Alfric had checked the chest over carefully, and satisfied himself that it was probably going to be fine. Entads had a ten percent rule, which was that an entad could lose approximately ten percent of its mass and still be completely functionally fine. The chest hadn’t even lost anything, only had some damage to the lid and one corner. The extradimensional space inside still seemed to work the same as it had before, and they hadn’t experienced a catastrophic vomiting response that extradimensional spaces sometimes had when they failed, where whole interiors dumped out into the world. Alfric had never personally seen it happen, and had never forced it to happen in an undone day, but he was curious about what it looked like. Perhaps now that he had his own extradimensional spaces, he’d try it on a day that he knew for certain he was going to reset.

The party was, overall, in high spirits. They’d made it through the dungeon with plenty of winnings, and Alfric had been the only one that had gotten hurt. It had looked, for a moment, as though they were going to be trapped, but now that they were out, Alfric was the only one that seemed to be taking that risk as seriously as it deserved to be taken.

If a dungeon exit could get up and walk away, the whole enterprise of dungeoneering became incredibly dangerous. Walking away was, in fact, one of the least bad things that could happen if some of the core assumptions weren’t true: the exit could simply vanish, or lead somewhere other than outside, or be suddenly blocked, or … any number of things. The options weren’t infinite, and could be divided up into categories, but they were all problems that normal dungeoneers didn’t have to deal with. Alfric was going to have to speak with Verity about it and possibly draw up a list of all the ways that it could go wrong in the hopes that she could constrain the dungeon exit to be clear, accessible, and immobile.

Having a runaway dungeon exit was, of course, preferable to giant monsters trying to kill them. He was happy with both the end results, and with the prospects of customized dungeons, but Hannah didn’t think he was showing it.

“You need to express it,” she said to him privately.

“Express it?” asked Alfric.

“You focus on the problems,” she said gently. It was a clerical gentleness, practiced calm and reason. “You want to fix those problems, and ay, that’s important. But let’s say you were talkin’ to Mizuki about her food, if she asked how it was. If you only say bad things about it, she’ll think it’s bad, even if you like it.”

“You’re saying that I need to be constructive with my criticism?” asked Alfric.

“No, no,” said Hannah. “Your criticism is constructive already, I’m sayin’ that you need to focus on how it comes across, how it makes people feel, especially Verity. If all she hears are complaints, she’ll think that complaints are all there are. She’s like you in some respects, eager to find faults so they can be corrected.”

“But you’re saying that’s not what I should give her?” asked Alfric.

“Give it to her in a different way,” said Hannah. “Verity focuses on what’s bad more than what’s good, she gets mired in it, and she often ends up thinkin’ that everythin’ she’s done is utter trash, whether it’s music, paintin’, needlework, or magic. Comes from her mom, I think, growin’ up always hearin’ that nothin’ was ever good enough, couldn’t possibly be good enough.”

“But you’re saying that I have the same mindset,” said Alfric.

“For different reasons, ay,” said Hannah. “It’s a breed of perfectionism, a focus on shoring up the weak points, which means all the attention is paid to those weak points. But for people, to manage them, to be a good friend, you need to make sure you don’t lock yourself out of praisin’ what’s good.”

“I do try,” said Alfric. He had thought that he was doing a pretty good job of it. “But I hear you, especially with Verity’s dungeon manipulation, there needs to be more praise, equal focus on what’s good and what’s not.”

“Might be a good rule, if you need a rule,” said Hannah. “These new dungeons, Verity’s dungeons, they should by rights be exciting to you.”

“They are,” said Alfric. “It’s just that the limitations are frustrating, the unknowns terrifying.” He pursed his lips. “I’ll try my best to express my excitement, I hear what you’re saying.”

“It’s one of the best things about you,” said Hannah. “If someone comes to you with a problem, you listen and do your best to address it. I’ll miss that.”

“We should throw a going away party,” said Alfric. “Not that we know when you’re going to leave yet, but if you’re leaving … there’s nothing that I can do to convince you to stay?”

