Alfric woke in the middle of the night, as was his habit. He checked for guild messages, and saw none, which was the best possible indication that he hadn’t missed the witching hour. Guild messages from the day before went through, all at once, just five minutes after the witching hour. The difference between those two times had been a topic of occasional discussion within the guild, and Alfric had read through enough of the back-and-forth to know that most would have preferred that it be more like an hour’s difference, not that there was any way of making a change. If there was something from an undone day you needed to report to the guild, you had five minutes to say what needed to be said. It wasn’t terribly much time, but it allowed for people to set up some coordination, at least a little. If the guild messages went through fourteen hours after the witching hour, there would be almost no coordination, and if the guild messages were immediately after the witching hour, no one would be able to get a message out in time.
He sat up so he wouldn’t fall back asleep, and waited, not moving from his bed. He didn’t have all that long to wait. He was always slightly nervous, if he’d had a day that had gone well, because he knew that days were undone all the time, and it was much more likely that you were living in an undone day than that you were in one that would finish. Of course, you only ever saw the inside of the ‘done days’ or the days that you ended up personally undoing, so you never had any actual experience with a day that didn’t end up happening. The whole thing was an existential quandary that Alfric did his best not to think about, but the nightly ritual of waking up for the witching hour unfortunately offered quite a bit of time for such rumination.
There was no particular sensation during the witching hour as they moved from one day to the next, so the first indication Alfric got was from the guild as the messages came in all at once. He had the interface open, naturally. He scanned it quickly, looking for a priority alert from someone, just in case they needed something immediate and important, especially if it was for him. There were special codes that could be used, the better to get as much information as possible and mark something as an absolute priority, and other codes that could relegate a message to the level of mere useful information. No one had any great emergency going on, and no one had any specific message for Alfric. There were dungeon reports to read, and some ongoing discussion between other members of the family that he was interested in following … but all that could wait until the next day, as tempting as it always was to read something the moment it came in.
Alfric lay back in bed, and was out in another few minutes.
The only issue that Alfric had with the top floor at Mizuki’s, other than a lack of drawers to place clothes into, was the light that came streaming in when the sun rose. He was an early riser, but it was just about early summer, and the sun was now at the point when it was getting up earlier than he did. The light came in all the same though, and woke him up. He was going to have to get curtains for the windows if he was going to stay there, but he hadn’t had luck finding anything in Pucklechurch, and had run out of time when he was in Dondrian. It wasn’t just a matter of finding curtains, because rods needed to be cut and installed as well, and it was no small amount of work. It was also not particularly in his area of expertise.
He got dressed, used the tiny upstairs bathroom, gathered up what gear he would need for the day ahead (sword, boots, his empty pack, rations, water), and headed downstairs to see whether or not Mizuki was awake.
He was of two minds about taking her with him. On the one hand, she would probably slow him down a little bit, but on the other, it would be good to speak with her, especially since she’d given it some thought ahead of time. Besides, Mizuki was a good friend, and it was quite unlikely that she would feel like he’d taken advantage of her by having conversations that she didn’t remember. He would, of course, tell her about everything that happened, but he had a somewhat boring day planned.
Alfric gave a tentative knock on Mizuki’s door, trying not to be too loud in case she was still sleeping. He wasn’t terribly surprised when she didn’t answer, so he went downstairs to get a bit of breakfast for himself. He would eat, then check in on her again to see if she was awake, and if she wasn’t, then he would leave without her and hope that she’d forgive him when he told her what had happened.
When he got down to the kitchen, he was surprised to see that she was already there, making tea and frying up some eggs and bacon. She was dressed in her usual outfit, culottes and a simple shirt, rather than the robe she normally wore when she’d just woken up.
“Mornin’,” she said with a yawn. “I had trouble sleeping and then woke up way too early, feeling completely alert. It’s started leaving me now though. Hence tea.”
“Are you making enough for me?” asked Alfric.
“I am,” said Mizuki as she shifted things around in the pan. “You’re getting used to breakfast?”
Alfric nodded. “I had to stop eating so much at lunch and dinner, but when Hannah does morning baking and I smell you frying things up, it makes sense not to miss out.”
“She didn’t come home last night,” said Mizuki.
Alfric tensed. “No?” he asked. “We should use the party channel, make sure she’s okay.”
“She’s fine,” said Mizuki, sighing. She grabbed a loaf of bread and started aggressively slicing it. “She got drunk with Marsh and ended up spending the night at the temple instead, rather than walking back. She came in this morning, when I was sitting in the living room reading, and seemed a bit sheepish.”
“Ah,” said Alfric, relaxing. “Good.”
