This Used To Be About Dungeons полностью

“Yes,” he said. “Who would need a magical spoon like that? At best it replaces several mundane spoons. So what’s the market?”

“Dunno,” she said. “I mean, if you have it, then you don’t need to switch between spoons all the time, always fumbling with your big spoons, small spoons, slotted spoons, you know, making a mess of things because there are just too many of them to keep track of them all?”

“Uh-huh,” he said, thinking to himself that the market of people who were improbably bad with their spoon collections was quite small. “Well, if you want to bid on it, I won’t stop you.”

“Do we really need to do the points bidding?” asked Hannah, folding her arms. “Seems complicated for what’s just among five people, ay?”

“It’s to make sure things are fair,” said Alfric. He looked at the others. “If we aren’t going to be a long-term party, then we want everyone to come away with something they think was fair and worth their time. We have a windfall, not a major one, but one that will keep us comfortable for a bit.”

“I want the bow,” said Isra.

“Well,” said Alfric, “I mean, you have the bow, there’s nothing that anyone can do about that now. Anyone who takes the bow wouldn’t be able to do anything special with it. How the points system handles that is taking the expected value of the bow at market and reducing it by a set margin, which gets converted into—”

“Can we all just agree on a fifth of the unbound proceeds for each?” asked Hannah. “Faffin’ about with points and conversions is going to give me a headache.”

“Hey,” said Mizuki, “can’t you do the Church of Symmetry thing? Like, divide everything up exactly equally?”

“That’s not how it works,” replied Hannah. “I can do the math, if you’d like, but there’s no special power involved there. Anywho, vote on whether we ignore the points and just do a fair split?” she asked, raising her hand.

To Alfric’s dismay, the other three raised their hands too. Eventually, he did as well, just so that it would be unanimous. He wanted them happy more than he wanted things fair.

“Wait,” said Mizuki. “Do I get the spoon?”

“Fine by me,” said Hannah.

“I’d like the flute,” said Verity. “I don’t think it’s very good, but we’ll see if I can get a hang of six-fingered playing.”

“This is throwing everything into disarray,” said Alfric. “There’s no way that the flute, spoon, and bow are worth the same amount to each of us.”

“Well, you’re outvoted,” said Hannah, nodding as though the matter was settled. Unfortunately for Alfric, it seemed like she was right, because no one wanted to go through the time and effort to make sure things were actually fair.

“Then we sell the rag, the small book, and all the materials?” asked Alfric. “And hang on to the storage book, because we don’t really have any other option.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Verity. “Can we get moving though? I’d like to get back in time for dinner, and we spent longer there than I’d planned. I eat almost all my meals at the Fig and Gristle, and Cynthia closes down the kitchen earlier than I would like.”

The light was already fading, and they hadn’t left the entry into the dungeon. Alfric quickly replaced the lock and locked it tight, then gave it a tug to test it. The lock was a simple thing, really just meant to ensure that kids wouldn’t wander into a dungeon, but there was also some ceremony and importance to it, especially when locking it up.

They began moving down the path back to Pucklechurch. Alfric was feeling good about how the dungeon had gone, overall. Hannah was an ally, in a sense, and it seemed as though Isra could be counted on to do some traveling and dungeoneering, especially because she seemed less tied to Pucklechurch. That she’d lucked out with the bow was unfortunate, in some respects, but helped prove the value of a dungeon. Verity, on the other hand, seemed a bit put off by the violence, though perhaps less than Alfric had thought. With Mizuki, it was hard to tell.

Not too long into their trip back, Verity began to sing a victory song, keeping her lute stored and using just her voice. There was no trace of magic. The song was long and involved, and recounted a story of animals fighting a dread menace. She was halfway through when Alfric realized that they were the five animals, at least if he understood right.

“A bear is not a healing animal,” said Hannah once Verity was finished and the brief applause had concluded.

“Which animal is a healing animal?” asked Verity. She looked around at them. “Sorry if the choices were offensive.”

“Well, there’s no proper healing animal,” said Hannah. “But a lizard can regrow its arms.”

“Legs, right?” asked Mizuki.

“They have arms and legs,” said Hannah.

“And a tail,” said Isra. “Which is what they most commonly regrow.”

“You’d prefer a lizard over a bear?” asked Mizuki. “Blegh. I mean, I wouldn’t want to be compared to a bear at all, too hairy.”