Alfric grimaced. It was on the high side. Knowing the people out here, there was probably nothing like auditing services, though it wasn’t clear how much money they’d get from the sale in the end and whether the services of an auditor would be even remotely worth it. Besc did own all the equipment, had the knowledge to run it, had the assistants to help with labor, and would be doing most of the labor himself.
“Sixty-five, for a first-timer,” said Besc. He had, perhaps, mistaken Alfric’s waffling on the deal for an attempt at bartering. Alfric didn’t particularly like bartering or haggling, but it seemed painfully common in the region.
“Sixty,” said Hannah. “With this kind of volume, the work is easier, and you’re makin’ more off it, ay.”
“My equipment, my labor, and if you want to go elsewhere, you’ve got a few days of work ahead of you,” he said. “Sorry, but that’s how it is.”
“Fine by us,” said Hannah. “We didn’t have much else planned.” She moved to the stone and began to pick it up, as though she was actually going to put it back in the book, after all that.
Besc sighed. “Sixty then, you cheeky kids.” He held out a hand, and Alfric shook it. Besc chuckled. “Sorry for pressin’ it, but I had to try, eh kworma?” He looked to Hannah. “Would you really have gone to Plenarch?”
“Ay,” said Hannah. “Best not to bluff, because then someone might call you on it.” She gave him a wide smile.
“You be careful of these Cairbre women,” Besc said to Alfric. “They can be fierce.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Alfric.
Besc looked at his workshop. “Before we try the floatstones, we’ll lever it up. I don’t think I have the floats for that much weight anyhow.” He looked back at Alfric. “You’re a big strong dungeoneer, can you swing a hammer?”
“I can,” said Alfric, frowning. “But why?”
“To get a wedge under,” said Besc. “With a long length of wood and a wooden hammer, we can try elevating it up, and from there we might be able to do a rope, and from there, if we can do it in a secure way, the floatstones, though that’s its own problem, since the mountings I have for the ballast are metal. Might be worth it still to make wooden ones, but we’ll see.” He rubbed his face, looking down at the pocked stone. “I don’t know of anyone with a storage entad that could be used for the transfer. The best I know is two thousand pounds, my friend Geoff, but it’s half metal, so probably wouldn’t make it through. Might be a better way to go about it though. Or we could get a cleric involved…”
“I’m a cleric of Garos,” said Hannah.
“Well, not too much help there,” said Besc. “I was thinking Oeyr, to fracture it into pieces, though that would create some problems… Can you move the stone?”
“Move it?” asked Alfric.
“Move it in the garden,” said Besc, looking down at the stone. “Pick it up and put it somewhere else.”
Alfric swore. “I never even thought of that. In my defense, we’ve only had it for a day, but—it’s worth a shot.”
He touched the stone, entered the garden, then used both hands to pick the stone up, which did, in fact, seem to work. It meant that he would be able to arduously maneuver around by hefting the stone, and better, possibly just strap it to his back, though the fact that he was still moving in the normal world, completely blind to what was around him, was a fairly significant drawback to the whole thing.
It took a few hours, and Alfric half expected Verity and Hannah to slip away, but they stayed through it, which he appreciated. A cleric of Kesbin was summoned, and once it was explained to her, it all went a little bit easier. Division into parts was a part of Kesbin’s domain, and with enough time and preparation, it was possible for the cleric to make precise cuts along centerlines. This naturally required some pay, which turned out to be somewhat significant, given that it wasn’t the sort of thing that a cleric could do without limit. With Hannah helping though, each ‘cut’ only needed to be halfway through before Hannah could make it symmetrical.
It was nearly noon when they got the first piece of tree out, but once that was done, the rest of it seemed to go faster, in part because the smaller sections of the two trees were easier to work with. Pieces came out, one by one, and once they did, Besc went at them with a huge axe, chopping them into more manageable sizes, which were then carried off by his assistants.
They gathered a little bit of an audience as time went on, mostly friends of Besc who wanted to see what was going on, but also a few people who seemed to have nothing better to do than to stop and chat. Partway through, perhaps because she’d been in conversation with some of the people who were watching, Verity started to sing, though she didn’t lace the song with any magic. She seemed happy enough to sing, and Alfric was pleased that she seemed to be in high spirits. Verity hadn’t liked her life at the conservatory, but she did like music and seemed like the sort of person that would have pursued it even if there was no magic involved.
As a show of friendship, Besc bought lunch for everyone who’d had a hand in the effort, including Alfric’s party. Alfric had suspected that it would be Chelxic food but was mildly surprised that it was instead from a Kiromon place. They were ginger-pork sandwiches, made with a milk bread and some kind of crunchy breading on the pork, and Alfric wondered whether this was something Mizuki knew how to make.
“Not so many people from Chelxic here,” said Besc. “Liberfell has at least a thousand from Kiromo, though most of the old-timers went back home, and the people left are the ones who were raised here. The change of emperors was a big thing.”
“There are a lot of Chelxican people in Dondrian,” said Alfric. “I miss the food.”
“A true kworma,” laughed Besc. “Our father, gone to the Spirit Gates now, came out here because the city offered him good pay. I can’t say it’s wrong, but there’s a lot we miss. I’ve got three little boys who aren’t going to taste yucra or tuntre unless we make a long trip, and even then, it won’t be from Chelxic.” He wiped his mouth. “Do you ever think about going back to Tarbin?”
“My family has been in Interim for five hundred years,” said Alfric. He shrugged. “I don’t even really know what it’s like there. We’ve been Inter for more than a dozen generations, Inter for longer than most of Interim has been Inter.”
“Ah, well, your roots don’t go away,” said Besc.
Alfric wasn’t so sure about that, but it was hard to know. His family was unique in more ways than one, and he didn’t really have much to compare them to. Perhaps Besc was right and he would be able to find something in common with people from Tarbin, but he somewhat doubted it. Of course, Tarbin was a conglomerate nation, stuck together from many component peoples and provinces, and his own family traced their history back to North Tarbin, but he knew relatively little about it.
“Well, that took longer than expected,” said Hannah. “And no sign of little Lola.”
“No, thankfully,” said Alfric. His thoughts went to undoing the day and the unhappy prospect of doing all that work over again, though if he had to, he thought that he’d probably be able to do everything a lot faster and without so much thinking the problem over. “We still need to visit the League office. I don’t really want to spend the night in Liberfell again, but it’s seeming more and more likely that at least one of us will have to stay behind to finish up with lingering business.”