I stared at Mister Menu, reading and re-reading what was written on his blue-ish surface. The broom in my hand was a little slack and if Juliette made the rounds to see how things were going with the cleaning she would probably have been disappointed to see me slacking off.

Congratulations! Through repeated actions your Cleaning skill has improved and is now eligible for rank up!
Rank B costs two (2) Class Points

“Two class points?” I whined. That was so many! In fact, that was every point I had left, and I had no idea when my next level-up would come around.

Jumping was going to rank-up soon too, would it cost two points to get it to rank B? That was awful! I would be stalled forever.

I pouted at Mister Menu while I finished up my cleaning work. Only a bit over a dozen rooms had been left unlocked, which meant I was making a lot less money per day cleaning than I had expected. Enough for a meal at the inn or to rent a room for the night, but not both. I had enough coins set aside to last a long while, but I was going to start spending more than I was making.

Returning to the main floor, I found Julliette tidying up around the bar. “I’m done,” I said. “fourteen rooms in all.”

“Do you want ze coins now?” she asked.

“Can you use them to cover for another night? The same room and all?”

Juliette nodded absently. “Fourteen for ze room and a meal. Just one.”

“Really? Thank you Juliette! You’re the best,” I said, my mood lifting considerably. “Hey, do you know about rank B skills?”

“Rank B? Ah,” Juliette said. “You cleaning has gotten better?”

I nodded vigorously. “Yup! Just a few minutes ago.”

The big frog matron returned to her work, passing a cloth between bottles to dust them off. It was work that I could probably have done, but then Julitette would be left with nothing to do. “How do your skilll ranks display zemselves?”

“Eh?”

“Do zey appear as colours? Numbers? Shapes?” she asked.

“Um, they show up as ranks? Rank F at the start, then they go backwards through the alphabet.”

Juliette made a noncommittal sound. “Very well. Every person sees zem differently. Well, mostly differently. I see ze letters and numbers of ze first language I learned. But my ranks feel like... bottles being filled.”

That kind of made sense. If someone didn’t know how to read they still needed to be able to interact with their system. “So each person’s system is unique?”

“As unique as you are a unique human,” Juliette said. “Zat is to say, most humans have legs, two arms and a head, but zey are not grenoil. Most people from a place will have similar, what did you call it, systems.”

“Neat,” I said. “So do others need class points to raise their ranks, or whatever?”

“Zey do. Ze name for each rank when you don’t know ze people you’re dealing wiz is novice, intermediary, apprentice, disciple, journeyman, expert, master. Zere are some above zat, but you won’t see zem anytime soon.”

I sang the alphabet song in my head a few times to get all the letters and names right. “So to get to disciple you need a skill point?”

“Yes, zat’s right.”

“And journeyman needs two?” I asked.

Juliette nodded. “Zen expert needs three, and master five.”

“Five?!” I asked. “That’s five levels worth of points.”

“Above master needs even more,” she said. “Which is why you won’t see skills zat high.”

I slumped onto the bar’s surface, letting the overwhelming despair get to me. “It’s going to take forever before I’m super powerful,” I muttered. “So much work.”

Juliette croaked and tossed a dirty rag onto my head. “My bar is a happy place. Go be mopey elsewhere.”

I huffed at her, but cleaned her rag all the same then left it on the counter next to me as I got up. “You’re right. I need to think a little and maybe go on an adventure again! Ah... wait, do you know what Cleaning does at journeyman level?”

“No. Now go. Supper won’t be served for anozer four hours. Not until ze adventurers return.”

I waved Juliette goodbye as I ran off to my room and started looking for my things. I hadn’t made my choice about Cleaning’s rank B yet. The numbers were still working themselves out in my head, but that didn’t mean that I couldn’t do other things. Dylan’s little quest sounded like an easy enough task.

I’d get to explore a little beyond the outpost, and I’d maybe make enough silver to... buy myself something nice. Like that book on basic magics. Oh! And I could practice fireball while out of the outpost. The lands around here were pretty marshy, so it was unlikely I’d light the whole world on fire.

Probably.

I was grinning as I set Orange on my bed then started slipping on my armour and gear. In no time at all I was ready and set for adventure! Then I realized that I didn’t need all my stuff if I was returning, so I left some things behind. I brought my shovel, my herbology book, the firestarter and a candle and some food and water for the trip. My silver and gold I tucked under the mattress. If I needed more than the ninety odd coppers I had on me I could always return.

“Let’s go, Orange!” I said to my kitty companion.

The archway into the outpost was guarded by the same two bored-looking grenoil as the last time. “Hello boys,” I said as I approached them. “I was wondering if maybe you could help me with some directions?”

“I’ve nothing better to do,” one of them said as he leaned into his spear. “It’s a long walk to ze dungeon from here zough.”

