Death Cap - Twenty-Three - Placing a Bet on Those Who Might Help

“You,” she said, a finger pointing right at me. “I know you.”

“Yeah,” I replied. I was actually kind of surprised she’d recognize me at all. The last time we’d seen each other was... years ago. She couldn’t have been much more than two or three years old. Now she looked like she was nine or so.

Bet, a girl whose last name I didn’t know. She’d taught me the [Running] skill once, and helped me get a hang on how to read. We had spent a few weeks playing together when I was still working past the baby stage.

Me remembering her wasn’t all that impressive. The other way around though... “Hey,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

She was in overalls and a pale blue shirt stained with dirt and grime at the cuffs. The shirt was two or three sizes too large for her. So were her boots, I noted idly.

“I work here,” she said. “For Bloomsbury.” She turned to the other kids, then made a shooing gesture at them. “I know them, they’re nice. Can you tell the foreman that she’s allowed?”

“Is she?” one of the other kids asked.

Bet shrugged. “Does it matter?”

That seemed enough for the others. I had the impression that they’d let a lot of things pass if it meant sticking it to this foreman Bet mentioned. If he was anything like what I imagined, then I could see why. Kids worked at the dungeon. Well, they worked everywhere in this crapsack world.

Somehow I didn’t expect to meet one that I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn’t make a point to stick around with people of my own age. They were loud and stupid, and I had things that needed doing that weren’t helped by their presence.

Bet had been nice though.

“You sell mushrooms?” Bet asked the obvious as she took in my little set-up.

“Yeah,” I said. “Been doing it for a year or two.”

“Who do you work for?” she asked.

I laughed. “Why? Looking for a job?”

She shrugged. “Always.”

I blinked at that, then looked past her shoulder. A couple of delvers were heading over. I waved Bet closer, then pulled her to my side and pressed a skewer into her hands. “On the house. Give me a minute.” I smiled at my customers and jumped into my normal pitch. Soon enough, I’d cleared out my rack and was setting up new skewers of mushrooms. Bet watched me the entire time, like a starving hawk watching an injured mouse.

“Who’s your boss?” she asked.

“No one,” I said.

She blinked. “Huh?”

“So, what do you do?” I asked.

“For a living?” she asked right back. It made something twist in my gut, hearing that. She was what, ten? Nine years old? No one that age should be worried about working for a living. She should have been out playing, getting her knees scuffed and running around. Instead she was talking about making a living.

“Yeah,” I said.

“I said, I work for Mister Bloomsbury. They’ll hire anyone.” I nodded, but I think she caught on that I wanted more. “We go into the dungeon and collect small things. Plants, some smaller bodies. The older kids get knives and cut off spider webs. Mostly we just toss things into carts then pull the carts out. We get one pence a shift. Morning shift and afternoon shift.”

If I sold eight skewers I was making more than her for a full day’s work. “Is it worth it?” I asked.

She shrugged. “It’s work. A little dangerous, but if you do good you can get scouted to join one of the bigger crews. They go deeper, but get paid better.” She nodded to one such crew walking by. They were all adults, and their uniform pretty much just included a dark blue jacket that they all wore with a badge on their chest. The same sort of folk I’d seen carrying out entire trees from the dungeon. “They get a shilling per shift, three shifts a day.”

They were making a little more than what I’d likely make, unless I got lucky. But the work, I imagined, was more dangerous. Nothing about dungeon work was safe.

“It’s better than being in a factory,” Bet said. “If you’re a girl, when you get old enough, some foremen will sell you off..”

I spilled my container of oil on the ground and ducked down to pick it up before I could spill too much. It was cooking oil, so not a big loss. I’d just need to ration it for the rest of the day.

The news was... unsurprising.

“Why are you working here? Wasn’t your dad an accountant or something?”

Her expression darkened. “I can go,” she said.

“No, wait,” I said. “How many days a week do you work?”

“Six,” she said. “We get one off a week. To rest.”

“Uh-huh,” I said. “Now you work three for me.”

“Huh?” she asked. But there was a glimmer of hope there.

I gestured to my set-up. “I grow my own mushrooms. If I’m here selling them, I’m not at the farm. So you’ll sell them for me. Three days a week. Call it... three pence a shift, but only one shift a day.”

“That’s still more than I make now. But the rest of the week?”

My gut churned some more. “You can stay and keep working for Bloomsmury or whomever,” I said. The reality was I couldn’t afford to keep her working six days a week, or even five. And, more disturbingly, I wanted to have an eye in the dungeon, and Bet here could be that for me. “Can you take today off?”

“Foreman won’t be happy,” she said.

“Tell him to talk to me then, if he’s so unhappy,” I growled. “I pay my union dues. You can tell him that, too.”

She bobbed her head. “I’ll be back.”

I watched her go, then refocused on my work. I’d just made an employee. Great. Maybe if I found another growing location or two I could start producing enough that I could keep the mushrooms sales up constantly? That had been my plan before, and I could almost manage it. With more time on my hands... yeah, that would be doable. I grinned at the next delver to come over, traded a few compliments and dropped a few more halfpennies into my purse. Then I plopped a mana-shroom into my mouth and chewed. I needed to keep my mana supplies up.

Bet could be a huge help. Not just in securing a steady income for me (which I needed) but in scouting the dungeon. Could she list off all the products they pulled from the dungeon? If so, were any of them interesting for me?

Last time, I’d found two decent mushrooms and a magical lichen. What else was in the depths of Ditz?

Bet returned, then paused to pant next to me. Her breathing was rough, worse than mine even. It had that bit of wetness to it that was clearly not a good sign. “I can start now,” she said. “You don’t even need to pay me the first day.”

I pulled out enough halfpennies to make up a shift’s pay, then shoved them into her hands. “I’m going to give you a uniform next time, okay?” I could afford some synthetic yarn, and it wouldn’t be hard to knit something up. It was finally a practical use for the skill. “Now, pay attention, this is the ideal oil-to-garlic mix. We don’t want to use too much oil, but garlic’s as cheap as it gets, so don’t worry about that.”

Bet was a quick learner, and within half an hour she was tending to the skewers with minimal fuss while also paying attention to the clients who came closer.

“Thank you,” she said after looking at the two halfpennies a client had given her. She gave them to me with the barest hesitation. Her previous work probably never had her handling the money she was earning from her boss. I’d maybe have to pay her more, to keep the temptation away.

“You’re a friend,” I said. “I still have [Running] you know.”

Bet laughed. “Me too! My dad wanted me to get rid of it, but then... well, yeah, then it came in handy in the dungeon a few times.”

“I bet,” I said. I eyed her from the corner of my eye. The morning continued, but soon enough I was out of oil and my mana reserves were starting to dwindle a little, so I started packing up while showing Bet how. “Come on, I’ll show you where my farm is.”

I nibbled on another mana-infused mushroom, one of the last things I’d cooked, then I handed one to Bet and another to Nibbles.

She made a pleased noise as she ate. “Thank you,” she said again. “But, um, can I ask a question?”

“Sure.”

“What’s that?” she pointed to Nibbles on my shoulder.

I laughed. “Don’t worry about it! Now come on, I want to pick your brain.”

“You want to do what?” she asked.

***