“Hannah said there wasn’t much wildlife about,” said Isra. “I had only wanted to prove her wrong.” To the animals assembled before her, she spoke. “You may go. Sorry if I wasted your time.”
Almost all at once, the animals dispersed back into the woods, going their separate ways. The birds were the loudest of them, with the flapping of their wings, but it wasn’t long before it was just people standing around again. Alfric approached cautiously.
“They just kept coming,” said Verity, who seemed stunned. “How were there so many of them?”
“They avoid people,” said Isra. “They hide away.”
“Very impressive, it was,” said Hannah, nodding. “And I’ll readily admit to bein’ wrong. Makes you think, I suppose, about the woods and what’s in them.”
“We were unlucky not to get a bear,” said Isra. “They come near here.”
“What?” asked Mizuki. “Can you tell them not to?”
“I will pass it along,” said Isra, nodding.
“You actually will?” asked Mizuki.
“I will mention it to a bird and hope that it tells the local bears,” said Isra, shrugging. “Birds enjoy any favor that involves song, but bears can be stubborn, lazy creatures.”
“Okay, but how did you not realize you were a woods witch until yesterday?” asked Mizuki. “How!?”
Isra frowned. “I knew that the animals stayed away from the town,” she said. “And when I came into the town, I saw that no one seemed to care. There are certain animals who live domestic lives, and these were allowed in town, but I never saw anyone calling other types of animals in, so I thought… I thought everyone could do that, but didn’t, because it was impolite.” She seemed flustered. “I saw no one speak to the birds in the trees, and I thought it was because… because they had some taboo I didn’t understand. And some people did speak with the birds, but in a different way, and I thought that was just… a part of it.”
“What’s a taboo?” asked Mizuki.
“A thing you’re not supposed to do,” said Hannah.
“But why?” asked Mizuki. “I mean, for what reason?”
“Och, it varies, ay?” asked Hannah. “Usually, for a taboo, you don’t know why, you just know it’s not to be done.”
Mizuki frowned. “Sounds made up to me.”
“Really?” asked Alfric. “There’s nothing you don’t do without knowing quite why you don’t do it?”
Mizuki thought about that for a moment. “I guess there are some things we don’t talk about. But mostly that’s because there are some weird feelings about them.”
“What kind of things?” asked Verity.
“Well I’m not going to talk about them, obviously,” said Mizuki.
Verity rolled her eyes. “‘They all, somehow, knew of the unspeakable’,” she said.
“What’s that from?” asked Mizuki.
“A poem, The Contradictions of Man, it’s,” Verity hesitated, “a classic.” She seemed to think that saying that might be cause for offense, and Mizuki seemed like she was going to take offense.
“Moving on,” said Alfric. “Isra, do you think you would be able to use your abilities in a dungeon? Most commonly, from what I know, a druid would bring in a single well-trained animal. Something large, like a cougar or a bear.”
“I don’t think a bear would want to go into a dungeon,” said Isra.
“A bird then, to start with?” asked Alfric. “Something that would help us to scout?”
“It seems dangerous for the bird,” said Isra.
“And you wouldn’t put a bird in danger?” asked Alfric. “Not to potentially save our lives?”
“Wait,” said Mizuki, “is now the time to talk about how doing that dungeon was completely unlike fighting three raccoons?”
“Och, not what I said, was it?” asked Hannah. “What I said was that each monster was like fightin’ three raccoons. Obviously there’ll be more than one monster in the dungeon, ay?”
“Well,” said Mizuki, “it was also unlike fighting a couple of sets of raccoons in a row.”
“Have you fought many raccoons?” asked Isra.
“What?” asked Mizuki. “No, not at all.”
“So you’re only guessing?” asked Isra.
“I’m not even the one who started in with all this three raccoons business!” Mizuki exclaimed.
“Well, if you’re askin’, no, I don’t think whoever came up with the three raccoons comparison had ever actually fought three of ’em,” said Hannah. “But stranger things, ay?”
“The primary risk with dungeoneering is that you’ll run into something atypical,” said Alfric. “There’s a principle called variance, and much of what you do when planning for a dungeon is to minimize variance as much as possible and plan for it as best you can. The Pucklechurch dungeon was on the upper side of normal, maybe even the high upper side of normal. It might have been the specific conditions, or it might have been us, or it might have been random chance. Either way, we’ll go into the next dungeon planning for it to be just as difficult, if not more so, and then when it’s easier, we can be happy about it. I do want to point out that I was the only one who got hurt, and that I’m shouldering most of the risk.”
“But to be clear,” said Verity. “You could have died in that first dungeon.”
“Yes,” said Alfric, not wanting to weasel about. “I could have died. We all could have died, though it would have taken a spectacular bit of bad luck for that to happen. At the end, when we were fighting that final creature, I wasn’t sure that we would win, and before Isra stepped in, I was debating calling a retreat. Something like that, where we’re forced to back our way out of the dungeon and leave everything of value behind, is a much more likely bad outcome.”
“I’d have healed him back from far, far worse than he got,” said Hannah. “I won’t go into it,” she nodded to Mizuki, “but so long as it doesn’t cross the midline,” she pointed to her sternum, “there’s a fair bit I can deal with. Even across the midline, there’s all kinds of help I can be, and if Garos can’t provide, there’s other healin’ to be had, for the extent of the universe is not symmetrical, so it is said. Things I couldn’t handle, I could handle well enough that you wouldn’t die then and there. Mostly major muscles, the guts, or broken bones if they’re broken badly.”
“I don’t think that I’ll bring an animal into the dungeons,” said Isra, who seemed to have been stewing on the question. “It doesn’t feel fair to me.”
“It’s not necessary,” said Alfric. “With your bow being as good as it is, I’m hoping that we’re well on our way to outpacing the dungeons.”
“Meaning?” asked Verity with a frown.
“Elevation makes the dungeons harder,” said Hannah. “Goin’ by what Alfric said, we were all second elevation, ay? But after the dungeon, perhaps not.”
“We should all still be second,” said Alfric. “Unless someone was right at the cusp and got taken over it. Checking with the censusmaster is on my agenda.”
“His agenda,” said Mizuki, who wasn’t quite able to hold in her smile.
Alfric looked at her. She seemed to take some joy in teasing him, which he didn’t think was right to begrudge her. It was nice to see someone smile, at least, even if it was at his expense.
“Housing for myself,” he said, holding up a finger. “Working out travel and dungeoneering expenses, commissioning a local to make or adapt more pieces of armor, getting a better lay of the town, making contacts with the other clerics, sending off a letter to the arm of the local League office to notify them we have a party… There are probably some others, but I have a list.”