“No no, I need to find the, ah, Dunwich dungeon place. I’m going flowerpicking.”

“Flower-- whatever. It’s to ze west and north of here. Can’t really miss it. Ze whole place stinks of rot. Follow ze smell.” He pointed off in a direction that I suspected was northwest. Which... after looking around, made me realize that the big city--Port Royal--that I had been using as my north was actually to the northeast.

“Oh, I have a map,” I said before pulling Leonard’s map from my bandoleer. “Could you tell me where it is on that?”

He looked at it, then at me. “You see ze big skull and crossbones?” he asked. When I nodded he continued. “It’s zere.”

“Do you know anything about the place?” I asked. It wouldn’t hurt to know what I was getting into. Leonard certainly seemed to think that knowledge was important for an explorer and I was willing to bow to his experiences on the matter even if he has been a big grump.

The guard who had been the least talkative so far nodded. “Group of divers went a week or two back. Came back right startled zey did. Said zere wasn’t anyzing worz looting zere zough.”

“Zere used to be a dungeon zere before some filzy dog broke its core. World curse zem. Ze area has bad air, but most monsters know better zan to stick around.”

“Spooky,” I said. “And awesome! I wanted to know why Leonard didn’t want me to go there. I guess I’ll find out! Thank you mister guard.” I smiled at the pair then spun on one heel and marched off.

My pack was lighter on my back and I had a full tummy, which was enough of a change that I could move a whole lot faster than before. That, and instead of the meandering kind of lost way I had scurried across the forest a few days ago, I now knew more or less where I was going, which was very helpful.

As soon as I was out of the clearing around Rockstack I took to the trees and climbed the tallest one I could until I was standing on a branch that let me see over the swaying forest all around.

Northwest, as it turned out, was towards a range of big mountainous hills. Not big pillars of stone like the mountains to the Northeast, but still impressively big hills with windswept tops and a distinct lack of plant life.

I could see a cliffside up ahead that was going to be tricky to climb up. “Seems that’s where we’re going,” I told Orange as I walked off the branch and plummeted to the ground with a whoop.

I landed in a skill-enhanced crouch like a superhero and instantly felt a thousand times cooler. “Hey, Mister Menu, is there a ‘cool’ skill I can unlock? Pretty please?” I asked.

The menu didn’t deign to answer.

Shrugging, I started walking, mind contemplating different things like superhero landings and how hard they would be to do with pants on. It would be super embarrassing to land in front of some bad guys only to have the inseam of my pants tear open. I vowed to avoid doing that.

Reaching into my pack, I pulled out the fireball scroll and unrolled it a little. The advantage of a proper scroll was that with both hands I could reveal only as much of the text as needed, though reading and jumping proved to be too complicated after I nearly ran into a bush.

Grumbling, I set aside the scroll for later. There were just so many things I wanted to do, but so little time to do them in. Maybe I could learn some time magic to give myself more hours in the day in which to do stuff.

My jumps grew a bit riskier as the number of trees around me started to dwindle, soon I was forced to land and start walking across rough stony ground, feet brushing over brown grass that barely reached my ankles.

I took a deep gulp of breath, expecting to get a lungful of fresh mountain-y air but... not. The air was off. Not something I could pin right away, not until I remembered what Dylan said about negative mana being strong in the area. Did that mean that negative mana was an actual thing, or was it just an absence of mana? Like a shadow being an absence of light?

The more I learned about my strange new home the more I realized I didn’t know much at all.

I used a bit of mana on my shoes, cleaning them of dirt and dust and mud in an instant, then I kept an eye on my status while I started climbing uphill. I didn’t have a timepiece on me, but it felt as if it took far, far longer than usual for my mana to tick up one point.

Scary indeed. I could imagine that people used to a more or less fixed return on the amount of mana they had would be spooked by the change. Or maybe it was something else about the area that had them scared?

I arrived at a spot where the uphill cimb shifted from a slight slope that was good for the calves to a rising cliff that rose half a dozen meters above me, all jagged stones and rough rock walls that seemed impassable at first glance.

But the cliff probably wasn’t expecting the intrepid Broccoli Bunch to tackle it!

I crouched down while scanning for a nice spot on the wall, then I found a place where I could land--just a small ledge about a third of the way up. There was another outcropping a little higher than that too, one I could use for a final hop to the top.

The first jump had me just barely overshooting the ledge, and I found myself hugging the wall to avoid going splat. After calming myself down I jumped up another meter and a bit to the second outcropping, then shot upwards to the top.

It was only when I was at the top of the cliff that I noticed the path leading up it to the side.

Oops?

Shrugging, I started following the road, probably one dug in place to allow for carts to get to and from the dungeon. I was getting just a little excited at the idea of exploring a whole new place, even if there wasn’t much to see there.