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This Used to be About Dungeons, ch 136, The Last Days IV
🕑 Added 2022-09-12 18:06:44 +0000 UTCA reminder that there will be no chapters until two weeks from now (or possibly there will be a chapter on the 21st, which would need to be posted almost immediately when I came home? I'm not sure, just giving myself leeway). I'll be in England, and historically haven't been great at writing while on vacation, though I'll be at a writing retreat, so we'll see.
I think with better planning I would have left on a better chapter, but it's hard to plan, and hopefully this sets things up more than it is a cliffhanger.
I've had a number of talks with people about what constitutes a cliffhanger, and to me, a chapter should resolve its basic premise, with some kind of micro sequel hook at the end to let you know what the next chapter will be about. This is distinct from a cliffhanger, which stops right at a tense moment, leaving it unresolved until next time. Now, when writing a multi-chapter 'conflict' it's hard to not have that interpreted as a cliffhanger, because the central thing hasn't been resolved, but the only way to avoid that is to write 'conflicts' that are only a single chapter long, which is incredibly limiting.
Hopefully this isn't too annoying.
~~~~
Mizuki was excited, happy to have some kind of solid lead and a plan in place. Unfortunately, the plan involved a lot of waiting, and that wasn’t what Mizuki considered her forte.
She was two days out from starting wizard college, which she hadn’t prepared for at all with everything that had been going on, except to arrange long-range transport. This came in the form of either Isra, with the Commute Lute, or at more expense, the Packer’s Lute and the wardrobe. The problem was that the wardrobe was making them a good hundred rings a day on average, sometimes even more, and if Mizuki took it, there was a good chance they’d get none of that. Paying a hundred rings every day seemed like far too much. But the same could be said about the Commute Lute, which might help them set up a business. They weren’t doing that though, and Mizuki did kind of wonder why. They had money, which was part of it, but she almost felt like if someone was offering you that much money, you couldn’t not take it.
There were a lot of thoughts she wasn’t super comfortable with, which is why she was focusing on Cate, and that unfortunately needed some time to work, if it would.
“How long are we going to have to wait though?” asked Mizuki.
“Potentially a long time,” said Alfric. “And it’s very possible that she’s gone for good, or was spooked, and we’ll never see her again.”
“Yeah, but … she’s gotta come eventually, right?” asked Mizuki.
“We should also not be talking about it,” said Alfric.
“Fine, fine,” said Mizuki. “I mean — not at all?”
“In the garden stone, if you need to,” said Alfric. “Remote viewing is rare, but we’re dealing with the rare entads, and she has been in the house a few times, which she could have used to plant something.”
Mizuki picked her feet up off of the table in the living room, which had been cleaned up following the lute testing. The lutes themselves were largely inside Lutopia One, where they had entad lighting and some quick shelves that had been moved from inside the garden stone. Lining up all the lutes gave her an almost aggressively domestic feeling, particularly after she’d helped Alfric to affix little labels to all of the entads. Of all their changing circumstances, a room filled with entads seemed like the best.
“Coming?” she asked, once the lute was in hand.
“Oh, you meant now?” asked Alfric. He grudgingly rose from the couch. “Fine, fine.”
Mizuki strummed the lute, and Alfric vanished into Lutopia One, then she strummed it again to get herself there.
“You know what we need?” asked Mizuki. “Chairs.”
“I’ll get the entad,” said Alfric, going to its place on the shelf. He took the oversized quill and scratched deep into his arm, writing something out. You had to press pretty hard, and it was a bit too painful. Mizuki was quite pleased to see an overstuffed red chair appear, and a second one soon followed it.
“For me?” asked Mizuki.
“Of course,” said Alfric.
“I would say that I can scratch my own chair, but I wouldn’t want you to think I don’t appreciate your chair-ity,” said Mizuki.
“‘Chair-ity’,” sighed Alfric. “You know, I think lute testing broke your brain.”
“Can’t break what you don’t have,” smiled Mizuki. She looked at him. “You’re serious about not talking about the plan outside of a place like this?”
