“You’re out of juice,” said Mizuki, nodding.
Hannah sighed. “To do somethin’ like I did with that bear, a hex of that nature, marks me as a bad cleric, at least in the short term,” said Hannah. This was a contentious position within the clergy, but the good thing about talking to laity was that they weren’t in a position to argue, not that Hannah had ever backed down from argument. “Minor wounds, scratches and the like, I can still manage, and maybe I could do a broken bone or two, if they were very minor, like the break Alfric had to his arm, but if you need me to fuel somethin’ for you, then no, I probably can’t.”
Alfric and Mizuki set off to the room with the trees, with Alfric carrying the rock using both hands, while Hannah stayed back, ostensibly to get things ready but mostly because she wanted a rest. Isra and Verity were in quiet conversation with each other, and Hannah didn’t want to disturb them, especially since they were the two quiet ones and seemed to be getting along.
Her part in attacking the bear had put a strain on her relationship to Garos. She had felt it when she laid hands on the bear, that it wasn’t quite right, and she’d done it anyway. The problem was that Garos was about patterns, and trying to reflect a wound of that size and irregularity, especially on a creature of such scale, and one that wasn’t terribly symmetrical to begin with, just didn’t have the feeling of completing a pattern, not to Garos.
What Garos liked was nudging something into symmetry, and saying that he ‘liked’ it was probably an understatement. Nudges were so easy that they happened without needing all that much effort or will. If you had a grid of sixty-four pebbles and just one of them was a bit out of alignment, well, that was simplicity itself to get it to conform. Acolytes did that as a training exercise. But those same sixty-four pebbles, all in a cluster together, couldn’t be put into that same grid without serious pulling on the godly connection, and if you pulled too much, Garos might let go of the rope.
Hannah wasn’t worried about her clerical connection. She knew Garos, understood Garos, better than most of his clerics, and while she’d made a big ask, any weakness of the bond was just temporary. She still had her lesser powers, though she’d use them sparingly for the rest of the day. Taking the arm from the monster covered with clams hadn’t been so much of a strain, because the asymmetry was more clear. Who liked a monster with only one arm? The trick, the way to model it in her head, was not to think of it as a missing arm, but only a line of damage, and that had made things smoother. But with the bear, it had been such irregular damage over such a wide area.
Hannah clucked her tongue. The party was more or less safe, so she’d done her part. Whatever trauma Verity had suffered, it was magical in nature and seemed to be temporary, with their bard now returned to high spirits. And though she and Alfric had been banged around, and too much of that wasn’t good for you, they both still seemed to have their wits about them. A cleric of Qymmos could check them over easily enough, just to be sure, ideally one in Liberfell, but she wasn’t terribly worried. It was the people who refused treatment you had to worry about, and Alfric seemed more sensible than that. He was a good lad, if a bit too focused on the dungeons.
Hannah went to go sit beside Verity and Isra, who had been chattering away about, if Hannah understood correctly, pickles.
“So, girls,” said Hannah. “Another dungeon done.”
“Or mostly done,” said Verity, nodding. She stretched out her legs. “I’m quite hungry, but nothing we packed seems like it suits me.”
“Trail food isn’t the best,” said Hannah, nodding. “Perhaps once we’re in Liberfell, we can look at gettin’ somethin’ like a magical spoon that’ll make whatever meal you want.” That was wishful thinking, because it was likely to be far too expensive. “I suppose if I’ve got a list of what I’m after, it’s for somethin’ that would make food.”
“I want a hot meal,” said Verity with a sigh. “If you could just lift a cloche up and find something waiting for you.”
“Food replacement is rare, ay,” said Hannah. “And a good thing too, or what would the farmers end up doing?”
“My family had two of them,” said Verity. “Mostly for emergencies, though. Entads, not farmers.”
Hannah whistled. “Must have cost them a fair few rings.”
“I suppose I don’t know,” said Verity.
“You were sayin’ about pickles?” asked Hannah, looking over at Isra.
“I packed some,” she said with a shrug. “In the book.”
“I do love a pickle, if you don’t mind?” asked Hannah. She got up and went over to where the book was sitting. “They’re a traditional food.”
“I brought them to share,” said Isra. “They’re traditional for my people too.”
“I think they’re traditional for all people, aren’t they?” asked Verity. “Anywhere you need to preserve things.”
“Oh, I’ve no idea,” said Hannah as she leafed through the pages. The book was quite a good entad, but it did take some time to find what you were searching for, and more time to extract it. Alfric had already talked about replacing it, but he seemed to know there was no sense in that, not at this point. “We’ll have to ask Mizuki what they do in Kiromo. I know sobyu, but I don’t know if they do anythin’ with a cucumber, which is, to my mind, the pickle people mean when they talk about pickles.”
But at that moment, as Hannah was extracting a pickle from the crock, Mizuki returned, looking quite pleased with herself. Alfric trailed behind her, lugging the rock.
“We felled not one but two trees,” said Mizuki. “It took some time, but they’re stored in the garden, and we might even be able to get them out of there.”
“I’m skeptical,” said Alfric. “It might be that they’re just stuck in there. I didn’t want to try getting them out in case they got stuck, and we’re going to have to find a nice, flat field or a large yard.”
“And also,” said Mizuki, holding out her hands. “Eggs.” She held three eggs, one of them a speckled blue, one brown, and one white.
“She worked hard to get them,” Alfric said. “But we don’t have a way to safely remove them.”
“Just put them in the book,” said Mizuki, nodding in Hannah’s direction. Hannah got the sense this was a conversation they’d already had together. “Ooo, are those pickles for everyone?”
“They are,” said Isra. “It won’t work to put the eggs in the book. Eggs need air.”
“What?” asked Mizuki. “That’s not—they’re eggs. Self-contained.”
“No,” said Isra.
“What do you mean no?” asked Mizuki. “You’re telling me that eggs breathe somehow, despite not having a mouth?”
“They do,” said Isra.
“Well that’s…” said Mizuki. “How do you know?”
“I’m a woods witch, apparently,” said Isra, her voice level.
“I think she’s right,” said Hannah. “For what it’s worth. And if we had a ventstone, we could put that in with the eggs to keep them breathing, but—”
“I don’t think that would work,” said Alfric. “Pressure would build up until equilibrium, but then the air would be fouled from the breathing, and the ventstone would be doing nothing.”
Hannah frowned. “So you’re sayin’ a ventstone and a voidstone?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Alfric. “And yes, it would be quite expensive.” He looked to Isra. “Can you tell what these eggs would need to hatch?”