“But not good that she’s with Marsh?” asked Mizuki. She was focused on the pan, shaking it a bit more aggressively than was necessary.
“I just worried that something had happened to her,” said Alfric. “When you say that someone didn’t come home the night before, my mind goes to the need for a search party, rather than a bit of embarrassment.”
“I don’t think that they slept together, for what it’s worth, but she looked a bit hungover, and is sleeping up in her room right now,” said Mizuki. “We can grill her about it later.”
“I’m not sure that’s necessary,” said Alfric.
Mizuki shrugged. “So … is this the day that gets undone or has that already happened?”
Suddenly, her nervous energy made sense.
“It’s the day I’m planning to undo,” said Alfric.
“Ah,” said Mizuki. She was still looking at her cooking.
“Were you still thinking that you were going to come with me?” asked Alfric.
“I was,” said Mizuki, biting her lip. “But you never really said what you were doing.”
“Item identification is one of the big things,” said Alfric. “I already cleared it with Filera. I had meant to do it earlier, after the second dungeon, but there didn’t seem to be anything pressing, and then with Lola showing up, I wanted to keep my days in reserve, just in case I needed to do some kind of counterplay. I still do feel like that, but if I don’t get the items properly identified in an undone day, then I need to lean into her a bit too much. The agreement was for six hours of her time, so long as it was guaranteed to be undone.”
“And what are you going to be doing during that time?” asked Mizuki.
“I’ll be going to Liberfell,” said Alfric. “We’ll use the wardrobe to get halfway, then walk the rest of the way, and use the dagger to get back. I want to give a more thorough look at the League logs and check in on Besc to see how much has been done with the growthstones, visit the bastlekeeper, and possibly scout out Vertex.”
“Oh, this is that kind of mission?” asked Mizuki. She rolled her shoulders. “If you need someone to kill Lola, let me know.”
“I don’t,” said Alfric. He sighed. “It’s nice of you to offer though.”
“Is it?” asked Mizuki, brightening.
“Not really,” said Alfric. “I mean, it’s nice that you have my back, but killing Lola … it’s not for the best.”
“Sure, sure,” nodded Mizuki. She plated up what she’d made, setting toast, mushrooms, bacon, eggs, some of her sobyu onto a plate, along with a few slices of cucumber. “Eat up, I guess. And I suppose I’ll be making this exact same meal when we do this again, so I hope it’s nice enough you don’t mind eating it twice.” She poured him a cup of tea and set a pot of blueberry jam out along with a dish of butter.
“I missed this,” said Alfric.
“Really?” asked Mizuki. She smiled. “I don’t think it compares at all to Dondrian.”
“It’s comforting,” said Alfric. “Homey.”
Mizuki narrowed her eyes at him as she ate a piece of bacon. She had a way of getting it to just the perfect level of crispiness. Alfric buttered his toast, then scraped the butter off the knife and put some jam on it. “You know,” she said, “Hominess is a very low compliment to give.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” said Alfric. “I think a feeling of home is one of the highest compliments you can give a meal, actually.”
“Mmm,” said Mizuki. She ate the rest of her food so quickly that Alfric almost had trouble keeping up. Clearly, she was in some kind of mood, but it was difficult for Alfric to figure it out, let alone talk to her about it.
It took some time to gather things up. The entads for identification were the large coin, the bident, the barnacle-encrusted sword, the dagger, the blanket, the wand, and the goggles.
“Most of those we know what they do though, right?” asked Mizuki.
“We sort of know,” said Alfric. “Proper identification might still reveal something we don’t know about them. There’s been no rush to sell them, and talking with the entad sellers has made me think that I won’t get a good price from them. This is mostly to confirm findings and iron out wrinkles. There is the problem that we won’t have any kind of certification on the identification, but if they’re worth it, I’ll get them recertified.”
“Sure,” said Mizuki. “Makes sense.”
The last thing to do before he left the house was to write a note, and Mizuki insisted on writing her own note, this one giving instructions on care for the herb dragon. She had fed it early in the morning, but it would need to be fed again. Privately, Alfric approved. Given Mizuki’s seeming recklessness regarding undone days, he’d wondered whether or not she would simply leave without thinking about the creature whose care she’d taken over.
They went into Pucklechurch proper, walking side by side. It was still rather early, but that was good, because Alfric wanted to get a good start on the day.
Conversation with Filera was rather short.
“I have these seven,” said Alfric, unloading the backpack. “Today is going to be undone, but I would appreciate it if you kept that to yourself. I’ll be back before sunset to get a report.”
Filera shook her head. “It’s an awkward thing, knowing none of this is going to matter.”
