Lissa, who had spent her afternoon looking through the few strange kelp 'tapestry records' that the royal archive allowed the average citizen to access, saw that the afternoon shadows were beginning to stretch far away from the sun which was sinking quickly toward the horizon. It was time to head back to her mother's shop. She took a moment to cast [dull senses] on herself before leaving the archive. It took next to no effort to draw the correct strand from her fundament into the correct shape and allow the thin muffling haze to fall over her magical senses. The first-order spell had reached its max level of 10 a year ago, and offered great flexibility in what she could block out and for how long. She didn't use it all the time anymore as she had fully adjusted to the ambient magic around her in most places. The unfiltered magical threads within the bustling city of Etoleem, however, were still a strain on her senses, and she had taken to casting just a light barrier over her senses whenever she traversed the tree paths.

She waved farewell to the [archivist], Shlei'alan, an elven woman with a blue cast who could have been the half sister of the prince's mother. The stern woman always dressed with high collars and long-sleeves, even in the summer, and sported a strange glass and metal apparatus on the bridge of her nose that she said were called spectacles. Early in her tutelage under mistress Glee, Lissa's relationship with the [archivist] had been abysmal, but eventually they had found a compromise. Shlei'alan recognized how uncommon it was for one so young to express such an interest in her archive, and she detested noisy patrons almost—but not quite—as much as she had hated discouraging Lissa's interest. After much discussion, Lissa and Shlei'alan had come to a begrudging agreement that Lissa could make whatever noises she wanted so long as she did not harm any items in the archive and she stayed in the study room farthest from the archive storage itself. The agreement had held up rather well, and after a time, the [archivist] regarded Lissa with a modicum of respect. In response to Lissa's wave, Shlei'alan gave her the barest of nods as she headed out into the city.

Lissa knew the way from the archive within the capitol to the market district quite well by now. On her way home, she stopped at her favorite pastry shop for a honeyed lemon fritter. Instead of paying with coinage, Lissa cast a first-order spell on each of the six plants on the display counter. It had taken a lot of practice, but she could do it without looking at her fundament now. Carefully, she felt her way through the various strands of her [life, flora] fundament in her core until she grasped the singular strand that represented her [nourish] spell. Gently, she manipulated that strand into four interconnected loops, and used it to draw a connection between her and two of the small, winter-sad potted plants. She pushed her affection into the spell, and the tiny plants visibly perked up, leaves plumping up and darkening as if they had been sitting under full morning sun. At level 6, [nourish] still had a ways to go, but little by little, her ability was increasing. She cast the spell on each of the plants on the counter under the shopkeeper's appreciative gaze, and headed out into the city again, one fritter richer.

By the time she reached the front of her mother's shop, she had eaten all but the last bite of the delicious pastry and paused for a moment to eat it before she went inside. As she stood there though, she could hear slightly raised voices somewhere inside, but they were too indistinct to make out clearly. Curiosity taking over, she brushed any remaining crumbs off and pushed through the door into the shop. As the entry bell chimed, she was just able to catch her tutor's voice arguing forcefully, "... I really must insist: I am going to take them to their first dungeon."

Is she talking about us? Our first dungeon? Lissa thought to herself, eyes widening. When the conversation abruptly halted, she reasoned that her entrance had definitely been noticed by the occupants further inside, and Lissa continued inside, pushing open the door to the workroom at the back of her mother's tailor shop. There, her aunt Igmi, and her mother, Tecka, stood with crossed arms staring at Lissa's tutor, Mistress Glee, who stared back at them with tight lips and raised eyebrows. Lissa had walked into the front of the shop just as they had been discussing something that she apparently wasn't meant to hear.

The gnomish woman with overly large facial features nodded to Lissa, pursed her lips, and addressed the two much taller adult humans, "We'll speak about this later. In order to teach them properly, you both know that what I'm asking is non-negotiable."

