“Cleanup time,” Harriet sang, hands sorting sacks of provisions, “cleanup time, everybody do your share. Cleanup time, cleanup time, everything from everywhere.”
“Dare I ask?”
“You asked me to babysit Tigray!” Harriet grinned at her mother. “She taught me a song for cleanup time. I think she got it from her preschool.”
“As I understood it, the girl’s name was Hannah?”
“She said that was a thumbs down name and that calling people by names they don’t want to be called by is a no-rule.” Small hands checked for anything hidden in the walls and floors as the girl worked her way through the piles of decaying food. She worked steadily despite how dark and dank they were—she’d long since lost any hesitation about that sort of thing. “Mrs. Thomas was all smiles about it when Tigray was in line of sight, and then wow did she roll her eyes.”
“It was good of you to babysit for her,” Jason chimed in with a smile in his voice. He was grooming the as-yet-unnamed otter, having taken over from his daughter when she’d very quickly run out of anywhere she could reach. “I don’t think she and Mr. Thomas had gotten a date night in a few months.”
“Lewd,” Harriet muttered darkly, staring at the iconography emblazoned on the crate she’d gotten to. “An X with brackets at the center, and a double flagpole. That’s obviously unsorted loot. And this other stuff is all snakes, and that’s obviously not loot, it’s stuff they were given. Didn’t the Priest and the Acolytes have some sort of snake motif going on?”
Cassandra was there before Harriet had finished talking. “I’ll take a look,” she said firmly. “Motifs and glyphs, huh? Snakes and vaguely rune-y shapes. Any new symbols you find, get me something with the symbol on it.”
“Okay. I’ll go—”
“Young lady, you will go disarm the rest of the traps before something goes off, and then you can come back and play with the flooring.”
Harriet’s eyes widened. “Yes, Mom! I completely forgot, thank you Mom!”
Jason wandered over as Harriet dashed off to the east, heading for the crack in the wall that led down to the badgers. “I know I’m always worried about her, and it’s always the same worries,” he said softly.
“You’re not wrong to be worried about her,” Cassandra responded gently and just as softly. “This sort of thing is no environment to raise a kid in. We’re both doing our best, and what we’ve managed is nothing short of a miracle.”
“At least she’ll be strong.” Jason sighed, wrapping an arm around his wife. “And she’s not a bully on Earth. But she’s so…”
“Gleeful at every opportunity to engage in morally justifiable ultraviolence, and prone to throwing herself into the implementation with a hyperfocus that really suggests ADHD screenings in her future?”
“I love you, honey.” He bent down to kiss the top of her head. “Do you think we’re going to kill a god again this trip? She likes killing gods. I feel like I should be less happy about that, but she’s my darling girl and I’ll always support her, you know?”
“Our darling girl,” the girl’s mother pointed out with a brilliant grin directed at her husband. “And I think so. The snake motif, the futhark stuff, I don’t actually remember which Gods might be represented but I’m pretty sure this is some sort of Norse Pantheon versus, I dunno, maybe Greco-Roman, maybe Egyptian, maybe some sort of racist Orientalist kinda thing?”
“Eight intellect, honey.” Jason grinned at her, entirely unashamed. “Dumb it down for me?”
“Yes,” she said, going on her tiptoes and pulling his head down to kiss him. “We might, in fact, get to help our little mischief gremlin kill a God.”
“Yes!” The gremlin in question capered, dancing left and right and waving her arms in the air. “God killing! You really do love me! I mean, uh.” She stopped dancing and inched forwards to hug her father around his leg. “I know you love me. I love you too, dad. Sorry, it was a turn of phrase, your love for me wasn’t ever in question. I’m just gonna—”
“It’s okay,” Jason said reassuringly to the top of her head, hugging her back with extremely careful gentleness. “I have no idea why you’re apologizing.”
Stolen novel; please report.
“Oh.” There was a moment of silence, and then Harriet coughed awkwardly. Hugging her dad’s leg one more time, she broke off and went back to sorting through supplies.
