<In theory it will be fine,> said Alfric. <We’ll just tie it up, put it down in the garden area of the stone, then pull it back out. If all that works, then we can try with people.>
<Why would we tie him up?> asked Isra. <Why not just tell him to stay still?>
<Oh,> said Alfric. <Right. But what happens if the squirrel takes off? We don’t want it stuck in the garden.>
<A squirrel doesn’t want to be stuck there any more than we do,> said Isra.
<Well, we can meet up at the warp,> said Alfric. <I think we’re done for now.> He gave Hannah a questioning look, and she nodded.
“We’ll have to use this place next time,” said Verity. “I think I would like it better than a hotel. All together?”
“It’s more traditional accommodation,” said Alfric. “Though different regions of Inter have different ways of handling the inevitable flow of adventurers. Ready?”
They both nodded, and Alfric double-checked that he had everything he needed and then cast the warp.
He’d had a knot of tension at warping, because this was the most likely place for him to run into Lola and the others, but instead it was just his people, quickly moving off the warp before the attendant could wave for them to move.
“Nice to see you guys again!” said Mizuki. “Productive time?”
“Mostly,” said Alfric. “We got the ectad stuff squared away and spoke with the rep at the League office. They have rooms there, by the way. All empty, it seemed. But we’re not staying here tonight, not unless there’s something we need done. We can be back home in an hour.”
“Heh,” said Mizuki. “‘Home’.”
“You know what I mean,” said Alfric, flushing slightly.
“No, I liked it,” said Mizuki, grinning.
“I have the squirrel,” said Isra, pulling it from a pocket. It poked out from in her hand.
“We should move somewhere a bit more quiet,” said Alfric. They were still in the warp room, though off to the side. In the city, if you stuck around, people would give you dirty looks, but then again, the whole thing was a lot different. As they stood there, someone came in and took a moment to orient, then walked off toward one of the exits. It was so casual.
They found a park easily enough, one with a rotunda and a good view of the valley that Liberfell was built above. Again, Alfric worried that he would see Lola and the others, but there was no particular sign of them, only people sitting around and playing in the wide green area. Three children were throwing a disc among themselves, and Alfric felt curious about it, but there was work to be done.
Isra touched the stone, which had been brought out of the book, and held the squirrel in her hand. When she went to set it down, it vanished.
“It’s in,” said Isra, removing her hand from the stone. “I told it to wait by the stone. You did some damage to the plants with those trees.”
“Sorry,” said Alfric. “But I don’t think the other side of the stone being a garden is, er, relevant. And there’s technically some risk of the flowers spreading to the outside, though I would be surprised if they were either dangerous or worth anything.” He frowned and looked at Isra. “Are they?”
“I don’t think we could sell them, no,” said Isra. “But I like them for their own sake. Not everything in nature can be used by humans. They aren’t any variety I’ve ever seen.”
Alfric nodded. “And they are pretty. We’ll try to be more gentle with them. If it’s possible for a person to go in there, maybe we can transplant them away from the central area, but I do have to warn you that I’m already drawing up plans for the interior.”
Isra frowned slightly and looked at the rock. “How long were we going to leave it in there?”
“I was thinking five minutes or so,” said Alfric. “Then Hannah can check the squirrel over for issues, and we can send it on its way and, hopefully, put the four of you in so that I can use the dagger to get back. You won’t be in there for longer than five minutes, I shouldn’t think, and then we’ll be back in Pucklechurch.”
“Do people ever get trapped in entads?” asked Mizuki.
“Not to my knowledge,” said Alfric. “If I thought there was a risk, I wouldn’t be doing it.”
“I guess if we get stuck, we can just undo it,” said Mizuki. “There’s no real risk.”
“There is a risk,” said Alfric. “It’s a risk that I have to do this day all over again and explain that I allowed this to happen, and then, if things go wrong, there’s not the same cushion of safety. Look, you cannot depend on chronomancy. It makes things so much harder for us unless there’s an explicit plan in place.”
“Always with the plans,” said Mizuki, rolling her eyes. “But fine, I will refrain from doing anything too stupid just because I know you’ve got my back. If I do something too stupid, it will be for normal reasons.”
“Thank you,” said Alfric. He turned to Isra. “You can probably pull the squirrel out now.”
Isra nodded and bent down to touch the stone again. She held out her hand, and a squirrel appeared in it. She looked him over, and there was something unutterably odd about the way it moved in her hand, being a party to the inspection, showing her his tail and stretching out his legs. At one point, the squirrel looked right at Isra and opened his mouth, showing its teeth.
“He seems fine,” said Isra. She handed the squirrel over to Hannah, who seemed extremely skeptical. Clerics were called on as vets with some regularity, but Alfric didn’t imagine it was a particularly strong point for her.
“Seems fine indeed,” said Hannah, after a few minutes.
“All right,” said Alfric. “Then I guess we can do this here. Metal off, and we see if we can put a person in, and then see if we can get a person out.”
“I volunteer to go first,” said Mizuki. She pointed at him. “No nudity.”
Alfric saw the grin on her face and found himself smiling. “If you say so.”
Mizuki set down her bag, which had her helmet in it, then set down her dagger as well, which she hadn’t once used in any capacity that Alfric had seen. Once that was all done, she stepped over to him. He ducked down and took her outstretched hand, then touched the stone. When he looked over, though he could still feel her small hand in his own, he couldn’t see it, and she wasn’t present in the garden world.
“Try stepping up onto me,” said Alfric. “Step on my foot?” He couldn’t see her, and it felt as though he was in another place, but he was still between worlds. He felt the pressure on his foot, then Mizuki appeared there, in the garden.
“I can see,” she said. “Do I just… step off?”
“Probably,” said Alfric. “Try to step into the garden, if you can.”
Mizuki stepped off Alfric. As she did, she disappeared from his view of the garden, and when he released the stone, he saw her standing there in the park beside him.
“Well shoot,” said Mizuki. “That didn’t do what we wanted.”
“Let’s try again,” said Alfric. “I’m going to actually hold you this time and release you.”
“Okay,” Mizuki said with a shrug.
There was some unavoidable awkwardness with picking her up, namely in terms of where to place his hands. Eventually he was holding her in both hands, one under her knees and the other under her back. She was lighter than he’d been expecting. She wrapped her arms around his neck to give herself a bit more support.
“Now I just need to touch the stone,” said Alfric. He look down at it and sighed. “Shoot.”
“Here, I’ll lift it up,” said Hannah. She went over to the stone and hefted it up for Alfric to touch, which didn’t actually help matters all that much. The stone appeared, in the garden, to be floating in the air. Alfric touched it, and Mizuki hopped down. She was still standing in the garden, independent of the stone. “Works!” she said, throwing up her hands. She looked around. “We should get some furniture in here. This could be a place to camp.”