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This Used to be About Dungeons, ch 181, Two Worlds
🕑 Added 2023-06-05 22:02:18 +0000 UTC~~~~
There was something enchanting about the new woman. It wasn’t any quality of her in particular, but the fact that she was a new woman, one with her own history, her own magical powers, and plenty of mundane stories to tell that were fascinatingly alien. It was a more extreme version of talking to someone from another country, or like talking to the feili or dwodo. Isra hadn’t left her side for nearly six hours, and she was soaking up every word the strange woman spoke. They were sitting around the dining room table, the remnants of their meal still sitting on their plates, some of them still eating. Alfric had wolfed his down, and Isra had eaten quickly too, the better to listen with her full attention.
“No,” said Quinn. “Our gods are nothing like that.” She’d just been given a description of the six gods, and had been frowning the entire time. “Those are so … direct.”
“Direct?” asked Mizuki.
“Well, yes,” said Quinn. She took another sip of the tea they’d prepared for her, which she’d found quite exotic, since it had just a tiny bit of honey. That had taken some explanation, since apparently she had no knowledge or memory of bees. “My gods — the gods from the dungeon — well, the gods that I remember — they’re all people. You couldn’t just say ‘oh Thalindor is the God of Nature’. I mean, you could say that, but it wouldn’t be true. He’s a man with a green beard, and sometimes takes the guise of a tree if he needs to wait. He’s a friend to farmers and father to animals. His wrath is the bloodwind, his benevolence the warming spring. Your gods sound so … sterile.”
“Let’s not let Hannah hear that,” said Mizuki.
“Hannah is your sixth member?” asked Quinn.
“Er, no,” said Verity. “A party only has five members.”
“Five?” asked Quinn. She furrowed her brow. “You live in areas with six sides, hexes, you have six gods, but a party is five?”
“Yes,” said Pinion. “But the Editors —”
“Who are not gods?” asked Quinn.
“No,” said Pinion.
“But are capable of making changes throughout the entire world?” asked Quinn.
“In a sense, yes, but it’s more complicated than that,” said Pinion. “They need the help of a nation to construct what they call an ‘implement’, which then alters the fundamental nature of reality and can be torn down, though usually it’s not economical and they get left up. But we also think that maybe it wasn’t so difficult in the past, or they only do it like this for their own reasons.”
“We do?” asked Mizuki. The prank war had apparently ended, and she was in a good mood.
“Scholars, I meant,” said Pinion.
“And they decided on five?” asked Quinn. “Why?”
“Well, we don’t know,” said Pinion. “The party system is pretty old. We don’t know what their goals were, so we can’t say why they settled on five instead of six, or four, or whatever other number they might have picked. The party system is old enough to predate the churches coming together, and I think the idea of six as a holy number was less common then.”
“It’s such a strange world,” said Quinn, shaking her head. “And I suppose that I’m going to have to make this place home now.”
“Yeah …” said Mizuki. She looked a little uncomfortable.
“You’re free to stay with us as long as you’d like,” said Alfric. “We’re a week out from Plenarch, at the most, and we can hurry it along if need be. Once there, we can find you a more permanent arrangement.”
“And there’s no way to go back?” asked Quinn. She pursed her lips. “Or … could you make the world again? A different part of it? I had a house there, a few plants I treasured, is that all … ?”
“Gone,” said Verity.
Quinn frowned, but it was a thoughtful, thinking-hard frown rather than a frown of discontent. “I was an accident, and you can’t, ah, specify? Is that right?” Her eyes went to Verity.
“Right,” said Verity. “If I tried to make that same dungeon again, I don’t know what would happen, but it would be … I don’t know. Bad.”
“You could make me again?” asked Quinn.
“Unlikely,” said Verity. “But yes. In theory, not in practice.”
“Hrm,” said Quinn. She picked at her food a bit more as she thought.
“If it’s alright with you, there are some things we’d like to try before the day is out,” said Alfric. “One of them is your laundoncraft, to see whether it works or not.”
“And you think that all my memories, all my skills, might be nothing more than a hallucination?” Quinn asked. “You’ve seen all the things I have, those can’t simply be invented from the aether.”
