Fresh stands there, holding her hair out of her eyes as she stares out over the ocean. The sea-winds pressing against her face throw her long, sun-bleached golden strands around behind herself. Ships move across the horizon. Large, wooden vessels with giant sheeted-sails. She and Shamrock are standing on the lowest raised tier of houses above the beach. A single staircase separates them from the shore, but Fresh resists. She had promised Basil that she would wait. Still, her fingers are tapping against the railing as she looks out over it. She really wants to go down to the ocean.

Something squeaks and screams off to the side. Fresh pulls together a little, having been lost in a daze caused by the mesmerizing crashing of the waves onto the shore before them. Looking around, she leans forward over the white-wooden railing and looks down the length of the beach. A group of adventurers are fighting what looks like…

A giant crab?

She gasps. Well, ‘giant’. It’s certainly giant for crab-standards, but not as giant as she would have envisioned a giant crab to be. It reaches up to about the height of a human’s knee and it is currently involved in a fight with a group of people, who appear to be very new adventurers. Following her gaze, Shamrock points out the other crabs. Wild monsters, all of them. But monsters this close to the city? She’s never seen that before. If you went down the staircase, you could accidentally step on one if it was down in the sand.

“A beginner zone,” explains Shamrock, nodding his head towards the adventurers who defeat the giant crab in a semi-honorable battle. The crab falls back, dying a fairly theatrical death, before dissolving, leaving beach-sand and a heap of some unidentifiable crab-loot behind. A moment later, a few meters down the beach, a new crab appears. It simply seems to be pushed up and out of the sand, as if by some unseen hand below the world.

“Wow!” says Fresh, waving to the newly spawned world-crab. It does not wave back, finding itself in a fight for its life only seconds after being born as the grinding party descends upon it. “So new adventurers can just kill crabs until they’re strong enough to go into the dungeon?”

“Yes,” nods Shamrock.

“That’s so cool!” exclaims Fresh “How come the other cities didn’t have these?”

“They did,” says Shamrock, turning to keep walking along the lowest tier of houses and shops. “Once. Now only crabs remain.”

“Huh?” Fresh runs after him. “I had a really hard time, you know? A wild, easy monster spawning area would have been great!” says Fresh, tapping her finger against her chin as she walks next to Shamrock. Now that the sun is coming out, she’s starting to notice how hot it’s getting, very, very rapidly. She’s already starting to get strong sweat-stains on her black-dress and she has to be careful not to get too close to Shamrock. His armor radiates heat out from itself. “It would have made being poor really easy to get out of!” she says. “With a little work and some elbow grease…”

“That is why,” says Shamrock. Fresh stares at him for a moment, before returning her eyes to the road. She sighs, of course. At this point, remembering the cut-throatedness of the powers that be in the north, she doesn’t even need further explanation. Something like a rapid, low-level monster spawner on the outskirts of the city would be destroyed by any one of dozens of parties. She assumes, given the northern monster-types, that the beginner spawning ground there was a mush-mush spawner. Any low-level adventurer, all by themselves, could grind their way up to a reasonable level just off of mush-mushes alone, all without ever finding a party, paying dues, buying heaps of equipment, potions and goods, or needing expensive shelter.

She wouldn’t even be surprised if the adventurers’ guild themselves found a way to destroy the monster spawners, or at least deactivate them. People need a long time to level up in the dungeon, given that it only resets every two weeks. That means they need shelter and provisions and the guild just so happens to offer them…

Add in the merchants’ guild who will see a boost in sales and are then able to keep the more limited supply of mushroom-caps under control and it all adds up. Nobody wants to help any low-level adventurers become stronger or better, everyone just wants to make some money and one of the best ways to do that is to control the market.

“So why is this one still around?” asks Fresh.

“The crabs fought well,” says Shamrock. The two of them pass a cart that is laden full with tropical fruits and a man makes a show out of cutting them with an odd cleaver.

“Huh?” Fresh blinks, not sure if that was a joke or a serious statement. She looks back out over the railing, seeing a familiar flash of light. “Look!” she exclaims, tugging on Shamrock’s arm and then quickly wincing and shaking out her close to burnt fingers. The group of combat fairies are out on the beach, fighting a very confused crab with their magic, who is entirely unable to do anything about it. A group of excited onlookers run after them from a distance. Fresh smiles happily, seeing them working hard already. But then her smile grows flat as she realizes that the group of fairies is one person short. She rubs her arm, thinking of Pentii. He would have really liked it here, she’s sure.

