A cool, stagnant air rushes to meet them as they open the thick, wooden front-door of the house, just outside of the dungeon-gate. The soft current isn’t as cold as the air of the tunnel outside of the building and as that lazy cloud of dusty miasma drifts past her, Fresh feels a tussle of her hair blowing behind her, as it departs to mix in with the constant mountain winds howling outside. The musty cloud fades away like a spirit lost at sea, drifting away as the fresh current takes it to a place so very distant.

Fresh stands in the door, taking in a deep breath. It smells dusty. But it’s a different kind of dust than Jubilee’s… she corrects herself, than their old house. It isn’t a dust of stagnation and of faces and times forgotten and repressed. It is simply a dust born of an absence, as if all the surfaces and nooks she sees had simply been waiting for someone to return to them. She shudders, as it all comes to meet her, the air, the dust, the darkness of the room she has still yet to set a single foot inside of.

“Well? Are you going to fucking move or are you just going to stand there all day?” snaps a sharp voice from behind her and Fresh jolts together, snapping out of her daze as Jubilee’s sudden statement frightens her a little, as it rips her from the depths of her day-dreaming.

“Ah, sorry!” says Fresh, being the first to step inside the room. She steps to the side of the door, holding her arm out in a welcoming gesture. There’s no time for these strange feelings. She has work to do. Fresh does her best to smile, still not having quite processed the events of the last few days. But she’s the party-leader, she needs to put on a brave face, she realizes, as she remembers what Shamrock had told her once. Just like she does, her friends also need something to believe in. She wants it to be her.

“Welcome home!” says Fresh excitedly with a beaming face, as the other three step inside, carrying their meager possessions on their backs.

The room itself is square, rather than the ‘L’ shape that the old house had downstairs. The front-door has two large, dusty glass windows on either side of it and the left side of the room has a solid-rock staircase, leading up to the next floor above. In the back corner, where the staircase is at its highest point, there is a door on the very bottom of it. Fresh assumes that it leads down to the basement.

“This is great,” says Basil. “It’s a little smaller than the old house, but it looks… cozy,” says the priestess, suddenly pinching her nose as if to stop a sneeze from forming.

“Mm!” says Fresh, looking at her friend’s dubious expression. “It’s a little dusty, but with some work and some effort, we can make it really great!” she exclaims, heading over to the windows to try and figure out how to open them. The first thing that she wants to do is air the place out, in the hopes that this suppressing weight that she feels will drift away. With any luck, it is just a part of the gloom of this old structure and not something that she herself is creating and carrying with her.

“Yeah, I can see it,” says Jubilee. “Looks like the basement is back there, so we’ll put a counter up and use that as a back-room for you to do your crafting in.” Jubilee turns to the stairs and starts walking up them. Fresh realizes that the stone steps don’t have a railing, she’ll have to do something about that. “It’s a problem that these stairs are right by the door, but we’ll just put something up so no customers wanders upstairs.” Fresh nods, looking back to the large window as she pulls on a small wooden handle again. The wood of the frame set into the rock groans as she pulls on it. It bends out a little, but it doesn’t budge, as it is stuck firmly in place.

She grunts, trying again, but has little success. Shamrock places his giant hand under her wrists, gently pushing her arms away. Fresh watches as he grabs the handle and with a single tug, pulls the window open wide. For a moment, she is terrified that it will break off because of his strength, but it just seems to swing open as expected. It feels odd to think, but the creaking of the hinge sounds almost oddly satisfied. Like a moan that comes when a stiff body is stretched out after a long day. “Thank you,” she says, smiling at the man who says nothing else and heads towards the stairs after Basil and Jubilee.

Fresh stands there, all alone, feeling more of the stale air push past her as a draft seeps through the house. Echoing voices ring out aloud from the tunnel, carrying inside of the building now and moving all through the room. The many sounds and voices fill the space with a strangely haunting presence as she stands there all alone, as if she were surrounded by ghosts on all sides.

The hairs on her neck stand on end and Fresh lets out a quiet yelp, quickly running across the room and catching up to Shamrock, as they head up the stairs together.

She was expecting a corridor up here, but there isn’t one. Instead, there is a nearly square room just about three-quarters the size as the one downstairs. The wall opposite of the front door downstairs is open with a large, thick wooden frame set into the rock with another door in it. Maybe that’s the other room? Ah, wait, maybe not. Fresh turns her head to the right, seeing the other door that Basil is now walking towards. The priestess opens it, peering inside. “I think this is the pantry?” she guesses. “No shelves though.”

Jubilee sighs. “Fuck’s sake. How does this count as two rooms? Since when do pantries count as rooms? Fucking mountain-dwellers.” They look around the open area and take a deep breath. “Well. It looks like we’re sleeping in the same room again.” Fresh lets out an excited squeal as she stands next to Shamrock. Jubilee peers back at her, shooting her a venomous glance which tells her that she better not say anything. Opting instead to just quietly smile, Fresh heads to the left to open the door against the back wall.

The door moves with surprising ease, not resisting in the least like the windows downstairs and as she pulls it open, it seems to move on its own as a powerful wind pushes against it from the other side. The handle slips out of her grasp and it quickly swings open, hitting noisily against the rock wall behind it with a loud thud.

“Can you not break shit? We just got here,” barks Jubilee at her. But Fresh doesn’t pay them any mind, as she steps out of the door, feeling a bright, heavy light wash over her. Mesmerized, she walks towards it, her feet moving as if on their own, her eyes gazing towards the shine as if drawn to the source, like a moth to a flame. The shine of the rising sun, breaking over the distant horizon. Wind encapsulates her as she walks those three or four steps across the small, stone terrace that is carved out of the side of the mountain-face. She almost feels as if the breeze were carrying her away.

The railing bumps into her stomach and Fresh stops, staring out over the world as her hands clasp the railing tightly. They aren’t particularly high up, but they are high enough to look over most of the houses on the street.

“Jubileeeee~” calls Fresh in excitement as she turns around, looking at her friends as they walk out after her. “We have a balcony!”

“Yeah? Didn’t I say that? I’m pretty sure I said that,” says Jubilee, standing by the door and leaning against the wall. “So I vote that you have to sleep out here,” says Jubilee plainly, raising their hand. “So we don’t have to smell your goblin feet.”

“Hey!” argues Fresh, as Basil walks out trying to suppress a quiet laugh.

“It’s okay,” says the priestess, nodding to Jubilee and lifting a hand to Fresh’s shoulder to console her. “She can sleep in the basement,” finishes Basil, lifting a finger. Jubilee nods approvingly, lifting their hand to their mouth as they suppress a laugh with a quiet snort.

“Hey!” yells Fresh again, now a little more distraught and lost for words. She hadn’t expected Basil to tease her. The two of them seem to be enjoying themselves though and Basil also seems to be trying her best not to laugh. “I don’t want to sleep on the balcony or in the basement!” argues Fresh, crossing her arms.

“Dungeon,” says a heavy voice from behind them. All three of them turn to face Shamrock. Jubilee and Basil burst out laughing.

“HEY!” yells Fresh, clenching her fists at her side. “You jerks,” she mutters, turning out to face the sun-rise, doing her best not to laugh herself.