Alfric looked around. There were no new doors. The dungeon had been cleared.
Chapter 6 — Henlings
“Everyone okay?” asked Alfric, throwing his sword and shield to the ground. He was shaking from the rush of battle.
“I think you were the only one hurt,” said Hannah.
“I’m not going further,” said Mizuki. She was standing far back, by the stairs, ready to bolt. “No way. That thing could have killed you. Was that a dragon?”
“Not a dragon,” said Alfric. “Not even close.”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Mizuki. “I’ve never seen a dragon, and there were all sorts of other crazy stuff.”
“A dragon wouldn’t fit in the room,” said Verity, finally stopping her song. “Plus we would all be dead. I’ll second Mizuki, I’m done.” Again, she was composed in a way that Alfric found both admirable and unexpected. She’d kept up her song throughout, which must have taken a fair amount of courage and concentration.
“It’s just a fight,” huffed Hannah. “No one hurt, and I can fix the shield, mostly.”
“It’s fine,” said Alfric, breathing a sigh of relief. “We’re done. That was the whole dungeon.” He pointed around at the walls. “No more doors, no more hallways, just three and a half rooms this time.”
Mizuki looked up at the dark sky and its green clouds, which provided only faint illumination. She very cautiously took a few steps away from the stairs to get a better look. “But what’s up there?”
“Nothing,” said Alfric. “People try to go beyond the dungeons sometimes, and there’s never anything there. It’s a little false, half-created world. All a small one like this needs is four rooms and a handful of monsters. This is the Pucklechurch dungeon, not a city megadungeon or an infinidungeon that you’d find at a place of power. Fewer monsters than I’d expected, and fewer rooms, but much tougher, which is the trade-off sometimes. All that’s left is to loot as much as we can.”
“Wait, it’s over?” asked Mizuki, sagging. “That was it?”
“Yep,” replied Alfric, giving her a smile.
“Well, I guess that wasn’t so bad then,” Mizuki said, frowning a bit. The tension started to wind out of her. She crossed her arms. “I was prepared to go through another few rooms.”
“You were?” asked Alfric.
“Well, I wanted to be talked into it, assured that things would be fine,” said Mizuki. She ran shaky fingers through her hair. They were going to have to get her a helm, if there was any way she’d agree to another dungeon. She looked around the room, as though confirming that there really weren’t more doors. “Huh. We did it.”
“I would have needed ten minutes or so, maybe twenty,” said Verity, slinging her lute behind her back. “I was pushing it with that melody.”
“I noticed,” said Alfric. “It was appreciated. We can wait on it, but it’ll probably be necessary for you to weave another song for Mizuki to see any entads we’re missing.” He looked at the broken cabinets and crushed furniture. “I wish it weren’t such a mess. Hopefully we didn’t break anything important.”
“I brought gloves,” said Hannah, pulling them from her pant pocket and slipping them on. “I can move some glass away. We’re lookin’ for valuables, ay?”
“Entads are the first priority,” said Alfric. “There’s not really a limit to how valuable they can be, but I would be surprised if we found anything astounding. What I’m really hoping for is travel, which is most associated with brooms, carpets, boots, watches, rings, and drinks, but it could be anything.”
“You memorized all that?” asked Verity.
“Sure,” replied Alfric. He went over to the crushed display cases and began moving things aside, being as careful as he could. “Not on purpose, I didn’t sit down to do it, but I read enough that I picked it up. Different effects have different associations. It’s not completely random.”
“But we find what we find, right?” asked Mizuki. She had moved fully away from the stairs now, cautiously creeping her way into the room.
“We do,” nodded Alfric. He had opened up the smashed remains of a cabinet, only to find equally smashed vials that had once contained liquids. “Never eat or drink anything you find in a dungeon,” said Alfric. “I don’t think anyone would, but I thought I would say it.”
“Is it all poisonous or something?” asked Mizuki.
“Not at all,” said Hannah. “But it takes a lot of work to say for sure what’s good and what’s not. Some can kill you, that’s for sure, but others are just disgustin’.”
Isra raised an eyebrow. “It’s a shame to waste the meat,” she said, looking over the body of the not-dragon.
“Good work, by the way,” Alfric said to her. “I wasn’t sure that I would be able to get it. I was considering a retreat.”
“Arrows weren’t working,” replied Isra with a shrug.
“I hadn’t even noticed,” Alfric confessed.
In one of the cabinets, Alfric found a set of seven keys, each of them with a different head. Each had a different decorative animal, and Alfric assumed that they were native to the Pucklechurch hex. It was possible that they were magic, but also entirely possible that they were just a bit of set dressing. There was a name for such things: henlings. Bits of frippery and tatt that could sometimes be sold, but more often just served as mementos. Taverns that catered to adventurers were commonly decorated with the stuff, sometimes with a full wall of bric-a-brac. In the city, at least, there had been stores that sold the stuff, usually for fairly cheap. You could get plates and silverware pulled from a dungeon for cheaper than handcrafted, if you were willing to accept odd designs and mismatched pieces.
“Ready,” said Verity. She unslung her lute and strummed it once, looking up slightly as she searched for the words. “My eyes were bright, as I watched through the keyhole, oh so late in the night, the old man read him a very long scroll, a tale of magic and horrible blight, and I watched as he cast him a most fearsome spell, and I waited and whimpered, as his portal did swell.”
Mizuki was moving fast, stepping over the wreckage and looking at things, including pulling back cabinets with wild abandon, not seeming to fear getting cut by the broken glass scattered everywhere. She set the things she found on a small table that had been next to the seating and was miraculously unhurt. When she was finished, she stepped back and looked around.
“These?” asked Alfric, holding out the set of keys. Mizuki shook her head, and Alfric slipped the keys back into his pocket.
“All done,” Mizuki called to Verity, but Verity continued on with the end of the song anyhow, bringing it to a proper conclusion. “You use the weirdest lyrics. What was all that about a portal?”
“I was just making it up as I went,” said Verity. “If a song is going to have a tight focus, it’s better to have it revolve around the subject that’s being focused on. In this case, sight.”
“I guess,” replied Mizuki. “I’m not sure I’ll ever understand bards.” Not even ten minutes after the battle, and she was already returning to her old self. Alfric couldn’t help but smile at that. Midway through, he’d wondered whether he was going to have to replace her. She gestured at the things she’d set onto the table. “This is what we have, so far as I could sniff out.”
Sitting on the table were four entads, which, with the two books below, made for six in total. That was on the high side, but then, the monsters they’d encountered had been much tougher than expected as well. Unfortunately, none of them looked likely to be travel entads. There was a flute with what seemed like far too many holes, a small silver spoon, a dark red handkerchief, and a wooden longbow the color of bone that had been hiding in one of the cabinets.