We each take turns being 'party leader' on each successive day, although not everyone has good ideas for different things to try. It's harmless enough to try, though, especially with Aunt Rosemary here to help deal with any unrecoverable mistakes.

The kids get bored and after we've come up with as many variations on what to do to solve each floor, we're not getting many skills levels anymore. And Aunt Rosemary refuses to let us try the fourth floor so I'm going to assume she knows what she's talking about.

Still, everyone had fun and got plenty of levels and there are no real complaints. Willow and Griffin chatter incessantly, filling the air with wildly exaggerated recounts of their feats as we head home.

"This may well be my last field trip," Aunt Rosemary says. "My knees are not agreeing with all this hiking any longer, even with enhancement skills."

Aunt Rosemary has high Discipline, but I can see the pain radiating from her right knee as she walks. She's getting along like a lady of 74. By which I mean she's spry and experiencing a lot of physical debuffs. She regularly drinks Stamina regeneration potions to keep up. She's high level but most of those levels aren't in Athletics or Survival.

Juniper has been awfully quiet as we travel, and her aura is tinged with pensiveness and complex feelings I don't want to pry enough to figure out.

"What do you want to do next, Juniper?" I ask.

"Have you asked your ghosts if anyone wants to be my friend?" Juniper wonders quietly.

"I haven't spoken to my ghosts at all," I say. "I don't really… speak to them."

"Why not?"

"I'm not sure how and haven't looked too closely into figuring it out."

"Oh," Juniper says, deflating a little.

"I'd need to be Elite in order to try to set anything up, anyway," I say. "Though Estelle can probably help."

"You're gone all the time doing interesting things," Juniper says. "I wish I was there when you found the old dwarf Hearth."

"Sorry," I say. "The elders don't want to risk losing the kids. Aunt Savannah wouldn't have even let us take you three out to the Forgotten Tower if a Heroic hadn't agreed to chaperone."

"We three," Juniper says. "The twins are… the twins. I'm just the third who came on, unneeded. They don't mean to be mean. They don't care that I look different. They just don't see things outside of each other sometimes."

"Right, I see," I say. "Well, you're not 'unneeded'. Every kid is needed, or they wouldn't go to such lengths to try to keep us all safe."

"You're never alone," Juniper says wistfully. "You're full of ghosts. I thought you talked to your ghosts all the time."

I shake my head. "I'm never alone because I have friends, not because I have ghosts."

"Mom is your friend," Juniper says. "She's not my friend. She's my mom. She won't see me as anything other than her beloved daughter who needs to be kept safe."

"I guess there aren't really a lot of children in the village," I say.

"Clover's four and dumb," Juniper says. "Raven's one and a half and dumber. There's a kid from another domain but he won't talk and I think he's the dumbest of all of them."

"Well, I'm sure they'll get smarter eventually but that's not much help now, I suppose," I say. "Well, it will be swarm season soon and everyone will be home for that who's coming home."

We return to Corwen to find an unfamiliar skyship docked at the gate tower and an incident already underway. It resembles a sleek flying white yacht, with painted golden sigils and silvery silken wing-sails.

We step through the gates into the middle of a confrontation in the village square. Three foreigners with silvery-white hair and wearing shiny metal armor stand near the path to the guest house. An Epic and two Heroics. Aunt Savannah stands with her arms folded across her chest, not the least bit intimidated.

"What's going on?" Aunt Rosemary asks as we approach.

"They seek to bring harm to our guests and will not explain why," Aunt Savannah replies. "I have told them that the two from Gleam have done us no wrong and it would be rude to permit them to come to harm so long as they are within Corwen's walls. Such a breach of hospitality would be intolerable."

"Lark Harrow and her son Bucky have committed grave crimes against the people of Gleam," says the Epic.

"Bucky is 6 years old," Aunt Savannah says. "Around this part of the Crystalline Heavens, we do not hold children accountable for their actions until they are 14. I fail to see what crime a 6-year-old could have committed deliberately that would be so grave that you would follow him to another domain for it."

