Even with a blank set of class quests and a daily buffet of powerful enemies, leveling was not a fast affair. Our next era lasted longer than all the time in the dungeon before it, as each of us settled into tried and true routines.
While it wasn’t as if I never saw the others, we spent less and less time together, Cal and Verin throwing themselves against as many monsters as they could while I spent more time in my cave. Naturally, I left them plenty of pre-cooked meals whenever I wouldn’t be around, though we still tried to eat together most of the time.
And though it felt like some deeply forbidden, taboo thing to say aloud, I had to admit that the following months were… nice. If not happy or fulfilled or entirely healthy, I was content, in a way. As the days dragged on, I started to feel less of a rush. This place was time dilated in any case. What was the real harm in wasting a month or two? With Cal and (to an extent) Verin having accepted a similar notion, I let go of any pressure I felt, trying my best to turn my time here into a strange sort of vacation.
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With slow and measured movements, I drove another wooden plank into the ground. Already, I’d placed dozens beside it, all of them prim and proper in a clean line. In time, I placed the next plank at a right angle to the prior, until, after many hours of logging and cutting and manual labor, I had a wide rectangular patch of the prairie fenced off from the rest of the world.
Though I’d chosen an area a decent walk away from our cabin, the noise must have carried, as I found a pensive Verin analyzing me by the time I was done. I hadn’t even realized she was back.
“Lady Tess. I will confess some level of curiosity as to what you are doing here. Though I cannot say I am the largest fan of all the walking I do these days, hopefully this is not some attempt at a monster pen…”
The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind, but now that it did, I seriously considered it. Probably not with wood, but if I used stone, could I make a scorpion cage? I doubted it would be worth it even if I could. And besides, what was the point? Did they even breed like real animals? It wasn’t as if we could raise them like livestock.
No, my goal today was much less lofty.
“It’s a garden,” I answered.
A few blinks were all the insight I got into Verin’s thought process. “But… Lady Tess. Why the fence? Have you encountered any pests or weeds you are attempting to keep out of your garden?”
“Nope.” Even after all these months, there wasn’t a sign that anything lived here save for the grass. Not even bugs. “But it’s a garden. A garden should have a fence.”
I watched as Verin took in what was left of the many logs I’d used for my project, all of them having warranted numerous trips to the forest even with my much-expanded storage space. I half-expected her to further question my use of time, but perhaps the care for the garden’s appearance resonated with her and her Etiquette.
“I suppose you’re right.” Gazing down at her meticulously cleaned, white pants — one of my more recent bandage-made outfits — the high noble seemed to come to some sort of decision. “Would you perhaps care for some help?”
I summoned a pair of mana daggers, shaping them as much like trowels as my class skill would allow. Wordlessly, I held one out to her.
For hours, we kneeled in the garden, riddling our clothes with dirt stains as we filled the garden with its new residents. Half of the space was dedicated to living plants that I was attempting to transplant from the forest, while the other half were for seeds I’d collected.
For each new plant I removed from my storage, I chatted with Verin about its uses, its flavor, and how to harvest it. Even so, it came as a shock to both of us when she announced she’d picked up the Herbalism skill.
And, in fact, that wasn’t the only skill she was fated to earn that day. When at last the many herbs and vegetables and seeds filled the garden in neat and orderly lines, the two of us smiled as we received a notification at the same time.
You have learned a new skill: Gardening.
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“Gah! Tess! I need another!” Having tracked me down, Cal parted the tall grass of the prairie to find me crouched down on the ground. Blood watered the earth and soaked into my clothes as I dragged a knife through the corpse of a gryphon I’d been preserving in my storage. Various cuts of meat sat off to the side on a bed of leaves, while all manner of less appetizing bits littered the space around me.
“Oh, neat! Wondered what you were doing out here. Is this how you always do it? Looks messy.” In a strange turn of events, Cal was in a very similar state, blood covering almost every inch of her. The mangled and bent sword in her hands, however, made it clear that she’d earned her bloody paint job in a very different manner from me.
Knowing what she’d come for, I activated Bind Weapon, her blade disappearing only to reappear in my hand in perfect condition. If it could be believed, apparently blades did not like it when you smashed them into stone-like hides for hours at a time. With only so many weapons at our disposal, we’d long since arrived at our current solution, which involved me binding to her sword and loaning it out to her. With the post-class-trial Arcane Arsenal allowing me to summon as many weapons as I wanted, the act cost me nothing.
