Dew collects on the tip of the crystal body hanging above the pool of water, forming together out of the rising mist that sticks to the glassy surface of the thing, coming together at the pointed edge.

Fresh, floating in the water, watches as that single droplet falls down from the crystal above the pool, splashing against the surface of the bath below.

“Drip,” she mutters to herself.

She floats there, staring at the large, yellow crystal as more vapor collects on its tip. She’s been doing this for a while now, just relaxing a little before bed. Basil and Shamrock came home eventually, after their outing. Shamrock was as stoic and quiet as ever about their discovery, but Basil, having been a little worried, soon became almost childishly excited as she ran around the new room, inspecting all of the mounds of dirt.

From what she could see, it really was a farm of sorts, in days long past. Having this much space is an incredible opportunity for them. Jubilee had told Basil off, telling her that they aren’t going to become farmers. But Basil shook her head, saying that she can take care of most of the stuff there. Though, given the room’s size, she won’t manage entirely by herself. But mushrooms seem to be sprouting there all on their own and the few dead rows of soil that remain only needed a little love and a few seeds and they could grow other crops there too.

“Drip.”

Plants are always good. Not just for eating, but for medicine, for potions and crafting of all kinds. Same with the mushrooms. As for the rare-wood tree, it seems to be a fixed entity. There are a few scattered throughout the real dungeon, every few dozen floors. So having one at home is a luxury for sure, even if they can only harvest the wood from it every two weeks. In theory at least. They assume that it resets with the dungeon reset, during the new moon.

“Drip.”

Rare-wood offers exciting opportunities as well. The magical properties of the material are wild. Honestly, there’s so much to do and to start with that Fresh doesn’t really even know where to begin. So she’s just down here, floating.

She sighs and then yawns. It’s about time for bed.

Sitting up, she lets her feet touch the floor of the pool and then gets up.

A droplet of water strikes against her head, having fallen from above.

“I’m looking forward to having a real bed again,” says Basil, squirming to the side.

“Fuck off, you’re all wet,” barks Jubilee, pushing Fresh away and back onto her mattress. They’ve laid their four mattresses all right next to each other, so that they’re touching.

“Hi,” says Shamrock, laying on the other side of Jubilee.

Jubilee tries to push him away too, to little effect. “Fuck off, Shamrock!”

Fresh frowns, rubbing her wet head against Jubilee. “Sorry, Jubilee,” she says. “We don’t have any towels.”

“Fuck’s sake,” they sigh, trying to move away. “We should sell that rare-wood as is and just use the money to get some beds ready.”

There’s a loud growling behind them. Basil’s stomach. The priestess lets out an uneasy laugh. “I’m looking forward to breakfast.”

“The fucking free breakfast at the guild is literally nothing but oatmeal, every single day,” complains Jubilee.

“Mm!” nods Fresh in delight. “Isn’t it the best?”

Jubilee sighs.

Fresh wiggles into place between her friends. Jubilee had made them one large blanket out of spriggans’ bark, but it’s hardly warmer than sleeping without it. Thankfully, their bodies produce more than enough warmth that they can sleep comfortably in this cozy, little corner of the house.

Fresh rubs her fingers over the blanket, hoping that it isn’t too grim for the spriggan that they’re essentially wearing the skin of its kind. But, it hasn’t seemed too bothered so far.

She had given it the last of her portion of tonight’s bread, for its help in showing them the farm. On the positive side, they have a lot of mushrooms now.

Her stomach growls too.

On the negative side, not many of them were good to eat.

It is the afternoon of the next day.

Fresh sits on the floor, looking at a bundle of harpy feathers as Jubilee walks past her, with a basket full of overgrowth that they had pulled out of the shelves and walls. “Hmm…”

She opens her window and pulls out her damp-grimoire, fluttering through the pages as she looks for something about harpies or feathers.

[Roc-Feather Blade]

1. Acquire 1 roc feather

2. Place in direct sunlight

3. Leave it there and walk away. Nothing is going to happen.

Fresh blinks, staring at the page for a moment. Her eyes wander down further.

4. Instead, get an anqa or harpy feather

5. Dunk in moonwater

6. Leave it to bake in direct moonlight for half an hour

Fresh tilts her head. What an odd recipe. She wonders if she can just skip steps one to three? It feels like the book is just messing with her today. Looking out of the window, she sees that it’s still going to be a while until night-time, so instead, she shrugs and gets up. There’s lots else to do until then.

Downstairs is a literal mountain of furniture waiting for her to disassemble it.

