“We do, actually,” said Mizuki. “We made out well on our first dungeon.”
“But we’ll be looking for a good deal,” said Isra. She gave Mizuki a frown, and Mizuki shut her mouth tight.
“Well, it’s about risk,” said Perrin, rubbing his stubble-covered chin.
“Risk for me, or risk for you. If I take the two eggs and try to hatch
them, I can take a gamble, or let
“If it is a breeding pair,” said Mizuki.
“It is,” said Isra.
“It is,” agreed Perrin, tapping the side of his head.
“Wait, do you know what kind of thing it is?” asked Mizuki. “From being beastmaster?”
“Nothing like that, but I do get sex, if it’s there,” he said. “And I’ve already seen these three listed, which are the same kind of creature, if you didn’t already know that.”
“We did,” said Isra, with a casual air.
“But it remains to see what they’re like, and whether they’ll grow,” he said. “So what I’ll propose is I take the male and the female, and you take the spare female, and we’ll call the first part of their life square, the labor and such paid for by that first clutch of eggs, if we get one. And that just leaves the incubator you want and the containment, which will depend on the particulars.”
“Let me see what you have,” said Isra. She turned to Mizuki. “I’d like to do this without you.”
“O-kay,” said Mizuki, frowning. She turned to Perrin. “She’s new to people. Don’t mind the offense.”
“I’ve been dealing with dungeoneers my whole life,” he said. “They’re usually a brash bunch, especially if they’re in the creature game, and they come into our community not having the slightest clue about who we are or how we do things. You can trust me to have a thick hide.” He gave Isra a quite unexpected fond look.
They went into the back area, leaving Mizuki alone. She was trying not to feel offended and somewhat failing. It was probably true that she shouldn’t have said that they had a lot of money to spare, but that was the kind of thing that just came out. It was friendly to say, wasn’t it? And if the old man saw something to like in Isra, then Mizuki decided that it was her job to keep her mouth closed and let the two of them get along. Maybe he was used to dealing with creatures that snipped and snapped.
She was waiting in the room with more of the common things when a girl came in through the door. She was obviously the adventuring sort, wearing a formfitting breastplate and greaves and with some kind of weapon at her hip, like a spear the length of her forearm. Aside from the metal, she wore black, including leather boots that showed a fair bit of wear and dirt from the road. Her hair was short, cut to just below her chin, and the tips of it were purple. Mizuki’s eyes were looking at her face when she spoke.
“Perrin’s in the back, is he?” the girl asked.
“Eyes,” said Mizuki, because the girl had brilliant purple eyes, brighter than eyes should be, almost like they were reflecting light that wasn’t there. She wore makeup, far more than seemed sensible for an adventurer, with a dark shade of lipstick and some smoky eyeshadow. She had darker skin, like Alfric.
“The name’s Lola, actually,” she said, holding out a hand.
“Mizuki,” said Mizuki, taking her hand. “Sorry, I’ve never met someone with purple eyes before.”
“That you know of,” said Lola with an impish smile.
“I… suppose,” said Mizuki, wondering whether there was a possibility that she’d met someone with purple eyes and simply not known about it. It seemed unlikely. She looked the other girl up and down. “You’re a dungeoneer?”
The other girl gave an energetic nod. “We’re only recently to Liberfell though, planning to station out of here for a month or so, maybe more, and hit up everything in a three-hex radius. You?”
“Uh,” said Mizuki. “I’m a dungeoneer too.”
“Well I knew that, silly,” said Lola, rolling her eyes. “The only other
option was that you were here to buy some spotted toads, but you
“Just a day in Liberfell,” said Mizuki. “We’re… out of Pucklechurch, I guess.”
Lola nodded. “I haven’t been, but I’ve heard it’s such a
“We had, um, bad variance,” said Mizuki. She had known a fair number of people who had been in dungeons in some capacity or the other, but ‘dungeoneer’ as a title seemed to imply something else entirely, not just doing a small handful of close dungeons with some friends, which occasionally happened in Pucklechurch, but someone who was going to devote their life to it for as long as they could. “Good loot.”
“Ooo, what did you get?” asked Lola. “Something good?”
“My f-friend Isra,” said Mizuki, “she got a bow that slows down time. We got a book too, for storage, and it can tell you a bit about items.”