“I’m trying something new,” I admitted, returning the blade to her. “I’ve been lazy with what we’ve eaten. Haven’t experimented at all. Keep taking meat from the same few locations.” And why not? It wasn’t like we were at any risk of running out. There wasn’t a need to use every part of the animal when they just respawned a few days later.
“So what, you’re trying all of it now?” Cal leaned over the surgically opened monster, not a hint of squeamishness as she poked its insides with the tip of her blade.
I nodded. “Taking cuts from everywhere that I can.” I’d even grabbed a few organs. People ate liver, right? I was pretty sure pig’s brain was a popular dish in some countries too. Not that I knew how to prepare them, but even the more “out-there” parts had to be better than eating the same thing, day after day.
Cal’s eyes immediately lit up at the explanation, sparse though it was. “Wait, so when you’re done, you’re going to have tons of meat that we technically haven’t tried yet?”
Just so. I nodded while tilting my chin towards the many different cuts I’d already collected, which Cal seemed to notice for the first time.
“Tess! Do you know what that means?” Her energy was palpable, but try as I might, I couldn’t figure out what she was getting at. Somehow “we’ll have new meals” didn’t seem like the right answer.
“It means we need to do a big taste test! This is important!” Not even waiting to finish her thoughts, Cal called out to me as she started running off. “You keep going; I’ll tell Verin!”
Not having moved too far away from the cabin, it was under a minute later when I heard a loud shriek.
“Lady Calilah, would you please not come rushing in here in that state? You’re tracking blood onto the floor!”
Despite not being there, I could clearly picture the exact sheepish grin Cal wore as she trudged off to the baths I’d built.
As she cleaned up, I continued much as I’d been before her appearance, the methodical work finally earning me what months of hack jobs had failed to.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
You have earned a new skill: Butchering
After an eternity of hacking and slashing and frying and stewing, all three of us sat outside. Even with our best efforts, there was still a mountain of meat before us. Somehow, Cal seemed entirely fine, but Verin had battled through her Etiquette skill to eat far more than proper, and I could almost feel myself slipping back into another coma. A healthy supply of moonshine had been used as a digestif, with all three of us feeling properly toasty.
I stashed the rest of the food into my storage as we each contemplated the most important question of the night.
“... Leg,” I was the first to offer. “Thigh area.”
The other two nodded sagely at my proclamation.
“Wings for me. Think we need some salt and oil, but the crunch and the skin-to-meat ratio was the best,” Cal opined.
Once again, we nodded in enlightened understanding.
At last, Verin spoke, finishing us off. “I was quite partial to the liver, in truth. There was a certain rich flavor there that I did not find present in any-” The high noble cut herself off abruptly, sensing the stares she was receiving. “What? It is a perfectly valid-”
Cal shook her head. “Ew. Easily the worst part. Like, wasn’t even a close call.”
Incredulous, Verin turned to me as if to ask for back up.
As kindly as I could, I turned my head the other way.
Butchering has reached level 2!
Cooking has reached level 14!
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Deep in the forest, I aimlessly wandered. While it would be a bonus to find any new plants for my garden, today, that wasn’t my goal.
It was rare that I came here with the express purpose of fighting, generally finding the panthers not to be worth the hassle. Arguably, I still wasn’t here to fight, although panthers and hassle were still on the menu.
And there’s the first one. With my senses dialed up and my danger sense in full swing, it was a simple matter to detect the oversized cat flying towards my back.
I spun about, leaning out of the way as I took a single step back. Unable to course correct, the panther flew by, a rare look of feline indignation gracing its furry face. Before it was completely out of range, I swung my arm down, aiming for its midsection.
Unarmed, my hand gently slapped its bark-like back.
“Tag. You’re it.” I took another step back, letting the panther land with impunity.
With a yowl, it dove into the nearest tree, reappearing almost directly behind me. This time, however, I, too, disappeared, teleporting only a few centimeters to the side. Claws narrowly missed my face as the panther completed its next pass, and with that, the game was on.
Over and over again, the infuriated predator pounced for my throat. With careful applications of Mold Space and Spatial Step, over and over again, I dodged. With the beast’s high Dexterity, the entire dance was a blur, and I wondered if I’d have been able to even follow our movements at level one.
A few months back, this would have been my idea of hell. Every second, I was forced to push my senses to the max, and not a second went by where I wasn’t moving, casting, jumping around.
