"Are we there yet?"

"Now, now, little bird. You're the one who asked to come. Patience." Arianell soothed. They were in the back of one of the family's group transports, riding through the forests around Banue. It was a huge vehicle, with two floors and seats running the length of its back compartment and could seat fifty, including the driver and co-driver. It was also wildly, obscenely expensive. Imported from the highest-ranked workshops of the artisans of Fanhia, the giant grey brick of a vehicle was worth more than the yearly income of entire floors of people. All to make sure that both Arainell, and her daughter, were protected. This transport could survive an attack from a tier eight Beast.

"It's just really boring. We can't even see anything! Can't I ride with Loghain? I want to see the forest." Melody complained. At first, she had been excited to ride in the transport with all the guards, but after a few hours, she was so bored she could cry. Her mom was just reading a book, and the guards didn't really want to talk to a seven-year-old they were supposed to be guarding. At least Loghain would talk to her. Plus, he was riding in one of the Beast pulled carriages, so she could see the forest.

Arainell looked up from her book. "Now dear, you know the only reason your father agreed to this trip was because you would be with me, in here. I think we both know if I let you out, he would be very unlikely to agree to letting you out on another of these excursions."

"Oh, c'mon, Mom. Can't you just tell him to let me? You're stronger than him anyway."

"Melody! Just because I could make your father do things absolutely does not mean I should. That would be a horrible way to treat my partner. I love your father, and I want to work with him when we disagree, not run roughshod over him." Arianell admonished. Perhaps her daughter had too much Beast in her. "Now, why don't you go back to reading through the options on your Nano-Swarm. I don't want to hear that kind of talk from you again."

"Ok, Mom," Melody looked down, much subdued. She hadn't really meant what she said; she was just frustrated. She kept cycling between excitement and nervousness. She had been reading through the items available in the Shop, and she realized that she wouldn't be able to do much until she started gaining experience. The lists were long and completely disorganized. The whole thing was set up to be deliberately difficult to search through, as far as she could tell.

Not wanting to bother her mother, though, and genuinely feeling bad about making her angry, she did call up her slate. Or rather, her Interface. That's what the Nano-Swarm had labeled it, and Melody liked the sound of it. So, when the Interface dropped into her hands, she started looking through the other tabs.

She had already taken a peek at the Interface tab, and while it had a lot of really good options that she wanted, the cost in experience was way higher than most of the things she was looking at in the Shop. Like, hundreds of times more expensive. At least some of them only cost experience, though. Some required upgrades to the Nano-Swarm and those were the worst, mostly because they were the ones she wanted. Like a sorting function or search tab. She moved over to look at the Nano-Swarm tab.

There was more variety here than she had expected. She had figured there was more than in the game since it had the options she had seen with the Interface. In Warlord, there were only upgrades for building and harvesting speed. You sent your Nano-Swarm out, and it collected resources and then used those resources to build things for you. That was it. This was much, much more than that.

The first difference was in the upper left corner of the tab. It read 'Level 1' and had another experience cost next to it. Then there were the rest of the options. Harvesting speed was there, as well as construction speed and several other upgrades she was familiar with related to harvesting specific resources better. However, she quickly discovered what being at level one meant. She could only purchase the first level of speed upgrades. The rest were locked behind, increasing her Nano-Swarms level.

What really confused her was one upgrade called 'automatic basic refining 1'. Refining was not a mechanic in Warlord. Unfortunately, the details of the upgrade just said she needed to have already bought an 'advanced independent resource refiner' to buy it. Swapping over to the Shop, Melody shifted through the pages, looking for the refiner or any refiner. As she furiously paged through the Shop, Melody was looking forward to investing heavily into Interface functions. She hadn't realized how frustrating this would be. It was so inefficient. Honestly, the Interface as it was was a complete mess. It was hard to read, had no sorting options, and displayed no information on the items she could buy beyond what was required to buy them.

After a few minutes, there were a lot of pages in the Shop; Melody finally found what she was looking for. It was a 'basic field refiner,' which didn't sound nearly as impressive but was still what she had been looking for at least. Pulling it up, Melody looked at the requirements. It was a lot of experience compared to what she had been looking to get already, and nanites. Melody sighed. She was excited to get started pulling apart all the aspects of her new class, but it really wasn't cooperating. Every time she found something interesting, she ran into a wall made of experience and resource requirements. She had to buy upgrades to get other upgrades to buy something else to finally be allowed to buy what she actually wanted. The more interesting something sounded, the more walls in her way.

At this point, the only thing to do was to actually start gaining experience and working her way through some of the items she was interested in, which led to her impatience. Melody understood why they had to travel as far as they did. Unlike most Xescaegran families, theirs was more focused on trade than harvesting resources. The competition was crazy, and the Shodenburgs just didn't fight that hard. They still held a few Harvester Guild contracts, like any respectable family, but nothing worth fighting over. Which usually meant low-tier areas far from the city. Which was kinda perfect for letting Melody test out her class, but it meant long drives back and forth.

Melody was excited to be out of Banue, but she wasn't getting to see much so far. Everyone was acting like if she looked out a window, she would explode. Melody looked at her mom. Arainell was a great example of how serious everyone was taking her first trip out of the city. Considering her mother was an eighth-tier Transcendent Beast, and Melody was her heir, they looked almost identical when her mom was in human form. They had the same pale, white skin and rich, bright blue eyes. The main difference was their hair. Melody had her chocolate locks down to the middle of her back, but her mom had her lovely multi-hued feathers. Apparently, Melody's feathers would probably grow in when she hit puberty, but Arianell wasn't sure since Beasts having a non-Beast heir was rare.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Melody wasn't really focusing on her mother's appearance, though. She was more focused on her clothes. Normally her mom wore loose, flowy dresses or something similar. Right now, she was wearing a skintight black leather outfit. With bone plates covering her vitals and several daggers belted at her waist, Melody's mother looked very different from the sweet and soft-spoken mother she was used to.