“I think I’ve gotten everythin’ I wanted from dungeons,” said Hannah. “I had never intended this to be my whole life, only a year or two, and while the others seem to have fallen into it, more or less, and while the material wealth does have its enticements, especially with the new dungeons … I want to preach, to help people as much as I can, and Marsh keeps talkin’ about children, which don’t mix well with the dungeon life.” A mild frown crossed her face. “We’d need to get married, of course, and it’s a bit soon for that.”

Alfric wasn’t sure he agreed that children didn’t mix with dungeoneering. His parents had seemed to do okay. His mother, in particular, was one of the greatest modern dungeoneers. She’d had plenty of help and lots of entads, but she’d raised six children who’d all turned out well, at least so far. He didn’t want to say that to Hannah, of course, because the implication that she could keep dungeoneering if she could forgo pregnancy, or hire a nanny, might be taken the wrong way. Those things were true though.

The next day they did entad testing, which Mizuki had clearly been itching for. By general agreement, this was done outside, with the big dining room table and all the chairs brought out for a picnic in the field, just beside the house. Alfric was paying for the use of fields with henlings that they’d otherwise have a hard time selling: in this case, the farmer had taken a mismatched dinnerware set.

The food was relatively simple fare, goat ribs with caramelized onions, salads, and a selection of stone fruits. The ribs were served on a large platter, and Alfric had more than his fair share of them. He was still sore from the hard landing he’d taken in the dungeon the day before, even with Hannah’s ministrations. He was considering going to speak with Mardin before the day was done, as a cleric of Oeyr could clear up any lingering aches and pains.

“You know, I hope that the labels aren’t right,” said Mizuki. Her mouth was practically covered in the sauce on the ribs. “If we can just walk into a dungeon and there are a bunch of entads that come pre-identified, it’s going to suck a lot of the fun out of it.”

“We have seven entads,” said Alfric. “Most of them didn’t come from inside the museum. And if we’d done a full clear of the dungeon, I’m sure we would have found more.” The dungeon had been completely drained after their visit, which had been confirmed afterward, so they would expect for there to be more or possibly better entads. Based on some assumptions that Pinion was running with, there might be as many as two hundred entads scattered throughout the many miles, though the entad density within the village seemed to be higher than the estimates would predict.

“I’m too excited to eat,” said Mizuki. She pushed her plate away. “Does anyone mind if I have first crack at it?”

“Crack away,” said Verity. “I have to admit I’m nervous though.”

“Really?” asked Isra. “The entads we got from the last dungeon were good.”

“It’s very difficult to tell what’s just variance,” said Alfric. “But overall, we’ve had a number of above average entads. That very first bow we got from the very first dungeon was far better than we’d normally expect to have gotten. Maybe that was a sign of things to come.”

“Or it might have been chance,” said Pinion. “Trying to divine anything from entads is like reading tea leaves.”

“Reading tea leaves?” asked Isra.

“A method of divining the future,” said Alfric. “One that notably doesn’t work.”

“It kind of works, it’s just really hard,” said Mizuki. “Takes years of practice, and you’ll still be wrong more often than not.”

“Tea leaves absolutely do not give the ability to detect the future,” said Alfric. “I’m sorry, but if this is some kind of Kiromon thing, it’s not — you understand that reading the future would be incredibly valuable, and if you could do it with the dregs of a cup of tea, it would be a whole industry?”

“Oh, this is brewed tea,” said Isra. “I was thinking of a tea bush. Some plants do know the future, but it’s only things like whether it will be a warm spring or an early winter, or whether it will rain the next day. And they’re wrong sometimes, so it might only be a guess. I’ve never spoken to a tea plant though.”

“Well, for your information Alfric, reading tea leaves is a big business in Kiromo,” said Mizuki. “There’s a tasseomancer in every town, and there are a few that consult with the government at the highest level.”