“Not bad,” says Jubilee. “Over there, Shamrock,” they say. The man places a large board from the side of a cabinet onto the stack of ‘big’ pieces of wood. Everything is disassembled and while it’s all a little ramshackle, they at least have a heap of crude wood to work with, as well as a bucket of nails, screws, bolts and hinges that they could salvage.

Fresh wipes her dusty forehead on her dusty sleeve. It looks like she’s going to need to take another bath tonight before bed. That’s fine though. With these materials, she can make them some real beds. They’re going to look a little improvised, because they are, but it’s better than sleeping on the floor.

Fresh stands there, thinking for a second. Well… maybe one more night on the floor, with all four of them sleeping together in one jumble isn’t so bad?

The witch lets out a devious cackle that nobody can hear, as she sneaks away to get things ready for tonight.

It’s night-time. Grabbing the glass of old moon-water from her inventory, she sets it down on the floor. She’s sitting in front of the big window in the library.

Looking around, she nods to the spriggan that is accompanying her tonight and grabs a harpy feather from the basket, dipping it into the jar. Fresh doesn’t really worry about letting the creature see her do anything witchy. She trusts it for whatever reason and even if she didn’t, it isn’t exactly able to communicate with others to tell them about what it has seen.

Fresh sets the soaked, sky-blue feather down on a piece of wood, sitting directly in the rays of moonlight that shine in through the very shiny glass of the window. Shamrock did a great job polishing it.

“Moon sure is bright tonight,” she mutters to herself.

Looking around herself, she grabs a random book from the nearest shelf and starts reading it quietly. It’s kind of a dumb story about a lost man who becomes a lizard. It doesn’t make much sense, really. The spriggan sits in her lap and she points at the odd, blurry pictures in the book as she quietly explains to it what’s happening.

But, by the time she finishes reading it, the feather has finished ‘baking’. She pokes it and then watches as it crumbles and falls apart.

[Harpy Feather Ash]{Dark}{Nature} Guardians of the tortured wood, Harpies are infused with DARK magical energies. Having been dissolved through an intense, magical-counteraction, nothing remains but this coarse dust, filled with radiant magical energy. Weight: 0.16kg Value: ???

Fresh blinks, touching the powder. Yup. That’s powder. Still, a dual property material is something new. She’ll have to show this to Basil, she’ll definitely be interested. Maybe they can use this to craft something together again?

She feels the crumbles sift through her fingers. It almost feels like metal.

Another day has passed. It’s the next evening.

“Nooo!” yells Fresh dramatically in a deep, scratchy voice. “I’m going to get yoooou~” she cries, waving the fingers of her free hand as she points at the picture in the picture-book that she’s holding. The evil butterfly-king is shaking his butterfly-fist at the little, adventuring slime who is hopping away, having retrieved the stolen hoard of sweet-flowers.

The spriggan claps its stubby arms together in excitement.

She flips the page, handing the book over to Basil who looks down to see what the next drawing is. She clears her throat.

“And then, the little slime went home to his home in the sweet-fields,” explains the priestess, pointing at the picture of the slime hopping away back to the large field of flowers he had started his adventure in, so long ago. “And then he lived happily ever after.” She flips the last page. “The end.”

Fresh cheers and the spriggan spins around in a circle, humming. Jubilee sighs, rubbing their forehead.

“That was fun!” says Fresh. They had read through the entire book together like this, passing it around in a circle and taking turns reading a page each. Though, ‘reading’ is of course a bit of a vague term, as there are no words. So they always had to make something up that seemed to fit.

“I’m glad it’s over with,” says Jubilee.

“Oh, please,” starts Basil. “You enjoyed it too. I saw. Right, Shamrock?” she asks.

Shamrock nods. “I saw it.”

“Fuck off, both of you,” replies Jubilee, rolling their eyes and getting up. “Let’s go to bed,” they say.

“Speaking of beds,” says Basil. “I’ve been wondering. Couldn’t we make some out of that scrap wood downstairs?” ponders the priestess. Shamrock and Jubilee stare at Basil for a moment, before turning their gaze to where Fresh was sitting.

But she’s nowhere to be seen, having escaped into the darkness of the library, cackling as she leaves.

A hand grabs her.

“Get back here, you slacker!” barks Jubilee.

“Noooo~!” howls Fresh dramatically, clutching her heart. “I’ve been captured by the evil fairy-queen!”

Jubilee’s hand grips her tighter as they drag her back out. “Don’t push your luck. You’re about to be executed.”

And so, Fresh, having been captured by the horrible fairy-queen, has no choice but toil through grueling labor, crafting late into the middle of the night for the rest of her life, forever.

Though, she might just be being a little imaginative. In truth, it only takes about thirty minutes.