“Yes,” nodded Alfric. “I think Penelope’s was probably fine, but if what we want is for Cate to come, then we need to act more or less normal, which does mean that we can’t be sitting around tapping our feet and talking about how we’re basically just waiting for her.”
“We could have Verity send a letter,” said Mizuki. “Something to bait her?”
“What would that letter look like?” asked Alfric with a little laugh. “‘Hello Cate, I’ve been feeling awfully down, would you like to perhaps whisk me away somewhere?’”
“Well I don’t know,” said Mizuki. “We could do something. Because we don’t know, right? I mean, Cate might be gone for good, and even if she’s not, maybe Verity already turned her down. Right?”
“It’s very possible,” said Alfric. “And if Cate shows her face in Greater Plenarch, we’ll have some contingencies there. It’s better if she tries taking Verity though, because that allows us a path to the demiplane — or wherever it is.”
Mizuki sighed. “I want to do a dungeon, if we’re just going to be waiting around. That’s a normal thing we’d do, right?”
“Er,” said Alfric.
“Oh come on, please don’t replace Verity,” said Mizuki. “Please?”
“The plan was never to replace her, it was to run an experiment and see what kind of dungeon we get out of it,” said Alfric.
“Okay, can you do that in an undone day?” asked Mizuki.
“And spend an entire day of effort, with a full team, clearing a dungeon so that I get nothing but information out of it?” asked Alfric. He seemed offended.
“I mean, you wouldn’t have to remember it, right, if your mom or someone else just redid a day?” asked Mizuki. “And there are chrono services we could potentially pay for, so that it wouldn’t feel like you were auditioning someone to take her place. Musicians are very sensitive about that kind of thing.”
“That’s — yes, probably a better idea,” said Alfric. “I think the bigger issue is that if the dungeons are different then yes, it is her, and no, I don’t really want to get my skull caved in, or worse, see my friends dying in front of my eyes. I could maybe train myself to feel nothing about it, but that’s a big maybe, and I might ruin my mind before I was able to push past seeing that sort of thing.”
“I do want to save your mind,” said Mizuki. “And if we can pay other chronos for that, all the better.”
“You know, we don’t need to be in here for this kind of conversation,” said Alfric.
He shifted in his chair. The seat would disappear on its own pretty much as soon as they weren’t sitting on them, but the quill was a nice one for things that you didn’t need to set down or leave by themselves. It could only maintain three forms at a time, with some limits on mass and volume, and Mizuki was mildly surprised to find that she enjoyed hearing about those things. She’d always felt an affinity to Qymmos, and it was a good reminder of why that was.
“Fine, fine,” said Mizuki. “I guess we should get out just in case there’s word from Verity.”
“We’re likely going to be waiting a full week,” said Alfric. “Maybe more. There will be some logistical challenges if it happens when you’re in the middle of your studies. You’re sure you want to be a part of this?”
“A chance to go to some crazy new place that hundreds of people got disappeared to?” asked Mizuki. “Even if it’s just a demiplane, I’m in. I’ve never been to a demiplane.”
“I’ve been to a few,” said Alfric. “But it might not be a demiplane.”
“I’d also be up for an adventure on the moon,” said Mizuki.
“In the best case scenario, we don’t go anywhere at all,” said Alfric. “I just want to make that clear. And even if we do go somewhere, we’re almost certainly going to reset, which means you almost certainly won’t get to experience any of it.”
Mizuki threw her head back against the chair. “Why must you make everything so lame?”
“What we want from Cate is to capture her, get information from her, and get the people she took back, or at least have some understanding that they are, in fact, safe,” said Alfric. “What we don’t want is to go after her in single combat, or gods forbid, to kill her. In theory, we can place her under a citizen’s arrest. In practice, there’s no way to stop someone with a sufficiently powerful entad from just leaving unless you want to go at them with full force. We have to figure that she can leave at the speed of thought. That leaves pure immobilization, including mental immobilization, which is rare, especially without jumping through hoops. That goes double if it’s someone who’s aware, and triple if they’re expecting threats.”
“Which means no spoon to the back of the head is going to work,” said Mizuki.
