“Aunt Savannah?” I ask. “What are you doing here?”
Aunt Savannah is gently petting a baby toad-like lizard that must have hatched last night, but she looks up when she hears my voice. Milo is here as well, casually lounging in a chair and munching on grapes.
“Good morning, Drake,” Aunt Savannah says. “I wanted to thank you for the naming day present.” She touches the growth vase on the table next to her. “It was very thoughtful. I grabbed Milo on the way and he haggled the price down to 15 gold.”
Milo gives a wave. “Your aunt being very intimidating probably helped more than my negotiating skills.” He starts licking magenta grape juice off his green fingers.
“I wasn’t expecting you to come yourself,” I say.
“Tell me, how did you come by finding this artifact?” Aunt Savannah asks. “I am no psychic, but Fern Amroth seemed to think Corwen is easy to bully.”
“I snuck into her storerooms she showed up and I unlocked Persuasion (Bribery) to de-escalate the situation,” I say.
“I have got to get that skill,” Milo says.
Aunt Savannah chuckles at my blunt honesty. “You are certainly Anise’s son. Let me guess. Instead of keeping you out of trouble, she has been actively helping you get into trouble? What do you intend to do now?”
“I’m not sure,” I say. “I want to do something to disrupt the operations of the floj smugglers. They targeted Rowan and I accidentally came into contact with their horrible product. I was able to repair the damage but I’m quite annoyed at them now.”
She nods. And I’m greatly tempted to try to read the quests on her aura to see if Corwen told her to do something with regards to me. To stop me or aid me.
I’m not even entirely sure on the ethics of how much Clairvoyance is acceptable to use on people, now that I’m getting to the point where I’m starting to be able to read fairly personal things. Is ethics even a thing that makes sense when I have good eyesight in a sense the majority of people don’t have? I always hated those dilemmas in fiction, especially considering what I’m doing isn’t actually invasive, just reading the aspects of vis all living beings send off into the world around them.
Quests aren’t even a part of their being. They’re foreign magic sent by a core and nothing more than a job offer with an opportunity for pay. Reading someone’s quest log is the equivalent of peeping at their business paperwork. So I won’t angst about it and consider that to be essentially the same thing.
Thoughts and emotions? At first I could only read someone’s general emotional states, but I’m starting to be able to catch simple thoughts. But most people can read facial expressions better than me, too.
“Drake?” Aunt Savannah asks. “You seem lost in thought.”
It occurs to me that I’m not in much danger of invasively reading people’s thoughts when I am more in danger of getting lost in my own.
“What is your opinion on the ethics of Clairvoyance?” I ask.
Milo laughs. “Are you seriously good enough at it for that to be a consideration? People have turned out to be much more resistant to me telling them to do things than I had hoped for. I feel vaguely cheated that everyone else also has cheat skills.”
Aunt Savannah chuckles. “I will not judge you for choosing to use your skills freely or adopting your own code of behavior. From Amroth, I can hear people making love in Treflys. The In-Between is much quieter. Alas, I cannot stay long. I must ever be alert for danger.”
“… I see your point,” I say.
“What is floj?” Milo asks.
“It’s crystallized experience suspended in a living semi-gelatinous mind-slime aspected to malignant concepts.”
Milo blinks. “Those were all certainly words.”
“It’s a psychic drug that happens to be alive,” I say. “I don’t know where it’s from but it’s being smuggled into Tempest to a ledge on the north side of the first layer underneath Amroth. And I kind of want to steal their flying boat.”
“Good luck with that,” Milo says.
“The newts were a good choice,” Aunt Savannah says, returning her attention to the baby monster that looks like somewhere between a toad and a lizard. “And living in life-aspected water will give them regenerative abilities. Their eyes will be an excellent addition to low level healing potions.”
“Those are newts?” I ask. “The Elite one was more like a crocodile!”
“The Giant Cave Newt has tougher skin than its surface counterpart due to requiring extra protection from its rough environment,” Aunt Savannah says. “My son hasn’t yet written a catalogue on the creatures of the In-Between. You may need to ask to see his notes.”
“The goblins said they were lizards…” I complain.
