Anise has said that she's a Sorcerer, but I don't recall that she's ever mentioned her exact class. People seem to be more willing to share the noun part of their class than the adjective.

"Mom, what is your class?" I wonder.

"[Pyromaniac Sorcerer]," Anise says. "I thought that was obvious."

"Right, of course it is…"

"That ship coming after us was not nearly flammable enough," Anise whinges.

"It looked pretty on fire when I saw it crash into the forest," I say.

Anise sighs and says quietly, "Aunt Savannah shouldn't have had to save us. You kids did great, but I should have been good enough to take out that ship myself. You're on track to reach Elite by the time you're 14 and the kids will definitely get it before they turn 21. I'm 32, I should have been Heroic by now. And if I don't reach Epic before I turn 42, even if I somehow manage Legendary after that, I'll just look middle-aged forever."

"Mom," I say. "Mom! Relax! I mean, that's not the worst thing in the world, but it's been great to have you along and we would never have pulled off stealing a skyboat from smugglers without you. For one thing, we wouldn't have even been able to turn on the boat."

"Sorry, this was supposed to be a party and here I am disappointed in myself and stressing about ranking up," Anise says, drooping. "Look, though! We've got our own skyboat. This will open up whole new worlds for us! Or at least spare us a lot of walking. There's so many domains in the Crystalline Heavens and I've hardly even seen anything of them but our own myself."

"We'll see them," I say. "And I'm sure there will be plenty of opportunities for you to set things on fire, too."

"One of the first batch of dwarves will really need to be someone who can make wine," Basalt says. "We've got grapes and people wanting to buy it. But I wouldn't want them to be limited to just wine. Do you think people would get more and higher starting skills if we can put more interesting things in the platform when they're spawned?"

"I don't know, but it's worth a shot," I say.

"I'm going to get more statues made. You want to take that fancy new skyboat and pick up some items to help spawn dwarves with?"

"Fetch quests sound like fun."

We hammer out a plan for five more dwarves: Brewer, Metalworker, Warrior, Scout, and Merchant. Those will make for a good starting population for economics and security.

It's still doubtful they'd be able to remain in Hebron during swarm season unless we left them some backup. I have no idea how long it might take them to rank up, but I doubt any of them are going to be reaching Elite in their first year after spawning. Still, we can evacuate them to Corwen if need be over the fall.

Basalt wanted to get the Hearthkeeper up first to help take care of the monsters and prepare the grapes for export while he worked on that, but he wants to make sure the rest are good and figures it will take him a few months at least to get them all satisfactory.

Which means I am 9 years old and planning a tour of the Hearths to acquire a sample of every kind of alcohol made in Tempest or readily available from a port. And I can't drink any of it. No help for it, though, if I want to make the best [Dwarven Brewer] I can manage.

Skills increased: Discipline (Long-Term Planning)

Our first stop is Nefern for their beer, as well as to ask around for clues toward Rowan's sword quest. The village of Nefern is just a short skyboat hop across the wheat fields we crashed a skyship into. I'm sure they're not still annoyed about that.

Nefern has a docking tower and I try very, very carefull to dock at it. I don't think I would manage if it weren't for the enhancements on the skydock itself pulling the boat in and securing it. I'd practiced this maneuver at Corwen but am going to need a lot more levels.

Skills increased: Mechanics (Piloting), Enhanced Soul (Aether Sailing)

One level at a time. Or sometimes two or three.

"So you're the ones who dropped a skyship on our land," says an aging Heroic Farmer who greets us at the docking tower.

"Yeah, sorry about that," Anise says. "We're here for your beer!"

The old man shrugs. "Well, there's worse reasons to visit Nefern. Head down to the guest house. The one on the left with the green roof."

Nefern's guest house is smaller than Corwen's, though not by much. Soft chairs by a warm fire greet us, as well as tables laden with food. The bread is fresh and delicious and the beer looks and smells like beer. It's almost, but not quite, enough to make up for the fact that their so-called stew is closer to flavorless gruel. Salt can't be that rare around here, can it?

Rowan goes up to the middle-aged Elite man tending the bar. "Did you ever hear about an adventurer named Crow Talgarth who planned to visit the Secret Garden several years ago?"

"Plenty of adventurers come through here," says the barkeep. "A good percentage of them don't come back. The Secret Garden's not supposed to be dangerous, but rumor has it that it has its secrets."

"It's called the Secret Garden," Rowan says dryly. "I'd be disappointed if there weren't any secrets there."

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The barkeeper goes on, lowering his voice to whisper mysteriously, "Rumor also has it that one of the sons of Nefern Hearth disappeared last week. There's likely to be a good deal of gratitude and possibly a reward in it if some nosey adventurers passing through were to find him."

Watching the uncertainty in Rowan's aura, I send to him, [Ask him for more information. Name, interests, who last saw him.]

I don't see a need to advertise being a reincarnator at the moment, so better to let Rowan do the talking.

Rowan takes my prompting and starts asking more questions. The boy in question is a 16-year-old Basic [Apprentice Farmer] named Colt, not terribly adventurous but doesn't always think things through very well before leaping in head first.

"As for who saw him last… we think it was his sister, but she hasn't been in a condition to speak since before he disappeared, so she might not be helpful in getting any information."

[I might be able to get some information out of her aura if I could see her,] I tell Rowan.

"Do you think we could see her, at least?" Rowan asks. "We still might be able to find something out. My party members have some uncommon skills."

"Couldn't hurt to ask. Hey, Ferret!" he calls toward a boy who looks about twelve. "Go fetch one of the elders, would you?"

