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This Used to be About Dungeons, ch 98, Deals
🕑 Added 2022-04-25 16:31:46 +0000 UTC~~~~
Hannah was finding Isra to be a bit distracting. Their druid looked like a different person, and it was shocking how well the transformation had gone, removing every trace of her Tarbin heritage and completely feminizing her. It wasn’t as extreme as what Alfric’s mother had done to them on the night of the opera, but it felt more complete, less like a temporary spell that had been cast over Isra. The makeup was a little less good than it had been the day before, with everything having been washed off and reapplied, but it was still better than Hannah would have expected. Either Isra had gotten some lessons, or she’d been closely watching Verity, or both.
Mizuki hadn’t been interested in helping to sell the parts of the theater, and no one had particularly needed her to come with, so she’d gone off on her own while the three remaining members of the party had headed for their meeting. This technically meant that Mizuki had come along entirely for moral support and would have done nothing of any significant value, but Hannah didn’t imagine that she’d be doing much either, so she couldn’t complain. Mizuki had said to give her a call if they needed help moving anything out, and with the helmet, she could be there at a moment’s notice.
The woman they were going to see owned Seaside Salvage, which was on the mainland, across the large bridge that led to the lagoon islands. It was a sprawling junk yard, though there was at least some semblance of organization, with stacks of tiles, pieces of lumber, racks of textiles, and different bits of metal.
“This place is enormous,” said Isra, looking around.
“It’s big,” nodded Alfric. “There are a lot of things that get taken from the dungeons. Some dungeoneers run their dungeons like it’s a salvage operation, taking everything, pulling up floorboards, ripping loose carpets, that kind of thing. If you want to build a house with reclaimed materials, it’ll cost you a pittance, the only problem is you need to spend more on labor, and they tend to look hideous.”
“Should we be doing this?” asked Isra, whose eyes hadn’t stopped moving. Again, the girliness was distracting. It was like being with a different person. Maybe there was also something about how she was acting too, but that might have just been Hannah’s imagination. Personally, Hannah’s aesthetic preference went the other way — she liked a manly girl — but she had never really noticed just how attractive Isra was.
“Stripping dungeons?” asked Alfric. “No, I don’t think so. In terms of value, it’s usually entads, then ectads, then henlings, then goods, then finally reclaimed materials. Bastles and clandes are … sort of outside the usual ranking. If we had entads that would allow us to take more furniture or materials, it would change things, but no, in terms of value … probably not, or not for the whole party. The dungeons are arguably not worth it at all for Verity.”
“Why not?” asked Isra.
“The quoted offer, the reason we flew out here, was four hundred thousand,” said Alfric. “That’s from a truly exceptional dungeon. But that’s also how much Verity is going to make from a single concert.”
“The gross,” said Hannah. “Her actual cut of that will be quite a bit smaller.”
“Four hundred thousand?” asked Isra. “To hear her songs?”
“Two hundred rings times two thousand seats,” said Hannah. “We spoke with her about it, in brief, just to get some sense of what the money situation is like. But as I said, there are a number of people who take their cut from that, before we get to the money that goes to her and her family — mostly her family. There’s advertising to consider, the cut the theater takes, the cost for programs and renting the instrument, all other sorts of things. But yes, the gross is about as much as this week long labor from the four of us.”
“I hadn’t realized,” said Isra. “That’s … a lot of money.”
“Ay,” said Hannah. “The concert will be a big deal. Lots of work on her mother’s part, and it seems to be working, at least so far as I can tell. All that pressure on Verity though, I don’t imagine that’s good for her.”
“She’s been feeling it,” said Isra.
“Well, we shouldn’t stand around,” said Alfric. “We’re early, but not that early.”
The woman they were meeting with was old, maybe even older than Penelope, with sun-beaten skin that looked like leather. She wore heavy clothes despite the relatively warm day, and her gray hair was hidden beneath a wide-brimmed hat. Beside her was a man who might have been her son, but didn’t get an introduction. She said her name was Jules, and she’d apparently been running the salvage yard for decades.
