"Sorry I passed out as soon as I found a fur to lie on last night," Meadow says. "We didn't really have a chance to chat."

"I kind of lost you in the crowd, too," I say. "How are you doing?"

"Don't you have [Empathy]?" Meadow asks.

"Sure, but I want to hear what your words say, not what your aura says."

Meadow chuckles. "Physically, fine. No lingering status effects, anyway. But I'd be lying if I said I was alright with this. I guess people higher level than us will be taking care of things, though."

We stretch our legs and wander toward the buildings, passing a memorial marker for the place where "Grabrat Grubwick" died. Most of the rescuees that we brought here are still here, recovering a bit more before they push back to the surface. I examine their auras as practice on the way by, taking advantage of having so many different strangers to watch and trying to identify their names and places of origin. A bird here, a flower there.

I run across that teenage reincarnator who commented on my fungal aura. I try to discern his name before he introduces himself.

Name (Fish?) (?) Tempest Tiganna

"Hey. I'm Brill Trellyn. Thanks for coming to help us."

Man, I need to memorize a fish book too? I've never even heard of a brill before.

"I had no idea any of you were there, to be honest," I say. "I just had a hunch the Halkyns were up to something and decided to check the Underswamps beneath their Hearth. I used [Aether Sense] to find the dungeon, hidden and blocked off, and [Aura Sight] noticed that there were people in there and not just mushrooms."

"How are you even still at Basic rank?" Brill wonders.

"That's an excellent question and one I'd very much like to know the answer to," I say.

I search the auras for one matching Crow Talgarth Tempest Tiganna, and locate him sitting on a rock next to a campfire. I even manage to identify his entire name!

Skill increased: Clairvoyance (Naming)

"Crow Talgarth?" I ask.

He looks up. "Yeah?"

"We're about to head to a nearby dwarf town to pick up your nephew, Rowan," I say. "You feel up to another stroll through the Underswamps to see what we've been up to?"

"Didn't know there were any dwarf towns in Tempest," Crow says. "But yeah, I'm good to go."

We head back down the increasingly well-worn path to the Hebron Stair. And by "we" I mean me, Meadow, Uncle Falcon, Kestrel, Crow Talgarth, and Griza. It is sometimes important to clarify which "we" I mean.

Crow stares at everything along the way, but I tell him to wait until we're in the safety of Hebron before getting into storytime. While it's highly unlikely that there's anything in the area that would give us any trouble (unless Tempest decides to throw a Mythical at us for some reason), it's best not to get into bad habits.

We head down the stairs and find Rowan, Anise, Milo, and all three dwarves in the hearth. They look up at us, and Rowan's eyes widen at seeing a familiar face.

"Uncle Crow!" Rowan exclaims, leaping to his feet and rushing forward to hug him.

"Look at how big you've gotten!" Crow Talgarth says. "How long has it been? How old are you now?"

"Fifteen," Rowan says.

"Feels like I missed half my life being stuck in fungus," Crow says. "I think I hardly qualify as being your uncle anymore!"

"Were you… aware?" Rowan wonders, wide-eyed in horror.

"No, thank Talgarth. It's as though no time passed at all. My status screen says I haven't aged, either."

"I'll be heading back to Corwen for my sister's naming day party," I say. "You guys want to head back to Talgarth in the meantime?"

Rowan nods. "I'll fill him in on what we've been up to."

"Like how you found a dwarf town in the depths?" Crow asks.

"Like that, yeah," Rowan says.

Hebrons and guests listen intently to Meadow's description of what the sneaky Halkyns have been up to, followed by Uncle Falcon's tale of our clever discovery of the Mushroom Garden and daring rescue of the Halkyns' victims who were turned into mushrooms for interfering with their business or couldn't pay their debts.

"I'm just sad I didn't get to go along," Anise gripes.

"Mom, the bosses were Epic rank," I say. "You would not have been able to meaningfully contribute. At best, you might have been able to clear some of the Elite-rank mooks."

Anise sighs. "Yeah, I know, I know."

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"I keep getting dragged along like a sidekick," Rowan mumbles. "I feel like I'm never going to reach Elite. I haven't even done anything lately. I admit this situation was beyond my level, but I'm still disheartened."

"Come with us to Flux and blow up some floj," I say.

"Great! Quest accepted," Anise exclaims.

I'm not even going to ask if she actually got a quest for that. I don't think I care anymore, especially when she's so cheerful about it.

"Fine, it's not like I have anything better to do," Rowan says. "But if this doesn't rank me up, I'm going to climb Black Mountain and issue a complaint with the Eye of Tempest."

"I'll stay here for now and get to know my new family," Jade says. "They're so much better than my old family, and they can use a hand. Have fun at your sister's party and come get me before you to Flux!"

"Will do," I say.

Jade has been adapting pretty well to living in a cave for someone previously named after a bird. She loves her new home and her new growing family. Carving the second and third new dwarves as women may have been a good choice on Basalt's part. She's comfortable around Garnet and Crystal, perhaps more than I'd imagine she would have been around men.

"Basalt, we brought this weird mushroom shield for spawning a dwarf warrior," I say. "It was dropped by an Epic boss so hopefully it gives some good bonuses."

"Great," Basalt says. "I was thinking of carving a metalworker next, but a warrior would be good to get started on leveling. No idea how long it's going to take any of us to rank up, since we spawned as adults and have an extended lifespan."