The boy nods and runs off.

The old Heroic Farmer shows up again shortly. (And finally introduces himself as Badger Nefern.)

"We heard about Colt and were wondering if we could see his sister," Rowan says.

"Poppy has been catatonic all week," Badger says. "We're keeping her safe in the Hearth."

"We might be able to help or at least find out something about Colt."

Badger shrugs. "I suppose. I'll bring her out, but no funny business. I don't care if you do have a party that could kill us all." He glances meaningfully toward the couple of Heroic party members in line of sight.

Badger leaves and returns carrying a girl in a pink polka dotted nightgown, unkempt dark hair tangled about distant eyes. He gently sets her down in an armchair in front of the hearth.

"She's been like this since after the wreck," Badger says. "I suspected Colt took something from the crashed ship that caused this, but I have no way of knowing. Their mother is beside herself."

Poppy's aura swirls rapidly in complete contrast to her physical state. Her disposition is marked as 'unaware', and her mood is outright blissful. I pass that along to my party, frowning in concern as I examine her.

Anise says, "I'm going to go out on an absurdly large oak limb and guess that it's floj."

"Floj?" Badger repeats. "I thought that just made people try to get more floj."

"It can have different effects," Belladonna the Rogue puts in. "If they found someone's floj stash on board, Colt might have gotten one to make him seek out more floj while Poppy here got … whichever effect caused this."

"Floj treatment is expensive," Badger says with a sigh.

"And the people who can do it are often working for the ones selling it," Belladonna adds.

"Seriously?" Badger groans. "Do you have an alternative? There aren't that many friendly Necromancers around."

"We just might," Anise puts in.

[I can't yet,] I send to her. [But I may be able to teach Milo how I did it.]

"Have you seen the goblin trader, Milo Grubwick lately?" Anise asks.

"He was here," Badger says. "He left already. Said he was heading to Talgarth."

My party agrees to make a quick jaunt to Talgarth to pick up Milo. It might take longer than the trip back to teach him the soul manipulation I figured out, never mind use it on anyone else, but we might as well get started on that. And he might want to go along on the Secret Garden delve.

Skills increased: Clairvoyance (Aspect Analysis, Telepathy), Subterfuge (Eavesdropping)

Milo is still at Talgarth when we arrive that evening. He's been working on sourcing corn for trade, because you can't have too many trade routes I guess, at least until you run out of things to trade. We meet with him in the guest house and get him up to speed on what has been going on over dinner.

"So, let me get this straight…" Milo says.

"You probably have it straight," I say.

"I'm still not clear on the part about it being experience stuck inside a slime somehow, but I'll take your word on it. And you figured out how to remove these 'malignant skills'?"

"I may be able to teach you, but I don't know how Necromancy differs from Enhanced Soul. Nor how necessary the exact set of skills I have is."

"Well, it's a place to start, anyway," Milo says. "And if I can get it, I can undercut these people that are overcharging on treatment and still make a tidy profit."

I start off by trying to explain how I managed to detect the effect to begin with, but my Clairvoyance skills are much more developed than his. He has been learning Necromancy on the side, though.

"I haven't made any permanently animated corpses or objects yet," Milo says. "But I've been getting a good deal of practice in on making my past lives perform short-term tasks to start off with."

"Are they as helpful as mine have been?" I ask. "I summoned up a dead Bard to narrate my life to generate Inspiration. So far he's barely covering the cost of maintaining his fractal, but he's trying. He keeps reworking the first few chapters…"

Milo snickers. "Yes. They're all basically us, you know."

"Yeah, but I've read fiction about people's alternate selves trying to kill them. That, admittedly, never really made sense to me."

Skills increased: Tending (Teaching)

I start working on trying to teach Milo some of the things I've learned about souls that evening, planning to head out to the Secret Garden in the morning. Unfortunately, I left most of my conceptual aids back at Corwen.

"You mean to tell me you unlocked a skill just by cuddling a plushie and sitting on a pillow staring at the sky?"

I smirk. "I've unlocked most of my soul skills while laying on pillows. [Gentle Soul] means greater control over all magical techniques."

"I can't believe you've done so much with pillows," Milo says. "I've been meditating with coins! I did get some nice skills from it but you've gone a completely different direction. I can try this but you might have better luck getting to Elite and doing it yourself."

"That could be years, though."

"Or it could be tomorrow, when we conquer this dungeon and rescue the lost son."

"I won't count on that," I say. "I don't want to leave the poor girl stuck like that."

"You said she was blissful," Milo says. "You also said this slime gives experience that gets dumped into 'bad' skills. Did she get a skill to make herself happy, then?"

"I can't quite see people's entire character screens yet."

"Yet, you say. The day you can read everything about a person just by glancing at them is going to be terrifying. And if I can swoop in and take advantage of that knowledge, so much the better. Help people we like, hurt people we don't."

"By the way, I have a list of items we want to use to spawn new dwarves for Hebron," I say, pulling it out to show him. "Do you think you can acquire some of them?"

Milo looks over the list, nodding. "Very likely. We may need to check the ports as I don't think some of these can even be found in Tempest outside of dungeon drops. Some sort of junk shop somewhere might have something useful stashed away in a basement."

"There's a junk shop in Amroth but I'm avoiding that town for the moment," I say. "The skyboat theft and skyship crash would not have gone unnoticed and they might have people waiting to ambush us as soon as we docked and went inside."

"Amroth isn't the only port in Tempest, but who knows if the others also have criminal ties?"

"I have a feeling we'll find some answers in the Secret Garden. Or at the very least, different questions."

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