“With due respect,” said Alfric. “They definitely could have.”
“I still need to look at them,” said Mizuki. “You said they gave off some magic, but there’s lots of ways to give off magic, and I can at least say whether or not they’re entads. Probably.”
“I don’t see how they wouldn’t be entads,” said Alfric. “You can’t just invent an entire new magic.”
Pinion leaned forward a bit. “Actually, I think you probably could, but it depends upon what’s meant by ‘a new magic’.” Isra knew him well enough now to see that he was stopping himself from going off on a long digression.
“Shall I make something small then?” asked Quinn. “It would take me an hour or two, with the right materials.”
“Will we be able to find the right materials?” asked Alfric.
“You have wood?” asked Quinn. “A needle? Some wool? Candle wax?”
“We have all those things,” said Alfric. “But they might be different than what you’re used to. If laundoncraft takes a needle, it might take one of an alloy that isn’t available here.”
“Any needle will do,” said Quinn with a shrug.
“I don’t want you to be disappointed if it doesn’t work,” said Alfric. “There’s a good chance than it won’t.”
“There are, as I see it, three possibilities,” said Pinion. He caught a look from someone, Isra didn’t see who, and stopped himself. “I guess it’s only a matter of time before we find out one way or another.”
“I’d like to hear it,” said Quinn.
“Alright,” said Pinion. He drew himself up. “The first possibility is that it simply doesn’t work, that whatever the items you carries are, whether entad or not, the skill to make them was what we might deem a hallucination. That would make more sense if they are just entads, but they’re entads with a theme, which isn’t common.”
“Lutes,” said Isra.
“Right, also not unprecedented,” said Pinion. “Or, only technically unprecedented.”
“Lutes?” asked Quinn. She looked at Verity. “As in, the instrument you play?”
“We went into a dungeon with a hundred lutes,” said Verity. “Not on purpose.”
“And you think that the laundoncraft is … like that?” asked Quinn.
“Well,” said Pinion. “It’s currently a possibility. But the lutes shared a common form, not common magic, which is different, hence technically unprecedented.”
“I was trying to conjure up entads to hold things,” said Verity.
“And you got me instead?” asked Quinn.
“Yes,” said Verity with a solemn nod.
“Well, I feel like I should thank you,” said Quinn. “I’m not keen on this, obviously, and the shock of my friends and family being gone — of having never existed, if you’re right — hasn’t entirely sunk in yet. But better to be alive than to have never existed, right?”
“Right,” nodded Alfric. He pushed himself away from the table. “Quinn, I’m going to extend our hospitality to you one more time, just so you know I’m serious. Anything you need, we’ll provide if we can, and the authorities will be fully informed of the situation tomorrow, at which point I think you probably won’t want for much.”
“What if I’d like to be left alone?” asked Quinn. She raised an eyebrow. “And not poked and prodded by people who are curious about an aberration?”
“Ah,” said Alfric. “That … would be a conversation that we could have later.”
“So far, no one has been informed,” said Pinion.
Alfric raised an eyebrow. “And that will also be a conversation for another time. But we just got home, just had dinner, and there are horses to take care of, which I’m going to do now. Isra?”
Isra looked at him. “Yes?”
“I need your help,” said Alfric. “Mostly I need to find them a place to graze, but also a place that has high enough fences to keep them contained. Then we need to go talk to the local beastmaster, and possibly a bastlekeeper, because you’re really not supposed to gather up a bunch of dungeon animals and then release them into an enclosure without proper testing. You can do with a druid under certain exigent circumstances, but —”
“Fine, I’ll do it,” said Isra. She stood up from the table. “Quinn, nice meeting you, I hope you’ll stick around.”
“I don’t have much of a choice, do I?” asked Quinn with a smile. “But I suppose we’ll see.”
Isra and Alfric left the house together, with her walking a half step behind him.
“Technically speaking, we should go speak to the beastmaster now,” said Alfric. “But it’s after dinner, and I really don’t want the animals to have to spend another hour in that crowded barn if we can help it. Is there an animal that they would farm around here whose grazing area we could use? It’s the fences that I’m most worried about.”
