Pinion had been warned that they were eccentric even by the standards of dungeoneers, which he found quite intriguing, especially because the warning had come with no other qualifiers. It was like being warned that someone’s appearance was a bit odd, then not being told how, which was really no warning at all. As Pinion had an affection for paradoxes, he spent much of the trip down south thinking about it and trying to come up with a name for it.

He had been given an entad for the trip, which was a kindness he hadn’t expected. It was a rake, the kind used for gravel and rocks, and he sat astride it in a way that grew uncomfortable only five minutes in. It was frightening to fly with it until he fell off for the first time, at which point the rake swooped under him and gathered him up until he was steady again. This happened four more times during the extended trip, which felt arduous but in reality had been cut down by almost a day thanks to the entad.

Pinion had dressed in his best adventuring clothes, though he’d never actually been on an adventure. He had high-waisted pants whose cuffs came down at mid-calf, long, comfortable socks, heavy boots, and a few layers of shirts, which kept him warm as he flew and also meant there was some extra room in his bag. His head was regrettably shaved, which had been a part of a deal with a different research assistant so they could see whether hair had any impact on sunburns — it turned out that it did — but it was growing back in, and would look presentable again in only a few months.

He was nervous about meeting new people, and the inevitable conversation he’d have to have with them about his appearance. He’d been born sickly and blind, and the person he was now was because of extensive interventions by a large number of clerics. His eyes didn’t quite match his face, and he was fairly short, which the clerics of Xuphin had only allowed him to correct in limited ways. All the many visits to clerics were in his past now, but they’d left their mark, and he’d always felt like he was somewhat odd. He’d made peace with that oddness, but every now and then someone said something that got under his skin.

The city of Lambria was built on a quite enviable hill, and the rest of Greater Plenarch seemed absurdly flat by comparison. The province had little verticality, mountains only in small quantities and largely at the southern border. Pinion had grown up with proper mountains, the kind near Inter’s eastern coast, so high that trees no longer grew, snow-capped peaks that made travel with the warp difficult where the layout of the hexes was poor. Pinion had loved it, but Callawald was a place where small villages clung to the edges of lakes in the places where the mountains didn’t bury any chance of farmland. If there had been a big city, he might have stayed, but the biggest of the cities in Callawald would have been rated as a mere hamlet by the standards of the rest of Inter.

It took some time to find what he was looking for. He was going off a letter that was several days old, which had come with a helpful map, but the drawing of a three-tiered house on long metal legs had been rather crude.

He almost missed it, because it wasn’t actually moving and its legs were tucked under it, the whole thing sitting in a meadow. There was some oddity about the base of it, but the way he might have been able to figure out that it didn’t naturally belong there was that there were no paths leading to the place, no outside structures aside from a large white tent that had been set up some distance away.

The house was large, three stories in total, and reminded him of a tiered cake, growing smaller with each additional floor. It had a pleasing symmetry of it, and whoever had built it was obviously a devotee of Garos, as all four sides were the same. There was also something in the way that it got smaller toward the top — or conversely, larger toward the bottom — that spoke to Xuphin and Kesbin. Pinion couldn’t imagine that it didn’t have some consideration toward the other three gods, and he sat for a moment, rubbing his chin, trying to figure it out.

The front door swung open and a woman leaned out to look at him. She was wearing long robes, almost assuredly the party wizard, her long black hair down to her midriff. She had a cool, imperious demeanor, a wizardly no-nonsense approach, which Pinion had always found easy to deal with. She looked somewhat irritated with him. That was the way some people were, he knew.

“The house is allowed to be here,” she said. “We’ve got permission.”

“Oh?” asked Pinion. “That’s, ah, nice for you?” He looked around the meadow. “Permission from whom?”

She waved a hand. “I don’t handle that. Some farmer. But we do have permission, and we’ll be off within the hour.” She was staring at him. “It’s fine.”

“Okay?” asked Pinion. He didn’t really know what that had to do with him. “Er, I came from Lambria, to the north. I had spoken with an Alfric Overguard?”

“Oh,” she said. Her face changed entirely, and a smile came over it. “Oh, sorry!” She waved a hand. “Come in, come in, there’s still breakfast, we were expecting you.”

“Er, alright,” said Pinion.