“They do the same with molten wax in Tarbin,” said Isra. “Though my father was of the opinion that it didn’t work.” She frowned. “He said … I’m trying to remember.” She bit her lip. “He said that they got something wrong about him.”

Mizuki leant over to Pinion, who was sitting beside her. “Alfric had a bad run-in with a future-predicting entad, it’s why he doesn’t believe in time magic.”

“It was a compatibility test with my ex-girlfriend, to see whether we could make for a good marriage,” said Alfric. “She tried to kill us.”

“The infamous Lola,” said Pinion with a nod. “Entad-based future-telling?”

“Yes,” Alfric replied. “But mostly just a bad guess that works out more often than not.”

“Doesn’t that make it a good guess?” asked Mizuki. “I mean I’m sorry for you or whatever, but in theory it’s better to have something that works most of the time than to just wing it, right?”

“I think it’s a thorny question that you probably don’t want to get into right now,” said Alfric. “The entads await.”

“Oh,” said Mizuki. She looked over at where they’d been reverently laid out. “Right. Ice pick first, I guess.”

Alfric resumed eating the last of his meal while she picked up the ice pick. It wasn’t entirely clear what it was, as was often the case with things that came from dungeons, but it had a handle and ended in a pick. It was entirely possible it was just a spike, nothing more.

Mizuki turned the pick over in her hands, looking at the details on it. It was rather ornate for what it was, carved with scenes of battle in lines so thin and with such little depth that they were only visible from just the right angle and with just the right light. They had a general agreement not to test entads in the dungeons, which was, in Alfric’s opinion, unreasonably dangerous and really not likely to be too beneficial. They also had an agreement not to test entads the day they did a dungeon, just because there was some risk involved in it and Alfric preferred to have an undone day in his pocket without having to wipe out a whole dungeon.

There was always some good-natured guessing though, and certain entads revealed themselves just from the handling that was done when retrieving them. It had become a tradition between Mizuki and Alfric to speculate on each of the entads the night before, essentially just making up stories about what these things might possibly do.

They hadn’t done it the night before though. Mizuki had been tired and wanted to spend more time with her mana rock, because she’d still made no progress and wanted to be ‘serious’ about getting to the breakthrough point. Alfric couldn’t help but feel rebuffed by that. It wasn’t like Mizuki to be serious about work she had to do, especially not about work that was elective in nature. Things had been different and uncomfortable since the big party.

The plaque for the pick had said that any hole created by it would fill with blood, which was pretty obviously false within the first few minutes of testing, during which Mizuki stabbed at the ground and peered at the marks she’d left. She seemed happy that it hadn’t worked as advertised.

It took some trials and tribulations, for which Mizuki was mostly silent, but eventually the pick extended, becoming more of a skewer, six feet long. It happened all at once, with a loud sound of metal on metal, and a smile spread on Mizuki’s face.

Her smile was unabashed, with no trace of demure reserve. It was her best feature, Alfric thought.

“Time to poke some stuff,” said Mizuki with a grin.

“Not the table,” said Verity.

“It’s my table,” said Mizuki. She stuck out her tongue at Verity. “But fine, what have we got to poke?”

“Start with something soft,” said Alfric. “Move your way up from there.”

“You know, there’s a chance that it only extends,” said Pinion.

“Or that it does something unrelated to extension, yes, yes, we’ve done entad testing before,” said Mizuki, waving him away, though he was seated at the table.

“Sorry,” said Pinion with a sheepish smile. “I’ll sit back and watch the experts do what they do best.”

“Is he mocking me?” asked Mizuki. She was holding the pick — skewer — in her hand in a vaguely threatening way.

“Only a little bit,” said Verity. She was having wine with her meal, though Alfric thought it was a bit early in the day for it. She’d been pleased with how the dungeon had gone, even with the runaway exit, and Alfric didn’t object to a bit of celebration. Still, she had another of the small town performances coming up that night, and Alfric felt a bit of worry that she wouldn’t be ready. It was the sort of secondhand worry that he’d learned not to voice, and which he’d really prefer not to feel.

