“I’ve got the party now,” said Mizuki. “But yes, I’ll make sure that I’m getting what I deserve. Not that there have been any problems. Alfric has been great, and he’s the one who’s in charge of all the money.”
“Good. Now then, what can I get you in terms of meat?”
“You know, with Isra being such a good hunter, I should probably just see if she can bring some meat in,” said Mizuki. She said it very apologetically.
“She came by trying to sell dungeon meat,” said Marta. “And saying that she was a woods witch, which I suppose must be true, because it would be too outlandish to say otherwise. We couldn’t buy what she was selling though, not when there’s so much risk it will turn out to be poisonous or inedible. And of course if you plan to go with that, I wouldn’t fault you for it. Dungeon meat can be good eating.”
“I think it will be some time before I want to start experimenting with new meats,” said Mizuki. “Especially because by the time I had a good understanding of bear meat, the last of it in the whole world would be gone.” She looked at the selection. “Chickens, perhaps? I was thinking slow-roasted, with vegetables, something that’s not too much work, that can sit in the oven for an hour or two and be poked and prodded a bit.”
“That sounds lovely,” said Marta. “Oh, and I should let you know that Basil got in a selection of Kiromon spices but would probably let you have first crack at them if you went over there today. Seaweed, their roots, things like that.”
“Why’d she do that?” asked Mizuki, wrinkling her nose. “Not that much demand for it, with most of the Kiromon families gone.”
“Either she had a good deal on it, or she thought that people might be nostalgic,” said Marta. “You know, when your grandfather came here with the other families, we regarded them as a bit strange, but I grew up with your mother and father, off by a few years, and there were lots of us who played with them and went to their house for food. You remember your parents would sometimes make food for the community? There are a fair few of us who miss that.”
“Is that a hint?” asked Mizuki. “That I should bring something in for temple day?” She smiled. “I don’t think I’ve ever cooked for that many people.”
“Well, think about it,” said Marta. “Ingredients would be supplied for you from the community fund, and we’d get you some helpers. There are some younger kids who have yet to learn how to cook, and it’s good for them to see someone work. Or just bring something to potluck next time we have it. If money is an issue—”
“It’s not,” said Mizuki. “The dungeons have done us well.” Though it was clear that the rings weren’t going to last as long as she’d thought they would, and that dungeons in general weren’t going to be quite so lucrative as that first one.
Once the chickens had been bought, wrapped, and put into her satchel, Mizuki decided that she would go see Basil to learn what kind of spices were available.
Basil was a plump woman who was always moving around like she had something of great importance to get to, and Mizuki wasn’t sure that she’d ever seen the woman rest once. Basil was unmarried, and at her age, unlikely to ever be married, which Mizuki had heard through the grapevine was entirely by choice rather than a lack of options when she was younger or anything like that. Basil’s hair was graying, and she had slowed a bit since Mizuki was a child, but she was still in constant motion, hurrying around to get one thing or another done.
Her shop wasn’t really a ‘shop’, it was more of a loading and unloading place, a central point for larger shipments from elsewhere, including things the farmers needed. Basil had catalogs and contacts in the wider world, and if you needed something beyond what Pucklechurch could provide, there was a good chance she could get it for you, though it might take some time. She had a personal entad she used to make trips into Plenarch once a week, and she brought back quite a bit, some of it by request with a few rings for her trouble and other things that she stocked in her shop on a more speculative basis.
When Mizuki entered, Basil was talking with a tall boy, Kell, the local wizard, whom Mizuki had steered clear of ever since he’d come into town. As pleasant as Marta had been about it, wizards and sorcerers did not mix, and the bad blood between their two tribes ran deep. A sorcerer could destroy magical constructs that a wizard had spent weeks or even months on, and there had been times, in the bad old days, when sorcerers were employed as wizard hunters and, consequently, times when a wizard would kill a sorcerer on sight. None of that was true now, but it was still the kind of history that sat there in the past, informing the present.
Strangely, he seemed to be talking about the same spices that Mizuki was there for.
“You have a good selection and some authentic sauces,” he said. “Most of the stuff we get in Pucklechurch comes from Liberfell, and most of that is made from local ingredients that were on hand, including a lot of lake substitutes.”
“Enjoy your time in Kiromo, did you?” asked Basil.
“In most respects,” replied Kell, nodding. “It was only two months. It’s a lot different from Inter, but more the same than different, I think. Less welcoming, in a lot of ways. More formal.”
“Well, I never was one for travel, especially through a portal,” said Basil. “I’ve done it only twice, both times when I had no better option. There’s something creepy about it, passing through those tunnels.”
“Well, it’s the only good way to get to Kiromo,” Kell said, shrugging. “I didn’t mind it too much, but it might look different to someone who doesn’t have a mage’s eyes.”
Mizuki was looking at Kell while trying not to stare, which was hard to do. She could see the magic around him, in his implements, though less than she might have expected. He was holding a staff, and for that matter, so was she, but his staff had magical embellishments that a normal person wouldn’t even be able to see, all of them hovering like a cloud around the staff head. It was hard to see what kind of magic it was, but wizards typically went with pure force, shaped in different ways, along with something they called a reservoir, where raw materials resided that they filled from their mana stones. Mizuki didn’t know all that much about wizards except that being so close to him, in the same room, meant that if it somehow, improbably, did come to blows between the two of them, it was already too late for him, because she’d have the magic apart before he could even get started with using it.
It would never come to that, of course, and Mizuki had never used her magic against another person, not on purpose, but her mind still went there sometimes when there was a bit of a threat.
Not that Kell was a threat. He seemed nice enough. He had the bookish look that wizards often went for, and while he wasn’t wearing full robes, his shirt was loose and long, with sleeves that had a bit of a drape to them, not quite a wizard’s ‘uniform’, but near enough, and nicely tailored.
He chose that moment to turn and look at her.
“Mizuki!” he said.
“Um,” she said. “Kell?”
“It’s good to see you. I keep meaning to talk to you at the temple, but most weeks you’re not there, or you slip out as soon as the sermon is done.” He was beaming at her.
“Talk to me about… what?” she asked.
“Just, to uh, reconnect?” he asked.