“Is this guy bothering you?” asked a voice from off to the side. Pinion turned and saw a ten-year-old boy with his shirt off, a giant riding bird in tow.

“It’s fine,” said the woman. “Are you sure you don’t want breakfast, Bib?”

“They don’t eat breakfast in the cities,” said the kid, Bib. He gave Pinion the stink-eye. “Let me know if he’s messing with you.”

“Yes Bib, I’ll let you know if I need protecting,” said the woman with a roll of her eyes.

“I’m Pinion, by the way,” said Pinion, holding out his hand. He was slightly too far away, and had to hustle a bit to get close to her. She had a wizard’s soft hands. She was also short, which he liked, shorter than he was.

“Mizuki,” she replied. “Come in, do you like eggs? What am I saying, everyone likes eggs.”

“Eggs are … fine,” said Pinion. He wasn’t sure that he could eat a plate full of eggs, if that was on offer.

The house had a number of paintings hung up, fairly simplistic things, most of them different flowers, and most of the flowers themselves exaggerated rather than true to life. They had all been done by the same artist using a delicate hand.

The bottom floor of the house was laid out into loose quadrants, and Pinion spied a living room and kitchen through the hallways, connected to each other, before Mizuki led him into a dining room, where four other people were sitting around a table.

“It’s unbelievable how nosy people can be,” said Mizuki as she sat down. She pointed at a chair, and Pinion took it. There was much more than eggs, it was a meal of meats, pastries, fruits, and some cooked mushrooms. There was so much of it that Pinion thought it was probably entad-made, though he could see no obvious entads on the table. Mizuki almost immediately got up from her seat and went to the kitchen, returning with a plate for him. “So we have this problem of where to settle in for the night, because we’re not on the move at night, and we’ve been — wait, you know the house moves, right?”

“That was mentioned in one of the letters, yes,” said Pinion. He was looking around at the people, who he took to be the party he’d been sent for. The man was Alfric, he knew, but he didn’t have so much as names for all the others.

“Well, we’ve been moving the house, and at night we need somewhere to be, and we don’t want to be on the road for obvious reasons, but there aren’t that many places that you can just plop a house down, so we’ve been asking around about empty fields, meadows, parks, things like that. Which is tedious but fine. Except twice this morning we’ve had people coming by to ask if we’re allowed to be here. People who don’t even own the land! I think mostly they’re just interested in seeing the house.”

“Are you just not goin’ to do introductions then?” asked a woman with curly red hair. She had the look of a fighter and sat at the table with her arms out, taking up more room than the others. The letters he’d exchanged hadn’t had much in the way of names or descriptions.

“Oh, right,” said Mizuki. “This is, um, …” She trailed off and stared at Pinion. “Nope, it’s gone.”

“Pinion Falk,” he said. “Pleasure to meet you all.”

They went around the table then, and it was a rush of names that Pinion wasn’t sure he was going to be able to keep track of. Alfric was the party leader, and the one whose letters Pinion had gotten — mostly secondhand, through his mentor and boss Argya Ham.

“So, you’re here from Lambria to help with the issues we’ve been having with the dungeons,” said Alfric. He was an imposing man, tall and muscular, and while he was wearing a simple buttoned-down shirt, it was obvious that he was a fighter too. “You’ve seen the letters that I sent to Argya, which lay everything out as I understand it. Obviously we can’t take you into the dungeons with us, but you can talk to us afterward, and we can do any information-gathering that you need from us.”

“Erm,” said Pinion. “Well, actually, I was sent here not to help, exactly, but just to, ah, study. I’m a researcher, not a …. dungeon … fixer.”

“Your research has the purpose of finding out the nature of the problem though, right?” asked Alfric. “And once we know, we fix it.”

“It’s more complicated than that,” said Verity. She looked like a mountain to Pinion, not just because she was tall, but because she seemed immovable. “I do think that I can do it all myself.”

“Pinion was contacted before we had gone into the demiplane,” said Alfric. “I think having him here is still going to be of benefit.” He turned to Pinion. “I’ve mentioned that Verity is a Chosen of Xuphin.”

“Er, yes,” said Pinion. “Though from my understanding, that’s not, er, germane?”

“It’s not?” asked Verity.

