This Used To Be About Dungeons полностью

“We’re not stealing,” said Alfric, who wasn’t sparing much attention toward the boy.

For his part, the boy seemed to be expertly riding the bird and had brought it to a slow walk alongside the wardrobe. “You are too stealing,” he said. “The wardrobe belongs to Alfric.”

“I am Alfric,” said Alfric. “This is my wardrobe.”

The boy looked at him. “Prove it?” he asked, clearly trying the question out.

“How would he do that?” asked Hannah.

“I don’t know,” said the boy. “But anyone who read the note could say they were Alfric.”

“And who are you?” asked Alfric.

“I’m Bib,” said the boy. “My dad is the hexmaster of the Knob.”

“Yeah?” asked Alfric. “And can you prove it?”

“Your name is Bib?” asked Mizuki. “That’s not a name.”

“People call me Bib,” said Bib. “It’s not my name.”

“Well, either way, you can’t prove it,” said Alfric.

“I could get my dad,” said Bib, frowning.

“You could get someone to vouch for you, sure,” said Alfric. “But I have people to vouch for me.”

“I have never seen this guy before,” said Mizuki. “I actually just started following him because he was carrying the wardrobe. It seemed really suspicious.” She had a mad grin on her face.

“He asked me for help movin’ it,” said Hannah. “But now it does seem a little suspect. Alfric, if that is your name, is this a theft?”

“I’ll give you a cut of the proceeds if you stop asking questions,” said Alfric.

“Was I not already gettin’ a cut of the proceeds?” asked Hannah. “Well then, good citizen am I, doin’ work for a stranger for free.”

“You’re making fun,” said the boy. He was frowning at them. “I really don’t know if you’re stealing it.”

“We’re not stealing it,” said Alfric. “We pulled it from the Traeg’s Knob dungeon and just needed to store it at the common house for a day.”

“It’s the Hill House,” said the boy. “Where are you taking the wardrobe?”

“To Pucklechurch,” said Alfric. “Where we live.”

“And you’ll charge people to use it?” asked Bib. “That could make you a lot of money.”

“We’ll see what the limits are,” said Alfric. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it had some kind of limit on how many people can go through in a day, or a weight limit, or something else like that. And if it doesn’t have that kind of a limit, we’ll probably sell it to someone in a big city, where it can get more use, or set up a business or something.”

“A business?” asked Mizuki. “For this thing?”

“Sure,” said Alfric. “Place it in Plenarch and charge ten rings for someone to use it.”

“Plenarch is a terrible choice, ay?” asked Hannah. “It’s on the coast, water in three of the six directions.”

“Well, maybe somewhere else then,” said Alfric. “I guess we’d also want to make sure it can’t end up dumping you in someone’s home.”

“Ten rings sounds like absolutely gouging people,” said Mizuki.

“You wouldn’t pay ten rings to skip six miles of walking?” asked Alfric.

“We wanted it in Traeg’s Knob,” said the boy, cutting in on a conversation that had moved its focus away from him.

“Who is ‘we’?” asked Alfric.

“My mom and dad,” said Bib. “They wanted it to stay in the Hill House.”

“Well, that’s not happening,” said Alfric. “Sorry. I said on the note that I was keeping it there only for a bit.”

“But you did pull it from our dungeon,” Bib ventured. “So we should have some say.”

“That’s not the law,” said Alfric.

“Well it should be,” said Bib, who seemed to have quite a bit of conviction about this despite being a shirtless boy riding a large bird.

“No,” said Alfric. “Because then you’d have someone whose job it was to camp out by the dungeon entrance, and to check to see what people came out with, and to make sure they weren’t ‘stealing’ from the dungeon. Those people, those dungeon guards, they’d be going up against five people who were well armed with lots of magic and expertise in how to kill things. And on top of that, those five people are going to be gone from the area in short order, so it would be hard to catch them. Tell me, would you want to be sitting around a dungeon entrance, in charge of stopping powerful people from taking things out of it?”

“No,” said the boy. “I guess not.”

“He’s talkin’ spit,” said Hannah. “The real reason it’s not done is because if it were, dungeoneers simply wouldn’t come, and if they did, they wouldn’t have nearly the incentive to pick the dungeon clean. We wouldn’t have lugged this thing out of the dungeon if we had thought the locals would try to steal it from us.”

“The real reason,” said Mizuki., “is that all the dungeons are under an ancient curse. If you try to accost people coming out of a dungeon, you’ll die in the next seven days.” She wiggled her fingers in his direction.

“You made that up,” said Bib.

“Maybe, maybe not,” said Mizuki.

“It’s very hard to say,” said Alfric. “Mizuki is a font of unconventional wisdom.”

“Well, I think we should keep the wardrobe,” said Bib. He seemed stubborn, which Hannah liked in a child.