Perrin laughed. “By force?” he asked. “Might have escaped your attention, young one, but I’m going on seventy, and while I’m fit for my age, my age isn’t a fit one. You think I’d chase you out of the hex for wanting to keep an egg? That might be how they do it in Tarbin, but in Inter, it takes more than that to get in the bad graces of the authorities. Do you know why I’m the beastmaster, ay?”
“No,” said Isra, arms still folded.
“Because I care,” he replied. “And because I have the skills. I’ve gone out into the woods and the valleys more times than I can count hunting down things that dungeoneers have accidentally let loose. Now, you’re new to the game, that’s clear enough, and you’ve got some problems with authority, that’s clear enough too, but you and I, we work together, not against each other. Clear?”
Isra relaxed a little. “Clear,” she said.
“You raise beasts for people,” said Mizuki. “You’d sell us an incubator, then raise two for us, with a fee or something, with us raising the third?” She was just saying something, anything to let the rudeness fade away into the distance.
“Ah,” said Perrin, nodding. “You people always do have a head for business.” She wondered whether he meant ‘people from Kiromo’, but if he did, he was wrong, because she had a horrible head for business. “A fine offer, and one I might have made myself, given the chance.” He raised an eyebrow in Isra’s direction. “No hard feelings, ay?”
“I meant no offense,” she said.
“It’s suspect, my position and profession,” he said, nodding. “A conflict of interest. Many have pointed it out, over the years, and I’ve had arguments against me having both—the business and the role. But I’ve kept Liberfell safe, and for most, that’s argument enough.” He cleared his throat. “Now, in terms of payment. Is it the two of you, or a party?”
“A full party,” said Isra. “Based out of Pucklechurch for the time being.”
‘For the time being’? The notion set Mizuki on edge, just a bit, because it was her home, but she supposed that she would reluctantly agree that, yes, ‘for the time being’ was correct. She had no idea what she would do once the time came to make a decision on whether to keep pursuing this crazy career.
“And you have a way to carry something back there?” he asked.
“We do,” said Isra. “So long as it’s no more than a foot and a half to the side. We’re also looking for a good way to take plants and animals out of future dungeons.”
“As the beastmaster, I like to hear that,” he nodded. “Taking out eggs like this,” he gestured at the eggs, sitting in the bag, “is questionable, but you’ve done well with them, if you haven’t left one out in the wild somewhere. So, as I’m hearing you, I’d raise two of these, hand over some manner of containment, and sell you an incubator. And when I say all that, I’m hoping that you have the rings to pay upfront, but if you’re new to the game, I doubt you do.”
“We do, actually,” said Mizuki. “We made out well on our first dungeon.”
“But we’ll be looking for a good deal,” said Isra. She gave Mizuki a frown, and Mizuki shut her mouth tight.
“Well, it’s about risk,” said Perrin, rubbing his stubble-covered chin. “Risk for me, or risk for you. If I take the two eggs and try to hatch them, I can take a gamble, or let you take the gamble. I’m in the mood to gamble, if it gets a disgruntled woods witch on my side. Let’s say I’d do the care and feeding part, in exchange for the first clutch of eggs from a breeding pair?”
“If it is a breeding pair,” said Mizuki.
“It is,” said Isra.
“It is,” agreed Perrin, tapping the side of his head.
“Wait, do you know what kind of thing it is?” asked Mizuki. “From being beastmaster?”
“Nothing like that, but I do get sex, if it’s there,” he said. “And I’ve already seen these three listed, which are the same kind of creature, if you didn’t already know that.”
“We did,” said Isra, with a casual air.
“But it remains to see what they’re like, and whether they’ll grow,” he said. “So what I’ll propose is I take the male and the female, and you take the spare female, and we’ll call the first part of their life square, the labor and such paid for by that first clutch of eggs, if we get one. And that just leaves the incubator you want and the containment, which will depend on the particulars.”
“Let me see what you have,” said Isra. She turned to Mizuki. “I’d like to do this without you.”
“O-kay,” said Mizuki, frowning. She turned to Perrin. “She’s new to people. Don’t mind the offense.”
“I’ve been dealing with dungeoneers my whole life,” he said. “They’re usually a brash bunch, especially if they’re in the creature game, and they come into our community not having the slightest clue about who we are or how we do things. You can trust me to have a thick hide.” He gave Isra a quite unexpected fond look.
They went into the back area, leaving Mizuki alone. She was trying not to feel offended and somewhat failing. It was probably true that she shouldn’t have said that they had a lot of money to spare, but that was the kind of thing that just came out. It was friendly to say, wasn’t it? And if the old man saw something to like in Isra, then Mizuki decided that it was her job to keep her mouth closed and let the two of them get along. Maybe he was used to dealing with creatures that snipped and snapped.
She was waiting in the room with more of the common things when a girl came in through the door. She was obviously the adventuring sort, wearing a formfitting breastplate and greaves and with some kind of weapon at her hip, like a spear the length of her forearm. Aside from the metal, she wore black, including leather boots that showed a fair bit of wear and dirt from the road. Her hair was short, cut to just below her chin, and the tips of it were purple. Mizuki’s eyes were looking at her face when she spoke.
“Perrin’s in the back, is he?” the girl asked.
“Eyes,” said Mizuki, because the girl had brilliant purple eyes, brighter than eyes should be, almost like they were reflecting light that wasn’t there. She wore makeup, far more than seemed sensible for an adventurer, with a dark shade of lipstick and some smoky eyeshadow. She had darker skin, like Alfric.
“The name’s Lola, actually,” she said, holding out a hand.
“Mizuki,” said Mizuki, taking her hand. “Sorry, I’ve never met someone with purple eyes before.”
“That you know of,” said Lola with an impish smile.
“I… suppose,” said Mizuki, wondering whether there was a possibility that she’d met someone with purple eyes and simply not known about it. It seemed unlikely. She looked the other girl up and down. “You’re a dungeoneer?”
The other girl gave an energetic nod. “We’re only recently to Liberfell though, planning to station out of here for a month or so, maybe more, and hit up everything in a three-hex radius. You?”
“Uh,” said Mizuki. “I’m a dungeoneer too.”
“Well I knew that, silly,” said Lola, rolling her eyes. “The only other option was that you were here to buy some spotted toads, but you definitely don’t seem like the type. I was just wondering how long you were planning to be in the area.”
“Just a day in Liberfell,” said Mizuki. “We’re… out of Pucklechurch, I guess.”
Lola nodded. “I haven’t been, but I’ve heard it’s such a sweet little town. Any tips for when we do the dungeon?”
“We had, um, bad variance,” said Mizuki. She had known a fair number of people who had been in dungeons in some capacity or the other, but ‘dungeoneer’ as a title seemed to imply something else entirely, not just doing a small handful of close dungeons with some friends, which occasionally happened in Pucklechurch, but someone who was going to devote their life to it for as long as they could. “Good loot.”