They worked in silence for a bit, and then she blurted out the question she’d been waiting to ask since she’d climbed down off of her otter’s back.
“So what did you get from leveling up? Spill the beans! I pushed off spellcasting, so all I got was hit points.”
“And a magical bond with a giant otter,” Jason pointed out, “who might be able to understand you, and even if that wasn’t the case you should be respectful to how wonderful of a gift that is, okay?”
“Hit points and a magical bond with a giant otter,” the Ranger corrected herself gracefully and without any hint of shame. “Now you two! Dad, you go first.”
“Picked up a fighting style,” he said with a smile. “Protection, which is perfect, really.”
Fighting Style
At 2nd level, you adopt a style of fighting as your specialty. Choose one of the following options. You can’t take a Fighting Style option more than once, even if you later get to choose again.
Protection: When a creature you can see attacks a target other than you that is within 5 feet of you, you can use your reaction to impose disadvantage on the attack roll. You must be wielding a shield.
“Plus, spells and something called Divine Smite? It’ll help me hit harder, but it’ll cost me spells to do it, I think.”
Divine Smite
Starting at 2nd level, when you hit a creature with a melee weapon attack, you can expend one spell slot to deal radiant damage to the target, in addition to the weapon’s damage. The extra damage is 2d8 for a 1st-level spell slot, plus 1d8 for each spell level higher than 1st, to a maximum of 5d8. The damage increases by 1d8 if the target is an undead or a fiend.
“Way to bury the lede, dad! Spells? You get to do magic?”
“Guess I do, kiddo.” He frowned, brow furrowing. “I… don’t really get the explanation, but I don’t really need to? I can just… know my spells, and I guess I can just cast them.”
Spellcasting
By 2nd level, you have learned to draw on divine magic through meditation and prayer to cast spells as a cleric does.
Preparing and Casting Spells
The Paladin table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your spells. To cast one of your paladin spells of 1st level or higher, you must expend a slot of the spell’s level or higher. You regain all expended spell slots when you finish a long rest.
You prepare the list of paladin spells that are available for you to cast, choosing from the paladin spell list. When you do so, choose a number of paladin spells equal to your Charisma modifier + half your paladin level, rounded down (minimum of one spell). The spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots.
For example, if you are a 5th-level paladin, you have four 1st-level and two 2nd-level spell slots. With a Charisma of 14, your list of prepared spells can include four spells of 1st or 2nd level, in any combination. If you prepare the 1st-level spell cure wounds, you can cast it using a 1st-level or a 2nd- level slot. Casting the spell doesn't remove it from your list of prepared spells.
You can change your list of prepared spells when you finish a long rest. Preparing a new list of paladin spells requires time spent in prayer and meditation: at least 1 minute per spell level for each spell on your list.
Spellcasting Ability
Charisma is your spellcasting ability for your paladin spells, since their power derives from the strength of your convictions. You use your Charisma whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Charisma modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a paladin spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one.
Spell save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier
Spell attack modifier = your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier
Spellcasting Focus
You can use a holy symbol as a spellcasting focus for your paladin spells.
“So…” Cassandra frowned for a moment, then nodded again, all smiles. “Four first level spells, two casts of any of them per day, and you can use one up for a Divine Smite. Want to go over what spell choices you have?”
The Paladin looked embarrassed for a moment, shaking his head. “Already picked them,” he said abashedly. “Got excited. Hope I didn’t make any big mistakes I can’t ever take back!”
“Really, dear,” his wife snickered. “This family.”
“This family,” their daughter agreed firmly. “Can at least one person not pick things on a sudden whim and warp their entire build around it?”
Her mother’s head swiveled over to her, eyes narrowing. “Oh?”
“Never mind,” she muttered, backing up with her hands up as they all broke into laughter. “You two do your thing and talk all about it. I’ll just… look through these boxes some more.”