“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.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

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!”