯m grinding from the perspective of not getting killed. Priorities. I eventually wind up with a headache no amount of Inspiration will dispel and have to stop for now. The skymotes are turning red, at least the ones I can see from here, and we really should head inside anyway as it¡¯s getting cold. Uncle Hawk shows up in mid April and settles in to tell us what he¡¯s been up to over a hot meal in the Hearth. ¡°I was grinding the Stadium of Viscera with my party when I got a quest from Corwen saying some goblins had attacked our children in the Hedge Maze. We¡¯ve been investigating Muckburrow since then.¡± ¡°Did you kill all the goblins?¡± Griffin asks excitedly. ¡°Did you bring back any trophies?¡± Uncle Hawk laughs. ¡°No, not yet. But we did learn about Muckburrow and came back to gather resources to deal with it.¡± ¡°What did you learn?¡± Aunt Savannah asks. ¡°Muckburrow¡¯s a dungeon,¡± Uncle Hawk says. ¡°We got the exploration notification at a gateway leading into a different section of the caves. As the name might imply, it¡¯s a hole in the ground full of mud and ooze. The upper levels look to be populated mostly by slimes and other low level monsters.¡± ¡°Oh, I love slimes,¡± Willow says. ¡°Can you catch me one?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll be sure to stuff one in a bottle for you, kid,¡± Uncle Hawk says with a grin. ¡°Did you find the goblins themselves?¡± Aunt Savannah asks. ¡°We didn¡¯t go far enough in to find an actual Hearth, but they had some lovely skull totems positioned around the dungeon with mostly Elite-level area of effect curses. We stopped to regroup when we ran across Heroic curse totems. We can probably handle it unless there¡¯s somehow a Legendary goblin or monster down there, but we needed to restock and switch our equipment out from being specialized for the Stadium of Viscera.¡± Chapter 65: Softness and Souls On a warm, clear day in April, and I gather up a pile of pillows and blankets to carry up the central tower. ¡°Where are you going with all the pillows?¡± Griffin wonders as I ¡®borrow¡¯ his. (It¡¯s only fair. He ¡®borrows¡¯ my stuff all the time.) ¡°I¡¯m going to lay up on top of the central tower and work on some skills while looking at the sky,¡± I explain. ¡°Why don¡¯t you put them in your magic bag?¡± Griffin asks. ¡°Then you wouldn¡¯t have to carry them in your arms.¡± ¡°It only holds five kilograms¡­ which is plenty of room for a few pillows and blankets, especially if I clear out some of the tools I don¡¯t need today. Fine, I¡¯ll put them away, but if you borrow any of them please make sure they are present when I need them, ¡¯kay?¡± After emptying out my bag of tools I don¡¯t expect to need today (though keeping a pencil and such because you never know when you might need a pencil), I stuff Apple¡¯s Crappiest Knapsack full of as many pillows and blankets as I can fit. With that, I head to the hearth and up the stairs without having to stumble around unable to see where I¡¯m going due to an armload of pillows. Magic is nice. I don¡¯t care to lay on the stone or sit in a lotus position for an extended period of time. I am not of the opinion that meditation is better without a pillow. In fact, once I learn magic, I¡¯m going to invent a spell that summons pillows. I will be the Pillow Lord. The Archmage of Softness. I will enchant my future skyship with softness so it doesn¡¯t get destroyed when I inevitably crash it into something. (It¡¯s better to expect things to go wrong and prepare for them than merely hope that nothing goes wrong.) I don¡¯t think many of the ancient ghosts loitering in my soul were soft people. Their lives forced them to become hard. I bet if any of them know Enhanced Muscles (Soften Blows), they were using it to train youngsters in battle or capture prisoners to interrogate. Maybe I shouldn¡¯t be so uncharitable. They all started off as Alexander Fizzlesnipe, like me. And yet, did they remember Alex¡¯s later life? What happened back on Earth? I have to know, but I have to be able to remain myself as well. Myself, being Drake Corwen, who didn¡¯t remember living those memories. I know Alex¡¯s life up until age 30, and I¡¯m alright with that. I can¡¯t help that now. But I can keep any additional memories I unlock from anyone separate.
Skills increased: Enhanced Soul (Identity), Enhanced Soul (Fractal Consciousness)
Skill acquired: Enhanced Soul (Gentle Soul)
Description: Allows greater control over your magical techniques, letting you limit damage and side effects.
I¡¯ve absorbed the concept of softness into my soul. And the name is even sappier than I¡¯d expected. Why couldn¡¯t I have just gotten a skill named [Soul Pillow] or something? Not that I was quite sure what this would even do. I take some deep breaths and watch the sky. It might be harder to get a soul healing skill if I¡¯m doing less damage to myself, but I would prefer to attempt to heal 1 Sanity damage rather than 10. I do not believe it¡¯s prudent or necessary. In fact, I don¡¯t even think it¡¯s prudent or necessary to push further than this today. I¡¯m just going to lay up here and keep absorbing the concept of softness or whatever, because I can convince Aunt Rosemary that laying around staring at the sky is practicing mind skills and I kind of need a break.
Skills increased: Discipline (Self-Awareness), Discipline (Focus), Enhanced Senses (Celestial Inspiration)
Skill acquired: Discipline (Patience)
Description: The ability to calmly wait for upcoming events without anxiety and to refrain from action when necessary.
Your Willpower has increased.
I¡¯m not sure which I find funnier¡ªthat there¡¯s a skill for that, or that it took me 8 and a half years to unlock it. Juniper¡¯s right. I really have been trying too hard. Every moment of my life has been skill grinding, and since I¡¯m a psychic, that included every moment I wasn¡¯t even doing anything. I need to give some good thought as to what actually causes experience. What exactly Inspiration is. And I¡¯ve spent too much time trying to unlock new skills and not enough time working on the ones I have. I don¡¯t stay up there all day and go back to practicing other things, but I¡¯m back up on successive days to keep at it. Juniper shows up today and lays down next to me, not even bothering to borrow a pillow. ¡°What are you trying to do?¡± ¡°Nothing,¡± I say. ¡°Really?¡± Juniper asks. ¡°What have you been working on, then?¡± ¡°I have a lot of ghosts inside me,¡± I say. ¡°Most of them are quiet right now. I really only remember parts of one or maybe two of those lives. The earliest life was man named Alexander Fizzlesnipe who lived in a domain called Earth a bajillion years ago. And I want to let the ghosts go. But I have to learn a bunch of things before I can do it.¡± ¡°What did you learn so far?¡± I explain to her the skills I¡¯ve unlocked. I surprisingly find it easier to enunciate what I¡¯m working on when trying to explain it to a (relatively) normal 7-year-old. ¡°What¡¯s next?¡± Juniper asks. ¡°I need to remember what those ghosts experienced without letting their memories make me somebody else,¡± I say. ¡°So you need to talk to them?¡± ¡°I guess that would be the best way to handle it. If I could manage, I¡¯d be able to talk to them without having to remember what they remember directly. I still need to unlock a soul healing skill, too. And I have no idea how to do that.¡± If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ¡°I don¡¯t think I can stab your soul,¡± Juniper says. I chuckle. ¡°I¡¯m still not entirely sure what a soul even is.¡± ¡°So find out. Are there books you can read? Or people you can ask?¡± ¡°I could talk to the nice ghost lady down in the Spooky Grove some more,¡± I say. ¡°She¡¯s been trying to help with this. But there¡¯s only so much I can grasp at once and I have trouble focusing.¡± ¡°Sounds like you need more Discipline.¡± ¡°Probably.¡±
We prepare for another trip to the Spooky Grove. I¡¯ve been focusing more on my skills and also trying to figure out the best ways to actually gain skills. Most people can¡¯t see experience, and I still only can if I¡¯m looking very carefully at the right moment. I keep experimenting, though. I don¡¯t think [Psychometry] is the best way to see experience as it¡¯s meant for detecting essence in inanimate objects, but that¡¯s the only thing that gives me any real hint toward it. I probably need a more specialized skill for it that I don¡¯t have yet. ¡°I¡¯m coming along,¡± Meadow says. ¡°The Spooky Grove¡¯s just a day trip away and it¡¯ll kill my experience growth if I sit in the Hearth for the next nine months. I¡¯m a [Dabbling Wanderer]. I need to be traveling and trying new things!¡± ¡°Well, I¡¯ll be your escort today,¡± Uncle Falcon says, strapping on his lute. ¡°It would be a shame if the kids didn¡¯t get to play in the Spooky Grove. We¡¯re not going any further than that today, though. We¡¯ll just be doing a run or two and be back before dinner.¡± With the assistance of the Heroic Bard, we head down to the dungeon, putting in as much work on our skills along the way as we can get. Today for me, it¡¯s identifying as many plants as I can. I add a book on herbs useful in potions to my [Mental Library] before we head out. Between Uncle Falcon, Anise, and Meadow, I¡¯m sure they can deal with anything hostile goblins are likely to send so close to the village. My five-kid band having three chaperones would feel like overkill if we hadn¡¯t almost gotten killed last time.
Skills increased: Knowledge (Scientific Method), Enhanced Mind (Mental Library), Knowledge (Speed Reading), Search (Herbalism), Knowledge (Botany)
We reach the wrought iron gate leading into the Spooky Grove, and three fearless seven-year-olds can barely be restrained in going in to do some puzzles. Uncle Falcon is just a step behind us, using whatever Heroic skills he has to make sure there¡¯s no threats beyond what we can handle. I, however, am going to the inn to talk to Estelle. I don¡¯t want the excitable children to have to wait while I have an extended conversation with a dead Necromancer. By which I mean Willow and Griffin¡ªI¡¯m sure Juniper would be willing and able to sit still and listen. Anise comes in with me just to make sure I don¡¯t get overwhelmed by the three Basic-rank spiders in the common room. I am not yet at the point where I can take on multiple enemies of the same rank, even weak ones, but I do manage to kill one of them while Anise takes out the others. (It¡¯s not like I¡¯m depriving anyone of combat practice when the damned things respawn every five minutes.) Estelle is waiting for me with tea on the upper floor. She¡¯s not bothering to be visible today, but my mom is completely unfazed by having tea with a ghost she can¡¯t see but I can. ¡°Hello again,¡± Estelle says. ¡°It¡¯s always good to see visitors. Did you just come here to say hello while your friends are doing puzzles, or did you just want to ask me more questions?¡± ¡°Can it be both?¡± Estelle chuckles. ¡°I do not mind either way. How have your skills been progressing?¡± I tell her what I¡¯ve accomplished in the past month. ¡°[Gentle Soul]?¡± Estelle says. ¡°An interesting choice. Embracing softness is not something I would have considered myself, but it may serve you well in the long run, particularly considering it is not limited to one particular type of technique.¡± ¡°I wouldn¡¯t have thought French poetry and art would be¡­ uh¡­ non-soft?¡± I say. ¡°No offense.¡± Estelle is amused rather than offended. ¡°In the right hands, a pen can cut deeper than any sword. Particularly when there¡¯s magic involved.¡± I am both utterly terrified and utterly curious about what in the Void she might be able to do should her poetry become popular. Because there¡¯s no way this is just about fame and vanity. ¡°Estelle, what exactly are souls?¡± ¡°Straight to the existential questions today? Fortunately for you, I have an answer.¡± She drops a thick book on the table in front of me with a thump. The cover reads Po¨¨mes vari¨¦s par Estelle Ledoux. I sigh in dismay. ¡°I¡¯ll just figure it out myself.¡± Estelle positively radiates smugness. I don¡¯t need to be able to see a face to read a smirk in someone¡¯s aura. We talk for a while longer, and eventually I detect the auras of my companions entering the Sleepy Raven Inn. I head downstairs to meet them and help them with the spiders. Griffin is practically bouncing off the walls with excitement, which is somewhat hampering his ability to sneak up and ambush spiders. (Not that he¡¯d be having much success with that regardless as they can easily detect his approach.) At best, he manages to flank them while Rowan holds their attention. ¡°I want to meet the nice ghost lady,¡± Juniper says. Once we clear out the spiders in the inn, Juniper, Anise, and I head upstairs while the rest of the party goes back outside. Estelle politely makes herself visible for the little girl¡¯s benefit. ¡°Estelle, my sister Juniper,¡± I say. ¡°Juniper, Estelle.¡± ¡°Hello,¡± Juniper says. ¡°Brother says you are teaching him things. Can you teach me things too?¡± ¡°What sorts of things are you hoping to learn that your teachers in Corwen can¡¯t teach you?¡± Estelle asks. ¡°Drake does stuff with souls. I want to do stuff with souls too.¡± ¡°You¡¯re not reincarnated, so you don¡¯t have any spare Soul attribute to work with.¡± Juniper cocks her head. ¡°My brother is full of ghosts he wants to get rid of. Can¡¯t I get one from him? I want to do magic with ghosts too.¡± ¡°Hmm,¡± Estelle hmms. ¡°That is probably actually feasible. Necromancers who aren¡¯t reincarnated have to get souls from others to do Necromancy, and some of them do bad things to get them. Reincarnators, on the other hand, tend to have more souls than we can use. But you will need to study hard and get some other skills first before we can try it.¡± ¡°Like what?¡± Juniper asks, pulling out a notebook and pencil from her backpack. ¡°I¡¯ll make a lesson plan. I¡¯ll make one for Drake too. He¡¯s bad at plans. Keeps getting distracted by shiny new skills. Brother is very silly.¡± ¡°You will both need to learn Enhanced Mind (Compartmentalization),¡± Estelle says. ¡°This will let you essentially keep memories in different boxes and will be very useful in preventing memories from bleeding over from other souls. To unlock it, you will need to absorb the concepts of memory, storage, and separation, so it may help to meditate in libraries and storerooms or with appropriate symbolic plants or images.¡± Juniper nods attentively, writing that down. Her handwriting is way neater than mine. Estelle goes on with lesson plans and I stop paying much attention as I wander off to take a look at the various art pieces around the inn¡¯s upper floor. I¡¯m quite sure that Estelle is mostly just humoring her in giving her a lesson plan that will serve her well even if she decides she¡¯s lost interest in becoming a Necromancer by the time her skills are high enough. She¡¯s seven years old, after all. ¡°I think I¡¯ve given you enough to work on for the moment,¡± Estelle says finally. ¡°Be sure to do all your homework, and next time you¡¯re here, I want to see some results. And do bring me some more art supplies. I¡¯m running low on red already.¡± Chapter 66: Meditation and Exultation I¡¯m in the storerooms in the central tower of Corwen Hearth, where it seems like centuries worth of junk has been stashed. Crates and barrels have been piled in front of the family tree mural. The face of Moss Corwen, a [Druid of Rot] born in 509 GF, looks out with a craggy face from a silver plaque tucked behind a cask of apple cider that has fortunately not been here since 509 GF. (Although with the preservation sigils or skills, I¡¯m sure it would probably be fine, but it would have been long drunk or sold by now.) Juniper is with me, and we¡¯re¡­ meditating on the concept of compartmentalization in a storeroom, like Estelle suggested. By which I mean Juniper is meditating and I¡¯m poking my nose into every crate and barrel trying to identify their contents. Willow and Griffin show up to see what we¡¯re up to. ¡°Did you find any cool treasures up here?¡± Griffin wonders, standing on tiptoe to peer into a barrel. ¡°Looks like it¡¯s mostly just low level supplies and crafting materials on this floor,¡± I say. ¡°That whole wall is just barrels of cider from last year.¡± Bereft of the ability to go adventuring as often as they¡¯d like, Griffin and Willow take heart in exploring the village. There¡¯s plenty of wonders to be discovered here, after all. Plenty of crates full of rope and yarn. Verrrrry exciting. ¡°This is boring,¡± Griffin declares, and slinks away. We¡¯re at it for at least a week without manging to unlock anything yet, each day spent on a different floor of the central tower. One day, Griffin excitedly charges up the stairs to find us. ¡°Uncle Hawk is back!¡± Griffin exclaims. We go downstairs to meet him and find him in the village square along with his party. Rain is pouring down outside and I¡¯m immediately soaked but someone in Uncle Hawk¡¯s party clearly has a [Don¡¯t Get Wet in Rain] or whatever skill up over them and all the raindrops politely veer to the side and splash upon the bystanders instead. I identify Uncle Hawk¡¯s aura, and¡­
Category Person
Race Human
Gender Male
Rank Epic
Class Ranger
Disposition Friendly
Mood Elated
Skill increased: Clairvoyance (Aspect Analysis)
Uncle Hawk heads into the Hearth and his party splits off into the guest house, and crowds (or at least as much in the way of ¡°crowds¡± as exists in the village) gather around to hear the tale of how they conquered Muckburrow. There¡¯s a big celebration in the Hearth both for the subjugation of the hostile dungeon and to celebrate Uncle Hawk reaching Epic rank. ¡°The boss was Epic rank, and a tough one at that,¡± Uncle Hawk says. ¡°I¡¯ve never run across a goblin so strong before. He was probably just a Deed shy of Legendary. Maybe he was hoping subjugating our Hearth would push him through the bottleneck. If we hadn¡¯t been on the verge of Epic ourselves, we probably wouldn¡¯t have made it.¡± We¡¯re celebrating a ton of goblins dying. There were hundreds. These adventurers slaughtered their way through the goblin warrens like they were grinding monsters. They recruited a few Elite parties to help clear the ¡°trash¡±, there were so many of them. ¡°It¡¯ll be a good training ground for our mid-level adventurers now,¡± Uncle Hawk goes on. ¡°The dungeon will up its spawn rates for Elite monsters in the swamp and fill the warrens with new Heroic monsters. No more hostile goblins making raids on the surface. We¡¯ll do a full inspection once the new setup is in place before recommending it to anyone.¡± I excuse myself from the party and go down to the core room. I pull a cushion out of my bag of holding and plop it down on the floor before sitting down.
Corwen
This was what you wanted. Why are you upset?
[I don¡¯t know,] I reply. [Corwen, what happens to the souls of those dead goblins? Why do most people not seem to have a Soul attribute over 0? Estelle said they do but can¡¯t use it.] Something isn¡¯t right about all this. Why did Liz talk about reincarnators like they¡¯re all Earthlings? Corwen doesn¡¯t answer immediately. I guess it¡¯s still monitoring my brain activity to see if it can figure out why, exactly, I¡¯m not thrilled about the idea of killing large numbers of sapient beings even if that really was the best option for the safety and wellbeing of me and my family. And yet, it¡¯s not truly death if those souls continue, is it? I want to understand.
Corwen
You will receive no great Deeds for having understanding handed to you. Seek your own answers. Or do not.
That¡¯s fair, I suppose. It¡¯s not like the system isn¡¯t already giving me a framework to attain the ability to do so. I don¡¯t really expect everyone to indulge my curiosity every time. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. But still. Would it have been possible to deal with Muckburrow peacefully? Would its core have even allowed that? Corwen doesn¡¯t answer that one at all. I guess it¡¯s too much to ask to understand the thought processes of beings so alien to us. Even if they look different and have a completely different culture, the goblins and aranea and whatever else are out there are still biological organisms with their own basic needs. Aether cores are eternal and don¡¯t need to eat, drink, sleep, breathe, or pee. I don¡¯t know if my meat brain, even system-enhanced, can truly understand how an entity like that thinks. I can practically feel [Self-Delusion] trying to protect me from Sanity damage, but I push it aside this time and don¡¯t turn away. I could go back up to meditate under the ash tree¡­ but no. This is the place I feel that I should do this. Aether and vis flow through the core room, in and out, intermingling and smoothly switching from one to the other as thought they weren¡¯t absolute opposites, life and death. I calm myself and breathe, feeling for the damage and trying to pull energy toward it. I keep a careful equilibrium to burning and regenerating Inspiration, as I am not looking at the sky and needing to use memories of comic book debates to recharge. I keep at it well past when the aether core turns red, signalling 6 o¡¯clock. I¡¯m not hungry and don¡¯t feel like partying right now. No one has bothered me, so I don¡¯t stop. It¡¯s not until the aether core turns dark and leaves me in blackness that I finally receive the message I¡¯ve been waiting for.
Skills increased: Recollection (Insight), Discipline (Focus), Clairvoyance (Aether Sense), Enhanced Soul (Identity), Enhanced Soul (Gentle Soul), Discipline (Self-Awareness), Enhanced Mind (Fantastic Inspiration), Discipline (Patience)
Skill acquired: Enhanced Soul (Salubrity)
Description: Allows absorbing aether in order to strengthen the soul and mend damage to it.
Your Max Sanity has increased.
And so my skill is a vocabulary word. I take that as my cue to leave the core room, though now that it¡¯s dark I need to use Clairvoyance to find the ladder. I make sure to retrieve my pillow first. The rest of the trash in the core room has been absorbed, but I suppose Corwen isn¡¯t so rude as to recycle something that someone is actively using. The party is winding down when I return to the hearth, or at least some of my family members have gotten drunk and gone to pass out in their rooms. Anise didn¡¯t quite make it back to her room and is slouched over in an armchair by the fire. She¡¯s going to have such a crick in her neck later, at least for the five seconds before she heals it or drinks some tea. I leave her be and go off to take care of my basic biological needs. Hopefully I will eventually get skills to not require those, but I¡¯m not fussed about it at the moment. I¡¯m getting a little exhausted from learning so many skills. I have, what, over a hundred by now? And still more to come? My character screen is already ridiculous.
With Muckburrow now forcefully pacified, Aunt Savannah deems it safe enough to let the kids out to play again and Meadow to come along. Uncle Falcon still escorts us to do another couple runs of the Hedge Maze, since he¡¯s not busy at the moment. From there, we continue on to the cave entrance near Grubwick so the kids can see the place for the first time. ¡°Wooooow¡­¡± Griffin breathes as we step into the In-Between. ¡°Look at this place!¡± ¡°Don¡¯t wander off, Griffin,¡± Meadow says. ¡°And be careful with the mushrooms, Willow. Here, if you want to collect some, look for these, but don¡¯t take too long.¡± She pulls out her art book and opens to a painting of mushrooms helpfully labeled Good Mushrooms. Willow takes it excitedly and goes to gather up some mushrooms into her pack. It doesn¡¯t take long for her to become distracted from mushrooms when we come into view of Grubwick. The tunnel winds downward into the huge cavern the goblin village rests in, gaps between stalactites providing a good view as we descend. The kids are in awe, but Uncle Falcon is highstrung and alert for dangers, his eyes and Enhanced Senses keeping watch in every direction. Nothing bothers us on the way across the open cave, and the goblins welcome us into Grubwick. The goblins outside the warrens all speak Common by now and are happily able to converse with the children. ¡°I was wondering if you were going to come by,¡± Milo says. ¡°I heard the news about Muckburrow. They¡¯ve been hounding us for weeks hoping to kill me again before I reach my third birthday¡ªnaming day, that is¡ªso thanks for the help.¡± ¡°Congratulations,¡± I say. ¡°Did you get to pick another class?¡± Milo nods. ¡°I stayed Elite when I reincarnated but was reset to [Goblin Child]. And now I¡¯m an [Apprentice Warlock] rather than just an Incantor. I had time to get Thaumaturgy up in addition to Incantation so I could get a dual-magic class.¡± ¡°I¡¯m still trying to figure out why Muckburrow forced the issue so badly.¡± ¡°Testing us,¡± Milo says. ¡°Always testing. There are many goblin villages still on the fence who have been doing skirmishes against the parties I¡¯ve had delving the nearby dungeons. We usually come out on top but we¡¯ve lost a fair few people. Maybe with a dungeon as strong as Muckburrow taken out of the equation, the others will think twice about crossing us.¡± ¡°It sounds sinister when you put it like that, but yes,¡± I say. ¡°I¡¯m planning on heading up to the hot springs with Rowan and my mom once the kids are done visiting here. I¡¯m told they¡¯re good for meditating on healing skills. Want to come?¡± ¡°Absolutely,¡± Milo says. ¡°I haven¡¯t gotten in nearly as much adventuring as I would have liked and now I got a fresh new apprentice class to help level up my skills.¡± ¡°Skills definitely level faster when you¡¯re outside the Hearth, especially if it¡¯s somewhere at least mildly dangerous. Do you know of any dungeons in the In-Between? Aside from the ones goblins have been living in, that is.¡± ¡°The closest one is the Bat Cave,¡± Milo says. ¡°We use it for combat training but everyone hates it because it¡¯s just bats, bats, more bats, big bats, small fast bats, fire-breathing bats¡­¡± ¡°Right, I think I¡¯ll give a pass on that one for the moment,¡± I say. ¡°Ah, c¡¯mon, it¡¯ll be fun!¡± Anise says, inserting herself into the conversation. ¡°You can work on your Striking (Stone Hurling) skill!¡± ¡°Are there any other dungeons around here that don¡¯t involve hordes of small flying monsters?¡± ¡°The Mushroom Forest, but there¡¯s a lot of Elites in there with Heroic bosses,¡± Milo says. ¡°The cute, safe kiddie dungeons are all on the surface.¡± ¡°They planned to turn Muckburrow into a good place for Elites and Heroics to level, too,¡± I say. ¡°At least I¡¯ll have some good options once I get to that level. I have spent so much time learning enhancement skills and I am so very tired of meditating.¡± Chapter 67: Getting Into Hot Water ¡°You kids be careful down there,¡± Uncle Falcon says. ¡°Just because Muckburrow¡¯s been dealt with doesn¡¯t mean there¡¯s not still dangers.¡± ¡°I¡¯m always careful,¡± Anise protests. ¡°Uh-huh. Well, I¡¯ll get the little ones back home safely.¡± We part ways with the kids, Meadow, and Uncle Hawk. There are five of us at the moment: myself, Anise, Rowan, Milo, and an Elite goblin Scout named Slar. Even if Milo will be reincarnated again, they¡¯re not willing to let him go out without some protection. Reincarnation isn¡¯t free, after all, and having to grow up again is annoying. Milo would like to eventually survive to adulthood, and to that end, he¡¯s carrying an Elite spear with a green tip that he¡¯d gotten from a dungeon run. Last time we visited the hot springs, we went through the swamps of Usk. We have no need of visiting Usk so we¡¯re going to cheerfully take a route that completely avoids the swamps. ¡°You didn¡¯t want to work on your Survival (Careful Step)?¡± Anise asks. ¡°I think it will be getting plenty of use regardless,¡± I reply. ¡°Anyway, I don¡¯t want to get closer to Usk than we have to, swamps or otherwise. Would it be quicker to go through the caves or on the surface?¡± ¡°The surface, probably,¡± Slar admits. ¡°Once we get the bridge built, it will be fast! Grubwick and Splott aren¡¯t so far apart. We just have to go a long way around. We can go straight across the surface and slip in the Splott entrance. Less risky with humans with us. Humans still sometimes see goblins and want to fight even if we try to talk.¡± I didn¡¯t have [Mapping Step] when we were last here, either, so I want to see if I can level that up more. There¡¯s only so much experience you can get from walking back and forth between the same couple places. Splott is close to Talgarth and across the river from the Wisteria Garden, which is another bridging project that still hasn¡¯t quite seen the light of day. Or the light of the Great Orb, I suppose. All of these bridges will greatly shorten the amount of time needed to get between these points. So long as we¡¯re here anyway, we make a quick run of the Wisteria Garden, because there¡¯s no sense in walking past easy experience. Of course, the fact that it¡¯s easy experience also means that I don¡¯t get as much for it.