“A fine trunk,” she said, walking over to it. “I saw it walk in behind you, like a tame dog.”
“It’s good, yes,” said Alfric.
“We’d be getting all the stuff out of it?” asked Jules. “Slow or fast?”
“Slow,” said Alfric. “But not really much slower than unloading a wagon, I wouldn’t think.”
Jules undid a clasp and pulled a necklace up from beneath her shirt. “Any effects I need to know about?”
“What is that?” asked Alfric, narrowing his eyes at the necklace she’d removed.
“It’s a scanner,” she replied. “I was going to ask before I used it, but there are some types of storage it just doesn’t work with.”
“Extended space,” said Alfric. “Large capacity, all vertical, no compression.”
Jules nodded. “And can I use this to take an inventory?”
“Of course,” said Alfric with a nod.
Jules lifted the lid of the trunk and peered down at the chairs there, then released her necklace, which floated in the air for a moment before zipping down, the little teardrop leading the way and the chain links following like a tail.
“Should just take five minutes or so, maybe more,” said Jules. “In the meantime, I heard there was some special provenance, did you want to tell me what that’s all about?”
Alfric went over it, in brief, not that there was all that much to tell. They had been able to get some confirmation that the theater they’d encountered wasn’t an exact copy of the Ellusifé, just close enough that it was noteworthy. It was strange, but nothing that anyone really had much to say about.
“It is odd,” said Jules. “I’ve heard of a lot of dungeons in my time, and while that isn’t the oddest of them, it’s odd enough that I’ll want to take a second look at the goods. How close is this to what’s in the Ellusifé, do you think?”
“My brother took a measurement for me,” said Alfric. “So far as we can tell from that, it’s to within a sixteenth of an inch.”
“And the seats are all uniform,” said Hannah. “I measured that myself.”
“I’ll have to confirm with my own clerics,” said Jules. “For a sale this size, there’s all sorts of checking over that needs to be done. I was going to ask whether you’ve been in the business of dungeons long, but I do recognize the name Overguard. I’ve had more than a few of your people come through here over the years.”
Hannah spared a glance for Alfric. He kept his face impassive, but she knew that he didn’t like his family being brought up too often. Reminders of the advantages he had, whether the chronomancy or everything else, were something that he tried not to show his annoyance about, but Hannah knew him well enough to see the signs he was bothered.
“Do you have a buyer?” asked Alfric.
“I think I can move what you’re selling, elsewise I wouldn’t be buying,” said Jules. “But we’ll see what you actually have, what condition it’s all in, and all that other stuff. You’re looking to move the whole lot, rather than just having it in pieces?”
“Ideally,” said Alfric. “Our storage options at the moment are pretty limited, and we don’t really want to be left trying to divy up what we have, trying to find buyers for each individual piece. That’s negotiable though. I wouldn’t want you taking things off my hands at a steep discount because they were part of a package.”
Jules looked down into the chest and held out her hand, which the necklace zipped back to. Hannah hadn’t actually seen it, but she could imagine the necklace having darted its way down through the vertical column of everything they’d taken, like a tiny spelunker.
“Now then, we can step over to my sand table, if you don’t mind,” said Jules. The table in question was close by, three feet to a side and with a high lip to keep in what seemed to be quite a bit of fine-grained sand of a purity and quality that meant it hadn’t just been scooped up from the beach. Jules held the necklace out, with the teardrop piece of metal dangling down.
The sand moved beneath it, slowly at first, and then with increasing speed, shifting around, until eventually it resolved into images created from sand. Hannah had gone to the beach a few times in seminary, and made sand castles only once, but the comparison seemed apt. Rather than a castle though, there were hundreds of tiny sculptures, more delicate than the human hand could produce. It was the entire inventory of the chest, organized and rendered in sand.
“Now,” said Jules, not taking a moment to revel in the magic. “Seems like you’ve got nearly two thousand seats, though they’re in sets of three, then a great deal of paneling, some lighting, a chandelier — all about as I had been told. That’s good, some people overestimate their hauls.”