I wish I had a way to measure how close I am to Elite. I feel like I'm close. Or do I? Everything should be quantifiable, right? Why can't I see my own primary experience meter?

Maybe I just haven't tried hard enough. Everyone complains that they can't see it, but I should be good at seeing things other people can't. I should know my own soul better than anyone else.

And so, to that end, I'll meditate myself to wisdom, or something. My initial problems with "meditation" had been because I'd been trying to clear my mind and think about nothing, tuning out the world. My "meditation" entails thinking about everything and becoming deeply in touch with the world, paying attention to everything around me. It's probably the polar opposite of actual meditation.

When I watched Griza become Legendary, aether erupted from every lost person she restored as she unraveled their spells and rushed into her aura. Is the entire rank system is facilitated by the cores? This might very well be accurate. We're constantly absorbing aether. If this is secret information the cores deliberately keep from us and only tally among themselves, that's not something in my own soul that I will be able to quantify. I'd be entirely beholden to the whims of cores who might be giving me quests, but I can't see them.

I don't think that's the case, though. If it were, only a single Deed would matter. The one that ranks you up. It is clearly not, and I'm clearly overdue. I don't care if Griza was the one who "actually" saved those people. I did plenty there! I feel vaguely cheated.

I go to Hebron's core room. I want answers.

"Hebron, can you tell me how far I am from Elite rank?" I ask.

[Can you not?]

"Everyone complains that they can't and it's ridiculous," I say. "Why can't we see our primary experience meter? Why is this such a big secret? Why hide the requirements?"

[I do not know.]

I get the impression that Hebron is very young, so far as cores go. There is entirely too much it doesn't quite understand. Either that, or there is much that it has forgotten. I question it further.

Hebron provided the requested resources because Corwen gave it quests to do so. Corwen asked for food and drink with healing qualities in order to provide for its Chosen One. Or from another perspective, it called ahead and paid Hebron like a hotel to give its lost kid food, drink, and a safe place to sleep.

In any case, I know I've been starting to be able to measure approximately how far a monster is into a rank. I could even tell that Bee Tresco wasn't as dangerous as Aunt Savannah. It must be possible.

Here we are, in a far distant future, forever chasing skills, chasing ranks, chasing numbers.

I turn my senses in on themselves and feel the strength of my own aura. What takes shape is a skill that's been on the tip of my… soul?… waiting to be fully unlocked.

I see it now. And the system responds like it was always supposed to be there in the first place.

Skills increased: Clairvoyance (Aura Sight), Enhanced Soul (Identity, Ghost Eyes, Fractal Consciousness, Mystic Inspiration) Skill acquired: Clairvoyance (Witness) Description: The ability to see experience, analyze quests and Deeds, and quantify rank progress.

Rank Elite (90% progress)

I let out a breath I knew perfectly well i was holding.

There it is. Shining. Gleaming. I could cry. Except I won't, because that would be silly.

It's not a precise measurement. Not yet, anyway. But I can at least be certain that it's greater than 85% and lower than 95%. I still have a ways to go, but not that far of a ways.

I ask questions of people of what appears on their status screens. I can already see more than they have available. Come to think, I see more on [Aspect Analysis] than I see on my own status screen.

That's fine. I don't need to see my own mood.

By the time I've gotten done reverse-meditating, Uncle Hawk's party have returned and are chatting in the hearth. They've learned some things on their last trip, but before he can go into them, he spots Meadow first.

"Meadow!" Uncle Hawk says, going up to hug her. "How did your dungeon crawling go?"

"Terrible," Meadow says. "We got in two runs of the Secret Garden, stayed the night in Halkyn, and proceeded to get tied up and thrown in the Mushroom Garden."

"They did what?" Uncle Hawk roars, his aura spiking with rage I don't need Clairvoyance to figure out. "I will march up there right this minute and subjugate that Hearth!"

"They did this to a lot of people," Meadow says. "Drake, Aunt Kestrel, and Uncle Falcon's party tracked us down. You'll need to have him repeat the story he told." She gestures across the hearth. "I wasn't conscious for most of it."

"Where are the survivors now?" Uncle Hawk asks.

"A bunch of them were at Splott Lakeside when we left there this morning," Meadow says. "Some of them went on ahead to Nefern already."

"We're going to leave immediately," Uncle Hawk says. "We don't need to sleep that badly at our level and we were doing nothing strenuous. Does your mom know yet?"

Meadow makes a face. "I haven't spoken with her yet. This was literally yesterday and we came down to Hebron. We stayed in the Underswamps rather than come out through Halkyn land."

Uncle Hawk nods. "You kids had best get back to Corwen. We'll take care of this."

"Before you go, what did you find out on your last trip?" Basalt reminds him.

"Right, yes," Uncle Hawk says. "We found an orc Hearth. We didn't make contact as we felt it was best to get back here and let everyone know where it is first. Let me just mark it on the map."

It's difficult to map a 3D maze, but they've made a good effort at it. Two walls of the hearth bear maps depicting the first two layers of the In-Between. Uncle Hawk doesn't pull out a writing or drawing implement, though. He goes over to touch the map, and lines bleed out from his fingertip adding in the tunnels explored today. I have got to learn that trick.

"Perhaps I will investigate," Griza says. "They may react better to a goblin."

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