Honey, I've Leveled the Kids [Family-Focus, LitRPG - COMPLETE]

Tristan and I logged out of the game and picked up Elaine from school. In the car, I asked him if snakes counted as crawlers and what were his favorite.

His voice pitched instantly changed. "The thorny devil! It moves so cool with this jig and wiggles so it can drink water. It's spiny too!"

"Spiny or thorny?" I asked. I glanced at him in the rear-view mirror and saw him beaming and using his hands to explain everything.

"Thorny. There's this other reptile that has blue stripes on it," Tristan continued on giving me a lesson I never knew I wanted. It was so fascinating hearing his passion on the matter.

He didn't stop talking. When we picked up Elain, he explained our successes and failures to Elaine in the alchemy shed.

As he finally caught his breath, she gave her two cents once we got into the house. "Wow, looks like Dad can listen."

I had hoped the glowering look she gave was because of a bad day at school, not because of me. But I knew the truth. "I'm working on it. Sorry, I really messed up earlier and I need to clean up my act."

"Dad's really good at cleaning!" Tristan chimed in, not wanting to be kicked out of the conversation.

"It's Friday night, so we can stay up late to unite in the city again." I reminded them. "Tomorrow when we're all back together in Fanamel, let's do a long day gaming session."

In my original build plan, weekends would be the time we would do the most leveling and catching up on any class quests Triangle or Naiad had. The goal was to be level twenty-five by Sunday evening. The schedule was fine for me, but I didn't want to hold the kids accountable to it anymore. I wanted to be with the kids and do what they wanted - and if that meant I only went up one level this whole weekend playing with them, then that would be the best level.

In the kitchen, Elaine leaned down and whispered to her brother. He nodded in response. She had a small smile on her face that gave me relief. They did a pinky promise and together, ran down the hall to the office, excited to get back into the game.

I didn't want to miss out on the gaming fun, so I put their uneaten scraps of dinner into the trash and tossed the meal containers in the sink for later. That was the last of the food preparation. I froze the rest to be lunches for me. The old gaming plan was over. A new one with a fun filled weekend was about to start, one I didn't control. I would listen to Elaine and Tristan about what they wanted. Even if it's pineapple on pizza.

I logged into Seconds-Over to see Tristan at the mailbox of the guildhall.

I turned on my stream while he dealt with the mail. The system sent the notification out to my streamers. Time to entertain and be a better dad.

The first goal of today was to talk as a family to solve the mystery around the flower. The next goal of today was to get out of Purge and back to Fanamel.

Naiad walked into the guild hall via a portal entrance. She noticed me, shoulders drooping, and said, "Oh."

I pretended to not see her disappointment and stressed my excitement. "We're a guild and should hang out as one today. I wanted to go over our quest and catch up together. Do one of our daily sessions."

"Fine, but I need to grab my mail first." She opened it up and took whatever it was immediately into her inventory. "Thanks, Triangle."

"See you soon," he sang out.

The saying only confused me more. I took the lesson I gained from Triangle earlier and stayed focus on the task at hand. By doing this recap, it would update any new streamers too.

"Alright Shrimplets, we are here today to go over our goals. Today, I'm going to work on listening first. Triangle, what's yours?"

The boy pulled a crate out of his inventory. "I want to sell more potions at the market. Then visit Ma'am Q to see if I can collect more cards."

"Great. Naiad?"

"Get out of hell." Short and straight to the point.

"You and me both. We're going to need to find a portal. Here's where we stand with the quest." I pulled up the blue screen and read off the information to the streamers.

>>><<<

[Root and Seeds of the Problem

Description: You've only peeked at the imbalanced caused by your deeds, and Lady Branchelot's. You've agreed to help the holy Chiliam in finding their seed in the swamp Lasis. You also agreed to helping the unholy Leith in protecting her daughter, the seed from all the gods.

Reward: Title and abilities for Jaguar of Chiliam

Time Remaining: 7 days, 2 hours, 12 minutes]

>>><<<

I continued talking, "Let's talk about the big item. Naiad and I found a seed."

I took the large hell-flower. Its silver petals barely hung on in their wilted form, exposing a bristled pod. The spikes of the seed pricked my skin, drawing my blood.

The spikes sucked up my blood instantly. I gulped and remained focused on my task while watching my buff statuses. Carefully, I held the seed out to Triangle and asked, "Don't touch it. Have you ever seen something like this before with all your herbalist studies?"