When Alfric had turned back to Mizuki, she was holding a rock in her hand and trying to drive the retracted skewer into it. Alfric winced.

“If that works, you’re going to pierce straight through your palm,” said Alfric.

“I’m not stabbing,” said Mizuki. “I’m in control.” She tapped the rock with the pick, frowned, then tapped it again, harder.

“A bit disappointing so far,” said Isra.

“Alright,” said Mizuki. She set the rock on the ground. “A pick has got to be able to pick things, or if it’s a skewer, it needs to be able to skewer things. I refuse to accept that it extends and does nothing else.”

She was thankfully not holding the rock in the palm of her hand when she extended the pick straight through it, but there was a moment of panic all around.

“Wow,” said Mizuki. She held up the skewer, which still had the rock on it, pierced completely through. The more impressive thing, Alfric though, or at least the weirder thing, as that it hadn’t shattered the rock, nor even really moved it all that much.

“Time to test more,” said Alfric.

“You’re volunteering?” asked Mizuki. She had a glint in her eye. “To see whether it goes through flesh, that’s what we’re testing, right?”

“You have flesh,” Alfric pointed out.

Mizuki slowly lifted the pick up and pointed it at her own hand.

“Alright, alright, I’ll do it,” said Alfric. He stood up from his seat and began rolling up his sleeve.

“Veto,” said Hannah with a sigh. “This is exactly the sort of thing that’s best to just ask a cleric of Qymmos about. Unless you’re dependin’ on me to heal your wounds?”

“Kind of,” said Alfric. “Or … entirely.”

“Try it on wood or something first,” said Hannah. “We’ve got henlings galore, surely you can find some glass, some metal, somethin’ to poke holes in, ay?”

“Fine, fine,” said Mizuki. “I think this is mostly just the mopping up of identification though.” She extended the pick, then retracted it, over and over again, making a shink sound. It went to its full length every time, and she was frowning at it. “Is this useful in combat, do you think?”

“Possibly,” said Alfric. “Though realistically, if it’s taking the place of an actual weapon, I think there are some challenges. Poking dozens of holes in a creature would be difficult, and you’d need an entirely different poking-based combat style.”

“Plus we’re hoping for no more combat,” said Verity. She’d finished her glass of wine.

“Yeah, but if someone gets lippy with me at wizard school,” said Mizuki. She retracted the pick and put it in her pocket, which seemed somewhat dangerous without the sheathe. “Maybe I’ll keep it, just in case.”

“I think that one is to sell,” said Alfric.

“Fine, fine,” said Mizuki. She took the pick back out. “I’ll save my dibs for another occasion. It’s nothing world-breaking though.” She looked at Verity. “We want something that challenges the rules of entads, just for your information.”

“Will do,” said Verity with a mild smile. “My turn?”

“Sure,” said Alfric.

Verity picked up the small silver spoon. Alfric was mildly surprised that Mizuki hadn’t picked it up, but Mizuki was talking about the Anyspoon less these days, even if she did still use it for practically every meal, and played with it in her spare moments.

“Oh,” said Verity, almost the moment the spoon was in her hand. She released it, and it floated up in front of her, turning and spinning. She held a hand out, and it went still, then moved her hand, which the spoon followed. “That was easy, I feel cheated.” She swung her hand up, and the spoon rocketed into the air until it was so small that they couldn’t see it. “Fast though.”

“I should have picked the spoon, I knew it,” said Mizuki. “It seems more fun than poking holes in things.”

“Is it going to come back down?” asked Alfric. He watched the sky, trying to catch a glint of silver.

“I think so,” said Verity. She turned to the sky, hand held up to block the sun from her eyes. “There’s a chance that I sent it outside the range where I can control it.”

“A very silly thing to do,” said Isra.

“I wanted to see how fast it would go,” said Verity. “As it turns out, very fast. I really didn’t think that fast.”

