They are back in their small room in the adventurers’ guild, having returned from the dungeon. After a small excursion through the city to visit the shrines that Basil had wanted to see and the shops that Jubilee and Shamrock had been interested in, they grabbed some lunch and then made their way back ‘home’.

As for the bubble, the magical force-field that has surrounded the entire city, pressing itself all the way up to the crown of the tree, as if it were a veil, falling down from its high branches, nobody could give them any straight answers. Not the shopkeepers, not the guards they spoke to, not the casters or adventurers or anyone from any guild anywhere. It seems that nobody seems to know why exactly the barrier has been put in place again after all of these years. But the general mood is that nobody was really worried.

So, Fresh decides to carry that feeling along with herself as well. If it was really serious, then surely the people of the city would be worried, right? Surely somebody would know about it?

Currently, it’s just been attributed to the central-authority, whoever resides at the highest echelons of society, having decided to do so. Perhaps there is a hard winter ahead and they wanted to block out the snow?

Fresh puffs out her cheeks, sweat dripping down her forehead from her fourth attempt now at trying to cast the crafting spell onto the heap of orichalcum ore that they had collected down in the dungeon.

(Fresh) uses: [Craftsman: Metalworking {Smelt}] [FAILURE]

She exhales, letting out a strained breath. Sure, she may or may not have soul-points to spend while casting, but it’s still exhausting.

“I think it’s about time we tell her,” says Basil, playing with a little knick-knack she had bought outside of one of the shrines. It’s a small stone talisman without a chain.

“No. Let her do it one more time,” says Jubilee, sitting on the floor and watching her while nibbling on a dried fruit bar, a new book laying on the floorboards next to them.

Fresh, realizing that they know something that she doesn’t, turns around to look at her friends. “What’s up, guys?” she asks.

“Nothing,” says Jubilee. “Keep going. I think you’re almost there!” they affirm, nodding once.

Fresh smiles, nodding back and lifting her hands to try again. Jubilee is such a supportive friend. Sure, it’s hard work, but if it means that she can make something nice for Shamrock, then it will be worth it.

“No, I’m stopping this now,” says Basil, getting up. “You won’t manage like that,” says the priestess, grabbing her arm and pushing it back down before she casts the spell again. “It’s orichalcum.”

Fresh blinks. “Yeah?” she says, not sure what Basil is implying.

“You did read the description, right?” asks the priestess, nodding her head to the chunks of pink metal.

“Uh…”

Basil smiles, sighing at the same time as she lets go and runs her fingers over her new talisman. “It’s magic resistant. Orichalcum isn’t affected by magic.”

“So…”

“So that applies to crafting magic too,” explains the priestess. Fresh stares at her for a moment, before looking back down at the metal she had been trying to work on for the last twenty minutes now.

“Oh.” Fresh sighs too, scratching her cheek. “Wait! You could have told me that before!” she argues.

“It was funny,” says Jubilee, pointing at her with the fruit bar in their hands. “Anyways, if it was that easy to use, don’t you think literally everyone would be wearing orichalcum everywhere all day, every day?” they ask. Fresh considers this point for a moment, it’s a good one, to be fair. “You need a real dry-crafter with a special forge if you want to turn that into anything.”

“But I want to do it,” argues Fresh, frowning.

“Do you know how to melt orichalcum and how to smith plate-armor?” asks Jubilee, shrugging and shaking their head. “With your hands?”

“Uh…”

“I thought so,” says Jubilee. “Orichalcum is weird shit. It’s pretty much worthless as ore until it’s processed. But you need a huge fucking forge to melt it. There’s only one place in town that does it,” explains Jubilee. “The processed bars are worth a fortune though.”

“Let’s just go there, then?” asks Fresh. “We probably have the money.”

“We might. But there’s a waiting time. If we go today, we’ll probably be up to melt our shit by new-year's -”

“That’s not so bad,” ponders Fresh. It’s winter now, so a few more months and the new year will be here. That sounds manageable. They’ll just have to find some provisional armor for Shamrock until then.

