Once we finish exploring the obvious paths, we strike out into the overgrown garden to explore further. We haven't even seen the four walls around the dungeon, so there must be more to see around the edges. Basalt and Colt go first with their axe and machete.

At first, everything seems alright. After several steps, a vine suddenly lashes out toward Jade. She leaps back out of the way, almost avoiding getting entangled, but the tip of the vine manages to grab a hold of her wrist. Not for long, though. Basalt brings down his axe to free her. With one swipe of the bronze axe, both halves of the strangler vine go limp.

They all show up as plants, but I fervently scan the area around me with Clairvoyance trying to pick out which ones might decide to attack us. This isn't the sort of dungeon where every vine is a strangler vine. This is the sort of dungeon where the vine that will try to attack you is one you don't spot until it moves.

We continue to hack our way into the overgrowth and explore further. Nobody seems to have enough plant-related skills to be able to detect them, so it's down to me to determine their disposition.

I manage to pick out a few before they attack, but nothing we do prevents them from striking if we get too close and there's too many of them to just go around.

Brute-forcing our way through the underhanded undergrowth is still worth some skill levels, at least, but it's unsatisfying. There's got to be a better way to get through there.

Skills increased: Survival (Careful Step), Enhanced Feet (Freedom of Movement), Clairvoyance (Empathy)

In the corner of the garden stands a tree. Specifically, a treefolk of the same kind I saw in the other garden dungeons. This one, however, is covered in monster vines, tangled so tightly that it's barely able to move. It's completely calm and casual, as if this is a normal and comfortable state of affairs.

"Good day, visitors," says the treefolk. "I would offer to play a game of cards with you, but I am a bit tied up right now."

We step forward, cautiously and with weapons ready. Once we get a certain distance away, some of the vines uncurl from the tree. One of them whips toward me faster than I can react, and sends me flying back into the undergrowth we'd just pruned.

Anise is smirking at us. She and Belladonna have been hanging back letting the Basics have the first shot at all the obstacles, but after seeing how fast the vines knocked us all back, I could only guess Belladonna's the only one here fast enough to evade that.

We're all unharmed, as the vines only sought to knock us back and not hurt us.

Jade tries to sneak up, and gets thwipped back into the bushes. The vine monster clearly doesn't care about how quiet we are. It doesn't even seem to have eyes or ears.

Rowan rushes forward with his sword and shield, but another vine knocks him back as well. The sheer force of the Elite monster is too much.

Basalt picks up a rock and hurls it toward the tree, and it lands in the dirt a meter away from the trunk. The vines don't react.

They also doesn't react to the insects. Between us and the tree, a stick bug crawls across a non-bug stick. I only spot it by its aura, but the orange aura of a natural animal draws out no interest from the monster vine. Watching it gives me an idea.

The Secret Garden isn't a garden that's secret. It's a garden whose theme is "secrets." Everything of interest here is hidden or camouflaged in some way. You're expected to detect them, but you're also expected to make yourself secretive too. Next run, whenever we get out here again, we should try sneaking past everything in here. There's benefits to attempting to solve a dungeon in different ways, and a stealth run is always fun. It will be good practice for later when I'm trying to traverse a more dangerous area and monsters that want to do more than just knock us back.

Reaching out with my soul, I draw in the concepts of hiding, secrecy, and camouflage from the area and things around me.

Skill acquired: Enhanced Soul (Chameleon Aura) Description: The ability to alter the appearance of your aura, misleading those who can detect it into believing you are other than you are.

I focus my thoughts on my aura. I am a bush. I am a bush.

The outside of my aura tinges with green. I step forward triumphantly.

A vine lashes out toward me and wraps around me tightly rather than knocking me back.

[I'm fine!] I assure my party.

That had been a dumb idea. It doesn't do any more than hold me, though, so I don't bother struggling. The only moving plant around here is the treefolk. Otherwise, nothing is doing more than swaying in the breeze like normal plants. A bush actively stepping forward is not normal behavior.

I refocus my thoughts to make my aura orange rather than green. I am a bug. I am a bug. I am a bug.

The vine decides that I am a bug and therefore not worth bothering with, and withdraws. I successfully approach the tree. Now what to do about the vines? If I start stabbing them, they might think I'm hostile and actually attack me.

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"You will need to cut it off from the roots," the treefolk says.

This is essentially just weeding. And this vine will be back again when the garden respawns.

The vine is rooted in the ground behind the treefolk. Beneath it, I detect its vis core in the ground, where it's controlling the vines from. Detached from that, the monster which is not actually a plant will die.

I pull out a knife from my bag of holding, grab it and start cutting, while fervently thinking I am an insect. The vine does not immediately react more than you'd expect of just having a bug crawl across it, and only gets alarmed once I cut beneath the surface. A vine reaches down and thwips me away like one would an insect that bites.

I circle back over to the party. [I'm not sure you can repeat the trick I used, but maybe there's a version for Enhanced Heart or whatever.]

I tell them about [Chameleon Aura].

Colt nods and silently offers me his machete. He grins and gives me a thumbs up.

Firmly making sure my aura still reads 'insect'. I sneak back over to the tree and behind it. Gripping the machete, I pull the vine away from the trunk and hack at the vine, careful to angle it to not hit the treefolk. The plant-bane machete cuts through the monster's stem like devil-goat butter.

