This Used To Be About Dungeons полностью

“Moving on,” said Alfric. “Isra, do you think you would be able to use your abilities in a dungeon? Most commonly, from what I know, a druid would bring in a single well-trained animal. Something large, like a cougar or a bear.”

“I don’t think a bear would want to go into a dungeon,” said Isra.

“A bird then, to start with?” asked Alfric. “Something that would help us to scout?”

“It seems dangerous for the bird,” said Isra.

“And you wouldn’t put a bird in danger?” asked Alfric. “Not to potentially save our lives?”

“Wait,” said Mizuki, “is now the time to talk about how doing that dungeon was completely unlike fighting three raccoons?”

“Och, not what I said, was it?” asked Hannah. “What I said was that each monster was like fightin’ three raccoons. Obviously there’ll be more than one monster in the dungeon, ay?”

“Well,” said Mizuki, “it was also unlike fighting a couple of sets of raccoons in a row.”

“Have you fought many raccoons?” asked Isra.

“What?” asked Mizuki. “No, not at all.”

“So you’re only guessing?” asked Isra.

“I’m not even the one who started in with all this three raccoons business!” Mizuki exclaimed.

“Well, if you’re askin’, no, I don’t think whoever came up with the three raccoons comparison had ever actually fought three of ’em,” said Hannah. “But stranger things, ay?”

“The primary risk with dungeoneering is that you’ll run into something atypical,” said Alfric. “There’s a principle called variance, and much of what you do when planning for a dungeon is to minimize variance as much as possible and plan for it as best you can. The Pucklechurch dungeon was on the upper side of normal, maybe even the high upper side of normal. It might have been the specific conditions, or it might have been us, or it might have been random chance. Either way, we’ll go into the next dungeon planning for it to be just as difficult, if not more so, and then when it’s easier, we can be happy about it. I do want to point out that I was the only one who got hurt, and that I’m shouldering most of the risk.”

“But to be clear,” said Verity. “You could have died in that first dungeon.”

“Yes,” said Alfric, not wanting to weasel about. “I could have died. We all could have died, though it would have taken a spectacular bit of bad luck for that to happen. At the end, when we were fighting that final creature, I wasn’t sure that we would win, and before Isra stepped in, I was debating calling a retreat. Something like that, where we’re forced to back our way out of the dungeon and leave everything of value behind, is a much more likely bad outcome.”

“I’d have healed him back from far, far worse than he got,” said Hannah. “I won’t go into it,” she nodded to Mizuki, “but so long as it doesn’t cross the midline,” she pointed to her sternum, “there’s a fair bit I can deal with. Even across the midline, there’s all kinds of help I can be, and if Garos can’t provide, there’s other healin’ to be had, for the extent of the universe is not symmetrical, so it is said. Things I couldn’t handle, I could handle well enough that you wouldn’t die then and there. Mostly major muscles, the guts, or broken bones if they’re broken badly.”

“I don’t think that I’ll bring an animal into the dungeons,” said Isra, who seemed to have been stewing on the question. “It doesn’t feel fair to me.”

“It’s not necessary,” said Alfric. “With your bow being as good as it is, I’m hoping that we’re well on our way to outpacing the dungeons.”

“Meaning?” asked Verity with a frown.

“Elevation makes the dungeons harder,” said Hannah. “Goin’ by what Alfric said, we were all second elevation, ay? But after the dungeon, perhaps not.”

“We should all still be second,” said Alfric. “Unless someone was right at the cusp and got taken over it. Checking with the censusmaster is on my agenda.”

“His agenda,” said Mizuki, who wasn’t quite able to hold in her smile.

Alfric looked at her. She seemed to take some joy in teasing him, which he didn’t think was right to begrudge her. It was nice to see someone smile, at least, even if it was at his expense.

“Housing for myself,” he said, holding up a finger. “Working out travel and dungeoneering expenses, commissioning a local to make or adapt more pieces of armor, getting a better lay of the town, making contacts with the other clerics, sending off a letter to the arm of the local League office to notify them we have a party… There are probably some others, but I have a list.”

“A list!” giggled Mizuki.

“It goes next to my other lists,” said Alfric. “Like the list I use in the morning to figure out which sock goes on first.”

“Hey!” she said. “That was pretty good. Solid effort.”

Alfric gave her a grin.

“Well, I’ll come with you to see the clerics,” said Hannah. “And maybe look over the letter you’re sendin’, if you don’t mind.”