Of course, a child seeing something prickly and covered with petals, went to touch it, ignoring what I said. "Ow!"

I shivered as I watched a drop of his own blood vanish into the seed. More silver petals fell off in response. I reminded them, "I said don't touch it."

"Is it a coconut?" Triangle wiggled his fingers about.

It was time to teach him a lesson about studying. "No. Let's look at the properties. Stare at the seed and blink at the little blue glowing dot near it to see them, also tapping that blue dot will work but don't actually tap-"

"Ow!" Triangle again didn't listen as he pricked his finger on the seed. "Oh, what's all this? Nutritional information?"

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

I shook my head. "No, that's the system menu describing the seed. But it looks like a nutritional label."

[ (Item, demonic) The Seed of Chaotic Unknown:

Description: This is the only one in the world—all worlds. This seed has a singular purpose and goal. You still don't know what it is! Because you have taken this seed, all eyes, whether they be heavenly, divine, or demonic, are now searching for you and this seed. Quests related to this item have updated.]

"Oh!" Naiad exclaimed. "It all makes sense."

"What does?" I asked.

"The seed, the daughter, Chiliam, and Leith in hell," she listed out the points, talking excitedly. "It all connects."

"Go on," I said with excitement, connecting the dots all because she was leading me to it.

"Lady Branchelot was slowing feeding herself into hell, into this seed. It was done with the creepy worm snakes somehow."

"What worm snakes?" Triangle looked up, "do you have one?"

We both shook our heads. "I'll find you something," I promised, then waved Naiad to continue.

"This seed, it is Lady Branchelot. But not as a guardian of heaven, possibly one of hell, since it grew there? I don't know. But it's why Chiliam needed a seed back, to plant his guardian. I don't think it's that anymore, especially since Leith demands we keep it secret as it grows here on earth."

With Naiad's revelation, more information flooded at me from the system screens.

[System notification: Root and Seeds of the Problem has updated! You have learned of the Seeds of Chaos. The Chaotic God of heaven, Chiliam has lost his guardian. The only hint found was by the roots that dug deep enough to enter the hell below. Where all things living, even plants struggled to grow, but somehow you found this seed, in a dark and dull area. Lady Branchelot was the guardian of the Heavenly god of Chaos, and powered by unholy life gifted by Leith, a seed has sprouted… somehow. The gods want this seed. Appease them and you shall receive a permanent buff upon entering one of their temples. Enrage them, and their followers will hunt you down to curse you. You have three choices:

1. Give the seed to Chiliam or a god. This will make you a follower of that god. Both affiliation and moral alignment promise to them.

2. Plant the seed and guard it until it bears fruit. Bonus! Keep it secret from the all gods (except Leith). You know, those all seeing and knowing beings... Good luck on that.

3. Destroy the seed. This will give you a curse from Leith and hunted by her followers.]

I took a breath, even drunk some water after all the reading, before preparing my speech for the obvious choice of what to do next. "We will not be giving this seed to the gods. That's asking for a war between the heaven, hell... Naiad, does earth have gods?

She nodded, "The god Nita is of the middle realm. There' are a lot of gods."

"Ooof, mortal alignment is dooming us, then."

Naiad waved her hand and pointed to the shiny golden ring. "Yeah, a big pain, they dictate everything with your dad. What about the buff we could get from the other god? Could it save me?"

I rebuked, "I think we are doomed to get a curse if we give the seed away, too. We need an option that keeps you safe and gives us a buff of protection."

Triangle frowned as he tried to read the quest update to himself. I gave him time and a brief rundown to catch him up and then asked, "What are your thoughts?"

He finally pulled his little fingers away from the seed and pointed to a potted plant. "It would be fun to have godlike friends. Why wouldn't they like it if we planted it?"

"Any quests we will get from the gods will be extremely dangerous, and put us at risk from another perspective - like demonic vs heavenly. Players, monsters, and NPCs could always be after us." I explained. There was no sugarcoating the truth. I could handle the PvP fighting. He couldn't, and once this quest was done, we would be together and I would not put him in a PvP situation. If Triangle wanted fishing, we would get on a boat and go fishing. If he wanted crawlers, I dig through the mud again to catch him a newt.

Naiad huffed, "Sounds like we all want a different option."

I would listen to them, but make sure they understood the full situation. "Don't forget, you're bound to the goddess Leith right now, because of that ring. We need to threaten her with blackmail by destroying the seed and get you free. We don't want to be hunted and chased forever by all the gods. It be like hell all over again."