“We can take out whatever you’d like to look at,” said Alfric. “But without your assistance, this is probably at least a full day’s worth of work to unload.”
“So you want this to be bought sight unseen?” asked Jules, arching an eyebrow.
“We can empty the chest,” said Isra, stepping forward. Some of the casual happiness she’d put on display the night before and in the morning had left her, and she was, again, quite cool and composed. “It’s just a matter of whether you want that done here. It’s all quality goods, as good as the best you’d find in Dondrian, hardwoods and engravings. And if you aren’t interested, we can take it elsewhere.”
Jules blinked at her, then looked at Alfric for a moment, and then back to Isra. “I think I will do a spot check, if you don’t mind, but the way you say your chest works, I naturally have to worry that you’ve put the best specimens toward the top.”
Isra only nodded. “It would be sensible, if we’d had the time or planning for that. Let’s start now, and we might be able to finish a survey before we lose too much light.”
“Hannah?” came a voice from Hannah’s right. She turned and looked, and had a long moment of trying to place a familiar face in a new context.
“Irinniri,” said Hannah. “What are you doing here?”
“I go by Iri these days,” she said with a smile. “And I work here. What are you doing here?”
“Here, let’s step aside,” said Hannah. She gave the negotiation some distance, and Iri came over.
They’d briefly dated in seminary. Irinniri was of mixed ethnicity, so much so that Hannah almost wondered whether it was deliberate on the part of her ancestors. Irinniri — Iri now — had always joked that she’d gotten the best features of all of them: long flowing black hair, bright green eyes, light brown skin, and a wide, winning smile. It was the sort of thing that had felt flirtatious and alluring for her to say at the start of their relationship, then conceited and off-putting later on. Iri was, or had been, a bit full of herself, but for a time she’d been very much what Hannah had wanted. Back then, she’d dressed in more male fashions, with trousers and long-sleeved shirts, but with the passage of a few years since they’d seen each other, Iri had apparently transitioned to something slightly more feminine. She still wore pants, but they were wide enough that they flowed almost like a dress, and she had a very functional blouse instead of a simple shirt. A pendant hanging down showed a symmetrical symbol, not one that was considered holy, but a definite nod toward Garos.
“I haven’t seen you since we finished the seminary,” said Iri, smiling. “Or before, maybe.”
“It was before, ay,” said Hannah. “Not more than in passing, anyhow. You’re working here, you said?” They had ended things amicably, but then not been friends after that, which had felt like a bit of a shame. Iri was the first person that Hannah had ever been physical with.
“I am,” nodded Iri. “I actually worked here while I was in the seminary, on a part time basis, and once it came time for placement, it seemed like this was a better use of my talents. I had gotten really good at renewal and repair. And you? I’d always thought that you were going to end up a bishop somewhere.” Hannah tried to keep her face set, but apparently Iri still knew her too well. “Sorry, I didn’t mean — well, if you’re in the dungeon game, that’s good, right?”
“Right,” said Hannah. She kept her lips tight.
“I mean, I ended up here,” said Iri. “Not where I thought I’d be when I went into the seminary, I have to tell you that.”
Hannah relaxed slightly. “Life leads us on some unexpected paths,” said Hannah. “You’re happy here though? I always found repair work to be a bit soothing.”
“It’s good!” said Iri. “Really good. Some of the work is rote, simple reflections, but other times there’s something more complicated that demands special attention. Either way, it’s rewarding. I’m making things whole, or in rare cases, helping to break them. And there’s a cleric of Qymmos here that I work with who I really gel with. How about you? How did you, ah, end up doing the dungeon thing?”
“I got placed in Pucklechurch,” said Hannah. “It’s a small town of about a thousand people, way out to the east. It wasn’t anywhere on my dream list, and … I tried, really I did, but I wanted out.”
“I really don’t mean anything by it,” said Iri. “But I’d thought that you would get a better placement than that? You were always so enmeshed in the culture of the seminary.”
“Not in a good way,” said Hannah. “I ruffled too many feathers.”
