Water droplets fall around herself, descending like rain stemming from someplace high up above, splashing down to the ground at her feet. But there is no ground, it’s just blackness. There is no sky, it’s just blackness. “Hello?” asks the voice. “Hello? Is anyone there?” it calls, stemming from no source, from just blackness. “Fresh?” asks Peridot. “Hellooooo~?” asks the girl, as if trying to talk into a phone with no signal.

The blackness is ripped apart, devoured in an instant as both she herself and it are consumed by a giant dragon of indistinct color.

Fresh’s eyes shoot open. She’s laying in her bed upstairs. It was just another weird dream.

The upstairs room doesn’t feel quite as cozy or as warm as the library does just yet. But they opted nonetheless to move their beds up here. The coziness of the space, which has so far been lacking, is just something that needs to be developed and nurtured by living in the otherwise empty room. Walls need to be put up, the bones of the building need to be filled with the warmth from their bodies. So, to start, they had put their beds here.

Fresh blinks, staring at Basil’s foot that is up next to her face. Sitting upright, she looks at the priestess who has somehow managed in the middle of the night to turn herself around entirely and even more impressively, without waking them up.

They had achieved half a compromise. The beds had to go upstairs, according to Jubilee. But given that it’s still cold in the house and that the whole room is empty, they’ve placed them all side by side, so they’re all sleeping in one big jumble. But it’s still better than being on the floor.

“You still got another hour,” says Jubilee’s voice. Fresh turns her head, looking at the spot next to her other side. The mattress is empty now. Lifting her gaze, she sees Jubilee sitting with their back against the kitchen cabinets on the floor, reading a book from the library.

“Good morning, Jubilee,” says Fresh, sliding out of bed. “I had a bad dream. The dragon ate me,” she explains. Wasn’t there something else in the dream…? Uh… Hmm… Well, it was just a dream. It’s probably not important.

“That fucking dragon. We should really go back there and kill it again, just to make a point,” says Jubilee, shaking their head.

“That doesn’t sound like a happy way to live our lives,” states Fresh, rising to her feet and stretching. Her back pops and she catches herself on the foot of the bed.

“Pathetic,” sighs Jubilee, shaking their head and looking back at their book. Fresh scowls, turning back their way. She shuffles over towards them, holding her back with one arm and pointing with a crooked finger with her other. “Bully!”

“Yup,” says Jubilee, not bothering to look up from their book. They turn a page. Fresh reaches them and flops down onto the ground, still tired. “Don’t lay on the floor, goo-brain. It’s cold.”

“Okay,” yawns Fresh, laying her head and arms on Jubilee’s lap, before closing her eyes again and falling to sleep a second time. This time, her dreams don’t get eaten by a dragon.

“What happens if you eat orichalcum?” asks Fresh, looking at a small jar she has with her. It has a few flakes of chipped, pinkish metal inside of it.

“You die,” explains Basil, eating another spoonful of her oatmeal.

They’re in the adventurers’ guild, having their free daily breakfast, which consists of a large bowl of oatmeal or porridge, usually with a sprinkle of sugar or spice at best. It’s not even cooked with milk, it’s cooked with water. Still.

Fresh gratefully eats another spoonful herself.

It’s nourishing and hot and they get to eat it every day.

“Really?” asks Fresh. That’s rather direct.

Basil stirs her porridge around. “Well, no, probably not. But also, maybe.”

Fresh blinks. “Huh…?”

“Maybe just don’t eat metal?” suggests Jubilee. “Orichalcum is magic-resistant. Gods know what it’ll do to your insides if it passes through them,” they say, poking at their bowl of oatmeal with clear dissatisfaction in their eyes. “Especially if you have a lot of soul-points.”

“People have tried,” says Basil. “But it can get really weird, depending on your condition,” explains the priestess. She lifts another spoonful of her porridge, showing it to Fresh. “When you eat something, you get its energy, right?” Fresh nods, watching a drop of it fall back down into the bowl. “Well, when you eat something that you can’t digest, it disrupts the workings of your body,” she explains. “It’s like if you ate the spoon instead of the porridge.”

“Sure, that makes sense.”

