Nadir’s gift was unmissable. Soleil held her brand new pin up to the sunlight.

A speckled mushroom pin would be perfect for marking which pouch in her satchel contained food. It was such an obvious marker for important supplies that she had never had to worry about until now.

There would be ample time to learn, as food shortages were a regular occurrence that demanded volunteers to help with logistics. Soleil’s first time leaving home would involve joining Veilura in ensuring a string of new villages had enough food to last until their first harvest.

Brigid was busy loading up the cart while Veilura and Nadir finished eating. Soleil used this opportunity to amend her satchel’s packing arrangements using the new pin.

Speckled Mushroom: Dried Meats and Blood Apples, both had minor Vitality restoring properties.

Feathered Quill and Inkwell: Soap stones in assorted colors and parchment for fulfilling her promise to write home. She also had lengths of ribbon to tie up completed letters for delivery.

Storm Clouds: One durable flask made out of magma drake scales, currently filled with a Focus restoring drought. Alchemical restoratives always had trade offs depending on their use cases and available materials. The most common restorative salves and potions had short shelf lives in exchange for more potent effects. (Often with acceptable drawbacks.) More uncommon were the droughts and mixtures that offered a more reliably modest effect, but would keep well for months on end.

She still had a few more pins and another two pouches in her satchel. But the larger pouches were likely to just be filled with spare clothes. How many was she supposed to bring?

Brigid often wore the same suit of armor for days on end, much to Veilura’s frustration. Nadir cheated by virtue of effectively being clothed in living shadow mana that allowed xem to teleport out of one robe and into another so long as xer clothes were in darkness.

She would have to ask Veilura about what would be reasonable, and make sure her mother reigned in any notions of bringing a specific outfit for each occasion. If she and her mother ever parted ways, she would lose the benefit of having the cart to carry an entire wardrobe with her.

“Okay. That should be everything.” Brigid announced to everyone lounging in view of the stoneyard.

Soleil looked up. When did Brigid have time to remove all the chitinous plating?

The grin that Brigid flashed her felt mischievous. Adults were weird sometimes.

Wait, was she considered an adult now? Before she could follow that train of thought, Brigid strode over with a small box. "Your mothers and I agreed not to coddle you too much. You deserve to succeed or fail at whatever you set your mind to on your own. So my gift to you is just a little taste of home.”

Okay. Another one of Brigid’s well seasoned meals was not the most imaginative gift, but Soleil was already looking forward to appreciating it.

“I may or may not have hidden a length of rope underneath the food. You can-”

“Never have too much rope. I know, mom. You’ve said this a dozen times in the last week alone!”

Brigid’s smile almost looked sad. They both chanced a peek at the direction of the house. Veilura was busy packing her own bag while Nadir scooped dishes into xer arms.

“Okay. What’s so special about this set of rope?” Soleil asked.

“This one is Cinder Silk.” Brigid’s eyes lit up. She could be a nerd in her own way, almost all of them overbearingly practical.

More fireproof equipment was always useful. “Wait. I thought I was supposed to buy my own adventuring kit.”

Brigid nodded, her own attention drifting toward her daughter's half packed satchel.

Soleil swiped it away and closed it before her mother could offer any unsolicited advice.

“Was that… a new pin?”

Oh. Soleil felt her cheeks flush. “Yeah. That was Nadir’s gift.”

Brigid’s grin faltered.

Was there a gift giving competition going on here?

Soleil did her best to crush her mother in a hug, putting all her Intensity into the small gesture that she could. “Thanks mom. You know how much I like Cinder Spiders. You did good.”

Something in Brigid’s expression seemed off. Whatever came next looked like it would be said with hesitation.

Soleil squeezed her mother tighter.

“I would like to think we did okay. But if the only person in this world that we can make happy is you, letting you go is the kindest gift we can give the world.”