Glee made sharp eye contact with the taller women who begrudgingly acknowledged her point. She nodded again to Lissa as she walked to the door, and said in parting, "I'll see you in the morning, Mellissa."

With that, the small woman exited out into what meager sunlight was left of the winter's late afternoon. Lissa was left looking up at her mother's and aunt's faces, each bearing a furrowed brow and tight lips. It was aunt Igmi who turned to her and asked, "What did you hear?"

All at once, Lissa burst out in glowing excitement, beginning to bounce on the balls of her feet, "Are Bup and Artaxes and I going to a dungeon!?"

Tecka sighed as Igmi's terrible poker face cracked. Her mother responded, "Nothing's been decided yet."

"But can we? I want to go to a dungeon!" Lissa continued to bounce up and down, and began to talk more quickly. "Mistress Glee told us all about the local dungeons. Did you know that a lot of the ones that are close by don't even have monsters? They're used for farming! It would be more fun to go to a dungeon with monsters, but even if all we do is look at magical plants that would be really cool. I wonder what they look like... "

Lissa continued talking about whatever really amazing things she could think of to be excited about in going to see a local dungeon while Igmi and Tecka exchanged a glance. While neither of them were particularly thrilled about their nine-year-olds going to a dungeon, the real issue was Drust. After his family had died in a tragic delving incident, there was almost no way that he would agree to this. It wasn't the first time that Glee had come to discuss it with the two women, but Tecka had been delaying bringing it up with her husband. Even ensuring that Lissa was well protected and assuring him that it was to a dungeon where no monsters spawned, she didn't think he would react well to the idea. Glee's insistence this afternoon though had made it clear that she wouldn't be able to delay any longer.

"... and maybe if Artaxes eats something from inside the dungeon he'll—"

Lissa was abruptly cut off when her mother said, "Yes, Lissa, we know you're excited. It's not a done deal yet. Your father still needs to agree."

Igmi added suddenly, "And don't go telling Artaxes before it's decided. If Bup finds out and you don't end up going, it'd be one thing, but if that birdbrain gets it in his head that we don't think he's capable of surviving in a dungeon, his pride won't let him rest until he proves us wrong."

Lissa wanted to go badly enough that she thought that might be a good way to ensure it would happen, but agreed anyways, "Yes, aunt Igmi."

"Good girl," Igmi said, then turned to her sister. "I'll talk it over again with Hayzen, but you have to talk to Drust tonight, Tecka. Your husband needs to know what's going on, and he deserves a chance to process it before Glee makes the decision for us... not that she would, but..."

Tecka looked at the workroom's rug-covered floor, shoulders slumping as she sighed deeply. She lifted her head up and turned to look her sister in the eye. "I know, sis. I will. I promise."

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Her mother had insisted that Lissa not mention anything about dungeons until she'd had a chance to speak with her father about it. Alone. Lissa had chaffed at this, wild imaginings of the insides of dungeons racing through her mind. Every year, she had gain a bit more self-control, though, and she abided by her mother's wishes. All the way home, she didn't say anything, and all through preparation and dinner, she didn't say anything. Even through stories (still about the Lost Treasures) before bedtime, Lissa didn't say anything about dungeons.

But as her mother kissed her on the forehead after tucking her in bed, she whispered loudly, "When are you gonna talk to daddy about... you know?"

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Drust, who was only a few steps closer to the door turned to Tecka with mischievous smile and raised an eyebrow, "What's 'you know?''"

Tecka groaned, and answered her daughter's question, "Soon, sweetling. Go to sleep."

Lissa watched her mother's pace quicken in tension as she walked from the room. Drust, still grinning over having caught his wife conspiring with their daughter chased after her, closing Lissa's bedroom door gently. Two seconds later, the door popped open in a gap wide enough to see his face through, and he added warmly, "Night, Liss."

