Standing down at the bottom of the staircase down in the dungeon, Fresh and Jubilee look at each other, just outside of the boss door that leads to floor sixteen.

“So. What are you going to do?” asks Jubilee knowingly, with their hands on their hips.

It’s the middle of the night. The rest of the day had passed just as quietly as every other summer day before this one and the two of them had decided to go clear a new floor of the dungeon, in a bid to level Fresh up a little more. If only to ease both of their worries about the future and what it might one day bring to their doorstep.

Fresh sighs and lowers her head. “I’m going to stand by the door and not move an -”

“- You’re going to stand by the door and not move an inch!” repeats Jubilee, pointing at her with a finger, before she can finish the sentence. “Got it?”

“Yeeeees~” sighs Fresh.

Jubilee continues to point. “No picking flowers. No using any of your fucky, evil demon-magic. And no running after me and shouting -” Jubilee raises their hands to their mask, splaying their fingers. “- Jubileeeee~” they mimic in a mocking tone. “I don’t wanna hear it. You just stand there and don’t move. Not a step.”

“But Jubilee,” protests the girl.

“No,” says Jubilee plainly.

“But -”

“No!” barks Jubilee and Fresh groans, relenting with a droop of her head.

“Okaaay~” says Fresh. “I won’t leave the entrance.”

“Promise?”

“Promise,” she agrees and Jubilee nods, apparently satisfied.

“Alright, let’s go,” replies Jubilee, pressing their hands against the large double doors which swing open inwardly with surprising ease. Just beyond the entrance is a vague, nebulous fog that then slowly dissipates as the boss-arena is unsealed. As they walk inside of the room, Fresh notices how thick and dewy the air is becoming. She has just somehow always assumed that the dungeon would be a cold, drafty place. But the deeper down they go, the warmer and damper the air seems to become.

There is an odd shimmering chime in the air. The sound feels oddly familiar. It is a light ringing, like fragile glass bodies touching each other, like a dozen wind-chimes on a lightly breezy day. It clamours with a gentle crystal resonance that makes the hot world feel oddly cool and dewy, at least in her mind, if not on her sweaty body. The thick, rock walls of the dungeon are slowly being broken apart by crystal formations that jut out in all directions in the passage. Ahead of them, the boss-room opens up to a large arena. The space, filled with a damp mist, is lined with gravestones from one end to the next and in the center of it all is a large, cloaked skeleton, hovering in a meditating pose. A crystal ball shimmers in its lap, from which the grave-light bounds out of, shining out in all directions. The magical energies seep from the core and seems to drift off, floating like meandering tendrils towards the many crystals that line the graveyard, touching them with their foggy presence.

“What’s that?” asks Fresh, looking at the veiled figure.

“It’s the sub-boss, goo-brain,” says Jubilee, shaking their head as they walk on ahead alone past the first grave-stones, leaving the girl behind at the precipice to the arena.

“Oh…” says Fresh, looking at the crystal jutting out of the wall next to her. She had just promised Jubilee not to move, so she’s going to stay right here. She’s sure of that much, she reassures herself.

The girl tilts her head, looking at her reflection that seems to shimmer back out of the oddly luminescent crystal next to her. The sleek, glassy surface gives back a strange warping of her features, as if she were staring at her reflection in the waters of an uneven river on a windy day.

[Got 3/117] Experience!

She looks over towards the arena, watching as Jubilee finishes cutting the first zombie in half without even stopping. Turning her head back to the crystal, she tilts her gaze sideways, looking at her face. Fresh runs along her cheekbones with a finger. Her skin feels oddly taut. The girl presses against the bone, feeling how sharp her cheeks were. Has she lost weight? Her face seems really tightly strung. She should eat more.

[Got 6/117] Experience!

[Got 9/117] Experience!

[Got 12/117] Experience!

As she tilts her head again, looking at her sunken features, she sees the strands of her long hair and pulls on one, pulling it down over her nose. “I could use a haircut…”

Fresh sighs, listening to the sounds of glass exploding left and right off in the distance, together with the sounds of howling undead who have their new lives cut very short, as many of them fall back down before ever even rising out of their graves. She looks over as Jubilee walks towards the sub-boss without a care in the world, slicing apart skeletons and zombies left and right without even stopping for a moment.

[Got 15/117] Experience!

[Got 18/117] Experience!

[Got 21/117] Experience!

[Got 24/117] Experience!