Why were her mothers so sad all of a sudden? Who could ask for anything more than her three Demon Mothers? “You’ve all quietly done your best to make the world a better place despite all of this. I know I’m not obligated to fix any of this. But I do genuinely want to help.”

***

"So. What are the full details of our request?” Soleil finally summoned up the courage to ask. They had been on the road for a few hours now. Their home had long disappeared as they rounded their way down a smooth stone path.

“Well, the Grove tender Verda has requested that I and some others bring some supplies out east to one of the frontier villages. I planned to stick to largely well-traveled roads, but the Groves we are headed towards will take us through some areas with active corruption spreading. That said, I’m quite content to leave how we handle the details up to you.” Veilura’s ears and tails wagged attentively as she gave her daughter time to think on how to respond.

Soleil had a responsibility, if she wanted it. She knew she could always say no. She had expected to be the one to ask her mother how they would divide up responsibilities. If her mother was leaving that to her, maybe she should give it some thought. "Hmm. Well someone always has to be driving the cart. But Hope does not exactly set a fast pace. At any given point, one of us could probably do a little foraging, scouting, or get some practice in whenever my mana reserves are full."

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Her mother nodded, tails swishing in what Soleil took to be an approving manner.

"I've got to practice having mana guide my hand in cooking and working with herbs. If the resulting meals of mine are terrible, maybe we can limit that to once a day?"

Veilura smiled warmly. "You have not yet begun and already you are mindful of pacing yourself."

"Well yeah. If I push myself too hard, I'll suffer mana burn out and have the maximum capacity of my attributes reduced for a day or more."

"Few truly internalize this lesson so quickly is all. It's a part of why we are all so proud of you already."

Soleil scooted away from her mother. Not that there was much room in the cart for more than the two of them and their personal bags. "Sorry mom. I think I have met my hug quota for the day."

"Sweetie. I think we have ALL met our hug quota for the day. You do not need to be sorry for asserting your limits and boundaries though."

Soleil briefly wondered if anyone stopped to ask the world what its limits were. There would be plenty of time to consider the plight of the world and mana. For now it would probably be best if she focused on increasing her Soul Level and experimenting with what she could do with mana channeling.

"I am not sure I want to think of it as setting expectations,” Soleil said, musing aloud. “Waking up to how mana feels is scary enough that I would like to just take a few days to explore what I can do."

"Very well. I will remain hands off with your instruction for a while yet. Unless you change your mind."

Veilura made no mention of intervening if she struggled with something. Soleil found herself being appreciative of her mother allowing her daughter to fail. She already had enough to think about from sparring with Brigid.

"How far away from the cart am I allowed to wander?" Soleil thought it was time to test the boundaries of her freedom.

"I would recommend remaining within shouting distance." Veilura said, offering her a recommendation instead of a limit.

Soleil grinned mischievously as she shouldered her satchel and hopped off the cart. Her mother had incredibly sensitive hearing. Even if it had been a hard limit, the boundaries for exploration would have been quite far.

Which was just as well. Soleil just needed to be allowed to roam far enough to find an opportunity to shape mana into a spell. Thankfully, the stabilized zone she called home was one where fire mana dominated. There would be little to no risk of causing a destructive fire on top of ample sources of fire mana to interact with.

It took Soleil a while to find what she was looking for. Gray berries dangling from low hanging vines. Soleil focused on the berries while reaching for her reserves of Focus. A single point of Focus [Herblore] identified her favorite berries for her: “Blast Berries!” A second point of Focus informed her that they reacted with Intensity and Fire Mana. Soleil didn’t need the skill to inform her just how they reacted, but that kind of information was likely tied up in a Sensitivity she was not quite confident enough to use again. Not for a few more levels still.

Or maybe, just before calling it a night she would spend the last of her mana experimenting on things she fully expected to render her useless for a while.