“We’ll want to find someone with sheep,” said Isra. “There’s a bounding variety, spring-heeled I think they call them here, who are usually kept in places with walls high enough to stop this new creature from getting out.”
“Spring-heeled sheep,” nodded Alfric. “Alright, good. Not lizzos?”
“Lizzos are slow but strong,” said Isra. “Totally different. Normally, they dig a shallow pit, less than two feet deep, and line it with stones.” She pursed her lips and looked at the horizon, where the sun was soon to set. “That woman.”
“Yeah,” sighed Alfric. They were walking down a road, and presumably he knew where they were going.
“Verity is going to want to stop doing dungeons,” said Isra.
“I think it’s too early to say that,” said Alfric. “She does seem uneasy with what happened.”
“I think she’s wrong,” said Isra. “Seeing that woman, I think it’s better to thrust these imperfect new humans into the world than to lock the power away forever.”
“It’s a discussion that will need to be had at levels high, high above us,” said Alfric. “It concerns the Adventurer’s League, the government of Inter, and possibly the clerics.”
“We’d need to call Hannah back?” asked Isra.
“Clerics meaning … the heads of the Churches,” said Alfric.
“Oh,” said Isra.
“Yeah,” said Alfric. They had parked the house not far from the center of the hex, which was, as tradition and convenience dictated, also where the main village was. They’d come to a tavern, which was lit up as the sun began to set. “Alright, we’ll split up. Ask around for the local beastmaster, that’s the first priority, and once we’ve found one, ask who raises spring-heeled sheep. Let them know we have plenty of money for an empty grazing area with a good, tall fence.”
“Alfric,” said Isra, placing a hand on his arm. “We do need to talk about her. About what we’re going to do. You’re holding off on contacting the authorities until tomorrow?”
“I was planning that, yes,” said Alfric.
“Because you’re worried someone else will reset?” asked Isra.
“Yes,” said Alfric. “I think, having made someone, we can’t unmake someone, and it’s one of those things that I don’t think anyone could change my mind on. If we let the authorities know, there’s a chance that we get heavily overruled.” He bit his lip. “But this is something that we should be talking about with the full party, and with Quinn.”
“I think she’s more important than the horses,” said Isra.
“I think so too,” said Alfric. He looked at her. His eyes were so warm sometimes, so caring. “I want to get back there as much as you do, but she’ll keep. The horses won’t. They need food, they need water, and they’re fouling up the barn as we speak.”
“I think my instructions will last long enough,” said Isra. “But … you’re right. This does need to be done now.”
Dinner had been a fast affair, Mizuki’s pasta dish available almost as soon as they’d stepped foot in the door, but the animals — horses, if that was the name they were going with — had just been sitting in the laundoncraft barn for that entire time. Alfric was right that they needed to get the horses squared away, but Isra still wished that she could somehow be in both places at once, the better to listen in on what was happening with the remnants of dinner.
Of course, she was a druid, and there were birds near the house, and if a few of them landed on the windowsill, she would easily be able to catch snatches of conversation and occasionally peek in. It proved too difficult to do both at once though.
“Excuse me,” said Isra. She’d come up to a table of older men, farmers by the looks of them, the dirt beneath the fingernails and the clothes that would need to be washed when they got home. “I’m looking for a farmer who raises spring-heeled sheep. I think I saw a field not far down the road.”
“Doin’ business after dinner is uncouth,” said one of the men with a laugh. “Won’t you at least buy us a drink?”
“I’m a dungeoneer,” said Isra. “We have an animal we think is probably quite valuable, but we need some place to hold them, just for a day or two. I also need to speak with the beastmaster of the hex, if you know who that is.”
One of the other men laughed and ran his fingers through his thick beard. “You’ll be lucky if he’s still standin’, he takes to drinkin’ early on a night like this.” He pointed a finger in the direction of a man sitting at a table with two women, and the source of a good deal of the laughter that was hanging in the tavern air. “As for the spring-heels, that’s me. You’ve got dungeon creatures?”
“We do,” said Isra. “They’re about a thousand pounds each, but they can’t jump well. They’re grazing creatures, and should do fine on what I’ve seen in the fields around here. We need authorization from the beastmaster, apparently, but we also need a place to keep them.”