The Epic from Gleam lets off waves of annoyance from his aura. "Must I describe the horrible nature of his crime? Very well. He rung the Sacred Bell. He broke into the Temple of Light and dared to ring the bell that must always remain silent. Do you bumpkins have any idea what that means?"

"Whatever it means, he could not have known or understood," Aunt Savannah says.

"It means the peace of Gleam has been shattered. There is music in the streets. People are singing."

"I fail to see how any of this is our problem."

"Our perfect order has been broken with the sounds of chaos," the Gleam man says. "Fine. We are here to extradite a criminal, not besiege your pathetic farm village. Be certain to inform your guests that should we see them outside of your walls, we will not hesitate to take them back for trial."

He marches back to the docking tower, the two Heroics turning and moving in lockstep with him. The elegant white yacht sails off as soon as they're on board.

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I split from my party and head into the guest house to meet these two terrible criminals. Juniper trails along with me.

Lark and Bucky Harrow both have platinum blond hair, golden eyes, and somber faces. (They haven't introduced themselves, but it's not terribly hard to deduce who the Gleams here are and which is the 6-year-old boy and which is the mom.)

"Are they still out there?" Lark asks.

"They went back to their ship and flew off," I say.

"Are you okay?" Juniper asks. "They said if you went outside the village, they'd get you."

"I suppose we're stuck here for now, then, if Corwen will still have us after that," Lark says.

"I have no intention of throwing you out," Aunt Savannah says, walking in behind us. "You have been far better guests than they were. We do not see chaos and music as bad things here."

There must be something of irony in a woman named Lark from a place that hates music.

"You have my gratitude for your hospitality, then," Lark says.

Aunt Savannah says, "You chose this Hearth to hide in because we have multiple Epics living here."

"We will help out however we can so long as we're here," Lark says. "Bucky doesn't talk, but he's good with cooking. And I'm good with metalworking, particularly small, intricate pieces. I don't know how much work you do with cogs and screws around here, but I can do jewelry too."

I head down to the core room that evening. I'm tired from walking but not so tired that I mind sitting in a room with a glowing red ball hovering in the middle. On top of a pillow, of course. I continue to make softness a part of my nature.

What does it mean to be a [Psychic Child]? Did I just pick it for the bonuses without truly believing in it? Should I have been a [Creative Child] or a [Tranquil Child] instead? Or focused on other skills to open up another path?

I have another five years to walk this particular path. But I want to craft and fly and have not done nearly enough of those. All I need to do is train the skills I actually want to focus on and somehow reach Elite.

If I can't figure this out, I'll ask Estelle for guidance, but I want to see if I can figure this out for myself.

I close my eyes and breathe, and look only with my soul.

Skills increased: Enhanced Soul (Identity, Gentle Soul), Discipline (Focus) Skill acquired: Recollection (Astral Vision) Description: The ability to see into the conceptual plane and percieve astral imprints of things past.

I have not tried to unlock many Recollection skills, out of what, fear? Fear of what I might have once been? I'm not afraid now. And I have to see.

I see… I'm not quite sure what I see.

From this perspective, my soul resembles a bead necklace. No, not beads. Nothing so static. Perhaps it's more of a vine covered in buds and fruits, or a tentacle full of suckers. They're all imperfect metaphors, trying to connect my perception of an idea to something I have seen with my own eyes.

Before me, I can see the aether core standing like a boundless crystal pillar stretching off far beyond what one level in [Astral Vision] is capable of seeing. All along its surface, thin tendrils lead off toward more buds intersecting the physical plane.

The vision flickers out as my Inspiration meter tanks, leaving me disoriented and with a splitting headache. With a groan, I shove my pillow into my bag of holding and go back to the hearth.

None of that made especially much sense.

Once I've gotten some tea in me and replenished my Inspiration, I take a peek at the astral versions of the people around me. There's not nearly as much to see, though. They're not astral squids, but more like little seeds and flowers with roots leading toward the aether core.

Juniper sits in front of me. Her nascent soul is so tiny. Just the smallest of buds waiting to open. A strong breeze might blow her away. Her tendrils lie in Corwen's crystalline pillar.