Skill increased: Search (Puzzle Solving)
Without the kids along to infuse us with their excitement, this is starting to turn into just a thing we do. The puzzles are slightly different each time but there isn¡¯t that much variation. It¡¯s like going to a park, talking a walk around the flowers, swinging across the monkey bars and down the slide, solving a few gratuitous matching puzzles along the way, and finishing it out by playing a collectible card game for some reason. ¡°I hope the revamped Muckburrow has some strong new cards to collect,¡± Milo says, slipping his prize into his deck. (At least one of us here is actually interested in the game.) ¡°Ugh, like more dungeons need card-playing trees?¡± I groan. We rest for the night at the campsite in the Wisteria Garden and move on to the nearby cave entrance. It has been a while since any of us were here, but Slar¡¯s skills bring us straight there even though he¡¯s never been here. ¡°Which skill are you using for that?¡± I wonder. ¡°It¡¯s nothing special,¡± Slar says. ¡°Just Enhanced Feet (Pathfinding). Are you hoping to become a Scout?¡± ¡°He¡¯s just hoping to learn to do every skill poorly,¡± Anise interjects helpfully. We head down into winding tunnels lit by bioluminescent fungi, eventually opening up into the vast caverns of the In-Between. The cacophony of eerie cave life echoes around us, and someone more skilled than me would be able to pick out what creatures all the howls, snarls, buzzes, hums, and hisses belong to. Below in the distance, the waters of Splott Lake gleam in the light of the fungi on the ceiling. Rowan sighs. ¡°I can still point out that spot I slipped and fell in a hole. I stared at those same rock formations for hours until you guys found me. And for all that, the quest has been sitting on my log for years without any leads. Oh well, I¡¯ve been doing some good level-grinding in the meantime. I¡¯ll find that sword eventually.¡± A few crude stone buildings have been constructed on the shores of the lake, as well as a new dock. Some goblins are milling about, so we stop by to say hi before continuing on. We might be back when we get tired but we don¡¯t need to cross the lake right now. Slar leads us through the tunnels toward the hot springs. The entire top layer of the In-Between is moist and humid, full of lakes, swamps, rivers and springs. I try very hard to keep track of where we¡¯re going with my various skills, but I¡¯d still be completely lost if it weren¡¯t for Slar. At last, we reach the Underground Hot Springs, and we don¡¯t even have to fight anything along the way. Whatever Slar¡¯s skills are may have done a good job of keeping us out of danger as well. ¡°I¡¯m going to build a resort down here someday,¡± Milo declares. ¡°People will be able to soak while sipping Corwen cider and eating Grubwick cheese. And hopefully not dropping either of them in the water.¡± The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Before settling in for a relaxing soak and meditation session, we make sure to clear the area of any monsters or animals that might attack us. The lush caverns around the hot springs are like a jungle full of wildlife, but most of it has a neutral disposition and just wants to be left alone. ¡°I¡¯ll keep watch,¡± Slar says. ¡°The Chosen must meditate and get strong! No monsters or bad goblins will bother him while I draw breath.¡± ¡°Me too,¡± Anise says. ¡°Though I¡¯m more concerned about my own ¡®Chosen¡¯ than Milo.¡± Although there¡¯s no sulfur in these springs, the clear water is clearly not just water. Never mind the little bright blue thermophile fish that are happily swimming in boiling water. I identify one of them.
Category Monster
Type Fish
Gender Male
Rank Basic
Aspect Heat
Disposition Neutral
Mood Wary
Monsters, not animals. That would explain why they¡¯re not cooked from swimming in the hotter parts of the springs. ¡°Let¡¯s find a spot to meditate that won¡¯t boil us alive,¡± I say. ¡°I don¡¯t have any thermometer skill yet, though. Mom, can you test the water? How high is your [Heat Resistance] anyway?¡± ¡°200,¡± Anise replies cheerfully. ¡°Let me find a good spot for you!¡± Rowan comments, ¡°I don¡¯t even want to ask what you have been doing to get your [Heat Resistance] so high.¡± ¡°Lava bathing?¡± Milo suggests. ¡°Pssh, even my [Heat Resistance] isn¡¯t high enough to actually bathe in lava,¡± Anise says. ¡°Here, I found a spot that¡¯s as hot as bathwater and not too deep. Don¡¯t want Milo to drown if he tries to sit down.¡± I open my senses to the conceptual energy flowing through the air, through the water and plants. Healing, life, and cleansing emanate through the warmth of the springs, and I reach out to draw them toward me and into my body. Slar shouts an alarm, and I wheel my senses over in his direction to see why. A bipedal mass of fungus has shambled up to the edge of the springs. Yellow and black lichen cling to its body like hair, and the stench of decay wafts around it.
Category Monster
Type Fungal
Gender Male
Rank Heroic
Aspect Decay
Disposition Hostile
Mood Annoyed
Milo curses in French. He leaps out of the water and snatches up his spear. ¡°Rowan, take Drake and flee,¡± Anise says, fire gathering around her hands. ¡°This fight is beyond you!¡± With a thunderous roar, the swamp monster spews vile black globs around the area. One of them flies toward me. Rowan gets his shield up in time to block some of it, but a bit of it splatters onto my arm. Pain sizzles through my body. I hate to flee, but I know if the Elites can¡¯t handle this, I certainly can¡¯t do anything to help here. Still trying to absorb healing energy from the hot springs, I grab my staff and flee, Rowan close on my heels.
Skills increased: Enhanced Heart (Rapid Healing), Discipline (Pain Tolerance), Discipline (Delegation)
Health: 5/9
A few drops of that stuff cut through half of my health and was quickly starting to rot off my arm, and if I hadn¡¯t already been full of healing vis this might have been a lot worse. I¡¯m not sure where I¡¯m going, so I just pick a direction away from the fight and move. Behind me, Rowan slips and loses his grip on his shield. I stop and reach down to help him out of the scalding water, but the turtleshell shield quickly slips beneath the water. ¡°Leave it,¡± Rowan says. ¡°Keep moving! It¡¯s too hot to get it out. Anise can grab it later if¡ª¡± He leaves his concerns unvoiced as we continue to flee. The hot water reddened his exposed skin and I¡¯m sure wearing those soaked clothes isn¡¯t doing him any favors either, but there¡¯s no help for that right now. We make it to the edge of the hot springs where I¡¯ve run low on Stamina and have to stop and [Take a Breather]. ¡°I don¡¯t think we¡¯re in the clear yet,¡± Rowan says. ¡°We ought to keep going once you¡¯ve got your Stamina back.¡± I nod in agreement. The sounds of battle still echo across the caverns. ¡°I hope they¡¯ll be alright,¡± I say. ¡°Three Elites against a Heroic¡­ and not one that¡¯s been deliberately nerfed by a nice training dungeon.¡± ¡°Not much we can do about it, sadly,¡± Rowan says. ¡°Maybe if we can get back to Splott, they can send help. I don¡¯t suppose you know which way it is?¡± ¡°Not a clue,¡± I say. ¡°I couldn¡¯t keep up [Mapping Step] while running for my life. Ugh, at least this wound isn¡¯t getting any worse, but it still hurts like the Void. If it were bleeding, I could at least bandage it. I don¡¯t know what to do about necrotic damage beyond hoping magic can take care of it without having to just cut it out.¡± ¡°And we should find somewhere safer if we need to do any cutting,¡± Rowan says. ¡°Your Stamina meter topped off yet? We have to keep moving. We don¡¯t want to be here if¡ª¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± I breathe. ¡°Yeah. Let me turn on [Mapping Step] to make sure we don¡¯t go in circles and wind up back here.¡± The local monsters have all been riled up by the ongoing battle. Previously, they¡¯d all been neutral in disposition and wary at best, but now they¡¯re agitated. A large Basic rank snake shoots out toward us and wraps around my leg as we¡¯re trying to move away. Rowan cuts its head off with a swipe of his sword and works to pull the constrictor free. ¡°You okay?¡± Rowan asks. ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m just glad it wasn¡¯t a venomous one,¡± I say. ¡°Let¡¯s put some distance between us and the springs.¡±
Skills increased: Enhanced Heart (Rapid Healing), Discipline (Pain Tolerance), Survival (Careful Step), Athletics (Take a Breather)
Health: 5/9
I¡¯d hoped for some health gains by now, but [Rapid Healing] seems to be doing nothing but valiantly keeping the tiny speck of Heroic decay damage from getting any worse. I¡¯m going to have to do something about this sooner rather than later, and we¡¯re not currently being attacked. I pull a small knife from the toolkit that is my bag of holding. ¡°Rowan, can you do this?¡± I ask, handing him the knife. ¡°It¡¯ll be easier for you to get at that angle.¡± Rowan nods and makes careful work of the sizzling black spot on my left arm. ¡°There we go. Hopefully your [Rapid Healing] has an easier job of taking care of a Basic knife cut.¡± He wipes off the knife and returns it to me. I nod as I put it away. ¡°Let¡¯s keep moving, I suppose. We¡¯ll have to see if we can find our way back to Splott from here.¡± Chapter 68: Lost in the Empty Halls I peer at the injury on my left upper arm, though it¡¯s hard to get a good look at it from this angle. It feels wrong to just leave it like this, but I don¡¯t have anything to clean it with and my [Rapid Healing] has already stopped the bleeding. I¡¯m just going to have to rely on magic here, even if it¡¯s offending every first aid class I ever attended. Getting wool stuck in it while it¡¯s healing won¡¯t help, as much as I hate having my sleeve cut off. At least the wool kept more of the vile spray from touching my skin. ¡°Can you detect anything about where we¡¯re going with your Clairvoyance?¡± Rowan asks. ¡°No,¡± I say. ¡°Just that there aren¡¯t any monsters nearby. And no animals bigger than your thumbnail.¡± The section of tunnels we¡¯re stumbling through is drier and dimmer than the ones we just left. Fewer glowing fungi dot the walls, though not enough that we can¡¯t see. Still, I pull a light crystal out of my bag of holding and use it as a crude flashlight. ¡°It might have worked better if you¡¯d have attached that to something,¡± Rowan says. ¡°Okay, so maybe I should have been a tiny bit more prepared for things to go wrong than focusing so much on meditating these past several days. We¡¯re not being followed, so far as I can tell, so I¡¯ll see what I can whip up real quick.¡± I tie the light crystal to the end of my staff with a bit of twine, because of course I have twine in my bag of holding, why wouldn¡¯t I? The system awards my innovation with no skill levels, and I can practically feel it judging my crude work. I feel like a two-bit makeshift wizard here. I shake the staff a bit and hit it against the floor a couple times, and the crystal immediately wiggles loose. ¡°That¡¯s not going to work,¡± I mutter. ¡°It¡¯ll come loose as soon as it gets jostled.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll hold it,¡± Rowan says. ¡°I lost my shield anyway so I¡¯ve got a free hand.¡± I nod and pass it over to him. ¡°I can see just fine with Clairvoyance anyway. Let¡¯s get moving.¡±
Skills increased: Enhanced Feet (Mapping Step), Enhanced Heart (Rapid Healing), Enhanced Mind (Fantastic Inspiration)
I¡¯m making heavy use of [Mapping Step] to make sure we¡¯re not going in circles. And I¡¯ve read over one of the books in my [Mental Library] and determined that it¡¯s pretty bad. There¡¯s way too many bland fight scenes that go on for pages and pages, with characters increasingly relying on ridiculously named skills. It spends five pages just punching the same monster. ¡°If Slar¡¯s alive, he¡¯ll fine us no matter where we go,¡± I say. ¡°If he¡¯s dead, we¡¯ll need to make our own way back to Splott. So we may as well keep moving.¡± The tunnels become rough and I¡¯m increasingly starting to believe we are not going in the direction of Splott. My [Sense of Direction] is not being helpful, so I turn back to watching the flows of energy through the area. I¡¯ve already been directing us away from any monsters above Basic rank, but now I¡¯m noticing telltale signs of a dungeon in the vicinity. Aether is flowing out from a point somewhere ahead and down, while vis is swirling in that general direction. It could be that we¡¯ve wound our way back toward the hot springs, but it could also be another unidentified and potentially extremely dangerous dungeon. The ground suddenly gives way beneath us. With a clatter of gravel, we go tumbling down into darkness. The light crystal falls from Rowan¡¯s hand as he tries to grab for something to steady himself. It skitters across the ground, thankfully not breaking. These things are tougher than I¡¯d feared. Once we come to a rest, covered in cuts and bruises, it¡¯s the only thing lighting up a tunnel at least ten meters below where we were. ¡°Rowan, are you alright?¡± I ask, checking my own stats.
Skills increased: Clairvoyance (Aether Sense), Enhanced Feet (Soft Landing)
Health: 3/9
Not great, and it was probably only thanks to my [Soft Landing] skill that it¡¯s not worse than it is. ¡°I¡¯m at 12 of 17 health,¡± Rowan replies. ¡°And I think I sprained my ankle. How about you?¡± ¡°Nothing seems to be broken, but I feel like I¡¯ve gone through a cheese grater from all that gravel,¡± I say. ¡°Health¡¯s at 3 of 9. No, wait, 4 of 9 now. I¡¯m pouring Inspiration into [Rapid Healing].¡± ¡°I¡¯m doing the same but my Inspiration pool is much smaller than yours.¡± Rowan groans as he looks up toward the hole in the ceiling. ¡°And I don¡¯t think we¡¯re getting back up there.¡± I retrieve my staff, thankfully unbroken, as well as Rowan¡¯s sword. ¡°I don¡¯t know what to do about sprained ankles, but you can lean on my staff. We should keep moving once we¡¯ve rested up for a moment.¡± Rowan nods. ¡°Wish we had something to eat. We left our packs behind at the hot spring. They¡¯re probably covered in monster goo by now.¡± ¡°I¡¯m detecting a dungeon in that direction,¡± I say, pointing down the tunnel. ¡°Could make the situation better or worse. Should we go that way, or head the other direction and hope for the best?¡± Rowan sighs, using my staff to help him to his feet. ¡°A dungeon might help us or kill us. We should be careful, but it¡¯s probably worth checking out. It will probably have food and water, failing all else.¡± This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. I pick up my light crystal, nodding in agreement. ¡°I¡¯m not sure how far away it is, but let me get this secured better before we start moving.¡± I tie a bit of twine around the crystal and hang it around my neck like a crude amulet. It¡¯ll do for now. At least we¡¯re not completely in the dark. Why aren¡¯t there even the ubiquitous glowing fungi down here? Did we break through to the next layer of the In-Between? No help for it, I suppose. We have no means of getting back up top, so our only real options are to go toward the dungeon, away from the dungeon, or wait here until Slar finds us or thirst forces us to move. Better to move before thirst is a problem. We make our way through the caves, stumbling through narrow, winding, branching tunnels occasionally broken by small caverns. I follow the flow of aether at each branch, but this layer seems to be desperately dry. The upper layer was moist and full of sources of water. Why hasn¡¯t any of it dripped down here? I¡¯m afraid my Knowledge (Geology) is not up to the task of making sense of the layout of the cave systems of an artificial orbital habitat. As the density of aether spikes, we come upon a wooden door incongruously set into the rock. Gleaming brass hinges and doorknob look bright and new. It even has a welcome mat in front of it.
You have discovered the Empty Halls.
Skills increased: Survival (Caving)
Your Endurance has increased.
¡°Well, that¡¯s not creepy at all,¡± Rowan says. ¡°I¡¯m reconsidering the wisdom of just sitting down and waiting until the goblin Scout finds us.¡± ¡°Just hope for water, at least,¡± I say. ¡°Healing and food would also be nice.¡± I try the doorknob, but it¡¯s locked. Before bringing out the lockpicks, however, I look under the welcome mat. Sure enough, there¡¯s a tiny brass key beneath it. ¡°That¡¯s¡­ convenient,¡± Rowan says. ¡°How did you guess that would be there?¡± ¡°Just a hunch.¡± I try it on the door, which opens with a click. We step into the most plain hallway ever. Flat, blank gray walls lacking even much in the way of texture surround us. ¡°This is creepier than if it were simply full of monsters,¡± Rowan says warily. ¡°And where¡¯s that light coming from?¡± I hadn¡¯t noticed (being the one with a light hanging on my chest) but the halls are full of ambient light seemingly coming from nowhere, allowing us to see without breaking up the nondescriptness of the walls. The hallway splits into a T-intersection exactly ten meters in front of the door. We walk ahead far enough to look either way, and the door creaks shut behind us. Rowan looks back at it with a frown. ¡°Dear nice dungeon,¡± he says aloud. ¡°If you¡¯re going to trap us in here, we will need food and water. Please and thank you.¡± Both branches of the hallway extend for twenty feet in each direction, with subsequent branches leading off from them halfway down and at the end. I pull out my notebook and a pencil and start drawing a map of the maze. I¡¯m done rushing for the moment and want to do this slowly and carefully. Seeing no real difference between them, I turn to head down the left corridor, keeping one finger on the wall and Rowan¡¯s sword in my right hand. I don¡¯t trust the dungeon not to mess around with mazes, though, so I keep [Mapping Step] up as well. At each branch, I also add to the map in my notebook. Between this and trying to heal myself, my Inspiration is draining like a bathtub. I split off an additional mind to read another one of the mediocre novels in my mind without having to divert my attention from searching for traps and being alert for an ambush. Rowan¡¯s eyes and ears might help here too, but I¡¯m the one with Clairvoyance. ¡°I hear water,¡± Rowan says quietly. I pause and listen as well. Somewhere in the distance, the sound of trinkling water like a stream or fountain echoes through the halls. After a few turns, a low, square fountain comes into view, and the hallway opens into a perfectly square room. Rowan rushes toward it and restrains himself from dunking his face into the water at the last moment. ¡°Is¡­ is it safe?¡± he asks. ¡°Yeah, probably,¡± I say. ¡°There¡¯s more healing aether in this than in the hot springs! If there¡¯s a trap here, I can¡¯t detect it.¡± ¡°Oh, thank the cores.¡± I inspect the room more closely as Rowan drinks, and scan about for any sign of monsters. Four identical corridors lead off in each cardinal direction. If it weren¡¯t for [Mapping Step], [Aether Sense], drawing a map in my notebook, and the left-hand rule, we might be completely lost by now.
Skills increased: Enhanced Soul (Fractal Consciousness), Enhanced Feet (Mapping Step), Enhanced Mind (Fantastic Inspiration), Crafting (Cartography)
¡°Go ahead and drink,¡± Rowan says. ¡°I feel great. I¡¯ll keep an eye out. Though I haven¡¯t seen or heard anything but water yet.¡± I pass the sword off to him and go to drink. The water is cool and sweet, possibly the most delicious water I have ever tasted. I drink my fill, then rub some of it over my body with my hands. It feels good, though I think I¡¯ll take the opportunity to absorb some more healing, life, and cleansing aether. I¡¯m still covered with cuts and bruises, and this is just life-aspected water, not actual healing elixir. It¡¯s perfectly safe here. I could just stay here forever. I peacefully meditate, drawing life energy in from the water to heal my wounds.
Skills increased: Enhanced Heart (Rapid Healing), Enhanced Soul (Salubrity), Discipline (Self-Awareness)
What? Why do I have the urge to stay here? Of course I don¡¯t want to stay here. I shake off the compulsion (not that it was an especially strong one) and examine the fountain more closely. I hadn¡¯t even gotten the sense that the aspects of peace and tranquility could be dangerous. I¡¯d been looking for poison and decay, after all. Far from keeping watch, Rowan has actually fallen asleep curled up next to the fountain, his green sword still clenched in hand and fortunately not poking him. I shake him awake. ¡°Nngh, let me keep napping here where it¡¯s safe a little bit longer,¡± Rowan mumbles, not opening his eyes. ¡°It¡¯s not safe,¡± I say. ¡°We have to keep moving.¡± ¡°Is perfectly safe.¡± ¡°We still haven¡¯t found food,¡± I say. ¡°Are you getting hungry? I¡¯m sure there¡¯s some delicious food in this perfectly safe dungeon maze somewhere.¡± That gets his attention. ¡°Right, food. I¡¯m starving.¡± ¡°Probably not literally starving just yet but we definitely will be if we fall asleep here,¡± I say. ¡°Let¡¯s just hope the food isn¡¯t as insidious.¡± Not much one to rely on hope when I could be paranoid, I make sure that [Fractal Consciousness] is in place so that only one of me is likely to be affected by whatever else the dungeon has in store for us. So far it hasn¡¯t actually hurt us, so if it really wants us to stick around, it¡¯s going to need to feed us at least. Failing all else, my family will find us, I¡¯m sure. I¡¯m finding it very hard to feel as worried as I rationally should be. No help for it, though. We move on, and I return to carefully mapping the maze. Chapter 69: Nothing to Wine About Rowan and I continue to explore the Empty Halls. I meticulously add every hallway to our map as we go, and we come upon several rooms like the one we found the fountain in that contain similar pedestals or simply open areas. At the end of a twisty knot of corridors, a twisted vine hangs from a sort of stone trellis, heavily laden with bunches of fruit resembling magenta grapes. ¡°Oh, those look delicious.¡± Rowan reaches toward them but remembers himself and stops to look at me questioningly. I put a hand on his arm. ¡°Let me take a close look at them first and see what we¡¯re dealing with.¡± The odd plant bears many of the usual aspects one might expect of normal plants on the surface, though it bears no leaves. I can only assume it¡¯s getting its energy from the dungeon itself. Within each fruit, I identify aspects of life, joy, and peace. It very much feels like the dungeon doesn¡¯t want to hurt us, simply get us to stick around. I relay this information to Rowan. ¡°I should try it first,¡± Rowan says. ¡°I¡¯m supposed to be protecting you, after all.¡± ¡°I have a better chance of resisting mental effects, though,¡± I say. ¡°If anything happens to you, neither of us is getting out of here, though.¡± ¡°I¡¯m fairly certain that the worst thing that will happen is that we won¡¯t want to leave,¡± I say. ¡°Which, under the circumstances, is probably not an issue.¡± Putting [Fractal Consciousness] firmly in place to measure my body¡¯s response, I pluck a weird magenta grape and put it in my mouth. The juices are sweet and a little tart, and absolutely amazing after a long day of scrabbling through tunnels without food or water. After determining a lack of unforeseen side effects, I give Rowan the go-ahead and we eat our fill. ¡°I¡¯ve gained more skill levels in one day than I have in the entire past year,¡± Rowan says. ¡°We should definitely stay here for a while and grind some skills where it¡¯s safe.¡± ¡°We don¡¯t really have much choice,¡± I say. ¡°Either Slar will find us or he won¡¯t. If he doesn¡¯t, Corwen will send someone with tracking skills to come looking for us. We¡¯ve got food, water, and shelter, so the best thing to do is to stay put and wait for rescue. I do, however, want to finish exploring the dungeon first. I want to see if I can find the core room.¡± ¡°If this dungeon has any defenses at all, they¡¯ll be on the core room,¡± Rowan points out. ¡°Though it¡¯s weird that we haven¡¯t encountered any monsters, traps, or puzzles at all.¡± I yawn broadly. ¡°First, though, I suppose we should rest up. We kept going to find food and water, and we¡¯ve found that. It has been a long day and we should probably get some sleep if we can.¡± We agree to take watches, but wind up both quickly falling asleep on the hard stone floor regardless.