“It is,” said Alfric. “If you have any advice for yourself, or information you’d like me to pass on, let me know.”
She nodded. “And if you don’t undo the day?”
“Then I’ll give you some kind of compensation,” said Alfric. “I do my best to be honorable in my dealings. I’ve set this day up for a reset though, you shouldn’t need to worry.”
She nodded again. “I’ll think about it, but I have little hope for a grand revelation today.”
They left the temple, making sure that Alfric had made a small cut on his forearm using the dagger that would bring them home, and walked over to Bethany’s shop, where the wardrobe was being kept.
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“Hi Mizuki!” called Bethany. “Can I show you something?”
“Sure,” said Mizuki.
Bethany held out a hand, and on it, there was a ring, one with a braided design on the metal. Alfric at first mistook it for gold, but on closer inspection, it was some kind of alloy.
“What?” asked Mizuki, backing up a bit once she’d got a look. “Are you … getting married? To who?”
“Jo Pedder,” said Bethany, smiling. “He asked me the day of the dungeon escape.”
“Oh,” said Mizuki. “I didn’t know that the two of you were … together.”
“It was casual,” said Bethany, looking down at her ring and smiling. “At first it was a total shock, but then the more I thought about it, the more excited I was, and — here we are!” She laughed.
“Congratulations,” said Mizuki. There was a distinct lack of warmth, which Mizuki must have noticed in her own voice. “Really, I’m happy for you, and him. Let him know that, okay?”
“I will,” Bethany nodded. “You know, it’s been long enough, things have cooled down. I think maybe you should start talking with them again.”
“I talk,” said Mizuki. She shifted uncomfortably.
“You know what I mean,” said Bethany. “You’ll be coming to the wedding, right?”
“Yeah,” said Mizuki. “Roast pig?”
Bethany laughed. “You know it. But I would love to have you there, when it’s time, and for it to not be awkward.”
“Okay,” said Mizuki. “I’ll … make some effort to make up, I guess. Or at least to not be awkward.”
“You’ll be welcome too, Alfric,” said Bethany. “If you’re still around when we get things together.”
“Thank you,” said Alfric, nodding. “The next dungeon we do, I’ll be on the lookout for a good wedding gift.”
Bethany beamed. “Well, it might be a bit. I think it was a spur of the moment thing, to be honest. We were halfway expecting the day to be undone, all of us, so perhaps some things were said that might not otherwise have been said.” She looked at the ring again. “It’s his grandmother’s.”
“Congratulations,” said Alfric.
“Sorry,” said Bethany, giving a sheepish smile and hiding her hand behind her back. “Was there something that I could get you today?”
“We’re just here for the wardrobe,” said Alfric.
“Oh, just one second,” she replied. She stopped down below the counter and rummaged around before coming back up with a small sack. “Here, it’s your proceeds.”
Alfric took it and hefted it for a moment, then opened it and counted quickly. “Hmm,” he said. “That’s better than I would have thought.” The wardrobe had been there for nearly a week, and it had made them almost a thousand rings. “You’ve been getting a lot of people using it? At most, it should have been … four thousand? If there were sixty-six people every day. So this is averaging fifteen people a day?”
“Something like that,” nodded Bethany. “I think we get about that many coming through. I put up a little sign by the warp point, which I think has been helping?”
“I thought Alfric did that,” said Mizuki. “Nice work.”
“And I take my own cut,” said Bethany, nodding at Alfric. “Obviously I hope that you’ll be leaving it here, since a hundred rings a week for basically doing nothing seems quite good, but I understand if you need to take it somewhere else.”
“If you can, pay attention to who goes through,” said Alfric. “I want to know so we can tune the price. Ten rings to save six miles might be the right price, but it was just a guess on my part.”
“Can do,” said Bethany.
Alfric put the rings into his bag. Having the money wouldn’t make any difference, and he’d have to pick it up again on the second time through the day, but it was better to take it than leave it. “Thank you, but when I said that I was here for the wardrobe, I meant that we were going through it.”
“Oh,” said Bethany. “That will be ten rings, please. Twenty, if both of you are going through.” She beamed at him. “Only joking, of course.”
They went over to the wardrobe, which was in a place of prominence thanks to some rearranged shelves, and Alfric began fiddling with the dial.
“Six miles of walking, is that really what I signed up for?” asked Mizuki.
“Ideally not six miles,” said Alfric. “It’s six miles if you count from the center of the Traeg’s Knob hex, but if we spin the dial enough times, and are able to get a good bead on where in the hex the portal is pointed, we could maybe go through and only be a hundred feet from where the hex boundary is, which would mean a hundred feet of walking, then a warp to the center of Liberfell. If we had Isra, it might be trivial, but since it’s just the two of us, we’ll have to get lucky.”
