When the four of us step through the wrought iron gates, Melody looks about the Hedge Maze in confusion.

"Oh... the dungeon has shifted," Melody says. "The path didn't go this way before."

"More experience for us," Amethyst says.

"I wasn't making much progress trying to commune with an already-completed puzzle anyway. Good of you to join us, boys! This is a nice little dungeon here. I bet you could take a baby through here!"

"I was two years old when I first ran this dungeon," I say. "And the only problem was when the rest of my party got kidnapped by goblins and I had to rescue them myself."

"How in the Void did a two-year-old fight off goblins?" Melody wonders.

"Discipline (Battle Trance), mostly. I don't use it anymore, though. I don't like it."

"Why don't you remove it, then?" Rowan asks. "It's not very Drake."

"Good point," I say.

This isn't quite so simple as a 'healing', though. Wanted or not, [Battle Trance] isn't a malignant skill. Technically, anything could be considered harmful if it's hindering you somehow. This is more like plucking perfectly good fruit early so that fewer fruits will be bigger. I largely don't want to actually do that but in this case, it's a skill I never want to use again and don't even want the concept to be a part of me. It was a fragment of a past life that came through before I could suppress them.

[Salubrity] is a healing skill, though, just the soul counterpart to [Rapid Healing]. [Battle Trance] is more like a callous than an injury. I should still be able to change the concept into something more in line with my build, though. I summon a [Ghostly Watcher] and leave figuring it out to him so I can focus on the puzzles.

We make our way through a puzzle containing blocks that say various words in English, Common, and Latin and retrieve a chest with some minor loot.

The winding paths through the dense green hedges bring us back to the music puzzle. Eight flowers ring the ground before a wrought iron gate with a little icon above it to give a hint to the tune we should play. The first time I visited, it was a star to hint at "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star". This time, it's showing a picture of a meatball. I only know one simple kid's song involving meatballs, and neither of these ladies are likely to know it.

"I'm pretty sure I know what the song is," I say. "I don't know how to play it, but I can probably sing it for you."

Melody gives me a 'go ahead' gesture, and I regale them with my best rendition of "On Top of Spaghetti". I don't think I'm going to be winning any awards, but I can sing along to holiday carols and the actual Bard should be able to figure it out from there. By the time I'm finished with the second verse, Amethyst is on the ground laughing.

Once I'm done, Melody extremely seriously turns her attention toward the bell flowers, ignoring Amethyst and mumbling something about intervals instead.

As Melody works on communing with the music puzzle or whatever she's doing, Amethyst and I wander off to discuss the evolution of pasta dishes over the centuries. Unfortunately, curiosity about Earth food leads me to opening a can of worms (not literally) and a memory of what Alex used to eat.

This leads to me lamenting how I spent most of my Earthly life eating food that had been made in a factory, frozen, and then sold to me by a minimum-wage retail worker with sunken eyes and a thousand yard stare over the latest screaming middle-aged woman demanding a manager over some trivial problem or another. No wonder most of the memories I got from that period involve playing games and watching television and I have very few memories of eating good food.

"Okay, let me get this straight," Amethyst says. "People discovered nightshade berries were delicious and put them on literally everything?"

"Kind of? Tomatoes aren't poisonous, even though they're related to nightshade. And not everything. Just the things that didn't already get covered in sugar. Ugh, you know what, I'm going to stop thinking about disgusting frozen food now."

"Fair enough."

"I got it!" Melody exclaims.

We look over to see the bell flowers glowing, and the wrought iron gate opens with a clatter. A chest rises from the ground in the middle of the room, and I check it for traps before giving the go-ahead on opening it.

The chest contains a handful of coins and a takeout box. There's no writing on it, but it's definitely shaped like a paper takeout box from a restaurant. I open it to see one fat mouthwatering meatball nestled inside, smelling divine atop a bed of spaghetti with cheese and tomato sauce, and quickly press the container shut before somebody sneezes.

"Is it magical?" Amethyst asks.

Right, I'm supposed to be identifying the loot, not drooling over it. "It's a chaos aspect consumable."

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Guess that makes sense, given the song," Amethyst says with another giggle. "Shall we split it here, or take it back to camp?"

"It's probably best to get this over with," I say. "Normally, I'd wait, but this is a baby dungeon. Rowan, can you make sure the meatball doesn't roll away while I'm trying to cut it?"

"Ah, yes, I will put my aspiring Paladin [Protection] skill to use at protecting a meatball," Rowan says.

I pull a small knife out of my bag of holding and make sure that it's clean and hasn't been used it for anything weird lately before opening up the takeout box again to carefully quarter the big meatball. We don't have enough forks to go around and the resulting meal is still a little messy, but no one minds. It's a tasty essence-packed dungeon reward for being able to play a kiddie song on some weird magic flowers.

We finish our shares of the aspect food and I note that a few seemingly random skills gained experience from that. Odd, but not entirely unexpected.

We obligatorily play cards with a tree. I'm still not a fan of the card game Leaves, but I don't object to playing it. It's just a thing you do when running certain dungeons, like fighting monsters and solving gratuitous puzzles.

In addition to coins, the final chest contains a Leaves card, and a rare one at that if the shiny markings are any indication. The others don't seem terribly interested in it.

