“There,” said Verity, pointing down the way.
Mizuki gave a friendly wave, and Isra faltered for a moment before continuing forward.
“Ready to join the party?” asked Alfric once she’d come close.
Isra nodded, slowly, as she looked at the others.
“That’s Verity, that’s Hannah, and you know me, Mizuki, and Alfric,” said Mizuki. “This is Isra, ranger extraordinaire.”
“Are we ready to go?” asked Isra. She looked at them. “Is this what everyone is wearing?”
“I put on some boots and gloves,” said Mizuki, extending her hands to display. “I don’t know what anyone else expects of me.” Other than those two additions, she was dressed the same as she’d been before, with her arms completely bare except for the gloves, which went up almost to her elbows. With the cloak she’d be better covered, but not by much.
“It’ll be fine,” said Alfric. He looked Isra over. She hadn’t changed, but her pack was now nearly empty and rolled up so that its excess folds were tucked and strapped in. She had a bow too, strapped across her back, and a quiver of arrows, along with a sheathed dirk at her hip. She looked different though, and he realized that she’d removed the piercings from her face, which gave her a much neater look.
He pulled the spell from his pocket and handed it over to her. “Just follow along, Mizuki will do it with you.”
The spell was completed in short order and this time formed a pentagon connecting the five of them. Not long after that, Isra frowned.
“I don’t have the channel,” she said.
“The channel doesn’t appear until after a week’s time,” said Alfric. “We’re just a basic party right now.”
“Oh,” said Isra. She looked relieved. “Are we ready?”
“We’re ready,” said Alfric, keeping his voice firm. “The dungeon portal is a half mile outside of town. If we leave now, we’ll be able to get back before dusk, though I have a lantern with me.” He turned and started off, hoping that the others would follow him and feeling relief when they did. From what he’d experienced of Pucklechurch, he half expected that going anywhere would be preceded by an hour’s worth of talking.
“So, is this everyone’s first time in a dungeon?” asked Mizuki as they walked.
“I went when I was in seminary,” said Hannah. “A long way from here, Plenarch, with a party full of clerics, mostly so we could see what there was to see, and we got almost nothin’ from it. Still, interestin’ enough, and I’ve wanted to go again. To go properly, I mean.”
“Never been, never wanted to,” said Verity.
“I’ve been curious,” said Mizuki. “And I almost did go, a bit ago, before some things came up. But it seems like there’s a lot of traveling involved in being an adventurer.”
“It’s not that much,” said Alfric. “If you use the warp points to cut distance in half, going from center to hex edge, that’s only six miles of walking between dungeons.”
“Six miles is a long way to walk,” said Mizuki with a frown.
“It feels less long if you’ve got sensible shoes,” said Hannah, smiling at Mizuki. “But to your point, Alfric, dungeons aren’t always close to the warp points, are they? So you’d have to go further, ay?”
“Sometimes,” Alfric admitted.
“And sometimes there’s no road to the hex edge, or no direct road, or not to the right hex edge, ay?” asked Hannah, who seemed to use an inflected ‘ay’ on a whim. Her accent was hard to place, but it might have been from Cairbre, Alfric thought. “So you’d want to map it out, is what I’m sayin’.”
“You would,” said Alfric.
“Did you?” asked Mizuki. “Because you’re Mister Planning, it seems like. Does one of those pockets contain a plan?”
“It’s complicated,” said Alfric.
“The matter of what’s in your pockets is complicated?” asked Hannah, raising an eyebrow.
“I have a map,” said Alfric. “But I don’t have a firm route because it depends on too many things, not least of which is whether I can keep a party together. If this goes well, and I can interest all of you in a second dungeon, then we’d obviously go to one of the six adjacent hexes, but from there it depends on whether Pucklechurch will be our home base.”
“I own a house,” said Mizuki. “I’m not leaving my house for long.”
“I suppose I’ll echo that, for different reasons,” said Verity. “Asking me to quit my job and take up work as an adventurer, well, that’s something that I would have to think long and hard about.”
“I would go,” said Isra, her words soft.
“I’d go too,” said Hannah. “There’s always work for a cleric on the move, though I’d want to save my best for the dungeons, as I’ve done today. If not, I’ve a room at the temple and can take the apprenticeship at my own speed, for the way of the righteous is often slow, so it is said.”
“We can talk about all that later,” said Alfric. “Personally, while I’m not pinning my hopes on it, I’m looking forward to seeing what we find down in the dungeon. Something to help us travel faster would make a lot of this discussion moot, or if not moot, then at least easier.”
“Like boots that make your stride longer?” asked Mizuki.
“Or something better,” said Alfric. “It’s hard to say what’s going to come out of a dungeon, but it’s not out of the question that we could cut six miles of travel down to none. If we did find something like that, then going to the next dungeons, if we all want to do that, would be a lot easier.”
“Well, I’m excited,” said Mizuki. “I’ve never owned a magic item.”
“Your house is full of them,” said Alfric.
“Well, you know what I mean,” said Mizuki. “A stove isn’t magic.”
“It is,” said Hannah. “You might as well say warp points aren’t magical, ay.”
“You know what I mean,” said Mizuki.
“The difference you’re looking for is entads and ectads,” said Verity. “Stuff that comes from the dungeons, they’re their own thing, separate and different, entads. Ectads are part of a system, like the warming elements, chilling elements, water makers, things like that.”
“They both come from dungeons though,” said Alfric. “The base materials for ectads, anyway. It’s one of the things that we’ll be on the lookout for.”
“But there will be entads in the dungeon?” asked Mizuki.
“There should be,” said Alfric. “I would expect between four and six, but only one or two that are actually worthwhile. We’ll sell some, keep others, depending on what we get. Some bind though, which would mean that we wouldn’t be able to sell them. Most of the profit in a dungeon is in the materials we can extract from it.” He looked at Mizuki. “We’ll need your eyes.”
“And what kind of monsters will we find?” asked Verity.
“That depends,” said Alfric. “The nature of a dungeon depends on too many things to say for certain. The geography of the hex is one element, as are the flora and fauna, but there’s also the time of day, the weather, the season, the positions of the stars, what magic has been used, on and on, and beyond all that, the people in the party going into the dungeon. It’s an art, not a science. We’re following best practices though. It’s said that your first dungeon is always best in the springtime, on a clear day.”
“It’s late spring,” said Verity. “Does that matter?”
“I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” replied Alfric.
“How dangerous will it actually be?” asked Verity.
“That’s hard to quantify,” said Alfric.