“We can’t call him Cheepy,” Tresk said, frowning at the wiggling chick.

Theo and Tresk woke to the sound of a small chick chirping happily near the alchemist’s bed. It had a dark black bill, similar patterns around its all-black eyes, with a mix of yellow and gray downy plumage. Unlike an Earth chicken chick, which could easily fit in the palm of his hand, this one was large. Beepy, or whatever name the pair decided on later, was larger than the Dronon’s head. It chirped, snapping at the air as though expecting food.

“It’s not a chicken,” Theo said, inspecting the creature. “Hold on, can I inspect it?”

[Goose]

[Familiar]

Stage:

[Gosling]

Master:

[Dreamrealm of Tero’gal]

Level 1

Description:

Geese are known as the most loving creatures in all the realms. Any rumors spread to disparage these honorable creatures will be met with a flurry of feathers and bill.

Affinities:

Fire

“That’s a goose!” Tresk said, moving to snuggle the creature. It seemed to hug her back, wrapping its stunted neck around her.

“Just a goose,” Theo said, reading the description several times. It sounded like something someone wrote, not like something generated by the system. And what was Tero’gal?

Guess we have a name for our Dreamwalk, Theo said, keeping those things between him and Tresk.

Cheep, the goose responded, the sound echoing through his mind.

“Oh, can’t wait for my mind to be filled with honks,” Theo said, patting the goose on the head. “Let’s name it Jeff.”

“We’re not naming the goose Jeff!” Tresk shouted. “I won’t allow it.”

“She needs a name.”

Despite the gosling’s need for food, the pair descended into arguments for the creature’s name. The debate only ended when Khahar appeared from nowhere, his hands full of squirming grub-like creatures. He placed them in Theo’s hands without a word and smiled at the squawking gosling. The alchemist held the worms above his new familiar, who titled her head back and opened her bill. He dropped a few grubs in, silencing the constant chirping.

“I shall name her,” Khahar said, his face taking on a pensive look.

Theo was suddenly worried. The goose looked a lot like “Jeff” to him. If Khahar named the goose something stupid, could he live with himself? This would be the thing’s name forever, what if she didn’t like it? There was little he could do but wait for the verdict.

“Alexandria D’Goose,” Khahar said, cracking a smile. “Alex for short.”

“Alright, that’s pretty good,” Tresk said, still hugging Alex.

In the blink of an eye, all the tension left Theo’s body. The gosling chirped happily at the new name, bobbing in the Marshling’s grasp. But the alchemist now felt like a mother hen, realizing they had nothing prepared for Alex. She’d need a safe place sleep at night, and rest during the day. Food, water, everything a pet needed. But she was more than a pet, and the implications of her master on the system screen was big. She wasn’t bound to Theo or Tresk, but to the realm that was expanding between them. Alex was bound to the Dreamrealm of Tero’gal.

“Explaining what that realm will become is cheating,” Khahar said, petting the goose. “But she has some interesting potential. She’ll become sapient, after a while.”

“Sweet, what’s that mean?” Tresk asked.

“She’ll have a consciousness,” Theo said. “Already seems like she has a mind of her own.”

Alex had wriggled free of Tresk’s grasp and slapped her webbed feet on the wooden floor. She explored the cramped room, pecking at anything that looked remotely edible and chirping the whole time. Theo found it hard to tear his eyes off the little goose.

“How do we level her up?” Tresk asked.

“The normal way. She needs goose experience,” Khahar said. “Let her do goose stuff, and she’ll level quickly.”

“Alright. Breakfast time,” Theo said, clapping his hands. “No dawdling.”

Theo turned without regarding Khahar. The leader of the Khahari disappeared moments later, off to do his own thing. Tresk followed behind Alex, making sure she could take the stairs without issue. The gosling flapped its stunted wings with each step, making frantic chirps when she fell behind. The alchemist waited at the bottom of the stairs, watching as his companion corralled their new goose.

“One step at a time, Alex,” Tresk said, patting Alex on the head. “Take it easy. You’re gonna be a big strong goose one day, aren’t you? A fire-breathing nightmare goose!”

Once on flat ground, Alex found her feet. She waddled along the cobblestone path to Xam’s tavern, keeping up with the alchemist’s long strides. Tresk had to help her with the steps at the tavern, but the gosling managed. They found their usual table, pulling a new chair over for the goose, and waited for the server to come by. Theo ordered 2 plates of the leftovers, and 2 moss teas. Hopefully, the strange grubs were enough of a breakfast for the excitable gosling.