“I did some reading before I came here,” said Pinion. “It’s, ahm, somewhat complicated, but knowing that someone has been personally chosen by one of the gods doesn’t lend us any power of understanding a given phenomena. That is, Xuphin did not grant you any special powers, or at least as I understand it.” He glanced at Hannah, the cleric. They hadn’t said what she was a cleric of, and he was left to guess. His first instinct had been Xuphin, but she wasn’t quite tall enough.

“Well, so long as we can help further the understandin’ of the world,” said Hannah with a sigh.

“We can also take him into dungeons, right?” asked Mizuki.

“The dungeons?” asked Pinion. “That’s, ah, not really what I’m here for.”

“Sure, but we could kick someone out of the party,” she said. When she didn’t think that he was a nosy passerby, her demeanor was much more lively. “Pinion comes in, goes into the dungeons, sees how terrible they are, and it's firsthand experience, right?”

“That’s not really —” Pinion began.

“We’re trying it my way first,” said Verity.

“Of course,” said Mizuki. She turned back to Pinion. “Have you done dungeons?”

“No,” said Pinion. “Mostly I’ve read about them. Er, I do want to clarify that I’m not a proper researcher on my own, this is more, ah, something that my mentor strongly suggested that I pursue. Real world experience, she called it.”

“Wait, how do you become a ‘proper’ researcher?” asked Mizuki. “And how hard would it be for me?”

“It’s a long process,” said Pinion. “Mostly you need a mentor, who vouches for you, a starting body of work that proves that you know things and can reason well, and then at a crucial point when you have the backing of your mentor and the goodwill of the community of researchers, a cleric of Qymmos puts you and your work through the wringer.”

“The church is involved?” asked Mizuki. “But … why?”

“Qymmos knows,” said Pinion with a shrug. “Clerical insights are a vital part of any research process. Sometimes there will be a wortier too, though any serious project will have a wortier involved from the time you first start putting it together.”

“So you’ve written books?” asked Isra. She had spoken little, and was watching Pinion with an unnerving intensity. She was also beautiful in a way that he immediately found intimidating. Somehow Pinion had a conception of dungeoneers as being a bit grimy and homely, but they were well against type, her in particular. Her hair fell down in curls, and she had a look as though she was one step away from attending a dinner party. The collision between expectation and reality was what he hoped for. Dungeoneers, when they weren’t in the dungeons, were just rather normal people, at least in appearance. In this case, perhaps, attractive people.

“No, no books, just … pamphlets, I suppose, and most of that has been helping others with their work.” Pinion looked down at his plate. He’d hardly had a chance to eat, and all the food looked good. “Actual books are a rarity, unless it’s a meaty subject.”

“We’ll let you eat,” said Alfric. “You caught us at mid-breakfast, we can obviously talk more later. Do you have accommodations?”

“I had thought I would stay at an inn,” said Pinion, but Alfric was already shaking his head.

“That would be a nuisance,” said Alfric. “We technically have a spare room, or more than one spare room if you’d like to stay in extradimensional space.”

“You’re offerin’ up my room?” asked Hannah. Alfric nodded, and Hannah shrugged. “Fine, I s’pose.”

“I don’t want to impose,” said Pinion. “And if I’m not needed — you had said, in your letters, that you were looking for insight and help.”

“We’re hoping that the ‘problem’ aspect can be dealt with,” said Alfric. “And then you can just focus on the ‘understanding’ aspect.”

“That’s mostly what I’m here for,” said Pinion, grateful that Alfric seemed to understand this.

Pinion ate the food, which was abundant and all good. He’d always found mushrooms a bit suspect, but these had been cooked with shallots, garlic, and a healthy amount of butter, and he’d gone back for seconds of them, mixing them in with the eggs. He’d left early in the morning, mostly because he hadn’t known for certain how long the trip would take or whether he would have trouble finding the place. They had been mid-breakfast when he’d come in, and finished before he did, which eventually left him alone at the table with their cleric as the empty plates and serving dishes were pulled away.

“We’re glad to have you, in any case,” said Hannah. “I’m not sure if we said.”

“I don’t think I can help you, if that’s what Alfric wanted,” said Pinion, glancing at their leader. “I’m here to learn.”