Aunt Savannah chuckles. “I do not believe that the goblins know the difference between an amphibian and a reptile.”
“My own skill said it was a reptile!” I protest.
“Remember, Drake, your skills are not infallible. Knowing [Jumping] does not mean you will land every jump. What is your [Zoology] skill at?”
“… 3,” I say sheepishly.
“Export of newt eyes will be an excellent commodity for export in addition to these grapes,” Milo says, not commenting on my failing middle school biology. “They just need a brewer to take full advantage of it.”
“There’s a smoothie shop in Amroth that sells drinks with exotic fruits,” I say.
“Yes, Basalt mentioned it,” Milo says. “Good fellow. Smart enough to know to hire on someone else to take proper advantage of available resources. He doesn’t want to sell things any more than I want to build things. I can start arranging for goblins to come and exchange materials.”
Stolen novel; please report.
“Sounds good,” I say. “We could use some wood, for one thing.”
Anise stumbles out of her room, yawning and not even noticing that we have company at first. “Oh. Oh! Hello, Aunt Savannah. It’s wonderful to see you here.”
“You have a nice visit,” I say. “I’m going to go find Basalt.”
Basalt is out working on the staircase, evening it up and smoothing it out. “I’ve gotten a lot of skillups since I laid out these earlier floors. I woke up early and had nothing better to do than get some work done on it. I think I might expand it to put a ramp around the edge so we can roll things up or down more easily.”
“Good idea,” I say.
“I want to start spawning more dwarves,” Basalt says. “I was talking with Milo before you woke up. You and Anise like to sleep in. We can put together the essence for a small community.”
“What are we going to do about the smugglers?” I ask.
Basalt waves a hand. “There’s more to deal with there than just a quick smash will help much. We’d be in over our heads.”
“I still want their boat,” I say. “I can’t make one yet but it would be cool and useful to have one and smugglers are an acceptable target for grand theft skyboat.”
Basalt chuckles. “That, I can’t argue. Building up this cave is nice but I don’t want to spend my full time in here.”
“How many people are you looking at getting up to?” I ask. “At the very least, we’ll need a brewer and probably someone to take care of the newts.”
“Newts?” Basalt asks.
“Turns out I don’t know the difference between a reptile and an amphibian,” I say. “I am failing at zoology and trusting my identify skills to know more than I do.”
“I was wondering why they kept their eggs in water,” Basalt says. “Figured it was just a weird monster thing.”
“It’s probably still that, too. I was a computer nerd. I’d never seen a newt in my life that wasn’t on a screen. I’m still annoyed at the system window for claiming it was a reptile, though.”
“Does it realize the Splottfish is a whale?” Basalt asks.
I groan. “No, it calls them fish. Those things are just biological nonsense, though.”
“Anyway, I asked Savannah to let Rosemary know we’ll be spawning new dwarves soon and I want someone there who can run them through a tutorial that makes more sense than the one you gave me,” Basalt says. “How did you make me a handyman?”
“I piled up tools and a notebook and stuff,” I say. “It said what class the spawned dwarf would be, so we can experiment a bit to find the right combination.”
Basalt strokes his beard thoughtfully. “So grapes and a keg might summon a brewer? Use things associated with the class you want and assume the soul being summoned is cool with it.”
“You cool with being a handyman?” I ask.
“Of course. Especially when most of it is working on my own home. I got my own cool dwarf stronghold! What’s not to like?”
Aunt Savannah and Milo head out the next day. They have their own things to do, and Aunt Savannah isn’t even mad at me. Maybe she really does just like the vase?
We put together a great plan for the smugglers’ base. We spend a whole day making preparations, and head up to the tunnels. None of those preparations actually wind up mattering so I will spare you the details, but trust me, they were awesome.
Just as we’re approaching the maze, a rumbling sound and heavy footsteps echo behind us, and I glance back to identify an aura. It’s a Heroic swamp monster, and it’s coming right for us. Well, crap. This might be an opportunity, though.
Anise throws a magic shield between us and the monster, buying us some time to get moving.
[Basalt! Lead us to the ledge!] I send.
Basalt doesn’t look back, focusing on the stone around him. “I’ll take us to the spot with the thinnest wall, if we’re throwing subtlety to the Void.”
