“You have your dagger, don’t you?” asked Verity.
“I do,” said Alfric. “It’s back in Pucklechurch, at the temple, so I can return to it, but I’m not going to leave the four of you behind. I can take one person with me, maybe, but part of the reason we’re here is to see if there’s a solution for taking all four of you.” He’d tested it with Mizuki two days before, and the two of them had gone with her standing on his feet, but he hadn’t had the armor then, and it was close to the weight limit.
“Do you think Mizuki’s idea would work?” asked Verity.
“Which was that?” asked Alfric.
“Going into the garden naked, carried in,” said Verity.
“You wouldn’t need to do that, if it were possible,” said Hannah. “All you’d need is to take off your metals, I’d think. But like I said, we’d want to test with an animal first, just to make sure you can breathe the air there.”
“Tie it up with some twine,” said Alfric, nodding. “Since we wouldn’t be able to put a cage in there. Okay, we’ll add that to the agenda.”
“I thought you should know,” said Hannah. “That we—me and Mizuki—ran into a few of your old teammates over noodles. Grig and Mardin. We talked a bit. Mizuki blabbed but less than she might have.”
“And they talked?” asked Alfric. He felt a weary resignation more than direct apprehension.
“They seemed guilty about it,” said Hannah. “And had nice things to say about you, more or less. Seems like there’s some trouble within their party, much of which is down to Lola.” She shrugged. “I think Mizuki just wanted some assurance that we weren’t in bed with a viper, and so far as I could tell, she did feel assured.”
“Good,” said Alfric. “That’s what’s important.”
“They said,” said Hannah, “well, that at least some of the split was over money, or equipment. I just wanted to let you know that for me, that’s nothin’ I care too much about.”
“No?” asked Alfric. “Can I ask why not?”
“Your perspective, if I understand it, is that you need self-determination,” said Hannah. “You need to know that your life isn’t just down to the circumstances of your birth, that your success is from the sweat of your brow. I can respect that, and it’s a common enough sentiment, enough so that we’re taught about it at the seminary.”
“It’s partly that,” said Alfric, nodding. He looked over at Verity.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever felt the same,” said Verity. “I wanted my successes to be my own. I suffered under the pressure and from wondering whether I was being praised for my actual talent or—circumstances beyond my control.” She still hadn’t told the others that she was a Chosen of Xuphin, and Alfric hoped that she would, in her own time. “But I would never take pride in using worse tools.”
“That’s the other part,” said Alfric. “Going into a dungeon kitted out with world-class entads, it would mean… well, being a tourist, basically. It wouldn’t be the same thing. I’ve tried to explain this before, and I don’t think that I’ve gotten any better at it, but to me, it would suck everything marvelous and wonderful about dungeoneering from the experience. And I know, I say that as someone who can,” he lowered his voice, “turn back time, and who comes from a very rich family, and was given every single advantage, but slicing through a dungeon with autonomous blades and foot-thick armor, incinerating anything that came within a hundred feet of us, then picking up entads that we’d have no use for, which would get sold off… I don’t know.”
“I understand the feeling,” said Hannah, nodding. “There’s no fun in winnin’ a game that you’ve cheated at, at least in my experience.”
“I don’t want to say that going into the dungeons is a game,” said Alfric. “It’s not, I know it’s not.”
Hannah put a hand on his knee. “I’m not here to attack you. You’ve got your ideology, and while I don’t know that I quite agree, I don’t think it’s bad, and I hope you know that I’m not going to ask you to leverage,” she waved her hand, “whatever advantages you have. And I doubt that Verity feels differently.”
“I left a lucrative career,” said Verity. “And a family of means.” She had been mostly silent. “Different reasons though.” She shrugged. “I don’t think you see it as a game. I think for you, it’s… something else. A pretty song you don’t want stripped of its melody.”
The metaphor didn’t track for Alfric, but there was a feeling to it that he could see the sense in.
“We’re here for you,” said Hannah. Her voice was soft and warm. “History won’t repeat itself, not with us. I can’t speak for the others, but for myself, you’re a good partner and a worthy leader.”
Alfric nodded and hoped that it was true.
Besc came over as Alfric was finishing his sandwich. “Thanks for the help,” Alfric said. “We’ll stop in periodically to see how you’re progressing.”
“Don’t expect much for another week or two,” said Besc. “Should I hold one for you? Dungeoneers tend to like having a spare growthstone.”
“Unless you have a buyer,” said Alfric, shrugging. “We haven’t found any seeds or plants yet, so it’s not urgent.” With Isra, they could do some plant identification, and perhaps that would allow some level of comparative advantage. Most plants and animals pulled from the dungeons were worthless though, and it was a numbers game in terms of finding something that was good enough for propagation or cultivation.
<We’re finally done at the ectad seller,> said Hannah. <What are the two of you up to?>
<Done with breakfast, done with lunch,> said Mizuki. <Isra wanted to go for a hike around some of the local woods and parks, and I decided to go with her. We’re looking for rocks and plants.>
<I collect them,> said Isra.
<Seems good enough,> said Hannah. <We have more business, and we’re hopin’ to finish up by nightfall so we can take the dagger back to Pucklechurch. We were going to do your idea and hide away inside the garden.>
<Seems scary,> said Mizuki. <What if we get stuck?>
<We’ll do testin’ first,> said Hannah.
<Well, we’re continuing on with our hike,> said Mizuki. <Let me know when you’re ready to go and we’ll meet at the warp point.>
Alfric was glad to hear from them and to know that they were okay. Business was continuing along as normal, and there had been no signs of Lola or the others, for which he was grateful. He still couldn’t shake the feeling that it was all going to go south.
Chapter 33 — Possibilities
As they stepped into the entad shop, Verity was contemplating what she was going to buy, if anything. A musical instrument wasn’t a must for a bard, but it could be helpful in many ways, and it was how she’d been trained as well as being her preference. The problem was that entads didn’t tend to have the most convenient forms to them, and a dungeon was as likely to produce a baryton or a viol as it was to produce a drum or a lute. In fact, the dungeons would also produce instruments that bore only surface similarities to the kinds of things a luthier would make, bespoke items that seemed as though they had been manufactured by some alternate alien world. The many-finger flute, which she kept strapped to one leg, was useful in that it could make some of those instruments usable when they otherwise wouldn’t be, which Alfric had brought up days ago. She’d appreciated the insight.