“Ah,” said Iri. “I can see that.” She gave a contemplative look toward where the negotiation was ongoing. Several of the pieces had been pulled from the trunk, and the sand sculptures were shifting. “Do you think you’ll go back some day?”
“I don’t know,” said Hannah. “I thought so, once I was done with the dungeons, and I’m writin’ a book about what we’ve been doin’ there, how it reveals Garos, but … that might be a lost cause. Maybe after dungeons there’s something else. I don’t know how long I’ll do the dungeons either, though we’ve got a good haul here.”
“I might be asked to look at it, just to warn you,” said Iri. “Normally I do repairs, and Karla does the analysis, but she’s out today helping a grieving family.”
Hannah raised an eyebrow. It wasn’t her business, and it was impolite to pry, but tragedies were pretty rare, and when older people died, it was usually not cause to bring in as many people as possible. When Hannah had been in Plenarch, there were a hundred clerics of Qymmos, and there shouldn’t have been cause to bring in one who wasn’t normally doing clerical work.
“If you haven’t been around Plenarch, you might not have heard,” said Iri. “There have been some disappearances lately, six in total, we think, though it’s hard to say given the specifics. They’re not conventional disappearances, with people going off and never being heard from again, they’re something else. For some of them, people leave behind notes, for others, they just never show up at their destination. All over a handful of months, but it’s gotten to the point where there’s some serious work going into figuring out what’s going on.”
It was clear from this that Iri had been wanting to gossip, and raised the subject mostly because she wanted to talk about it.
“People leave notes?” asked Hannah. “How’s that a disappearance then?”
“The notes are cryptic,” said Iri. “Stuff like saying that they’re leaving on a journey, that they won’t ever be back, that they’re safe and happy but can’t say more.”
“And then the people just … disappear?” asked Hannah.
“Yes,” said Iri. “Sometimes taking things with them, other times not, sometimes with a note, other times without any word to anyone, just a shop cleared out with no explanation. And one of the disappearances was a whole family, carpenters, seven of them gone, from the grandchildren up to the elderly parents.”
“Ah,” said Hannah. “So when you said six, you meant more like a dozen people?”
“Something like that,” said Iri. “And now there was something in one of the broadsheets, and people are sending out letters to see whether their friends ever did make it to their destination, or whether there have been more of these disappearances than we’d thought. That’s where Karla went off to, to help with a family whose daughter never ended up at her destination.”
“Ah,” said Hannah. “And with the censusmasters, it would be hard for there to be some mistake about that.”
“She could be in some other hex, and it will take some time for word to go out through the whole province, but it would take quite a few things to go wrong for her to not show up and not tell anyone,” said Iri.
“Our bard ran away from home,” said Hannah. “Said she was leavin’, then left, not tellin’ her parents exactly where she was goin’.”
“That’s a cruel thing to do to your parents,” frowned Iri. “Home life, or just rebellious spirit?”
“Both, I think, though more the former than the latter,” said Hannah. “If she’d come to me for advice, I’d have plenty to offer, but she’s more a friend than a parishioner.”
“Ah,” said Iri. “Well, we don’t think these are cases of people just leaving Plenarch. The net is widening now, with the scope of the issue known, and there will be more going forward. Given how unusual it is, there’s been a lot of attention focused on it.”
“Mmm,” said Hannah. “I s’pose there would be. We’ll keep our eyes out, though our party has a chrononaut, so there are limits to how concerned I can be about random dangers. And if it’s a dozen people over the course of quite a while …” She trailed off. “It’s been good to catch up, but it seems that they’re comin’ to a conclusion.”
Talking about a public tragedy always felt a bit unseemly to Hannah, as though the interest was impure. She loved gossip, always had, but there was a time and place for gossip, and horrible things happening to someone else didn’t feel like they were a part of proper gossip. If some young girl had been killed, or had otherwise gone missing, that was horrible, and not the sort of thing that Hannah wanted to spend her day chattering on about. Perhaps it was just the way that people talked about bad things, as though someone else’s misfortune was the highlight of their day.