It¡¯s impossible to tell how much time has passed, but we eventually wake up again and eat another load of magenta grapes for breakfast. The vine has sprouted more grapes in the meantime and all the ones we¡¯d eaten for dinner are already back. ¡°Let¡¯s get back to exploring, and don¡¯t let your guard down,¡± I say. We set off to finish mapping the dungeon, much more rested now. So far as I can tell, the layout of the dungeon has not changed overnight (or whatever time of day it is) and I¡¯m able to fill out my map in due order. There is, conspicuously, an empty area around the middle of the maze with no hallways leading to it. I run my hands along a wall, frowning thoughtfully. ¡°There¡¯s definitely something in there. That¡¯s where the aether is coming from.¡± ¡°How do we get in there, though?¡± Rowan wonders. I pull out my hammer and start tapping on the wall. I continue on around the entire central area, tap-tap-tapping every ten centimeters, varying up and down to see if I can find anything different. I tap out ¡°shave and a haircut.¡± I tap out every bit of Morse code I can remember (which is just ¡°SOS¡±, really). I tap until I get tired of the word ¡®tap.¡¯ ¡°Anything?¡± Rowan asks finally as we wind up back where we started. ¡°I¡¯m all tapped out. You got any ideas?¡± ¡°Are you sure it¡¯s here? I mean, what if there¡¯s stairs somewhere and the core room can only be reached from the second floor?¡± ¡°Hmm,¡± I hmm. ¡°Good point. Alright, in that case, let¡¯s scour every centimeter of the floor, walls, and ceiling.¡± Rowan sighs, looking down each featureless hallway. ¡°I immediately regret suggesting this.¡± ¡°Well, it¡¯s not like we have anything better to do while waiting for rescue.¡± If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ¡°Let¡¯s check the fountain and vine again first,¡± Rowan says. ¡°Those are the most obvious features and I would feel very silly if I spent days poking every wall in this entire maze only to learn that we could have just dove into the fountain.¡± We check the fountain and grapevine trellis and find nothing. No hidden switches or secret panels no matter how thoroughly we search. ¡°Guess we¡¯ll just have to search the whole dungeon, then,¡± I say. Rowan reluctantly agrees, and we get to work on carefully searching the entire dungeon for hidden stairs. I check the floors and lower walls, while he pokes the ceiling and upper walls with my staff. When we get hungry or thirsty, we return to the fountain or grapevine, then return to pick up where we left off. When we get tired, we rest. We can¡¯t even be sure this is the best way to go about it, but we have no better ideas. The walls, floor, and ceiling all have the same flat texture, and I¡¯m not even sure what we¡¯re looking for anymore. Anything different, really. Clairvoyance doesn¡¯t even help much here. Aether and vis aren¡¯t affected by solid objects. They flow steadily, in and out. Only essence is static. After an indeterminate amount of time, we conclude that if there¡¯s a secret passageway on either the floor or walls, we¡¯ve failed to find it. As we approach the central missing area again, though, the staff in Rowan¡¯s hands suddenly slips through the ceiling. ¡°Drake!¡± Rowan says, feeling around with the staff. ¡°I found something. Part of the ceiling is fake. There¡¯s a hole about a meter square.¡± ¡°Fantastic, good job!¡± I say. ¡°Let me climb on your shoulders. I might be able to reach and get up in it.¡± He crouches down and helps me up. ¡°You steady up there?¡± ¡°If I slip, I have Enhanced Feet (Soft Landing),¡± I say. ¡°Does it still work if you land on your butt?¡± Upon examining the ceiling with [Psychometry], I can clearly see the gap in essence Rowan found. My hands slip through and I feel around to find a ledge inside. With a heave, I pull myself up and clip through the false ceiling into a narrow crawlspace in the ceiling. Once I¡¯m secure, I pull a length of rope from my bag of holding and use it to help Rowan up. ¡°How long have you had that rope in there?¡± Rowan wonders. ¡°Since immediately after I got it.¡± ¡°Couldn¡¯t we have used that to climb out of the hole we fell down?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t have a grappling hook,¡± I say. ¡°Too heavy given everything else I¡¯m carrying, though I¡¯m going to seriously reconsider my weight distribution once we get home. Besides, I only have five meters of rope and we fell way more than that. If we didn¡¯t have attribute enhancements, we¡¯d have been pancakes.¡± Fortunately, the crawlspace only goes in one direction and not off into a maze, and we drop down through a matching hole ten meters away.
You have discovered the core room of the Empty Halls.
Skills increased: Clairvoyance (Aether Sense), Enhanced Feet (Mapping Step), Discipline (Patience), Athletics (Climbing), Enhanced Feet (Soft Landing)
A glowing yellow crystal sphere the size of a large marble sits on a plain stone pedestal in the middle of the room. The aether in this room is thinner than I have come to expect of core rooms, the few I¡¯ve been in at least, and the light it gives off is definitely dimmer than Corwen. No greeting appears in my third eye. If it sent Rowan a quest, he hasn¡¯t said anything. If it tried to give me one, I can¡¯t see. I approach and take a closer look at the tiny orb.
Category Aether Core
Status Malnourished
Aspect Peace
Disposition Neutral
Mood Anticipation
The dungeon was starving and couldn¡¯t afford any real protection for its core room. No clever puzzles, just hiding it in a place few adventurers would think to look. I reach out one finger and touch the core.
Core: Tiganna/Tempest/Hebron
Title: ¡°Empty Halls¡±
What do you wish to do with this core?
Claim a reward for conquering the dungeon.
Subjugate this core. (Core¡¯s current owner: none)
Pledge yourself to this core. (Your current core: Corwen)
I select the option to subjugate the dungeon.
Core subjugated.
Empty Halls is now a vassal of Corwen.
A screen full of options pops up in my third eye, but I dismiss it for now to attempt a more direct interface. I think a greeting toward the core. [Hello,] a quiet voice like a timid boy speaks in my mind. ¡°Hello!¡± Rowan says aloud. ¡°I haven¡¯t been in many core rooms before¡­¡± ¡°Could you put a way out of the core room so we don¡¯t have to climb through the ceiling again?¡± I ask. The aether in the room gathers and coagulates, and a door identical to the one marking the dungeon entrance appears in one wall. [This entrance will still remain hidden to outsiders. Only Corwens will be able to find and use it.] ¡°Great,¡± I say. ¡°Alright, we got this far. Tell me your story. What went wrong that left you lost and starving?¡± [I tried to be a peaceful, friendly dungeon. I put essence into designing those grapes that I should have spent on defending myself and my people. We were to have been the premium winemakers of Tempest. But the invaders didn¡¯t want wine. Only blood. They could not find my core room, though, and so they buried me instead. No one ever thinks to check the ceiling. If I still had traps or monsters, you would not have had the chance to search so thoroughly.] ¡°Thank you for the food and water, regardless,¡± Rowan says. ¡°How long has it been since anyone was here?¡± [You are the first humans to find me in this Age. Goblins slip through occasionally, but I hold nothing of interest to them. Beings seeking peace rarely come to this layer and I offer no battles to bring them glory.] ¡°Who were these invaders?¡± I wonder. [Orcs, mainly, and their tamed monsters. The orc Hearths in this area are not kind and it is fortunate you did not encounter any on your quest to find me.] ¡°We didn¡¯t actually have a quest to find you,¡± I say. ¡°I just followed the aether and avoided any living beings that might be hostile.¡± [Then I am fortunate indeed. I can be a great boon to your Hearth as an outpost in your explorations of the second layer! Once I can build up more essence, I can offer protection, supplies, and other amenities. I apologize that I did not have the energy to give you proper beds.] ¡°We¡¯ll need to work out an easier way to get here, but I¡¯m sure my Hearthmates who are higher level than me can figure that out. Hopefully they will find us eventually.¡± Chapter 70: Crushed Grapes ¡°Who were your people?¡± Rowan wonders. ¡°Goblins?¡± [Dwarves, of course,] the core, Hebron, speaks into our minds. [But our fortress was overrun by the horde while they were busy carving decorations into the walls. I had to reabsorb those decorations after they all died to repay my debts. Even the kitchens, the tables and chairs, all the barrels and vats.] ¡°There aren¡¯t a lot of dwarves in Tempest these days,¡± I say. ¡°That I know of, at least. If you get enough energy, would you be able to spawn more dwarves?¡± [Yes. Sapients are expensive, though.] ¡°An Epic ranked party will find us soon. And when they do, you don¡¯t want them to see the Empty Halls so empty. You want them to see the ruins of a lost dwarven civilization. Maybe you can¡¯t bring back the dwarves yet, but can you bring back something of what they¡¯d made?¡± [Yes.] A list of options and prices appears in my third eye. Decorations, furnishings, equipment, spawners¡­ Creating functional equipment is expensive, but ones that are broken and decayed are pretty cheap. That would still be better than seeing empty room after empty room. Of course, Hebron¡¯s essence reserves are drastically low and only now starting to tick up with the presence of me and Rowan. It will need to effectively take out a loan from Corwen to be able to afford any of this, but as this is a new vassal, it¡¯s also in Corwen¡¯s best interest to get it up and running before a rescue party finds us. With the budget from the loan Corwen is willing to give, I could just buy back everything but the dwarves themselves. ¡°Can we bring the traps at the door back at least?¡± Rowan asks. ¡°There¡¯s monsters out there still and I¡¯d rather not just hope they don¡¯t notice us here.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a good place to start. Let¡¯s see. Twelve spear traps, yes, there we go. And they come with a convenient lever to disable them for visitors, too. Oh, and not to forget the doorbell, either.¡± I have absolute confidence that if this dwarf town is restored, it will repay that loan in short order and quickly start making pure profit, a good share of which will go to its new liege. ¡°Restore all decorations and interior furnishings. And make them look a little more worn. That brand new door is more ¡®weird¡¯ than ¡®cool¡¯. You¡¯ve got the whole vibe wrong. You want people to feel awe! This place should look as ancient as it is, just built like it could last forever.¡± [Conceptual correction accepted. Reconstructing interior.] Patterns bloom upon the walls around us as the stone ripples for a moment and plaques appear. Names and faces of dwarves long past appear much like the family tree mural in Corwen¡¯s central tower, minus the tree. Rowan goes up to the wall to take a closer look and reads off some of the words. ¡°Ruby. Spawned in 99. Died in 100. Slate. Spawned in 100. Died in 100.¡± ¡°Seems like 100 was an inauspicious year for this Hearth,¡± I say. The dungeon has suddenly become a lot less boring, so we go out and explore. The core room door looks considerably more timeworn now, though with my [Psychometry] I can tell it¡¯s only cosmetic. Once outside, it vanishes behind a relief of dwarves getting trampled by an elephant-like monster. Rowan scrunches up his face as he looks at it. ¡°These dwarves were not great warriors.¡± ¡°The monsters on this layer do not mess around¡­¡± I say. They might have carved their entire history into the walls. Images depict dwarves doing things, making things, and getting killed by monsters without a lot of images of great victories over monsters. ¡°Corwen really paid for this?¡± Rowan breathes, looking around. [I am now massively indebted to Corwen, but its Chosen is certain that we will make far more profit this way. I do not understand, but I will obey.] The dwarves that used to live here really liked grapes. Really, really liked grapes. There are carvings depicting grapes everywhere. These extinct peaceful wine dwarves maybe should have spent a little more time making weapons. The layout of the ¡®maze¡¯ has not significantly changed, though enough of it is different that I may as well start over on my map. It¡¯s just a lot more coherent when there¡¯s actually something to see, and many of the rooms have changed shape and size. Dead ends have become living quarters, and rooms with many exits have turned into dining areas, kitchens, and workshops. Now there¡¯s plenty of indication that people used to live here and what they did. If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. All the equipment for winemaking is here. Including tubs where dwarves stomped grapes with their bare feet in order to make their wine. The stone reliefs make that process quite clear. I really hope they thoroughly washed their feet first. On one wall of the dining hall, there¡¯s a relief depicting a giant cluster of grapes in which each grape contains a smaller cluster of grapes. I wonder if they might have started etching even tinier grapes into the grapes in the grapes if they hadn¡¯t all been killed because they were too busy carving grapes. Since we have actual beds available now, we go to pick out one of the rooms in the living quarters to use so long as we¡¯re here. They¡¯re all identical with a bed and dresser, aside from one larger room full of decorations that probably belonged to someone important. A huge ornately carved stone dresser takes up half of one wall. I¡¯d feel weird sleeping in an opulent noble¡¯s room while Rowan is sleeping in these worker bedrooms and I really don¡¯t need that as it¡¯s not like we¡¯re going to be staying here for long. ¡°You really should just use the fancy room,¡± Rowan says. ¡°You¡¯re basically in charge here, at least right at this moment.¡± My eyes fall upon an object sticking out from beside the dresser. ¡°Why is there this unlabeled lever in the fancy room?¡±
Skill increased: Search (Inspection)
¡°There¡¯s probably a secret closet or something,¡± Rowan says. ¡°Rowan, please hand me the staff and step out of the room,¡± I say. Rowan complies, somewhat puzzled. I reach in with the staff carefully and nudge the lever. With a shunk sound, spikes emerge from every angle to skewer anyone hapless enough to have been in the room when the lever was pulled. I almost lose hold of the staff and quickly pull it back. After the lever is released, the traps reset. Spikes smoothly slide back into their hidden positions, waiting out of sight. That big dresser is full of spikes, not clothing. ¡°Uh¡­¡± Rowan sways on his feet, eyes widening at the display. ¡°Alright, let¡¯s not sleep in the fancy death trap.¡± I carefully close the door and mark my map with a warning on this room. I pull out a blank piece of paper, write ¡®Danger - Trap¡¯ on it, and pin it to the door. ¡°There we go, a fair warning to anything that comes in here capable of reading Common.¡± ¡°If something gets in here that can¡¯t read Common, we¡¯ll have more problems than poorly written signs on doors.¡± I nod in agreement. ¡°Let¡¯s keep going, and not pull anymore mysterious levers.¡± We find the modest workshop where the dwarves here made things that weren¡¯t grape-related. Judging by the various fixtures we¡¯ve seen throughout the complex, I¡¯m guessing they once worked with brass and bronze here. Fortunately, I encounter no ominous levers that might flood the workshop with lava for no good reason. I haven¡¯t done enough metalworking in this life to make good use of the equipment here, so I saved some essence in selecting the option for a workshop that needs a lot of love to restore. That won¡¯t be a problem once we get things going. I just didn¡¯t want it to look empty. In the deepest parts of the old fortress sits an odd machine with a square platform. A pedestal next to it has system display (as a glass screen rather than in my head) with a lever on one side.
Spawning Platform
Spawned creature Dwarf Commoner
Aspects none
Essence available 0
Required essence 10,000
Make sure only intended items are on the platform. Pull lever to activate.
This is a dwarf spawner. These dwarves are apparently not born, but made from whatever materials are thrown into the spawner. I guess whatever is tossed in gets disintegrated and a brand new beardy pops out if the essence cost is met, no messy biological steps necessary. I drop in some various items from my bag and nearby decorations to see what happens, and the class of the spawned creature changes to whatever aspects are predominant. Lockpicks would spawn a Rogue, a hammer would spawn a Crafter, and so forth. We do not have nearly enough essence to spawn a single dwarf even if we pooled every scrap we have. ¡°More complicated items are worth more,¡± I say. ¡°Essence goes into items while they¡¯re being crafted. I¡¯m guessing if I made a bunch of stone knives, that would be worth more than just throwing in stones and would result in a dwarf that already knows [Stoneworking].¡± ¡°I suddenly realize why the place was so empty,¡± Rowan says. ¡°All their crafted things went into the machine for more defenders.¡± ¡°I bet a high enough level statue of a dwarf would be the right amount of essence.¡± ¡°What are you betting? I left my coin purse at the hot springs. And anyway, any dwarf that gets made by you would be cursing their maker for his [Stoneworking] skill level.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not a Legendary sculptor, but I¡¯m sure I can manage something. The machine doesn¡¯t seem to be picky about what goes into it so long as the total essence is high enough.¡± They were dwarves. They might have been sissy pacifistic wine-loving dwarves, but they were dwarves nonetheless. They¡¯d probably still be good at crafting things that aren¡¯t grapes. Having a dwarf buddy would be very cool and we might as well get started on rebuilding the population. I put away my notebook after marking the dwarf spawner on my map. ¡°That about covers it. Let¡¯s eat some more grapes and get some rest. Tomorrow, I want to scout the outside a little. See if we can find something other than grapes to eat, no matter how amazing they are, and maybe even gather some crafting materials. I don¡¯t know if we can build up the essence to spawn a dwarf by the time a rescue party shows up, but we don¡¯t really have anything better to do in the meantime but work on our skills and try not to die.¡± After testing the essence value of every item in easy reach, I¡¯m already starting to work out the math in my head just how much crafting I¡¯m going to need to do for this.
Skills increased: Discipline (Long-Term Planning), Crafting (Cartography), Enhanced Mind (Calculator)
Is deciding on what to do for the next few days really ¡°long-term¡±? I suppose it¡¯s still in the range a child would have. Planning a week ahead is long-term for a typical eight-year-old. Chapter 71: Making New Friends We step outside the (no longer mysteriously shiny) entry door and creep into the caverns. Before, we¡¯d been focused on finding the dungeon and hadn¡¯t been interested in anything we couldn¡¯t eat or drink. Now, equipped with gathering baskets we¡¯d found in the storage areas, we go to collect loose rocks and samples of whatever plants and fungi grow down here. I keep an eye out for vis signatures and we don¡¯t go far from the dungeon entrance. We can handle a Basic or three on our own, but if any Elites or higher come into range, I want us back inside the dungeon and behind a few traps. It still might not be enough, but it beats being caught out in the open. I telepathically direct Rowan to stay quiet. While I can¡¯t read his mind, I can detect his emotional state, which is good enough for most delving situations. We can discuss anything in-depth that needs to be discussed when it¡¯s safe. We start off with gathering some rocks that are big enough to make tools out of. There isn¡¯t as much in the way of glowing fungus on this level, but there¡¯s some non-glowing flora that we take samples of to see what we can do with it. I¡¯m not picky; everything¡¯s got at least a little bit of essence in it, and I can try to make something out of anything. Some large auras come into range, some of which are Elite rank. People, and not goblins or humans. Those I would recognize from their auras. Orcs, perhaps. I don¡¯t care to let them get close enough to see them with my normal eyes. I send a message to Rowan to grab his baskets, and we withdraw to the dungeon.
Skills increased: Search (Herbalism), Subterfuge (Hiding), Clairvoyance (Aura Sight)
From the room beside the trap-filled entryway, there¡¯s a spot to look out and see the area in front of the door. It¡¯s empty still and there¡¯s no sign of them noticing us, so I relax a bit and go to test out the materials we collected. A plain stone is worth 1 essence. Once it¡¯s made into a Poor-quality stone knife, that goes up to 5 essence. ¡°It¡¯s still not worth much,¡± Rowan observes. ¡°Is all this going to be enough?¡± ¡°It¡¯ll be enough,¡± I say. ¡°It just takes work. And if it¡¯s not enough, then I will work more and make more junk to pile into the spawner.¡± Over the course of the next several days (at least we have Hebron¡¯s changing colored light to mark the time), we continue to make short forays out into the caverns to gather materials. I make a few of every stone tool I know how to make as well as a some crude figurines depicting dwarves and monsters. I even try to use the stringy roots we collected to make twine, though they¡¯re a poor material for it and my attempts are unskilled. The most common fauna in the area are Basic-rank centipede monsters around 30 cm long. Their pale carapaces make for decent crafting materials, and the monster cores I dig out of them are worth a good 250 essence each. I¡¯ve noticed that monster corpses tend to only start dissolving when they¡¯re left untouched for too long. Cooking or crafting something out of their body binds it with your own essence, stabilizing the protean goo that monsters are made from. These little cores made of essence remain behind. Rowan holds up a pea-sized monster core between his fingers, now clean of the ichor I¡¯d dug them out of. ¡°I suppose using them to spawn a dwarf would be more useful than having the dungeon make our own centipedes.¡± A bit further from the dungeon entrance, we find twisted trees with dark leaves. There¡¯s no sections straight enough to make a proper staff, but it¡¯s still wood, so I gather some while trying to be as quiet as possible about it. Stealthy lumberjacking might be a bit of an ask, but the wood isn¡¯t too hard for a serrated blade to cut through. With a 5 kg limit on my bag of holding, I couldn¡¯t bring a large saw, but I certainly brought something capable of cutting wood if need be.
Skills increased: Search (Lumberjacking), Subterfuge (Sneaking)
Once we return to the Empty Halls, I use that cave wood to carve a wooden chess set and a toy boat. I make a stone hammer and axe by tying suitable heads to a handles with roots. While the regular stone knives and chisels are only worth 5 essence, these more complex tools are worth 15. I even include my notebook in my calculations, full of notes, charts, and diagrams. It will all stay in my [Mental Library] even after the notebook is absorbed unless I remove those pages, but it¡¯s also the highest essence thing I have since I¡¯ve doodled so much in it. Rowan gave it to me for my naming day and I¡¯ve gotten a lot of use out of it, but that¡¯s why it has so much essence in it. There¡¯s still some room left, so I cover every blank page I have with drawings of bridges, ambulances, ships, tools, and so forth. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°Even the notebook?¡± Rowan wonders. ¡°This notebook is worth more essence than that entire pile of stone tools combined,¡± I say. ¡°It¡¯s just easy to pack it in densely when you¡¯re dealing with pages. I¡¯ve filled up every page and it¡¯s worth over 3000 essence by itself.¡± ¡°Huh,¡± Rowan says. ¡°Well, we¡¯re making progress. Your family is taking its sweet time in rescuing us, though, so we might as well keep at it.¡± So we keep at it. During one of our excursions, we run across a boulder that seems dwarf-sized but small enough that Rowan¡¯s Enhanced Muscles might be able to roll it back to the dungeon. His aura seems a little put out by the prospect, but he makes no complaint aloud. As we¡¯re slowly dragging it toward the dungeon entrance, a cluster of auras comes into range. I silently tell Rowan to freeze and hide my light as I analyze the vis signatures. The strongest of them is Elite, and they¡¯re coming this way. Voices in a guttural language I don¡¯t understand echo through the tunnels. [Leave it,] I send to Rowan. [Withdraw to the dungeon.] Rowan complies, and we scurry back toward the door, though not as quietly as I might have hoped. From the auras of the probably-orcs, they seem to have noticed something interesting even if they haven¡¯t pinned it on us yet. Once inside, I lock the door and activate the traps in the entryway, then go to look out the peephole to see if any of them actually approach. Five hulking figures come into view. Six feet of solid green muscle might not be towering to an adult man, but I¡¯m 8. Only one of the orcs is an Elite in leather armor, and the other four are Basics wearing loincloths, and I¡¯m glad they bothered with that much. From a read of their auras, they¡¯re curious and eager to fight. I send the information to Rowan. [With the traps, we might actually be able to take them, but a patrol going missing in the area might attract further attention.] Rowan nods grimly and readies his green spider-venom sword. The orcs outside start pounding against the door. It holds firm for a while, but after several strikes it slams open and orcs come streaming in through the door. Wooden spikes shoot out into the entry corridor, resulting in serious injuries on the unarmored Basic orcs, but they press on only to trip over even more traps. In the end, only the Elite makes it through the gauntlet relatively unscathed, and that likely has as much to do with using his companions as meatshields as his armored higher-rank body. The Elite orc angrily smashes several of the wooden spikes and snarls at his dying comrades. While I can¡¯t actually read his thoughts, I get the impression of ¡®you incompetent fools¡¯ from him. He emerges from the trapped corridor and growls, hefting his crude bronze axe and looking for a target to take his annoyance out on. His eyes fall upon me and Rowan, staff and sword in our hands. ¡°You know, that was really rude,¡± I say. ¡°You orcs couldn¡¯t just politely knock and say hi? Come in to share a cup of grape juice? We didn¡¯t have to be enemies.¡± I don¡¯t know if the orc can understand me, but his only response is to snarl at us and swing his axe. Rowan is quicker, and gets in a couple strikes with his blade. The poison might not have as much effect on an Elite, but it might still give us an edge. I try to trip him up with my staff, without much success. A grazing strike with the axe leaves me bleeding, but I ignore the pain. We back up, harrying him as we go until we reach the workshop where I¡¯d left all the stuff I¡¯ve been crafting. I drop my staff and roll it on the floor toward the orc¡¯s feet, then start throwing everything I have at him. Distracted by being pelted with crude tools, the orc stumbles and Rowan presses the advantage to take him down.
