[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: 84th day of Fall! 7 days until the Fall Festival. There’s a thick frost this morning, but it looks to clear up sometime around noontime. Otherwise, the weather should be clear!]

Jason rolled out of bed. This time, he didn’t shiver, but only because he had broken down and bought a pair of long johns from Paulina’s store. They were the ugliest pair of clothing that he wore by far, but they kept him warm enough, and as he walked up to the window and saw his breath hanging in the air, he knew that it had been the right decision.

It took him a moment to wipe away the frost from the window. Outside, sure enough, a thick layer of crystal-white color lay across the ground, the stable, and the gleaming red sorghum. A smile broke across his face, and he crossed his arms. The rainstorm, while it hadn’t actually destroyed his crop, had certainly reduced it enough that it was hardly worth spending the time to harvest. It had then taken several days to dry out, and as some of the crop had survived, he had been obliged to take out the plow and till up the whole field before he had been able to replant it. All things considered, it had been quite the ordeal, and he was now more than ready to get on with the harvest before the Juun bugs ate everything.

He rubbed his hands together and changed quickly, then made his way down the stairs and into the kitchen. That room was far warmer, as the cookbook seemed to have kindled a small fire in the belly of the stove. Jason quickly warmed his hands before the flames, then stepped out of the room and walked into the living room. There, he retrieved a piece of paper and a pen, then came back and scratched out a quick letter while he ate his breakfast.

“Tess, if your brother would like to come down and help me with the harvest, he’d be more than welcome. Jason.”

As soon as he finished writing, he folded up the letter, dropped into an envelope, and raced to the front of the house. The moment he dropped it into the mailbox, a message appeared.

[Mailbox: Please state the intended recipient]

“Tess, of the Warriors Guild.”

[Mailbox: …]

[Mailbox: …]

[Mailbox: …]

[Mailbox: Message sent]

Jason nodded, then walked back to the table, finished eating, and soon made his way out into the farmstead. He took out Lady and hitched her up to the post, then slowly made his way over to the fence and gazed out across the field. The smoke still stung his eyes, but… There it was.

A wonderful, bright-red field of sorghum, ready for the harvest. His success had been due to a handful of factors, all things considered. For one part, the colder weather had begun to affect even the Autumn Juun Bugs, though as he watched, several swarms of them still buzzed across the prairie. For the second part, he had taken to filling the torches twice a day, once in the morning and once at night, to make sure that there was always protection. It seemed to have worked well enough, as the crop practically looked like it would appear on an ordinary year.

He was still standing there when hoofbeats sounded in the drive, and he turned around to see Daniel riding up. He swung off and handed the reigns to Jason, who led the horse over to stand next to Lady.

“Tess told me you wanted my help again?” Daniel clapped his hands, causing a small shockwave to blast across the immediate farmstead.

“I just wanted to offer, if you were interested.” Jason shrugged. “You seemed to enjoy it last time, so I figured I would offer. This is the best crop I’ve gotten all season. All year, really, depending on how you count it.”

“Well, then, I’d love to!” Daniel grinned widely. “What would you like me to do? Use the scythe like I did last time? I was thinking about it, and I think I can chain a few of my other skills together to make it even more effective!”

“By all means.” Jason inclined his head.

“Great!” Daniel took out his enormous scythe, which gleamed in the sun. He looked terribly grim-reaper-esque, which Jason thought was rather entertaining. His eyes glazed slightly as he began to work on activating all his skills, and Jason walked up next to him. When he finished and his eyes refocused, his blade began to gleam in the sunlight, and he took a deep breath.

[Companion: Your new companion has been given 10 bonus actions for the day, and you have been granted 5. Remaining actions for the day: 44]

“Alright, Farmer Boy. You’d better stand back. This one could hurt, if you get caught in it.”

Jason nodded slowly. “What exactly are you doing?”

Daniel puffed out his cheeks. “Let’s see… I have all the stuff you saw me do last time. My inertia skill, of course, along with a shockwave skill. That’s what creates the ripple, of course. Then I have a magnetism skill that lets me grab items from further away. You’ve seen all of that, but I just added…” He paused for dramatic effect. “One I missed last time is called Chainmail. It basically makes your attack grow more powerful the more things you defeat. Now, each stalk isn’t going to cause the attack to increase by much, but since I’m hitting so many at once, it oughta do something. I also added one that makes blades sharper, and an area-of-effect attack that-”

Jason’s head was soon lost amidst the different factors that would change how much damage was ultimately performed on the field. Daniel seemed to sense this fact, and flashed a small smile.

