“Verity,” said Verity, slipping a limp hand through the door for just long enough to do a perfunctory shake. “Hang on.” She closed the door for a moment, and there were more sounds from inside her room. Alfric had only gotten a narrow glimpse into her room, but it was a complete mess, with clothes everywhere, books in haphazard piles, and remnants of old meals. It was, frankly, a frightening amount of detritus to be packed into a relatively small room.
“Okay,” said Verity when she returned, slipping out of the door without letting them see any more of the inside. “Let’s go downstairs and talk.”
The tavern was empty, save for the proprietor, who was cleaning out glasses and tidying up the place. The chairs were all upside down on top of their tables, and Verity quickly flipped a few of them, giving them a place to sit.
“So,” she said, steepling her fingers and trying to look more awake than she was. “You want to go into a dungeon.”
“All you would have to do is sing and play,” said Alfric. “If you felt like you were in any danger whatsoever, you could run back to the entrance and leave without me. I’ll be the point man, the one facing down anything dangerous, and I’ll try to keep myself between you and whatever we find in the dungeon. In exchange for maybe two hours of work, only an hour of which will actually be in the dungeon, you’ll get a fifth share of whatever we find.”
“Do we have a healer?” asked Verity. “I’d feel better with one.”
“We’ll be picking her up later today,” said Alfric. “It might be better to have everything else squared away and agreed on before we approach her though.”
“And what kind of songs would you like, if you’ve given it thought?” asked Verity.
“Strength and speed,” said Alfric. “I’ll be up front, sword in hand, and with your proficiency, you should be able to give me a boost of some thirty to forty percent. Enhanced vision and hearing would be great, if you can add that in, and endurance would be a bonus as well, but with a healer on board that’s less of a concern.”
“Just one dungeon?” asked Verity, after a long pause. Alfric was getting the feeling that this was perhaps too much information at once for her.
“He wants more,” said Mizuki. “He’s got plans for the one in this hex, and the six surrounding, and no doubt more beyond that.”
“Just one to start,” said Alfric, casting a glance at Mizuki. “I wouldn’t want to commit until we know we can work together as a team, and I know that a single day is much more manageable in terms of scheduling than seven days or more. We need to allow for the possibility that someone won’t be a good fit or that something unexpected crops up, so yes, just one.”
“With the option for more?” asked Verity, tapping her fingers on the table. There was something rhythmic in how she did it, like she was playing out a tune.
“Possibly,” said Alfric. “And for a bard, it’s good training, good exposure to party dynamics and custom songs. I know that you can make decent money with taverns and outdoor performances, but party- or guild-level performance is where the real money is for a bard, even if it’s outside the traditional adventuring structures.”
Verity glanced at Mizuki.
“I think he’s just like this,” said Mizuki. She looked at Alfric. “How long have you been in Pucklechurch?”
“I arrived early last morning,” Alfric replied.
“So, based on what I know about this guy,” said Mizuki, seeming quite
pleased with herself, “he comes in yesterday, early in the morning,
makes a beeline for the censusmaster and gets a list of people, then
spends the rest of the day asking around to see what he can find out
about us, our reputations, our skills, things like that, and
“Sorry,” said Alfric. He didn’t know quite what he was apologizing for. “I just think that there’s a good opportunity here. It’s an easy win for everyone involved. And if we do work well as a team, or even if we need to swap a member out, then the surrounding dungeons could be profitable too. And yes, ideally, we would do the dungeon today.”
“Hmm,” said Verity. She sat back in her chair for a moment, looking at Mizuki, who was smiling, and Alfric, who was trying to give the pitch the gravitas it deserved. “Okay,” she finally said. “I can do this once. Don’t expect a second time unless it goes swimmingly. I’ll have to see if Cynthia is all right with me ducking out.”
“Good, then we can make the party now,” said Mizuki. She turned to Alfric. “It’s better to have one made early, right?”
“It is,” said Alfric, but he paused, listening. “That’s third bell though, which means the market just opened, which means that we have very little time to waste in meeting up with our fourth member. I don’t know where she lives, so her daily trip to the market might be the only time to find her.”
“Ooo,” said Mizuki. “Exciting. We get to hunt for a member. The huntress becomes the hunted!”