“Ay,” said Hannah. She had a strong Cairbre accent. “Noble, in its own way. We’re not optimistic on the learnin’ you’ll be able to do, or at least I’m not.”

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

“They never said who you were a cleric for,” said Pinion after he’d taken a slice of toast with jam. There were five jams, which seemed excessive, but he was making a point to try all of them.

“Garos,” said Hannah. “Though I’m a cleric in the sense of a wanderer, my connection with my god strong, and with the church, weak.”

“I was in a seminary for six months,” said Pinion, nodding. “Qymmos though, not Garos.”

“Really?” asked Hannah, leaning forward. “You washed out? Most do, I mean, but I’m not sure I’ve met with someone who’d left after embarkin’ on a life of devotion.”

“There was a lot about Qymmos that appealed to me,” said Pinion. “But … I liked the categorization, I think, the God of Sets appealed to me, but I didn’t want to do what their clerics did, which was endlessly debating different sets, or relating every problem to the problem of understanding. Being a cleric felt like it was a club, I think, one for talking about the thing we all liked rather than engaging with it. But it was only six months, so perhaps I had it wrong.”

“No, that’s right, a bit,” said Hannah. “But the talkin’ was what I loved about it, the debates, the books, the scripture, the meanin’, all that.”

“Mm,” said Pinion. “To me it felt as though … there was a club devoted to organizing things, understanding the world through the lens of categories, and I was very excited to do those things, only to find that people were using this powerful and interesting idea of sets to argue at the fringes of it. It was like joining a sandwich club where people want to spend all their time thinking about the borders of mythical sandwichness rather than actually making sandwiches.” He sighed. “Luckily I found out that it wasn’t for me early on, and abandoned it in due course.”

“Never the touch of Qymmos?” asked Hannah.

“Unfortunately, no,” said Pinion. “I might have, if I had stayed on. They said I was suited to it. And of course, it would have been a minor boon as a researcher.” He hesitated, unsure whether to ask. “Did you always want to be a dungeoneer?”

“I’ll be back to the church in due course, I feel,” said Hannah. She picked some lint from her shirt. “But I’d need to be older, more set in my ways. It’s a young person’s game, dungeons. And there’s the recent difficulty, as much as Verity is optimistic — not that I’m not thankful for the optimism, which I’ve always thought the girl had in short supply.”

“Well, if I’ll be taking your room, I apologize,” said Pinion. “I’m rather on my own out here, with barely a stipend, and while I don’t like to depend upon the generosity of strangers, I will if they’re feeling generous.”

“Any idea how long you’ll be here?” asked Hannah.

“Not all that long,” said Pinion. “A few weeks, depending on whether I can figure it out.”

“And is that likely?” Alfric asked from the door. He’d apparently been doing dishes, and had returned.

“That, I don’t know,” said Pinion. “I’ve read your reports, but I’ll want interviews as well. The most likely outcome is that we never figure anything out and all I have to show for my efforts is a report that says ‘so there’s this interesting thing’.”

“It’s something that I wanted to talk with you about, if you have time,” said Alfric.

“I have nothing but time,” said Pinion. “Though I’d like to get settled, if there’s time.” He looked down at his plate. “I think I’m done.”

“We need to get the washing up done before the house starts moving,” said Alfric. “Just as a note, you might get sick, it’ll pass in a few days, but if you don’t want to bother with that, we can put you into extradimensional space for the duration. I’m not sure which you’d prefer.”

“I’ll see how I handle it,” said Pinion. “Should I … not have eaten first?”

“You’ve got to eat,” said Hannah. “Come, let’s go.”

She showed him her room, which was being offered as his room, and he set his things out. He’d packed somewhat heavily, taking almost all his worldly goods, which had been packaged into a bag that was twice as big on the inside, the most minor of entads. He didn’t fully unpack, only set the bag down, and Hannah took a lute from the room, which was apparently the only thing she actually used there. There were a great many lutes about the house, he’d noticed. The bed was already made, and she’d assured him that the sheets were clean.

The house lurched up without warning while he was still in there, and for a moment Pinion felt pure terror as the ground dropped away outside the window, but then it stopped as the house reached its full height. When the house began striding, it was actually fairly gentle. He’d expected something more extreme given all the obvious straps, clasps, and anchors in place. Once Pinion was certain that he wasn’t going to be sick, he made his way back downstairs.

