Chapter Two Hundred and Fourteen - Planning Commitea

“The next one’s hard,” Howard said.

We were out of the first floor and a good ways into the cave-like passage that Howard said cut through the entire dungeon.

“It’s one that requires that you fight,” the fishman added.

“We’re pretty tough in a fight,” I said. “We can work together pretty well too.”

Howard gestured out ahead where the cave split. To the right was a wide, broad passageway. To the left was another path, smaller and thinner, that curved up and out of sight around a bend. “It’s to the left here. We should wait a little bit before going in. Best to know what we’re all going to be facing in there.”

I agreed. “We should take a bit of a break then,” I said. “I’m not hungry or anything, but I could use something to drink. Anyone want some tea?”

“A bit of tea wouldn’t be amiss,” Emmanuel said.

The others seemed to agree too. Awen pulled a rolled-up blanket from her pack and set it on the ground where it was dryer, and I sat down next to her and rooted through my backpack for my kettle.

Amaryllis filled it, using some neat spell to draw water out of the air. She made sure I used Cleaning magic on it afterwards too. “This place could use a few dehumidifying runes. It’s making my feathers itch.”

“That must be annoying,” Awen said. “I can’t stand it when my scalp is itchy.”

Amaryllis hummed. “Having hair must be a pain, it’s so long. I imagine it gets everywhere. Does plucking it hurt?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Don’t your feathers hurt when you pull them?”

“It depends, of course. A properly groomed harpy will ensure that any broken or bent feathers are plucked. It stings a little, but it also feels kind of nice? I never really thought about it. Hard to describe, I suppose.”

“Like picking at a scab?” I asked.

“No, that’s disgusting Broccoli.”

Bastion sat down across from us with a heavy sigh. “I have some biscuits,” he said as he reached into his own pack. “Better than the rations we get in the army, but not by much.”

“I’m sure they’re fine,” I said. It was going to take a minute or two for the tea to warm up. I was going for a mixed herbal tea. Some ginger which I’d bought along the way, and some dried lemongrass. It had an interesting smell, at once bitter and citrus-y. “Hey, Bastion, you have wings, right?”

Bastion looked at me, then glanced to his side where his wings were fluttering a bit. “Yes?”

“What’s that like? Do you need to do special stuff for them?”

“Not really? They’re surprisingly robust. Harder to cut into than skin, but a lot more brittle. There aren’t any bones in a sylph’s wings, unlike a bird’s. The only maintenance is keeping them washed. You won’t see too many sylph’s in drier places either; it makes our wings feel fragile. Warm is fine, just not dry.”

“Huh,” I said. “That’s cool! How do you wash them though?” I imagined someone trying to twist around this way and that. I could only just touch the middle of my back, and I was pretty sure my Flexibility stat was cheating that for me.

“Communal showers, though you can do a good job of it yourself with a sponge on a stick.”

“There’s sponges here?” I asked.

“Yes?” Bastion asked. “They’re from the ocean?”

“Oh,” I said. I felt silly. Time for a change of subject! “So, Howard, what can you tell us about the next floor?”

Howard had found a little bump on the floor to sit on. His legs splayed out a little, with his pipe on one thigh and a little pouch which he was fiddling in on the other. Refilling his pipe again? I supposed smoking was kind of a complicated process. And probably not that great for anyone’s health, but I wasn’t going to throw stones from my glass balcony.

“Next one’s tough,” he said. “There’s no end to the monsters in it, not that they’re too much of a challenge.”

“What are we facing?” Bastion asked.

“We call them Mist-folk,” Howard said.

“That’s both mysterious and ominous,” I said as I started to pour the tea out into some tin cups. The vapours from the tea wafted up and fought with the damp air to be the strongest smell around. “What’s a Mist-folk? Are they nice?”

“Afraid they aren’t,” Howard said.

I gave everyone their cups. Emmanuel hunched down so that he was laying on his tummy on the far end of Awen’s blanket from us. He took his cup carefully in both hands. “Thank you,” he said.

He could be nice when he wanted to!

I sniffed at my tea, then inspected it.

Ginger and lemongrass tea, to soothe stress and inflammations, and help fight back against infections.

I took a sip and let the warmth seep into me. It was nice, really nice.

“The Mist-folk are the challenge to the floor,” Howard said. “To exit you need to open the locks on an old well at the far end of the town. To get the keys, you need to fight and win against a Mist-folk. There’s one key for every person that walks into the floor.”

“So we need to fight six of them?” Awen asked. “Are they hard to fight?”

“They’re not, and yep, six of them,” Howard said. He finished pushing something into his pipe, then lit it with a flick of his fingers. He knew a bit of magic then. “It’s more complicated than that. See, if you go in as a group, you’ll never get to the end of town. Not for lack of trying. Just... the town ain’t normal. You’ll walk to the end of the street and find yourself back at the start. Moving through some doors in a house will land you in another house across the town. Sometimes you’ll turn the same corner four or five times and never get anywhere. Only way for things to be normal is to have a key.”