Soleil rolled the fresh Blast Berries between her fingers without a care in the world. They served as more of a defense mechanism for the plant to ward off entities of a more fiery nature than she possessed. Not wanting to deprive the local flora of their defenses, Soleil was sure to only pluck a few berries from a dozen of the pale limbed plants.

Okay. Experiment number one. Combat without a skill.

Soleil plucked one Blast Berry from the handful and willed a point of Intensity into it. The berry immediately began to tremble and swell. Soleil lobbed it as far as she could. It detonated with a fairly loud crack upon impact with the ground, throwing up ash and pieces of assorted metamorphic rocks.

Experiment two.

Soleil invested two Intensity into the berry before lobbing it. The resulting explosion detonated with roughly twice as much force if the resulting debris and volume was indicative and increased from the first.

The third Blast Berry resisted her attempts to feed it three points of Intensity. After throwing the Blast Berry and using [Analyze] on herself later, she confirmed that she had only lost 2 points of Intensity from the third berry.

Intensity: 15/20

Normally she would have needed to seek out a reflective surface to target her own soul with a skill like that, but thankfully she had a magitech lens that doubled as a reflective enough surface for that purpose.

Soleil threw the rest of the Blast Berries as hard as she could against the ground. When no explosion resulted, she confirmed that they were indeed inert.

“Thanks for not seeing me as a threat! I just wanted to experiment a little is all!” Soleil collected the discarded Blast Berries and slid them into an empty pouch hanging from a belt running through her freshly cleaned cinder silk skirt. These berries would not be for eating but for lobbing at threats. If they proved effective, she might even consider crafting or purchasing a slingshot for them.

Soleil started back towards the cart, satisfied with her first little venture before an idea occurred to her. Soleil returned to the clearing where she had been lobbing explosive berries and retrieved one from her pouch. She tossed it ahead of her before reaching for her [Fire Affinity.] Points of Focus drew heat out of the air around her until it condensed into a very visible mote of fire mana. Soleil reached for [Mana Manipulation] and guided it slowly to the berry, propelling the mote with a single point of Intensity.

Upon contact with the Blast Berry, the intense mote of fire exploded alongside the berry in a glorious display that dwarfed what the two points of Intensity earned her.

[Soleil’s Soul gained a level.]

No skill rank ups, but that was fine. She still had a number of skills in need of ranking up. There was no shame in banking the skill point if she really wanted to raise one of her magic skills at the earliest opportunity. Something to think about for later.

Leveling up from learning how her skills could interact with the world felt really satisfying. This admittedly was a very finicky interaction that might be tricky to use in practice, but [Mana Manipulation] offered endless opportunities for interacting with the environment around her from a safe distance.

***

“Those were some interesting sounding explosions. Only two of them were alike.” Veilura welcomed her daughter back with a satisfied looking grin.

Soleil matched her mother’s grin with one of her own. “I was experimenting with Blast Berries and interactions with various attributes. At the end there I activated one of the berries with a fire spell!” Her proud delivery was slightly undercut by realizing it took her more effort to climb atop the cart after spending a quarter of her Intensity.

“You realize that a berry or two will likely only give any notable threat to you little more than a nasty stomach ache.”

“Yeah. But I really don’t want to hurt anything too badly. I’m actually hoping that a big enough explosion will be enough to frighten something off. Worst case scenario it makes for a distraction or I put something’s eye out with it.”

Veilura’s grin only grew wider.

The rest of the day passed without much of interest occurring. Just an hour’s rest after sparring with Brigid and her Blast Berry experiments were enough to restore her soul’s attributes. But the feeling of fatigue of herself as much as she had remained. Channeling mana to any serious degree really felt like serious physical exercise in the way it stuck with her long after the act.

That did not mean however, that Soleil was finished for the day. She had room for one last thing to do. Something dangerous.

She allowed herself to rest her head on her mother’s shoulder a while before asking her first serious question.

“Mom. Is Calamity a person?”

After a moment, Veilura took a deep breath of her own. “She is.”

“What is she like?”