“’Course I am,” replied Hannah. “I heard from Bethany that you’d been
askin’ around, and I thought for sure that you would want me, so I
cleared everythin’ yesterday, not that there’s too much work to split
between Lemmel and me in the first place. I’ve been waitin’ on
tenterhooks for you to swing by, if you were goin’ to, because I went by
your room at the Angry Plum this mornin’ at first light, the one Bethany
said you were in, only you had gone out, and I didn’t know where to. And
“Er, yes,” said Alfric. “I’ll be point man, but I have some armor that I’ll be wearing, a cuirass and greaves, plus a helm, though they’re back at my room.”
“And everyone is second elevation, ay?” asked Hannah. “I’ve heard you can do one up or one down, but it’s more dangerous that way, and by the time I got to the censusmaster last night she had closed down and seemed a bit cross with me, for no good reason other than it was so late.” She paused and knit her brow. “Sixth bell, are we eating before or after? I can see it both ways.”
“After,” said Alfric. “It’s better not to go into a dungeon with a full
stomach. Sorry, but have you
“Of course, who do you take me for?” asked Hannah. “I’m a cleric of Garos, we don’t like to leave danglin’ threads, for it is said, ‘Let those who shirk their endings be beset by the costs of continuance’, the Book of Garam Ashar, section eight, verse six.” She gave a small bow on finishing.
“All right,” said Alfric. “Then all we need is to go get our bard.”
“And add me to the party,” said Hannah with a nod.
“There’s not a party yet,” said Alfric. “We can do it now though, if you’d like.”
“Better soon than late, so it is said,” replied Hannah.
Alfric didn’t have a bag like the girls did, but he had folded up the instructions for the spell in his pocket, which he produced and smoothed out. “All right,” he said. “We just need to do this at the same time. There’s a phonic and a cheremic component. Have either of you been in a party before?”
“We had a family party,” said Mizuki. “Me, my mom and dad, and my two
sisters. About a year after they left, my youngest sister was born, and
the party channel was getting a lot of use for things that I didn’t care
much about, so.” She shrugged. “Hard to get a toddler to do the spell,
but not
“I had two different family parties, one with Ma and Da, then another with some cousins, and then another few in the seminary,” said Hannah. “It was a lot of drama, if you ask me, people always wantin’ in or out of the parties, and the guilds weren’t much better, but there’s not much to be done about that. I tried to stick to the ones people made for studyin’, but there were always people usin’ the channel for other things, parties and such, flirtin’, and someone drunk on the channel tellin’ you their every thought isn’t too fun when you’re trying to sleep, let me tell you, ay? This’ll make seven for me, I think.”
“Just curious,” said Alfric, making a mental note that Hannah talked at length without much prompting or pause for breath. “Ready?” He got some nods. “Starting now.”
The finger positioning didn’t need to be terribly precise and neither did the words, which was good, because they were all slightly off from each other. Once it was finished, a glowing blue triangle appeared with each of them as one of the vertices. It faded quickly.
“Anything either of you need done before we get goin’?” asked Hannah. “Minor cuts and scrapes, bruisin’ that needs fixin’, cosmetics, things like that, ay?”
“No, I’m fine,” said Alfric.
“I’ve got a burn on my forearm,” said Mizuki, twisting her arm around. “Can you heal it?”
“Castin’ fireballs, were we?” asked Hannah, coming over to inspect the wound.
“Cooking,” replied Mizuki with a roll of her eyes.
Hannah touched Mizuki lightly, placing the burn in the span between her thumb and forefinger. She pressed against the skin and blew lightly on the wound. Within a second, it had faded away to nothing.
“Neat,” said Mizuki. “Thank you.”
“Just try not to break any bones,” said Hannah. “I can’t do much about that yet, not with regularity. And don’t lose too much blood either.”
“We’ll do our best,” said Alfric.
“This is all pretty fast, isn’t it?” asked Verity after she’d joined the party. Once the party was established, anyone else could join by doing the spell with someone who was a member, and Mizuki had volunteered to be the one to do it, because she felt the fingering technique of the others was ‘atrocious’. This time, the blue glow of lines formed a diamond among the four of them, briefly lighting up the Fig and Gristle.
“It is fast. Big-city energy,” said Mizuki, as though that explained anything.
