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  [colpse]

  “Tell us everything you know about Threewells,” Leonard demanded.

  Up until that moment I had seen the dour samurai as a sort of... pompous and somewhat rude man that was in a bad mood. Just a normal person who had rolled off the wrong side of the bed that m. He wasn’t a threat because he could talk, he could be reasoned with.

  Now he was in my face, hands gripped over my shoulders and holding on so tight that I couldn’t move. Something told me that bonking him on the head wouldn’t do anything to him. That, and there was a force pushing down on me.

  I could hardly hear Emeric’s protests over the r in my ears.

  Then I remembered that I was Broccoli Bunch, and Broccoli Bunch said nope to bullying. “I won’t tell you anything if yoing to act like a bully,” I told him. “If you want, I could trade you some information, but with how rude you’re being I think I’ll just keep it to myself.” I crossed my arms. “So there.”

  Leonard let go of my shoulders but didn’t back away. He opened his mouth to say something, paused, then stroked his . “A trade would be acceptable,” he said. “What do you know of the Exploration Guild?”

  “Um. Nothing?” I said. “Nothing beyond what I guess, at least.”

  “Oh boy,” Valerie said before she moved back to the cauldron and started scraping stew off the bottom.

  Leonard pulled the log he had been using as a seat closer with hardly any effort. “The Exploration Guild is an old and storied society. It transds the boundaries of rad species and serves many. Kingdoms rely on it to find new nds and resources, merts rely on us to find preaterials and to scout new roads. Most important of all, we are often the first to delve into new dungeons to discover the will of the world.”

  “That’s impressive,” I said. The feverish light in his eyes kind of disturbed me a little, but it did genuinely sound iing.

  Leonard nodded. “It truly is. As impressive as we are, we still lose members. New Dungeons be creative and dangerous, expl faraway nds means being far from help, or entering threats never seen before. Information is what we seek, and information is what keeps us alive. Like you learning about dryads and sombrals and knowing to avoid them.”

  It kind of clicked, not that there was much work needed for that. “That’s why you want to know about Threewells,” I said.

  “Yes, he replied simply. “You asked for trade. I do not know how valuable your information is. But some of it might be the differeween the life ah of this party of overfident fools.”

  “Um, are they your responsibility?” I asked.

  He nodded. “They are. But I am but one grenoil, I ot be everywhere at once.”

  “Well, okay then.” I wasn’t sure what to think of Leonard anymore. That was both annoying and kind of fusing. But he wao know what I knew and I wasn’t averse to sharing. “Let me just fetething.” I opened my backpad retrieved my map of Threewells. The map of the dungeon I left behind, maybe I could use it tain for something else. Maybe some food. “Here.”

  Leonard took my crude map and his eyes widened a little. “This is Threewells?” he asked.

  “Yup, I explored most of the town while I was there,” I said, a bit of pride sneaking into my voice.

  Emeric ughed. “Full of surprises zis one. We should keep her!”

  “Oh no,” Arianne said. “I’m not going to abide to ze party having a pet human.”

  The two bickered bad forth, but my focus was mostly on Leonard who was looking over the ey of my map with more care than I thought it deserved.

  “This is shoddy work,” he said and my tiny kernel of pride defted and died. “It’s not accurate to the maps of Threewells I have seen. The houses are all there, but their locations are slightly off. And the art is... questio best. These words, what nguage are they in?”

  “Um. English?” I said. “You ’t read?”

  “Of course I read!” Leonard said over the ughter of Valerie and Emeric. Even Donat seemed to want to ugh. “I don’t speak this ‘Henglish’ of yours.”

  “But we’re speaking it now,” I said.

  Arianne looked at me curiously. “Do you have a transtion skill?” she asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Any magical jewelry zat may be soul-bound?” she asked , this time looking at my hand with the bronze ring.

  “Well, yes.” But unless my Insight skill was dead wrong there was no way that my ring was transting for me. Did that mean that I just... knew how to speak frog? I didn’t have much time to wonder about it.

  “You shouldn’t just put on strange jewelry,” Leonard said. “At this rate it is a miracle you’re not dead already. Donat, fetch me a paper and an inkwell!” The younger grenoil jumped to it. “Very well, for the map, if you help me recreate it in a less... childish hand, then I will give you one gold.”

  Emeric whistled. “Suddenly being generous,” he said.

  “A lesser gold,” Leonard added even as Donat returned with a small satchel. The samurai pulled out a wooden board with an inkwell built into it and then a loher and some yellowish paper. “Do you accept?” he asked.

  “Um, okay, sure.” Gold was good. Maybe. Probably. Did I want my new friends to know that I had no idea how the money here worked?

  “Good.” Leonard reached to his belt and pulled at the drawstrings of a pouch. He flicked a at me that I caught out of the air. It was small, about the size of a dime but thicker, and it was heavy. I stuffed it into my backpa a hurry. “Now, trahis.”