“You never know,” said Alfric. “But especially if she knows that people are after her, then yes, I expect that it just wouldn’t work. It wouldn’t work on my mom.”
“Well, you’re right, we should go out,” said Mizuki. She hesitated. “And if we do go in with Verity, when it happens, we’re certain that our exit method will work?”
“No,” said Alfric. “Given that we don’t know where we’re going, we’re not certain.”
Mizuki frowned at him. Hannah had said that he was sometimes bad at being reassuring when that was clearly what someone needed, and Mizuki had defended him, but was now feeling like she shouldn’t have. They were supposed to have an escape hatch if they went out, a wizardly device that could go out from a demiplane but not in. It wouldn’t work if they weren’t in a demiplane, but if they were away too long, they would hopefully just reset. And if they got there, they would get their answers.
“We’ve got a lot of waiting around,” said Alfric. “A lot. You’re ready for that? And for minimal talking about the thing once we’re out?”
“Yeah,” said Mizuki with a sigh. “Let’s set in for the long haul, maybe I’ll help you with some woodworking or read through the wizard books some more.”
She wasn’t happy sitting around, nor with thinking too much about the future, but she resigned herself to put her mind toward other things. Hoping that Cate would pick up the bardic bait was likely going to take a long time.
It took two hours.
~~~~
Verity was meant to be brooding in the woods. She had taken to tending Isra’s garden instead though, which was a pleasant enough task. The garden had never been a terribly large or important part of Isra’s life, given that she could forage anything she wanted with ease, but there was a plot that she’d tended with her father, mostly to give them a wide variety of ready food throughout the growing season. According to Isra, her father had never said anything about his daughter being a druid, but he must have known, because any garden that Isra oversaw benefited mightily from her active interest.
With Isra largely at the house, the garden was going to seed, though less than it had any right to. There were weeds to rip out and parts of the plants to prune, though this late in summer, there was less of a point, and Verity wasn’t going to stay in the cabin forever. Still, it gave her something to do that wasn’t actually moping around, and she’d already gotten her practice in for the day.
She thought, briefly, about the conversation she’d already had with Cate, the one written in the book.
~~~~
“I love these people,” said Verity. “What Alfric said yesterday — he said that I was selfish.”
“And are you?” asked Cate.
“I don’t know,” said Verity. “I think I might be. I think it’s why Isra stopped loving me.”
Verity only had the record of the meeting from the book, but she could imagine how it had gone well enough, maybe even better than well enough, since she had, after all, lived it. She could presume the intonation of her own voice, and picture her saying these things. She had also spent some time with Cate, more than the others.
“Did she?” asked Cate.
“I don’t know,” Verity admitted. She imagined herself smoothing her dress. “I think that I caused problems between us by asking too much of her and not giving enough back.”
“How will she feel if you leave?” asked Cate. Verity imagined her imperious, gentle but firm, less like a cleric and more like a schoolteacher.
“She’ll be hurt,” said Verity. “I hope that she’ll be at least a bit put out. If she shrugged my disappearance off with casual indifference, that would wound me enormously. I don’t wish her pain, obviously, but in a few months, yes, I think she would get over it. The others will be hurt too, but the dungeons were never meant to be a permanent arrangement, and we’re running into stumbling blocks already, which might be caused by me.”
It was painful to read that. It was one thing to say that in her darkest hour she might abandon the team, but it was another to read herself saying that as the moment presented itself. It did make her seem selfish. It was selfish. Even if there were other meetings that she hadn’t seen, there was something deeply unlikeable about saying that you’d leave your friends behind.
“I won’t take you if you have reservations,” said Cate. Again, Verity read it as gentle, but there was no way or knowing without actually having the memory.
“Are there really people without reservations?” asked Verity. “People who say ‘yes, immediately, take me to some unknown place, leaving all my friends and family behind’?”
“As a matter of fact, there are,” said Cate. “Though I do prefer not to approach people at that level of desperation.”
“I do want to go,” said Verity. “You said there would be, ah, people for me to date?”
“Opportunities for courtship, yes,” said Cate.
“Other women around my own age,” said Verity. “Not too much older.”