“Well, just stand back and watch me work, eh?”

He threw open the gates of the field, drew the scythe back over his head, and then swung it with all his might.

This time, Jason was sure that it was done with all his might.

Light trailed from the tip of the blade as it swung through the sorghum stalks and the shockwave erupted across the field. Unlike the previous time, this shock wave glowed brilliantly, and seemed to gain in power exponentially as it leapt across the eighty acres. Both Jason and Daniel stood there, slack-jawed, as the shockwave blasted out the far side, took out his entire length of fence, and cut down a good swath of the prairie before finally wearing out. There was a flash of light, and all the sorghum was transferred into Daniel’s personal inventory. He stumbled and fell to his knees, groaning as he hit the ground.

“Transfer, transfer!”

There was another flash of light, and all of the grain was sent straight to the box where Jason stored his crops to be sold. Daniel climbed back to his feet, then whistled.

“Now that’s not an accomplishment I ever imagined I would receive.”

“You just harvested eighty acres of sorghum in a single blow.” Jason turned and gazed up at Daniel. He had known that the warrior was powerful, but it was hard to really gauge just how strong he was, given that Jason knew absolutely nothing about how strong a crystal dragon was compared to a behemoth troll. That feat, though…

“I did, didn’t I?” Daniel chuckled deeply. He glazed down at the scythe, then laughed. “What do you know? I ought to hire out my services!”

“You’ll have to include a clause about taking out fence.” Jason pointed at the downed length of fence along the far side. “Not that it’ll take long to fix, but…”

“How about I help you fix it right now?”

Jason blinked. “I’d love that. Thanks.”

“Think nothing of it!” Daniel waved his hand and started walking off toward the fence. “Or think everything of it. I don’t really care which.”

Jason rolled his eyes as he followed. They soon reached the far end, where Jason began picking up the pieces of fence.

“I’ve got that.” Daniel stepped up. “I have some repair skills that will help with the first few links. Come to think of it, I can probably temporarily share some of those skills with you, so you can move faster, and we don’t have to rebuild it all from scratch.”

“Once again, thank you.” Jason blinked in surprise as Daniel picked up the first length of fence and reattached it, and the broken links healed in a split second. They started to move down the length of the thing, and Jason glanced at Daniel. “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”

“Ask away! I’m an open book!” Daniel chuckled, then shrugged. “At least I think I am. Reading has never really been my strong suit, if you know what I mean. I find all sorts of books down in the dungeons, mostly for fetch quests and stuff, but I always just sell them to the librarians.”

Jason chuckled, then sighed. “I was just wondering if you could tell me another story about when you and Tess were little. Your lives were so different from my own, and I sometimes wonder how you two managed to turn out… I don’t know. Not utter jerks, you know? I feel like I knew dozens of people up in Illumitir whose parents were killed for one reason or another, and most of them just grew up bitter and cruel. Some of them didn’t, mind you, but a lot of them just focused all their anger and hate on whatever they thought killed their parents, and… You know what I mean?”

“Yeah.” Daniel sighed deeply. He paused for a moment, then shrugged. “I think it’s because Tess and I saw a lot of other dungeon orphans who were just like that. The woman we called our mother was a blessing beyond compare. We both knew our parents, and we both hated the fact that they were gone, but we weren’t completely on our own, you know? I know we made her turn grey before her time, and I know I wasn’t always the best behaved son, but we tried, you know?”

There was a pause of a moment, and Daniel turned the subject away. “You wanted a story! Right. Let me think… Okay, I’ve got one. This was from about a year after my parents were killed. We had just moved to a new town, and we were hanging around the local tavern because it was just about the best place to catch news of what was happening in the dungeons, and who should walk in but Tess’s parents!”

Jason felt his gut clench as he imagined the way that the scenario might have played out, but Daniel just pressed on.

“Anyway, we both freeze, ‘cause you just know how awkward that’s going to be. We both hid under a table and listened to them talking about all the dungeons they went into and all the monsters they fought and stuff. When they finally left, you’ll never guess what Tess did.”