There were limits to how bad things could get, usually. There was at least a day’s warning for any major disaster, and most natural disasters could be averted in one way or another, with the exception of earthquakes. Hannah had once been a keen student of history, and knew how different their circumstances were than those of their forebears, and she wondered whether a bit of pain and hardship weren’t somewhat of a global problem for the people of the world. Sure, people broke bones, but they were knitted back together again, usually within the hour. Major storms were usually stopped in their tracks, or at least diverted around the large population centers by either entads or druids.
There were probably people who were talking at great length about these disappearances because they wanted to solve the problem, but there were lots of others who wanted nothing more than something disturbing to speak about.
Hannah had been wrong, and the negotiation actually did take a bit longer, largely between Jules and Isra, with little contribution from anyone else. It seemed to Hannah that Isra was a bit off her game, and for a moment, it felt like the whole thing was going to fall through, meaning a waste of a trip … but then Jules caved, and a handshake sealed the deal. All the back and forth was done in a single moment, and Hannah felt the tension drain out of her. It wasn’t as though they needed the money, not really, but it was a sizable sum. The offer had been for four hundred thousand by letter, and in person, with a review of what the party had, Isra had managed to get them an extra fifty thousand.
“Who do you bank with?” asked Jules. “It’ll take some doing to get that sum to you.”
“We have an account set up with Carliers Provincial Trust,” said Alfric.
“We do?” asked Isra.
“Yes,” nodded Alfric. “I set it up the day before.”
“I don’t understand,” said Isra.
“Oh boy,” said Alfric. “You mean, about banking in general?”
Isra nodded. “I know people keep money in banks.”
“We’ll get into it later,” said Alfric. “Jules, when will we be unloading? And where to?”
“Here, now,” said Jules. “It shouldn’t take long to get through the trunk, we have entads that are good for transfer.” She swept a hand to the yard. “Most of what you see here is the sort of thing that people like to come in for, but we do have extradimensional space for surplus or client requests.”
“Did you have a buyer lined up?” asked Isra.
“I’d prefer to have that conversation a bit later,” said Jules. “Or maybe not at all. If I did have a buyer, I wouldn’t want you to think that I’d bilked you out of profit by moving fast.”
“How much is the buyer offering?” asked Isra.
Jules sighed and waved her hand. “You agreed on the price, we shook hands, the deal is done. I’ll be taking my cut, you can be sure of that, but I’ll also be doing some refurbishing and installation, paying my own people, that sort of thing. If you’re going to be sore about it, best that you not know.”
Isra deflated slightly. “I just want to know. You were holding things back.”
“You’re good for your word?” asked Jules, looking at Isra, then Alfric.
“We are,” said Alfric. “And we’re new at this, still learning the ropes. If Isra can take you for more, she wants to know about it.”
Jules gave a little chuckle. “Still seems bad manners to me, telling someone your cut. But alright, it should be nine hundred thousand or so from the buyer. Now, that comes with some labor on my end, which will need to be paid out, the use of some tools, a good deal of time and effort to get that deal made — but on the other hand, some of the stuff I can’t use, so it will get sold on later unless I can make more deals.”
Isra frowned at that, then turned to Alfric. “We got into the wrong business. We should have been doing this.”
Jules laughed, and the moment seemed to pass.
The trunk was manhandled by some of the men who worked at the salvage place, and Alfric stood close by as they pulled out seats and panels.
“How are you?” Hannah asked Isra.
“I don’t enjoy negotiations,” said Isra. “I knew she was hiding something, but I didn’t want to press.”
“No worries,” said Hannah with a shrug. “Did you want to announce to the others over party chat? We got quite the sum. It’s good news. They’d want to know.”
<The sale is done,> said Isra. <Four hundred and fifty thousand rings. Alfric has proposed that we put half toward the group fund, then split the other half evenly.>
<I’m going to need to figure out how banks work,> said Mizuki. <Where are you guys, I’m pretty much done.>
<On the mainland,> said Hannah. <We’ll be crossing the main bridge soon, you can either wait there, or go there and then get more directions.>
<On my way,> said Mizuki.