What really drew Melody's eyes, though, was the massive bow leaning up against her mother as she read. It was easily five feet long and seemed to be made of several materials formed together seamlessly. The black wood limbs were reinforced with a red metal and accented with stones that were so blue they almost looked purple. It radiated mana so dense Melody could almost taste it.

Overall, Arianell looked ready to kill. Which, Melody supposed, she was. Letting out a sigh, Melody dismissed the Interface. She wasn't going to make any real progress until she could get the Interface some upgrades, probably the Nano-Swarm too, if she had to guess. Wriggling around under the straps holding her in place, Melody tried to get comfortable. She didn't know how long they had to get to their destination, but they had started really early in the morning, and she was tired. Within minutes she started to drift off.

{}

"Dear, time to get up. We're here." Her mother's soft voice roused Melody. With a little groan, she stretched and cracked her eyes open. The vehicle had emptied of its darkly armored guards, and the only people left were her and her mother.

"Oh… Oh! Right!" Brain catching up, Melody tried to jump out of her seat, only to get caught by the harness. "Oof."

Rapidly, she began unhooking herself. "I'm up! I know what I'm gonna do too." That nap had cleared up several competing ideas in Melody's head. She had a solid direction to start with.

"Oh, have you now?" Melody could hear her mother's amusement.

"Yup. This is like a game that I don't know all the rules for. The Interface doesn't say a lot, so I have to figure it out the old-fashioned way. Mrs. Favior will be proud."

"And what does your science teacher have to do with it?"

"It's one of the lessons we had a few days ago. The scientific method. Test everything or something like that. Anyway, I'm gonna just try a bunch of stuff until I understand what's going on. I don't think I'm going to be going hunting today." The last sentence was said with no small amount of regret.

"Well, that's nice at least. Don't forget; we have to visit your grandparents sometime. We're only out here for a month."

"Yeah, I remember." Like she would forget. Melody had never met her mother's side of the family. Her parents said she had seen them as a baby, but it's not like she had any memories from back then. Finally managing to get the overly secure harness off, Melody jumped up and bolted for the massively reinforced door in the back of the transport, which was partially open. She could see part of the environment outside.

Stepping onto the short little ramp coming out of the massive transport, Melody stared around, wide-eyed. At some point, they had left the forest and entered open grassland. Though calling it, grassland felt like it didn't do the area justice. The grass was white, almost transparent, giving the land a snow-covered look. The various bushes and small trees were of a similar look, with trees that had cloudlike substances covering their branches instead of leaves. The trunks were attached to the ground by long, stringlike roots, with the bulk of the tree itself several feet in the air.

"Wow," Melody whispered to herself.

"Quite the view!" A loud, cheerful voice barked out behind her.

"Ahh!" Melody startled, almost tumbling off the ramp. She had been too absorbed by the beautiful scenery.

"Careful, young miss. Can't have you taking a tumble before you even get to see the camp." A massive, strong hand wrapped gently around her arm, steadying her.

"Loghain! You did that on purpose!" Melody accused.

"Ha! Maybe, but you'll never prove it." The man winked. He was an enormous man, built like a tank with bulging muscles covered in dark leather and a combination of red metal and bright white bone plate. He towered over Melody's short frame, over double her height. Any fear she might have felt from the massive man grabbing her was belied by her familiarity and the gigantic grin she could see through the open face of his helm.

"You need to stop scaring me. It's not funny." Melody stared hard into the mismatched eyes of her family's head of security, trying to convey how serious she was. His biological eye just twinkled at her, filled with mirth, unphased by her stare. The other eye flickered around, observing the surroundings. It was a cybernetic from Cathor, like the Immortals armor. She always thought it was cold to watch, as it was made of three lenses that moved independently. The whole thing was made of delicate pieces of metal, crystal, and bone and was fitted into Loghain's otherwise empty socket.

If asked, Loghain would tell wild stories of epic battles that had left him barely alive and missing an eye. Melody had asked her dad for the truth after she had heard the fifth completely different story about how he got that eye. It turns out the massive man knew the inventor of the device and had asked to have it put in as a favor. He never lost the eye it replaced. Apparently, he kept it in a jar with enchantments that kept the eyeball alive in case he ever wanted it back, which Melody thought was equal parts cool and gross.

"Now, now. You just need better situational awareness. Don't you worry, little miss, we'll get you trained up now that you're out here."

"Oh? And what kind of training is that, hmm Loghain?" Arainell's voice cut in.

"Ahh, simple things, I assure you, my lady." The heavily armored man rapidly turned and bowed toward the woman he towered over. "Honest. Nothing too intense."

"Hmph, good."

"Oh, c'mon!" Melody and her mother responded at the same time.

"Little bird, you said you would be taking it easy."

"No, I didn't! I said I wasn't going to go out with the Harvesters today!"

"Hmm, we'll see. Come along, let's see what you can do without getting into too much danger. Maybe you won't have to go out at all."

Melody sighed and followed her mother's leather-clad back. She seemed determined to kill all the fun.