They walked together for a bit. Mizuki worried that she was overstepping. That series of boyfriends had taught her that she had a tendency to come on strong or form attachments quickly, and sometimes that screwed things up, or the initial affection flared up so bright that it burned itself out. She was really, really hoping that she wasn’t doing that with Isra, but if she squinted, it seemed like it might be a part of the same pattern.
“I was wrong about the world,” said Isra.
“Yeah?” asked Mizuki.
“Yes,” said Isra.
In a normal conversation, this was where Isra would elaborate, so Mizuki gave her some time. It was pretty clear that Isra wasn’t all that used to talking to people and maybe didn’t understand certain aspects of it, like following up on a profound, sweeping statement, especially if it was particularly vague.
“And in what way were you wrong about the world?” asked Mizuki, unable to wait as long as it seemed to be taking.
“It’s less complicated than I’d thought,” said Isra. “There’s more good in it.” She glanced back at Mizuki. They were coming back to Liberfell proper, with the sounds of the city around them. “Knowing that I’m a druid, that I experience the world in a different way… it’s brought everything into focus. The people of Pucklechurch were just blind and deaf, unable to experience the world in the same way I could. They weren’t liars. They thought I was strange, not because I was an outsider, but because I had abilities and senses. I was strange.”
“I would think that would be kind of nice,” said Mizuki. “Being able to make sense of a whole bunch of confusing things?”
Isra nodded. “You’re very nice,” she said.
“Oh,” said Mizuki. “Well, thanks.”
“I wish that I had met you before last week,” said Isra. Mizuki was listening closely, and she wondered whether she’d only imagined hearing Isra’s voice catch.
Mizuki diverted to lighter fare for the rest of their walk and kept the conversation afloat on her own, but Mizuki had quite liked their talk, and it seemed that Isra had too. Mizuki found herself making a list in her head of all the things she needed to do, and the ones involving Isra went to the top of it. Alfric would be so proud of her.
And if they did find the man who hurt Isra, well, Mizuki wasn’t planning to actually drown him, but she was going to keep her options open.
Chapter 35 — Alumni of the Junior League
The Adventurers’ League was in charge of all matters related to the dungeons across Interim and predated the actual conglomerate country by quite some time. It had originally started as a trade association, but through the many centuries it had been around, it had eventually come to be nationalized and served as a semi-independent arm of the Interim government. The League were the ones who put locks on the dungeons, dealt with needed repairs, created maps of where the dungeons were, tracked dungeon status, and most importantly authorized who would be allowed to go into the dungeons. Anything that came out of the dungeons was for some other department to deal with, but anyone who wanted to go into the dungeons fell under the authority of the League.
The League had set a strict age limit on dungeoneering, under the rationale that the younger you were, the less likely you were to have proper training and the more likely it was you would make bad decisions. But because there were always enthusiastic young people wanting to get into dungeoneering, the Junior League had been formed, and its mandate was to get these young people ready.
Alfric had entered into the Junior League as young as possible, age twelve, and immediately found it to be a bit of a disappointment. For one thing, it was simply too little time, only twice a week for a few hours. The other big problem was that it didn’t seem to be taken very seriously either by the other members or by the adults running the thing. It was more social than practical, an ‘activity’ for kids to do. They went on too many field trips that were only loosely tied into dungeoneering, like going to the Dondrian Metropolitan Zoo to see all kinds of examples of monsters, most of which were docile forms grown from dungeon eggs or hostile forms tucked behind smoked glass. If it had been accompanied by a frank discussion from a dungeoneer about the varieties of monsters found in dungeons, Alfric wouldn’t have minded it so much, but no, they were just wandering between exhibits, gawking at the captured monsters.
It was on one of those pointless trips that Alfric had properly met Josen. They had been in Junior League together for nearly a year but had known each other only by name. While the others were playing around and staring at the monsters in their habitats, Josen had been looking through a small pane of glass he held in his hand. Alfric approached cautiously.
“Is that an entad?” he asked.
“No,” said Josen. He stood there for a moment, looking through the piece of glass and giving the impression that he was hoping their conversation was done. “It’s meant to be a method of seeing the aether, but I don’t think it’s working.”
“If it’s not an entad, what is it?” asked Alfric, frowning.
“I’m a wizard,” said Josen. “It’s a mana construct anchored to the glass. But like I said, it’s not working. If it was, you’d be able to see it too.”
“I tried wizardry,” said Alfric. “My teachers didn’t think I was very good.” Anyone could, in theory, be a wizard, but in practice, if you didn’t have the proper aptitude, you would be forever behind those who had it. Working five times as hard just to tread water wasn’t something Alfric had thought was a big deal, not at the time, but his parents had told him no.
“It’s the only thing I’m good at,” said Josen. He looked down at the non-functional pane of glass in his hands. “Usually. This is complicated.”
“Most wizards can’t do anything until they’re much older,” said Alfric.
Josen nodded. “My mother and father are both wizards. They trained me early.”
“My mother and father are both dungeoneers,” said Alfric.
This was the first time that Josen showed anything like respect or interest toward Alfric, and from that point on, they gravitated toward each other at Junior League. Josen was most interested in wizardry and spoke about it often, which Alfric listened to patiently, understanding relatively little. Josen had a seriousness to him that the other Junior League kids seemed to be lacking. His interest in dungeons was largely mercenary, mostly to get what entads he could and make as much money as possible. When they were fifteen, they did some math together and found that ten years of dungeoneering would see both of them set for life, even using conservative estimates for both time traveled and days per dungeon.
They had dreams together, in their own way. Alfric’s dream was always of gearing up and meeting the challenges of the dungeons, while Josen’s were largely about the constructs he would build when he had virtually unlimited access to mana stones. Alfric didn’t quite understand the compulsion even though Josen spoke about it often. All Alfric knew, all he thought he needed to know, was that Josen had grand plans and was going to be along for the ride.