<Congratulations,> said Verity. <Will you be coming home tonight?>
<Depends on how long unloading takes,> said Alfric. <They’re going fast, but it might be nightfall before we’re done. Still, we’re going back by knife, which should be instant, so unless they call it off, my guess is we’ll still make it.>
<I’m less sure,> said Hannah. <We’ll keep you updated.> She walked over to Alfric. “We still need to say our goodbyes to your aunt, and collect our things from her house.”
“We could split up and do that now,” Alfric frowned. “I have the sense that she wanted to talk with me some more, though we already had a second conversation this morning.”
“Well, ay,” said Hannah. “And not a conversation you want to have?”
“No,” said Alfric. “But one that might be necessary. Not as a condition for us staying, but … morally.”
“You were going to explain banks to me,” said Isra.
“I can handle this,” said Hannah. “Though I’ve never used a bank myself.”
Teaching Isra about banks took another hour or so of time, during which Mizuki flew in from the air, having apparently decided to fly around and figure out the location for herself rather than getting directions. Isra didn’t trust the idea of a bank, which Hannah thought was pretty sensible, but Hannah was eventually able to convince her that a bank was necessary for handling such a large sum of money. Going to the bank gave them one more thing to do though, and Hannah was skeptical that they’d be able to get back to Pucklechurch at a reasonable hour.
“I kind of want to stay an extra day,” said Mizuki. “Though I’m not sure there’s enough food for Verity.”
“She’s not a dog,” said Isra with a small giggle. “She can take care of herself.”
“Don’t you, um, miss her?” asked Mizuki.
“Very much so,” nodded Isra. “But she needs time to herself, to practice. She said to me that I was … a distraction. And she said it in a way that was a compliment, but I think also not.”
“Rude,” said Hannah. “Though she’s under some stress, I s’pose.”
“She is,” said Isra. “If she weren’t, I might have stayed with her.”
Hannah worried about that, since it seemed like a very early crack in the relationship, but these were extraordinary circumstances, what with the concert coming up. Verity was playing a massive theater on relatively short notice, thanks to the hard work of her mother and a fortuitous opening in the schedule. The sound of concert music came from the upstairs room more often than not. Still, Hannah didn’t like the idea of Verity calling Isra a distraction. It wasn’t her place to offer advice, so she held her tongue, but it did seem like the sort of thing that could be easily solved by the two girls having a longer, deeper conversation.
“Well, I had a bit of a day,” said Mizuki. “I got a sandwich from a local shop with little chunks of breaded shrimp and some kind of spicy sauce. It was almost aggressively sour, I think because it had pickled vegetables in it, but it was a good mix of flavors, and I might inflict my own attempt on you when we get home, substituting river shrimp.”
“You told us to never let you cook river shrimp again after last time,” said Hannah.
“Did I?” asked Mizuki. “Oh, because they’re tedious to clean?”
“Yes,” nodded Isra. “You were quite annoyed.”
“Ah, well, that’s true,” said Mizuki. “Maybe I’ll try it with chicken then.”
“If this is goin’ to take the rest of the day, we should think about what we’re havin’ for dinner,” said Hannah. She looked at Mizuki. “Was that all you did with your time? Ate a sandwich?”
“Er,” said Mizuki. “I mean, nothing else serious. I flew around, got told off by a guard woman with wings, then went to the wizard college and got offered free entry by some old wizard who had an interest in sorcery.”
“You really should have led with that,” said Hannah.
Mizuki shrugged and looked over at Alfric, who was still supervising the removal of things from the trunk. “I don’t know if I’m going to do anything about it. The dungeons come first. I did make two hundred rings though, which was pretty great.”
“You understand that your share of this sale comes to forty-five thousand rings?” asked Hannah.
“Well,” said Mizuki. “Yes.” She looked over at Alfric. “Let me be the one to tell him about me being a wizard? I’m not sure how he’s going to take it.”
“So you are plannin’ to do it?” asked Hannah.