“Jubilee is really strong,” mutters Fresh, looking back at her own reflection. She feels like she might need to start eating more. Her cheek-bones are practically jutting out of her face. A cold finger pulls on the purple skin beneath her eyes, pulling the heavy bags there taut. She looks really tired too. She should probably sleep more as well.

[Got 27/117] Experience!

[Got 30/117] Experience!

[Got 33/117] Experience!

“We should go on a vacation,” mutters Fresh, turning her head the other way to look at the other side of her face. She wonders if Jubilee is just as haggard as she is? It’s been a lot of stress and work, even if there have been calm and happy patches now and then. The general feeling was -

Something screams from the arena and Fresh turns to look at the source of the ghoulish howl. The sub-boss has risen to its feet, but still continues to float. The crystal ball hovers loosely at its side as the ethereal energies begin to collect and swirl around him as Jubilee gets closer. It looks like the skeleton is charging up some kind of spell.

- The general feeling has been…

“Stressful,” sighs Fresh, watching her reflection blink with its tired eyes. She purses her lips, looking at herself. “Ah!” says the girl as she stares at her mirror-image, remembering something. “Thanks for the sweet-roll the other day!”

“You’re very welcome,” her reflection says, both of them doing their best to ignore the screaming coming from the arena, as the tormented undead are ripped into pieces by razor-sharp slivers of glass.

“So, how’s life?”

“I’m still kind of tired,” says Fresh to her reflection.

“Yeah, I understand. Do you think we should take a vacation?”

Fresh hits her fist into her palm. “I was just thinking the same thing!” She frowns. “But we just had a day off and I felt bad because we still have to do so much stuff?”

She and her reflection nod at the same time, obviously. “Yeah, yeah, I remember that. Okay, maybe no days off until things calm down a little.”

“Do you think they will?”

“Hmm…” Fresh scratches her cheek, thinking. “I hope so. It would be really nice if we could just… live life for a while without worrying about money or being murdered or anything like that.”

She lets out an uneasy groan. “That’s a little dark.”

“It’s true though,” says the girl, shrugging as she explains to herself.

“Yeah… I guess you’re right.”

“Do you like it here?”

“Huh?” asks Fresh, surprised at her own sudden question for herself.

“Here? You know?” The girl in the reflection gestures broadly around herself to everything. “Do you like it here?”

Fresh thinks for a while, not sure how to nail down her feelings. “I like the people and I’m really happy that I made some friends. And that I have something that I enjoy doing every day. But the world is kind of scary, you know?”

“Yeah, but I think they all are.”

“Yeah, probably,” says Fresh, tapping against her chin with a finger as she thinks. “But there’s so much I have to worry about.”

“Hmm…” responds Fresh to herself. “Have you tried -”

Something grabs her robe.

Fresh yelps and jumps to the side in fear that a zombie had crawled towards her and gotten her.

“- ey!” Jubilee barks at her. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Fresh blinks a few times, wetting her eyes again and catching her breath. She looks up around the arena. The entire place is desolated. Hundreds of gravestones lay overturned or simply shattered into dust. The floor is covered with jagged crystal mounds that skewer countless undead bodies. Their black, foul blood trickles down the sleek surfaces, dripping to the dirt to mix in with the rest of the rot as it coagulates in black pools of gunk. In the center of the mass is a single, tattered robe. A shattered pile of bones and glass lies beneath it.

“I was uh… I was just talking to myself,” says Fresh, laughing meekly, somewhat embarrassed.

“Yeah, I saw, goo-brain,” says Jubilee, rolling their eyes. “Come on. I got your boss-core. Let’s take the shortcut and go to bed. You’re clearly over-goo'd.”

Fresh looks back to the girl in the crystal and stares at her tired eyes. “Yeah, that’s a good idea.” She nods to Jubilee. “Thanks Jubilee, you’re a good friend.”

“I know. Before we go, go loot those zombies.”

Fresh stops. “Huh?”

“Yeah,” says Jubilee. “Check their pockets, they might have some money on them.”

“But Jubileeeee~” cries Fresh, looking at the massacre laid out before her.

“I told you before, don’t ‘but Jubileeeee~’ me. I killed everything, the least you can do is loot it,” says her friend, placing their hands on their hips.

“Can I have your gloves?”

“What? No you can’t have my gloves,” sighs Jubilee. “Watch out for the glass.”

Fresh whimpers quietly, looking at a skewered zombie, watching just in time as its head rolls off of its shoulders and smashes against a broken tombstone with a disgustingly wet crunch.