“Hey, could that be a weapon?” asked Mizuki. “If you shot a spoon at someone as fast as an arrow, it would have to hurt them, right?”

“It would be blunt,” said Isra. “But a blunt arrow can still hurt. Could kill, if it was fast enough.”

“Wait, it’s coming down,” said Verity. She held out her hand, and the silver spoon shot down out of the sky, landing in her palm with enough force that Verity winced. “Ow.”

“Trade?” asked Mizuki, holding up the pick.

“Nope,” said Verity. She sat back down at the table and began practicing using the small silver spoon on food, which was probably the last thing it was actually useful for, given how comparatively tiny it was. They would need to do a scratch test and see whether it could actually survive the high speeds it was capable of, especially when hitting something, but it had promise as a weapon. That one hadn’t matched its description either, and it was clear now that what was written had nothing to do with the entad’s actual abilities.

Hannah was next to go, and she’d picked the salt shaker, which was bound to her. It had come with salt, which they only knew was actually salt because Isra had identified it as such. Alfric didn’t think much of the salt shaker, at least in terms of form and expected function. There was a chance that it would do something exciting and unexpected, but it was most likely that it had some minor effect having to deal with food.

Hannah tipped the salt shaker over, sprinkling some of the salt on the ground, and then kept shaking, frowning at the salt and then holding out her hand to let the salt gather there. She peered closely at it, then stuck her tongue out to taste a bit.

“Salty,” she said.

“Told you,” said Isra.

“Ay,” said Hannah. “I was just checkin’ to see whether it did somethin’ to the salt, changed it somehow, made it sweet. Possible, you’ve got to admit.”

Isra nodded.

Hannah shook out more salt, and seemed like she was trying to move the salt with her mind, but there was no effect. Once she’d satisfied herself that nothing was happening, she peered more closely at the salt shaker. It was made of glass, with a metal top that had holes in it, and nothing particularly special as far as salt shakers went, though Alfric was more familiar with ceramic ones.

“Hrm,” said Hannah as she shook out more salt. She stared at the level. “I think it might be deliverin’ more salt than is actually in it.” She pressed her thumbnail against a specific line, then turned the salt shaker upside down, letting more salt fall onto the ground.

“Maybe salting the earth isn’t such a good idea,” said Alfric. He was wincing. “We’re just renting this field.”

“Er, ay,” said Hannah. She tipped the salt shaker back up and stared at the line where the salt had settled. “I think it might be infinite salt. Will need to test more. Hand me a plate?”

Mizuki was the one to get up, before Alfric could, and hand Hannah a plate to empty the salt shaker onto. Of course, as it turned out, the salt shaker didn’t empty, and the salt stayed at the level Hannah had marked with her nail, even once there was a considerable pile of salt.

“How much does salt sell for?” asked Hannah. “Not much, I don’t think.”

“You can get a couple of pounds for a ring,” said Mizuki. “I bought some salt last year and it’s still lasting us, though it’s caked a bit.”

“Erm,” said Pinion. “The entad came with the salt? You could possibly try something else with it, if it’s not imposing too much to suggest that.” He seemed sheepish about offering up his thoughts.

“Good idea,” said Hannah. She placed the plate on the table, unscrewed the top, and dumped the salt shaker out, which thankfully did work, rather than just creating an endless torrent of salt. “Now the only question is what we could fill it with,” she said.

“Sugar?” asked Mizuki. “I can run in and get some.”

“I have sand,” said Isra.

“Why do you have sand?” asked Mizuki.

“It’s like you don’t know me at all,” said Isra.

“I’ll be right back,” said Mizuki as she stood up. “Is the sand somewhere obvious? Can I go into your room?”

“I’ll come with you,” said Isra. “We’ll see if we can find other granular things, or powders.”