“And you think that I have a pasture just layin’ empty?” asked the man with a chuckle. “I could empty one, move some of the spring-heels together, but that would take some doin’, and not for cheap.”
Isra frowned at him. There was an interesting conversation going on in the house, Pinion’s taxonomy of theories regarding laundoncraft, and she was missing it for this. “You should have four pastures, or two at a minimum, and rotate the flock through them while the others regrow. If you raise spring-heels, you have the room, at least for a day. We’ll compensate you for the trouble, and for the grass they eat.” She softened her voice somewhat when she talked about compensation, but she was feeling annoyed. She had the creeping feeling that he saw her as a relatively wealthy nobody who was in dire straits.
“And you’re an expert on spring-heels now?” asked the man. “Look, you have some huge animal and need somewhere to keep it, and I’m guessin’ that you wanted spring-heels because you’re worried it’ll hop a fence, right?”
“There are twenty-one in the herd,” said Isra. “And yes, we need strong, high fences.”
“This compensation,” said the man. “A thousand rings for a day.” That certainly got some looks from the other men at the table. The price was high, and the shepherd knew it.
Isra scoffed. “We’re in need, but we’re not that much in need,” she said. “I’m feeling generous. If you let us use one of the pastures that’s resting, I’ll help with the upcoming rut, a day’s labor.”
He laughed at that, and not a nice laugh. “A day’s labor? From you? And what makes that worth a thousand rings?”
Isra gave him a predatory smile. “I’m a druid.”
His eyes widened slightly. “Well why didn’t you say so from the start?”
“Oh, I know farmers,” said Isra. “They’re always trying to get me to look into just one little thing for them, some problem they’ve been having with the chickens not eating or a weed that keeps springing up. So, if we can use a resting pasture, the one with the best, highest walls, you can have me for a day.”
He stuck out his hand. “Deal.”
Isra shook, and they talked about the details for a moment. He drew a map on the table using the condensation on the side of his mug, and Isra nodded, then made some corrections to his map so she was sure she knew where it was, pointing out a few landmarks. She’d seen the place from a bird’s eye view, and was scouting the perimeter of it, making sure the fence would hold the horses.
Farmers loved druids, and once they knew she was one, the whole table was ready to lavish her with attention. That was a bit more pleasant than what she’d seen as frostiness at her interrupting their drinking time, but there was still something she didn’t like about it. They were nice to her because she was useful to them, like a minor goddess of farming. One of them even mentioned that he had a son she might be interested in, which seemed a bit over the top to her — but a druid in the family would be so much of a catch that he couldn’t resist, she supposed. Her labor was definitely not worth a thousand rings a day, not with the margins that farmers were usually running at, but farmers liked druids, and were willing to give all sorts of concessions to have one. Mostly, she thought, it was because a druid could solve a problem that had been a thorn in their side for months with a simple wave of the hand.
Thankfully, Alfric had dealt with the drunken beastmaster by the time she was done, and they left together not long afterward. The farmer was going to finish up at the tavern soon to help them, which she felt was partly because he was curious about the dungeon beast, and partly because he didn’t want them wrecking anything.
“That was easy,” said Alfric once they were out. “A little too easy.”
“How can it be too easy?” asked Isra. She was thinking about Quinn, half-watching the conversation at the house while trying to give Alfric his due.
“It shouldn’t be that easy to put a dungeon creature into a pasture, even without a breeding pair,” said Alfric. “He didn’t even ask to see your credentials.”
“Credentials?” asked Isra. “I could be a registered druid?”
“You could,” said Alfric. “It’s really not necessary unless you’re doing a lot of work and need to have some proof.”
“I have been doing a lot of work,” said Isra. “Usually for farmers.”
“In your travels?” asked Alfric.
Isra nodded. “Sometimes for rings, but other times for meals, or barter.”
“Huh,” said Alfric. “I didn’t realize that you had a side job.”
“No,” said Isra. “Nothing like that. It’s just a way to talk to people and see what they’re doing. I do like farmers, but I’ve seen a lot of them.”