Through the thick wooden door, Lissa couldn't make out individual words, but she could hear the tone in her parents' voices shift. The ready smile disappeared from her father's basso, leaving a scowl in its place. Only the first part of her mother's lilting soprano came through as the two moved further away from Lissa's room. She lay in the dark, the sounds of heated conversation fading. She felt bad that her parents were arguing because of something she did, but Lissa knew why Drust hated dungeons. She didn't know the gruesome details, but she knew that her grandparents and all her aunts and uncles on her father's side had died in a dungeon. But not all dungeons were the same! And she was extra magical, even her status said so.

As she lay in the dark, she pulled her core into her awareness—she wasn't moving her core really, just making it so she could look at it. The text of her status surrounded the mass of her four unique fundaments, and nearly invisible, just below the text, were yet another set of completely colorless strands. It had taken her several months to even notice they were there, but she had learned they were the neutral magic that all [aware beings] had that held their magics together and housed unaligned utility spells, like [identify]. Presumably, they would also grow when she gained a profession, but since no one saw magic quite the same way (and no one she knew had an acuity anywhere near as detailed as hers), no one could tell her exactly where her profession's skills would show up.

She hadn't quite developed a habit—more like an obsession—of pulling up her growing status, attributes, and spells every evening. Since learning to read, the writing in her status had changed; the content was the same, but the text was in her first language, Tana'avarian. She looked through her attributes, proudly noting that they were still growing. Her focus still showed strange extremes of an 8 and a 2, but then, she'd always struggled with focus, either hyper-focusing or struggling to focus at all. She'd been meaning to look it up in the archive for months. Unsurprisingly, she still hadn't remembered to do that while she was there.

Her eyes moved past her attributes to her fundaments. She unfurled her [shadow, haze] fundament's fog bank of shifting lace and reviewed her progress in her spells. Two strands now 'glowed' with the same swirling black miasma that the [umbral fur] had. The strand for [Dull senses] was completely filled by the glowing darkness. She focused on the second glowing strand of [obscure], revealed to be only partially full as it expanded into a ring of knots and picots.

First-order spell: [obscure], level 4

Target: an area no larger than the caster's hand

The area becomes hazily obscured to observers. Duration and area increase with spell level and potency.

She let the strand recede back into the larger lacy tapestry and gazed longingly at the final two strands that shone a different color from the rest of the fundament. They were deep in the foggy lace, but bore none of the miasma's glow that her two unlocked first-order spells did. [Night's friend] and [hide], the intrinsic spells given her by her ancient's blessing, were fourth and fifth-order spells respectively, and normally required a [potency] of 7 to use. As intrinsic spells, she would be able to unlock them once her [potency] reached 4. As long as she was growing, she would be able to work to increase her [potency], the concentration of the magic she put into each spell, but as long as her [capacity] was low, she would struggle to cast spells at the edge of her [potency] with any kind of frequency.

She sighed, and drew up her [shadow, haze] fundament's plied pair fundament, [spheres, moon], given to her by her [Favor of Anella] attribute. The grey-blue lace of the fundament unscrolled into a nearly perfect sphere, and the strands of it seemed to depict the full, pocked face of the larger of the two moons in the night sky. One knotted strand in exactly the center glowed along its full length with ethereal moonlight. Lissa smiled in proud satisfaction as she drew its details into view. Text appeared about the very simple four-stranded square in an under-over weave.

First-order spell: [moonlight], level 10

Range: 10 paces

Moonlight illuminates a surface within range in an area of two square handspans. Surface area and range increase with spell level and potency.

Max level reached.

She had unlocked that spell relatively early under Mistress Glee's instruction, and she had used it often at night, especially when it was cold or rainy or just generally unpleasant to have the shutters in her room open. The spell was tied to a couple second-order spells, [moonbeam] and [night light]. She had fulfilled all the prerequisites to unlock both spells, but she hadn't yet quite figured out how to create the shapes of the spells in order to cast them properly. In this, her fine acuity was both blessing and curse. Her spellforms would be essentially perfect when she created them, but, in contrast to someone with a blunt acuity, she was also required to encode much more detail into her spellforms before they would solidify into working spells. Lissa believed she was very close to figuring out how to construct the long structure of [moonbeam], but the spherical construction of the [night light] spellform still eluded her.