They left together, and Alfric moved over to the remaining entads, trying to decide which he was going to get for his turn. They had seven from the dungeon in total, and while Alfric was drawn to the two weapons they’d gotten from the houses, a knife and a sword, he found himself compelled by the bucket. The last remaining entad was a dress, one which seemed a bit too small for him, and possibly even too small for Mizuki. There was a chance they wouldn’t be able to test that one.

It took some time for Isra and Mizuki to return from the house, more time than really seemed necessary, and what remained of the picnic engaged in some idle chatter.

“I’m more or less set, as far as finance goes,” said Hannah. “I have Lutopia Two, so I’ll never have to worry about housing again, at least not until I have children, and Marsh has his own extradimensional hoop leading down into a cozy basement, so if we pool them, that’s more or less a full house for those two of us. It’d be better if he could get into Lutopia Two without my help, but it’s a minor inconvenience given he’s got his own space. I’ve outfitted Lutopia Two with its own water tank already, that’s that taken care of. That means clothes and food are the only things to worry much about, and I’ve been saving money, not to mention that I’d probably cash out here.”

“We’ll have to talk about that,” said Alfric. “A lot of what the party has is in the form of entads, which we wouldn’t necessarily want to sell. We’ve got existing contracts as well, which we couldn’t cash out on. Possibly, we’d need to place a value on them and cash out that way, unless you’re fine with waiting.”

Hannah waved a hand. “It’s much less important to me than to you, havin’ everything on the up and up. As I just got done sayin’, I’m set for finances. If I walk away with Lutopia Two, and if this salt shaker is some passive income, I’ve no problem callin’ the rest of my share part of the party funds. It’s been lucrative, there’s no denyin’ that, but money is just money, nothin’ to get too bent out of shape about so long as you’ve got enough.”

“I guess,” said Alfric with a frown. He didn’t particularly like it though. It would feel as though Hannah would be leaving and giving the party a gift, which felt like the opposite of how it should be. If anything, they should give her something in parting. There was still plenty of time, and maybe he would find a good gift for her before she left.

“You’re planning on leaving soon then?” asked Pinion. “Right as things are heating up?”

“Are they?” asked Hannah. “These new dungeons, they’re interesting, but I don’t know that I would call them ‘hot’. A revolution, maybe, if Verity can figure out what she’s doin’ well enough to describe to others. But no, I’ve made good friends here, but the dungeons themselves, I’ve had my fill of, I think. Perhaps because they were too hot for too long.”

“Many challenging dungeons,” said Alfric with a nod.

“I get to go away sayin’ that I fought some of the toughest dungeons that anyone our elevation ever faced,” said Hannah. “Some good stories, some good friends, but,” she shrugged. “Dungeons were never my callin’, never my grand plan.”

Mizuki and Isra returned, Mizuki with a few things from the kitchen, Isra with a number of vials of sand.

“Where’s all this sand from?” asked Alfric.

“I’ve been wandering Greater Plenarch,” said Isra. “Occasionally I’ll go beyond. I have sand from all the Proten Lakes, from near Plenarch, from Dondrian … but obviously sand is different at different points, sometimes different within a mile of coastline, so I always try to think of it as a specific place and time. Also, I have a few magic sands.”

“Magic sands!” said Mizuki, looking delighted. “I never knew there was such a thing.” She’d set her sugars down on the table.

“Glowsand,” said Isra, pointing to a bottle that wasn’t glowing. “Only glows during the twilight hours.” She pointed at another. “Crese sand, which hardens together into something nearly like rock when dry, and dissolves back to sand when wet, taken from a beach on the eastern side of the Gornorian Lake.” She pointed at the final one she’d brought down. “And this is sand from a small bay north of Plenarch, which takes the form of whatever touches it.” The sand was currently in the shape of a vial within the vial.

“Duplicating magic seems unlikely to work,” said Pinion. “That is to say, I’ve never heard of entads being able to do that without major restrictions.”

“We could shrink an entad down to the size of a grain of salt,” said Mizuki. “Then pour it out of the salt shaker and get infinite entads!”

“Probably not, is what I’m saying,” said Pinion.

