This Used To Be About Dungeons полностью

They came out in farmland, then immediately used the warp to go to the warp point. Alfric went last after making sure that neither of them had any problems. This, at least, was a proper warp point, one that had a building around it, though there was no attendant to make sure the area was clear nor any security of any kind. There was a chair for an attendant though, which was something. Alfric stepped off quickly, his legs aching from carrying the wardrobe, and moved to the door once he’d made sure that Verity and Hannah were both safe and sound.

The Dragon’s Arm Hotel was one of the larger buildings in Liberfell and easy to find given that it had a sculpted dragon sticking out from the side of the building.

“Hot food, hot bath, warm bed,” said Alfric. He had almost all his money with him and kept his hand at his side, something he hadn’t felt compelled to do in Pucklechurch. Liberfell was perhaps half again as large as Tarchwood, but it had much more than twice the feeling of being in an actual city. There had been other reasons to go to Tarchwood, mostly to scope it out as a location for a future dungeon run and its location on the huge lake, but Liberfell was the bigger of the two, and Alfric wondered whether he’d find better or worse prices on both the entads and ectads. It was a city built on a hill, with a river winding its way in the valley below. A portion of the city was nestled against the water, a hub for river shipping. Grains and textiles were loaded onto rafts and flat-bottomed boats to be sent elsewhere, eventually ending up in another city on the coast of the ocean, more than two hundred miles away. The streets were brickwork, mostly flat and easy to walk on when compared with the roots and ruts of Traeg’s Knob, and the air had a different smell to it, that of industries and cooking fires. It was still nothing like Dondrian, but it was closer than Alfric had been in quite a while.

Once they’d gotten into the hotel, it was easy enough to identify themselves and get their keys from the man behind the front desk. Verity requested food be brought up and paid immediately. They were on the fourth floor, as Mizuki had apparently sprung for a suite, one that the five of them were going to share for the night. It seemed a bit extravagant to Alfric, and he hoped that he wouldn’t have to pay out too much, even if they weren’t terribly worried about money at the moment. The stairs were murder on his aching legs, and he collapsed into one of the beds before reluctantly removing his equipment and the pieces of armor he’d still been wearing. Verity was running a bath in one of the suite’s two bathrooms, and Hannah was busy in the other, taking a quick shower.

It had been a good day, if a long one and not quite done. The team was coming together. There was a good chance they’d at least stay together for the next five dungeons, the ones surrounding Pucklechurch, and they just needed to be a bit lucky in what they found for it to be easy to make the case for what came next. Travel time was the biggest barrier, but the wardrobe would help with that, especially if Alfric could find something that would let them transport it.

There was a bit of party chat over the course of all this, reporting of locations and things like that, and Alfric mostly ignored it. You couldn’t turn party chat off, but you could sleep through it, if you trained yourself in it, and Alfric nearly napped while he waited for his turn in one of the bathrooms.

But then Isra and Mizuki returned to the hotel, with their own things to report, and Mizuki had news about what they’d been up to.

“You’re not in a guild, are you?” asked Mizuki as they walked away from the warp point. “I guess I assumed you weren’t, but I don’t actually know.”

“I am not,” said Isra.

“Well, I am,” said Mizuki. “Sorcerers are notoriously territorial, given there’s a limited amount of magic floating around and limited jobs for us to do, so we tend to guild up in order to make sure we’re not stepping on each other’s toes. It also helps with finding work, if there’s something that needs more than one of us, or a job the other is passing on, or something like that. It’s a small guild, very local, only about twenty, but I’m in it.”

“I see,” said Isra, but Mizuki wasn’t sure she did.

“Anyway, there’s a pair of sisters who are sorcerers out of Liberfell, and we’re in their territory. I sent out a message to the guild, just to let them know I was on my way, and got back an invite for breakfast with them tomorrow,” said Mizuki. “I’d also sent a different message asking about a woods witch, and they said they’d be in touch with her. I didn’t say anything about your situation, since I didn’t know, you know? But if you wanted to come to the breakfast, which’ll be tomorrow morning, maybe you could get some answers, or at least have an introduction made.”

“That would be good,” said Isra. “Thank you.”