“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Alfric, nodding. “It’s appreciated.”
After what seemed like far too short a time for it to be good news, Mizuki returned.
“She’s not interested,” said Mizuki with a shrug. “So cross that one off your list. Seems a shame, she was cute.”
“What did you say to her?” asked Alfric, frowning at Isra, who had moved over to the next stall, her backpack considerably less full.
“I gave her the pitch, like I said I would,” replied Mizuki. “She gave a pretty firm no.” She shrugged again. “Can’t force people into a dungeon, you know? I don’t know if that’s a rule in the city.”
“I’m going to speak with her,” said Alfric, walking away before Mizuki could add more commentary.
“Good luck!” Mizuki called after him.
Alfric approached Isra from the side and waited while she engaged in her
negotiations over her furs. He tried to project polite patience, but
patience had never been his strong suit. On closer inspection, he could
see Isra’s many piercings, all of them apparently gold, which seemed
unusual for a ranger. Her head covering wasn’t really a scarf, as he’d
thought before, but a single piece that had been made for that purpose.
Like Mizuki and Alfric himself, she was clearly not from the area, with
skin the color of mahogany, a rich ocher, and beyond that, a wider nose
and thicker lips. Alfric’s people had originally come to what was now
Inter from Tarbin, to the east, but that had been five hundred years
ago, and they had kept almost nothing of the culture. Isra seemed a much
more recent arrival. Isra herself didn’t seem cute to Alfric at
all—there was something too stern about her. She was
Once the transaction was completed, and her furs off-loaded, Isra turned to Alfric. “Yes?” she asked.
“We’re putting together a party for a dungeon run,” said Alfric. “It’s a half day’s work for better returns than you’re likely to get anywhere else, one-fifth share. No other obligation.”
“When?” asked Isra.
“Today is possible, but first light tomorrow is more likely,” said Alfric, though Verity apparently didn’t rise until fourth bell, so that might have been too optimistic.
“How much will we make?” she asked.
“It’s hard to say,” said Alfric. “As a reasonable bottom end, four hundred rings, divided five ways, but that’s after everything has been sold, which could take some time.”
“And the magic items we want to keep?” asked Isra, eyes narrowed.
“My plan was to have us bid with parts of our share,” said Alfric. “If you bid a third of your share and take the bid, then if we bring in four hundred rings after sales, you would get,” he paused, working it out, “fifty-four and everyone else would get eighty-six.”
“I want first pick,” said Isra.
“We’d be bidding,” said Alfric. “First bid?”
“I want to win equal bids,” she said.
“Deal,” said Alfric, though it was more than he’d wanted to give. If she had first bid, he could have just had her start and not mentioned it to the others. Having her win equal bids would be difficult to explain and wasn’t the best start to a working relationship, but sometimes these kinds of concessions were needed.
“I’ll be in town until sixth bell,” said Isra. “When sixth bell comes, I’ll wait by the warp point. If you’re not there, I’ll assume we’re doing it tomorrow and meet you there around first bell. If it’s not one of those two times, I’m not doing it.”
“Okay,” said Alfric. “Sounds good.” But it was really a lot of time pressure, and meant that he was going to have trouble getting everything together, especially since they still needed the cleric.
With their business concluded, Isra turned away from him and continued on to the next stall.
“How’d it go?” asked Mizuki, appearing next to him.
“She’s in,” said Alfric. “That means that we only need Hannah, the cleric, but she was the one I was most worried about.” And if they didn’t get Hannah, then it would be down to second choices, and Isra was apparently not going to go into the dungeon at all unless it was quite soon.
The temple at Pucklechurch was an old one, perhaps the oldest building in the town. It was four stories tall, though only in its center, which had a high, vaulted ceiling that took up almost all of what would have been the upper floors. It was divided into sixths, with each of the gods having their own statue and, behind the statue, a set of rooms for smaller services, for private talks, and for the clerics to live. Alfric was pretty sure it was too large a building for a town like Pucklechurch to warrant, and he’d already heard from the woman at the general store that it housed only six clerics.
