[The alarm went off, it was 6 AM. Jason was ready to get to work around the farm. He had 39 starting actions]

[Tess’s Almanac: 20th day of Fall! 71 days until the Fall Festival. Nothing terribly exciting happening today. Cold weather, maybe a storm in a few days]

Jason frowned as he read the message, then shrugged and climbed out of bed. Ever since the announcement that she would be stepping down, Tess had been extraordinarily busy fielding different requests for information, along with applications. Somehow, word had leaked over to the next few towns in every direction, and eager young adventurers were flocking over to put their names in the pot. She was apparently a bit overwhelmed by it all, and as such, Jason had hardly seen her at all for the previous week. Hopefully that would change soon, but it was hard to know for sure, and he was trying not to be too anxious about it.

He soon walked up to the window and gazed out across the land. His eternal torches were still smoking, though the plumes were dwindling to faint wisps, and he could see a few Juun bugs flitting past the fences to sneak a few chomps from the tender stalks. As he watched the sorghum, though, a smile broke across his face.

Juun bugs or not, he was actually making progress with the crops. He had to brew new repellant every three days, and reload the torches every single day, and the whole process was easily the most painful thing he had ever gone through, but he was still making progress nonetheless. The sorghum crop was now just a few days away from harvesting, and when it did come time, he was actually going to be able to get a proper yield out of it. The thought filled him with joy, and he dressed quickly and made his way down the stairs.

“Alright, cookbook!” He beamed as he dropped into a chair. “Make me some pancakes, any variety!”

The cookbook flapped a few pages in annoyance, and he sighed.

“Alright, an omelet then. I can be excited and want to celebrate, can’t I?”

The cookbook answered with an ambivalent cover slam, and the food appeared on the table with a flash. It was nothing fancy, likely a jab at Jason’s excitement, and he sighed. Oh, well. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, and he hadn’t bothered to specify the exact recipe he wanted to use. He ate the meal quickly, then rose and made his way to the front of the house. He quickly put on his boots and entered the yard, though this nearly made him turn back, as the painful smoke began to burn his eyes.

Working quickly, he walked to the stable and opened up the door, allowing Lady to come out into the morning air. He had taken to closing it up tightly, which made the stench more than bearable overnight. Lady’s ears flattened against her head, and he quickly led her out into the prairie and slightly upwind. He wasn’t allowed to actually build anything off his own property, of course, but he had managed to find an old tree stump that worked well enough as a hitching post. Lady was soon happily grazing on the bit of grass that the Juun bugs hadn’t bothered to eat, and Jason headed back to the farm.

He entered the small lean-to and picked up the pot of foul liquid, grimaced, then glanced around. He soon spied his goal: A pair of swimming goggles that he had bought from Paulina. It didn’t help his lungs, but until someone invented something that could actually filter chemicals out of the air itself, there wasn’t a lot he could do about that fact. With his eyes at least protected, he set off around the field, dumping new scoops of the sludge into all the different torches.

It was grueling work, made all the worse by the fact that he had to do it every single day. There were, though, two distinct upsides. The first one, and perhaps the greatest one, was the fact that he was able to look out across his field. The heads were now bursting forth, and while the kernels of the sorghum were still quite green, they would soon be turning a deep and brilliant red, ready for the harvest. They certainly weren’t as robust as he would have liked, due to the few Juun bugs that managed to brave the smoke, but he was happy enough with the result. The second upside to the process, though, was the fact that none of his odd actions actually counted as actions. Doing anything else on the farm, as long as it registered as a farm-related activity, took up his available actions for the day. Dumping sludge into a torch? If it did register as an action, Jason could only imagine that whoever monitored such things simply felt so bad for Jason that he/she/it just let the whole thing slide.

On that particular day, Jason had made it about halfway around the field, and was starting along the backside, when he glanced up at the farmstead. Two horses stood in the driveway, one of which looked rather like Angus. He grinned brightly, though he didn’t actually see Tess or whoever she was with. He started to work a bit faster, though he made sure not to skimp on the sludge. After all, it wouldn’t do for him to come all this way, only to have the field get eaten with just a few days left before the harvest.

All told, it took him about an hour total before he made it all the way back around. Angus and the other horse, a blood-red stallion, had been moved out to the hitching post with Lady, while Tess and the mysterious visitor were still nowhere to be seen. Jason frowned, then glanced up at the house. Something moved inside one of the windows, and he shrugged. A few minutes later, he had put the sludge away, washed his hands, and walked up to the door.