“No pets allowed,” Xam said, coming to the table and crossing her arms.

“Alex is a familiar,” Tresk glared, hands on her daggers.

“Just joking,” Xam said, chuckling. The Marshling’s zealous attitude did not put her off. “That’s the egg, right? The one you’ve been carrying around.”

Theo still had the satchel at his hip, keeping it there despite not needing it. Now that Alex was out of the egg, he felt that sense of comfort washing over him constantly.

“Yeah, her name is Alexandria D’Goose, and she’s precious,” Tresk said.

Alex chirped in response.

Xam pet Alex on the head, cooing at the gosling. “Such a good little birdie. Aren’t you precious?”

A dagger appeared in the gosling’s tiny bill, clattering to the floor.

“Hey! That’s my backup dagger number twelve,” Tresk said, snatching the weapon up and stowing it away. “No rummaging through the inventory!”

4 more daggers appeared from nowhere, finding a similar fate. Then a pile of stone, actual garbage, a dresser, and finally a scattering group of angry bugs. Alex waddled from the chair to chase the bugs, pecking at them and swallowing what she could catch down.

Theo blinked the scene away. The status bars in the bottom left of his vision had become such a staple he hadn’t even noticed. An additional set of bars joined Tresk and Theo’s, labeled as “Alexandria D’Goose”. She had access to their Tara’hek powers. Which meant she had a [Tara’hek Core] inside her chest. That only made sense, Alex had chirped into their mind.

“Wait,” Theo said, rushing out of the tavern. Alex seemed distraught that he left so quickly, but no one else did. He focused his mind on Alex and invoked the [Tara’hek Dreampassage]. Instead of appearing in the tavern near Tresk, he appeared near Alex.

“Oh, damn,” Tresk said.

Theo inspected his [Tara’hek Dreampassage] skill.

[Tara’hek Dreampassage]

Marshling Bond Skill

Mythic

Slip through your dreams.

Effect:

Each member of the Tara’hek may [Approach] any other member once a day, resetting at midnight. [Approach] distance depends on the level of the [Tara’hek Core] and the stability of the bond.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

The wording had changed slightly. It referenced a single member of the bond before, but now it seemed more inclusive for additional parties. Theo searched his memory, trying to find a time where an ability had evolved like that. [Tara’hek Communication] had changed before. That left the lingering question of ability evolutions, and how he could instigate them again. For now, it was a neat thing they could do, creating another anchor point for them to teleport. He checked the description of each [Tara’hek Core] skill, finding them to no longer talk about just two people.

Alex is a member of the Tara’hek now. What does that mean? Theo asked.

Dunno. I for one welcome our new goose overlord, Tresk said.

Cheep.

Alex drew a lot of attention in the tavern. Everyone wanted to come over to say hi to the newest member of Broken Tusk, despite the constant flow of migrants. Some had stories of other bonded creatures, but only Xol’sa knew about familiars. He was a young wizard, but the more Theo learned about his past the more he realized it was as hard as it was brief. They left the tavern to discuss the new goose at the wizard’s tower, finding that she preferred standing on the ledge of the roof.

“I’d take Khahar’s words and let her be a goose for a while,” Xol’sa said. “Until she grows to her adult age, she won’t have access to the monster evolution options.”

Xol’sa had explained that familiars were much like roving monsters, only bound to a person. Wizards normally did this to enhance their strength, but it wasn’t unheard of to find an egg. The Elf consulted one of many books on the topic, but found nothing about a pair of people sharing a familiar. Theo didn’t mind what the outcome was. The emotions that normally flowed from Tresk were anger and determination. Alex put off a constant, calming vibe that seemed to affect both of them positively.

For now, it was fun to marvel at the gosling. New things in Broken Tusk often had implications that were hard to deal with. Theo planned on taking it easy today, letting his golems tend the garden for the morning. Alex needed a proper introduction to the town, and Xol’sa supported the idea. Her intelligence and empathy would grow like any person, feeding off her surroundings to form her personality.

“Keep in mind, she’ll be powerful,” Xol’sa said, inspecting Alex’s feathers and measuring her. “You can’t expect something like this to end in a mundane animal. She’s already monsterized, if you care to think of it like that. A few levels, and she’ll be spitting fire thanks to her affinity.”

“So cool,” Tresk whispered, stroking the gosling.

“Don’t forget the monster wave today,” Xol’sa said. “I’ll have a better sense of what to expect soon, but we’re expecting an all-out assault again.”

“That’s fine,” Theo said. “Come on, Alex. Let’s get a tour.”