In truth, he wasn’t certain where to start, but he found Alfric sitting at the open front door, legs dangling down, and took a seat beside him. The view was breath-taking, though they were down in a valley. They felt so high up, and like they were moving so fast, even while the movement of the house’s legs was rather gentle.

“Maybe you can answer a question for me,” said Alfric.

“I can certainly try,” said Pinion with a smile.

“Why did no one care?” asked Alfric. “We pulled out a pretty much exact copy of a large theater, I told everyone, and we were met with silence.”

“Not silence, exactly,” said Pinion. “We spoke of it, even before you contacted us, but … there wasn’t much to do with it. It happened, that was all.”

“It was unprecedented in the history of dungeons, so far as I know,” said Alfric.

“Well,” said Pinion. “What are we talking about, really? There are hundreds of factors that influence what a dungeon will produce. There have also been hundreds of attempts at getting them to produce specific things, some of those were even successful. You’ve heard of the City of Knives?”

“In the northeast, yes,” said Alfric. “Hundreds of thousands of knives, a museum of bladed weapons, all brought in for the purpose of ‘forcing’ the dungeon to make more.” He frowned as he looked at the road. His attention was clearly split, and Pinion wondered how much was going on that he couldn’t see as far as controlling the house went. “It’s spotty though.”

“Spotty,” nodded Pinion. “But it does work. My mentor was a part of the team that did a very long survey of a few cities around Inter where such measures had been taken.”

“I haven’t read anything about that,” said Alfric.

“Oh, are you a researcher?” asked Pinion. “Or rather, I know you’re not, since you’re out here, but an amateur then?”

“I am,” nodded Alfric. “I have no formal education though, except from tutors.”

“Well, there are a wealth of papers you wouldn’t have access to, wouldn’t even know about,” said Pinion. “What’s available to people outside our little club lags far behind what’s available to everyone else, especially because so often the findings are so cursory or speculative. In the case of the City of Knives, the research team staked out the dungeon entrance and recorded the number of knives removed by every single dungeoneering team who came out of the dungeon. Of course, there were confounders, but we had to deal with them as much as we could.”

“Confounders?” asked Alfric.

“Things that would cause spurious associations where none exist,” said Pinion.

“Oh, I know that,” said Alfric. “I was wondering what confounders there could be.”

“The largest one was that it’s the City of Knives,” said Pinion. “It’s known as the City of Knives. Dungeoneers come there looking for knives, or at least knowing that’s what they’ll find, which means that they come in with knife-finding and knife-carrying solutions. That means the dungeoneers are different, which means that the data is different even if the dungeons themselves are not.”

“Ah,” said Alfric.

“It was also, embarrassingly, not something that was caught during the design of the study,” said Pinion. “They had done their best to account for everything they could, but the psychology of dungeoneers wasn’t one of them, and they had somewhat of a beating when someone brought it up later.”

“I wish they did more like that, comparative studies,” said Alfric.

“They’re ungodly expensive,” said Pinion with a laugh. “You need to pay for someone to watch the dungeon entrance, or rely on the dungeoneers to report every little thing they find, so it’s a balance between expensive, time-consuming information gathering or bad information. They ended up doing both, separate methods at different sites, but had to throw out a lot of what was gathered, as it was too useless.”

“It sounds like an interesting problem,” said Alfric.

“Does it?” asked Pinion. He was genuinely surprised. He’d bored more than enough people with this in the past that he was always hesitant to speak of it.

“You want full, complete information, but you don’t know how best to get it, and you’re constrained by funding,” said Alfric. He rubbed his chin. “Very much of Qymmos.”

“In some sense, yes,” said Pinion. “We’re trying to do what many see as Qymmos’ will. But we do tend to see the aspects of the other gods as well. I’ve been told I have a more clerical mind than most — I mentioned to your cleric that I had spent some time in the seminary — but I see Bixzotl often, though perhaps not as she would prefer me to see her. Two dungeons, copies of each other, save for all the differences of the hexes they pull from.”

“Possibly,” said Alfric.

“Possibly?” asked Pinion.