The fishman leaned forwards and scratched something onto the ground, the Eldersign he’d mentioned.

“That’s cut into the side of every key. They have triangular heads.”

“So, we wander around, find six Mist-folk, convince them to give us their keys, then we’re good?” I asked.

Howard shook his head. “They won’t show up if you’re not alone. The town will try to split us apart too.”

“Oh,” I said.

That was actually kind of scary.

“Now, the Mist-folk, they’re clever in their own way. They’ll look like one of us. You won’t be meeting yourself, you’ll be meeting your friends. Might even really be your friends, the town will throw you back together sometimes.”

“They’ll look like Broccoli and Amaryllis?” Awen asked.

“Like any one of us,” Howard said. He puffed at his pipe. “They’ll talk, be real convincing.”

I frowned. That sounded like trouble. “We could use a codeword? To tell who is who?”

Howard shook his head. “They’ll use it. Don’t rightly know how it works. We always just figured they could read your mind, tell you what you want to hear from your friend.”

“Wait, wait,” I said, raising a biscuit-filled hand to pause the fishman. “We need to fight monsters that look like our friends?”

He nodded. “That’s the whole of it. Hard to tell whether they’re a friend or not. There’re some tricks. Asking the Mist-folk to use magic or abilities they don’t know. Or you can smell them. They don’t have a smell.”

“I don’t want to be sniffed,” I said.

“You probably don’t even have a smell,” Amaryllis said. “What with the amount of Cleaning magic you use.”

Howard shrugged. “It’s a trick that’s worked before. Miss Bunch has her Cleaning magic, if you meet her, ask her to clean something. Not yourself. That’s asking for trouble. They can use offensive magic, and will attack if you lower your guard.”

“That’s awful,” I said.

“We should organize things then,” Bastion said. “Broccoli’s Cleaning magic is hard to reproduce. Amaryllis, you have your own interesting sort of magic, as does Awen.”

Amaryllis nodded. “If I see anyone, I’ll zap first and ask questions later.”

“Um,” I said.

“A small zap.”

“Ah, I have glass magic,” Awen said. She raised her hand, focused very hard, and a piece of glass appeared in her palm, at first just a tiny thing, like a diamond, but it grew in fits and starts, wrapping around and forming into a small crystalline ring. “Would that work?”

“Might have to let anyone you meet pick up the glass to inspect it,” Howard said. He shook his pipe. “This is my trick for this floor.”

“Oh, it smells strong,” I said.

He nodded.

“I am not certain as to what I could do,” Emmanuel said. “I suppose it would be hard for anything to copy my grandeur.”

“Hmph,” Amaryllis said. “Just stab any cervid you see. Mist-folk don’t bleed, right?”

“They don’t,” Howard confirmed.

“O-one moment,” Emmanuel said.

Bastion hummed. “I’m not sure what I could do. I don’t have any particularly flashy skills, and many of my skills rely on me having a weapon in hand, which isn’t something you’d want to see in a negotiation.”

I sighed, downed the last of my tea, then stood up. Everyone else seemed to be done too. “I guess we’ll just have to be careful then,” I said. “Bastion, if we meet a monster that looks like you, we’ll attack it first. Just don’t resist, okay?”

“That... is very much not something I want to test,” Bastion said.

“We won’t attack you to hurt you,” I said. “Just to poke you a bit. Like, uh, your leg?”

Bastion stared, one eyebrow rising. “We’ll see,” he said.

“Great!”

We packed things up. Awen took her blanket back and we made sure not to leave any trash behind. It wouldn't be nice to make everything all dirty, especially not for the next people who would come down to visit.

“Does anyone want a hug before we go on?” I asked.

“Your new buffing skill?” Bastion asked. “I noticed the minor buff with the tea. Interesting, but not entirely useful in this particular situation.”

“I don’t really have the time to find great teas,” I said. “But one day I’ll find some great ones that’ll do all sorts of things. Anyways, hugging is my new skill. It doesn’t make you stronger, but it does make you feel better.”

“Better how?” Emmanuel asked.

“Well... like a hug normally does, I guess?”

The cervid shifted a bit. “I think I’ll pass.”

Awen was quick to raise her arms for a hug when I looked her way, so she got the first squeeze. Then it was Amaryllis’ turn, because she liked hugs even if she always made a fuss about it and tried to look all tough.

“Do you want one, Bastion, Howard?”

“I’m a bit old for hugs from pretty young misses,” Howard said with a grin. “But thank you.”

“I think I’m well enough without,” Bastion declined.

I nodded. There was no pushing hugs on people. “Right, let’s go!”

Howard took the lead, taking the leftmost path with careful steps. I was a bit worried, he was a little on the older side, even if he was still very spry.

The cave opened up onto a beach, with water lapping at the shore, and a half moon hanging in the sky above. The air smelled of seaweed and that sorta salty fishy smell that the ocean always had.

Not too far away was a little shack, and, beyond that, a path that led away from the beach and up a small cliff to a town overlooking the calm waters.

We’d made it to the second floor.

***