<On our way back,> said Alfric. <We need to get the barn and then go down the road, shouldn’t take long.>
<We’ll be ready!> said Mizuki.
When they got to the house, Quinn was unpacking her things, pulling all sorts of things out of her bag, including the tent, which she handed over to Mizuki.
“Definitely magical,” said Mizuki. “But it’s hard to say whether it’s an entad. I guess if I didn’t know better, I would say that it is, but a bunch of entads that do the same thing … I mean, I guess you get entad sets, but they’re not like this.”
“Entad sets,” said Quinn.
“Collections of entads,” said Alfric. “Almost always identical. The prototypical example is a pair of swords that can summon each other, but the effect doesn’t always have to cross. Another example would be three glasses that can each purify water. But we do need to get going, I’m worried about how the horses are doing in there.” He gave Isra a glance.
“Fine, I think,” said Isra. “They were fine when I left.” He had wanted her in the barn with them during the transition out of the dungeon, but she hadn’t felt comfortable with that. Being in extradimensional space was something she liked a lot less since being in the demiplane, when they’d lived and slept inside Lutopia One.
“Then we’re setting off,” said Alfric with a nod. “We’ll get this done, and then I think we can relax.”
“By relax, he means a team meeting,” Mizuki explained.
“I’d like to come with, if that’s alright with you,” said Quinn.
“Of course,” said Alfric. “But why?”
Quinn shrugged. “I want to see more of this world. The similarities, the differences, the people. It’s so alien.”
“Then we really should go,” said Alfric.
They took the ship that walked on its hands, which Quinn found to be a delight, and sat and idly chatted while they went down the road. At its fastest — at least on land — the ship could go faster than a brisk stroll, and since they had all six of them on it, there was no question of the ship’s peculiar whims making it do something unexpected.
“So one of your gods is the God of Infinity,” said Quinn. “But then you don’t have laundoncraft, at all?”
“I’m not seeing the connection,” said Verity.
“I mean, you don’t have infinite chests? Infinite storerooms?” asked Quinn.
“Er,” said Verity. “You mean … you do have those things?”
“Yes,” said Quinn. “It would take me two months or so, but I could make one. For most people it’s far, far too much. There’s no need for infinite space, not when lots of finite space will do. But your god doesn’t allow that? Doesn’t make it happen somehow?”
“It’s possible that this is what that is,” said Verity. “If you can make something like that, teach it to others, then we do have that. Many of the things you’ll see come from dungeons, including the spring-heels.”
“I think the spring-heels aren’t from a dungeon,” said Isra. “I remember reading that when we were in the Hall of Domesticated Animals.”
“They can’t know for certain though,” said Verity.
“Humans are possibly originally from a dungeon,” said Alfric.
“Chrononauts too,” said Mizuki.
“What’s a chrononaut?” asked Quinn.
“Ah,” said Alfric. He gave Mizuki a look that was almost a glare, and she gave him a palms-up ‘what did I do’ look back. “That’s a somewhat delicate issue. A chrononaut is someone who can, ah, undo a day, reliving it.”
“Oh,” said Quinn. She rubbed her chin. “That seems interesting for them. But …” she thought for a moment. “No one else has memories of that day? They remember things that didn’t happen?”
“Yes,” said Alfric. “With some quibbles, but yes.”
“So, like me then?” asked Quinn.
“Er,” said Alfric. “... I think —”
“Kind of,” said Mizuki. “I could see it that way.”
“Hmm,” said Quinn. “That does make me feel better. Like I’m not crazy.”
“It can be difficult living with the shadows of things that never happened,” said Alfric. He hesitated. “I’m a chrononaut.”
“So then,” said Quinn. “You could do today over? Never go into the dungeon, never find me?”
“Yes,” said Alfric. “But I have no intention of doing that, and since I’m not going to have contact with any other chrononauts, we’re relatively insulated from whatever they choose to do.”
“Turn here,” said Isra, pointing out the road to the pasture. They were already going by the high fences, and the gate wasn’t too far from the main road. As this was a path used to move sheep, it was wide enough for their ship, and they pulled up at the empty pasture, the got down with the ship’s arms forming a ladder to walk on.