The vine monster droops, and the tree pulls it off of itself now that its limbs are free.

"Thank you, travelers," the treefolk says, casting the monster's corpse aside. "Although I do not mind remaining immobile, it's nice to do something else now and again."

"I actually got that machete here from another run I did once," Colt says when I return it. "I could never beat this boss, though. Guess this might have been what it was meant for, but I couldn't figure out how to get close enough."

We play a game of Leaves with the tree because every treefolk in Tempest Domain seems like it wants to play cards for some reason. Some of us are more reluctant than others about the forced card minigame. I've played so half-heartedly that I never even got any card-related skills but [Card Building].

We get a chest with treasure, including a rare card that I completely do not care about. There's also a green vine-like whip that doesn't seem like it would fit into the skill sets of any member of this party.

We head for the dungeon entrance and exit through the wrough iron gates.

"Is the Messenger from Flux gone yet?" I ask, peering off toward Nefern Village, but I can't quite make out the docking tower from here.

"He's flying away," Colt says, pointing to the indigo sky.

"Don't point," Belladonna says. "It gives away your position and they can tell you've seen them. Though in this case it's probably fine as it's not suspicious for a farm kid to marvel at a flying boat."

Rather than keep flying past, the boat descends and lands in front of us. Euston Flux gets out of his skyboat and strolls over to us.

"I wanted to speak with you before I left but you've been out here all day," Euston says. "What are you up to?"

I have to wonder if Messengers get some sort of skill that makes them hard to kill. Maybe with a name like Enhanced Breath (Don't Shoot the Messenger) or something. Either way, he's clearly here to spy on us and not just to deliver a message.

"We've been skill grinding, obviously," Basalt says.

It's obvious enough that he's up to something and is definitely fishing for information. You don't even need to be a psychic to realize it, but being able to detect his emotional state makes it quite clear.

Euston left his skyboat turned on. The sigils along its hull still shimmer with light. And while he's not looking, Poppy slips over and hops aboard the boat. With a wild grin, she grabs the tiller and it lifts shakily into the air.

Euston spins around in alarm. "My boat! Blasted kids!"

Giggling loudly, Poppy turns the skyboat in tight circles in the air above us.

"Poppy!" Basalt exclaims. "You get back down here this instant, young lady."

"Aw," Poppy says, but complies. She brings the boat down for a landing, releases the tiller and hops out.

"Now apologize," Basalt says, folding his arms across his beard.

Poppy chews her lip, but withers under Basalt's look. "I'm sorry."

"Idiot children," Euston mutters, getting back in his boat to make sure it's not going anywhere else without his say-so. "Idiot me for not turning off my boat as well, so I won't press the issue."

I examine his aura, trying to pick out the part that makes him feel like a Flux and not a Tempest. I'm also starting to be able to detect generalities about a person's given name, in that they're usually concepts not otherwise connected to their race or class. Once I identified that field, it appeared on my increasingly-cluttered identify screen.

Euston Flux Tiganna is named after a bird, and a bird I have not met anyone named after. It might be connected to him being a Messenger, though, because I'm also detecting "messenger" concept in the "given name" field in addition to "bird". I think I know what it must be.

[His name is Pigeon,] I tell my party.

Skills increased: Knowledge (Zoology), Clairvoyance (Aspect Analysis) Skill acquired: Clairvoyance (Naming) Description: The ability to determine someone's name.

"Pigeon Euston Flux Tiganna," Anise says. "What are you really after here?"

"You don't look old enough to be my mother," Pigeon says. "Your [Mom Voice] doesn't work on me."

Anise droops. "It doesn't work on my own children, and they're eight and nine! They have no respect at all! Look at that kid, does he look like he cares?"

Pigeon sighs. "Eighteen people are missing and presumed dead. And with no sign of any wreckage. That was some highly efficient scavenging. But, I should warn you, the captain's mother is an Epic."

He pauses dramatically, looking among us to see what our reaction is to this Epic proclamation.

"Why do none of you look terribly impressed?" Pigeon wonders. "Who wants to make an enemy of an Epic!?"

Belladonna raises a hand. "Oh! Oh! I do! I do!"

Pigeon looks at her and rolls his eyes. "Insane geriatric adventurers. Your party members back at the village were no better. You are inviting trouble so that you either die or rank up."

Belladonna cackles. "Absolutely. Go take that message back to your employer. The Daring Edgewalkers say come get some."

"As you wish. Fortunately, this is not my problem. Good day to you."

He takes the tiller and the skyboat returns to the air, flying off into the distance.

We're all staring at Belladonna once he's out of sight.

"What was all that you were saying about keeping quiet?"

"That's called a taunt," Belladonna says. "Where the strong protect the weak by attracting attention away from them. You kids best get out of sight."

I start to walk back toward the village. "We can take the skyboat back to Corwen for now."

Belladonna nods. "We can split the treasure when we get back to the inn. My party will stick around this area for now. It might not be a bad idea to take the Nefern kids with you."

"Getting to fly on a skyboat without the owner being mad!" Colt says, eyes widening. "Can I try the tiller?"

"Once we get high enough that we won't hit anything." I give Poppy a side look.

"Really!?"

"You've got to tell me how to get Enhanced Senses (Wind Detection), too," I say.

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