“- New-year's NEXT year,” finishes Jubilee, raising an eyebrow.

Fresh’s shoulders fall slack. “Oh.”

“Oh,” nods Jubilee in affirmation, picking up their book and reading it. Fresh is happy that they finally found something lighter to read than that creepy demon book. Jubilee had probably read that thing inside and out a hundred times over.

She sighs, rubbing the back of her head. “What was your old armor made from, Shamrock?” she asks, looking at the man. He sits quietly on the side of the bed, just staring across the room.

“Cobalt.”

“Good luck,” says Jubilee, shaking their head, seeing her eyes light up. “Cobalt only comes from two mines. One is in the south and one is across the ocean.”

Fresh sighs again.

“Don’t worry,” says Basil. “We’ll figure something out. Should we just buy some random armor for now?”

“Acceptable,” says Shamrock.

Jubilee flips a page of their book. “It’s for the best. We don’t need that kind of attention here anyways. That’s ignoring the fact that you’re just feeding her ego all day by wearing that spooky shit.”

“Speaking of attention,” says Basil. “How come you let the woman at the entrance of the city know about… well, you know, you?” asks the priestess, pinching the tip of Jubilee’s right ear between her thumb and index-finger and rubbing it.

“The central-authority doesn’t care about demons being here,” says Jubilee plainly. “The church doesn’t run this show.”

Fresh sits down on the floor. It’s kind of a small space for all four of them, especially considering the luxury that she feels they have become accustomed to. She tilts her head, thinking. ‘The central-authority’, she’s heard that phrase before somewhere. Though she isn’t quite sure where. Are they the people who run the central-city? It certainly sounds like it, at least.

She shrugs and decides not to stress about it. Things are troublesome enough as is already.

It is later in the evening and the four of them walk through the city again, having decided to grab dinner today and to buy some equipment. Fresh and Basil have new bags again, having decided to buy proper adventuring backpacks this time, instead of the old pocketless sacks that they had always been using.

“I’m kind of sad, Jubilee,” says Fresh, frowning as she looks at her new bag that she had excitedly picked out.

“So am I, with you two wasting our money,” replies Jubilee.

Fresh shakes her head. “No. I mean… you bought me my other bag,” she explains. “I’ve always only had that bag. It was my favorite,” says Fresh, rubbing the material of the new bag with her thumb. It’s nice, but it isn’t the same.

“Look, for what I paid for it, we got our money’s worth out of it,” shrugs Jubilee.

Fresh sighs, she supposes that’s true. She…

She blinks.

“Hey, Jubilee?” she asks.

“Yeah?”

Fresh looks at her friend. “What happened to my bag? Did I leave it at home?”

“Huh? Are you fucked in the head?” asks Jubilee, placing their hands on their hips. “The fucking dragon ate it, remember?”

“Ooooh!” says Fresh, looking back at the new bag. “Man. That dragon sure caused us a lot of trouble.”

“Dragons tend to do that,” replies Jubilee, shaking their head. “Come on. We still need to get some real tools and we need to have a talk tonight.”

“About what?” asks Basil. “Oh! Look!” she says, grabbing Jubilee’s shoulder and pointing at a large sign. An armorsmith’s shop is just across the road from them. Jubilee pulls the priestess’ hand off of themselves and motions for them to follow, as the four of them head to the store’s window to look inside.

“If we’re staying here, we need to make money,” explains Jubilee. “Real money. Not that dungeon bullshit,” they say, looking into the window. “That means we need a location. At least a fucking cart or something.”

“Man,” says Fresh, shaking her head. “I wish we brought the cart with us,” she says. “Next time, then.”

“Next time,” nods Jubilee.

The four of them watch the man inside of the window at work and then head inside, making an odd request for a cheap, large suit of armor that a slime could comfortably fit inside of.