“Trail food isn’t the best,” said Hannah, nodding. “Perhaps once we’re in Liberfell, we can look at gettin’ somethin’ like a magical spoon that’ll make whatever meal you want.” That was wishful thinking, because it was likely to be far too expensive. “I suppose if I’ve got a list of what I’m after, it’s for somethin’ that would make food.”
“I want a hot meal,” said Verity with a sigh. “If you could just lift a cloche up and find something waiting for you.”
“Food replacement is rare, ay,” said Hannah. “And a good thing too, or what would the farmers end up doing?”
“My family had two of them,” said Verity. “Mostly for emergencies, though. Entads, not farmers.”
Hannah whistled. “Must have cost them a fair few rings.”
“I suppose I don’t know,” said Verity.
“You were sayin’ about pickles?” asked Hannah, looking over at Isra.
“I packed some,” she said with a shrug. “In the book.”
“I do love a pickle, if you don’t mind?” asked Hannah. She got up and went over to where the book was sitting. “They’re a traditional food.”
“I brought them to share,” said Isra. “They’re traditional for my people too.”
“I think they’re traditional for all people, aren’t they?” asked Verity. “Anywhere you need to preserve things.”
“Oh, I’ve no idea,” said Hannah as she leafed through the pages. The book was quite a good entad, but it did take some time to find what you were searching for, and more time to extract it. Alfric had already talked about replacing it, but he seemed to know there was no sense in that, not at this point. “We’ll have to ask Mizuki what they do in Kiromo. I know sobyu, but I don’t know if they do anythin’ with a cucumber, which is, to my mind, the pickle people mean when they talk about pickles.”
But at that moment, as Hannah was extracting a pickle from the crock, Mizuki returned, looking quite pleased with herself. Alfric trailed behind her, lugging the rock.
“We felled not one but
“I’m skeptical,” said Alfric. “It might be that they’re just stuck in there. I didn’t want to try getting them out in case they got stuck, and we’re going to have to find a nice, flat field or a large yard.”
“And also,” said Mizuki, holding out her hands. “Eggs.” She held three eggs, one of them a speckled blue, one brown, and one white.
“She worked hard to get them,” Alfric said. “But we don’t have a way to safely remove them.”
“Just put them in the book,” said Mizuki, nodding in Hannah’s direction. Hannah got the sense this was a conversation they’d already had together. “Ooo, are those pickles for everyone?”
“They are,” said Isra. “It won’t work to put the eggs in the book. Eggs need air.”
“What?” asked Mizuki. “That’s not—they’re eggs. Self-contained.”
“No,” said Isra.
“What do you mean no?” asked Mizuki. “You’re telling me that eggs breathe somehow, despite not having a mouth?”
“They do,” said Isra.
“Well that’s…” said Mizuki. “How do you know?”
“I’m a woods witch, apparently,” said Isra, her voice level.
“I think she’s right,” said Hannah. “For what it’s worth. And if we had a ventstone, we could put that in with the eggs to keep them breathing, but—”
“I don’t think that would work,” said Alfric. “Pressure would build up until equilibrium, but then the air would be fouled from the breathing, and the ventstone would be doing nothing.”
Hannah frowned. “So you’re sayin’ a ventstone
“Yes,” said Alfric. “And yes, it would be quite expensive.” He looked to Isra. “Can you tell what these eggs would need to hatch?”
“Yes,” said Isra. She didn’t elaborate further. “I don’t think they’re dangerous or hatching soon.”
“They were in a nest up in one of the trees,” said Mizuki. “That means that it’s a bird of some kind, I think, but there was no sign of any actual animal.” Looking now, Hannah could see the scratches from Mizuki’s climb. “But if we don’t know what they need, or if Isra thinks that they’ll hatch into something bad, then at least we can have an omelet.”
Alfric sighed. “We’re really just not equipped for dungeon eggs.”
“You really think that eggs breathe somehow?” asked Mizuki, holding one of the eggs up. She was holding the other two in one hand, and Hannah thought that of the whole party, Mizuki was perhaps the one she trusted least with eggs.
“When you smoke an egg, the smoke goes through the shell,” said Isra. “They do need to breathe.”
“Sorry,” said Hannah, “when you
“A hard-boiled egg,” said Isra. She had her arms crossed and dropped them a bit. “Smoked, for flavor.”
“That sounds delicious,” said Hannah. “Absolutely delicious.”
“I will make one for you sometime,” said Isra, nodding. She walked over to Mizuki and touched each of the eggs in turn. “It’s hard to tell what creature these are. All the same sort, I think. Not particularly dangerous though. None have the same,” she shook her head, “the same anger of the dungeon monsters.”
