“Well, this sucks.” My mother said while sitting down with dramatic flair.

“It can't be helped. We all know they were no longer contributing to our translation efforts. Yesterday, I caught Teyas napping while we were in the large ruin.” Nina said.

Ardon walked over stroking his red beard in thought. “We are better off without them if they would not or could not contribute. Our esteemed noble may send us reinforcements but I do not wish this on anyone else.”

“As the leader of this expedition, I am making a judgment call. Tomorrow we will take the extra time it takes to get a roof over all of our houses. If we are lucky, there will be enough of the tree leftover to build bed frames.” The sun was low on the horizon after the earlier commotion.

The next day the entire group headed over to the downed tree to help carry the logs back. Poor Nina was too small to be able to lift any but the smaller branches. She spent most of her time keeping an eye on Jade, Sky, and me. I didn't need the supervision but Jade was a bundle of energy that would not hold still.

Corrin’s hopes of bed frames did not come true. After placing a roof over the dwellings of all three families plus the two storage dwellings, they were left with half of a log remaining. My father had placed several pieces of scrap wood in our house for his whittling hobby.

The tent tarps were placed on top of our new roof to add extra leak protection and insulation. The nights thus far have been comfortable but every morning there would be fresh dew on the tarps. It had yet to fully rain, but based on our journey to get here, that was more luck than a rule.

Our camp was more subdued that night. My mother was humming as usual, but there wasn't any lighthearted singing from anyone. Judy stood up and said “I am going to turn in early tonight. Getting an early start for once will be a nice change.” She headed to her door with Jade on her hip.

“Aye without those layabouts, we will finally make it there at a decent hour tomorrow,” Ardon said as he followed Judy to their house.

The morning sun came too early. It was my mother’s turn to cook breakfast again. We were up early to cook this world’s version of eggs and bacon. One of the wagons they use for our deliveries has a preservation enchantment on it. It didn't help us keep things fresh once they got here, but nobody was complaining about fresh food while it lasted.

“Ow! HOT!” Jade screamed when she took her bite of breakfast. Ardon was there to comfort her. “Let's blow on it together munchkin” He made a game of blowing on all of her food with her while she ate.

“How long do you reckon until Sky turns three?” Dad asked Corrin as they were all enjoying breakfast.

“I wouldn't be surprised if he already is. It is hard to keep track of what day it is out here. Nina do you know?”

“He turns three in two days, dear.” Nina was a person who needed to keep everything organized and was the most likely to know where something was located. Keeping track of the days was probably something she did in her journal to satisfy her need to know.

While turning a year older was acknowledged in this world, there were no gifts or parties to go with it. Turning a year older for children was just one year closer to being forced to attend school away from home. It was not spoken of and when I asked the answer I got was “That is just the way things are.”

Time continued to march by and we all got into a rhythm. Jade turned three years old last week. She is still a bundle of energy that is constantly on the move. My father gave us little figurines to use on a scavenger hunt. We can usually get one of the adults to hide them for us so it is fair. Sky is brilliant at finding hidden objects. It has gotten to the point where I think he has some sort of seeker skill.

It was during one of our scavenger hunts that I noticed a little cubby under one of the shelving units. I was going to come back and investigate this the next time we play hide and seek. There was enough room for me to crawl underneath the shelf and hide. Nobody is going to find me under there. Who am I kidding? Sky will find me. He always finds me.

If I had to describe Sky, I would call him the quiet one that blends into the background. Underestimating Sky is exactly what he wants you to do. His mind is always calculating and very little escapes his notice.

After several close calls with my parents catching me writing in the dirt and Sky pointing to letters on the ground and yelling out what they are, I started to internalize all of my “writings”. It was very difficult to remember my musings and thoughts from day to day so I tried to use Visualization for it. That didn't work because I didn't write it down in the first place. I kept at it and the system finally rewarded me with a new skill.

[Skill gained: Mental Notes 1]

I had a personal notepad I could save my thoughts on. This was also my first Advanced Skill. When I received the skill, it was worth 50 experience. Basic skills are worth 10 experience at level 1. At level 2 a basic skill is worth 30 experience, 10+20. Novice skills are worth 20 experience at level 1. At level 2 a novice skill is worth 60 experience. If the same rules hold, that means at level 2 my Mental Notes skill will be worth 150 experience.

Level

19

Age

3 1/2

Experience

(18290/19000)

Health

190/190

Stat Points

90

Skill Points

3

Strength

14

Constitution

19

Dexterity

16

Intelligence

65

Wisdom

60

[Traits] [Skills] [Magic]

[Basic Skills]

Acting

29

Climbing

17

Drawing

8

Language - Common

MAX

Mathematics

20

Meditation

18

Running

10

Writing

6

[Novice Skills]

Sneak

13

Visualization

22

[Advanced Skills]

Mental Notes

1

I have found that to level my skills, I have to come up with new ways to approach them. Climbing, for example, when I first gained that skill all I needed to do to level it higher was spend a good portion of the night climbing in and out of my crib. After a while, I had to find new things to climb to gain more levels in that skill. I have been climbing on everything from shelving to the central column to gain the levels I have.

For Acting, it has gotten harder to level. Now to level that skill up at all, I have to get into character. Pretending to be me as a child no longer gives me any levels. During our scavenger hunts, I have made a game of pretending to be Sherlock Holms out to solve a grand mystery.

The difficulty of leveling each skill increases every 10 levels. From levels 1-10, I can repeat what I did when I gained the skill and given enough effort, the skill will level up. From levels 11-20, it requires me to understand the skill on a new level. For example, with Sneak, I had to start paying closer attention to my foot placement and how heavy I was breathing. I’ve found that if I practice this where I have a chance of being caught, I can level the skill faster. One night I spent sneaking around my parent’s section of our house while they were asleep to help level the skill.

It was during our nap time that I got my breakthrough. I was using Visualization and Meditation combined with Mental Notes to study the writing on the spiral doorway when I received the notice.

[Skill gained: Language - Runic 1]

The ancient language is called the Runic language. I was so excited I jumped up and started to run around. Thankfully it had been long enough since we were told to take our nap that I was not forced to go back to sleep. Running from doorway to doorway, I could start to understand simple words. I still had a long way to go to master the language but I made my first huge step!

Experimentation is in order! I ran up to the central column and started looking for what I could understand. The system is a cheat by the way. Looking at the central column, I could see some words were highlighted now in my mind with an overlay of what they mean. Scattered throughout the pillar I was able to make out “Push Here To Enter.” The words were spread out. “push” was high enough that I needed to climb the column a little bit to reach it.

Once I touched the symbol for “push,” the system highlighted it in a different color. I proceeded to push the “here” “to” and “enter” symbols. It did not occur to me at the time that they needed to be pushed in a certain order. The order I ended up pushing them in was “push” “to” “enter” “here”. As soon as I pushed the “here” symbol, the floor beneath me disappeared.