“Infinite,” said Mizuki.

“We’ll try sugar first,” said Hannah.

Sugar did, in fact, work, which meant that the door was open for all kinds of other things, and the salt shaker was likely to be a fairly substantial moneymaker, at least if it didn’t have much in the way of limits. Of course, entads very often did have limits, but Alfric’s hopes were high.

The salt shaker didn’t seem to be able to duplicate any of the magic sands, but could do any other homogeneous granular substance, if not powders. The exact limits would take more tedious testing, or possibly a cleric, and they had no metals on hand, which seemed like it would be the most lucrative option. There were, in major cities, experts in both entads and trade who could tell you the exact most worthwhile thing to create, and for a fee, would handle the sales. Something like this, even if bound to Hannah, could be worth an incredible amount in the long term, passive income at scale.

Alfric decided that he would take his turn while Hannah was exploring the limits of the salt shaker, and he decided on the bucket, which he’d been quietly eyeing.

The bucket was made of sheet metal, simply shaped, with tightly crimped seams. Alfric had seen metal buckets only a few times, as wood was simpler and more common, not that there were all that many things to use a bucket for. There had been a time, he knew, before widespread availability of ectads, when people had used buckets for moving water from wells, but almost every house had a tank with water in it, usually multiple.

As soon as his hand went into the bucket, a small, pointed bit of metal appeared there, and when Alfric gingerly extracted it, making sure that its sharp point and edges didn’t poke or cut him, another appeared.

“Huh,” he said.

“It’s a throwing star,” said Mizuki. “Pikotane, I think.”

“Kiromon?” asked Alfric.

“We have them in Kiromo,” said Mizuki. “Hand it here?”

Alfric passed it to her, and she inspected it closely. It was only shaped like a star a little, four points coming from the center. As a thrown weapon, he was skeptical that it could actually do any damage. He’d practiced with throwing daggers before, to get a feel for them, and while whipping a dagger at something felt good, the results tended to be unimpressive.

Alfric plucked another throwing star out of the bucket, and it was immediately replaced. An infinite number of throwing stars would be a bit underwhelming, as he thought they’d be somewhat impractical, and melting them down for their metal seemed like it wouldn’t be too worthwhile. Metal was pulled from the dungeons by the ton, and it was the fate of most weapons and armor to be tossed in the crucible.

Alfric needed a target for testing, and pulled one of the bodies from within the storage lute. He made it face away from him, laying on the ground, and frowned slightly. It looked too realistic, he decided, but he threw the throwing star anyway, just to see whether it had any special property. The throwing star missed, since they were horribly inaccurate weapons and he had no practice with them, but the bucket had another throwing star in it, and so he tried again.

Something was different about the second throw, but it was hard to say what, exactly. By the fourth throw, he managed to hit the body, and it was clear what was happening: he was moving faster.

Soon the throwing stars were coming out of the bucket in a blur, the motion of his arm likewise so fast and fluid that he could barely track it. His perception wasn’t any faster, and he was barely conscious of what he was actually doing with his muscles, only that his intent to keep going was still there. The throwing stars weren’t getting any more or less accurate, but they were getting faster with the increased speed of the throws, zipping through the air, and when they hit, they were hitting with enough force to move the body.

Alfric stopped when he’d thrown about fifty of the things, and it was like getting to the top of a set of stairs and thinking you had one more step than you actually did. It felt odd to stop, unsettling, like his hand wanted to keep up with the throwing and was confused about coming to a sudden stop. He had, somehow, not cut his fingers up grabbing and throwing so many sharp objects.

“Huh,” he said. Only a third of the throwing stars had actually hit, but he’d thrown dozens of the things, and if that had been a person, they’d have been well and truly dead. Of course, that had been a stationary target, but it was still fairly impressive. “Maybe thirty seconds to get up to speed?” asked Alfric.

“That’s a long time, in combat,” said Isra.

“That poor body,” said Verity with a cluck of her tongue.