Skills increased: Clairvoyance (Empathy), Discipline (Battle Trance, Pain Tolerance), Athletics (Dodging), Blocking (Staffwork), Striking (Stone Hurling)
¡°Oh, thank Heavens,¡± Rowan breathes, poking the orc a few more times with his sword. ¡°I thought we were dead for sure. And I got so many levels.¡± We go back to make sure the Basics in the entry traps are dead, and I realize I left an alarming amount of blood on the floor between the entrance and the workshop. Feeling a little woozy, I focus my efforts on [Rapid Healing] after pulling the lever to disable the traps. While five orc bodies won¡¯t fit on the spawning platform, we do drag them into the core room for Hebron to absorb. By which I mean Rowan drags them, as he insists that I go to the life-aspected fountain to wash out my cuts and meditate until my health is back up. The water is cool and soothing, and the fountain radiates a sense of peace and tranquility that calms my uneasy mind.
Skills increased: Enhanced Heart (Rapid Healing)
Rowan joins me after a while and sits down by the fountain with me. ¡°Hebron says the corpses will be more than enough to repair the damage to the door and traps. I gathered their weapons and the Elite¡¯s armor into the workshop. I did not touch their loincloths. How¡¯s your health?¡± ¡°Improving,¡± I say. ¡°We need better defenses. We can¡¯t just sit here and hope my family finds us soon, and hope nothing attacks us.¡± ¡°Agreed. Maybe the core can make some upgrades?¡± I flick my fingers in the water as I think. ¡°The wooden spikes weren¡¯t very effective against an armored target. The centipedes might have helped if there were enough of them. A huge boulder rolling down the hallway would have been crude but fun.¡± [Do you wish me to implement these suggestions?] Hebron¡¯s voice asks in our heads ¡°Yeah. Let¡¯s go all Indiana Jones with this. Next time they might send a Heroic, and I want to be ready. Add a rolling boulder trap and a giant centipede pit!¡± The aether around me subtly shifts. [Done.] ¡°And also make sure we don¡¯t get squished by it or fall into it,¡± I add quickly. Chapter 72: Hewn From Stone and Piled With Junk ¡°We need more giant centipede monster cores,¡± I say, watching the pit like it¡¯s my own personal giant terrarium. ¡°Right now it¡¯s just a few centipedes in a pit and not a pit full of centipedes.¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to sincerely hope I never fall in,¡± Rowan says, shaking his head and backing away. [They are friendly to you,] Hebron¡¯s voice interjects in our minds. [They would not attack you.] ¡°This is possibly even more disturbing than the fact that Drake eats those things.¡± Using the centipedes as a trap greatly decreases the amount of essence I¡¯ll have available to spawn a dwarf, but I can always retrieve some of the cores if necessary. Maybe if we¡¯re lucky we¡¯ll even find an Elite monster we can add to Hebron¡¯s defenses, assuming we run across one that wouldn¡¯t simply kill us painfully. Having another person here would also help. Three can do a lot more than two, after all. Two is barely even a party. ¡°Let¡¯s go get that boulder and see if we can find a few more giant centipedes,¡± I say. ¡°I suppose just having Hebron spawn material for a statue would defeat the purpose of gathering essence,¡± Rowan grumbles. ¡°No, I¡¯m not going to complain about you whimsically calling for a rolling boulder trap and then me having to push a large rock through the caves. Much.¡± ¡°You pushing the boulder is actually putting essence into it,¡± I say. ¡°Not much, but if you rolled the same boulder up a hill over and over for ages, it might become interesting.¡± ¡°I am glad the ground is mostly level, at least. I suppose it¡¯s good skill training. Doing even mundane things in a dangerous situation gets way more levels than safe in our Hearths.¡± There are no orcs outside today, and I do a careful sweep through to make sure I don¡¯t pick up any hostile auras nearby before we get to work. There might be consequences once they find out their people are missing, but it¡¯s probably not that rare to lose teams in these caverns. Right now, the area is quiet and we¡¯re able to roll the big rock into the dungeon without further incident. Killing a few giant centipedes along the way isn¡¯t an incident, but lunch and gathering trap fodder, even if I do earn myself some fresh cuts in the process.
Skills increased: Striking (Bladework), Athletics (Dodging), Discipline (Delegation, Pain Tolerance)
I take the centipede corpses to the kitchen and work on butchering them while Rowan is getting the stone in place in the workshop. No sense in letting perfectly good meat and crafting materials go to waste. I extract the monster cores and toss them into the centipede pit. By the time I¡¯m done, Rowan has gotten the stone in place on the spawning platform. I thank him and get to work on sculpting. My tools are crude and my skill is ¡®Poor¡¯, but I¡¯m patient and determined. The initial boulder only contains 5 essence, barely more than the smaller rocks and probably only because of its size and contact with Rowan. With each tap of my chisel and hammer, though, I watch the essence value tick up on the display. I meticulously drew diagrams of the dwarf statue in my notebook, but at Rowan¡¯s silently judgmental look at my artwork, I have to admit that no angle looks the same. No matter. I let emotion and desire guide my hands. I spend days working on the statue, taking breaks to eat, sleep, and make cautious forays to patrol, hunt centipedes, and gather materials. I think I might be close to unlocking Survival (Hunting). I¡¯ve taken to using a knife and just healing up any cuts afterward. I might be getting close to unlocking a poison resistance skill, too. Their poison is painful rather than particularly debilitating, so I just take it as [Pain Tolerance] training. I could work on this forever, trying to get every detail perfect. It is not great stonework, but it looks like a dwarf. The essence meter continues to tick up with every tap. As I brush off some dust and think I might actually be finished, I receive a notification confirming it.
You have crafted a Fair quality artwork.
Skills increased: Discipline (Patience), Maintenance (Organization), Crafting (Stoneworking, Tailoring, Drafting, Sketching, Brewing, Skinning, Cooking, Bonecrafting, Woodworking), Clairvoyance (Psychometry)
Skill acquired: Enhanced Hands (Labor of Love)
Description: You may produce better items and performances if you are working voluntarily without expectation of compensation on something you enjoy doing.
My soul tingles at the rush of experience. Before pulling the lever, I go to retrieve Rowan, who is in the guard room watching the door. I show him the notification. ¡°Congratulations,¡± Rowan says, coming back with me to the spawner. ¡°Let¡¯s see what he looks like to give you such a nice skill.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a lovely new skill,¡± I say. ¡°I¡¯m going to be getting a fair bit of use out of this, to which I mean get more Fair items.¡± ¡°Please don¡¯t try to pun. It hurts my brain.¡± If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ¡°Sorry,¡± I say. ¡°That might be the fault of the auto-translator straining itself.¡± ¡°Sure, blame the auto-translator for your terrible puns.¡± Rowan goes over to the pedestal. ¡°What¡¯s the essence counter at? Ah, nice, that bumped it up to 6703.¡± ¡°I think we¡¯ve got the rest of that covered.¡± I start gathering up the items that aren¡¯t currently on the platform because I didn¡¯t feel like carving a statue in the middle of a pile of junk. My notebook, most of the stone tools, a lockpick from my bag, carapace bowls full of grape juice and life-aspected water, a rope made of roots, a chess set, and a toy boat. Still a little bit short, so I add a screwdriver from my bag as well. The meter ticks over.
Spawning Platform
Spawned creature Dwarf Handyman
Aspects creation, order, life
Essence available 10,002
Required essence 10,000
Make sure only intended items are on the platform. Pull lever to activate.
Make sure only intended items are on the platform. Pull lever to activate. Rowan and I share a grin and he bids me to do the honors. I pull the lever. Aether coalesces on the spawner. Essence sublimates and gathers into the dwarf statue as the items dissolve. Color spills across the statue as stone turns into flesh. A pale face with dark red hair. The process takes my artwork in the broad strokes and smooths out most of the flaws or at least makes them look like natural scars and crevices. The tunic I carved him in is green and his boots are a little rugged from my uneven carving job. The first words of the new scion of Hebron are in English: ¡°Duuuuuuude. I¡¯m a dwarf. Awesome!¡± His aura marks him as a reincarnator, of course. That¡¯s probably necessary to spawn as an adult and I don¡¯t know why I might expect otherwise. Can they reincarnate dwarf souls directly? I have so many questions and none of them feel the need to sit down and explain them all. (Not that hovering crystal spheres ¡®sit¡¯.) ¡°Do you speak Common?¡± Rowan asks. ¡°Sounds like it,¡± the dwarf says in Common. ¡°¡¯Lo folks. Apparently my name is Basalt Hebron Tempest Tiganna and I¡¯m a [Dwarf Handyman].¡± This guy came out already speaking Common? So unfair that I have to deal with this but a dwarf spawn gets it dumped into his head right away. (Then again, all the notes that went into him were written in Common, so that probably counts.) ¡°I¡¯m Drake Corwen, and this is Rowan Talgarth,¡± I say. ¡°Both ¡®Tempest Tiganna¡¯ too. Are you from Earth? I was an engineer from California in my first life.¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± Basalt says. ¡°Was nobody important. Just a regular American dude trying to get by.¡± ¡°Would you rather go by your name from your first life?¡± I ask. ¡°No way. My name was boring. ¡®Basalt Hebron¡¯ is a good dwarfy name.¡± ¡°Fair enough,¡± I say. ¡°There¡¯s¡­ a lot to catch you up to speed on and you should probably do the tutorial at some point and get used to the system.¡± ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m looking at it. So what is this, anyway? Was my brain stuck in a jar and uploaded into an online game after I died or something?¡± ¡°Reincarnation, or an afterlife,¡± I say in English, since this won¡¯t make sense to Rowan. ¡°I¡¯m not quite sure myself. I suppose it doesn¡¯t matter which since Earth is long gone anyway. We¡¯re playing RPGs to entertain aliens for eternity. This might be hell but it¡¯s been a fun one.¡± ¡°Coooooool¡­¡± I switch back to Common. ¡°Let¡¯s take you on a tour of the place while we give you the info dump, shall we? Oh, and be sure to grab that axe in case we¡¯re attacked by orcs again.¡± Basalt picks up the axe and looks at me. ¡°Dude, you¡¯ve practically guaranteed we will be attacked by orcs by the end of my tutorial.¡± I blink. ¡°Dammit. You¡¯re probably right. Did you start off with any skills?¡± Basalt nods. ¡°Yeah, a bunch. Mostly ones in Crafting, Mechanics, and Maintenance. Also Enhanced Heart (Rapid Healing).¡± ¡°Ah, great, I was hoping you¡¯d wind up with that when I included life-aspected water.¡±
Skills increased: Knowledge (Scientific Method)
It¡¯s good to know that my hypothesis on what sort of abilities he might start off with panned out. I wasn¡¯t even sure he¡¯d wind up with any at all but it didn¡¯t exactly cost me anything extra to test it that I wasn¡¯t putting in anyway. He holds up the axe to examine it. ¡°Pity I didn¡¯t get any skills for using this.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll unlock one soon enough,¡± I say. ¡°Alright, in this room, we have the weird magic grapes. Eat them when you get hungry. They grow back fast. Your only other option for food at the moment is giant centipede meat and we haven¡¯t found any edible mushrooms yet.¡± ¡°I¡¯m guessing you don¡¯t normally live here.¡± ¡°We¡­ got a little lost,¡± Rowan says. ¡°Nobody was normally going to let an 8 and almost-15 year old at Basic rank off on their own to explore forgotten ruins.¡± ¡°Wait, you¡¯re 8?¡± Basalt sizes me up to be about the same size as him. ¡°I thought you were like, a beardless dwarf or a halfling or something.¡± ¡°This was supposed to be a nice hot springs vacation to meditate and train some skills,¡± I say. ¡°My mom, cousin, and friend were back there. We just got separated from our higher-level chaperones.¡± We reach the burbling fountain in a room that looks like a scene from a slasher movie. The water is still crisp and clear, at least. Basalt¡¯s eyes fall upon the bloodstains on the floor. ¡°Man, tell me that¡¯s orc blood.¡± ¡°No, it¡¯s mostly mine,¡± I say. ¡°[Rapid Healing] I assume? Don¡¯t think a normal person your size can survive that much blood loss and look as springy as you.¡± ¡°I hadn¡¯t even realized I was losing that much. The orc was an Elite. He barely cut me but it just kept bleeding. Higher ranks get a lot of bonuses and I don¡¯t know what sort of skills he might have had. Fortunately, the traps did massive damage to the orc party. We added some more since then. Check this out.¡± I flip a lever, and the floor in front of us falls away to reveal a pit crawling with giant centipedes. ¡°Man, I wish I¡¯d had this sort of security system at my last job,¡± Basalt says. ¡°Dump junkies and screaming Karens into the bug pit.¡± I close the pit again. ¡°Anyway, we¡¯re kind of stranded here until my family sends a rescue party and finds us,¡± I say. ¡°And I¡¯m pretty sure none of them have ever been down here before. I have no idea how long it might take them to get here. And we¡¯ve already been attacked by orcs once. It¡¯s only a matter of time until they strike again.¡± I pause dramatically, looking toward the door. Everything¡¯s quiet. For the moment. I move the tour into the guard room. ¡°Right, and here¡¯s the peephole to look out and see if we¡¯ve got company.¡± We look out to discover that we do not currently have company. ¡°You guys are making me nervous,¡± Rowan puts in. ¡°And it¡¯s not like the orc horde is going to dramatically time their arrival for the moment we walk in here. I will just go back to keeping watch.¡± Chapter 73: Dwarfiness ¡°Finally, this is the core room,¡± I say, opening the door to let myself and Basalt inside. The core room has changed since I was last in it. Rather than simply being a single room containing the core on a pedestal and plaques of a century of dead dwarves, there is now a staircase down leading into a new core room. The pedestal with the currently orange-glowing orb has been relocated here, and there¡¯s one wooden plaque displaying its latest member. Basalt examines his image on the plaque. ¡°Is that what I look like?¡± ¡°Sorry my [Stoneworking] skill isn¡¯t higher.¡± He rubs his ruddy beard. ¡°Hey, I¡¯m not gonna complain. I¡¯m alive and get to be a dwarf.¡± [Welcome,] Hebron¡¯s voice speaks mentally. [Yes, I chose a soul that previously expressed enjoyment of being a dwarf.] ¡°Whoa, voices in my head? Who said that?¡± I point to the little glowing marble. ¡°That¡¯s Hebron.¡± Basalt comes and takes a closer look. ¡°Oh! Sorry, I thought that was just a lamp.¡± [Quite understandable.] I explain what I know of how aether cores work in brief. ¡°So that¡¯s an alien,¡± Basalt says, nodding. ¡°Very cool. Very cool.¡± ¡°You¡¯re taking this all in stride.¡± Basalt shrugs. ¡°What, did you want me to break down about how this can¡¯t be happening, magic isn¡¯t real, and so forth? I don¡¯t think any drugs the doctors might have put me on would have caused a trip that didn¡¯t blur off into nonsense before I even got down the hallway. I¡¯d rather just enjoy being a dwarf until some orc or monster or whatever else kills me.¡± ¡°I suppose you¡¯ll also need to decide whether, once we get rescued, you want to stay here and start to rebuild, go off on your own, or join my party.¡± Basalt snorts. ¡°Dude, what sort of a question is that? Of course I¡¯ll join your party. What else am I doing with my afterlife?¡± ¡°Good to hear it,¡± I say with a grin. ¡°I don¡¯t go adventuring as much as I might like. Once we get out of here, I¡¯ll probably be spending the rest of the year not going far from my village and working on skills that don¡¯t involve surviving on my own in caves.¡± ¡°Sounds good. Tell me about skills. How do I learn more? The crafting stuff is great and all but I¡¯d like to have more skills to avoid dying than just [Rapid Healing]. Some actual armor would be nice too.¡± I head for the stairs. ¡°The Elite orc left some armor, but it¡¯s probably too big for us. Let¡¯s see what we can do with it, though. You won¡¯t be able to do ¡®real¡¯ magic until you reach Elite rank, but I will need to show you how to learn enhancement skills like Enhanced Heart (Rapid Healing). What¡¯s the description on your class?¡± ¡°It says I get bonuses on dwarf skills and skills used while maintaining or improving a structure or vehicle.¡± ¡°What are ¡®dwarf skills¡¯?¡± I ask. Basalt shrugs. ¡°Doesn¡¯t say and there isn¡¯t a list under race, either. I¡¯m a dwarf, so isn¡¯t anything I do a ¡®dwarf skill¡¯?¡± ¡°It probably means skills that are stereotypically ¡®dwarfy¡¯,¡± I say. ¡°Magic is based on conceptual energy, or you might say the power of ideas.¡± ¡°Uh-huh.¡± We go to the workshop where Rowan left the armor and examine it. Definitely a poor fit for any of us, but there¡¯s another use it would be good for. Training Enhanced Muscles (Thick Skin). The recommendation in the Corwen skill book was to use a piece of armor like this to draw the concept from, since the mind can associate wanting your skin to be more similar to leather. Basalt is silent after my explanations about what I think magic works like as though he were just told some complicated physics concept, except it¡¯s a complicated psychics concept. I say sheepishly, ¡°Yeah, sorry, you¡¯re probably still adjusting to being a dwarf in a fantasy world, never mind trying to make sense of the magic system. And you¡¯re not even at the ¡®normal 7 year old¡¯ level of skill knowledge. Fortunately, the system will keep track of that stuff for you. Let me see if I can figure out ¡®explain as though to a brand new reincarnator¡¯ because I have this feeling you won¡¯t be the last new reincarnator I run across. I¡¯ve already run across three other reincarnators.¡± We bring the meditation materials with us to the guard room. The highly fragrant orc leather armor as well as some centipede carapaces I¡¯d set aside for crafting materials. I become intimately familiar with the smell of sweaty orc. Rowan is still sitting in the guard room, diligently keeping watch. Stolen story; please report. ¡°Rowan, when did you last sleep?¡± I ask. ¡°Not sure,¡± Rowan says. ¡°But I¡¯m definitely about to unlock Enhanced Heart (Tireless Vigil), so I¡¯m going to keep at it a bit longer.¡± Normally I would be encouraging this teenager to get himself to bed, but under the circumstances, I just have to wish him luck. ¡°I want to work on getting [Thick Skin] unlocked,¡± I say. ¡°Afterward, I want to do a hunting trip and see if we can find some more giant centipedes to fight. Hopefully Basalt can unlock a skill or two against something we know won¡¯t kill us.¡± ¡°Good idea,¡± Rowan says, and turns to Basalt. ¡°What did you do in your first life? What sort of skills did you have?¡± ¡°Not much that would be useful here,¡± Basalt says with a shrug. ¡°I stocked shelves at a supermarket. 40 hours a week could pay the bills and give me time to play games. Then the economy got stupid, I lost my job, the landlord jacked up the rent, even the prices of food kept going up. I had to get two jobs and cancel my subscriptions and didn¡¯t have enough spare time for anything but casual games.¡± ¡°Why didn¡¯t you just go back to your Hearth?¡± Rowan asks. ¡°Surely your family would have supported you.¡± ¡°They kicked me out when I turned 18.¡± Rowan blinks as he tries to process that. ¡°That is possibly the most baffling thing I have heard about Earth.¡± ¡°Won¡¯t argue that. In any case, I don¡¯t think I can deal with monsters and orcs the same way I had to deal with unruly customers.¡± This guy was nobody special. He was just a basic cog in the machine who got crushed when everything started going wrong. ¡°So, what are your classes?¡± Basalt wonders as he sits down next to the armor. ¡°[Apprentice Guardian],¡± Rowan says. ¡°[Psychic Child]. I¡¯m looking to attend magic school in my teens and then build a skyship to fly around and explore the universe. Assuming I don¡¯t die before I turn nine from being stepped on by a Heroic swamp monster.¡± ¡°Cool, cool. Anyone else in your party, or is it just you two so far?¡± We spend some time discussing skills and describing my family to him. I maybe slightly fail to mention the devil-goats just to see what he does when he sees one. Rowan and I help explain how enhancement skills work and how exactly you¡¯re supposed to absorb concepts and all that. It takes a fair bit of work (by which I mean thinking hard and trying to explain magical nonsense to a regular dude), but Basalt actually unlocks the skill before I do. I¡¯m gonna put that up to it being ¡®dwarfy¡¯ somehow. ¡°Yes, got it!¡± Basalt exclaims.
Skills increased: Tending (Teaching)
¡°Man, that was fast,¡± I say. ¡°I¡¯m sure I will figure it out soon enough. Let¡¯s get something to eat. You tired?¡± Basalt shakes his head. ¡°This was just a nice break. Sit down, close your eyes, and breathe deeply of the weird monster smells. Do you have the skill already, Rowan?¡± Rowan nods. ¡°Though I actually just got another level of it here.¡± We go off and stuff ourselves with grapes and centipede meat. (Basalt shrugs and tries it, and proclaims it ¡°not bad¡±.) After bringing Rowan a lunch of armloads of grapes, we discuss how our hunting and gathering trips usually go. ¡°Clairvoyance certainly sounds useful,¡± Basalt says. ¡°You can learn it too,¡± I say. Basalt shakes his head. ¡°I¡¯ve already done enough heavy thinking for today. I want to see some action.¡± ¡°Fair enough.¡± We grab some gathering baskets and secure the fort behind us before heading out. Rowan isn¡¯t built for stealth but Basalt has no levels in it at all yet, so I¡¯m extra cautious about extending my senses as far as I can to receive advance warning of hostiles. [One giant centipede at ten o¡¯clock,] I send to my party. Since it¡¯s alone, we let Basalt take a shot at it by himself. He grips his axe and grins like he¡¯s seen bigger cockroaches, and charges at the thing. His first swipe completely misses and the monster lunges at him. Basalt manages to block the creature with his axe and takes another valiant swing at the air. The centipede tries to get in under his weapon and bite him in the foot, only to get stomped on repeatedly. He gives a thumbs up and we load the corpse into one of the gathering baskets. The broken carapace probably won¡¯t be worth much as a crafting material but the meat will be good and all the scraps can be converted into essence. No sense leaving it out here to dissolve unless we have to abandon the baskets in an emergency. We keep going, gathering some roots and fungi and killing a few more centipedes along the way. I keep my senses open for any signs of orcs, including checking if there¡¯s any lingering traces of them having passed through recently. Nothing, and that¡¯s making me nervous. If no orcs have patrolled the area recently, there¡¯s a good chance that they might patrol soon. The baskets are nearly full, so I order us back into the fort. I don¡¯t want to go too far in case we get cut off from safety. Once back inside, Rowan asks tiredly, ¡°Did you unlock any new skills, Basalt?¡± The dwarf nods. ¡°I got Blocking (Staffwork), Striking (Polearm Proficiency), and Survival (Caving). The dwarfiest of dwarfy skills. You know, aside from mining. And alcoholism. Are there skills for alcoholism?¡± ¡°You should ask my mom about her skill set sometime,¡± I say with a snicker. ¡°Alright, I¡¯m going back to keeping watch,¡± Rowan says. ¡°You work too hard, kid,¡± Basalt says. ¡°I¡¯m an [Apprentice Guardian],¡± Rowan says. ¡°This is literally my job.¡± ¡°There¡¯s three of us here now and one of them isn¡¯t spending all his time carving me anymore. I¡¯m sure you don¡¯t need to get [Tireless Vigil] in a single unbroken stretch and we¡¯ll need you at full if there¡¯s a fight. I saw how much you were flagging out there.¡± I¡¯m glad Hebron picked a stable soul to reincarnate who takes all this weird stuff in stride rather than freaks out about it. Which was probably the point. The sort who freak out are probably best reincarnated into situations where they¡¯re allowed time to get used to the situation. With Basalt insisting Rowan get some rest, our vigilant [Apprentice Guardian] reluctantly goes to take a nap. I work on butchering the centipedes and putting away the mushrooms into the ¡°don¡¯t eat¡± section to experiment with later. And the roots might not be great for twine but they do well enough for firewood when dried. I¡¯m kind of glad the Hearthkeepers insist that every child of the Hearth learns the basics of cooking.