“I think I have an idea.” Jason muttered under his breath.

“She followed them!” Daniel laughed. “Just ran off! Oh, mom was furious. We went after her, but she knew how to cover her tracks well, and pretty soon we’d lost sight of her. She followed her parents for a hundred miles across the eastern mountains. She’d stay just behind them so they never noticed, and then… She attacked them! I didn’t see it, of course, but I’ve heard the story since then. Sounds like she was quite a beast, just swinging a butcher knife like a sword and hacking away at them, and they just thought it was the cutest thing they’d ever seen, and…”

He laughed and shook his head. “Oh, I wish I could have seen it.”

Jason bit his lip, then crossed his arms. “Who told you that story?”

Instantly, Daniel froze. He coughed and shook his head. “Ahh… You know, why don’t you tell me a story? I’ve heard a bit about what happened with the Dungeon Guild and Leonard and stuff from a few years ago, from Tess, but I haven’t actually-”

“Daniel.” Jason stepped forward. “Tess didn’t tell you that story, did she?”

Daniel’s eyes were wide with fear. “Ahh… Not exactly.”

“You know where her parents are.”

It was definitely a stretch. For all he knew, Daniel had just tracked them down years earlier, and hadn’t seen them in a decade or more. That said, the way that Daniel was acting certainly seemed to indicate a greater level of guilt.

“I don’t know exactly where they are.” Daniel held up a finger.

“You know the city.”

There was a long pause.

“Yes.”

“You’ve talked to them recently?”

“That depends on how strictly you define the word ‘recently.’”

“Then define it for me.”

Daniel kicked at the ground, then sighed and shrugged. “Ahh… About two days before I left to come here.”

Jason’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head. “You what? You’re telling me that you know who Tess’s parents are, you’ve talked to them… I can’t believe you! Tess has no idea, does she?”

Daniel shook his head slowly. “Not a clue. And I only really know her father, to be fair. Her mother died about five years back.”

Jason just shook his head incredulously. “I’m in shock right now. Complete and utter shock. Do you have any idea how much she misses her parents?”

“Of course I do!” Daniel snapped. “Why do you think I haven’t told her?”

Jason froze, and Daniel continued.

“You just heard the story I told you. That’s not the only one like it. When we were growing up, she was always and forever trying to figure out where her parents were located. Our mother didn’t move us around very often, but every time she did, it was to get us further away. The few times they bumped into one another, things never went well. If she found out that her father was still alive, and that he still didn’t want a relationship with her, she would be crushed.”

Jason blinked. “He still doesn’t want that? He obviously has a relationship with you.”

“He knows who I am.” Daniel stalked up to Jason and flicked him on the forehead. It was a powerful enough jolt to send Jason staggering backward, and Daniel crossed his arms. “We’ve talked like five times since I left the house to start adventuring on my own. I’ll admit, I went down to the volcanic region with the purpose of meeting him. You know why I went there?”

Jason didn’t have a good answer.

“I went there because I wanted to check, yet again, if he would be wiling yet to go talk to Tess. His answer is still no. I will keep checking with him, and I will tell Tess the moment that he agrees to a meeting, but until that point, I have to protect her.”

“Tess isn’t the type of person to accept protection from others.”

“Then why don’t you go marching right up to her and tell her.” Daniel snapped. “Tell her that her father is still alive, and that he wants nothing to do with her. She already knows that. Telling her where he is will only pour salt on the wound.”

Jason crossed his arms. “I still think you need to tell her. If nothing else, as a courtesy. She’s not a child anymore, Daniel. I’m not saying that you should just drop it on her like a ton of bricks, but I do think that you need to at least inform her that you’ve talked to her father.”

Daniel held Jason’s gaze, then lowered his head. “Maybe so.” He sighed deeply. “Just… Do me a favor and let me be the one who decides when is the right time.”

“That much, I can do.”

Daniel sighed deeply, then turned and walked from the farm. A few moment later, he was gone, and Daniel was left with his head spinning. He turned himself and walked back into the house, uncertain of how to continue. Tess needed to know, that was for sure. Still… It couldn’t hurt to wait a little while, just to give Daniel a chance to make things right… Right?