"Didn't you want us fighting and on adventures?" she kept pushing.

I looked at Triangle and said, "Not everyone wants that, and its okay to explore other options."

She rolled her eyes. I knew what she was thinking, that I only cared about them now because it worked in favor of my plan. I wasn't listening just this once, I would do it everyday forward in the game, where we would work on team building events and they would take turns being in charge. "Let me look at how to destroy the seed first, it might be the best option."

"Or planting the seed might be!" Triangle said. "I don't think giving it to Chiliam god will work for Naiad."

I smiled at him before I expanded out the options on the quest to destroy the seed to get further information.

[In order to destroy the Seed of Chaotic Unknown, you must calm the storm-]

I skipped the details to load up the next ingredient section.

[You must gather the coldest of fires at the -].

The following ingredient wasn't much better.

[The lightest solid that floats in the air of the-].

Skip.

[The stickiest of slimes by slaying-].

"Wait, I want to know about the stickiest of slimes." Triangle whined.

I smiled down at him. "You made that the other day with your Sticky Nicky bombs. Take a look at that step for inspiration."

There are five more ingredients I skipped over because getting them meant traveling the world. We didn't have that time left on the quest. The next part finally got into the instructions about a ritual and building the equipment that it was overwhelmingly impossible.

"I'm a fool, there's no way we can destroy it in time." I said aloud. "Naiad and Triangle, you pick which option we should do." I hoped whatever they picked didn't send Naiad to Leith.

Naiad smiled, declaring her choice. "I want us to plant it. We can finish it with the remaining quest time. Plus, we can still get the class reward of the fighter class with it somehow. And... it will keep Leith happy."

It's what the goddess of Leith wanted. This was Naiad's choice, too. I nodded in agreement and went along with how she wanted to play the game.

"Yay!" Triangle cheered. "This will be fun. I've been trying to grow my own herbs here." He pointed to a soaking wet puddle to the side of his tinker shop. "They don't like Goldy's water."

Naiad giggled. "I think you're over watering them. We'll need to protect this seed from you drowning it."

I walked over to his puddle spot and looked down. The ground here was solid clay. In fact, most of the guildhall lacked on any plants. When we first got to the place, there were pots filled with greenery.

Now, water dripped from the pots. Each and every plant was underwater and dead.

Triangle was the largest threat to the seed when we planted it.

I glanced back at the endlessly long description of destroying the seed and drowning was not on there. Water would actually power up the seed.

My finger tapped away with indecision.

"Everything will turn out fine." I lied to myself out loud, hoping the kids believed it. "With a seed this big, we are going to need a giant pot. Fortunately, I know a great ceramic potter!"

"How big of a tree do you think this is going to be?" Naiad asked.

The seed I held was about the size of Triangle's head. It grew in the pillar zone of hell. It needed a lot of space, close to a ship size at least.

"Fair point." I wouldn't take her credit again. "We need to find a safe place to plant this and keep it a secret."

Leith's ring glistened on Naiad's fingers. A daughter for a daughter. I dug my fingernails into my hand, mad I was foolishly thinking I could handle this demonic seed quest. I had to plant this seed and give power to Leith. Hopefully that once we grew it, Leith's ring would fall off and free Naiad. Gods kept their promises.

I followed up with another suggestion. "Let's talk to the herbalist and get an idea about where to plant it."

"What about the temple of Nitia, where I found the cinnamon and plants for the Carrion of Life? They had a ton of plants and they might know something." Naiad's eyes were glazing over as she read through her notes.

"It better grow in clay, because that's all the guildhall has," Triangle added in.

"I think it will need to grow somewhere else," Naiad informed him again.

I stepped away from my kids and entered the guild further to address my stream of viewers. "As much as I enjoy showing the stream with you guys, I don't want to make a giant billboard on where I'm growing a Demonic-Tier tree. Until I have dirt under my nails, I won't be turning on this stream again. Sorry for the short stream."

Three seconds after an awkward goodbye wave, I returned my attention back to the kids. "Alright, let's make today shrimpley the best. Triangle, you keep up the great work. We will join you in Fanamel as soon as possible. Naiad and I will get out of hell."

I put my hand out in the middle of the huddle, palm down, hoping they would join in. Triangle jumped on it, and Naiad waved goodbye as she vanished out of the portal. I was going to have to work hard to earn her trust back.

"Go Shrimp Guild!" Triangle and I said, not in complete unison. Or even the same words.