Skills increased: Crafting (Skinning), Crafting (Cooking), Maintenance (Organization)
I keep getting levels in [Organization] for making sure the poisonous mushrooms don¡¯t get mixed in with the food. Funny, that. Chapter 74: Digging a Hole We fall into a routine over the next several days, practicing and hunting. I use the mushrooms to mix up a poison and apply it to the spikes in the traps. With three of us and us getting levels in combat skills along the way, I dare to take us further afield to explore and try to find where we came in. We might not be able to get back up the hole we came down, but I¡¯d like to at least pinpoint where it is, if it¡¯s even still open. This is a scouting mission and not a gathering mission, so we travel light, move fast, and stay as quiet as we can. We come upon a patch of tunnel where the ground is strewn with gravel of a different color and texture than the part of the layer we¡¯ve taken refuge in. Through the hole in the ceiling, the glowing mushrooms common to the first layer shine down. There¡¯s no way we can climb up that far short of building a staircase ourselves. I am so going to include more rope and a grappling hook into my standard set of equipment once we get back to civilizatoin, even if I have to carry fewer tools I probably won¡¯t need anyway. On the way back, I spot goblins cutting us off from the dungeon. They don¡¯t realize we¡¯re here. I quietly direct us to hide in a narrow crevice and stay very still. [A Heroic and three Elites,] I tell my party. [This fight is above our rank. Let¡¯s hope they don¡¯t notice us.] Scarcely daring to breathe, we wait with weapons in hand as the orc scouting party avoids the crevice without glancing in. I wait until I don¡¯t hear them any longer to climb out of the hole, telling the others to sit tight for a few while I scout briefly.
Skills increased: Subterfuge (Sneaking, Hiding)
[All clear,] I send my party. [Let¡¯s get back to base. I don¡¯t want to be out here if they swing by again.] We stay inside to play it safe for the next couple days in case there¡¯s more Heroics out there. Mostly, we hang out in the guard room unless we have reason to be somewhere else. Rowan cries out an alarm, and I set aside my attempt to make a board game out of broken pieces of centipede carapace. I go over to the peephole and take a look to glean what I can from Clairvoyance. ¡°Five Basics, one Elite,¡± I say. ¡°We can take them. The traps will soften them up first.¡± We position ourselves on the far side of the centipede pit and make sure our baskets of throwing rocks are on hand. A glorious onomatopoeia emerges from the entryway, though we can¡¯t see it from here past the zig-zag. The mostly-Empty Halls echo with the sounds of Crash! Shunk! Squelch! Argh! Swish! Grunt! The rolling boulder trap opens, sending a huge rock rumbling down the hallway and triggering another yell. A single badly wounded Elite stumbles around the corner. Small rocks pelt him as soon as he steps into sight. He growls and hefts his axe, and charges at us. The floor drops out from under him, sending him straight into the centipede pit.
Skill increased: Striking (Stone Hurling)
Skill acquired: Mechanics (Traps)
Description: The ability to effectively make use of or disarm traps.
That was¡­ almost anticlimactic. I¡¯m not going to say anything about it being easy aloud, though. Neither does anyone else, but I can sense their relief mixed with lingering anxiety. We make sure the orcs are dead, collect their weapons and armor, and take their bodies to be absorbed for essence. That part is practically routine. ¡°Those traps sure did the trick,¡± Basalt says. ¡°We need more,¡± I say. ¡°Hebron, can we get a trap mechanism we can stick the orc weapons into? Put it in front of the centipede pit, please.¡±
Rowan sighs as he looks out the peephole again for the millionth time. ¡°It¡¯s my naming day next week and we¡¯re still stuck down here. All I want is to be back in my Hearth next to a warm fire and eating something that isn¡¯t made of grapes or centipedes.¡± ¡°You haven¡¯t even tried the centipedes,¡± Basalt says. Rowan curses in alarm. ¡°Orcs! They look well equipped. Drake, what are we looking at here?¡± ¡°Three Elites and a Heroic,¡± I say. ¡°Crap, let¡¯s get to the other side of the centipede pit.¡± We hurry out past the traps and get into position. This setup could stand a better layout but I haven¡¯t cared to spend the essence on it. The series of sounds that emerges this time is mainly accompanied by grunting rather than screams of pain. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. The Heroic comes around the corner, looking only slightly disheveled from being stabbed with poisoned spikes and run over by a boulder.
Category Person
Race Orc
Gender Female
Rank Heroic
Class Ranger
Mood Calm
Disposition Wary
The two-meter-tall green woman looks completely unbothered as she strolls through the weapon trap, but stops at the edge of the pit. She can probably detect where the floor falls away. ¡°A human, a halfling, and a dwarf,¡± the orc Ranger says. ¡°Curious.¡± ¡°You speak Common?¡± I observe. ¡°Of course. The name is Grishka Brenig. You must have gotten lucky and stumbled into this place and found the core room. I take it you subjugated the dungeon and reclaimed it. We send our children here to get experience in running mazes, but after two parties went missing in the area, I came to find out what happened.¡± I am only left to gape at the surprisingly chatty orc woman. She¡¯s not attacking us, and there¡¯s no way thrown rocks would even hurt her. Rowan and Basalt are puzzled and unsure what to do themselves. ¡°We¡¯re not looking for any trouble,¡± I say. ¡°I¡¯m sorry we killed your comrades.¡± ¡°Feh. If they could get taken out by a starved dungeon and a couple of Basics, they wouldn¡¯t have cut it as true warriors anyway. And fortunately for you, the amount of experience I¡¯d get from killing you isn¡¯t worth depriving the kids of it if they catch you out in the open. Do be sure to add more traps, puzzles, and monsters. And hide in the core room or the younguns will kill you.¡± She casually turns around and walks back out past the weapon trap without a scratch. ¡°Dude¡­¡± Basalt breathes. We proceed to take her advice and valiantly hide in the core room.
Skill increased: Discipline (Composure), Clairvoyance (Empathy)
Skill acquired: Persuasion (Meekness)
Description: The ability to look pathetic and cause others to show mercy or take pity on you.
Thanks, I hate it. ¡°That was terrifying,¡± Rowan says. ¡°I thought for sure she would crush us like centipedes.¡± ¡°Will we be safe in here?¡± Basalt asks. [No one went to the trouble of finding the core room for over 600 years,] Hebron speaks in our minds. [They will not find it now.] ¡°They didn¡¯t seem interested in subjugating the dungeon, just using it as a training ground,¡± I say thoughtfully. ¡°Which means it¡¯s to their benefit to keep us alive, so long as we¡¯re making improvements to the place.¡± Rowan sighs. ¡°Their reasoning makes sense but I still hate it. And I hate hiding in here instead of defending the place.¡± [Your dedication is admirable but your deaths would not help me. Withdrawing to the core room as a last defense against a superior foe is not cowardice. You are still ensuring that if they decide to search for the core room, you will be standing between them and me.] ¡°Hebron, is it possible to extend your territory into the next layer up?¡± I ask. [I¡¯m afraid not.] ¡°Well, you¡¯re able to go a bit further up, at least, given the ceiling tunnel. Can you put in a shaft as high up as you can go, with stairs?¡± ¡°What are you planning?¡± Rowan asks. ¡°We¡¯re going to dig a hole.¡± ¡°Digging straight up sounds like a terrible idea,¡± Basalt says. ¡°What if there¡¯s a lake up there?¡± [I can include a drain and absorb any excess materials that fall.] ¡°Still sounds stupid. Bah, whatever, dude. Let¡¯s see what sort of dwarfy digging skills I can learn.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll¡­ just keep watch while you¡¯re doing that,¡± Rowan says.
Without any decent means of reworking the orcs¡¯ bronze weapons into mining equipment, I bring out the stone tools again. I did not commit any of my limited bag space to a pickaxe. I didn¡¯t exactly plan to fall down a hole and have to dig my way out. It seems like I should have expected that I couldn¡¯t have a nice hot springs vacation without an adventure, though. ¡°Dude,¡± Basalt says. ¡°Barely a few taps with this chisel and I¡¯ve already unlocked Enhanced Hands (Stone Communion) and Enhanced Senses (Stone Sense). That¡¯s definitely dwarfy.¡± ¡°This also qualifies as a home improvement project,¡± I add. ¡°Well, I¡¯m no longer worried about what I might be blindly digging into. [Stone Sense] lets me sense thiings about the stone. You know, exactly what it says on the tin. It¡¯s pretty cool. And [Stone Communion] helps me figure out the right spot to hit.¡± We settle into a routine with Rowan keeping watch, Basalt digging, and me keeping everyone fed and supplied. For Rowan, this is mostly just bringing him raw grapes and water. For Basalt, this is running up and down a tight spiral staircase that gets longer by the hour, hauling food and tools.
Skill increased: Crafting (Stoneworking), Tending (Management)
Basalt¡¯s mining ability is positively inhuman. One might even say that it¡¯s dwarven. He makes no complaint about carving a stairway into nothing. When given the chance, he tries to regale me with tales of all the things he helped build in one video game or another. The orcs show up every other day. We hide in the core room until they¡¯re gone, but I¡¯m already wishing this place had a better layout. This truncated core section would have been the Hearth in a normal village, but Hebron had contracted it as small as it would go when he went into hiding. Fortunately, aether cores can reshape matter, so this will be fixable at least. I set up two entrances to the shaft, one leading into the trapped hallway to direct intruders into and a hidden door so Basalt doesn¡¯t have to go running through traps every time orcs show up. Rowan has unlocked Enhanced Senses (Tireless Vigil) but still looks like he could sleep for a week in his own bed in his Hearth. Basalt has unlocked its crafty counterpart, Enhanced Hands (Tireless Labor). I don¡¯t have that one yet, either, but I haven¡¯t spent 14 hour days just digging. While singing about being a dwarf that¡¯s digging a hole. I have to admit, ¡°bonus experience for acting like a stereotypical dwarf¡± isn¡¯t the worst way to convince people to get in character. I¡¯m elbows deep in grapes when Basalt comes running into the kitchen. ¡°I made it! I broke through! There¡¯s a tunnel full of glowing blue mushrooms up top. I only poked my head out and came to get you and Rowan.¡± ¡°Fantastic!¡± I say. ¡°I¡¯ll grab some gear and meet you there.¡± I pause, looking at my magenta sticky hands. ¡°And wash my hands first.¡± Chapter 75: A Dwarf Stares at the Sky I peer up the narrow vertical shaft Basalt painstakingly carved with his dwarfy skills over the course of the past few weeks, and measure it as 50 meters from floor to opening.
Skills increased: Search (Measurement)
¡°The first steps took forever, but as my skills leveled up, I kept getting faster and better at it. It¡¯s like I downloaded kung fu into my brain, except it¡¯s stoneworking. They¡¯re pretty crude right now and there¡¯s a lot I¡¯d like to do to improve them, but I figured you guys would want to find the way out. I can make things look nice for visitors later.¡± ¡°Hebron, can you seal this well enough that nothing from the first layer wanders in and nothing from the second layer invades the first through here?¡± [Yes. I am only required to have a clear path from my core room to my designated entrance on the second layer. I do not technically connect to the first layer at all. I can replace the doors with walls when you leave.] I nod. ¡°We¡¯ll figure out some proper defenses once I get into contact with my people again.¡± In a few minutes, the three of us climb the shaft and emerge into the first layer again to take a careful look around. ¡°Never thought I¡¯d be glad to see those glowing mushrooms again,¡± Rowan breathes. [I don¡¯t recognize anything offhand, but that doesn¡¯t mean much,] I send them telepathically. [It¡¯s not like I ever spent a lot of time exploring the In-Between.] We set out to explore carefully, doubly cautious about Heroic swamp monsters or whatever else might be out here. The first thing we encounter is a lizard as big as me that, despite its size, is still only Basic rank. We take the creature down without incident and haul it back to the fort to cook it, skin it, and turn it into a couple pieces of armor. Poor-quality lizard skin armor still beats the rags we wound up in. (Basalt jokes that I should have included armor in his statue.)
Skills increased: Crafting (Skinning, Cooking, Tailoring)
I leave Hebron the monster core. I¡¯m not sure where all the loose monsters running around the In-Between come from because there certainly aren¡¯t this many on the Topside. It¡¯s mostly normal animals up there unless you¡¯re actually in a dungeon. Using [Direction Sense] and [Mapping Step], we explore cautiously, but the first layer is actually somewhat familiar to me and I know we¡¯re not far from Splott. I was also quite sure that we weren¡¯t directly under Splott Lake or I¡¯d have never suggested digging up. (What in the world happens to all the water on the first layer that the second layer is drier?) As we go, Basalt quietly stacks up a few stones here and there as simple path markers at tunnel intersections. I dislike the potential of invaders following them back to the Halls, but us getting lost down here is more likely to get us in trouble, I think. We emerge from the narrow tunnels into a large, lush cave with a creek running through it. Four other tunnels lead out from the cavern, and Basalt sticks a couple of pebbles on top of a rather phallic rock formation. Does the water flow toward Splott Lake? One of the tunnels out of here follows the creek, so we head that way. Before too long, a huge cavern opens before us. Lit by bioluminscent fungus Splott Lake shines like a mirror in a disco hall, constantly rippling with color under the movements of enormous fish and goblin boats.
Skills increased: Survival (Sense of Direction, Caving), Enhanced Feet (Mapping Step)
¡°Whoa¡­¡± Basalt breathes. ¡°So cool.¡± ¡°Oh, thank the cores,¡± Rowan says. ¡°Never thought I¡¯d be so happy to see this lake again.¡± We came at the lake from a different angle than usual, quite a bit further around the lake from the buildings on the chore. Basalt sets up a larger than usual marker here before we move on toward the water. A group of goblins intercept us partway around the shore, and let out a cheer when they recognize me and Rowan. ¡°Human Chosen returns!¡± the lead Elite Scout says, smiling at me with razor-sharp teeth. (His aura is happy, so he¡¯s probably intending to look friendly rather than intimidating.) ¡°Your mother is at the inn. She never stopped looking for you. She¡¯s been going out with our scouts every week and we¡¯ve been re-mapping the tunnels. Tempest changed the layout again. So annoying. Where did you go?¡± Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. ¡°A hole opened up in the ground in front of us,¡± I explain. ¡°We found an ancient dwarven ruin on the second layer and took refuge there.¡± ¡°So we would have never found you¡­¡± the Scout says. ¡°There isn¡¯t even any way down to the second layer near here.¡± Basalt grins widely. ¡°There is now, my new goblin friend! I¡¯m Basalt Hebron, [Dwarf Handyman]. I just spawned a few weeks ago and have spent most of that time digging a hole to get us up here.¡± ¡°Ruki Splott! Never met dwarf before. Come to Splott and have some fish!¡± The scouting party sends a runner ahead with news and escorts us to the small cluster of buildings on the shore of the lake. Anise comes out to greet us, looking at least two and a half sheets to the wind and leaning on [Uncanny Balance]. ¡°Drake? Drake!¡± She runs up to lift me up in her arms and hugs me tight. ¡°It¡¯s good to see you again too, Mom,¡± I grunt through compressed lungs. She puts me down and releases me. ¡°What happened? Where have you been? We must have searched half the layer for you! Were you trapped in a hidden dungeon somewhere?¡± ¡°Close,¡± I say. ¡°We¡¯ve got quite the story to tell. Let¡¯s get inside and sit down. Fried Splottfish sounds absolutely amazing right now.¡±
We introduce Basalt and regale my mom (and over a dozen goblins who are crowded around listening in) with the tale of our adventure into the Empty Halls. ¡°Man, that¡¯s awesome,¡± Anise finally says. ¡°Though I more look forward to poking around down there than fixing up the place. That¡¯s a lot of planning for somebody other than me to do.¡± ¡°The orcs at lease seemed appeased enough to just keep running the dungeon,¡± Basalt says. ¡°They¡¯d probably still kill us if they caught us.¡± ¡°We¡¯ll need to get Elite or Heroic parties down here,¡± Anise says. ¡°Maybe we can comvince Uncle Hawk to bring in his Epic party and make sure the Elite and Heroic parties won¡¯t get immediately stomped by anything. Though aside from the orcs, it doesn¡¯t sound like the section you wound up in is too dangerous.¡± ¡°What happened after we got separated?¡± I ask. ¡°Are Milo and Slar okay?¡± ¡°They were badly wounded in the fight but we did kill that Heroic swamp monster,¡± Anise says. ¡°They went back to Grubwick to recover, but I stayed to look for you. I thought for sure the Splotts would have scouted out every tunnel in the area, but Tempest went and shifted the whole cave system. They were more annoyed than surprised. Apparently this happens regularly.¡± ¡°So Tempest itself is just another big dungeon?¡± I wonder. ¡°Well, yeah, you can look at it that way. Domains have their own aether cores too. I¡¯m just glad the Topside stays put.¡± We get some rest at the Splott Lake Inn (which did not get a creative inn name) before making for the surface exit. As we emerge onto the Topside, Basalt pauses to gape at the sky. The Great Orb has turned yellow, signalling that it¡¯s now July. We were down there for¡­ a while. Zenith shines azure against the pale yellow like a strangely inverted clear summer sky, and the skymotes glow in green, azure, and yellow. (And one outlier that¡¯s red and probably belongs to Fantasy Australia or something.) ¡°Holy crap,¡± Basalt breathes. ¡°You didn¡¯t tell me the sky was weird.¡± ¡°I couldn¡¯t cover everything and you really had to see it for yourself,¡± I say. ¡°I feel like I¡¯m going to fall into the sky,¡± Basalt says. ¡°I much preferred having a roof over my head. I suppose I¡¯ll get used to it, though.¡± ¡°Not to worry!¡± Anise says cheerfully. ¡°Gravity usually points down. Unless you¡¯re on the Underside, and then down is up.¡± ¡°You¡¯re not helping,¡± Basalt groans. Now free on the relatively unobstructed surface, we quickly make our way to Talgarth. Rowan has a heartfelt reunion with his mom, Iris, which I leave them to as we settle in to the guest house for the night. ¡°You want to run the Wisteria Garden and the Hedge Maze on the way home?¡± Anise asks. ¡°I¡¯m sure our new friend wouldn¡¯t mind the opportunity to run them and unlock a few more skills.¡± ¡°Sounds good,¡± Basalt says. ¡°I look forward to planting my axe in a few more things.¡± ¡°These are mostly just plants and puzzles, and not a lot of fighting,¡± Anise says. ¡°We¡¯ll hit up some tougher dungeons soon enough, I promise.¡±
¡°You really didn¡¯t need to chop down the tree monster,¡± I say. ¡°It wanted to play cards!¡± Basalt exclaims. ¡°Don¡¯t tell me you play cards with the stupid tree every time you come by here?¡± ¡°Yeah, generally,¡± Anise says. ¡°I have set them on fire a few times, if there¡¯s no one in the party who cares. I¡¯ve played so many games of Leaves and I¡¯m still bad at it Milo and Griffin are fond of the game for some reason, though.¡± We make good time back to Corwen with a refreshing lack of anything trying to kill us along the way. At that point, I need to tell the story to the entire Hearth. I¡¯ve no sooner finished describing how Basalt dug a shaft all the way up to the first layer before they¡¯re already talking about how to best exploit and secure our new exclusive access to the second layer. I bow out of that discussion for the moment and cozy up to the fireplace in the middle of the room with a cup of hot herbal tea. I¡¯ve missed this place more than I even realized. I always feel welcome and safe in the Hearth. Meadow, now sporting a distinctive baby bump, sits down next to me. ¡°We¡¯ve been worried about you. I¡¯m glad to see you back safely. I bet you got lots of skills.¡± ¡°I kept expecting Corwen would have given a quest to find us and rescue us,¡± I say. [You didn¡¯t ask,] Corwen¡¯s voice speaks in my mind suddenly. I can¡¯t help but chuckle. ¡°Well, I suppose I wasn¡¯t actually praying for a rescue, just assuming there would be one. We survived. And we got a new friend and a new dungeon, too. And I unlocked Persuasion (Meekness) by convincing a Heroic orc to take pity on us.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll have to go to the guest house in the morning and meet this Basalt,¡± Meadow says. ¡°Next year, after this baby comes out, I¡¯m going to do *so *many dungeons. I want to head further afield since I¡¯ve already done all the ones Elite or lower in the area. There¡¯s Basic-rank dungeons scattered about too.¡± ¡°Sounds like another adventure,¡± I say with a tired smile. Chapter 76: A Dwarf Stares at a Goat The school building in Corwen Village is a welcome sight. The azure paint on the wooden siding is peeling even more than it was before we left, and the doors have been propped open to let in the warm summer air. The weather rarely gets too hot in Tempest. ¡°I never thought I¡¯d be happy going to school in the summer,¡± Basalt comments. ¡°Is this a one-room schoolhouse?¡± ¡°Is it true that the village schools in Tempest only have one room?¡± ¡°Not true,¡± I say. ¡°Corwen¡¯s school has a lecture room, library, office, and a playroom. Plus a hallway, if you count that as a room.¡± We head inside to the playroom, where Aunt Rosemary is supervising my sister and several of my younger cousins. Willow and Griffin are having a raucous game involving mahjong tiles that is definitely not any version of mahjong I¡¯m familiar with. I gesture to the teacher. ¡°Basalt, this is my Aunt Rosemary, Corwen¡¯s [Tutorial Teacher].¡± ¡°I¡¯m getting a more thorough tutorial after the quick one back in the ruins?¡± Basalt asks. Aunt Rosemary¡¯s aura lights up in elation like she just got a major quest. ¡°Absolutely. I will need to draw up a lesson plan for you. I haven¡¯t had to deal with a student who has access to enhancement skills before getting a balanced foundation of general skills as a child and novice. Come back in the morning and I¡¯ll have something ready for you.¡± ¡°No prob,¡± Basalt says. ¡°I¡¯ll just take a tour of the village first and then get some sleep.¡± ¡°Be sure to stop by the barn next,¡± Aunt Rosemary says. ¡°Drake, I¡¯d like to speak with you for a moment.¡± I part ways with Basalt, who goes to continue his tour by himself, and follow the teacher into her office. ¡°What is it that you couldn¡¯t say in front of the others?¡± I ask. ¡°I have a concern. For discovering a lost dungeon and reviving a dead Hearth, you should normally have attained Elite rank.¡± ¡°I should have? So why didn¡¯t I, then?¡± ¡°Generally, someone would have received a quest either from their own core or from the dungeon itself,¡± Aunt Rosemary says. ¡°For example, your Uncle Hawk¡¯s conquest of Muckburrow. You don¡¯t receive quests, so you did not receive that reward.¡± ¡°¡­ oh,¡± I say. ¡°It¡¯s not just quests, is it, though? Milo reached Elite just from us building things.¡± ¡°He would have received a Deed for setting up a major improvement to his Hearth. He also may have received quests from other cores that he couldn¡¯t see. He may have even received more experience for everything you did for Grubwick than you did.¡± ¡°So without receiving quests from Corwen, I will need to rely on Deeds to rank up? Shouldn¡¯t subjugating a dungeon have been a significant Deed even if I didn¡¯t have a quest for it?¡± ¡°Due to the extremely low difficulty of the dungeon as it was, the Deed for finding the core room and subjugating the core would have given minimal experience. You probably got more for finding the Hedge Maze¡¯s core room, as that at least has puzzles you have to solve even if it makes getting in easier because you¡¯re a Corwen.¡± ¡°I feel vaguely cheated,¡± I say. ¡°What about Basalt? I made a statue and turned him to life!¡± ¡°Sadly, giving birth is not, in itself, sufficient to advance to Elite.¡± ¡°Dammit, I¡¯m too young to be a parent,¡± I grumble. ¡°And a hairy adult man the same size as me doesn¡¯t really count as a child. This all seems epic to me, though. Reviving a lost civilization should be the sort of Deed that would propel me up the ranks.¡± ¡°It has not been fully revived yet. That process has only just begun.¡± ¡°And whatever subsequently comes of it will be divided among everyone else involved and not just go to me.¡± ¡°Correct,¡± Aunt Rosemary says consolingly. ¡°I have confidence in you, though. It is likely that, at some point, you will qualify for a related Deed if you continue to make significant contributions.¡± It had not really occurred to me, given how fast I feel like I¡¯ve been leveling, just how important a source of experience quests are. It might entail free will, but also a handicap. It will actually be much more difficult for me to level than someone receiving a generous number of quests. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. I head outside to find Basalt staring at the black goats the size of draft horses. They gaze back at him with burning eyes, and he freezes in mid-step. Basalt says in a trembling voice, ¡°Those¡­ are¡­¡± ¡°Terrifying?¡± I suggest. ¡°Awesome,¡± Basalt finishes. ¡°Can you ride them? They¡¯d make for a hell of a mount.¡± He approaches, pausing occasionally as the [Fear Aura] of the devil-goats flares up, but pushing past it. Uncle Winter is an unimposing man, the old Epic-rank [Infernal Stablemaster]. You would not imagine how powerful he is just from looking at his stick-thin body topped with snow-white hair. As we approach, he¡¯s quietly teaching and encouraging a couple of my cousins in taking care of the devil-goats, but he turns to look at us as we arrive. I introduce the dwarf to them. ¡°Hmm,¡± Uncle Winter hmms, then turns to one of my cousins. ¡°Basil, you can go back to the Hearth. Don¡¯t need two people with similar names when working around monsters.¡± Weird. Somehow, whatever system is involved with translation made their names in Common similar too. Or perhaps it chose ¡®Basalt¡¯ as a translation because it knew I had a cousin named Basil? Ugh. As always, the auto-translator hurts my brain. I really should just turn it off and force myself to learn Common properly already. Either that or just accept it and let it go. The old man introduces the young dwarf to the devil-goats: Snookums, Fluffles, Pookie, Mitsi, Sippy, and Doomlord. (We ate Fluffles for Hearth Day last December, but they¡¯re monsters so they come back. I don¡¯t mention this bit to Basalt yet. It takes a bit of getting used to.) We continue the tour after a bit, strolling past the pond where one of my aunts is having an amorous tryst with a traveler in the bushes near the village wall. I drag Basalt on before anyone can get further embarrassed about stumbling across them. Circling around the Hearth, we come to a small open-air alchemy workshop where blind Uncle Yew is slowly stirring a cauldron that¡¯s letting off enough fumes that I quickly understand why he¡¯s doing it in a well-ventilated area. We move on without distracting him and enter the main workshop. I show Basalt around the areas where I often work on crafting. ¡°I imagine I¡¯ll be spending a lot of time here in the near future,¡± Basalt says. ¡°You¡¯ve got everything in one place here. Though there doesn¡¯t seem to be much of a forge.¡± ¡°There aren¡¯t any sources of metal on the Topside that I know of,¡± I say. ¡°Our metal tools and weapons mostly come from dungeons. There must be copper and tin around the second layer of the In-Between though.¡± Basalt nods thoughtfully as we move on to the store. The store front opens onto the village square, but we come in by the back from the direction of the workshop. Corwen¡¯s store (not named anything more creative than ¡°Corwen Adventure Store¡±) offers both supplies for adventuring and junk we got on adventures that we don¡¯t need. ¡°Looks like a good place to get equipped,¡± Basalt says, examining a pair of boots. ¡°Or at least it would be if they have anything dwarf-sized. And what¡¯s this currency? Copper, silver, and gold? That¡¯s awfully generic.¡± I nod and show him a few of my coins. ¡°It all comes from dungeons and they each put their own stamp on it. So far as I know, nobody actually mints coins and there¡¯s no mines accessible from the surface. Maybe there are in the lower layers.¡± Basalt holds a copper coin from the Hedge Maze up to an eye and nods. ¡°I¡¯m starting to get an idea of how things work around here.¡± He returns the coins to me. Our final stop is the guest house, where the Mundane innkeeper, Goldie, takes him off my hands to show him to a bathroom and bedroom.
