It was an open question why the Editors had done as they’d done. The
actual thought that went into the Editing was enormously complex, beyond
the ken of a young cleric, but some of the effects that Editors of ages
past had placed upon the world certainly had to be the result of
whatever unknown limitations they were working under. The hexes were
certainly one of those places where limitations seemed most obvious,
because the positions of the warp points were, most of the time,
somewhat inconvenient. Hannah knew, of course, that hexagons could be
used to tile a plane, that was fundamental knowledge for any cleric of
Garos, but the world wasn’t a plane, it was a globe, and the
hexagons were imperfect (and there were, in theory, pentagons
somewhere). Given that they couldn’t have perfection, it seemed to
Hannah that they should have gone in the direction of Oeyr, and simply
made the hexes around cities. The math of it was a bit beyond her, but
it seemed like it would have been better. But no, the answer was
probably that the Editors were working under some unknown constraints
that explained why they’d done things as they did. Or, possibly, they’d
made a mistake: that was true of the dungeons, probably, given how
dangerous they were.
The party chat was a different thing altogether. It was, obviously, good
to be able to have parties, which came with many benefits, and it was
good to be able to talk to one another without needing to worry about
how far apart you were. But the question that had literally kept Hannah
up at night on multiple occasions was why there was no way to turn the
thing off.
said Alfric. His voice reverberated in her head, and Hannah
got a distinctly unpleasant sensation while watching his lips, which
weren’t making any real sound. People always sounded different in the
channel, which had something to do with the way it stole the words from
your lips and made them available to others. From what Hannah had read,
people sounded more like they sounded to themselves. Alfric’s voice was
rich and mellow and still fairly deep.
replied Hannah.
asked Isra, who was the only one who wasn’t in the house with
them.
said Mizuki.
said Alfric.
replied Hannah.
asked Mizuki.
know that they’re napping?>
said Alfric.
Mizuki guiltily raised her hand.
said Alfric.
came Isra’s disembodied voice.
said Mizuki.
said Alfric.
said Mizuki.
said Hannah.
said Alfric.
asked Mizuki.
said Verity.
said Alfric.
said Hannah. Some people had trouble with
that. Mizuki was the obvious contender, but she had sweet kind of
annoyingness to her, a little-sister quality. It seemed more likely that
someone else would get on their collective nerves without even realizing
it.
said Isra, and that, at least, had a note of finality.
“I kind of wanted to play with it more,” said Mizuki. Besides Isra, they
were all sitting in the dining room together, with the remains of their
lunch in front of them. “It’s been a bit.”
“Well, it’s not for playin’ with,” said Hannah. “Though I suppose it
might have been good to set aside some time for it, to get it out of
your system. That’s what they do for the fresh little acolytes.”
“You know I’m the oldest one here, right?” asked Mizuki. “And I have
been in a party before, it’s just been a few years.”
“So long as we’re not using the channel to do music,” said Verity with a
sigh. “I have nightmares of playing with a quintet and having the people
sitting next to me talking into my ear while I’m trying to play.”
“Actual nightmares?” asked Mizuki.
Verity nodded. “There was a lot of pressure. It’s part of why I live
here now. There’s no one at the Fig and Gristle that pushes me to do
more, or do better, or sing differently, or add more effects. Everything
is on my own terms.”
“I can see why you didn’t want to do dungeons,” said Mizuki. “I mean,
also the risk of being killed.”
