“Really?” asked Hannah. “You’re a first-class bard, so far as I know such things.”
“Well, thank you,” said Verity. “But being a bard… it’s always about others.”
“You know you’re speaking to a healing cleric, ay?” asked Hannah.
“Yes, but you ripped the arm off that one monster and killed the bear outright,” said Verity.
“There’s nothing wrong with a life lived for others,” said Hannah. “That’s what a cleric does, more or less, between the healin’ and the fixin’ and the talkin’ to people about their problems and how the perspective of the gods can help them.”
“I suppose,” said Verity. “For me, it was always about the different ways the music could make people feel. I wanted to create and have others revel in that creation. But being a bard means that the effects come first, over and above the melodies and the lyrics. The term we use is dissonance.” She shrugged. “That’s why I ran away, if I’m allowed such melodramatic framing. There was a horrible tension that I couldn’t figure out how to deal with.”
Alfric wondered whether she really did believe that. She had said nothing about being a Chosen of Xuphin and how that was a struggle in and of itself, or how the terrible weight of expectation had pressed down on her. It was hard, hearing her talk, to know how much was left unsaid because of Hannah and how much was left unsaid because the godly imprint on her was something she refused to think about. It was hard for Alfric to know, and harder still to know how he could ever broach that subject with Verity.
“All right,” said Hannah, slapping her thighs. “Time to get a move on, if we’ve gotten our rest in. I’d like to hit Liberfell by nightfall.”
They continued on up the hill, carrying the heavy wardrobe, while Verity followed behind them, singing. This time the songs were a bit less jovial, and Alfric, having nothing better to think about besides where his next step was going to be, thought about what she might be trying to say with it. That first song was one of a king going into battle against his enemies, which was either a very old song, from the time of kings, or something of Verity’s own invention. By the second song, it was obvious she was speaking of power and how it felt to use it. Verity sang about wizards who brought down lightning bolts and knights who slew dragons, and there was something very old but also very strong about it. It was also rousing in a way, something about the melody that brought forth the feeling of battle, and Alfric found himself moving faster because of it.
They reached the top of Traeg’s Knob, then rested for a bit more, before finally moving it into one of the public rooms, which was thankfully unlocked.
“Do you think we could get someone to lock this place up?” asked Alfric, looking around.
“Why?” asked Hannah. “No one is going to steal a wardrobe. We’ll have trouble enough getting’ it out of here on our own. Besides, this isn’t like Dondrian, where people don’t know each other. There are, as we said when we got here, probably not more than a hundred people in the whole hex.”
“I suppose,” said Alfric. “But it’s valuable.”
“I do have to say,” said Hannah, “that I don’t fancy the thought of luggin’ this thing another twelve miles back home. It’s closer to two hundred pounds than it is to one hundred. I don’t know that I could get it delivered before my arms gave out.”
“Well, I’m going through, if that’s all right with you,” said Verity. “Hot meal, hot bath, warm bed. Also, I need to pee.”
“Ay, should have gone in the dungeon,” said Hannah. “That’s what I did.”
“Gross,” said Verity.
“You’re the one who mentioned it,” said Alfric, though it was common practice to evacuate in the dungeon, which would essentially vanish as soon as everyone had left. It was a part of the overall checklist for a dungeon exit, along with double-checking that you had everything you needed and making sure that you weren’t carrying out anything that you didn’t mean to.
“Well, through we go,” said Hannah, once Alfric made a note. She looked over as he wrote it and saw that it both explained the entad and welcomed people to use it while it was sitting there, which was more than she thought she would have put in. <Through we go,> she said for the benefit of Isra and Mizuki. <How are you finding the city of Liberfell?>
<Very interesting,> Mizuki replied. <And a bit intimidating.>
<We’ll be there soon enough,> said Alfric. <Can you warp so we can meet up? Or give us a location?>
<We’re in the middle of business,> said Mizuki. <We’ve got rooms at the Dragon’s Arm Hotel. I told them to expect you if we were out.>
<Thank you,> said Alfric. <We should meet soon though. We’re leaving the wardrobe in Traeg’s Knob with a note and hoping that no one does anything with it. The rest of today can be for selling what we have. I’m hoping that I can find a floatstone so we have less trouble bringing it back to Pucklechurch. Talk to you later.>
“Somethin’ odd about that, wasn’t there?” asked Hannah. “The way she spoke.”
“It’s Mizuki,” said Alfric. “But we’ll see her in a bit, and if it was odd, then she’ll get a chance to explain very soon.”
“Hot food, hot bath, warm bed,” said Verity, repeating it like a mantra. “There are entads that get a person clean in a hurry, aren’t there? Add that to my wishlist.”
The three of them went through together, and Alfric was thankful that he’d had the foresight to do some testing on whether the wardrobe’s orientation with respect to what direction it faced mattered (it did not) and had the further foresight to etch into his mind which of the notches would take them to Pucklechurch and which would take them to Liberfell.
They came out in farmland, then immediately used the warp to go to the warp point. Alfric went last after making sure that neither of them had any problems. This, at least, was a proper warp point, one that had a building around it, though there was no attendant to make sure the area was clear nor any security of any kind. There was a chair for an attendant though, which was something. Alfric stepped off quickly, his legs aching from carrying the wardrobe, and moved to the door once he’d made sure that Verity and Hannah were both safe and sound.
The Dragon’s Arm Hotel was one of the larger buildings in Liberfell and easy to find given that it had a sculpted dragon sticking out from the side of the building.
“Hot food, hot bath, warm bed,” said Alfric. He had almost all his money with him and kept his hand at his side, something he hadn’t felt compelled to do in Pucklechurch. Liberfell was perhaps half again as large as Tarchwood, but it had much more than twice the feeling of being in an actual city. There had been other reasons to go to Tarchwood, mostly to scope it out as a location for a future dungeon run and its location on the huge lake, but Liberfell was the bigger of the two, and Alfric wondered whether he’d find better or worse prices on both the entads and ectads. It was a city built on a hill, with a river winding its way in the valley below. A portion of the city was nestled against the water, a hub for river shipping. Grains and textiles were loaded onto rafts and flat-bottomed boats to be sent elsewhere, eventually ending up in another city on the coast of the ocean, more than two hundred miles away. The streets were brickwork, mostly flat and easy to walk on when compared with the roots and ruts of Traeg’s Knob, and the air had a different smell to it, that of industries and cooking fires. It was still nothing like Dondrian, but it was closer than Alfric had been in quite a while.