At the Old Guild House

*Clang, Clang*

The resonating sound of iron meeting iron echoed throughout the halls of the empty Guild House, bringing a slight bit of life to the once dead building and reached the ears of any who might have been visiting at the time or any of those who currently lived there.

*Clang, Clang*

"*Sigh*" One from the latter was Baba, laying on the floor of her still bare room the only thing found there being herself and a pile of rocks with the top Blake brought of her spinning in the air.

*Clang, Clang*

Again the metallic sound rose up from the depths and knocked on the bottom of the Ala's room causing its owner to roll around to her right, having been forced to listen to that sound for most of the day so far. "Hmm..."

*Clang, Clang*

Then to the left. "Mmm..."

*Clang, Clang*

And now she was back to looking at the ceiling as her top went by. "...if it was Hubby I could deal with this, but he's off having a nice time with the side dishes while dessert is right here, with a muffin, a horse..." She trailed off as she wrapped her arms around herself, thinking about how much better it would be if it was Blake here with her. "...a Dragon? Hmm?"

*Clang, Clang*

Baba got up to the beat of the clangs. "That's ~right~ she's here too! And I bet she's feeling lonely as well. Maybe I should visit her?" Her lips curled into an evil little grin as she remembered that her 2nd 'favorite' member of Blake's party and flew out for a window. "Hmm?" And spotted Nash currently standing in front of the Guild House with what looked like wood piled up next to him.

"~!~" Nash was swinging his head and tail back and forth with a hammer in his mouth and bucket of nails at his hooves.

"What are you up to, Nash?" Baba asked, floating right behind Nash's head almost laying on his back.

"!" Nash whipped himself round swinging the hammer at Baba's face only for it go right through her. "?" Leaving the Horse all too confused.

"Now, that was not very nice. I was only a little curious about your work." Baba didn't mind Nash's failed attempt at hitting her and floated around the horse to see what he was working on. "Oh?" Which turned out to be a poorly made sign that read: Smith Blake's Main Smithy. "Hard at work, I see."

"~Neigh~" Nash somehow blushed at Baba's words throwing a hoof at her. "..." Then turned back to the sign to hammer in a few more nails. "?" He looked up from his finished work and the hardest challenge to come faced him now, that being how the heck was he suppose to get it on the building? "..." And so he looked at Baba who was looking over some of unused wood Nash had next to him.

"This one's firm and this one's redwood...hmm?" Baba mumbled to herself with a few random sticks floating around her. "~Okay~ all of you who passed can go up there." She flicked a finger upwards, and the sticks flew up and into her room. "Hmm? Oh? What's wrong, Nash?" She asked the horse who was staring at her.

"..." Nash tapped a hoof on the sign then motioned up at a space above the door of the Guild House. "?" Then he tilted his head to one side at Baba with the hammer back in his month.

"You want me to put that up there for you hammer it in?" Baba watched the horse nodded vigorously at her. "Then, here you go." With a wave of her arms, Baba made a gust of wind that carefully picked up the sign and held it in place for Nash to nail it in place. "Okay, that looks..." The Ala stared up at the sign which despite her holding it perfectly in place still ended up crooked with nine too many nails hammered into it.

"?" Once again Nash stared at Baba as if asking her something which this time around it was knowing what she thought of his hard work. "..." Which seem to the most important thing to the horse right now as he was pulling off a pair of puppy dog eye's well.

"I'm going to have to ask Hubby where he got this horse..." A bit of sweat crept its way down Baba's face as Nash kept on looking, slowly and unnervingly drawing closer to her. "...Unique?" Was the best answer Baba could up with that she was sure wouldn't hurt Nash's feelings.

"~Neigh~" Nash sang out to the air, dancing around Baba with his hooves clopping about until he came up to lick her face.

"Well, that happened..." Baba muttered, patting Nash on the head as easy as it would be snapped at the horse she couldn't bring herself do it and let him be for now. "Now, if you'll excuse me I'll be going to see how the other two are doing."

"!" Nash whipped around to the door and opened it for Baba with his head bowed to her.

"Oh, why thank you! Be sure to take care of anyone else that comes by, would you?" Baba playfully ordered as she flew inside and over the broken floors boards and grass to the front desk.

*Clang, Clang, Clang*

Which came with more and louder bangs of metal getting hammered ringing out in Baba's head. "Uhmm, the things I go through for my own entertainment." She dryly muttered as she turned into air, not bothering to open the doors leading to the smithy.

Blake's Smithy

"And Done!" Bread wiped some sweat covering his face after finishing a small stone ball made out of Bomber Golem Ore that Blake had a stockpile of from his time in that dungeon. "Okay! Time to see it if works!" He threw it at a wall which was covered in blast marks and quickly ducked behind a barricade made out of random junk.