And to be honest… it still wasn’t my favorite activity. With how little I’d been fighting lately, though, I’d started to feel a tad sluggish. More than that, I could tell I wasn’t using my spatial mana as well as I could. By now, I was well-practiced in using Mold Space at max strength, casting it multiple times a minute whenever I wanted to move about.
What felt like a lifetime ago, however, the archmage had explained his philosophy behind the different ranks of magic. The novice tier was for mindlessly casting spells until your core got comfortable with the new mana type. The initiate tier was for making your mana usage feel like second nature. It commonly featured spells where you could vary the amount of mana you used to strengthen or weaken the effect.
In this regard, I was failing, which was extra disappointing considering that my spatial mana was one of the few types where that level of control was great for combat.
Cue my current training. Each time I cast Mold Space, I varied the strength, hoping to get an instinctual feel for how much it would alter my Spatial Step. In fact, sometimes I used it to expand space rather than compress it, making my own movements more difficult.
While the main goal was mastering spatial magic, ever since I’d started this strange form of training, I’d seen an unintended bonus as well. The next time I blipped out of existence, I was greeted with a notification that was a very long time in the making.
Dodge has reached level 10!
Congratulations! You have reached the Initiate rank in Dodge!
You have been granted the standard augment for your skill.
Augment of the Dexterous Dodger
While actively dodging an incoming attack, object, or projectile, increases your Dexterity by 10%, up to a maximum of 5 points.
It was one of the earliest skills I’d gained, having received it all the way back in Ftheran. Despite the early acquisition, leveling it had been a struggle. Back in Drawgin, my only purpose in dungeons was to leverage my Perception, and the little fighting I’d done had almost always been with my bow. In Sylum, Alara had always taken the frontline role. On the (less and less) rare occasions where I did have an attack coming my way, my armor skills often made it much more appealing to meet strikes head-on.
Which was, in fairness, kind of dumb. Especially now that movement skills were class-aligned for me after I’d completed the Mana Feet trial, it didn’t make sense to ignore them so much.
Spatial Magic has reached level 16!
Along with my existing musings, the second leveling notification broke my concentration just enough. Teleporting just a centimeter out of place, a claw came flying straight at my neck and-
Reactive Armor activated!
Damage blocked.
Unharmed, I disengaged with a sigh.
“Okay. I’m it…”
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As the days rolled by, a small handful of things changed while everything else stayed exactly the same.
New knick-knacks lining the cabin shelves. An extra garden patch — well-removed from the first — for the more interesting poisonous plants I’d found. The debut of the latest fashion line from one overly mummy-inspired designer. The addition of mandated bi-weekly card game nights to blow off some steam.
The bigger changes, though, were to Cal and Verin. While both had already been self-assured in their own ways, there was an air of confidence about them that hadn’t been there before. A way they held themselves. Regardless of their previous skills or their lineage, there was a certain weight that came with defeating so many monsters by yourself, day after day. If still little fishes compared to someone like Sett, the two had grown powerful, and they knew it.
Rather than calming Cal down, it seemed to do the opposite. Much to Verin’s dismay, the roguish warrior’s antics only intensified, and at times, I wondered if she was trying to earn whatever the opposite of an Etiquette skill would be, just to mess with Verin.
For Verin’s part, she only grew ever-the-more noble, her aura feeling more and more like her grandmother’s on the single occasion I’d had cause to meet the nobles’ chamber head. That effect was slightly diminished whenever I would catch her mumbling under her breath while staring up at the sky, but we all handled being indefinitely trapped in a dungeon in our own ways.
Along with the more qualitative changes came the quantitative, too. The months had been well to the two of them, their leveling speeds putting me to shame as both managed to grab a full two levels. Most of that difference had to do with the numerous starter class quests they had available, but the difference in how much they were fighting didn’t help me either.
I wondered how high they could go if we just stayed here for another few years. Level 20? Or was that too high?
With such thoughts bouncing around in my head, I was caught off guard when the two of them came to me with another announcement, much like they had months ago. Like before, it would signal a great shift for us.
“Lady Tess. We are much stronger than we were the last we attempted it. Moreover, it has been some time since our respective monsters have proved any challenge for us. We believe it may be time. What would your stance be on pushing past the desert?”
With the two of them acting as a unified front, the answer was never in question. And, in fact, even I was starting to grow curious just what awaited us outside our comfortable corner of the dungeon.
Two weeks later, it was done. Behind us, the endless expanse of sand stretched on as far as the eye could see. In front of us, darkness blotted out the landscape.
Finally ready to tackle something new, as one, we advanced.