“Looks like they stick around for a minute or so,” said Mizuki, whose throwing star had disappeared.

“I think it might be worthwhile,” said Alfric. “As dungeon weapons go, if you could keep up with the throws, it might outclass other weapons. I imagine it’s wholly ineffective against armor though.”

“Not if you go fast enough,” said Mizuki.

“Needs more testing,” said Alfric. “Maybe later today I’ll get some armor and put it on one of those bodies. If the throwing stars can get fast enough to go through metal, then yes, the bucket might be worthwhile.”

“Usable with the bow, do you think?” asked Isra.

“We’ll test that too,” said Alfric. “We should get through the rest of these though.”

The remainder of ‘basic’ testing took another hour, which was quite a long time for three entads. It was a good collection, all around, though it was only the second-to-last thing tested, the knife, that held real promise of becoming a mainstay. It was able to cut apart any man made thing it touched, cleaving a table apart into planks, or clothing into sheets of fabric. It could do this without touching the joint in question. Isra had lost a shirt in the process, though she’d thankfully been wearing enough to cover herself, and wasn’t left standing naked in the field.

“We’re going to need to be extremely careful with it,” said Alfric. “Keep it from touching the table, keep it from touching the house. In fact, we’re lucky that we haven’t destroyed anything with it yet. It’s very good though.”

“For combat?” asked Mizuki.

“No,” said Alfric. “Though … yes, except it’s quite short, and probably only good for making armor fall apart. I think I would need to throw it, or have Isra buzz by someone while in a bubble of time. I was more thinking that it was good for taking things apart. There was an enormous amount of bricks and lumber in that dungeon, we could have stood a good chance of taking a majority of it, given a full day.”

“You’re actually excited about that,” said Mizuki. She was grinning at him.

“It’s where most dungeon teams eventually get to,” said Alfric. “They become very good at stripping a place bare. If we can reclaim a few tons of lumber, bricks, metal, or whatever else, we can start affording some better entads, especially if we don’t need to focus as much on combat, if Verity can keep us from running into monsters.”

“I don’t think we should be going into dungeons without weapons and armor just yet,” said Verity, biting her lip. “Give me some time.”

“Yes, of course,” said Alfric.

“That leaves the dress,” said Isra. “But Mizuki can try that on in private. It doesn’t seem to resize, so she’s probably the only one who can use it, unless Pinion wants it.”

“I’m not that small,” said Pinion. “Though I suppose if you’re offering me to test an entad, I wouldn’t say no.”

“Well, I have work to do before we go to the tavern tonight, so you can take it,” said Mizuki. “Have fun in a dress, I guess.”

“There’s nothing wrong with a man wearing a dress,” said Alfric. “My uncle has a dress he uses for dungeoneering. You can’t let a thing like gendered clothing stop you from being effective.”

“I suppose not,” said Pinion. He looked at the group. “I’m not expected to put it on here?”

“No,” said Alfric. “This picnic has gone on long enough, I think. Nothing that shattered our expectations, I don’t think, which is unfortunate.”

“I’m not sure you want your expectations shattered, do you?” asked Verity. “Entads are generally safe, that’s one of the expectations, isn’t it?”

“It is,” said Alfric. “And … fair. These are a relatively strong set, above par, so I won’t complain too much. Or at all, really.”

Alfric helped with the cleanup of the picnic, which largely involved putting the table and chairs back into extradimensional space, making sure they hadn’t made a mess of the field, then putting everything back inside and cleaning up the dishes. He ended up doing most of the work with Mizuki, who had a peculiarly far-off expression on her face. He didn’t question it, at least not out loud, but it was just them together, and eventually, at the end, as he was drying the last dish that she had watched, she turned to him and spoke.

“I’d like to talk,” she said. This followed some twenty minutes of silence between them.

“Alright,” said Alfric. “We can talk.”

“Meet me in my room in five minutes,” said Mizuki.

“Oh,” he said as he watched her go.

Apparently, they were going to have a talk.