“Twenty-eight of them,” said Cate. “You would make the twenty-ninth.”
This was the part of the conversation that Verity had felt the most despair over other people seeing. It was so base, so self-centered, and really did make her think about who she was that she was willing to express herself like that to a stranger. It was a sensible question though, if you were thinking about stranding yourself with some unknown number of people.
It was as much as they had about firm numbers, since Cate hadn’t even said as much to Kell, who hadn’t asked about eligible women. It was a high number, and implied a population in the thousands, but Hannah had pointed out that things weren’t always so rosy for women and men with an ‘affinity for Garos’, not in small towns where their prospects would be slim, and all the more so when they were young. It was one of the reasons that they had the church of Garos, but as Hannah was quick to point out, there wasn’t always something for the church to do.
“The time is approaching,” said Cate. “When we go, it will be in secrecy, largely to protect me, and the people who are already there.”
“You need me to be ready,” said Verity. “But … I’m not sure I will be. Sorry.”
“I’m a very patient yet persistent individual,” said Cate. Verity imagined a smile. “I’ll stop by, and we can talk, from time to time. Now, your hand upon the orb, so leave no trace of this conversation behind.”
And then that was more or less it. The conversation had been brief, perhaps only to plant the idea, or to reinforce it the next time Cate came back with that same orb.
~~~~
Cate came slowly, walking through the woods, the branches somehow not snagging at her fine, flowing red robes. Verity bolted up in surprise, then second-guessed that reaction, then thought that no, her natural reaction should be to be surprised. She wiped her hands on her apron, then took it off, folding it briefly. Under the cover of the apron, she twisted the ring on her finger, which was the signal for the others. Everything would be taken care of, they had assured her.
“Cate,” said Verity, backing away slightly, almost involuntary.
“Verity,” replied Cate. “Am I intruding?”
Verity looked at the garden. “No, not at all. I’m just — how did you know where I would be?”
Cate gave a sly smile. “I was told, as a matter of fact.”
From within her robes, she drew the black orb that Verity had heard quite a bit about but never seen — except that she had, those memories had just been locked away.
“Place your hand on the orb, please,” said Cate.
Verity stared at it for a moment. “What will happen?”
“Nothing that will harm you,” said Cate. “Please, it’s important, and time is of the essence.”
Verity hesitated, then reached out.
It wasn’t a rush of memories, just an awareness that memories were there, and she could feel her demeanor change as she found a new understanding of where she stood with Cate. She had known there’d been more than one meeting, but she hadn’t counted on just how many there had been, seven in total, with this being the eighth. Cate had made the offer several times, but it wasn’t just about the offer, they had talked with each other a few times, notably after the concert, when they’d spoken together for a full hour. Verity had done most of the talking. It had, strangely, been in the house, before Verity had moved into the cabin. The timing was, in retrospect, suspect.
And Verity had said that she would come on the grand new adventure, but she’d also said that she wouldn’t, which she felt some small amount of relief about. That had been the last time they’d met, not long after Cate had bought the herb dragons.
“You’ve come to see if my answer has changed,” said Verity, letting out a breath.
“I have,” said Cate.
“Kell and Lin, that was you,” said Verity. They had already discussed the other disappearances before those two, and the memory of that sat unfamiliar in Verity’s mind.
“It was,” said Cate. She gave a gentle smile. “I kicked the hornet’s nest with them, it seems. My time in Inter draws to a close.”
“But you came for me,” said Verity. She let out a breath. “To see if I would decide differently.”
“Not just for you,” said Cate. “There are a few others. If you have no interest, I’ll be going on my way, and that will be that. You’ll keep your memories, and the mask will fall from my face. Everyone will know what I’ve done, which will enrage some and provide solace to others.”
“You’re not worried that I’ll tell?” asked Verity. “As soon as you're gone?” The ring felt heavy on her finger. She wasn’t sure it was the sort of question that she should be asking, given their plans.
“You’ve decided on not coming with me then?” asked Cate. “There’s no chance that I can change your mind?”
