“There are five of you?” asked Mizuki.
“It would be six, if there are five siblings,” said Hannah.
“That’s even worse,” said Mizuki. “How did your mother have six children while also doing near-constant dungeons?”
“Entad solutions, I would guess,” said Hannah.
“Yes,” said Alfric, nodding. “My mom always said that if she’d had to go through a pregnancy herself, she probably wouldn’t have had children. So we were all technically decanted, not born.”
“Things of that nature are usually reserved for the church,” said Hannah, frowning a bit. Couples not being able to have ‘natural’ children was one of the serious issues, and while there were occasional entads that helped to deal with it, they were in perpetually short supply. The idea that someone had used one for convenience was, well… it seemed a bit selfish and contrary to the common good.
“My mom personally pulled six of those entads from the dungeons, if that’s what you’re thinking,” said Alfric. “All were donated to the Church of Garos.”
“Ah,” said Hannah. “That does make it a bit better.”
“‘Decanted’,” said Mizuki. “What, like pulled out of a bottle?”
“Yep,” said Alfric.
“Weird,” said Mizuki.
“Yep,” said Alfric. “Anyway, about five years ago, Mom started slowing down. She went through a monthlong dungeon and came out with several tons of loot and a different perspective. She’s been much more, uh, motherly since then. With mixed results.”
“Well now I really want to meet her,” said Mizuki. “She sounds like a blast.”
“Honestly, and I know this sounds like boasting, it’s very possible she’s one of the most accomplished dungeoneers in human history,” said Alfric. “But records are pretty poor, and a lot of the very best have had the incentive to puff up their accomplishments. It’s very, very unlikely that anyone really did complete fifty thousand dungeons, but I guess you never know.”
“Fifty thousand does seem unlikely,” said Hannah.
“Stepping foot in fifty thousand seems doable with the right travel entads,” said Alfric. “Actually clearing them of monsters and taking everything of value… much less so.”
“Why would you want to just step foot in a dungeon and then walk away?” asked Mizuki.
“Bragging rights,” said Alfric. “Or maybe to catalog if you could do that safely through entads or mana constructs or something.”
“I guess,” said Mizuki.
“I tried to work out the math a while ago,” said Alfric, “and it left me skeptical. It’s more than two dungeons a day for fifty years or something like that. Possible, but you’d need pretty much inhuman endurance if you were doing a full clear.”
“You were lookin’ it up because of your own ambitions?” asked Hannah.
“I want to be a great dungeoneer, like my parents,” said Alfric. “But after how things have gone the last year, I’ve resigned myself to not setting any records.”
“Ah, the disillusioned and world-weary eighteen-year-old,” said Mizuki.
“Things lined up for us now,” said Alfric. “And it’s a slower pace than I had planned, starting out. But the team is good, and that’s worth quite a bit to me. Dungeoneering isn’t something you can do solo, not if you want to make any actual progress.”
“Dyin’ would be the bigger thing,” said Hannah. “Though I s’pose for you, it’s not as much a concern.”
“No,” said Alfric. “Not so much.”
Given that they were only technically carrying twenty pounds of weight, they were able to keep up a decent enough pace, and they took turns with the wardrobe after Mizuki realized that perhaps she shouldn’t just be with them for the company. It was under her watch that Alfric was almost crushed by the wardrobe, but they managed to right it without any injuries.
When they arrived in Pucklechurch, the ground was wet from a recent rain, and Hannah enjoyed the smell, which reminded her of home, where the rains seemed to be more common than Pucklechurch. Of course, the weather of Pucklechurch had quietly been manipulated by Isra for likely Hannah’s entire time there, so perhaps it wasn’t something about the region, but about Isra’s particular preferences for rain and sun.
“Now the question is whether we take it to the temple first,” said Alfric. “I think we do, since it’s on our way. That way we can have Filera take a look at it before we move it home, if we do move it home.”
“You’re keen on startin’ a business?” asked Hannah.
“I doubt that we’d make much, if the wardrobe works in volume,” said Alfric. “But if it does work in volume, there’s no sense in having it sitting where people have trouble using it.”
“We could have it there for the public good,” said Mizuki.
“We could, I guess,” said Alfric. “Would that pay off?”
“What do you mean?” asked Mizuki. “Like, you’re asking how or whether we would eventually make some money by, uh, having people bake us pies or something? Donations, like support comp and the temple?”
“The temple is largely funded through provincial tax,” said Hannah.
“Well, you know what I mean,” said Mizuki. “But… no, I don’t think we’d get back what we put in if we just made the wardrobe free to anyone. That’s not the point, the point is just to help people out.”
“Right,” said Alfric. “Well, we’ll have the cleric take a look at it, and maybe any debate will be moot. I’m a strong believer in charity, but I’m not sure we’re in a position for it now.” Hannah looked back, and he seemed lost in thought. “Let’s say it’s a hundred rings a day, that would be twenty apiece, which isn’t all that much, but over time… And there would be expenses, I suppose, a lockbox, and not everyone would pay if we didn’t have someone watching the thing, which we couldn’t unless we gave a cut to a storekeeper.”
But they came to the temple and managed to get the wardrobe through the door, steering it until eventually they were outside the Qymmos area.
“Hannah, do you want to make yourself scarce?” asked Alfric.
“Why would I want to do that?” asked Hannah.
“Prior religious disagreements?” asked Alfric.
“I’ll stay, if it’s all the same, I had nothing else to do today aside from doin’ my first proper bake in Mizuki’s house,” said Hannah. She wasn’t sure she appreciated the offer from Alfric but on reflection decided that it came from a good place, and that was what mattered.
“Filera,” said Alfric as they came in.
“Alfric, Hannah,” said Filera, nodding to them. She had her usual cool demeanor and set down her book as soon they’d entered her area. She was always reading and seemed to have a good mind for it, which was little surprise for a cleric of Qymmos. There was something very restrained about her, a feeling like she was holding herself back and always in control.
“Are you busy?” asked Alfric. “We have an entad we’d like you to look at. A few, actually, but the others aren’t with us right now.”
“I suppose I did say that I would do it for free,” said Filera with a sigh as they put the wardrobe down. She stepped closer to look it over, circling around it, though for a cleric of Qymmos, that wasn’t strictly necessary. “It’s a travel entad, but I gather you already know that, or you wouldn’t have taken so much trouble to get it here. It’s from Traeg’s Knob?”
“Yes,” said Alfric. “We acquired it two days ago, but took until today to get it here.”
“Mmm,” said Filera. She was still staring at the wardrobe, doing some miracles in her mind, finding the categories that the wardrobe belonged to, pinning it in place.