Aarok and his adventurers would handle the wave. They hardly needed Theo anymore for the assault, only his potions. Several town-wide alerts went off, informing the adventurers that they should remain within the walls for today. They all had their units, and were expected to respond at a moment’s notice. Tresk decided to stay with Theo and the gosling for the tour, since she couldn’t head off to fight in the dungeons.

“First stop,” Theo said, gesturing widely to the town square. “The middle of town. Nothing really going on here, but you’ve already been to the tavern. There’s the town hall, and down that street is the sawmill, butcher, and adventurer’s guild.”

Cheep.

Theo introduced Alex to everyone he saw, gaining a mixture of reactions. Some thought it was ridiculous to introduce a creature, others couldn’t get over how adorable she was. Salire was standoffish about the gosling, but put on a brave face. Nira and her hardened smelters melted at the sight of Alex, making formal introductions and taking turns holding her. Someone was feeding the Midnight Damsel Smeltery [Monster Cores], as it had grown significantly over the past week. They were pouring more molten metal than ever before, racing to beat the previous day’s record.

Nira’s workers could only expand so much before she had to dump massive quantities of [Monster Cores] into the building, urging it further along. But no upgrade came to get a third crucible, and they were at a productional stand-still.

“Another building, or you need to upgrade the town,” Nira said. “Why haven’t you been upgrading the town?”

“I’ve been waiting for the buildings to catch up,” Theo said.

“Well, they’re caught up.”

And that was all Nira had to say on the subject. Theo added it to his mental list.

Gridgen and his miners didn’t mind the gosling, but they weren’t overly excited to see her. The miners were more interested in singing the praises of the metal golems, who were still tirelessly defending the mine. The golems had orders to protect each miner, and while the monsters still weren’t strong enough to pose an actual threat, they still worked hard. Miners loved nothing more than anything that worked harder than them.

Theo gave a tour of the mine’s interior, leading Tresk, Gridgen, and Alex down the passage where they found the egg. Blood-splattered golems stood sentry outside of that dark stone room, but the gosling seemed excited to see the room. She flapped her little stunted wings, trying to return to the plinth where her egg rested, but failed. When the alchemist placed her atop the dark stone, she just chirped excitedly. But the miners had dug new tunnels out of the hard rock, revealing more spawn points for nuggets. Like the smelter, their production was increasing by the day. Even the miners themselves were growing stronger, most pushing past level 10 and a select few edging towards 20.

The miners were smart enough to keep their exploratory digging to the top levels of the mine, targeting copper and iron but hoping to hit silver. Theo’s plan for a mint required massive amounts of copper. Once Nira got her specialized minting core, she’d need to grind levels to mint higher-tier coinage. Theo would have to face whatever rested in the deep places of the rock before getting the coveted [Silver Nuggets]. For now, he was happy to see them increasing their daily production.

“Fenian better make good on his promise of the ship builder,” Theo grumbled as they left the mine. But his grouchy mood was washed away with a single chirp from Alex.

“Oh! Show her the harbor, next!” Tresk shouted.

Theo wanted nothing more, but the next stop was Miana’s ranch. The baby Karatan hadn’t hatched, but the Half-Ogre woman was eager to see Alex. She nestled the gosling in her arms, cooing at her the entire time. The visit came with a list of things they needed to do for Alex, including dietary information and sleeping arrangements. Miana promised to drop everything off at the lab before noon.

The harbor had seen some changes. Aarok ordered the new weapons to be placed on the new section of wall, completing the town’s defenses. Alex chirped excitedly to see this part of town, having an infectious eagerness to splash in the harbor’s water that almost saw Theo taking the plunge. Unlike in the Dreamwalk, the bridge-gate on the southern side of the harbor was closed. No ships came to Broken Tusk’s port, and it was a real shame. But that would soon be a distant memory.

Theo picked up his mostly-cultivated [Starbristle Flax] from the greenhouse, finding that his [Lesser Plant Golem] had propagated the plant on its own. The small corner he reserved for test subjects was now filled with the strange plant, and the alchemist took a moment to inspect it. It was a flowering plant, with leaves that looked like tall blades of grass ending bristling blue flowers. The sample he inspected was twice as large as the original, sitting at 135% cultivation. It was good enough for mass planting, so he scooped up 10 live plants to give to Banu. That guy could propagate anything.