Verity hesitated. She knew what the plan required of her, that they get wherever Cate was going, but she didn’t want to lie. “I have a good life here,” said Verity. “Or a decent one, anyway. I have people who love me, in their own way.” She swallowed. “But things have been going sour, and to pass up the opportunity, to hitch my wagon to theirs when the future is so uncertain …”
“I don’t want people who are uncertain, I’ve told you that,” said Cate. “I don’t want those who will always wonder what it would have been like if they had stayed home.” She gave a sigh that sounded contended to Verity’s ears. “You know, you’ve had these expectations placed on you from such a young age, and I wanted something different for you. I feel a fondness for you that I’ve only rarely felt before. Perhaps it’s because of the pressures you’ve faced, the excellence that you’ve shown which wasn’t ever about you. I appreciated that, I think. You were gifted with the lute and so it became your life, in spite of your wishes. You were Chosen of Xuphin, and you’d really rather not have been, because you didn’t need the weight of more expectations. There’s a great humility in you that I think has never had much chance to shine, except during your performances at the tavern, which I’m mildly upset that I never got to hear.”
“Would I be playing taverns, in your new place?” asked Verity, leaning forward slightly.
“If you wanted to play … it would depend,” said Cate. She gave a cautious smile. “Are you asking because you’re interested, or because you want to hand the information on?”
“Both,” said Verity, which was the truth. “You’ve never said what the other place actually is. If it’s a demiplane, that’s … that’s what Alfric thinks is most likely. We tried to find Kell. He’s a friend.”
“I’m aware,” said Cate. “He’s safe. He’s adjusting. I’m not sure I would say he’s happy yet, but he wasn’t happy here.”
Verity frowned. “I’m not sure that I’m happy here.”
She wasn’t a good liar. What she was good at, she’d found, was putting up a stone face and reacting with grace and poise, but that wasn’t the same as being good at lying. She could lie only if no emotion was required of her, and even then, she sometimes got hot under the collar. The face she put on for performances was a stoic one, which she could recall easily, at a moment, but that was hardly ever what was required to sell a lie. Sometimes, among Society people, what was called for was to tell a charming lie, or a lie that came off like a joke, or a stinging barb delivered with sweetness, and Verity had learned to simply do a hard shell.
The solution, if you were no good at lying, was to not lie.
“They’re talking about not doing the dungeons with me,” said Verity. “They’re too dangerous. We’ve been dying, and Alfric has been undoing it. I think it would be unfair — selfish — for me to expect him to keep going through all that. It hurts though, and if I were out of the party, I hardly expect that things would be the same. They’d mentioned that I could be a part of the counterparty, but that’s not the same at all.” She swallowed. “And things with my mother … they’re not resolved, father just lucked into some money from a new business, and wants me to be a part of it, and I’ve been putting off going to Dondrian for that because I feel like my mother can’t just leave things alone. Like there’s some trap left waiting for me.”
“And on the other side, your friends,” said Cate. “Who you wouldn’t want to leave behind.”
“Yes,” nodded Verity. “But they’ve only been friends for a handful of months.” This felt untrue, or like she was arguing for the sake of deception. She steeled herself. The next part was necessary to the plan, and it needed to be said. “I’d like to go with you.”
It was shocking how much easier it was to say things that weren’t technically lies. She did want to go, but not to stay.
“Then we’ll go,” said Cate. “Not now, because I assume you’re checking in with Alfric at the end of each day, but you’ll hear from me at night, not long before the witching hour.”
“I don’t, actually,” said Verity. “I could go now.”
“Better to wait,” said Cate, gentle.
“And lose my memories in the meantime?” asked Verity.
“Yes,” replied Cate. “I can’t take the risk that you’ll say something. Make sure that you’re back here, at the cabin. The orb can return the stored memories remotely, you’ll come into awareness. Stay awake.”
Verity nodded.
“The instructions will come to your mind, as a path,” said Cate. “There will be a stone that you need only to touch. Take what you need, your bound entads, nothing much more. You’ll be provided for. I think that it should go without saying that you should come alone and tell no one. The stone won’t work for more than one person, which is for security as much as it is a natural limit of the entad.”
“I won’t remember these instructions,” said Verity.