“Alright,” said Quinn. “Let me unpack. Alfric, you’ll help me?”
Alfric nodded, and helped her pull out the beams and doors that made up the entrance to the barn.
“Doing okay?” Verity asked Isra. She’d come close by, and was keeping her voice low.
“Are you?” asked Isra.
“I don’t know,” said Verity. “It’s weird. It’s less weird than I had thought it would be. She didn’t have a spouse or children, which gives me so much relief, but she’s starting over, from her point of view, and … I’m responsible.”
“Mmm,” said Isra. “It doesn’t feel, to me, like you’re responsible.”
“Thank you, I think,” said Verity. She pursed her lips. “I had asked you whether you were doing okay, and you never answered. So are you doing okay?”
“It’s a lot to think about,” said Isra. She watched Quinn directing Alfric to put the beams into place. “I like her.”
“Of all the possible people we could have pulled out a dungeon, yes,” said Verity. “She’s a good one.”
“Do you think she’s magical?” asked Isra.
“Yes,” said Verity. “I think she’ll be able to make those infinite rooms and be lauded by the Church of Xuphin. And everyone will know that I can make people, some of them with good skills that can’t come from anywhere else, and I’ll be famous for all the wrong reasons.”
“You’re already famous,” said Isra.
“Famous for singing,” said Verity. “That’s famous how I’d want to be famous, known and recognized for something that I enjoy. Dungeons … I do enjoy them, but this … sorry, I’m talking about myself too much.”
“Are you?” asked Isra.
Verity nodded and clammed up.
The barn doors had been secured, and when they were opened, it was Isra’s turn. She called the horses out, using a low, gentle voice, and once the first had begun to move, the others quickly followed. They moved out into the pasture and started to eat, and they must have mostly followed her instructions, because they began relieving themselves in the field, a display that was shocking in its volume and synchronicity.
“It doesn’t look too bad,” said Quinn, stepping into the space. “Very minimal damage.”
Mizuki stepped into the space with her. “So many entads!”
“Entads?” asked Quinn. “Which ones?”
“There are like thirty of them,” said Mizuki. “There, there, there,” she pointed.
“No,” said Quinn. “Those two are laundoncraft, the other one is ealdry.”
“Sorry,” said Pinion. “There are more types of magic?”
“Well, yes,” said Quinn. “You don’t have ealdry either?”
“No,” said Pinion. “No, we do not.”
“It’s, ah, duplication?” she half-asked. She picked up the comb that Mizuki had pointed to. “You just give it a tap.” She slapped the comb against a dresser, and another comb popped out, landing on the floor. She handed it to Pinion. “Wait, then how do you have all your things?”
“All our things?” asked Mizuki. “You mean … most things are made that way?”
“Well, no,” said Quinn. She looked puzzled. “Most things have their ealdry limited, so you don’t wind up with too many of them. And it doesn’t work on food, obviously. But in your kitchen, I saw there were all kinds of pots and pans, knives, forks, drawers full of things — each of those was made by hand?”
“Yes,” said Mizuki. “And you’re saying that in your world, people could make things by … by just making one of them and then making lots of copies?”
“Yes,” said Quinn. “Only I never learned ealdry.”
Isra looked around the room. There was magic here, Quinn just hadn’t recognized it as such, because it was as natural to her as breathing. “So,” she said. “That’s Xuphin and Bixzotl covered. What other things are there?”
“Bixzotl is … God of … Doubles?” asked Quinn.
“Copies,” said Isra.
“I don’t know whether or not that’s a coincidence,” said Verity. “It seems like it can’t be though.”
“Hrm,” said Quinn. “But you said sorcerors could smell magic, and this isn’t magic. And it’s got nothing to do with gods.” She seemed somewhat perturbed.
“We can take a catalog later,” said Alfric, who seemed to have sensed her discomfort too. “Or, if you have some books on what your world was like, we could read those and come to you with questions about whatever doesn’t make sense to us.”
“Books?” asked Quinn. “I mean, I have the book, which from your faces is probably not normal? The book? Here, it’s in my bag.” She went over to where her bag had been set on the ground and pulled out a large but rather slender tome. She handed it to Alfric. “Whatever you’d like to read is probably in there. Though … with the inconsistencies, I suppose I don’t know. I’d have to check, which would take a long time.”
