“Try stepping up onto me,” said Alfric. “Step on my foot?” He couldn’t see her, and it felt as though he was in another place, but he was still between worlds. He felt the pressure on his foot, then Mizuki appeared there, in the garden.
“I can see,” she said. “Do I just… step off?”
“Probably,” said Alfric. “Try to step into the garden, if you can.”
Mizuki stepped off Alfric. As she did, she disappeared from his view of the garden, and when he released the stone, he saw her standing there in the park beside him.
“Well shoot,” said Mizuki. “That didn’t do what we wanted.”
“Let’s try again,” said Alfric. “I’m going to actually hold you this time and release you.”
“Okay,” Mizuki said with a shrug.
There was some unavoidable awkwardness with picking her up, namely in terms of where to place his hands. Eventually he was holding her in both hands, one under her knees and the other under her back. She was lighter than he’d been expecting. She wrapped her arms around his neck to give herself a bit more support.
“Now I just need to touch the stone,” said Alfric. He look down at it and sighed. “Shoot.”
“Here, I’ll lift it up,” said Hannah. She went over to the stone and hefted it up for Alfric to touch, which didn’t actually help matters all that much. The stone appeared, in the garden, to be floating in the air. Alfric touched it, and Mizuki hopped down. She was still standing in the garden, independent of the stone. “Works!” she said, throwing up her hands. She looked around. “We should get some furniture in here. This could be a place to camp.”
“I’m going to release my hold on the stone now,” said Alfric. “I want you to come over and try to exit on your own. Okay?”
“Okay,” said Mizuki.
Alfric let go of the stone. Even if you couldn’t get out of the stone on your own, it might be possible to have someone pull you out, but it needed to be tested. He waited for five seconds, worried that she might panic, but after a moment, she appeared standing beside the stone.
“Works both ways,” said Mizuki. “Shame you can’t go in without help.”
“You might be able to,” said Alfric. “Stand on it barefoot, and try to
launch yourself into the garden? We’ll do some testing of it. The point
is, if we just repeat all of that, we can get everyone into the stone,
then everyone
“I was going to set up a date with Rolaj,” said Mizuki, frowning. “But I suppose I can do that with a letter.”
No one else had any pressing need to stay in Liberfell, and Alfric was thankful for that because he wanted to leave behind Lola and her people. What remained was to get everyone stripped of their metal, which there was a surprising amount of. Some of it went into the book, but quite a bit of it would have to be carried, along with the stone. Once that was done though, they went into the stone one by one, and then Alfric went about picking all the pieces of metal up, mostly armor and weapons that had been too big for storing away. He double- and triple-checked that they weren’t leaving anything, because it was a long way to go.
Then, with barely more than a thought, he was standing in the Pucklechurch temple, a place he’d chosen because of its close proximity to a cleric in the case of an emergency. They were in the room used by clerics of Garos, though Lemmel didn’t seem to be there.
“It feels
“It does,” Verity agreed.
“Well, we’re going to have to go back to Traeg’s Knob in order to get the wardrobe,” said Alfric. “And it will need to be brought back to Pucklechurch somehow. I was able to negotiate with Besc for some floatstones to rent, which means that I should be able to bring the wardrobe back either single-handedly or with the help of a volunteer. I’d like to do that tomorrow.”
“It’s likely been fine for a day and will likely be fine for a week,” said Hannah.
“All the same,” said Alfric. “
“Och, fine, I’ll go,” said Hannah.
“Can I just go one way?” asked Mizuki.
“Um,” said Alfric. “I guess I could cut you with the knife, then have you come when I get there? But the two of us can probably handle it.”
“I’d like her with,” said Hannah. “She’s probably not much for carryin’, but if it’s awkwardness you’re worried about, she can probably help with the steerin’, and that way we can switch off and make better time.”
“Sounds good,” said Alfric. “And now, it’s high time we headed home. Our second dungeon and most of its associated business is complete.” Leaving aside the appearance of his old party for now. “I think we’ve earned ourselves a rest.”