“Huh,” said Mizuki. “Not bad.”
The big problem was that Alfric had seen relatively little of Traeg’s Knob. Each hex covered a fairly substantial area, and looking through a portal to a place with no landmarks wasn’t all that helpful. It really would have been child’s play for Isra, even if she couldn’t ‘connect’ with things on the other end of the portal without going through it, because she would know what grew near the big river that passed through Liberfell, or have some understanding of what was westward and what was eastward. He didn’t want to bother her or involve her in any way, mostly so he could avoid disclosure.
Eventually, by tracking the clouds in the sky as best he could, Alfric got what he thought was the best portal he was likely to get. Mizuki had gotten bored and went to continue on talking to Bethany, and he called her over.
“Ready to go?” she asked.
“I think so,” said Alfric.
“Not that it really matters, I guess,” said Mizuki.
“I don’t want to do this all over,” said Alfric.
“True,” said Mizuki. She peered at the portal as though she was going to second guess his choice, but stepped through without another word.
Alfric followed behind her, and as soon as he was through, there was no way back except the dagger.
“So are we really making a thousand rings a week on that wardrobe?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Alfric. “It’s a good get. Divided five ways, that’s two hundred each, and it already takes into account the shop’s cut.”
“I could almost live on that alone,” said Mizuki.
Alfric smiled. “Almost. But you were saying that you wanted to do more dungeons.” They were standing around in the woods, and Alfric was doing his best to keep in mind which way Liberfell was for when they needed to get moving again.
“I do,” said Mizuki. “It just seems crazy that all this time, when I was getting a little worried about money, that it was as easy as going into a dungeon and pulling out something that would have me set for life, even at second elevation.”
“You’re third elevation,” said Alfric. “I checked with the censusmaster yesterday.”
“Really?” asked Mizuki. She looked at her hands. “I don’t feel any different.”
Alfric shrugged, then grinned at her. “Must be bunk.”
Mizuki smiled at him. “You’re actually decently funny, I don’t know if I ever told you that.”
“Oh, being funny is pretty easy,” said Alfric. “It’s just a matter of doing the research and putting in the effort.”
Mizuki burst out into laughter, though Alfric hadn’t actually been joking. He’d read a book, On Humor, that he thought had really helped him.
“Come on, let’s get going,” said Alfric.
“Lead the way!” said Mizuki.
They walked through the forest, which was thankfully free of underbrush. There was, instead, a type of grass that had grown long and lay down in thick mats, and above, trees with thick trunks that spread their branches and leaves wide. Every now and then, they saw a mossy rock sticking up from the ground, and if they were near enough, Mizuki would go to pat it, sometimes digging her fingers into the moss.
“It’s weird, right?” asked Mizuki.
“The moss?” asked Alfric.
“The undone day,” said Mizuki. “The knowledge that this is all going to go away, be reset, be … I don’t know.”
“Easier for me,” said Alfric. “I’ll have some memory of it.”
“I’m trying not to let it bug me,” said Mizuki. “But I dig my fingers into the moss, and I think about how that’s an experience that’s going to be stripped away from me.”
“If you wanted, I could bring you here,” said Alfric. “We could walk in these woods again the second time through the day, and you could dig your fingers in the moss, just like you’re doing now.”
“Not the same,” said Mizuki. She sounded somewhat sad.
“Maybe this was a mistake,” said Alfric.
“No,” said Mizuki. She looked at him. “It’s something I wanted to do, and I think I need to get better at seeing things through.”
“It’s not really a lesson that you’ll carry with you though,” said Alfric.
“Well, you’ll just have to relay a message from me to me,” said Mizuki. “Say, how will we know when we’re in the Liberfell hex?”
“We won’t,” said Alfric. “It’s possible we’re already through. Hex boundary markers are really clear in Dondrian, they use little towers spaced just right so that you can almost always see one if you’re looking and close enough to the boundary. But out here, they’re only on the paths, usually.”
“So we just keep walking and hoping?” asked Mizuki.
“Yes,” said Alfric. “If we warp early, we end up in Traeg’s Knob, and then it’s six miles of walking for certain. Even six miles is optimistic, actually, because the road isn’t terribly straight.”
So they walked, somewhat silently, until Mizuki began humming. Alfric eventually recognized the tune as being from Lerial and Marsc, the opening act, which somewhat surprised him. He had thought that the opera hadn’t left that much of an impression on her.
“Maybe I’ll see Rolaj,” said Mizuki.
“How have the letters been going?” asked Alfric.