“Huh,” said Alfric, who was leafing through the book.
“Also magic,” said Mizuki. “Might be a different kind though.”
“That’s just the book,” said Quinn. “You were saying that you had book mages.”
“Wortiers,” said Isra. “They manipulate information, allow books to do things that they normally couldn’t.”
“So you have books, and also magical books, but this book is a magical book that’s somehow different from your regular magical books?” asked Quinn.
“Yes,” said Alfric. He was staring at the book’s pages, reading rapidly. “And this book has … infinite pages?”
“No,” said Quinn. “It just has a lot of them.”
“Right,” said Alfric. He looked around, then found a seat and rested his book on his lap so he could leaf through it less awkwardly. “This is a full record of your entire world.”
“It’s the book,” said Quinn with a shrug. “I suppose some people use separate books for ledgers and journals and the like, but everything you need to know, that’s in there. Instructions on how to build a house, which plants are good to eat, how to raise birthen — but how do you get by without it?”
“Instructions on ealdry?” asked Alfric, looking up at her.
“That’s done by apprenticeship,” said Quinn, shaking her head. “But you’ll find a section on laundoncraft in there. I suppose you could learn from that, if you wanted to.”
Alfric shook his head and put the book down. “We need to have a discussion, as a party, plus Pinion.” He looked at Quinn. “Obviously the subject is you and what to do with you. I don’t think that we can keep you secret.”
“Shoot,” she replied. “Your version of the Frignungcirice will come for me?”
“I don’t know what that is,” said Alfric. “But … yes. They’ll make sure that you’re taken care, and they’ll have their own questions to ask you, much less casually than we’ve been asking. But this has never happened before, a person being pulled from a dungeon. They’ll need to take some time to figure it out.”
She let out a breath. “It’s overwhelming.”
“Yes,” said Alfric. “Sorry. But that’s the way that things will be.”
“Not necessarily,” said Mizuki. “I mean, we could keep it under wraps.”
“We maybe should,” said Verity. “We relocate Quinn, give her false papers — that can’t be that hard — then never do a dungeon ever again.”
“No,” said Isra.
“No?” asked Verity.
“I think it was good that we brought her into the world,” said Isra. “I think the magic she brings, the stories she brings, even what she can tell us about the people she knew, I think all of that is good. It will come with heartache, confusion, but it’s a better world with her in it.”
“More dungeons are a question for the future,” said Alfric. “The question for today is what our response is.” He looked at Quinn. “That includes you.”
“I think if I were kept secret, I might enjoy my life more, so long as I had people to keep my confidence. But … if I do have to worry about the Frignungcirice, then I’d have to worry about it for the rest of my life. I have always been of the opinion that it’s better to let the axe fall.” Her face had fallen and she was looking grim. “But I think that Isra has the right of it, where these other dungeons are concerned. Even if I was only technically born several hours ago, even if my memories are of people and places that are recorded only in the book, the other option is that I weren’t alive. I like being alive, and if I have a special skill that will be useful to people, all the better.”
“We’ll try to protect you as best we can,” said Alfric. “I’ll leverage what power I have.” He looked around. “We’re in agreement? Tomorrow morning, first thing, right after the witching hour, I speak with the League?”
Mizuki folded her arms and said nothing, and Verity looked nervous but held her tongue. Pinion nodded, and Isra did too, but there was nothing like full-throated assent.
She grimaced. She knew that whatever happened, tomorrow morning, they were going to get swarmed with people, and this brand new woman’s life was going to be out of their hands.
Comments
fbt
welp, their overly tidy and relatively self consistent little artificial little world just had a hard collision with Godel, lol. A hypothetical meta being to the Editors; "...and how do you handle things that aren't included in your system?" Editors: "....ah. Hmm. Well, it obviously it will fit bec..." Meta being: "and the things that don't?" Editors: "....um." Meta being "yes, that's usually how it starts. Or ends. Whatever."
Nedardo
Also, when did Inter shift to using obols? :0