[We just got ourselves a Heroic distraction.]
It’s slow enough that we can probably just run circles around it and head back toward Splott, where I’m sure there’s enough Elite goblins to help take it out. But that would be a waste of a perfectly good swamp monster, if we can pull this off.
The creature remains behind us, in no great hurry to catch up. Like a fungus, it moves slowly and inexorably. Its massive footsteps thud through the caves, sending every Giant Cave Newt in the area scurrying for cover.
We reach the hole we’d looked through before. Basalt swings his pick, shearing through the stone as though it were styrofoam on a cheap movie set. Anise holds it off with her magic, probably using Sorcery (Stay Away From My Kid) or something.
Basalt breaks enough of the stone for us to squeeze through. “Way’s open!”
We run into the ledge with the swamp monster at our heels. Basalt turns around to tap the wall a few more times to make sure that it can get through. We don’t want to actually escape from it, after all.
At the edge of the world, the skyboat sits unattended. It has been emptied out of illicit cargo and its two sails, positioned side by side like wings, are furled. Hopefully we can get it moving or this is going to be a short trip.
[Make for the boat!] I tell my party.
We hurry away to put some distance between us at the hole. Rock cracks as the swamp monster forces its way through the opening. It compresses its body to ooze through and once out onto the open ledge, it expands and lets out a bloodcurdling roar.
The smugglers are caught flat-footed at the intrusion as we’re suddenly not the most interesting things in the room. Several of them immediately break and run. Even the Elites, who could probably kill the monster if they kept their heads and banded together.
We make a break for the boat. Wren and I parkour over a pile of crates while the others step around. The fungal monster does not step around and crashes straight through them. Glass shatters and many doubtlessly expensive potions splash onto the floor. If there was any floj in there, it disappears into the swamp creature immediately.
We reach the boat and scramble into it. The angry swamp monster continues to wreak slow but inexorable havoc across the ledge, stomping through crates as though they offended its mother. Is it trying to get more floj? Did I just accidentally create a drug addict swamp monster? Oh well, I’m sure that won’t be a problem later. Not one for me, at any rate.
Anise grips the side of the boat, and the sigils along the edges light up. “No idea how to fly this thing, but it’s on! Drake, grab the rudder and steer us out of here!”
“Preferably not into the wall!” Rowan adds, standing at the prow holding up his shield to shield us from projectiles.
I grab the rudder, and the boat shakes in response and starts to unsteadily lift into to the air very slowly but otherwise doesn’t move. [Get those sails out!] I tell my party.
“Never done this before but I’ll give it a shot!” Jade says enthusiastically, grabbing the ropes to one sail and Basalt the other.
The Heroic gnome shows up (perhaps having been in his office or something) and pulls out one of his artifacts—a wand. Carter charges forward, moving surprisingly fast on his tiny legs. I don’t know what his range is and I don’t care to stick around to find out.
“You broken, tarnished, obsolete idiots!” Carter swears at his underlings. “Quit running and stop them!”
With a wave of his wand, a blast of frigid air strikes the fungus monster, leaving its shoulder covered in frost. The creature roars and decides that it would much rather stomp the gnome than us.
The port sail flutters free as Jade tries to get it under control. The boat slowly lifts into the air and starts spinning in place. I let go of the rudder for a moment to try to help, but it sinks back toward the ground as soon as I release my hand so I grab it again. While I can’t interface with the sigils directly, it has clearly been set up to let a Basic steer, but the sails also play a role.
A couple of the henchmen grow bold enough to start chucking rocks at us, pelting the hull and one of them bouncing off of Rowan’s shield. Anise leans over the side and peppers the ground with fire bolts, forcing the stone throwers to take cover and then proceeding to set their cover on fire.
A ray of frost lances toward the spinning boat. I have to duck to avoid becoming a human popsicle, clutching the rudder tightly to avoid letting go.
Basalt gets the starboard sail unfurled and between us, we slowly manage to steady the boat. We gain speed and elevation, emerging from the ledge into the open air. We all let out sounds of joy and relief, and Anise makes a rude gesture toward the smugglers as we fly away.