“Fine,” said Mizuki. “Four from him but I’ve only sent two back. I was going to write another one today. I might, on the second time through today. You’d send information back for me, if I saw him?”
“Depends,” said Alfric. “You’d have to follow disclosure.” He wasn’t a fan of that relationship, but tried to keep it to himself and maintain some professional distance.
“Meaning?” asked Mizuki.
“If you learned something about him, or experienced something, you would have to tell him,” said Alfric. “I don’t know what your relationship is like, but it’s the kind of thing that can get thorny quite fast. If he told you that he loved you, or the two of you kissed … if you wanted me to tell you about that, then I would need your word that you would be clear to him that you had that information, and where it came from. I would also caution that he might hate you for it, or at least feel weird about it.”
“I guess,” said Mizuki. She was walking slightly ahead, having sought out another mossy rock. “I wouldn’t hate you, if you told me we’d kissed in some undone day.”
Alfric could feel the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. “It’s — not something that you need to worry about.”
Mizuki glanced back at him. “Too far?” she asked. “Come on, it’s just flirting.”
“I don’t want this to be a problem,” said Alfric. “If I have to tell you everything that happens between us today, then — why are you flirting?”
“I don’t know,” shrugged Mizuki. “Maybe I’m just thinking about how this is all going to go away, and I can do anything I want, and if I’m living life like there’s no tomorrow, which is kind of true, then.” She stopped and looked back at him. “Have we ever done this before?”
“I’d have told you if we had,” said Alfric. “I’ve done extra days since we’ve known each other, but I make it a point not to speak with you.”
“You know, if I were a less generous person, I might take that the wrong way,” said Mizuki.
“You’re well aware of why,” said Alfric. “I don’t want to create problems. If you flirt with me in the undone day, and then I need to then explain to you that we were flirting on a day that unhappened, then your reaction might be — I don’t know. Bad. As though I was taking advantage of you in some way.”
“You’re welcome to take advantage of me, if you like,” said Mizuki. She turned around and walked backward so she could watch him. “You know, I like it better when you have some kind of quip back.”
“Sorry, thinking,” said Alfric. “Try again?”
“You’re welcome to take advantage of me, if you like,” said Mizuki. Her voice was somewhat lower, her speech more exaggerated, and she gave him a big wink.
“I don’t think I would need any advantage, frankly,” said Alfric. His heart was beating faster. “It would be like giving the world’s fastest man a head start in a race.”
Mizuki laughed and turned back around. “Probably true. If you gave me the slightest bit of attention I’d melt in your hands.”
“Or even if I did nothing to encourage it,” said Alfric. He felt warm around his neck.
Mizuki giggled.
There was a dangerous feeling brewing in Alfric, one that he’d only felt a few times before. Especially on an undone day, it wouldn’t do for him to act on the flickers of attraction. That Mizuki seemed to treat attraction so flippantly, and that they were party members, and that Lola was still a problem, and Alfric might be re-pacted, were all strikes against Alfric doing anything with her, especially something like the offhandedly mentioned kiss.
But a part of him wondered how Mizuki would react if he did the very stupid thing and kept responding to her flirtation with some aggressive flirtation of his own, or what it might be like if they really did kiss. Talking back and forth, if he matched her, they might end up rolling around on the forest floor together. And that, naturally, would be wholly irresponsible of him, but this was the dangerous feeling that was brewing, the one which asked whether it being illicit and stupid might not make it more exciting and enticing.
It was the same sort of thinking that had led him to delve into dangerous dungeons alone. He had felt a pulsing need to do it, and the more he had thought about why it was stupid and wrong, the more he had felt a compulsion to give in and simply do it. There was a thrill in rebellion and defiance, but thankfully a thrill that he’d only felt rarely.
He wondered whether Lola simply felt that all the time.
“How much further?” asked Mizuki. She was slightly subdued following the lull in their conversation, and he wondered what had been going on in her head.
“We’re probably safe to do the warp now,” said Alfric. “But there’s a chance that we’re too far north or south, even if we’re west enough, which would put us in a hex we don’t want to be in. In that case, we have a six mile walk ahead of us.”
“Great,” said Mizuki, sighing. “Well, do you want to go first, or should I?”
“We can do it together,” said Alfric. “Race you?”
“You’re going to win,” said Mizuki, rolling her eyes. “Give me a five second head start?”
“Sure,” said Alfric.
But it didn’t end up being terribly close, because Alfric was fast and precise with the warp, and Mizuki was a few seconds late arriving, by which time Alfric had already stepped to the side. They were, as he’d hoped, in Liberfell, with most of the day left ahead of them. He only hoped that Mizuki would behave herself.