For the rest of the day, the two of them explore the area. The desert city is apparently inside of a large, round cove and the houses run all along the shoreline on the three tiered platforms, until flattening off on the highest one. Near the ocean, the houses are far more colorful, much to Fresh’s delight, as the owners have taken the initiative of painting them in all manners of bright reds and yellows and blues. They get a lot of dirty looks, but nobody goes out of their way to confront them because of Shamrock.

The dungeon is a mixed dungeon. It apparently used to actually be a desert dungeon, a long, long time ago. But eventually, the ocean overtook it and began flooding it. Apparently, the dungeon has adapted inside and become a mixture of sorts now, with large desert segments as well as ocean segments that require a lot of swimming. Fresh thinks this is unusually fascinating, how something like the dungeon can change its insides depending on what comes into it from the outside. She wonders if the cut-off spaces in the adventurers’ guild could work like this too? Maybe that’s where the beds come from? Maybe they just… pushed thousands of beds into the gate and now everyone has one?

She has no idea, but it’s fun to think about.

“Shamrock,” says Fresh. “Remind me later please, I want to figure out how dungeon-magic works, or at least cut-off-space-magic.” She stops, wondering if that isn’t the same thing. Shamrock nods.

Fresh sees dozens of houses that she would think would make a fantastic store and all of them have terrific views of the ocean. But none of them have a ‘for sale’ sign on them. Ideally, of course, they need one close to the dungeon-gate. But those look like premium real-estate, oddly enough and a bit out of their budget. Maybe the eastern dungeon doesn’t get many dungeon-breaks either? It really does seem to be a ‘north’ problem.

Hours later, they get back to the adventurers’ guild and Fresh has picked up a giant, mixed bag of some kind of gummy fruit-snacks on the way.

(Fresh) bought: [Jelly candy grab-bag]{Large}(Normal)

for

[{20} Obols] !

Jubilee looks up at her, leaning back against the wall as they enter. “Candy, again?” they ask. Fresh stares at them, continuing her chewing. She tilts the bag forward, offering them some. Jubilee rolls their eyes. Basil doesn’t reach in from the side either, she is sitting down against the wall with her hands clenched together. Shamrock at least takes some, once again. He seems to like the green ones the most too.

“There are some green ones here, Jubilee,” says Fresh, pointing them out.

“How was it?” asks Jubilee, lifting a hand and changing the topic.

“Uh, they’re a little sour and I think they taste like apple,” says Fresh. Jubilee stands there, leaning against the wall with crossed arms. Their fingers tap impatiently against their elbow.

Basil chimes in from the side. “I think Jubilee meant your trip through the city,” she explains.

“I didn’t want to dignify it with an explanation,” sighs Jubilee.

“Oh!” says Fresh. “We saw crabs! And a lot of houses and the dungeon! It’s a really pretty city, guys!” Fresh tugs on her dress. “But it’s super hot,” she adds on, her head drooping as she pulls the wet fabric from her skin. It’s soaked through with sweat. “Sorry, I think I’m all sweaty and gross now.”

“You sure are,” says Jubilee. Fresh eats a green candy in protest.

A pair of metal boots walk past her. “The merchants?” asks Shamrock, reading the room better than she is.

“Dead,” replies Jubilee straight away, shaking their head. Fresh stops chewing, quickly handing Shamrock the bag of candy. She holds her arms out for a hug, as she is certain that this is what Jubilee needs now as the very first thing. Jubilee lifts a finger, staying leaned against the wall. “No,” they say, very dryly. “You look like you fell into a fountain. It’s disgusting.” Fresh blinks, looking down at her almost dripping robe. She frowns.

“Aren’t you sad, Jubilee?” asks Fresh. “About your friends?”

Jubilee looks around the room, staring at the three of them. “Yes. Yes I am. Every day a little more.”

“Hey!” says Fresh, catching the quip right away this time. She grabs Jubilee, rubbing her sweaty face against the side of their hood as punishment. Jubilee sighs in annoyance, but doesn’t put up much of a fight. This is how Fresh knows that they’re bothered about this far more than they’re letting on. When in good mental health, Jubilee would never just let her get away with something like this without so much as a mean remark. Fresh looks around the room, wondering what this weird air in here is. It’s certainly not coming from her. Her eyes land on Basil, who is still sitting there down against the wall. She looks back at Jubilee and then lets go. “Guys?”

“They were murdered,” says Basil. “Recently.”

“Oh…” Fresh moves over to the priestess, taking a minute to offer her a sweat-hug as well. “Like… last week or something?”

“About ten minutes before we got there,” says Jubilee.

“Huh?” Fresh looks back at Jubilee and then down at Basil’s shaking hands.

“It was bad,” says Basil. Fresh grabs her hands, feeling how surprisingly cold they feel.

“Really bad,” says Jubilee, shaking their head.