  I did as he asked, transting all the little notes I had made for myself while he copied the map with quick, sure strokes of his plume. His notes were tiny little inscriptions in the margins and sides of the buildings and pces I had marked.

  “I tell you about the buildings I explored too,” I said.

  “Go on.”

  “In exge for the right to spend the night here,” I added.

  The samurai looked up at me and narrowed his eyes. “Very well.”

  “Am I the only o expects her to slowly fleece him of everything he’s worth?” Emeric asked. He smiled at me then got up to his feet. “I’ll leave you to it. Donat, fete bs and finish setting up ze sed tent. Broccoli sleep wiz ze girls. We’ll set up a watd put up torches before ze sus.”

  That st ent had me looking up to a sky that utting on its night time colours. “Ah, darn, the day’s almost over.”

  “Indeed. Now, tell me of these pces,” Leonard demanded again.

  So I did, eae earning a small notatioo it as he moved across the town. “And that’s the main tower. The one I came in from,” I said. “Nothing ohird floor. You only get to it by sg the outside wall. Ah, but there are offices on the first floor, I found a lot of papers and stuffed them in a chest in the barracks.”

  “... good,” Leonard said. “Dots from a fallen city might i some buyers at the guild.”

  “How much would you give for, say, the ledger of the guard captain? All the reports leading up to the fall of the town?”

  Leonard looked at me. He sighed. “I have misjudged you. For that, I would give a young fool... a letter of reendation to the guild. As well as four lesser gold.”

  “Ask for more,” Arianne said.

  “Mind your own business,” Lerumped at her. To me he said. “What made you explore the town so much? At your level it’s an incredible risk.”

  “I uff. Food and supplies. And I like expl, it’s fun.” I gri the flummoxed look on the samurai’s face. It was as if he’d swallowed a fly. Only probably not, he would like swallowing flies, I suspected.

  He shook his head. “Perhaps the letter of reendation would be too much. The amount of time speing the stupid out of you would cost our instructors far too much.”

  “No, no, I’ll take the letter,” I said. The guild sounded . “And the gold too. Oh, and some food. But nothing with bugs in it.”

  “Hey, nozing wrong with some your lunch,” Valerie said.

  Arianne shook her head. “Humans don’t usually like eating is.

  The look of fused betrayal I received from Valerie had me holding back giggles. “Just enough food for the road, at least until I reach that outpost you mentioned. Unless you’d let me e with you?”

  “No,” Leonard said. “There is no ce of that happening.” He said it with enough vi that I decided not to test him. “We offer you some food, yes. But only after I see the books.”

  I pulled out the two binders filled with reports. It was going to be o not have that weight on my baaybe just to repce it with proper food. I hahem over to Leonard who brushed a thumb across the cover, then leafed through the reports. Most, I knew, were exceptionally b, but he seemed not to care.

  “Six lesser gold. I won’t have my honour besmirched by shortging even a fool.” He carefully set the binders aside. “Tell me more about the town.”

  “Ah, which parts?” I asked.

  “The so-called evil hole you mentioned,” he said. I sat up straighter and wondered what kind of goodies I could get for my dungeon map. “It sounds like the entrao a young dungeon.”

  “We felt a mana surge,” Arianioned.

  Leonard that. “We did. Someone might have destroyed the dungeon after you left. Not an easy feat.”

  “Is that bad?” I asked.

  I shrank back as all three still around the fire looked at me.

  “Destroying a dungeon is,” Arianne began. “A crime of ze highest order. One who breaks a ust in turn be broken, for it means going against ze world’s will.”

  “The world’s will?” I asked.

  “It’s a miracle you know how to read and write,” Leonard said. “With the pitiful education you’ve no doubt received. Typical of a human.”

  “What Leonard is trying to say,” Arianne said with some bite. “Is zat ze world needs mana to sustain itself. Not all of it. You live in a mana-free area your entire life. But you will be made unfortable by it. Injuries will take loo heal and you will no doubt die younger with fewer offspring. Dungeons, when zey appears, bring lots of mana to an area, and wiz zat es the lure of ze dungeon boss.”

  “You mean... the css thing?”

  “Not pletely clueless, then,” Leonard muttred.

  “Yes, killing a boss grants you a css. Zat’s why roup has zree fencers in it. Zere’s a boss zat grants ze feng ear ze capital. A lower levelled o zat. It is farmed regurly.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Wait, three?”

  “Emeric was a fencer until his css evolved. Valerie also reached ze level for a css evolution, but she remained a fencer.”

  “So cool,” I said under my breath. “Do you know what amon Bun evolves into?”

  “No, I’ve never heard of ze css,” Arianne said. “Was it a natural ohat is, one you grew into?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Zen it being strange isn’t surprising in ze least. Unon, but not surprising.”

  “What you tell us about the dungeon?” Leonard asked.

  I shook my head and smiled. “Nothing, nothing at all.”