This Used To Be About Dungeons полностью

“Och,” said Hannah. “I like her, but you have to understand me, that when you say anythin’, almost anythin’ at all, I’ll like to say ‘but’ and then hammer it out with you. So if you’d said that you didn’t care for Mizuki, I’d feel myself inclined to mount a defense, but when you said she was likable, I went straight for the things I wasn’t so fond of. And that’s one of the things that people don’t like about me, which I think is fair. I tilt toward the contrary. I always have.”

“Good to know,” Alfric said with a nod.

“I think I will head out,” said Hannah. “If you think you’ll be fine movin’ the wardrobe on your own? I’m in a bit of a mood and need some prayer, perhaps in the direction of Mizuki.”

“Of course,” said Alfric. “I’ll either bring the wardrobe by myself or leave it here, and we can get it tomorrow. It’s possible that I might be able to get it a temporary home in town, so we can start banking rings off it, but I guess we’ll see.”

“Thanks,” said Hannah. “For all you do. And for listenin’ to me reflexively complain about someone who didn’t deserve it.”

Alfric nodded. “Go, clear your head, I’ll deal with Filera.”

Hannah thought about stopping in to speak with Lemmel, but she did need to clear her head and instead elected to go find a bench to sit on for a bit and pray.

Alfric, having nothing better to do, came back into the room with Filera early. She was still standing there and looking at the wardrobe with her eyes narrowed. There was no longer any inspection of it, only a sharp gaze. Alfric found himself a chair and calmly waited.

The party was getting along well, and he included himself in that assessment. Hopefully Lola would forget about him, or be convinced not to chase him down, though both of those seemed like they had a rather slim chance. If Lola’s party broke up… well, that would be the opportunity that Alfric had once dreamed about, a chance to put everything back together again and do it how he’d always wanted to do it. He felt a pang of guilt, since it would mean leaving the Pucklechurch party he’d formed. The feelings were more complicated than he would have imagined. It was a combination of Lola’s report on problems with the party and his growing affection for the Pucklechurch team, he thought.

“Sixty-six times a day,” Filera said into the silence.

“An auspicious number,” said Alfric.

“Less than you’d think,” said Filera. “Sixty-six is eleven sets of six. It only has two sixes in the number because of how we choose to count. Better would be seventy-two, which is twice six sets of six. Thirty-six is particularly auspicious, as it’s six sets of six.”

“Okay,” said Alfric. He rubbed his chin. “As a matter of doctrine, or preference?”

“Doctrine,” said Filera. “But as with all matters of doctrine, there are detractors.” She turned her eyes from the wardrobe to Alfric. “Sixty-six times a day should give you some ability to make money with this, though I imagine you’d be better off selling it to someone in a larger city. You’ve probably already surmised that the dial orients itself with north being up and similar relationships for the other settings. The entad uses a somewhat simple unidirectional doorway function, centered on a random ‘safe’ point of land within a hex, avoiding structures out to around ten feet and people out to a hundred feet. If there’s no safe space to create the door, it will attempt one of the surrounding hexes, and if none of those are suitable, it will go further.”

“Meaning?” asked Alfric, frowning.

“I’m in the business of identification and information, not monetization,” said Filera with a shrug. “Is your question about the function or how to use that function?”

“It could be put on a ship and allow access to land no matter where on the oceans you are,” said Alfric, after a moment of thought. “But I have a hard time imagining that we couldn’t get more from it by just charging people for passage in a large city.”

“So there is some intellect there,” said Filera, giving him an approving nod.

“You need a keen intellect if you’re going into dungeons,” said Alfric. “It helps with not dying. I’m available to talk now, if you are.”

Filera regarded him. “I suppose I am.” She gestured for him to sit down and offered tea and snacks, which he declined. He wasn’t sure exactly what she wanted from this, but he was willing to indulge her if it meant that she would spend some time identifying entads for them. It was somewhat rare for an entad to dramatically rise in value when a cleric of Qymmos had a look at it, but there were definitely exceptions to that, including those with command words, or those whose apparent function cloaked a deeper, richer function.