“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— 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.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

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?”