“I’ll accompany you, if that’s all right,” said Alfric, getting up from his seat and taking his plate. “Can I clear anyone else’s plates?”
“I should actually probably do dishes first,” said Mizuki.
The plates were cleared away, and then it was just Hannah, Isra, and Verity.
“You want to hear, ay?” asked Hannah.
“Yes,” said Verity. “I’m interested.”
“Well,” said Hannah. “The hex of Oeyr, God of Emergence, is usually
through breakin’ somethin’. Sometimes bones, sometimes makin’ rips in
your muscles, especially your heart.” Hannah tapped her chest. There
were two full sections of the Oeya Ashar devoted to ‘defects’, but in
Isra’s opinion, it was a relatively small area of what the holy text
focused on. Oeyr was not the God of Disorder or God of Asymmetry, but
the God of
“The hex of Bixzotl, God of Copies,” said Hannah, “is in copyin’ somethin’ internal to you, like growin’ you a new heart, which kills you before the copy can fade. The worse one is copyin’ all your blood, which also kills you.” She rubbed her chin. “I don’t think that Qymmos, God of Sets, has a hex, but to tell you the truth, I may be wrong and shouldn’t have spoken with such authority earlier. Handy people, but not so good at the physical. Then there’s Kesbin, God of Nothing, and Xuphin, God of Infinity. Kesbin is easy, you just get somethin’ removed, and at its worst, from an archbishop or the like, the whole of you just vanishes. For Xuphin, it’s usually cancer.”
Isra frowned. “You gave their titles.”
“Well,” said Hannah. “I did. I… wasn’t sure you knew your gods, ay? Meant no offense by it.”
Isra kept frowning. She didn’t know what to say in response.
“Thank you for going through that,” said Verity. “It was informative. I don’t believe my tutors ever covered it, though I do recognize a few of those from plays or stories.”
“Like I said,” Hannah said with a shrug, “hexes aren’t really used against people anymore, and shame that they ever were.” She looked at Verity. “Kept your lunch?”
“Why wouldn’t I have?” asked Verity. “The dead things we saw in the dungeon were far worse than any description you could have given.”
“Good,” Hannah said, nodding.
“We have the gods in Tarbin,” said Isra. “I have the six holy books in my home. I’ve read them.”
Hannah nodded. “I meant no offense,” she said again. “I only thought there were things you didn’t know, and it might be a way to say for you so you didn’t have to sit and wonder or feel like a dunce by askin’ about it.”
“Not that you’d be a dunce just because you didn’t know something,” said Verity, rushing to follow Hannah.
“It was a kind gesture,” said Isra, making an effort to relax. Sometimes with the animals, they realized that they had made a mistake and took some time to calm down. She endeavored to be better than them. “Thank you for the thought.”
“No problem,” said Hannah. “Now, since you’re here and all, can we finally see what you can do?”
Alfric and Mizuki walked together. He was following behind her as she went down a trail behind her house, one that had clearly been put into place quite some time ago. It wasn’t in need of much care though, and Mizuki happily walked along.
“I’m not squeamish,” she said, looking back at him.
“No?” asked Alfric. “No one said you were?”
“I don’t know why Hannah likes to talk about gross things, that’s all,” said Mizuki.
“She’s a cleric,” said Alfric. “She’s trained as a healer, among other things. She’s learned how to deal with injuries and disease.”
“Well, fine, but she doesn’t have to talk about it,” said Mizuki. “Especially not at the dinner table. She doesn’t have to delight in,” she waved her hand, “hexes and things.”
“I’ll talk to her,” said Alfric.
“I can talk to her myself,” said Mizuki, swatting away a branch that was in her way. “I’m just complaining to you because you get it, right?”
“I do,” said Alfric. He had already wished a few times that Hannah was more circumspect in what she said.
“I feel bad, because I know she had some hurtful business with her guild or something, but I kind of get why that would be,” said Mizuki.
“Yeah,” said Alfric. This was the first he’d heard about something going wrong with Hannah’s guild, but it seemed like the kind of thing he’d want to ask Hannah about later, rather than getting Mizuki’s version of it. “But we’ve just gotten over the bump with Verity, so I’m hoping that we can keep things nice and level going into the next dungeon. Intra-party strife can kill a party quickly.” It was also quite difficult to predict, in his experience.
“So I should just shut up?” asked Mizuki, swatting aside another branch.