"If nobody else wants it, I'll just earmark it as a Hearth Day gift for my eight-year-old cousin, Griffin," I say, and they agree.

As we're leaving the dungeon, I receive a system notification.

Skill removed: Discipline (Battle Trance) Skill acquired: Necromancy (Ghostly Enchanter) Description: You may summon a ghost who is capable of creating and manipulating mystic structures.

The small amount of experience from [Battle Trance] flows readily into [Fractal Consciousness], which is largely an inferior version anyway.

I might feel slightly less likely now to fly into a bloodthirsty fugue, but it's hard to tell. I'm glad to be rid of it, though. And what's up with this interesting new skill? My ghost still sports glowing eyes, but they've changed to azure rather than yellow and its translucent "body" is a bit more visible. Although it still lacks legs or facial definition, it now sports obvious transparent blue hands.

"Oh hey, what did you do to your ghost?" Basalt asks as we return to the group. "My [Ghostly Handyman] is orange, but this one's coming up on [Aura Sight] as a 'Mind' instead of a 'Hand'."

"The system calls it [Ghostly Enchanter]," I say, showing him the message via [Telepathy].

"Awesome. Perfect for you. Can't wait to see what all you can do with it."

We set off again in the morning. We're not in a rush, and we've gotten plenty of practice done in the meantime, though despite Jade's best efforts, I have not unlocked any balance skills yet. I simply fall off railings. The grass is soft and Rowan is happy to heal everyone's bruises.

We set off into the air and fly southward toward home. Once our course is set, I pull out my little bottle of goblin glue again to see about unlocking the next skill Aunt Rosemary said was absolutely essential: Enhanced Hands (Sticky Grip). As I'm a fan of not accidentally dropping things, I have to agree on that sentiment. It should also help with maintaining my grip on the tiller or railing in an emergency.

It's not a long flight, and I don't think I'm close to a skill unlock as we approach the Festival Grounds. The lightning-charred oak tree is a sad sight. This tree was merely a normal sort of large oak tree and not a ridiculously gigantic oak tree, and now it's… not doing well. I spot a figure nearby and bring us in for a landing nearby to see what's going on.

"Hey, it's my sister!" Anise exclaims. "Hi Hazel! What's happening?"

Name: Hazel Corwen Tempest Tiganna Race: Human | Gender: Female | Rank: Heroic | Tier: Journeyman | Class: Pedagogic Druid Disposition: Friendly | Mood: Anxious, Frustrated, Determined

"I'm trying to unlock Invocation (Guardian Tree) before the Summer Festival," Aunt Hazel says with a sigh. "Aunt Savannah wanted Meadow to do it. They had a big argument and Meadow flew off with her new friends to who knows where. So now I'm the one trying to rebuild our Festival Grounds. The oldest oak tree here was struck by lightning, as you could probably tell, so I'm trying to bond with the second-largest oak tree in the area."

"[Guardian Tree]?" Amethyst wonders. "Sounds neat."

"Unfortunately, a Druid can only have one at a time. In order to grow the bigger one up north, Aunt Savannah had to release this one. This was the result." She gestures at the blackened wood.

"Are you planning to be a Druid, sis?" Anise asks.

"She's already a Druid," I say. "Congratulations on Heroic rank, by the way."

"Thank you. Meadow didn't feel like following in her mother's footsteps, so someone has to and I have no objection to it. It would be a shame not to be able to use these grounds. Without the tree's protection, monsters might be drawn to the crowd and could hurt the children."

"Wait. Wait, back up," Anise says. "You reached Heroic rank and became a Druid? When? How?"

"You know, things happen in places where you aren't immediately looking, sis. Other people have lives, too. Not all heroism involves fire and death. Sometimes it involves the earth and life instead."

"Okay, okay, sheesh, I see you gained a few levels in Incantation (Pretentious Speech), too."

"That is totally not a skill name," Rowan says. "Can we help in some way?"

"If anyone is interested in raising Search (Lumberjacking) and Maintenance (Yardwork), you can help clear away the debris. The lingering essence in it is hindering my ability to form a bond with the tree."

"Sounds like a job for a Handyman," Basalt says, hefting his axe.

"We'll get the wood back to Corwen," I say. "I'm sure it would be good for crafting something."

We spend the afternoon pitching in and loading up my boat with pieces of the dead tree. Along the way, I wind up unlocking another skill I hadn't really been hankering for.

Skill acquired: Maintenance (Yardwork) Description: The ability to keep a yard or park neat and tidy via pruning, mowing, and raking.

Really, between this and the chaos meatball giving me a level in [Chameleon Aura] of all things, it's taking me some restraint to just leave them alone and not use my fancy new [Ghostly Enchanter] to prune even more of my skills. This is fine. I don't anticipate using it a lot, but it's not harmful and Maintenance is good to have.

The skymotes are orange by the time we're done, and I look over to watch Aunt Hazel communing with the not-quite-as-big oak tree on the other side of the dirt road. Vis flows freely between her and the tree, more and more with every breath.

"There's no more interference now," Aunt Hazel says. "Thank you. This will take several days at least, but at least now the way forward is unblocked."

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