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.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
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.