Come morning, I meet Basalt in the guest house¡¯s hearth and greet him with, ¡°Good morning. Did you sleep well?¡± ¡°Much better, at least,¡± Basalt says. ¡°I¡¯ve been having trouble sleeping out under a sky that stays yellow all ¡®night¡¯. At least here I was able to push a wardrobe in front of the window.¡± ¡°Ah, yeah, that definitely takes some getting used to.¡± We head for the school house to see what Aunt Rosemary has cooked up (figuratively) for Basalt¡¯s lesson plan. I don¡¯t really need to follow along with everything, but I¡¯ve got a lot of study and practice to get done myself. For starters, I need to replace most of the books in my [Mental Library] that I¡¯ve already read five times. It¡¯s already annoying having to read them first and then just be left to re-reading them when out delving. It was a good stopgap measure but I need a better solution to Inspiration regen when I can¡¯t see the sky. For the moment, I¡¯m just going to dump all the fiction and replace it with reference books.
Skills increased: Enhanced Mind (Mental Library), Knowledge (Speed Reading, Botany, Geology, Zoology)
I wish I could just shove these books straight into my Knowledge skills, but at least the system seems to appreciate me making an effort to read and keep track of information. Once I¡¯m done with that, I leave the library and return to the classroom to see how Basalt is doing. ¡°It¡¯s important to remember that your class does not only affect the skills it is based on,¡± the Aunt Rosemary is saying. ¡°Any skills used in conjunction with them will also receive bonus experience. For instance, if you¡¯re using Search (Measurement) and Enhanced Mind (Calculator) to assist in crafting, even though your class description doesn¡¯t mention those categories.¡± Basalt nods. ¡°Got it. What sort of skills would be useful to try to learn while I¡¯m working on handyman stuff? I don¡¯t even know what all skills exist.¡± ¡°As a vassal of Corwen Hearth, you are permitted to read the Hearth¡¯s skill books,¡± Aunt Rosemary says. ¡°These list all the skills learned by members of the Hearth who have died, along with notes on how to unlock and best use them. It¡¯s far from every skill in existence, of course. Many Hearths have their own secret arts, and there may be dwarf skills you will stumble upon that we don¡¯t know about.¡± Once Aunt Rosemary is done with Basalt¡¯s tutorial, she says, ¡°Please let me know when Hebron starts producing more dwarves. I will go there to help train its newspawns. They, too, will be very confused and need guidance.¡± Chapter 77: Stalwart Pillars and Encyclopedias ¡°So where are you heading first next year, Meadow?¡± Anise asks. We¡¯re strolling along the path to the Spooky Grove this morning. It¡¯s the whole field drip of me, Rowan, Basalt, the three seven-year-olds, Anise, Meadow, with Heroic ranked Uncle Falcon and Aunt Rosemary along as chaperones. Aunt Rosemary rarely leaves the village, but she¡¯s apparently making an exception this time for providing additional tutorializing to Basalt. ¡°I¡¯ll be heading to Amroth, out on the edge. There should be foreign parties coming in looking for a token local to temporarily join their party to cancel out the domain debuffs,¡± Meadow says. ¡°I want to get as many dungeon runs in as I can.¡± ¡°Pushing for Heroic harder than you ever pushed for Elite,¡± Anise comments. ¡°I¡¯ve been going stir-crazy being stuck at home while pregnant,¡± Meadow grumbles. ¡°If I have another, I¡¯ll do it over fall and winter instead. Mom has been stifling about it. She barely let me come out to a place right next door with two Heroics as escorts.¡± Meanwhile, Aunt Rosemary is rambling on an infodump to Basalt more extensive than anything I ever got. I listen in with [Fractal Consciousness] in case she says anything I don¡¯t already know. For my part, while my other selves are keeping an eye and ear on my surroundings, I¡¯m also working on skills while staring at the sky now and then. I know there¡¯s got to be more Soul skills I don¡¯t know about. Clairvoyance ought to have as much potential as its more standard equivalent, Search. It¡¯s just that everyone gets Search and it¡¯s more well-documented. And then there¡¯s Enhanced Mind, which I¡¯m quite sure is very important and I need to work on more. Sacrificing my notebook to summon up a dwarf highlighted just how clunky the [Mental Library] system I¡¯ve been using is. There¡¯s got to be a way to organize this information better. I bet there¡¯s even a skill to write on nothing with your brain. It¡¯s something that¡¯s been percolating through my head during downtime. I never stop thinking about things. ¡°You look like you¡¯re thinking way too hard,¡± Basalt observes. ¡°¡­ maybe a bit,¡± I say. ¡°I¡¯m trying to see if I can convince my system interface to show the species of plants when I identify them. I crammed my [Mental Library] full of reference books but it¡¯s not as convenient as I hoped.¡± ¡°That does sound useful. Hope you get it working.¡± ¡°Ah, yes,¡± Aunt Rosemary says. ¡°I can help with that. This is, after all, my job, and you can always ask me questions.¡± ¡°I enjoy trying to figure things out myself, honestly,¡± I say. ¡°But yes, at least tell me the names of the relevant knowledge skills. I did not manage to memorize the skill book and always feel like I just want to learn everything whenever I look at it. I miss being able to bring up the sum of all human knowledge at a whim.¡± Aunt Rosemary chuckles. ¡°Perhaps not the sum of all human knowledge, but you can certainly retain a lot of information and at higher levels, you can read books just by being near them. Do you have Enhanced Mind (Mental Encyclopedia) and Knowledge (Identify) yet?¡± ¡°I have Enhanced Mind (Mental Library) and Clairvoyance (Aspect Analysis),¡± I say. ¡°I take it the encyclopedia does topics and not just books?¡± ¡°There¡¯s also Enhanced Mind (Word Search),¡± the [Tutorial Teacher] goes on. ¡°You can search anything in your mental knowledge base. Once you¡¯ve leveled it up, you can even search physical books within a certain range. Needless to say, these are skills I use all day.¡± ¡°Can anyone learn these skills?¡± Basalt asks. Aunt Rosemary nods. ¡°Technically, yes. No one below Legendary rank has infinite time and Inspiration, though, so you have to pick and choose what skills you find worthwhile to learn.¡± ¡°Makes sense,¡± Basalt says. ¡°What in the world does Knowledge even do if it doesn¡¯t let me remember that that¡¯s an alder tree!?¡± I wonder. ¡°Am I just doing this wrong?¡± ¡°Let¡¯s discuss this further once we get back to school,¡± Aunt Rosemary says. ¡°We¡¯re almost there.¡± We arrive at the Spooky Grove and head inside. The kids always love a chance to do puzzles. We let them take the first shot at that while Anise, Rowan, Basalt and me break off to go visit Estelle at the Sleepy Raven. Anise even manages to get the briars to move off the path by herself. ¡°I¡¯m impressed,¡± I say. ¡°You didn¡¯t set anything on fire to get us here this time. Did you learn a new skill?¡± ¡°Oh, hush,¡± Anise says with a snicker. ¡°I¡¯ve just leveled up Sorcery (Get Out of My Way) some more.¡± ¡°There is no way you actually have a skill named that.¡± ¡°Basalt, are you scared of spiders?¡± I ask. ¡°No,¡± Basalt says, eying the creepy old inn. ¡°I¡¯m guessing this building is full of them.¡± Rowan and I already know we can handle the weak spiders in the inn without a problem, so we let Basalt get some axe practice in. Rowan keeps the monsters off of me while I telepathically relay information about the spiders¡¯ position and probable actions to Basalt. It¡¯s good practice to coordinate in a situation that isn¡¯t actually dangerous. For the Elite boss spider in the basement, we all work together to bring it down. Basalt¡¯s orcish axe cuts through limbs as if he were processing crab at a seafood market. I spend half the fight entangled in webs and have to give [Freedom of Movement] a workout in getting my movement free.
Skills increased: Clairvoyance (Telepathy), Enhanced Feet (Freedom of Movement)
Anise goes to harvest the spider¡¯s ichor. We let Basalt loot the chest, where he receives some coins (which he splits with us) and a pair of black leather boots that fit him perfectly and have a weak muffle effect on them softens his footsteps to whispers. ¡°Sweet,¡± Basalt says, dancing a quiet little jig that indicates he has absolutely no talent for dancing. ¡°Dungeon loot is awesome. Where to next?¡± ¡°Upstairs,¡± I say. ¡°There¡¯s someone I want to introduce you to.¡± We head back to the common room (killing the spiders that respawned in the past few minutes) and I locate the hidden staircase. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. ¡°You don¡¯t speak French by any chance, do you?¡± I wonder. ¡°I know bonjour, cliche, and deja vu,¡± Basalt replies. ¡°All of which might apply here.¡± The ghost poet deigns to become visible after we reach the top of the stairs. ¡°Bonjour, young dwarf. I hope this clich¨¦ is not too d¨¦j¨¤ vu for you.¡± ¡°Definitely must be French,¡± Basalt comments. ¡°She can pronounce the accent marks. Hello, I¡¯m Basalt Hebron.¡± ¡°You may call me Estelle. You, too, have embraced your name in this life?¡± ¡°Sure, why not?¡± Basalt says. ¡°I wasn¡¯t very attached to being Steve.¡± ¡°Very well, Basalt Hebron. Search this floor and answer my riddle and I will teach you a skill you will find useful.¡± ¡°Oh, great, I was always bad at riddles.¡± Estelle chuckles. ¡°Your party may help you if you wish.¡± I feel like the bored French ghost just does this to make people read her poetry and look at her art, because she can, but I can¡¯t blame her even if it¡¯s mildly annoying. After spending entirely longer than necessary poking her knickknacks for clues, we think we have the answer. ¡°True love,¡± Basalt tells her. ¡°Your thoughtful reply is correct,¡± Estelle says. ¡°Ah, to find true love in an age when love is forgotten.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think people forgot love just because they have a matrilineal kinship system,¡± I say. ¡°So what skill do you have in mind?¡± Basalt asks. ¡°Tell me, Basalt Hebron. What is your heart¡¯s desire? What do you wish to be able to do more than anything else? If you could do absolutely anything.¡± Basalt thinks on that for a bit before shrugging. ¡°I¡¯m not picky. I¡¯ll do whatever¡¯s useful to support my friends.¡± ¡°You truly have no desires of your own?¡± Estelle presses. ¡°When I played RPGs, I always took on whatever role the group lacked so they could play what they wanted,¡± Basalt says. ¡°Whether that was healing, picking locks, or whatever. I always wound up doing a lot of tanking, healing, farming, and crafting. Grinding is relaxing.¡± ¡°Very well. For someone who values friendship over personal ambition, I offer Enhanced Soul (Stalwart Pillar).¡± ¡°Sounds cool. What does it do?¡± ¡°You will receive bonuses to all skills you use to support your allies,¡± Estelle says. ¡°As a dwarf, you may also have higher affinity with [Stalwart Pillar] then average, as well. Come. Let us relocate to the courtyard and I will guide you.¡± We head downstairs (killing the spiders in the common room on the way by) and out to the overgrown courtyard. Under Estelle¡¯s direction, Rowan lifts me up onto his shoulders, and then climbs awkwardly onto Basalt¡¯s shoulders. ¡°This is a bit more literal of a pillar than I was expecting,¡± Basalt comments, gripping Rowan¡¯s legs and trying not to let us tip over. ¡°Now what?¡± Estelle spends time trying to explain esoteric magical concepts in simple enough terms. We fall, several times, and rebuild the pillar each time.
Skill increased: Enhanced Feet (Soft Landing)
¡°How exactly is this a soul skill?¡± Basalt wonders. ¡°I feel like all I¡¯m doing here is working on my balance and weight skills.¡± ¡°You must feel and connect with the souls of your companions, not merely their bodies,¡± Estelle says. ¡°Supporting them involves a deeper level than merely holding them up. It may help to learn some Clairvoyance skills first, but I do not believe it is necessary. Feel your companions just as you do the stone you work with. Do not fret that you haven¡¯t unlocked it right away. Continue to practice and all things are possible in time.¡± We leave the inn and meet up with the others, who have been having fun climbing trees and throwing pumpkins, and we head home. I settle back in to the library to work on Enhanced Mind. [Mental Library] is useful but limited. It copies a literal piece of paper into your mind, but I have neither the capability of making microdots nor of reading them since the allowed resolution of [Mental Library] is limited by your Perception attribute as if you were seeing it with your physical eyes. I can do better than this, so I start seeing about trying to unlock the [Mental Encyclopedia] skill Aunt Rosemary mentioned. Rather than strictly pages, I want to be able to store text articles with referential links to one another. I need a brain wiki. My [Mental Library] is packed with reference books at the moment, but they¡¯re not linked in any way and they¡¯re rather clunky to look up since it¡¯s just the equivalent of flipping through a book. All these reference books should be properly sticking themselves into my skills so that I can identify trees by looking at them. What¡¯s the point of this whole system otherwise? The only reason everyone in this world doesn¡¯t have the sum of all human knowledge accessible from their minds at the age of seven days old is because the system puts in restrictions and requirements. They¡¯re artificial and arbitrary, certainly, but I can understand why it doesn¡¯t want children under 7 to use physical enhancement skills yet. The skill doesn¡¯t even take long to unlock.
Skill increased: Enhanced Mind (Mental Encyclopedia)
Description: A system interface to keep cross-linked notes on various topics.
Encyclopedia active.
Your Intelligence has increased.
Sure enough, a new icon (shaped like a puzzle piece for some reason) has appeared in my HUD. It looks like it has the same limit as the library, except that it¡¯s 100 articles per skill level rather than pages. They each have a unique name denoting a topic and can hold more text as it seems to be storing text rather than just a copy of a page. I start off with that simple 37 page tree book. I understand that someone wanted to be concise in putting exactly one tree on each page, but why didn¡¯t they devote one of those pages to a table of contents? Anyway, I add the page on the alder tree to my new enyclopedia. That¡¯s fantastic. Now I¡¯m starting to feel like a mind mage. I¡¯d probably need to be Legendary to memorize the entirety of Wikipedia, but I can at least start at A. Or wherever. Mind magic seems to be very close to what the system itself is made from, and many Enhanced Mind skills directly tie in to system interfaces. If the system didn¡¯t exist, I would have been compelled to create it. It would probably have taken me longer, of course. This feels more like I¡¯m just unlocking systems features that already exist rather than actually learning to do anything. In any case, I spend some time inserting pages on various topics into my new [Mental Encyclopedia] and make sure to include some that mention other topics in order to test the links. I wind up gaining another two levels fiddling around with it. I am definitely fiddling more every time I have the Inspiration to do so because this is one I need to get as high as I can. If I can read books just by being near them, that also means I can read minds just by analyzing the concepts their mind is producing. This even completely bypasses language. I can learn how to automatically translate anything. By which I mean, the auto-translator will activate for languages I have not encountered before. Because the system essentially is just Enhanced Mind pulling the strings on everything else, you know, like the brain of the operation. Because it¡¯s your brain, duh. And from that, everything else is a controlling mechanism for other aspects of your physical and metaphysical being. I¡¯m pretty sure I could hack the system if I wanted to. I don¡¯t really want to. I¡¯m pretty sure Alexander Fizzlesnipe made the system somehow and that¡¯s why the memories of his later life were suppressed.
Skill increased: Recollection (Insight)
I didn¡¯t need the skillup to recognize that. And I don¡¯t think it¡¯s necessary. What would be the point? I¡¯m just here to have fun in my five million and some odd incarnation. Or to live my life as Drake Corwen and seek immortality on my own terms rather than merely dismissing my existence as that I¡¯ll just reincarnate again somewhere else. I could probably turn on my quest log at any time. I may be able to learn to see quests and Deeds or even read someone¡¯s ongoing quests. Alex designed cutting edge personal devices. From laptops, phones, and tablets, to glasses that read your neural patterns. I¡¯m not quite sure when the psychic powers showed up. It¡¯s ancient history, forever to be remembered and never to be forgotten unless we all forget. I¡¯m not at all worried that the memory of creating the system was conveniently blocked off.
Skill increased: Discipline (Self-Delusion)
No, seriously, I¡¯m not. This world is gloriously weird and beautiful and I want to do magic, build cool stuff, and fly. If I¡¯m responsible for the system, then I clearly must have done a good job because it¡¯s stable, intuitive, and adaptive. So if this is my game, then I¡¯m going to enjoy playing it. I¡¯ve been enjoying unraveling the nature of magic myself. Chapter 78: Another Year Done ¡°Do students at Crux Academy have to be 14, or can they start younger if they hit Elite early?¡± I wonder. Aunt Rosemary replies, ¡°The Academy is for Elite Apprentices, but there is a place that has an Elite Novice program. Mostly for overachieving reincarnators.¡± ¡°I resemble that remark.¡± ¡°What¡¯s so good about this Crux Academy?¡± Basalt asks. ¡°And do they have an adult program too? Am I even an adult, technically?¡± ¡°You spawned as an adult, yes. Journeyman tier is its technical term with regards to skills and classes. There are places for journeyman Elite schooling as well. And the reason Crux Academy is good for leveling skills is because, in addition to its extensive library and knowledgeable teachers, it is an extremely dangerous high level dungeon. The constant mortal peril, risk of being attacked by monsters in the corridors, and shifting hallways make even getting to your next class worth quite a bit of experience.¡± ¡°Cool, cool,¡± Basalt says. It has taken us a week since we got back to Corwen, but we¡¯re finally heading out to Grubwick to check in on Milo. At least he wasn¡¯t killed again this time. The kids and Meadow are staying behind this time, so it¡¯s just me, Anise, Rowan, Basalt, and Aunt Rosemary. ¡°So what sort of powers do you have, Rosemary?¡± Basalt wonders. ¡°They said you¡¯re Heroic.¡± ¡°I mostly focus on Wizardry and Incantation,¡± Aunt Rosemary says. ¡°That¡¯s the power of written and spoken words. Rest assured that I can handle anything below Epic rank that bothers us.¡± We do a quick run of the Hedge Maze on the way by and rest before moving on.
Skills increased: Enhanced Feet (Fast Travel), Enhanced Senses (Celestial Inspiration)
Every level of those is welcome, even if [Fast Travel] doesn¡¯t give much in the way of a speed bonus yet. I don¡¯t have any reason not to try to grind it whenever I have the opportunity. At least that one benefits from regularly visiting the same areas. We head into the caves and arrive at Grubwick, and are quickly ushered inside by enthusiastic goblins as Milo comes out of the warrens to greet us. ¡°Drake! Rowan!¡± Milo exclaims. ¡°Good to see you¡¯re alright. And who is this?¡± We have another round of introductions and another repeat of telling the story of what happened and what we did. I should really just write this down. Or better yet, unlock some Enhanced Mind skill to write things down in my head. ¡°With a new dungeon opened up, we ought to get that bridge built near the Wisteria Garden that we were planning on,¡± I say. Milo nods in agreement, leaning back in his chair and taking a sip of his cider. ¡°Good idea. And having you and a [Dwarf Handyman] on the crew would be great.¡± ¡°A bridge, huh?¡± Basalt says. ¡°Cool, cool. Never built a bridge before, but I started off with a bunch of skills like [Masonry], [Carpentry], and [Stoneworking] that should help.¡±
When we return to Hebron, it¡¯s accompanied by a Heroic adventuring party this time. Uncle Hawk¡¯s Epic-ranked party isn¡¯t available at the moment. After they conquered Muckburrow, left on a skyship to go run some dungeons in another domain. The Heroics don¡¯t want to wait until they get back to start exploring the new area, and if a pair of Basics survived there for weeks, it can¡¯t be too dangerous. It takes the remainder of the summer to arrange everything for building the bridge. The result is a much better bridge than the one we put over Skullburn Creek. It¡¯s also a lot larger considering this is bridging an actual river and not just water shallow enough that even a goblin can still touch the bottom. As we work, I watch with [Psychometry] as essence flows from us into the stone blocks. Human, goblin, and dwarf. More than that, I can see it being imprinted with concepts of friendship, cooperation, and connection. But the world isn¡¯t to let our efforts go unchallenged. I detect something approaching in the water, and send a warning to the construction crew and guards.
Category Monster
Type Reptile
Gender Male
Rank Heroic
Aspect Water
Disposition Hostile
Mood Angry
The water swells up, and the Basics are madly scrambling to higher ground before anything weird even starts happening. A huge, scaly creature like the unholy offspring of a crocodile and a beaver erupts from the river¡¯s surface. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. I don¡¯t panic. ¡°Only¡± Heroic. It¡¯s not something I have any hope of defeating on my own, but we have enough muscle here to take care of it without a problem. In fact, the Heroics on our side step back to let the Elites handle this and just keep their eyes open for any other enemies. ¡°Woo!¡± Anise exclaims, calling fire to her hands. ¡°And here I was afraid this was going to be boring!¡± Spells and weapons rip into the monster¡¯s hide. With a swish of its massive, broad tail, a flood of water surges over the Elite party. One of them puts up a shield spell, leaving them all still dry when the aquatic attack passes. After a short but fierce battle, there¡¯s just a corpse to be looted. The watching Basics cheer and clap, while the Heroics say ¡°good job¡± and make sure the skinning gets done properly. The goblins return to work as though an attack from a Heroic beaver-tailed crocodile is nothing more than a minor interruption. I remember how terrified we were at facing that Heroic orc woman. For a group of Elites, some of whom were crafters and not fighters, that was just a boss fight. With the Heroics here to step in if necessary, no one was even worried about it.