“You probably know more than I do,” said Alfric. “But there’s an assumption there, that dungeons are all the same as each other, that there aren’t intrinsic differences between them. I … don’t know whether that’s true. I didn’t know whether we, as a people, knew whether it was true. Do we?”

“We do not,” said Pinion. “It’s an assumption. But so far as I’m aware, all the dungeons appeared at once, and for them to have intrinsic differences right from the start would strain credulity. Everything the Editors have done are premised on the idea of universality. No nation is favored by nationalist superstructure, except from the ground conditions.”

“Inter is favored,” said Alfric.

“Inter is favored now,” said Pinion. “But Inter only barely existed when the change was made, and now bears only a passing resemblance to the nation that once was. Much of how it has changed has been in response to what the Editors put in place. If it’s favored, it’s because it was more adaptable.”

“Or adaptable in the favored ways,” said Alfric.

Alfric was surprisingly sharp, and Pinion was quickly changing his initial opinion of the man. Aside from the moving house, there was a somewhat surprising lack of eccentricity among them, and Alfric reminded Pinion more of a solid oak tree than the wild juniper he might have expected. He could see why they had him as their leader.

“I think, having spoken to you, that you’re not a fabulist,” said Pinion. “It’s frighteningly hard to say though. Maybe it wasn’t taken too seriously by people who hadn’t spoken to you, which is why they simply shrugged. I apologize for that, I suppose. We can be very set in our ways, very skeptical of new evidence, which comes with the profession.”

“Dungeoneers really are the worst sometimes,” said Alfric with a sigh. “They bring that skepticism upon themselves.”

The house was going a bit faster than it had been before, picking up speed as it went down another rather narrow road. The boy with his bird was racing ahead, still shirtless, and it seemed as though they had gotten into a smooth rhythm. Every now and then, the boy would pull flags from a pack on the bird’s side and signal to Alfric, who would signal back with his own flags.

“Is that … someone's child?” asked Pinion.

“Most people are,” said Alfric. “But no, he doesn’t belong to us.” He raised an eyebrow. “Whose son did you think he would be?”

“I don’t really know how old any of you are,” said Pinion. “But Mizuki seems older, I suppose.”

“She’s not that old,” said Alfric.

“Late twenties?” asked Pinion.

“She’s only twenty-two,” said Alfric. He shifted uncomfortably. “She’s got a birthday coming up.”

“She carries herself older, I suppose,” said Pinion. “Or it might be the long hair.”

“I liked it better short, personally,” said Alfric. “She’s taking the wizard thing seriously.”

“Did she not, before?” asked Pinion.

Alfric paused for a long moment. “I suppose I left certain things out of my letters,” said Alfric. “I was doing most of my requests for help without the party knowing about it, and there were certain details that didn’t make it in.”

“You had said that you wanted to be discreet,” said Pinion. “Though now that I’m here, I can just ask directly.”

“It was mostly the matter of Verity who was going through some trouble,” said Alfric. “Though … I don’t want to broadcast Isra’s name far and wide either, and I don’t want my family’s notoriety. I assume we can request that for when you write your, ah, pamphlet? That names be changed?”

“I don’t think that would be an issue,” said Pinion. “And … your own family’s name?” he asked. “Overguard? I’m afraid I’m not familiar.”

Alfric stared at him. “You … study dungeons?” he asked.

“I do,” nodded Pinion. “Mostly comparative dungeon generation, though that’s a recent area of interest for me.”

“But … not the actual practice of dungeoneering? The League, things like that?” asked Alfric.

“No, sorry,” said Pinion. “I’ve never been in a dungeon, never wanted to, and I have to imagine that I’d be particularly useless. Are you or your family … famous?”

“Er,” said Alfric. “I suppose you don’t need to worry about it, but yes.” He gave a laugh. “I never really know how much weight the name carries, whether I should say something or not.”

Pinion’s own family was somewhat infamous. His father had been a high-ranking member of the Church of Qymmos before being unceremoniously expelled in one of the larger church scandals of the modern era. Falk was a common name though, and people made the connection only rarely, the scandal now far enough in the past that it didn’t come to the forefront of the mind. If Alfric preferred not to speak of his family, Pinion would respect that, unless it helped to explain what had been happening with the dungeons.

