That killed the conversation for a moment and brought silence down on the group. Alfric focused his eyes on his steps while he tried to think about how to change the course of the conversation. There were things he could tell them that would help assure them that they were in safe hands, but revealing too much at this stage, especially with Verity on the fence, seemed like the wrong move.
“I’ll spend the night in Pucklechurch, then go off to Tarchwood to try to sell what I can,” said Alfric. Talking business was usually safe, and more than that, it needed to be done. “The books are the biggest thing we’ll get paid for, and the pipes will be the second biggest. Once that’s all done, I’ll come back to Pucklechurch and distribute the money, at which point we’ll be able to talk about what the next step for the party is, if anything. In six days, we’ll have a party channel, but I should have the money before then.”
“How do we know that you won’t just take the money?” asked Isra.
Alfric faltered. “I would never do that,” he said. “To do that to your party members—even to strangers, I would never—”
“Personally, I trust him,” said Mizuki.
“I don’t trust him enough to allow him full responsibility with fifty thousand rings,” said Isra.
“Well, then,” said Alfric, feeling helpless. “I don’t know. I’m true to my word, I’m honest.” Though perhaps less so of late, if mostly lies of omission. “Would it help if you came with me?”
“We could do that,” said Isra. “We’d walk together.”
Alfric felt a knot of tension unwind. Normally when his honor was questioned, it wasn’t so easy to find a solution.
“Well, I’m not doing that,” said Verity. “If you choose to run off with the money, then so be it.”
“Same,” said Hannah. “Though my sense of Alfric is that he’s far more concerned with the next dungeon than with the spoils of this one. Going to Tarchwood might also serve another function, which is scoping out another dungeon for us. Otherwise it would be Liberfell, right?”
“I don’t think I’ll do the next,” said Verity. Her voice was soft. “I didn’t particularly think that it suited me.”
“Ah, well, let it settle then before you make your choice,” said Hannah. “And if we can’t have you, we’ll go searchin’ out another, with no worries.”
Alfric definitely didn’t like that, but they had arrived back at Pucklechurch and soon thereafter said their goodbyes. He watched as Verity left with Mizuki toward the Fig and Gristle, then went to the other tavern, where his room was, to make his plans for the next day. Of all the party members that could have acted as a sticking point, having it be Verity was the worst. She was special, in more ways than the others knew. He had come all this way for her.
Isra came with him. That was natural, given that she wanted to make sure he didn’t run off with the loot, but it still rankled. Trust, his father had often said, had to be earned, and Alfric could see that the only thing he’d done to earn trust so far was to take hits and keep the other members of his party safe. That felt like something, but apparently for Isra, it wasn’t enough that she could be sure he wouldn’t rob her, and for Verity, it wasn’t enough that she was willing to do another dungeon. Hannah, at least, seemed a stalwart dungeoneer, even if she had some rough edges and different ideas about how to handle things. It wasn’t clear where Mizuki stood, but he was hopeful that she was more of a risk taker than she seemed. Sorcerers were notorious for that, but people didn’t always play to type.
Hours later, once he’d had a meal and a quick wash and made somewhat annoying arrangements with Isra, Alfric lay in his rented bed, staring up at the ceiling, going over the dungeon in his head, not just the fights, which were admittedly the main thing, but the dynamics of the group.
There were two alternates, the blacksmith and the wizard, but neither of them was a proper replacement. If he hadn’t had Hannah, then every injury would have accumulated through the dungeon, and he’d have been fighting that last monster with a bloodied face and scratches all over his hands. If he hadn’t had Verity… well, it was possible that someone else could have picked up the slack, in a totally different way. And if he’d been missing Mizuki, he would have needed the wizard, just in order to have the offensive power necessary. The wizard would have taken more time though, if he didn’t already have offensive engines built.
He’d have been tempted to call Isra the weak link, but she was an exceptional archer and possessed of a bravery that brought a smile to his lips when he thought back on it. She could have stayed back, firing arrows, but she’d leapt onto the creature to attack it with a dagger. Whatever else she was, however much she might not trust him, she had a ferocious tenacity that he thought would be hard to match. She reminded him of his mother, in that respect.
He liked the party. It was a good party. They needed time and training, that was true, but they hadn’t collapsed during their first bout of combat, and however much he wished that the dungeon had been easier, morale still seemed to be high.
One of the things he hadn’t been sharing with his party was that he was still in the family guild. They’d have expected it, perhaps, if they knew his pedigree, but it didn’t seem like the name Overguard had rung any bells, not even for Verity, who had surely heard it at least once or twice while living in Dondrian. Mizuki was, curiously, one of the only ones in a guild; he’d have thought Hannah, at least, would be. None of them had yet gone to the censusmaster about him, he didn’t think.
There were fifty people in the family guild, and so he crafted his message with care, knowing that cousins, aunts, and uncles would all be reading it in the morning. A single dungeon run wasn’t normally something that needed to be reported on, but this was nominally Alfric’s first, and the first he’d done with a true, proper party. The family had more than its fair share of traditions, and a first dungeon run, even if it was coming late, was something that demanded a report.
He left out details, but that was only natural. He tried his best to ape the style of his father’s reports, which he’d enjoyed reading since the age of five, when he’d first joined the guild. Those were, of course, on larger, more dangerous dungeons, ones that took days or even weeks to clear, and typically only the highlights were given, either in terms of monsters or loot.
The report wove a somewhat different story than what happened. It was a dungeon at the high end of normal variance, possibly owing to some unknown aspect of Pucklechurch or the particulars of their party. In the report, he didn’t mention anything of the reticence of his party members, only of the monsters they fought, and the two particularly good bits of luck: the books and Isra’s bow. He looked over the wording three times, changing things here and there. If this didn’t work out, if he couldn’t make his own way in the world, he would have to fall back on the family, and that, of course, would go against the central tenet of self-reliance. A sword from his father and boots from his mother, two small tokens from the vast family hoard.
For Alfric, it wasn’t simply a matter of wanting to please his parents or his family, because he truly did believe in making his own way, hunting down his own leads, and assembling his own party. It was what he wanted in life.