As he did so, though, a flash of apprehension washed over him. He wasn’t exactly sure why, but… He felt a bit odd. He shrugged it away as best he could, squared his shoulders, grabbed the doorknob, and stepped inside as quickly as possible.

“Tess?” He called out as he walked across the doorway. “You here?”

There was a muffled thump from the kitchen, and Tess quickly stepped into view. She had a nervous sort of smile on her face, and Jason frowned. She was dressed in her ceremonial armor, a far cry from her ordinary-day armor. Jason raised an eyebrow, and she glanced down at herself and blushed.

“I… Ahh… Hi.”

“Hi.” Jason bit his lip. “Something the matter?”

“Nope.” Tess shook her head. “I’m just… Excited. Maybe a little nervous. I’ve never actually done this before, so I don’t really know what comes next.”

“The introduction.” A deep voice rumbled from the kitchen.

Jason blinked, then crossed his arms slowly. “Introduction? What’s…” A thought struck his mind, and a smile crept across his face. “Did your brother make it into town?”

Relief seemed to wash across Tess’s face. “He did! Sorry, I… I don’t know… I…”

There was another thump, and a mountain of a man strode out of the kitchen and walked up to Jason. His head nearly scraped the ceiling, he must have been six feet and more than a few inches tall. His skin was dark and covered in scars, though he had a warm smile on his face. He was clad in thick battle armor that had just as many scars and scrapes as his body, with metal colored a deep red and a sigil on the breastplate of a roaring lion.

“Daniel. Daniel Talson.”

“Jason.” Jason reached out and shook the man’s hand. All things considered, he couldn’t have been much older than himself or Tess, but he was certainly huge. “You… Ahh… You’re not quite what I was expecting.”

“Did you expect a warrior maiden like Tess to have a nerdy little brother like you?” Daniel boomed down at him, then flinched. “Sorry. Didn’t mean it that way. It’s just… You’re so small!”

“Daniel. Manners.” Tess walked up next to him and smiled. The top of her head came barely to the middle of his chest, and Jason gulped slightly. “The culture in dungeons is rough. He’s not used to dealing with many civilians.”

“Definitely not farmers!” Daniel chuckled softly. “Except for when they have monsters get into their fields and muck things up. You have no idea how many griffins I’ve chased away from livestock pens, or the number of wood golems I’ve had to remove!” He laughed a bit louder. “Imagine being afraid of a wood golem!”

Jason scowled. “Yeah… Imagine that.”

“I mean, they have what, a hundred health points? Anyone with a strength over 20 can take them out with three hits of a melee weapon, you just have to make sure you-”

While Daniel continued to talk, Jason privately checked his stats.

[Strength: 15]

“And I thought I was doing pretty good. It was only 11 when I first got here.” Jason muttered under his breath. Daniel continued to laugh, and Jason coughed. “Well, Daniel, would you care to sit down? I’d love to hear a bit more about you. I don’t really know much about Tess’s childhood, or-”

“And I’d love to meet the man she’s marrying!” Daniel shook Jason’s hand once more, nearly ripping the arm from Jason’s socket. “You can’t be one of those namby-pamby farmers if Tess is settling down with you. She wouldn’t ever feel comfortable with someone she could beat in an arm wrestling match, and I tell you, she’s strong. At least for a girl.” Daniel dropped onto one of Jason’s chairs, and to Jason’s dismay, the legs cracked, and the whole thing came crashing to the ground.

“Oh! So sorry.” Daniel climbed back to his feet. “Forgot to deactivate my skill. Massive Inertia. Helps me with my melee attacks in the dungeon, and when you need a little extra oomph to manhandle the larger critters. And… There we go! Deactivated. I shouldn’t ruin anything else.”

His statement was quickly proved false, as he sat down on Daniel’s rocking chair and crushed it into splinters. He finally decided to sit down on the floor next to the fireplace, with Jason and Tess settling onto the couch.

“Don’t worry, I’ll pay for all that.” Daniel gestured at the destruction. “I just ran the Lava Strip. You’ve heard of it?” Tess nodded, but Jason shook his head. Daniel, for his part, took the gesture as an invitation to explain exactly what it meant. “Oh, you’d love it! If you were into dungeons, that is. See, some dungeons don’t just exist as single facets out in the middle of the wilderness, but are all clumped together. When that happens, you can do something called ‘running the dungeons,’ which is where you go from one dungeon to the next without resting or buying new supplies or anything. Healing yourself using your own skills, spells, or healing items is allowed, of course. The Lava Strip is one of the longest ones in the charted world, it has twenty, I think. Trying to run it is super dangerous, but three of my friends and I managed to do it! We won a pot that’s been growing for something like ten years, so I’m kind of a zillionaire right now.”

