This Used To Be About Dungeons полностью

They ate together, with nothing from the two of them but murmurings about how good everything was. There was something to the sobyu that took a bit of getting used to, but everything in the bowl of noodles was quite fresh, and she enjoyed the contrast with the salty, sour sobyu, which was apparently a catchall term for something pickled. The meal was very light, by Hannah’s standards, the thin strips of pork not leaving much of an impression on her stomach, but the noodles were nice and chewy, and in no time at all, she was drinking from the bowl to get the last of the broth. She finished far before Mizuki, who seemed to be a bit of a slow eater.

While they’d been eating, two boys around their age sat down at a table near them. They seemed oblivious to their surroundings, but Hannah wasn’t oblivious to them, in part because they were wearing adventuring gear. Mizuki and Hannah had both cleaned up and dressed themselves in their usual outfits, which for Mizuki was culottes and a loose blouse, and for Hannah was trousers and a button-down shirt. The boys, by contrast, were wearing heavy clothes and clearly had a few entads between them, along with weapons kept at their sides: a hammer for the taller one with lighter skin, and a dagger for the shorter one with heavier armor. What drew Hannah’s eye the most was the sigil on the taller one’s chest, which was that of Oeyr, God of Emergence, and that either was a feature of entad armor or, more likely, marked him as a cleric.

She’d been listening in on their conversation as she ate.

“Well, it’s been going a bit slowly, that’s all I’m saying,” said the taller one.

“Josen lost an arm,” said the shorter one.

“Yeah, and obviously that’s not ideal,” said the taller one. “And I’m sorry that I couldn’t do much more for him, but it’s not like he had to go through his whole life without an arm, is it? He was out for barely a day.”

“I don’t think it was like that for him,” said the shorter one. Hannah was trying to peg him, and thought that maybe he was something. He had an air of magic about him. She couldn’t see magic like Mizuki, but there was a way that certain people carried themselves. “I think for him, it was probably the worst day of his entire life, and that’s saying something, this far in.”

“He got it back though,” said the cleric. He seemed like a stubborn sort. “And yes, I wish that I’d been able to reconnect it, but—”

“No one blames you for that,” said the other. He took a breath. “But he’s been talking about bowing out.”

The cleric let out a low groan. “Where are we going to find a fifth?”

“A wizard fifth, at that,” said the short one. “Or some other kind of offensive. But I think the better question is what she’s going to do when she finds out.”

“She’s harmless,” said the cleric. This had the feeling of a well-worn conversation between the two.

“She is absolutely not harmless,” said the small one. Hannah had, by this point, pegged them as both belonging to the party of this ‘Lola’ creature, and if she were an alienist, and the tall one was a cleric of Oeyr, and they had a wizard somewhere with an arm missing or reattached, then that really narrowed down what role the shorter boy could fill. Hannah was guessing that he was a bard. “Do you understand that she lies through her teeth about everything and does every day at least twice? She knows us, what makes us tick.”

“She’s really not that violent though,” said the cleric. “I mean, you’ve seen her, she doesn’t sink into it in the dungeons. It’s all the same stuff that he always argued about, rumors, things that, sure, maybe happened in undone days, but you have no way of actually knowing. And in my opinion, she just doesn’t have it in her.”

“Other stuff though,” said the probable-bard. “Manipulation? Digging for secrets? Flirtation?”

“That, yes,” admitted the cleric. “And maybe more than flirtation. Those rumors I take more seriously.”

“Would you ever?” asked the bard. “If she came to you?”

“Not something I want to talk about,” said the cleric.

“Because if you would, then there’s a chance she did,” said the bard.

“Oh, that was great!” said Mizuki, pushing forward her bowl, which was empty. She didn’t seem to be aware of the other conversation, which was going on not too far away, loud enough that the eavesdropping hadn’t presented any difficulties. Loud enough that Hannah didn’t feel too bad about violating the expectation of privacy, more to the point. “Were you serious about learning to make noodles? Because we’re not going to be in Liberfell all that long, and it would be best for you to learn what you can from these people, if they’re willing to teach us. We could get a few tips.”

“Those two boys over there,” said Hannah, speaking low and nodding her head in their direction. “Dungeoneers. Part of Lola’s party.”