This Used To Be About Dungeons полностью

“The world takes on a part of you, and you take on a part of the world,” said Dom. “That applies just the same to the dungeons. The better you are at extending your being into the world, the better the world will be at extending itself into you. It’s something you’ll want to be careful with. Close yourself off to the world when you go into a dungeon. Practice closing yourself off to the world, so that you can’t hear the birds or the clouds.”

“It’s dangerous,” said Isra. “In dungeons. For me more than others.”

“A bit,” said Dom. “Worth it for your team though. You’ll know what’s good to eat and what’s not, what can be taken, hides that can be skinned, plants that might bear fruit. You’ll know stones that can be grabbed and processed for ectads.” She shrugged. “We’re in demand. Join the guild. We can do it now.”

Dom had a well-worn piece of paper with the instructions written on it, and they went through the motions together, and the invitation was extended and confirmed. It wouldn’t be until tomorrow morning that the vote went out, and the day after that when Isra got her first message. She was nervous about it.

“We’ll help you as best we can. You’re unusual, as far as druids go, but you’re still a druid, and we have certain ways of looking at the world.” Dom stood up once again. “It was good to meet you, baby druid, even if you’re not so much a baby as we usually get.”

“It was good to meet you too,” said Isra, though she was feeling like a stone had been dropped into her stomach.

When she’d been told that she was a druid, it had felt as if everything was going to slot into place, as if this would explain everything. It had, in a way, but only in one way, and now, looking at Dom, seeing a fairly normal person and being told that she was unusual by the standards of druids and wasn’t expected to fit in with them… well, the stone-in-the-stomach feeling wasn’t going away. If anything, it was getting worse.

Knowing that Lola was around in Liberfell put a bit of fear into Alfric.

Being the only chrononaut made things simple. It was only him, and it was always the first time the day had been done. With a second chrononaut, he was put in the position of everyone else, which he had never found himself enjoying. Was this the first time through? Was it going to be wiped away like chalk washed from a slate, living on only in the mind of someone else? Or was he going to be blindsided by something that had happened in an undone day? He trusted the people in his family to tell him if they had some kind of interaction with him, since they did that on a regular basis, but with Lola, there was the opposite of trust. She was almost solely responsible for everything bad that had happened to him. She was every bad thing they said about chrononauts.

They were still, in some technical sense, pacted. Alfric had gone to his parents and explained things, then gone to her parents and explained things, and this was taken to be a temporary spat between the two of them, as much as he’d said that he wanted nothing to do with her. He was never going to marry her or have children with her. To have children, his children, be raised by her seemed unconscionable.

In quiet moments, when he was feeling the pain of her departure, he wished that she would somehow die. He didn’t wish violence on her and of course had no intention of taking offensive action against her, but if she could just… not exist anymore. He felt guilty for these thoughts, but that didn’t stop them from coming.

Chrononauts interacted with each other on a system of priority, and Lola had come into her power first, by quite a few years, despite them being the same age. This meant that she got to live the day “first” in some technical sense, but it also meant that he could respond to whatever it was she ended up doing. Overall, he wasn’t certain which position he would prefer to be in, because there were advantages of either. That was the way it was though, and Alfric knew there was no choice but to live out the day and not think too much about what might be happening with the flow of time.

“The hotel lobby has pastries,” said Hannah. “That’s a good enough breakfast for me, if it suits the two of you.”

“I don’t think I’ll have breakfast,” said Alfric.

“Me neither,” said Verity. She had gotten up late, as predicted, but not as late as she normally did. “My stomach still isn’t quite used to it, even with almost a week of having Mizuki cook for me.”

“Well, I can eat as we walk then,” said Hannah. “We’ve things to sell today and a trip to the local League office.”

“We need to get the wardrobe back to Pucklechurch,” said Alfric. A thought occurred to him. “Better to get it back sooner than later.”

“You’re still worried about it getting stolen, are you?” asked Hannah.

“I’m worried that Lola knows about it,” said Alfric. “And if she knows about it, then yes, there’s a possibility that she’ll steal it from us.”