“Like our conversations, they’ll sit below your mind,” said Cate. “You’ll understand the need to get things in order. You’ll know that you need to go home.” That was confusing for a moment, until Verity realized that when Cate said ‘home’ she meant the cabin.
“Ah,” said Verity.
“Now is the last chance for second thoughts,” said Cate.
“No,” said Verity. “No second thoughts.”
~~~~
Mizuki was spending a lot of time fidgeting. They’d gotten the signal, and were prepared to move if they got the second signal through the cup, but it was still a lot of waiting. The waiting was worse because they might need to spring into action at a moment’s notice. It was extra worse because they weren’t supposed to talk about what was going on, mostly because they didn’t know what Cate’s capabilities were.
“I’m going to make dinner,” said Mizuki.
“It’s a bit early for that,” said Alfric. His voice was mild.
“Yeah,” she replied. “But I think I’ll make something that takes some time. Chili, maybe. It’s better if it melds, and can stay on the stove basically forever.”
Alfric hesitated. “Alright, I guess we’ve got nothing else planned today.”
Mizuki went into the kitchen, looking to calm her nerves. She liked ground meat for chili, but had none in the chiller, so she started the process of chopping up meat into tiny pieces. It was going to be mixed meat, beans that had been soaking since that morning, tomatoes, corn, onion, garlic, and then a whole heap of different sauces and spices. Chili was, essentially, just a stew, but it had its own identity due to the spices used. Mizuki liked to put her own Kiromon spin on it, adding in a variety of pungent sauces, ginger, a small bit of dried fish, and a little citrus. Hannah had wrinkled her nose at the inclusion of fish, but the actual flavor of the fish was mostly washed away, noticed in the way that it deepened the flavor.
“You’re cooking?” asked Isra as Mizuki was sweating the onions. “Now?”
“Chili is better with an hour or two on the stove,” said Mizuki.
Isra shifted. “But that means you’re staying here to watch it?” asked Isra.
“Er,” said Mizuki, looking down at the pot. “I … guess.”
“Alright,” said Isra. She gave a curt nod, then moved back upstairs with her book still in hand.
There was something soothing about making dinner, Mizuki thought. Knowing that the whole pot might need to be set aside at a moment’s notice, all the food going to waste, was something she’d have liked to have considered before getting started, but it was therapeutic. Her hands knew what to do with a knife, and the smells of the kitchen were comforting. There were things to do that took her mind off worrying.
Chili, unfortunately, didn’t take all that long to make, and the pot was simmering away, needing stirring only every five or ten minutes, which wasn’t quite enough for Mizuki to get distracted by it. She started with preparing some of their toppings — sour cream, shredded cheese, quick pickled red onions, spicy peppers, diced chives, and finally, because she had too much time, fried garlic, which she hoped would add some crunch.
When Verity came home, Mizuki’s heart almost stopped. Either Verity had become a very good actor, or her memory was wiped, but Alfric asked her if she wanted to see a new woodworking project within Lutopia One, and they disappeared together. When they came out later, she didn’t look shaken, exactly, but she did start practicing her lute. Mizuki thought that was probably a nervous habit, exactly like cooking.
Chili was a complete meal, but Mizuki started on side dishes anyway. She had all the ingredients necessary for some batter bread, which would be served with honey and butter, and once that was in the oven, she began making a creamy cabbage salad. It was too much food, enough that they’d be eating leftovers for a few days, but it helped pass the time.
Dinner was a subdued affair, with no talking about the thing that they were probably all wanting to talk about. Mizuki was feeling anxious. She wanted to ask Alfric how far into the sequence of undone days they were, but she didn’t normally ask that, and didn’t want to upset things. If there was ever a time for them to be watched, it was this. They had no idea what kind of remote viewing Cate had, if she had any at all, but there was just no sense in taking the risk. There were compliments on Mizuki’s cooking, which was nice.
The extra food almost filled the chiller, and while Mizuki was doing that, Verity left.
“She just left?” asked Mizuki, surprised.
“Yes,” said Alfric.
“Normally she says goodbye,” said Mizuki.
Alfric shrugged.