Skills increased: Crafting (Drafting, Masonry, Carpentry), Clairvoyance (Aura Sight, Psychometry), Search (Measurement)
We complete the bridge without any further interruptions. There¡¯s a big party in the Wisteria Garden, of the sort that involves a celebration and not an adventure. Apple cider is served, of which I¡¯m only allowed the non-alcoholic sort. That pompous True Artist, Valerian, even shows up to paint the scene. ¡°Do you just live in this dungeon here?¡± I wonder. ¡°Where are you from?¡± ¡°I am not here all the time, no, but it is a good place to work,¡± Valerian replies. ¡°My full name is Valerian Kinsale Thorn Tiganna. I see you are continuing to make waves.¡± ¡°I had nothing to do with the lizard-beaver monster,¡± I insist. ¡°Nor its waves.¡± ¡°Not directly, perhaps, but an avanc would not have emerged had your crew not attracted attention in building that bridge,¡± Valerian says, his brush strokes embellishing a group of dancing goblins. ¡°It is no matter. You have not chosen a dull life. We are all but bystanders when Heroes and Villains take the field. It is only for us to find what experience we may glean in their wake.¡±
Burdock turns 14 in September, and banners in the Hearth proclaim him to be a freshly-minted [Apprentice Witch]. I carve and paint a little wooden figurine theoretically depicting his cat, but it turns out the four ears are hard to get right. The seven-year-olds are a bit miffed that they don¡¯t get to go tower climbing this year, but slightly mollified by the promise of doing lots of dungeons next year. Rather than hoping nothing will interfere, I should prepare, because I doubt Tempest is going to let us go on an adventure without making sure that it¡¯s an adventure. With that, the skies turn red and swarm season is upon us once again. Aunt Savannah declares that this year is another undead march, with some bats thrown in just to be annoying. For the most part, the Elites take low-level fliers in the swarm season to just be an excuse to practice hitting a small moving target. Basalt stays in the Corwen guest house over the fall. Being trapped in Hebron is no way to spend the swarm season and there¡¯s no much the monsters can do if there isn¡¯t anyone there to eat. They never bother the Hedge Maze or Spooky Grove, only the Hearths where there are living people. ¡°There are seriously zombie hordes coming out every year?¡± Basalt says incredulously. ¡°Well, not specifically zombies,¡± I say. ¡°There¡¯s different monsters every year, though they rotate through some common types.¡± ¡°Cool, cool,¡± Basalt says. ¡°I suppose it beats having monsters roaming the surface year-round. Good chance to get in a little combat practice. Where do they even come from?¡± ¡°Somewhere deeper than the second layer, so far as I know,¡± I say. ¡°No one has given me a more clear answer than that. There¡¯s usually at least one Legendary ever year, so it must be pretty deep and dangerous.¡± At the end of November, I receive a small pile of gifts from friends and family, and a couple of welcome notifications of my own.
You are now 9 years old.
All physical attributes have increased by 1.
My gifts are primarily books, from a fictional adventures featuring skyship pirates to a reference book about architecture. Now if only I could make sense of whatever is going on with my Knowledge skills. I make Hearth Day gifts for my close family members. By which I mean the ones I like and whose names I can remember. My dear little sister gets a staff carved with what¡¯s at least supposed to be a snake on it. Willow and Griffin get figurines of dinosaurs, which they just take to be some sort of monster. My painted wood carvings still aren¡¯t terribly good, but it¡¯s enough to convince the system that they were made with love. I¡¯m recruited to help roast Snookums for the Hearth Day feast as well, in Corwen¡¯s fine yearly tradition of eating monstrous devil-goats for our Not-Christmas dinner. With an apple stuffed in the mouth.
Skills increased: Crafting (Woodworking, Painting, Cooking), Enhanced Hands (Labor of Love)
Meadow gives birth to a boy on December 19th, but by tradition he¡¯s not to be given a name for seven days so we¡¯re celebrating Hearth Day with a nameless baby. Her aura radiates joy, relief, and exhaustion. On the 26th, we hold the naming ceremony, where my Hearthmates and I declare the boy to be named Glen. I join in as the people of the Hearth sing winter carols about skymotes to the tune of Greensleeves. Finally, the year ends with streaks of light into the sky as it turns violet again, heralding the start of winter and a new year.
It is now Year 739 of the Age of the Green Fox.
Chapter 79: Gawking High and Low ¡°It¡¯s good to be back in Tempest, and we¡¯re eager to see the new area you unlocked,¡± Uncle Hawk says. ¡°Pity we weren¡¯t here six months ago. After we took care of Muckburrow, we went to Hush to visit Violet¡¯s Hearth and run some dungeons out that way that we were finally high enough ranked for.¡± The Heroics managed to squeeze in some exploration last year before swarm season set in, even if some of them hung around to guard the bridge builders. Heroic adventurers are much more common around here than Epic ones. Reports from them indicate that it¡¯s fortunate we were so close to the edge of the domain, and difficulty ramps up the further south they go. ¡°I¡¯m still not sure why the In-Between hasn¡¯t been explored before,¡± I say. ¡°We had two Legendary adventurers living here, after all.¡± Uncle Hawk shakes his head. ¡°My mother and Aunt Laurel didn¡¯t reach Legendary in this domain. They traveled a lot, but once they hit Legendary and were no longer in danger of dying from old age, they came back to spend some time with their family. A vacation that lasted a few decades, but once you don¡¯t age, you can afford to do so.¡± ¡°I see,¡± I say. ¡°For the most part, Tempest¡¯s Middle Caverns¡ªas they¡¯re called in other domains¡ªhaven¡¯t been accessible,¡± Uncle Hawk goes on. ¡°It only opens up during swarm season, and it¡¯s too dangerous for most people to go investigate then. Stable openings like the ones near Grubwick and Splott? Those are new. That you and Rowan wound up falling into the second layer by ¡®accident¡¯ is a strong indication that Tempest wants us to go down there and explore now.¡± Along with Uncle Hawk¡¯s Epic-ranked party, I¡¯ll be traveling with Anise, Meadow, and Basalt. Our first stop will be Talgarth to pick up Rowan, who spent the fall with his family. Uncle Hawk¡¯s party includes a dwarf named Schist, who is fascinated to meet a newly spawned dwarf from a lost Hearth. They spend much of the trip chattering with one another and Basalt shoring up his ¡°pop culture dwarf¡± knowledge with whatever dwarves in this world are actually like. (Which still seems like ¡°pop culture dwarves¡± to me, but I¡¯ll admit I¡¯m not paying close attention to the conversation.) The snows are deep this year, but that¡¯s not a problem with the group we¡¯re traveling with. Violet, the pink-haired elf in Uncle Hawk¡¯s party, uses a skill that makes the whole group simply walk on top of the snow. That¡¯s well beyond Enhanced Feet (Walk on Top of Snow Like a Freaking Elf) or whatever the name of the skill is. Maybe this is Hermetics (Make Your Whole Party Walk on Snow Like Freaking Elves). I¡¯m sure she¡¯d tell me the name of the skill if I asked, but I don¡¯t bother. I¡¯m not even entirely sure what Hermetics is, besides the form of magic associated with the feet for some reason. Talgarth is in spitting distance of the edge but isn¡¯t close enough to actually look over. The bridge we built last year is still standing strong over the River Lear. ¡°Is this that new bridge you built?¡± Uncle Hawk asks. ¡°That¡¯s a nice Deed for everyone involved.¡± ¡°I only really played a small part in it,¡± I say. I look across the water warily to see if I can spot the aura of another avanc, but no lizard-beaver monsters (or any other sort of monsters, for that matter) come into view today. I suppose having an Epic-rank adventuring party with us is a bit of a deterrent. And Tempest is probably short on Legendary surface bosses at the moment, what with swarm season having just ended. When we get to Talgarth, Violet has to clear out the snow around the gate with magic before we can go inside. ¡°I wasn¡¯t expecting you to show up so soon after New Year,¡± Rowan says, meeting us inside the guest house. Uncle Hawk chuckles. ¡°Well, it won¡¯t be winter underground, so I figure it¡¯s a perfect time to explore the second layer.¡± Rowan gets his adventuring gear in order and we head out for the caves in the morning. The entrance is buried in snow and if we didn¡¯t already know exactly where it was, we might completely miss it. At least if we didn¡¯t have an Epic Ranger along with us who probably has a bunch of skills to help with that. Once inside the caverns, we no longer need skills to keep us warm. We make a quick stop at Splott¡¯s lakeside encampment to say hi and let them know we¡¯re here. They¡¯re just getting started on reclaiming and cleaning up the inn after monsters swept by, but fortunately they tend not to damage inanimate objects much. From there, it¡¯s on to Hebron following Basalt¡¯s cairn markers. We¡¯d been back here to guide the Heroics last year, but hadn¡¯t stayed long. Just enough to let Hebron know they¡¯re cool and to open the way for them, but since there¡¯s Corwens in the party, it¡¯s happy to accommodate us. I¡¯m itching to get down there and explore myself, but everyone insists that I need to grow up and level up more. While I can¡¯t exactly argue, it doesn¡¯t make it any less of an itch. ¡°The staircase isn¡¯t very impressive right now,¡± Basalt says. ¡°I haven¡¯t had a chance to make it pretty for dignified guests or anything.¡± Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. Uncle Hawk chuckles. ¡°Not to worry. It does its job, and that¡¯s the important part, right?¡± We give the Epics a tour of the place, and they seem far more fascinated in the carvings of elephants than expected. ¡°This was the Legendary Apocalypse of 100?¡± says the dwarf, Schist. ¡°I¡¯ve heard tales of the Safari Apocalypse, but to see it documented like this¡­¡± ¡°The¡­ Safari Apocalypse?¡± I have to ask. ¡°That¡¯s what they called it,¡± Schist says. ¡°I¡¯ve only seen it mentioned in history books and heard it spoken in whispers by ancient Legendaries. Apocalypses tend to bring strange creatures not normally found in a domain.¡± ¡°I would have really preferred that there not be one apocalypse, never mind needing to use a plural, but this is the world we live in¡­¡± We stay in Hebron for a week as the Epics get their subterranean expedition going before we Basics and Elites return to the surface. We no longer have Epics to guide us and keep the weather off of us, which on the upside means that we might actually get some skill levels now.
Skill increased: Survival (Cold Resistance)
Like so. Seeing numbers going up is totally worth all the shivering and sinking into the snow. ¡°Why, exactly, are we coming back out into the cold while they¡¯re exploring the nice, warm caves?¡± Rowan grumbles. ¡°Ah, come on,¡± Anise says. ¡°It¡¯s a good chance to train your Survival skills! Anyway, our next stop is Amroth.¡± ¡°I haven¡¯t been to Amroth before,¡± Rowan says. ¡°Despite it not being too far from Talgarth.¡± ¡°What¡¯s Amroth?¡± Basalt asks. ¡°It¡¯s a city out on the edge of the domain,¡± Anise says. ¡°Well, I say ¡®city¡¯, but it¡¯s a city so far as Tempest is concerned. The entirety of Gleam, Flux, and Rust domains are cities. That¡¯s hard to imagine, yeah? Anyway, there¡¯ll be a bunch of people, and one of the main skyports in the domain is in Amroth so there¡¯s a lot of foreigners who come through.¡± As we near the edge of Tempest Domain, the clouds overhead start to break and afford a stunning view of the violet sky over snow lit by gleaming green, yellow, and orange skymotes. The disc of Zenith above us reflects the yellow light of Tiganna. The ¡°horizon¡± grows steadily brighter as we approach the point where the ground simply stops, and as we crest the final hill, we see it. Perched upon the edge of the world sits a shanty town encircling a large Hearth. A massive, smooth, beige-gray wall forms a half-circle right up to the drop-off. Skyships of different sizes and styles hover over the port, tied to each dock as if they were balloons about to float away otherwise.
You have discovered Amroth.
Skills increased: Survival (Hiking), Enhanced Feet (Mapping Step)
Anise leads us away from the town gates and toward a side path with a sign labeled Gawker¡¯s Overlook. A balcony with a sturdy railing hangs slightly off the edge, giving a good view all around us. The other only occupants at the moment are a young man and woman making out, who ignore us tourist kids. Just below the disc of Tempest, the crystalline ¡°sun¡± shines with a cold yellow light that does nothing to assuage the winter¡¯s chill. The three city domains, Gleam, Flux, and Rust, hover in the sky just below it and to the side. Far below, the wilderness of Thorn stretches out into its own wide disc five times the size of Tempest. To the left, the lands of Crux sprawl out in hexagon-shaped farm fields, suburbs, and urban centers. It¡¯s hard to make out the details from here but it¡¯s definitely covered in a distinct hex grid. Clouds drift freely through the skymote¡¯s atmosphere. Snow gathers into flurries that twist through the air to fall into a domain¡¯s gravity. Gleam gleams with a white blanket covering its many buildings and filling up the cup created by the wall that borders the entire edge of the domain. In Wonderland, the sight of the starless Void filled me with dread. But even the soft violet light of early winter is light, and the sight of the Great Orb is comforting. It¡¯s a sign that we will be remembered, not consigned to dissipate into slowly cooling atoms. (Sometimes I wish I didn¡¯t understand what Alex understood about the universe.) The sight of the glorious sky floods me with Inspiration. I try to scan the large aether core in front of me. It¡¯s much too far for my normal Clairvoyance, but I can detect the aether pouring off of it as it reaches me. I can¡¯t even identify half the concepts I¡¯m seeing, though. Still, I can pick out freedom and travel, and use that burst of Inspiration to draw them into me.
Skills increased: Enhanced Senses (Celestial Inspiration), Clairvoyance (Aether Sense), Enhanced Feet (Fast Travel, Freedom of Movement)
Your Perception has increased.
Your Max Inspiration has increased.
¡°You can visit all the domains in Tiganna someday,¡± Anise says. ¡°Once you¡¯re high enough level to handle the curse. Maybe someday you¡¯ll even be able to fly to another skymote.¡± I need to visit the edge more often. Being able to see Tiganna and the other domains massively increases the amount of Inspiration I can generate. I¡¯m suddenly looking forward to visiting Crux, not for classes or whatever but just for that alone. We eventually stop gawking and leave Gawker¡¯s Overlook to head through the gates. Meadow leads the way as we make our way down the haphazard streets. A large wooden building sports a sign that says Adventurer¡¯s Guild. Of course there¡¯s an adventurer¡¯s guild. Why wouldn¡¯t there be an adventurer¡¯s guild? Meadow heads toward it, and we follow suit. ¡°What are we looking for here?¡± I ask. ¡°Jobs?¡± ¡°Visitors,¡± Meadow says. ¡°No one specific. Either a foreign adventuring party at Elite or Heroic rank looking to hire on a local, or a solo adventurer at Basic or Elite rank willing to join our party for a while.¡± ¡°Why foreigners, specifically?¡± I wonder. ¡°People are stronger in their own domain and weaker in another,¡± Meadow explains. ¡°Unless they have a local in their party. So long as at least one person from the domain is in the party, they won¡¯t get the penalty.¡± ¡°Cool system,¡± Basalt says. ¡°It applies to skymotes, too,¡± Meadow goes on. ¡°Someone who isn¡¯t from Tiganna will be weaker here too, and the other way around.¡± ¡°Why are they called motes if they¡¯re thousands of kilometers across?¡± I wonder. Anise shrugs. ¡°They¡¯re pretty small when they¡¯re very far away.¡± Meadow opens the door and we file into the guildhall. Chapter 80: The Adventurers Guild
You have discovered the Amroth Adventurers¡¯ Guild.
The guildhall bustles with activity and is much larger on the inside than the outside. There¡¯s practically an entire mall in here. A number of people in traveling garb (including more non-humans than I¡¯ve seen in one place before) crowd the bar area and peruse the bulletin boards, completely undeterred by it being winter. No one bats an eye at a nine-year-old carrying a healer¡¯s staff. A sign on a wall reads ¡®NO FLOJ!¡¯ with a red circle and diagonal line over an outline of a blue bottle. Dark auras surround two reincarnators in the room. Judging by the furry feet, one of them is an actual halfling. He notices my look and nods to me before returning his attention to his bowl of stew. The other is a tall, blond human decked out in striped fur pelts who is too busy sampling the local beverages to care about anything else. Every reincarnator shares a common knowledge of a world unlike this. We understand things these young souls have no concept of. A big sign over one of the boards reads ¡®Looking For Group¡¯ while the others have postings for Basic, Elite, and Heroic quests. A sign notes that while membership is not required for Basic-rank quests, you need to join for quests of Elite rank and higher. In the opposite corner from the bar and inn area, a giant spider in a suit ¡®mans¡¯ the help desk. ¡°Duuude,¡± Basalt utters in awe. ¡°This place is beautiful.¡± Meadow goes over to inspect the group board, and Basalt sidles over to the Basic quest list. I follow him, and Rowan and Anise follow me. Fortunately, the room is large and is built with the expectation that people will be trying to move around in groups of three to six people. I watch the flow of aether and vis through the area and realize that the Adventurers¡¯ Guild building is a dungeon separate from the Hearth to the west. There¡¯s definitely a source of aether a short way to the east as well. Basalt says, ¡°Can we run this standing quest for killing rats in the basement?¡± ¡°Sure, that¡¯s a good baby quest to cut your teeth on,¡± Anise says. ¡°And there¡¯s fewer legs than the spiders.¡± She notices the aranea at the help desk next to her. ¡°No offense. I mean the monster giant spiders in the Spooky Grove. You have the perfect number of legs.¡± The aranea makes an implausibly human-sounding giggle. ¡°None taken. Those are just puppets made of protean plasm, not real spiders.¡± Rowan steps up to the help desk and asks, ¡°What sort of things can you help with? I have a quest on my log that has been incomplete for years and I¡¯ve never run across a lead for.¡± ¡°Stalled quests are always a bother,¡± the friendly giant spider says. ¡°I suggest you ask the guy behind the smoothie counter if he has heard anything. Buy an expensive drink if he hesitates and thinks he¡¯s being coy.¡± Rowan goes over to the counter and asks the smoothie guy if he has heard anything about a Talgarth family sword. He¡¯s an obese human at Heroic rank who looks to be in his thirties, and he bears a nametag that reads, ¡®Hello, my name is BIRCH¡¯. Birch says, ¡°I might know something. If we were friends. And friends help one another level up their skills. I have exotic beverages from distant domains here. Have you tasted the oranges of Zenith? The melons of Crux?¡± ¡°Drake,¡± Basalt says quietly. ¡°You said Milo¡¯s a businessman, right? I think I know what to do with some of those grapes¡­¡± ¡°I did not expect there to be a counter in the Adventurers¡¯ Guild selling smoothies with exotic fruits,¡± I say. Rowan winds up buying a strawberry-kiwi-lime-goat yogurt smoothie, which he admits he actually really likes. ¡°Go to the east dock at violet,¡± the smoothie guy whispers dramatically. ¡°The password is ¡®mahimahi¡¯. Bring only Basics.¡± ¡°Those are incredibly suspicious instructions,¡± Rowan says. Birch laughs, playfulness rippling through his aura. ¡°Just messing with you, kid.¡± Rowan isn¡¯t amused. ¡°It¡¯s not like I keep track of every piece of contraband that passes through town,¡± Birch says. ¡°Check the junk shop by the east dock and ask Wren. She keeps track of every piece of contraband that passes through town.¡± ¡°Noted, thank you,¡± Rowan says. We get something to eat before we go anywhere. As we¡¯re eating a bowl of the guild¡¯s most generic stew ever, I listen in on the conversations going on around me and learn a few interesting things.
Skill increased: Subterfuge (Eavesdropping)
¡°I caught my cousin doing floj,¡± someone says. ¡°We can¡¯t afford treatment. Hopefully I can make enough money from this quest to pay someone to remove the curse. I don¡¯t want to have to borrow coin from the Halkyns again.¡± This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. Meadow returns to interrupt my eavesdropping. ¡°Well, that was kind of a bust. I found a party looking for a local to hook up with, but their leader is a Heroic whose class does everything mine does better. I did see a note about a Basic-rank girl named Wren looking for a group. It said to meet her at the junk shop by the east dock at red.¡± ¡°Wren?¡± Rowan says. ¡°The guy at the smoothie counter told me to ask me about my family¡¯s sword, too. And he made me buy an expensive delicious drink, too! Oh well.¡± Once I finish eating, I head out to explore town a little in the meantime, although it seems like the inside of the Adventurers¡¯ Guild is bigger than the entire rest of the town. The Hearth and guildhall are maybe a kilometer apart, situated on opposite sides of a cluster of ramshackle buildings. Corwen only has one shop, while Amroth has several specializing in different goods with imports from across Tiganna. The town has a bookstore with a discount rack. Overstock of last year¡¯s bestsellers. I know a friendly ghost who wouldn¡¯t mind some fresh reading material, so I grab a few books with novels with covers of half-naked men, roses, and flowery fonts proclaiming titles like Eternal Love, Forbidden Temptation, and Sensual Redemption. I also grab a pulp adventure novel for myself. The cashier gives an odd look at the nine-year-old boy buying romance novels. ¡°¡­ they¡¯re for a quest,¡± I mutter. The man chuckles and says, ¡°I didn¡¯t say a word. That¡¯ll be 4 silver.¡± I pass over the coins and tuck the books into my pack. Before the day ends, since we need to wait to make contact anyway, I want to get some enhancement training done. We rent a suite in the guildhall¡¯s underground inn and I leave my pack there. I borrow a pillow from my room and find a balcony overlooking the edge to take a seat on. I rest my staff across my legs, glad that [Labor of Love] at least made the snake carving on the top recognizable this time. (Anise follows along, not letting her son out of her sight in an unfamiliar place.) The aether core of Tiganna has faded from yellow to orange since we arrived, but there¡¯s still time to get some work done and put [Celestial Inspiration] to good use. Skills are based on concepts, and I¡¯m pretty sure I can absorb any concept and shape it into any skill I can conceive of. Knowing that doesn¡¯t make it easier to actually do so. It¡¯s like having to understand how gravity works before you can build a bridge. Actually designing it and building it is the hard part. I think about myself and who I am as I draw the concepts around me into my soul. The four mental stats counterbalance the four physical stats. Intelligence is mental Dexterity. Willpower is mental Endurance. Charisma is mental Strength. Which makes Soul mental Perception. Clairvoyance is essentially just Search with non-physical eyes. What does that mean for Enhanced Soul? That I should be able to carry over anything that might have gone into Enhanced Senses, just with my third eye instead? Hmm. I do believe I know where to start, too. [Fantastic Inspiration] is nice, but limited. [Celestial Inspiration] is wonderful, but again, limited. Useless if I can¡¯t see the sky or read a book, and I hate getting Inspiration by imagining social media arguments about science fiction stories that make no sense in the setting I¡¯ve found myself in. Magic itself is beautiful and inspirational. The flows of aether, the heartbeats of vis, the formations of essence, the bursts of experience. I could watch it forever, and I grasp that feeling and draw it into my soul.
Skills increased: Enhanced Soul (Gentle Soul, Salubrity, Identity, Fractal Consciousness)
Skill acquired: Enhanced Soul (Mystic Inspiration)
Description: The ability to relax your mind and gain Inspiration by watching the flows of conceptual energy.
There¡­ that¡¯s the skill I¡¯ve been looking for. One that¡¯s been waiting on the edge of my perception for me to make the necessary connections. The concepts have to align, and I have to understand. Today, I feel like I could do anything. As the core¡¯s light fades from orange to red, I remember that we have a clandestine meeting with a smoothie guy to get to. Grabbing my pilfered pillow, I return to the Adventurers¡¯ Guild and meet up with Rowan in our suite. ¡°Is it red already?¡± Rowan yawns. ¡°I got a nap in. I was afraid we¡¯d wind up spending all night doing skulduggery or whatever.¡± ¡°Who knows?¡± Anise says brightly. ¡°Where¡¯s Basalt?¡± Rowan shakes his head and shrugs, so we head out to the common area. One of the rooms in the guildhall is used for adventurers playing games. One table has a few people playing Leaves. Two are playing chess. And one corner has a jigsaw puzzle set up that a couple of others are staring at. Basalt is here watching along with a few other spectators. He spots us and rejoins the group. A squat building stands off the side of the road leading up to the eastern dock. The placard outside is illegible, and the door jingles a bell as we step inside. An impressive array of miscellany fills every spare centimeter of shelf space in this building. From old lamps to boots to magitech devices I can¡¯t begin to guess the function of, this might be a good place to find some random knickknack you never knew you needed. A bookish young man wearing glasses greets us as we come in. ¡°Welcome to The Dragon¡¯s Hoard, where you will find treasures fit for a dragon¡¯s hoard!¡± ¡°Yeah, if the dragon is a hoarder,¡± a girl¡¯s voice pipes in. ¡°Wren, you know Fern Amroth hates when employees say negative things about her shop,¡± the man admonishes. ¡°Pff, I¡¯m off shift now, so I can say what I want. Have fun dealing with the weirdos that come out at night.¡± A wiry 15 year old girl clad in well-worn leather emerges from the back room.