"You look like you're somewhere else," Juniper says.

"I am an astral tree and you are a seed that might sprout into something great one day."

Juniper nods matter-of-factly, as if what I just said makes more sense to her than it does to me.

Come morning, I visit the guest house and take a peek into the astral plane where Basalt is chatting with Goldie the innkeeper.

Basalt's astral imprint resembles mine, but Goldie is Hearthless and no tendrils connect her seed to any aether core. This makes her seem very fragile and that seed might be withering from lack of anything to put its roots into. I'm not sure how I would tell, though. What can people even do without the system?

"Good morning, Drake. Nice to see you staring off at nothing on this fine day." Basalt gives a chuckle. "Practicing psychic stuff again, I'm guessing?"

"Ah, yeah, sorry," I say. "You up for a visit to the Spooky Grove?"

"Of course."

We head out with just him, Anise, and Juniper this time, managing to slip away without attracting too much attention. I'm sure Aunt Savannah knows, as she seems to know everything that goes on in the village, but she doesn't stop us.

Once there, Basalt goes to practice killing spiders and doing puzzles while Juniper and I go to talk to a certain French ghost, with Anise tagging along so as not to let her children out of sight.

We exchange pleasantries with Estelle. This time, I bring my own tea and make Anise heat the water for me. She humors me and Estelle even lets us dust off a teapot on the promise that we don't damage it.

"I'm going to need the bonuses and I knew Estelle probably wasn't going to keep it on hand."

Estelle makes no comment, but her aura ripples with amusement. I look beyond her mere aura, though. I see what her own soul looks like in the astral plane.

It's horrible. While mine and Basalt's souls look like endless living vines, Estelle's soul is truncated and withered, continuously bleeding off aether. Only a handful of roots desperately clinging to an object somewhere nearby keep her from drifting away entirely.

I do not believe that she's capable of telling me how to safely do what she described at all. I don't even believe she was even telling the truth about what she was trying to do. Attempting to attain immortality by tethering her soul to a phylactery should not have resulted in this.

"What are you seeing, little reincarnator?" Estelle asks.

"I unlocked [Astral Vision] last night," I say. "And whatever you did to yourself, I don't want to do it to myself."

"Ah," Estelle says, nodding. "Yes, do not make my mistake."

"What were you really trying to do?" I ask.

Estelle gazes off at nothing, but I'd imagine she's looking at something with soul vision. "Tell me, Drake. Do you know how aether cores are formed?"

"Not really, no," I say.

"Drink your tea and take a close look at your previous life's representation in the conceptual plane."

I nod, and oblige her. The life immediately previous to this one is bright and strong, like a tentacle-apple ready to burst from the vine.

"What rank would you say your last life was?" Estelle asks.

I could guess, but I have a better way to check this. I throw my readings into [Aspect Analysis].

Category Reincarnator Race Human Gender Male Class Monk Status Dead Rank Divine Aspect Air

Skills increased: Clairvoyance (Aspect Analysis), Recollection (Astral Vision)

"Divine!? What?"

Estelle nods. "An aether core is born when a soul surpasses Divine rank and reaches the critical point that their aether has compressed enough to form a core."

"I thought they were aliens," I say. "The remnants of dead stars."

"Most of them are just long-dead humans," Estelle says. "But eons wear away the humanity they may have borne in life, so they may as well be alien to us. My previous life, too, reached Divine rank. I sought to attain apotheosis."

"You're only Heroic rank in this life, though," I say.

Estelle nods. "I got impatient. I thought it would be enough. It was not. The rest of me was still anchored to the Great Orb and snapped back there once separated from this me."

"So you think my past life could also have become a god?" I ask.

"He still can."

"Forgive me if I'm not going to take your word on it or copy your methods considering what your astral imprint looks like."

"I know what I did wrong," Estelle says.

"That's fantastic," I say flatly. "I don't care."

"Very well. I will teach you what I am able. Do with that knowledge as you choose. As you say, I am but a mere Heroic, and I am certain that you will one day surpass me should misfortune fail to bring you down."

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