“I’m going to go to my room and read for a bit,” said Mizuki. “I’m not feeling very social.” Mostly she wasn’t feeling like talking to someone while not able to talk about the thing she wanted to talk about.
Reading didn’t go well. Her eyes went over the same sentence four times in a row. She kept at it though, mostly for lack of anything better to do.
The sun had set by the time Ria got in touch with them, which happened through her speaking into their heads, as clean and clear as though she was a part of the party channel. It wasn’t the party channel though, which was important, because while there were rare entad methods of tapping into the party channel, there were essentially no methods of tapping into entad communication. More than that, their mouths didn’t need to move, which meant that an outside observer would only see them thinking. It was, unfortunately, one-to-one, which meant anything said to any of them had to be communicated through Ria.
<We’ve got a problem,> said Ria. <We’re seven hours away from the witching hour. If Cate leaves it too late in the day, we might not be able to act. We’re very far into the sequence of undone days, which means that she must have been working around us, possibly paying to send an activation message back to herself. That wouldn’t entirely account for how ‘late’ it is. It’s very late.>
<You still have all your resets left,> said Mizuki. <So you reset and get her your next go around?>
<I’m worried she’ll give me the slip,> said Ria. <She’s prepared. And if she does give me the slip, she can warn herself by sending a message through another chrono. The complications with the priority system mean that I can’t really stop her if she can pay a messenger with a higher priority than me. That, in turn, would blow our chances. If she doesn’t already know how onto her we are, then we’ve got problems.>
<You’re suggesting we cross the witching hour boundary,> said Mizuki. <We go into her realm, then we’re stuck there?>
<We’d be able to get out,> said Ria.
<But we wouldn’t be able to undo going in?> asked Mizuki.
<I’m planning on going in,> said Ria. <We’re assuming there’s some control in place to only allow a single person through, there are a number of ways you could do that. What will screw us is if Verity is stripped bare on arrival, which is where the real risk comes in. We don’t have anything that can make us not technically ‘people’ but that also allows us to automatically become functional humans again. That means that Verity needs to be the one to revive us.>
<As though we’re dead,> said Mizuki.
<We also want to not be functionally alive,> said Ria. <For a few reasons, but partly to make sure that any entad that can penetrate won’t be able to find us.>
<I’m all in, if that’s why you were talking so much,> said Mizuki. <I mean, if this was leading up to you asking me whether I was okay with it, I am, let’s do it.>
<Good,> said Ria. <Then I’ll talk with the others. Be ready to go. We lock in once Verity signals us.>
<Who else?> asked Mizuki.
<Just me,> said Ria. <Harmon knows. If I die, the children need at least one parent.>
That was the note that she left on, and Mizuki found it sobering.
Toward the end, it was hard to stay awake, and being in bed, Mizuki eventually succumbed.
She was woken from her sleep by a gentle hand on her shoulder, and as she was still coming to her senses, she was whisked away to the inside of an extradimensional storage entad, then to a second extradimensional storage entad, then to Lutopia One.
“I’m going to disassemble you,” said Ria. She was holding a long wand. “This will take you apart, splitting you into components, which it will use to fill jars that it also makes, all Verity will need to do is point the wand at each pile to put us back together.”
Mizuki didn’t need to ask whether this was dangerous. The way Ria was saying it made it seem very, very dangerous. She wondered what would happen if you put something into one of the jars, some dirt or contaminant, and she wondered how finely the materials would be broken down, and if they could go bad, or what would happen if the jars broke, or someone stole a piece of it. She didn’t ask though, only nodded. Just before it happened, she saw that there were already jars clustered together on the floor of Lutopia, which meant that she wasn’t the first.
Then everything shifted, and she was standing in Lutopia One again. This time, it was Verity holding the wand. They both breathed sighs of relief.
“You’re feeling okay?” asked Verity.
“We’re in?” asked Mizuki, not answering the question.
“Yes,” said Verity, letting out a breath. “I don’t have much time though. It’s been four days, this is the first time I really felt like I could come.”
“Why me first?” asked Mizuki, looking around at the jars. It was strangely touching.
