"She's great at that," Lann nods. "I've got what I need, but Seelah - actually, Seelah, how about we split up? You find Anevia, we'll join Camellia with Dyra and we can meet there for any last preparations?"

Seelah salutes with an indeterminate amount of irony and heads off.

This seems like a good plan! Miko nods to Seelah as she departs, then sets off with Lann.

"Sull was telling me why you were chosen to be the next chief," she says without preamble. "… When did you find out?"

He sighs. "When I grew out of thinking I'd go to the surface by myself. And realized that Wenduag wasn't going to grow out of... being Wenduag. She always wanted to be a chieftess, and I hated the idea, and she said, great, you go up and I'll take over down here and bring the rest of us up to join you. Then I started to realize, she's strong and charismatic, but her idea of strength is - zero sum. If she took charge, half the tribe would be stronger and the other half would be dead."

Miko rotates that concept in her mind a bit. It's not a failure mode of governance she's ever heard or thought of.

"How do you mean?" she finally asks.

"Mm... so, you've met Sull, and you've met Dyra, and you've met me, and you haven't met chief Gura, but I heard him arrive, so you've seen him. If you're chief, and the tribe only has enough food for two of us, who do you keep?"

She thinks she can already see the shape of what Lann's gesturing at, but she's not quite there yet…

As a paladin, the answer is Dyra and Sull and maybe if they all eat a little less than their fill she can loop in Lann. But that's likely not what Shojo would have done…

"I assume this isn't the kind of thought experiment where if you have enough to feed Gura you have enough to feed two or three people. But the expected answer here is 'whichever two people can do the most for the tribe,' right? So… any two of you, Dyra, and Gura, since you and Dyra are young and bright and Gura is powerful. And possibly also bright; I only heard him speak a couple sentences so I don't know either way."

Lann nods. "I can see it. Personally I'd keep Dyra and Sull and let Gura and I go, because we're warriors and we can hunt for ourselves, better chance of making it until the lean times are through. Either way, you're a better leader than Wenduag. She'd keep me and Gura, because we're strong; Dyra and Sull would die, because they're weak. I don't know how many hours we spent arguing about it over the years. Probably weeks' worth."

She smiles at his assessment of her choice.

"You'd make a good paladin."

"I lost my parents at a young age and grew up in a dojo. It was… good. There was no room for excess, but there was always enough for what we truly needed. When I turned thirteen… which I think is equivalent to nine or ten, for a Neather… the Lord of the city came to the dojo. He was looking for strong people to train as paladins. Adjusting to the castle was hard. But I was learning important things."

She's not fully sure where she's going with this.

"Did you forget what you already knew?" Lann wonders. "I've heard stories like that."

A puzzling question!

"No, I still remember my training. I suppose it's possible that life in the castle made me forget some of what life in the dojo was like. But I think I retained everything important."

She thinks for another moment.

"I could see how… in other circumstances, I might have forgotten the important things. But I was surrounded by Good people."

"Hm."

They walk in silence for a bit. Well, as silent as it gets, in a fishing village.

"I worry sometimes. They say food grows out of the ground, up there. What might happen if I forget what it means to be hungry?"

She thinks about that for a moment.

"That's a good thing to keep in mind. And, I think, is the reason for monastic discipline. Even with food growing from the ground, people still go hungry. And suffer in other ways. It's our job to try to prevent that. In my case, by seeking out those who would harm the innocent and stopping them."

Pensive nod. "And mine to make sure the innocent don't end up harming each other, I guess."

She nods thoughtfully.

"I don't know how to do that one."

"I won't lie, I'd rather have your job."

Camellia comes into view. She's examining a tiny strip of parchment, half of which is vividly purple.

"It's acceptable," she says. "How much for the jug?"

     "Five of those testing-strips and teach me how to use them," Dyra says immediately.

"I'm not a teacher. I buy things with gold."

     Dyra shakes her head. "I don't know the value of gold on the surface and it isn't very useful down here. Do you have... fruit?"

Camellia starts to shake her head back, then pauses. "Have you ever had a Goodberry?"

     "No. Are they - well - tasty?"

"Very." Camellia rummages around in her bag and pulls out a pouch of unreasonably succulent-looking berries. She counts five of them out and hands them over. "One's a full meal, and it'll keep someone from bleeding out. They'll be good for fifteen more gongs."

     "And then they'll lose the magic?" Dyra asks, staring at the fruit. "But they'll still be berries."

"Well, they'll turn back into regular yew berries. I don't know your poison tolerance - but I'd eat them in the next fifteen gongs."

Miko would also rather have her job!

"Hello again. We're almost ready to return to the surface; Seelah is finding Anevia right now."

Camellia turns, sliding the jug of moonshine into her bag. "Excellent. I can't wait to taste fresh air... well, surface air, I imagine it won't be at its freshest."

Miko's about to say that she hadn't noticed a difference when she remembers why she, specifically, would not notice a difference.

"Indeed. I hope that the city isn't in too poor of a shape when we get there."

"Everyone loves an optimist, except the gods," Camellia says with the air of a proverb.

Anevia approaches, Seelah trailing behind. "I hear we're forging ahead," she says. "Shall we?"

Miko nods at both the newcomers when they arrive.

"Yes, I think so."

She's very ready to go.

She isn't alone in that.

The path to the Shieldmaze is annoyingly circuitous, but Lann knows what he's doing. He navigates like a fish swims: with a +8 circumstance bonus, and able to take 10 on any check. His ears occasionally perk up at the scuttling of giant centipedes, and he leads them away from major nests. His hearing isn't quite as keen as Miko's, but it's very sharp.