This Used To Be About Dungeons полностью

“I suppose someday we’ll retire from the adventuring life,” said Mizuki. “And then we won’t have cause to see each other.” She rubbed her chin. “But not until then.”

“Sorry, Alfric,” said Hannah, “but do you really want to try to bring a tree into that garden? That would mean cuttin’ down a tree, which as you’ve said, we’re not much equipped for.”

“Mizuki?” asked Alfric.

“I said I wasn’t going naked,” she replied, putting her hands on her hips.

“I want you to chop down a tree for me,” he said. “Do you think you can do that?”

Mizuki rubbed the back of her neck with her hand. “I… guess? When Verity charged me up, I sucked the aether flat, so I’m not sure there’s much left or how fast it will flow back.” She looked over at Hannah. “How are you doing for juice?”

“I’m a cleric,” said Hannah, rolling her eyes. “My connection to godliness is not about ‘juice’. It’s about whether and how much I comport with the will of my god, and how much I try to stretch things out of sorts. And in that respect, it may take some time for Garos to see my devotion to him in the proper light.”

“You’re out of juice,” said Mizuki, nodding.

Hannah sighed. “To do somethin’ like I did with that bear, a hex of that nature, marks me as a bad cleric, at least in the short term,” said Hannah. This was a contentious position within the clergy, but the good thing about talking to laity was that they weren’t in a position to argue, not that Hannah had ever backed down from argument. “Minor wounds, scratches and the like, I can still manage, and maybe I could do a broken bone or two, if they were very minor, like the break Alfric had to his arm, but if you need me to fuel somethin’ for you, then no, I probably can’t.”

Alfric and Mizuki set off to the room with the trees, with Alfric carrying the rock using both hands, while Hannah stayed back, ostensibly to get things ready but mostly because she wanted a rest. Isra and Verity were in quiet conversation with each other, and Hannah didn’t want to disturb them, especially since they were the two quiet ones and seemed to be getting along.

Her part in attacking the bear had put a strain on her relationship to Garos. She had felt it when she laid hands on the bear, that it wasn’t quite right, and she’d done it anyway. The problem was that Garos was about patterns, and trying to reflect a wound of that size and irregularity, especially on a creature of such scale, and one that wasn’t terribly symmetrical to begin with, just didn’t have the feeling of completing a pattern, not to Garos.

What Garos liked was nudging something into symmetry, and saying that he ‘liked’ it was probably an understatement. Nudges were so easy that they happened without needing all that much effort or will. If you had a grid of sixty-four pebbles and just one of them was a bit out of alignment, well, that was simplicity itself to get it to conform. Acolytes did that as a training exercise. But those same sixty-four pebbles, all in a cluster together, couldn’t be put into that same grid without serious pulling on the godly connection, and if you pulled too much, Garos might let go of the rope.

Hannah wasn’t worried about her clerical connection. She knew Garos, understood Garos, better than most of his clerics, and while she’d made a big ask, any weakness of the bond was just temporary. She still had her lesser powers, though she’d use them sparingly for the rest of the day. Taking the arm from the monster covered with clams hadn’t been so much of a strain, because the asymmetry was more clear. Who liked a monster with only one arm? The trick, the way to model it in her head, was not to think of it as a missing arm, but only a line of damage, and that had made things smoother. But with the bear, it had been such irregular damage over such a wide area.

Hannah clucked her tongue. The party was more or less safe, so she’d done her part. Whatever trauma Verity had suffered, it was magical in nature and seemed to be temporary, with their bard now returned to high spirits. And though she and Alfric had been banged around, and too much of that wasn’t good for you, they both still seemed to have their wits about them. A cleric of Qymmos could check them over easily enough, just to be sure, ideally one in Liberfell, but she wasn’t terribly worried. It was the people who refused treatment you had to worry about, and Alfric seemed more sensible than that. He was a good lad, if a bit too focused on the dungeons.

Hannah went to go sit beside Verity and Isra, who had been chattering away about, if Hannah understood correctly, pickles.

“So, girls,” said Hannah. “Another dungeon done.”

“Or mostly done,” said Verity, nodding. She stretched out her legs. “I’m quite hungry, but nothing we packed seems like it suits me.”