Category Person
Race Human
Gender Female
Rank Basic
Class Rogue
Disposition Neutral
Mood Curious
¡°Are you Wren Farlow Rust?¡± Meadow asks. ¡°That¡¯s me,¡± Wren says. ¡°Are you adventurers here about my LFG post? Man, I would like nothing better than to be able to sign on with an adventuring party and quit this dump.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not a dump,¡± the spectacled man protests. ¡°It is a stunning collection of priceless treasures.¡± Basalt holds up a fancy mug. ¡°This one has a tag that says ¡®10 silver¡¯ on it.¡± ¡°Ah, yes, that¡¯s the Sacred Chalice of the Dwarf-Fathers. It is said to have been drunk from for generations of¡ª Stop laughing, Wren!¡± ¡°Oh, Cliff, you are so full of it,¡± Wren says between giggles. ¡°Do you really think anyone is going to be fooled into thinking that is a sacred chalice?¡± Cliff sighs. ¡°You are off-shift, so why don¡¯t you just leave before you ruin any further chances I have at selling anything?¡± ¡°And if these nice adventurers sign me on, I¡¯m not coming back here except to get my last week¡¯s pay,¡± Wren says. ¡°And then you won¡¯t have to deal with my attitude ever again.¡± ¡°Until they get tired of your attitude and send you crawling back here,¡± Cliff says. ¡°I like her,¡± Anise says. ¡°She¡¯s funny.¡± Chapter 81: Completely Gratuitous Basement Rats We agree to take Wren on for a trial run killing basement rats to see how well we work together and whether we can get along with her or not. Seeing as the closest thing we had to a Rogue was me, the addition isn¡¯t an unwelcome one. ¡°My class is [Apprentice Rogue],¡± Wren says. ¡°What are yours?¡± ¡°[Apprentice Guardian],¡± Rowan says. ¡°[Dwarf Handyman],¡± Basalt says. ¡°[Psychic Child],¡± I say. ¡°Huh, so you are a reincarnator. I thought you looked a little young to be an adventurer. You¡¯re clearly human.¡± ¡°You have higher Perception than average,¡± I say. Wren turns to Basalt. ¡°And a handyman? At least you¡¯ve got an axe.¡± ¡°Didn¡¯t get to choose my class when I spawned,¡± Basalt says. ¡°Don¡¯t worry. I¡¯m a dwarf, so I still get bonuses to axes.¡±
Morning sees us heading for the stairs to the rat-infested basement. Anise and Meadow let us do this by ourselves so that we don¡¯t lose out on experience. This is a highly regulated encounter inside of a licensed Adventurers¡¯ Guild, so there¡¯s no real danger to a group of Basics, for better or worse. As much as I appreciate my mom always looking out for me, sometimes it¡¯s nice to not have her hovering around me all the time, ready to set fire to anything that annoys me. The basement for the quest is down two flights of stairs from the ground floor, and a man at the gate takes our quest ticket as if he were directing us into a movie theater. At the barest glance, the Adventurers¡¯ Guild rat run looks like you might expect from an inn¡¯s basement. Barrels and crates clutter a dim room lit only by a flickering crystal lamp on the ceiling. A scurrying sound echoes from the shadows, and a door at the far end indicates that this isn¡¯t the only room. Basalt takes a peek into the closest barrel. ¡°Empty.¡± ¡°Are you really going to look inside every barrel?¡± Rowan asks. Basalt shrugs. ¡°It would probably be quicker just to break them open with an axe and see if they drop anything.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s put a hold on that for the moment,¡± Rowan says. ¡°How many rats are in the room, Drake?¡± ¡°Five,¡± I say, telepathically pointing out their locations to my party. ¡°Nice,¡± Wren says. ¡°That¡¯s totally worth having a nine-year-old along.¡± The rats in this room are about the size of a coyote. As soon as they spot us, they all rush out to blindly attack us. A pair of daggers appear in Wren¡¯s hands, and she grins as she leaps into the fray. From the way she moves, she¡¯s a bit higher level than me, but given that she¡¯s also older than me that¡¯s not surprising. I take on rats with my staff, trying to block their attacks and retaliate as best as I can, but a few bites get through. My staff doubles as a symbol of healing, though, and I dump Inspiration into [Rapid Healing] as I grit my teeth and power through. Once we¡¯re done with this room, I go over to open the door at the far end. It opens into another identical room, this time with six rats in it. As we¡¯re making our way through the implausibly large rat-infested basement, Rowan asks Wren about his sword. ¡°When exactly did you get this quest?¡± Wren wonders. ¡°Four years ago,¡± Rowan says. ¡°I wasn¡¯t even here four years ago,¡± Wren says. ¡°I was 11 and still in Rust.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not like I had any leads regardless. I only thought my uncle was going off to fight goblins. So that may well have led to it. But it didn¡¯t and I¡¯m stuck.¡± ¡°Alright, well, I¡¯ll get in touch with my contacts and see if they¡¯ve heard anything,¡± Wren says. ¡°But in four years, either someone bought it and has been killing monsters with it, or it¡¯s sitting in a vault somewhere collecting dust.¡± ¡°Hopefully it¡¯s the latter,¡± Rowan says. ¡°What was your uncle¡¯s name? That would be an easier lead than some generic sword.¡± ¡°Wolf Talgarth Tempest.¡± ¡°I promised to help him with his quest and then got distracted learning to build a goblin kayak,¡± I say. ¡°Sorry.¡± Wren grins widely. ¡°You¡¯re a quest denier too? Or at least ¡®procrastinator¡¯. I¡¯m kind of impressed that anyone who waited four years to think about following up on a quest ever got around to it.¡± ¡°You¡¯re a quest denier?¡± Rowan asks. ¡°Yep,¡± Wren says. ¡°Why do you think I¡¯m here and not still in Rust? I don¡¯t trust quests or the cores that give them and think they¡¯re manipulating our lives and everyone else goes along with them way too blindly.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t receive quests,¡± I say. ¡°My core decided to hide my quest screen just to see what I¡¯d do.¡± I pause. ¡°This is something of a secret but I¡¯m sure you don¡¯t have any reason to go telling everyone.¡± This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. ¡°Now that is interesting,¡± Wren says. ¡°Also hilarious. Kind of proves my point, though. They¡¯re fickle and do things just for entertainment. They don¡¯t have our best interests in heart at all.¡± ¡°They¡¯re alien. They don¡¯t think like people.¡± Wren nods. ¡°And as such, it¡¯s hopeless to try to understand them or predict what they might do.¡± ¡°Wait, there¡¯s a quest screen?¡± Basalt says in puzzlement. ¡°You don¡¯t have the icon either?¡± I say. Basalt shakes his head. ¡°Nope, no quest icon. Guess my core decided to do the same thing.¡± ¡°Mine just assigned me to Drake¡¯s party,¡± Rowan says. ¡°And Drake thinks I should do whatever I want. And doesn¡¯t do like the Heroes in those adventure novels who just tell their henchmen ¡®Follow me.¡¯ He actually says what he¡¯s doing and why and asks if you want to come.¡± Wren is laughing aloud by this point. ¡°You know¡­ I think you must be the first people I¡¯ve ever met who I didn¡¯t have to worry about them suddenly getting a quest to get them to do something annoying. Don¡¯t suppose you¡¯d want to take me on in a more long-term position?¡± ¡°We¡¯re a mess,¡± I say. ¡°Stay as long as you like, if you want to see us messing up quests left and right. There¡¯s another guy with no quests, who was born at the same time as me. A goblin reincarnator who decided to make friends with humans and set up trade agreements instead of become a Dark Lord. You wouldn¡¯t believe me if I told you how our first meeting went.¡± ¡°I heard something about the goblins being weirdly peaceful lately,¡± Wren says. ¡°That was you? Sheesh, that sort of Deed should have gotten you to Elite. Why are you still Basic?¡± ¡°Because Tempest gave me a quest to kill him, and I didn¡¯t know it until my core let me see my quest screen when I turned 7 so I could pick a class. It was even offering me the [Heroic Child] class as a reward.¡± ¡°Duuude,¡± Basalt says. ¡°You didn¡¯t mention that part.¡± ¡°A good reward can tempt even the most stubborn quest denier,¡± Wren says. ¡°I have a feeling it will be just as hard for you guys to get to Elite as it will be for me.¡± Rowan groans. ¡°I¡¯d been hoping to reach Elite before turning 14 and this other kid who was with us for a while got Elite at 12.¡± ¡°I would really like to analyze the aura of someone who is becoming Elite,¡± I say. ¡°Last time I saw it, I wasn¡¯t good enough at Clairvoyance yet and didn¡¯t have the Enhanced Soul skills I now have.¡± ¡°That definitely sounds like something a [Psychic Child] would say,¡± Wren says. We finish up the dungeon and loot the chest at the end. Just a handful of coins, split four ways, each of them marked with a rat face on the heads side and an Adventurers¡¯ Guild building on the tails side. I didn¡¯t really expect any special rewards for such a basic run. With our bounty in hand (or pocket), we head back upstairs.
Skills increased: Clairvoyance (Aura Sight, Telepathy), Discipline (Battle Trance, Pain Tolerance), Blocking (Staffwork), Striking (Bashing), Athletics (Dodging), Enhanced Heart (Rapid Healing)
At this point, we¡¯re obligated to do some paperwork. The worst part is that I¡¯ve never actually thought of a name for our party and now people are expecting me to think of one. I wrack my brain for something decent that isn¡¯t already taken. (Fortunately, I can quickly check against the guild¡¯s registry to see what¡¯s been taken.) After thinking on it hard and immediately rejecting a number of possibilities, I suggest, ¡°Rainbow Knights?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not a knight,¡± Basalt says. ¡°I¡¯m not a rainbow,¡± Rowan adds. ¡°Okay, okay,¡± I say. ¡°How about¡­ Epileptic Trees?¡± ¡°This is an adventuring party, not a metal band,¡± Basalt says. ¡°Maybe something that actually slightly describes us?¡± Rowan says. I hmm and consider what might describe us. Our one distinguishing characteristic over all these other parties is that we aren¡¯t beholden to quests. I don¡¯t want to put down something that immediately says ¡®screw quests¡¯, just in case we wind up running into trouble for it, though. ¡°Defiant Seekers?¡± I say. ¡°That one sounds cool,¡± Basalt says. With the others nodding in agreement, I put that one down. Anise shows up with a pickaxe in hand. ¡°Hey, Basalt! I got you a late spawnday present. Or early, or whatever.¡± ¡°Oh, sweet.¡± Basalt takes it gratefully and examines it. ¡°And it¡¯s iron, too!¡± ¡°Yeah, the Flux Imports shop is the best place to find iron and steel around here. We mostly just have extra dungeon drops at Corwen and the local dungeons don¡¯t drop many metal tools.¡± ¡°This will be a definite upgrade over the stone picks Drake¡¯s been making me,¡± Basalt says. ¡°Mom, did you have a quest to bring us here?¡± I ask Anise as we settle in for lunch. ¡°No. We were close and I thought it would be cool to look over the edge. I didn¡¯t just want to go straight home. I was bored of sitting around. Aunt Savannah has been smothering. I didn¡¯t hear you objecting, though.¡± ¡°It sounded fun,¡± I say. ¡°I was feeling sore about not being able to explore the second layer more but seeing something new that I can see is cool.¡± Anise goes on, ¡°Plus, adding Basalt gives you three party members who aren¡¯t from the same Hearth, which is a requirement to register your party with the Adventurer¡¯s Guild. And I wanted to support Meadow, and she was already coming here to look for a party because our cousins are pregnant and she¡¯s trying to get in more dungeons before we¡¯re suddenly aunts.¡± ¡°Aunts,¡± Meadow says, making a face. ¡°It makes me feel like I¡¯m suddenly getting old. I was already late to get to Elite. And seeing how little I was involved with the goblin thing, I think me and Daisy got the rank-ups that were supposed to go to Drake and Milo. I mean, we weren¡¯t surprised. It would have been a big enough Deed to count for the whole party even if we didn¡¯t do much.¡± ¡°I recently unlocked a new skill that will make it easier to figure out some neat stuff about how experience actually works,¡± I say. ¡°I¡¯m sure someone, somewhere, knows everything about all of this already, but I haven¡¯t run across anyone in Tempest at least who specializes in psychic skills.¡± ¡°Yeah, there¡¯s so few people in Tempest that there might be one in Tempest for every ten in Rust,¡± Wren says. ¡°I can see the quests on your soul,¡± I say, peering at her thoughtfully. ¡°They¡¯re like frozen lightning hanging on the edge of your aura, waiting for the right trigger.¡± ¡°That¡¯s¡­ kind of creepy, actually.¡± ¡°I might even be able to¡ª¡± I can see the quests in her aura, but when I got to analyze them, I just get a blank window. Right, I guess that¡¯s trying to use the same quest display interface that is blocked off for me. I roll my eyes and filter the information through [Aspect Analysis] instead.
Aspects: life, hearth, motherhood
I blink, blushing in embarrassment upon seeing what, exactly, her core is demanding of her. ¡°Um. Sorry.¡± ¡°I suggest we all avoid unnecessary romantic nonsense and just be friends, ¡¯kay?¡± Wren says, looking at the other guys. ¡°You could be my daughter,¡± Basalt says. ¡°I¡¯m not so crass,¡± Rowan says. ¡°I already have too many women thinking I¡¯m handsome and it¡¯s really awkward.¡± ¡°Well, you look like your physical stats are pretty high,¡± Wren says. ¡°But I¡¯m not interested in giving the Hearth I came from children, ever.¡± ¡°Me either,¡± Basalt says, chuckling and patting her on the back. ¡°You don¡¯t have to talk about it, but it sounds like your home hasn¡¯t treated you like a home. You wouldn¡¯t be out here in another domain looking to sign on with strangers if you weren¡¯t desperate. How old were you when you came to Tempest?¡± ¡°13,¡± Wren says. ¡°Well, don¡¯t you worry. Uncle Basalt¡¯s got your back.¡± Chapter 82: Getting to Know You I break off from the group at yellow (with Anise following as always) and head out into the cold. There¡¯s something else I want to do and the extra Inspiration will be welcome. (I also just want to look at Tiganna and the domains some more.) As I make my way through Amroth¡¯s winding streets, I stop at a souvenir shop to see if I can find something symbolically useful for what I¡¯m trying to do. A number of cute aranea plushies in different outfits sits on one shelf. One of them is dressed in a classic librarian outfit with a beige shirt and a patterned gray-brown skirt, wearing glasses with lenses for each of her eight eyes. ¡°Cute,¡± Anise says. ¡°Is that for your sister?¡± ¡°¡­ maybe,¡± I say. ¡°There¡¯s something I need to use it for first, though.¡± With [Mystic Inspiration], I¡¯m now able to keep Clairvoyance going at all times with an Inspiration flow rather than a drain. I tie up [Fractal Consciousness] with processing the overwhelming amount of conceptual information I¡¯m reading, but it would be more useful to be able to direct it into extra mental ¡®eyes¡¯ just as the system goes in the third eye. A single extra eye to handle both the system and every type of psychic vision I have is not enough. What, exactly, is this third eye? I had at first assumed it to be a neural implant of some sort. It seems at a level beyond my understanding of technology, though. Everyone with a system has a third eye in their heads, and none of the naming ceremonies I¡¯ve participated in involved implanting anything into babies. Ultimately, though, it¡¯s just a conduit to let the mind process the information. The human brain naturally takes in information from the eyes, ears, and so forth at every moment of the day. And the aranea brain (I give the plushie a squeeze) must also take in information from all eight eyes. The system just adds another sense, but I already have another sense. Clairvoyance shouldn¡¯t need to use the same conduit the system information is coming in from. I need to improve my sense processing. And I think I know how to do it. Who¡¯s to say my soul can¡¯t have more eyes?
Skills increased: Enhanced Soul (Mystic Inspiration, Fractal Consciousness), Enhanced Senses (Celestial Inspiration), Discipline (Focus)
Skill acquired: Enhanced Soul (Ghost Eyes)
Description: The ability to see through additional metaphysical eyes. You may assign a different overlay to each eye.
My Inspiration meter shudders as a fourth eye opens in my soul, color and sensation flooding into the new perception. I get it stabilized after a few minutes, but keeping it open cuts into my Inspiration regeneration. I don¡¯t mind, though. It will be easier and cheaper as I level it up, plus I will be eventually able to open more ¡°soul eyes¡±. I¡¯m not going to try yet. Thinking of aranea and how often the number eight comes up, I have to wonder if eight is an optimal number of eyes. I haven¡¯t met an aranea reincarnator yet, but I haven¡¯t met many aranea at all yet. Though I could probably eventually have as many eyes as I want. With two physical ones and one to handle system windows, and one for each state of magic, that would be seven eyes already. I could put in a minimap, too. Or do like spiders do and have them bring in information from other directions. Despite being metaphysical, the third eye and any additional eyes are still limited in how wide a field they can focus on. That will probably also increase as I level it up. I shunt my psychic senses into the new eye and keep the third for the system display. I was getting tired of having system windows block my ¡®view¡¯, especially when trying to identify people. It¡¯s probably nice for most people who don¡¯t have an additional sense in the first place to not have their normal vision blocked. I stand and stretch the cramps out of my legs. I hadn¡¯t brought a pillow this time and maybe should have. ¡°Skill training going well?¡± Anise asks brightly. ¡°Yeah,¡± I say. ¡°I just wish you could see the world like I see it. It¡¯s beautiful.¡± ¡°Only if you started giving everyone you like pieces of yourself,¡± Anise says with a grin. ¡°I am still a long way to figuring out whether that¡¯s even feasible, but I think I got a step closer today.¡±
While I was busy staring at the sky, Wren has been doing some investigating. ¡°So, I checked the Adventurers¡¯ Guild records and found a Crow Talgarth Tempest Tiganna joined up back in 730.¡± ¡°I¡­ feel dumb that I never even thought to look there,¡± Rowan says. ¡°It seems so obvious, though.¡± Wren shrugs. ¡°You were busy procrastinating and following around a guy who does whatever he wants.¡± ¡°What did Uncle Crow¡¯s record say?¡± Rowan asks. ¡°He joined up with an adventuring party named the Punctual Aspirants.¡± ¡°Punctual Aspirants?¡± I say. ¡°And I thought I had a hard time coming up with a name. They must have been short on adjectives.¡± ¡°Especially ironic since they went off on their first quest and never came back,¡± Wren goes on. ¡°They went to the Secret Garden. Not a dangerous run. It should¡¯ve been easy. I¡¯ve done it twice with different parties and never ran into any problems that weren¡¯t caused by ¡®differences of opinion¡¯ with my teammates.¡± This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. ¡°Didn¡¯t anyone look into it?¡± Rowan asks. Wren shrugs. ¡°If they did, the guild records don¡¯t say. I¡¯d¡¯ve expected someone¡¯s core to have given a quest to find them sooner than five years later, but who knows why cores do anything.¡± ¡°And mine only asked me to find his sword¡­¡± Rowan says. ¡°But when I checked, his plaque in my Hearth said he was still alive. So I¡¯d assumed he¡¯d just lost his sword and then something else happened to him that I¡¯m too low level to do anything about. I thought I would at least be able to get the sword.¡± Wren nods. ¡°He might have been locked up, sold off, brainwashed, run off to join a traveling circus, who knows? In any case, not like a bunch of Basics can do anything about it.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know if our chances of finding out what happened in the Secret Garden nine years ago are very good,¡± Rowan says. ¡°Even if I¡¯d gone there immediately, the trail would have been long cold.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a place to start, anyway,¡± I say. ¡°And the rest of us haven¡¯t done it before, too.¡± ¡°Dungeon runs are a good source of minor Deeds when you don¡¯t want to do what your core wants you to,¡± Wren says. ¡°Or you don¡¯t even get quests. Dungeons usually give you one to complete them, which I honestly don¡¯t mind. If I went there, I probably meant to complete it anyway.¡± ¡°Yeah, I get those even if I can¡¯t see them,¡± I say. ¡°I don¡¯t know if winter is the best time to be running a dungeon with ¡®Garden¡¯ in the name, though.¡± ¡°It has waited this long,¡± Rowan says. ¡°It can wait until spring.¡± ¡°Procrastination!¡± Wren says. ¡°I love it.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know what sort of clues we¡¯d even find there after nine years,¡± Basalt puts in. ¡°There¡¯s probably a card-playing tree I can interrogate, at least,¡± I say. ¡°But yes, is there anything in this garden that could have killed an entire adventuring party without a trace?¡± ¡°It¡¯s rated as low-Elite,¡± Wren says. ¡°Just barely more dangerous than Wonderland and less dangerous than the Lost Valley.¡± ¡°I think it¡¯s safe to assume that nothing that¡¯s normally in that dungeon did in Crow Talgarth and his party,¡± I say. ¡°Especially since Crow at least is still alive somewhere. Hmm. Several years ago, my party was kidnapped by goblins in the Hedge Maze while I was exploring a hidden loot room the others couldn¡¯t fit into.¡± ¡°You think it might have been goblins after all?¡± Rowan asks. ¡°Maybe. There¡¯s lots of goblin tribes and not all of them are friendly. But maybe it was humans. Or maybe they got off track and never got to the Secret Garden at all, or got lost on the return journey.¡± Rowan frowns. ¡°True, they might have been ambushed outside the dungeon by goblins or bandits, too.¡± ¡°What other villages are near there?¡± Basalt asks. The Adventurers¡¯ Guild has a big detailed map of Tempest that takes up an entire wall. We have to wait until another party finishes examining it before we can take a closer look, but I can still peer over their heads since we¡¯re on the north side of the domain. Hundreds of locations dot the sprawling map, from rural Hearths to dangerous dungeons. Each location is labeled with a rating in skulls, from one skull at Basic, two at Elite, three at Heroic, and even a couple of Epic-rank dungeons marked with four red skulls. The Hedge Maze and Spooky Grove are marked with half a skull. ¡°Looks like the closest Hearths are Nefern, Halkyn, and Pelenna,¡± I muse.
Skill increased: Knowledge (Geography)
I suppose I should stare at maps more often. Maybe my Knowledge skills have been lagging due to how little I¡¯ve been actually putting them into practice. The system is clearly not impressed by me just knowing things from other lives. Rowan frowns thoughtfully. ¡°If anyone knows what happened nine years ago, they might.¡±
We decide to spend the next week doing basement runs and getting to know one another a little better. There¡¯s diminishing returns to doing the same thing over and over, but there¡¯s still plenty we can get out of it, and we can switch up what we¡¯re doing to get more experience and practice in different things. I take the opportunity to try to get Basalt to at least be able to use basic [Aura Sight]. Although he¡¯s not interested in investing heavily into Clairvoyance, he can¡¯t deny the usefulness of being able to detect enemies around us. This rat basement is the perfect place to practice skills like that. And it beats going back out into the snow. ¡°So what¡¯s it like, being a reincarnator?¡± Wren wonders. ¡°I have five million ghosts in my head and I¡¯m still learning to be me,¡± I say. ¡°Most of them are quiet and I¡¯ve been kind of leery about waking them up.¡± ¡°Man, my sordid life story is much less interesting than yours,¡± Wren says. ¡°It¡¯s hard to out-weird a reincarnator,¡± Anise says. ¡°Pretty sure Drake¡¯s weird even for a reincarnator,¡± Basalt puts in helpfully. ¡°I¡¯m 9 years old with the memories of an adult man. There¡¯s some things I need to do but I need to reach Elite rank and grow up a little more before trying any of it. So I¡¯ve been training hard.¡± ¡°Well, I¡¯ve got some ideas on how to hit Elite without quests from your core, at least,¡± Wren says. ¡°I¡¯ve been trying it myself, but most parties don¡¯t want to have anything to do with me once they find out I¡¯m a quest denier.¡± ¡°And you¡¯ve toned down the ¡®attitude problem¡¯ around us,¡± I say. ¡°I can tell. You¡¯re being careful about what to say for fear you¡¯ll offend the only people you¡¯ve run across who will accept that.¡± Wren sighs. ¡°You can tell that, can you.¡± ¡°It¡¯s written all over your soul. Don¡¯t worry. You can be as snarky as you like so long as it doesn¡¯t mess up actual diplomacy, and I don¡¯t do a lot of actual diplomacy. Turns out it¡¯s pretty useless when everyone just does what their quest log tells them to anyway.¡± We enter the next identical basement room and pause just past the doorway to let Basalt scan the area before we aggro anything. ¡°[Aura Sight] is up to level 3,¡± Basalt says. ¡°And I¡¯m detecting¡­ 5 rats? No, 6 in this room.¡± ¡°7,¡± I say. ¡°Blast, now I see it.¡± The rats leap at us when we step forward, and I duck behind a stack of crates to use them as cover. Hiding behind things is also an important skill to grind. My companions¡¯ blades tear apart another batch of monsters. Rowan¡¯s replacement shield has been serving him well enough, but I hope I¡¯ll be able to make him a decent one eventually. I¡¯ll have to see about getting a little crafting done while we¡¯re here. ¡°Tempest seems to like throwing people at monsters, not so much each other,¡± Wren says, wiping off her daggers. ¡°Rust isn¡¯t like that. Sure, there¡¯s rats and slimes everywhere, but the city is more savage than Tempest¡¯s dungeons. Even its reincarnators have to claw their way up through the midden a lot of the time.¡± Upon searching the basement, I discover a secret door behind a stack of crates. Opening it reveals... another identical room full of rats and crates. ¡°I count... 9 rats in this room,¡± Basalt says, hefting his axe but waiting for confirmation before attacking. ¡°Did I miss any this time?¡± ¡°9 it is,¡± I say. ¡°Let¡¯s do this.¡± After clearing out a few more rooms full of rodent-shaped monsters, we complete the dungeon and claim our rewards.
Skills increased: Tending (Teaching), Clairvoyance (Empathy), Blocking (Cover), Search (Inspection), Subterfuge (Hiding)