As she released her concentration on her [shadow, haze] fundament, she again heard the basso of her father's raised voice. Apparently he had very strong feelings about a field trip to a dungeon. She was well over nine years old now though; how long was he going to treat her like a little kid? The voice quieted again, and Lissa moved on, reviewing her [life, flora] and [water, purity] fundaments that were bound tightly together in her core.

The two fundaments rose into her awareness together, central strands of spring green and glacier blue wound around each other in a double helix while branching off and away into the high-order spells of both fundaments. Lissa first focused on the green strands. She had used [nourish] earlier that afternoon, the first [life, flora] spell she had learned. The spellform was simple, four chained loops formed from a single strand that transformed magic into plant fuel.

First-order spell: [nourish], level 6

Target: up to two small plants

Nourish (a) small plant(s) with energy and nutrients. Can serve in place of sunlight and soil for extended periods. Number of targets increases with spell level. Spell efficiency increases with [finesse].

She hadn't yet fully sussed out what qualified as a small plant and what didn't. It had still worked on year-old sapling trees that were taller than her, but not mature trees of a similar size.

She had unlocked her second [life, flora] spell instinctively after eating food that had apparently gone bad. [Weak poison resistance], another first-order spell, now sat at level 1, barely illuminated with the [life, flora] fundament's spring green light. The whole of the fundament was shaped like a vine made of braids and knots. The two third-order intrinsic spells given to her by [ancient's blessing] were still locked, but she had met all the requirements for [eyes of the forest]. If she continued working at it, she should be able to learn it soon. The other intrinsic spell [benevolent harvest] required a [capacity] of 4, so it would be some time before she'd be able to cast it even if she had mastered the spellform.

Entwined with the glowing green vines of [life, flora] were the cerulean blue threads of her [water, purity] fundament that she'd inherited from her father. If she was honest, she had spent the least amount of time focusing on this fundament; she found it boring. Sure, if she worked and worked and worked at it, she could eventually unlock healing spells like the fourth-order [cleanse] and sixth-order [water of life], but those were at the tail end of a long journey through spells she just couldn't see a use for yet. Maybe she needed more education. As it was, neither of the two first-order spells she had unlocked were at max level yet.

First-order spell: [condense], level 8

Target: all water vapor within one cubic handspan outside the domain of any living creature

Condense target water vapor into liquid water. Target area increases with spell level.

First-order spell: [purify], level 3

Target: one gill of liquid water

Remove impurities from targeted water. Target volume increases with spell level and [potency]. Percentage of purification increases with [capacity].

In order to practice [purify] along with get a good idea of how large a gill even was, Glee had encouraged Lissa to fill several cups with muddy water and attempt to purify them. She'd learned that with her [capacity] of 2 determining the efficacy of the spell, food dye was a much better indicator than mud since no matter how many times she cast [purify] on the muddy water, the water never cleared. When they used food dye, she at least learned that a gill was about the volume as a mouthful of water. It wasn't exact, but that size would grow with the spell anyways.

Finally having looked through all of her spells, Lissa released her view of her fundaments and their spell weaves, allowing the images to fade out of her awareness. There was no moonlight peeking from between her shuttered windows tonight, and she rolled over, pulling the blankets up over her shoulders. This bed was almost too small for her now, but uncle Hayzen had at least made her larger blankets before this winter, so she was still quite warm.

Her thoughts drifted as she began to fall asleep. If her father agreed, she could be in a dungeon tomorrow. Even if her father didn't agree, Mistress Glee might take them anyways. As excited as she was, the chill of the room and her warm, soft blankets weighed her eyelids closed, and kaleidoscopic images of dazzlingly whimsical scenes danced through her dreams.