I put this together because these were the exact things I kept wondering about while playing Songs of Glimmerwick — how to open up shortcuts, when I could finally get a mount, and where those precious extra inventory slots were hiding. Nothing here is a secret for secrets’ sake; it’s the stuff I genuinely wanted to know, timed to the earliest point I could get it.
Fast Travel That Actually Saves You Steps
Walking the same paths over and over wears you down fast, so the moment any kind of shortcut clicked for me it changed how I played a session. Here’s what I found, including whose quest sets each one in motion.
The Secret Tunnel from the Common Room to the Garden
This one comes straight out of Clover‘s market stall scheme, which wraps up in the quest “Clover’s Calamity”. Your reward is a strange green gem, and honestly I would have stashed it in my bag and forgotten about it if it hadn’t started humming.
Walk back into the Common Room on campus and it reacts — the closer you get to the statue on the right, the louder it gets. Add the green gem to that statue and you open up three things at once: the quest “Ghost Treasure”, a shortcut straight to the garden, and eventually access to the garden shed. That shortcut alone made me wish I’d paid attention to the gem sooner.
Griffin Fast Travel — Earliest in Summer
The bells strung around each location are fast travel points, and once you have a griffin pet you can call it from any bell to reach any other. Getting to that point takes a few moving parts, though, so let me lay out exactly what I had to line up. You need a Griffin Habitat, a Gilded Toadstool, and to actually find the griffin.
Pet habitat schematics don’t come along until your Creatures Workshop class in Term 2 / Summer — for me that landed on Tuesday the 3rd. The pricier ingredient is Thistle, which only becomes available during and after your camping trip to the Bellian Moor on Saturday the 7th through the 8th. If you’re hunting Briar Foxes, that same trip is where you’ll find them. Once you have a habitat in hand, place it at the Garden.
Now, the Gilded Toadstools — the offering for a Briar Fox, Woodland Dragon, Griffin, or Vested Pack Owl — come from three sources I’ve confirmed so far:
- Digging at mole hills with a Potion of the Mole, which you pick up during Clover’s quest “Mole Adventures”. The two spots I used are the mole hill near the flute maker and the one near the ferry crossing at the west end of Ochre Woods.
- A reward for helping Linden recover his missing tools in the quest “The Tool Thief” out in the Rosewheat Fields.
- A reward for placing ten unique fish into Florian‘s chest at the bookshop in Wisk.
As for the griffin itself, you can only reach it once you’re able to brew a Potion of the Mole, during and after Clover’s “Mole Adventures” quest in Summer. The molehill at the back of the toad pond in the south-west of the Cypress Foothills is the one that takes you there. Offer the griffin the Gilded Toadstool, build its habitat, and by the next day fast travel is yours.
Expanding Your Inventory
Bag space disappears faster than you’d think once you’re hoarding ingredients for that cooking recpies guide, so I chased every inventory upgrade I could get my hands on. There are three worth knowing about, and two of them come with a creature attached.
Chests and the Chest Schematic
You can build chests at the crafting table in Practical Practice over in Wisk, but there’s a gate on it: you need Carpentry Level 2, plus 20 logs as the ingredients. Simple once you’re leveled, frustrating if you’re not.
The Vested Pack Owl — Earliest in Summer
The Vested Pack Owl follows you around and quietly hands you 24 extra inventory slots, which is the kind of upgrade you feel immediately. To get one you need a Vested Pack Owl Habitat, a Gilded Toadstool, and to find the owl.
One thing I want to flag before you go looking: this is not the owl up in the Shifting Spires. Those are two entirely different owls with two very different purposes, and mixing them up will waste your time.
The habitat arrives on a different schedule than the other pets. From what I can tell, it’s a reward item from a fairy tied to Codrin‘s Ochre Woods quest “Fairy Ring” — I’m piecing that part together rather than stating it with certainty, so treat it as my best read. Wherever you get it, the habitat goes down at the Garden.
The same Gilded Toadstools feed the Briar Fox, Woodland Dragon, Griffin, and Vested Pack Owl, and they come from these three places:
- Mole hills, dug with a Potion of the Mole from Clover’s “Mole Adventures” — specifically the mole hill near the flute maker and the one near the ferry crossing at the west end of Ochre Woods.
- A reward for helping Linden with his missing tools in “The Tool Thief”, over in the Rosewheat Fields.
- A reward for putting ten unique fish into Florian‘s chest at the bookshop in Wisk.
Finding the owl means having access to Nocturne Forest in Term 2 / Summer, along with the Potion of Fungal Transmutation to get through the Cave of Questions. You may also need the Spore Neutraliser Potion from Advanced Potions class on Wednesday the 4th — I honestly can’t remember whether it was strictly required, but either way I’d carry about two spore neutraliser potions on you if you plan to explore Nocturne Forest at all. The owl wanders around in there. Offer it a gilded toadstool, build the habitat, and the next day you’ve got a companion with 24 extra slots.
The Mole Strength Hidden Ability
This one is my favorite of the bunch because it expands your personal inventory by 10 slots and it’s easy to walk right past. Once you have a Potion of the Mole — again, during and after Clover’s “Mole Adventures” in Summer — head into the molehill next to the Garden Shed.
Inside sits a giant mole who ropes you into the quest “Worms for Moles”, asking you to apologize to his burrow mate on his behalf. You’ll find that burrow mate in the molehill next to the Flute Maker’s cottage. Finish the quest and the Mole Strength hidden ability is your reward — though keep in mind you still have to spend a point to actually receive it.
One last note from my own playthrough, in case it saves you a headache: the burrow mate can turn up somewhere else. I ran into them in the same mole hole as the Griffon, so my guess is they can appear anywhere that mossed tree stump they rest in shows up. I don’t know whether it’s random, whether it’s whichever one you reach first, or whether it depends on the day — I finished the quest the same day I found both spots and never spotted them anywhere else to compare. If you find them in an unexpected place, you’re not doing anything wrong.
Conclusion
None of these unlocks are hard once you know the trigger, but several of them hinge on quests and class timing that are genuinely easy to sleep on. Get the green gem into that statue early, keep Thistle in mind for Summer, and don’t leave the mole hills un-dug.