Banu didn’t care to see Alex, but what Theo saw disappointed him greatly. Gwyn had sorted the worker issue out perfectly. Almost every field was packed with people working the land, sorting the Zee plants out. What hurt the alchemist was the lack of upgrades. The farmer was making enough money to buy his own monster cores, but his stubbornness just wouldn’t give in. A quick breath and a wave of comforting warmth from the gosling dulled the edges of his harsh words. Where he wanted to throttle the farmer for disregarding his advice, his words came like a scolding parent.

“No upgrades?” Theo asked, placing his hands on his hips. “I thought we talked about this, Banu.”

“Things have been tight,” Banu said, mopping his brow.

“Uh-huh,” Theo said. “What with all the free money you’re getting from the town. Come on, we need to sort this out. Now.”

Banu stammered, but followed Theo to the seed core building’s center. The farmhouse was nice enough, even for a single-floor situation. Theo had more high-level [Monster Cores] than he knew what to do with, and began jamming them in the building. He wasn’t the owner, so he wouldn’t get the prompt to select the upgrades. That didn’t matter, the farmer had great intuition.

With increasing [Intelligence], Theo could understand the upgrade cost for buildings. Before, it seemed to be arbitrary, but he got it now. If a building was under the level of the cores used, it needed around 5 cores to hit a new level. Plus one, in some cases. That part still didn’t make sense. He experimented with an equal-level core at first, then cores that were a level lower, and so on until the building hit level 15 and got the first upgrade. [Monster Cores] that were a lower level than a building worked on a less-effective formula. At level 11, the building ate 10 level 10 cores. Level 12 took 20, and it seemed to scale from there.

Banu made his selection and Theo moved on, feeding cores until the building hit level 20. The alchemist noticed new fields spring up to the west. The farmer expanded the farm in that direction, expanding the level-ground created by that ancient Earth Mage. When the alchemist went to inspect the farm’s upgrades, he realized how good these upgrades would be.

[Fresh Tilled Earth]

Anything fertilizer-baring substance tilled into this soil will be doubly effective.

This was an upgrade Banu had already selected. It was likely the reason why the swamp mud did so well with fertilizing the fields. This was a possible synergy for Theo’s potions, but it was hard to say without experimentation.

[Enhanced Growth]

Reduce the time required to grow plants within the farm by a significant margin.

[Enhanced Growth], combined with the naturally fast-growing effect of Drogramath’s power was a killer. While a normal growing season might have been around 30 days on this planet, Banu’s selection of this upgrade made it half a week or less. But the reason for the farm creating new plots of land was the next upgrade.

[Scaling Expansion]

New fields will be generated when this building is expanded. Expanding in any direction results in the leveling of terrain, providing the perfect growing surface.

So the upgrade sorted out the strangely shaped land. That was beyond useful, something that Theo wouldn’t pass up for the world. Banu made a great pick with that one.

[Drogramathi Cultivation]

Your power is now aligned with Drogramath. Fields present in an area of high Drogramath Energy will provide higher yields.

Theo stared at the upgrade for some time. His mind couldn’t process the depth of dedication a Half-Ogre would have to possess to pick this option. While people didn’t outwardly hate the Demon Lord, there was still a stigma. Banu could have selected it from a logical standpoint, but that man wasn’t very logical.

“Banu, you’d seriously align yourself with Drogramath?” Theo asked.

“Big ol’ Demon Lord has done nothing but good for us, huh?” Banu asked, sounding moderately offended. “Seems a shame not to pledge to whoever is gonna help me out. Demon or not.”

Theo clapped a hand over the Half-Ogre’s shoulder, smiling. He might have known, but that was a massive step forward for the people of Broken Tusk. It would make it easier to set their patron to Drogramath when the time came. Whenever that was.

They finished their business at the farm, handing Banu the [Starbristle Flax] plants and leaving it at that. The farmer didn’t need instructions, he’d plant them today and get massive fields of the plant rolling before the sun set. Tresk remained silent for the visit, happy enough to just be there with the gosling. Ziz’s place was next, and the stoneworkers were all too happy to see the baby goose.

Ziz’s cadre had expanded significantly, although he still kept outsiders at a distance. His idea of creating a group of core stoneworkers, and another group of auxiliaries was fine by Theo. He shared his idea of making raised roads, tunnels, and so forth and the stoneworkers seemed to think it was a great idea. While it was a problem for another day, that didn’t stop them from drawing up plans on a tattered piece of parchment.

All these thoughts for the future fell away when a bell echoed up from the town below. It was a slow ring that could only mean one thing. A town-wide message popped up to punctuate the thought.

[Aarok]: Defenders to your stations. We’ve sighted the monster wave.