“They’re jars,” said Verity. “They don’t have labels.”
“Revive the others,” said Mizuki. “Then tell us all about it.”
~~~~
When her memories came flooding back, Verity grew nervous. She had stayed up, thanks in part to some tea, but it was very late at night. She was aware that she might be watched — it was the time to watch her — and tried to only do the things that she would have done if she’d really been leaving forever. She twisted the ring on her finger, to let the others know.
She went through the things that Ria had told her to do, placing things into the other book they’d gotten from the first dungeon, the storage book that was barely ever used anymore, partly because it was large and cumbersome. The last thing she placed inside it was a small cup that Ria had given her, which was the important thing. Then she wrapped the book in the blanket that made things weigh less, slung her lute across her back, and waited for the path to appear. That it came so soon after Verity was ready was a clear sign she was being remotely watched.
The cup of Ria’s was one of a pair. Anything placed within the mouth of one would appear in the other, and vice versa. While Verity had been getting everything else ready, the others had been getting ready, turning themselves into not-people. One of the final steps would be for Ria to step into the ring, which would then fall into the cup, silently thanks to a layer of cotton. By the time Verity put the cup into the book, everything in extradimensional space would be sorted. Ideally, the cup would be one item among thousands in the book. All Verity would need to do once in the other place would be to take the cup from the book, the ring from the cup, use an entad string to create a portal into another extradimensional space, then go into Lutopia One and turn her friends back into people again.
There were a number of things about this plan that made Verity exceptionally nervous, and all of them were questions about where she was actually going and what she would find there. Cate seemed to want to make a community somewhere, and they were operating on the understanding that this was more or less true. This meant that Verity probably wouldn’t be stripped bare, her entads searched through, every item accounted for, every entad explained. If that happened though, and it seemed as though they would be found out, Verity was meant to come clean and explain everything, hoping that Cate would be merciful.
When the path came into Verity’s mind, she began walking it almost at once. The book was in a large bag that she’d grabbed for just that purpose, bulky but also weightless. It was the middle of the night, and she had only a small lantern shedding its light over the forest.
The path was surprisingly short, a hundred yards at most. The stone was sitting beneath a tree.
Verity started at it for a moment, then leaned down and touched it.
“You came,” said Cate.
They were standing in a room together. It was like being in the center of a crystal, glass panes on all sides, looking out over a fantastical water world, brilliantly lit by a sunset. There was nothing supporting their feet but glass, and Verity felt a chill run through her at the thought of dropping.
“I came,” said Verity. She looked down at the water. She’d never cared for heights, and it felt like they were a mile up. “Is it … all water?”
Cate laughed. “No, this is just a holding area. We’ll soon be off and away to our final destination.” She was smiling. It was a full smile, wider than Verity had seen before, and she couldn’t help but be nervous. Cate placed a hand on Verity’s shoulder, touching her lightly, and then they were elsewhere.
There were stars in the sky, but they were more ordered than the real stars, not quite a grid, but close to it. There were no moons, not even little Cleo. While they’d changed their location, they were still high up. It was nighttime. They seemed to be on top of a mountain of some kind, and below, there was a small village lit by tiny lanterns in a ring around its border.
“Welcome to my realm,” said Cate. She was looking out over the area with a contented smile.
“I’m here now,” said Verity. “Can you tell me what it is?”
There was a quirk of her lips. “A demiplane. You’d guessed that already. But it’s a special sort of demiplane, a living one, not an old fossil like you’ve probably heard of.”
“Living?” asked Verity.
Cate nodded. “Breathing, growing, constantly in flux, with a nature of its own.” She was still looking out in pride at the mostly dark area. Verity couldn’t tell how large it was, but thought that it was at least a hex across, possibly large enough that she wouldn’t be able to see the horizon.
“And I’ll be down there,” said Verity, pointing at the village.
“Ah,” said Cate. “No, you’ll be staying at the palace with me, at least for a few days. I like to get people acclimated before they join the others. It also helps to limit how much of a shock it all is.”
“I see,” said Verity. She clutched the straps of her bag a bit tighter. “Well then, lead the way.”