*Thud*

The ball smacked against the wall and bounced on the floor a few times until it rolled all the way back to Bread's front. "Good, it worked!" He cheered, reaching out to pick up the ball. "Huh?" Only for it to float on up by itself. "Oh no!" He dropped to the floor, waiting for a blast to go off.

"But nothing happened?" Asked Baba in the form of a silhouette of herself made of air. "Hmm? What's this?" As she looked at the stone ball, she noticed a random spot on it where a green circle was.

"Ah! The creepy old bag of air!" Bread screamed once he looked up to see her playing with the ball, eyeing the green circle on it. "Hey, don't touch that!" He tried warning her, but Baba already pushed her thumb over it.

"Oh?" Which made the ball glow with a light repeated ringing sound coming from it. "It's like a bell." She mused, shaking the ball a little to see if that did anything but the ringing only got louder and louder. "It's starting to get annoying now."

"Then throw it!" Bread yelled with a scared look on his face while he was trying to up his barricade with anything else he could find in the smithy.

"Throw it?" Baba was confused for a moment but since Bread made it best to listen to him. "~Down you go~" So she tossed it down the cave going into Mt. Nod and into Saffire's room somewhere in there. "So, why you'd make me do th-"

*KABOOOM*

A fiery torrent of fire and ash erupted out of the cave as an explosion rocked the entire smithy maybe the floor above it since bits of the ceiling came falling down through Baba and top of Bread's shelter.

"Oh? That explains the loud bangs I heard the other times." Baba cooed, floating over to Bread blowing away some of the debris around him. "So, why are you making bombs?"

"Seriously! That's what you want to know after you did that?!" Bread jumped out of his shelter and pointed at the cave still sizzling with heat.

"Yes," Baba answered, coming to sit on one of the unused anvils. "It's the least you could do since you've been keeping this up for the whole day and I'm a bit..." She trailed off there, letting Bread fill in the blanks as she gazed at him with her head in her hands.

"Ugh!" The poor boy felt a wave of malice come over him from the look Baba was giving him. "B-b-boss told me to get some practice in, and the only thing I could use was all the Bomber Golem Ore! S-s-s-so I was making a few bombs?"

"A Few?" Baba turned her head to a box nearly filled to the brim with those bombs, one of which she made a float to her. "Hmm? This one doesn't have a green circle, why?" She held up the bomb cleanly unmarked as were the others form the box.

"Those are the fails..." Bread muttered, looking down at the floor for a moment then pointed at a small box on a worktable. "...The good ones are over there."

"Oh?" Baba went over to the box and found only six bombs there. "All the noise and that's all you got to show for it, eh?" She glanced back at Bread while making a few of the duds float around her. "What should I do with these then? Maybe take a 2nd check on them, hmm?"

"Uhm? Sure thing but throw them at a wall? Please?" Bread was slowly backing away because Baba looked like she was bored and since Blake wasn't around, that meant no one was here to handle her. "This is bad!" He backed away as slowly as possible. "Huh?" Until he bumped into something. "..." Feeling around behind him, he found something hard, rough, and scaly. "...Oh"

"That's my nose, brat," Saffire in her Dragon form growled at Bread with her head sticking out of the cave entrance. "And did you throw that thing down here?" She glared at the boy with a few burn marks on one of her blue horns.

"It was her!" The only thing Bread thought to do was put the right blame on the right person, pointing at Baba before he tried to make a run for it. "And I'll leave you two ladies to yourselves hahaha...AH!" But the fireball shooting at his feet made him stop and turn right around to Saffire. "Yes?"

"I'm not letting you go that easily, Brat! Get back here! NOW!" Saffire flashed her fangs at the boy with flames coming out of her mouth.

"~Oh~ Hello, Hot-head, how are you doing today? Feeling any better after that bad little lizards bit you?" Baba greeted Saffire as warmly as she could with equal parts sarcasm thrown in as she floated in front of the Dragon, acting as if nothing happened a moment ago

"Ugh, why are you here? Couldn't go a day without messing with me?" Saffire groaned at the sight and sound of Baba.

"How rude of you to think that! I'm just here to check up on you like any good friend would now let Mama hear what's hurting you." Baba floated on up to Saffire's face and lightly rubbed the tip of her nose. "Oh? It feels like you have a fever?"

"Get. Away." Saffire slowly raised her head over Baba any bit of rage she felt from Bread was shifted to Baba right now. "Grrr!" But sadly for her Baba didn't get the message and acting as if she was taking care of the Dragon. "*sigh* If you're going to stick around might as well put you to use...Brat!" She snapped head at Bread who was quietly looking through so the Bomber Golem Ore too afraid to get back to work.