“It’s worse though,” says Basil. “Because of its magic-repelling properties, it could cause all sorts of damage to your body if it gets inside. That’s why anti-caster regiments always use orichalcum weapons. They’re bad news for people with high soul-values.”

“Yup,” says Jubilee, sighing and setting their spoon back down, apparently disinterested in breakfast. “It’ll go right through any magic barriers or shields like they were never there.”

Fresh blinks, staring at the bottle of orichalcum flakes in her hands. She wonders, if it can destroy magical bonds, can the metal destroy curses too?

“We got some wild shit in the dungeon yesterday,” says Jubilee, pointing at the heap of items downstairs.

“What floor did you get to?” asks Basil.

“Forty,” says Jubilee. “We killed the boss and then fucked off back home.”

Basil sighs in relief. “That’s good news. So we’re having dinner today?”

“We got two boss-cores to sell, plus all of this junk. So I’d say so.”

Fresh digs through the loot, trying to figure out what it all is. There is some equipment that had been dropped, swords and staves and clothes and bits of armor. But there are also just the normal monster drops, which are far more interesting for her and her work.

“So what kind of monsters are there?” asks Fresh.

Jubilee counts off their fingers. “Spriggans, big and small, harpies, giant snakes, spiked mush-mushes are the entry-monsters,” explains Jubilee. Fresh nods, she’s seen all of those. “Then there are some stone-golems,” says Jubilee, pointing at some large, square, engraved rocks covered in grass and a few flowers. Fresh holds her hands above one, feeling the magic pouring out of the heavy thing. “And then there are the giant bees.”

Fresh looks back at them. “Giant bees?”

“Giant bees,” nods Jubilee, pointing at a jar of very dark, wood-colored honey on the side of the pile. “It hurts like a bitch when they sting you.”

“Floor thirty,” says Shamrock, pointing at a few tusks. “Boars.”

“Boars?” asks Fresh. “Like… pigs?”

“Yeah, but they’re as big as Shamrock,” says Jubilee. “Fucking huge.”

“Are they good to eat?” asks Basil.

“We’re not eating dungeon-meat,” sighs Jubilee.

“I think we can,” argues Basil. “I’m getting sick of oatmeal too, honestly.”

Jubilee rolls their eyes. “After that, we had some spirits. Water and nature,” they say, pointing at a small heap of odd fragments.

Shamrock’s chest heaves. “Dragon.”

Fresh and Basil look at him. “A dragon?” asks Basil.

“It was just a small one. The boss of floor forty,” explains Jubilee. “A nature type. All covered in moss and shit.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh,” says Jubilee. “We got some claws from that one, plus those boss cores I mentioned.”

Fresh nods. This is a lot to work with. A whole lot. Plus all of the other materials she already has too. Honestly, she doesn’t even know where to start. Maybe the first thing to do is to get a proper storage room set up and a workshop? That sounds like a sensible idea. They need wood. Real wood.

“Jubilee, can we chop wood from the dungeon?” she asks. “Like, inside of it. The roots and stuff?”

Jubilee thinks for a moment. “Uh… I don’t see why not?”

Fresh nods. “I wanna harvest as much normal wood as we can then, from the roots. We need building materials and wood to burn.” She looks at Shamrock. “Shamrock, can you help me with that? I’ll make an axe.”

The man nods.

“Basil,” asks Fresh. “Can you please sort this stuff into different piles? What we’re going to sell as is and what we’re going to use for crafting.”

Basil tilts her head. “Sure thing, I can do that.”

Fresh smiles. “Jubilee.”

They place their hands on their hips. “Don’t tell me what to do, goo-brain.”

“Uh… okay, but can you please mark the floor in our living space with some chalk to map out some rooms?” she requests. “I need to get a workshop set-up and we need to get your bed-room done too, eventually.”

Jubilee shakes their head. “Don’t want one.” The three of them look at Jubilee. “What?” they ask, feeling them staring. “Fuck off.”

Fresh smiles, clasping her hands together. “That’s great, Jubilee~! Then think of something nice to use the free-space for, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” replies Jubilee, rolling their eyes.

The four of them get started with their work, trying to catch up with the impossible amount of tasks still ahead of themselves.