“I don’t know,” said Mizuki. “Maybe. If I can fit it in. They prefer that people be there and not have other jobs that get in the way, which makes sense, but I don’t know how hard and fast of a rule that is. And Verity is doing those concerts anyway, which means that we probably have more downtime, more tightly scheduled dungeons.” She shrugged. “I don’t know,” she repeated.
“We’re not getting this done today,” said Alfric, who came jogging over. “We could, but Jules wants to go to the bank with me rather than giving me a letter of credit, and the workers usually kick off about now, so I guess it’s going to be done tomorrow morning. Hopefully that doesn’t cramp anyone’s plans. We can go individually, if we want, but there are some logistics to figure out with that.”
“I’m fine to stay,” said Mizuki. “I actually wanted to stay.” She seemed like she was about to say that she had wizard business, but held her tongue.
“I have shopping to do,” said Isra.
“More shopping?” asked Alfric.
“More,” nodded Isra. “Do you like the way I look?”
Alfric took a moment to look her over. She was in a different dress than the night before, red with tiny white stars on it, but she had the same wide hat, and had redone her makeup. She couldn’t be mistaken for a different person, but it was a rather dramatic change. “You mean do I think you look better, like this, with a dress and your hair free?”
“My hair isn’t free,” said Isra. “I have a hat.” She hesitated. “But yes, I want to know if it looks good.”
“It does,” said Alfric. “And yes, better, I would say, though — it goes without saying that it’s not functional in a dungeon.” Isra rolled her eyes, and Hannah thought that it might have been the first time Isra had ever done that. “Right, right.”
“You know, it’s a bit insulting to take such a long time to tell a girl she looks pretty,” said Mizuki.
“Is it?” asked Alfric. “I was just trying to make a judgment, to not just think ‘oh there’s Isra’ but to reflect on what I was seeing and what my feelings were.”
“Well if it’s me,” said Mizuki. “Then you need to not take such a long time.”
“Can I just say that I’m spending the time admiring you?” asked Alfric with a grin.
“There’s not a problem in this world that can’t be solved by honeyed words,” said Mizuki. “That’s how the guard got me down.”
“Got you down?” asked Alfric.
“Oh,” said Mizuki. “Um.”
The explanation of her run-in with the city guard took longer this time, and Alfric was left with a pronounced frown at the end of it.
“Well what’s a dragon going to do?” asked Mizuki. “Sneak up on me? They’re as large as buildings! And this one is supposed to be a big one, so … you get that it was just an excuse because someone complained, right? Someone who should have been minding their own business? The helmet is safe, it’s been checked by a cleric, and if there have been disappearances, I’m not particularly worried.”
“It’s more the principle of the thing,” said Alfric.
“If a guard tells you to do something, you would just do it?” asked Mizuki.
“Yes,” said Alfric.
“They’re just people,” said Mizuki. She put her hands on her hips. “I’m not against laws, but there wasn’t a law, it was just someone wanted me down because, I don’t know, they had nothing better going on in their life than bothering me.”
“Fine,” said Alfric. “I think it’s pretty clear that I won’t change your mind.”
“Excellent, you’re learning,” said Mizuki with a smile that didn’t quite cut through the disagreement.
It wasn’t long until Alfric headed to the bank with Jules. Hannah took her own path back to the house, electing to walk on her own, looking at the city and its bridges, thinking about her time in the seminary and how she’d ended up as a dungeoneer in the middle of nowhere. There was something sad about it in a way that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Maybe it was the lack of choice, though at least dungeons had been more of a choice than her placement. This was the second time she’d run into someone from her seminary days, and the second time there had been some expectation that she’d be something more than just a dungeon runner.
It took Hannah some time to reach the house, and she ended up being late for dinner, though it was a less formal and more scattered affair than the night before. Marsh contacted her in the evening, and they had a very long talk, one that lasted so long her voice felt worn out by the end of it. Marsh was a good listener, and a good boyfriend, and she almost made the mistake of not telling him that before they both went to sleep.
In the morning, Hannah woke up to a crisis. Kali had gone missing.
Comments
Ross Owen Qualls
Dun dun dun!
Topher
Oh no