“I’d like you to come with, to the next dungeon,” said Alfric. “There’s another dungeoneering party traveling alongside us, which will be a good control so we can compare and contrast with conditions as close as possible. That wasn’t planned, but it works out well.” He looked out at the road. “For now, there’s a cool cave we’re going to visit. You’re welcome to come with us, if you’d like.”

“That’s very generous,” said Pinion. “I wouldn’t want to impose though.”

“We’re a large group, at least for now,” said Alfric. “I don’t know how long the other party will be with us, but they're breaking in a new member. And you met Bib, of course.”

“Every dungeoneering team needs a bird boy, I suppose,” said Pinion.

“Something like that,” smiled Alfric.

“And now you’ve acquired your own researcher,” Pinion smiled. “For a time, anyway.”

“We’re a team that’s been living on ‘for a time’,” said Alfric. “But we’re coming up on a corner.” He paused for a moment. “Literally, as it happens. You might want to find something to hang onto.”

Pinion made his way into the living room and found a seat on a couch there, which was firmly affixed to the floor. He’d heard the sound of music, but this was the source of it, Verity, playing a lute while facing the back door of the house — which showed the scenery receding. She took no notice when Pinion came in, and continued to play on, heedless of the motion of the house.

It was a pleasant tune, though as Pinion listened, he slowly grew mortified by the lyrics.

When she was finished, which happened just as the house was taking its turn, she turned and jumped at the sight of Pinion.

“Apologies,” he said.

“No, sorry,” she said. “I had forgotten you were here.”

“That song was, ah … like nothing I’ve heard,” he said. “Very … explicit.”

“It’s something that I’ve been trying lately,” said Verity. She began tuning her lute as she spoke. “It’s a way of getting past any feeling that I have something to be embarrassed about. If I can play a song like that, I shouldn't really worry about anything.”

“Erm,” said Pinion. “I didn’t actually know that they wrote songs like that.”

“Well, I wrote the song,” said Verity. “So I suppose I don’t know if ‘they’ write songs, but I do, or can.” She frowned at him. “You didn’t like it?”

“I … was a bit shocked by it,” replied Pinion. “I suppose if you can play that without being self-conscious … you’re the bard then?” It was a stupid question, he knew that, but he was befuddled, and had always defaulted to questions.

“I am,” she replied with a nod. “And I do seem to be the reason that you’re here, at least so far as we can tell. Alfric has plans to replace me if there’s another bad dungeon, if only for the sake of seeing whether we can isolate what’s going on. He’s his own sort of researcher, in a way.”

“He’s surprisingly clever,” said Pinion.

“Surprisingly?” asked Verity. She arched her eyebrow as though she had practiced doing it.

“He doesn’t meet my expectations of a dungeoneer,” said Pinion. “Not that I have a low opinion of your profession, but it doesn’t have a reputation for intellectualism.”

Verity’s frown was a tiny thing, a slight downward quirk of her lips that he might have missed. “I would agree with that, in principle, but I think you’ll find that Alfric Overguard knows quite a bit about dungeons.”

“Er, right,” said Pinion. He felt the need to apologize, but didn’t know what he’d be apologizing for. He had complimented Alfric, hadn’t he? “Well, I’ll leave you to your practice.”

“No, we have a ‘cool cave’ coming up,” said Verity. “I want to figure out some kind of spelunking outfit.” She looked Pinion up and down. “Do you have something? I doubt Alfric’s clothes would fit properly, but we have plenty of spare clothes.”

“That’s generous, but … I’m not exactly clear on why you’re going into a cave.” Pinion paused. “You’re a dungeoneering party?”

“Not just a cave, a cool cave,” said Verity. “I think you’ll find that we do relatively little in the way of dungeons.”

“I suppose you’ve had challenging dungeons in the past,” said Pinion.

“All in the past though,” said Verity. “This is the new era. You’ll see.”

Pinion wasn’t so sure about that. He would be happy for their troubles to be over, but unless it was a regression to the mean, he didn’t think that all their problems could be so easily solved. He was, selfishly, hoping that if they did solve their problems, they would have newer, more interesting ones.

And along the way, he was hoping that he would get some of the experience his mentor thought he was lacking. Apparently there were cool caves on offer.