"Yes!" He wheeled around on the spot with sweat running down his face.

"You doing anything with that pile of rocks?" Saffire asked in a surprisingly calm tone and was looking at the box of duds Bread had piled up.

"I was going to throw them out once I was done." Bread answered, looking a bit confused, of all things a Dragon wanted to know about a pile of useless rock wasn't high up on his list. "Why?"

"To throw 'em in here." Saffire opened her month showing her dagger-like fangs to Baba and Bread and her long blood red tongue that looked as if it had small teeth on it.

"..." Safe to say Baba and Bread were at a lost for words at the Dragon's statement. "Okay, it's my turn now. Why?" Asked the Ala making some for the duds float into Saffire's month before she snapped it shut and swallowed. "Did you even chew those?"

"No, it works better that way," Saffire answered Baba's last question then opened her mouth again for another set of rocks. "Huh?" But Baba was waiting for her to answer the first question. "...I ate the rest of that Basilisk that attacked us, and it feels like its having one last fight. I'm trying to grind it up."

"~Aww~ You didn't chew your food, and now you have a tummy ache! And right after got you a cold, my poor ~baby~" Baba understood what Saffire was going on about now and took the chance to tease her on it. "Can I get you some water or honey?"

"Ughhhhh...you're turning into my mother." Saffire groaned, resting her head on the floor as Bread shoveled some rocks into her mouth every now and again.

"When did I start growing scales and breathing fire? You must be having a fever dream." Baba changed up her look give herself some green scale made a gust of wind look like fire. "Then again I bet you'd find that as an improvement right?"

"Hah, nothing can help your old ass look good." Saffire took a shot at Baba, but as always she shrugged it off and turned back to normal then came to rest on Saffire's head. "I'm not a chair, you know?"

"True, you aren't the slightest bit comfy." Baba agreed with Saffire currently trying to find a spot on the Dragon's head that did have a random spike or rough patch which made up most of her skin. "No wonder your kind can eat rocks you almost are one."

"Then get off." Saffire shook head roughly rattling the smithy a little until Baba floated off her and back to the anvil he was sitting on earlier. "The only thing that Scaleless is useful for is keeping you busy so that I can have a normal life."

"I don't think normal's a word we can use anymore." Bread muttered, tossing in the last of the failed bombs in Saffire's maw and wiped some sweat off his head. "Okay! Time to get back to work!"

"You're going back to making noise?" Baba asked a bit dejected that her peace and quiet time of teasing Saffire was about to come to an end.

"Hey! It's not like I want to do this! Boss pretty much warned me that if I didn't use up all of the Ore he'd keep me up all night to get it done! He even asked Saffire that once she felt better to make sure I was working!" Bread let off some stream that was building up inside of him this hold time.

"Oh, Hubby, did what now?" Baba turned her attention to Saffire, who was bringing her head back into the cave. "I didn't hear explosion back then, so that means you were alright with it...hmm...maybe Dragon's don't have as much pride as I thought or maybe you're just..."

"No! He bribed me with sweets from that green scale! If anything he's paying me!" Saffire snapped to shut Baba's up before she could say anything more but left her with an 'Oh' face that went into a small smirk. "Grrr! Just get out of here before I roast you!"

Baba held up her hands in a playful act of defense as she went to the door leading out of the smithy. "Alright, alright, I'll leave your space...besides I have ~alot~ of things to think about now thanks to you." She disappeared behind the door, but on her way out, she added. "Do mind keeping it down, Muffin, I'd like to have a nap in the afternoon."

"Ugh sure...?" Bread waved at the spot where Baba was, then went over to stockpile of Bomber Golem Ore to get back to work. "Man, I don't get half of the people around Blake." He muttered after picking out a few good looking ones. "Dammit! The furnace went out!" He glared at the out cold furnace it seems the talk with Baba and Saffire took longer than he thought it would.

"Gah!" But it was quickly set ablaze by Saffire spitting a fireball into it. "Get back to work! And make it as loud as possible!" She ordered trying to burn a hole through the ceiling with just her eyes.

"Yes, Ma'am!" Bread nodded in obedience as creepy as Baba was he was more afraid of what Saffire could do him in this old, out of nowhere and once lifeless guild house. "Come on! Blake get back here already!"

With Nash

Back at the front of the Guild House, Nash was happily waiting for the return of Blake to show off the sign he made hoping to get pat on the head and apple for his hard work.

*CLANG, CLANG*

Even as the out louder than ever hammer blows were causing the sign to rock back and forth behind him, about ready to come crashing down with but a flower throw.

Chapter End