“Right.” Jason finally nodded slowly. “Anyway… It’s good to meet you, Daniel. Is there any way you could tell me about your childhood with Tess? Anything that she might not have told me, or-”

“Oh, I could tell you dozens of stories!” Daniel roared loudly, and slapped his thighs. Metal gauntlets crashed on his metal leg armor, creating a resounding crash that echoed throughout the room. “Let’s see… Ooh! Did she ever tell you about the time she brought home the crystal egg?”

Jason shook his head, but by then, Daniel had already launched into his story.

“So we were… Oh, I think I was ten, and she was eight. Well, she goes out exploring in the woods, and she finds this crystal egg. Being the good little girl that she was, she was afraid that it had been abandoned, so she brought it back to our house, tucked it into our bed, and then faked being super sick so she could stay in bed and keep it warm!”

Jason chuckled softly and glanced at Tess, who blushed slightly at the memory.

“Well, probably a week or two pass, and we’re all wondering why she isn’t getting better, when all of a sudden, she screams and comes flying out of her room. Now, that’s surprising enough, as we all thought she was basically knocking on death’s door, but then she’s followed by a blood dragon hatchling! She’d hatched a dragon! Oh, I tell you, that was a fight!”

Jason blinked. “You mean… You didn’t go get a warrior?”

“Are you kidding me? We’d both been trained to hold a sword from the time we were toddlers.” Daniel snorted. “It was a measly little thing, too. I still remember the stats. One thousand HP, dealing five hundred fire damage per second of breath attack, and a solid one hundred damage per bite. There were a few other melee attacks it could perform, too, but you won’t be as interested in those. Anyway, Tess and I both ran and grabbed our swords - Don’t get the wrong idea, we were so small that all we had were these short machete things - along with our handmade shields, and went into battle. Well, our mother soon came home and found the thing dead on the floor and both of us devouring her pantry trying to heal up before she noticed, and did we ever get scolded!” He laughed loudly. “We sold the head to the local tavern, and they paid us a thousand coins for it. Overpriced, of course, but you know what people will do for kids. That was the first time I ever earned an income from fighting a monster, unless you consider all the little monsters I’d clean up in my mom’s garden. Razorgrass, histles, that sort of thing. Tess would always take the crabgrasses. It was always so cute to watch her running around with a wooden spoon whacking them until they died!”

Jason sighed and leaned back in the couch, and Tess reached over and took his hand. Daniel, who was apparently the type of person who rarely stopped talking once given an opening, spoke at length about their collective childhood for the better part of three hours. Finally, sensing that Daniel was more than a little uncomfortable, Tess suggested that he go settled down in his room in Viola’s inn.

“That’s a good idea.” He rose up and flashed Daniel a smile. “Sorry I hogged the spotlight. I didn’t really get to hear much about you, but I’m sure we’ll meet again. I mean, I’m here until the wedding. The wedding! How about that. My little sis is going to be a farmer’s wife. Farmer Tess.”

He was still chuckling as he made his way out onto the porch, ducking through the low doorway as he did so. Jason sighed as he left, and Tess flashed a worried look at him.

“I’m sorry. He’s… We never really had much of a social life growing up, and being locked into a dungeon-delving culture hasn’t exactly helped that, but he does mean well.”

“Oh, I’m not upset at all.” Jason shook his head. “He certainly seems nice. He obviously loves you immensely, and he always apologized when he realized he was overstepping.”

“Trust me, he’ll grow on you.” Tess promised, then frowned. “I hope.”

“Thanks for introducing me.” Jason took her hands. “It was… It was nice to hear more about your past. It really does sound like you had a wild childhood. Makes me realize why you decided to settle down here.”

“It was either this life, or that.” Tess shrugged and gestured over her shoulder. “And… I love him, and I do love dungeon-delving, but I could never have made it work long-term.”

She sighed, then gave him a hug and a kiss. “See you soon?”

“Whenever that is.” Jason inclined his head with a smile. “Travel safe!”

With that, Tess was gone, and she and Daniel rode back off toward Summer Shandy. Jason watched them go, feeling an odd sort of an ache in his gut.

That was her brother. That, a man who could apparently break dungeon records or something, was the brother of his bride to be. It certainly meant that Jason had a lot to live up to.

He only hoped that he would be able to manage it.