"Really?" Of the dragons, Spike looked the least wary, even interested in the idea. "She understands how dangerous this is, right?"

"This dangerous." Smolder grabbed her tail, waving the blunted tip at Sandra. "And she wants that? She's nuts! What does she actually want?"

"Not a bad question, sis." Garble lifted his shoulders in a grand shrug. "Is she just here to ride along and take the goods? With that bad attitude of hers…"

"That's not like her." All eyes turned on Spike. "Look, I get it, she's been a bit of a jerk." He shrugged softly. "But she has a code, and she hasn't broken it. Divine Lord is more than a class for her. It's what she is. And a Divine Lord will never betray their team."

Sandra rubbed an arm lightly. "I know that feeling… Me and summoner have gotten pretty tight."

"Pretty sure I'm going to keep cooking when I get home." Smolder smirked at the thought of it. "The other dragons are gonna be so confused, then get in line to have a taste!" She was suddenly holding her knife, though her hand had been nowhere nearby. "No cutting in line, or you're next."

Garble huffed at that, smoke escaping him. "Right, well, I already was that. My class just let me be me, so not that much difference there." He shrugged. "Whatever. Look, if she's not getting in the way, great, whatever. She ain't getting in the way of us goin' home though. She knows that, we don't have any problems."

“Put me down for yes!” Spike added, thrusting a finger into the air.

Sandra and Spike looked over at Smolder. “What?” She said, looking around. “I’m pretty sure even if I said no I’m outvoted.”

“It’s not like that,” Sandra said. “If one of us doesn’t want to work with her this won’t work, so we all have to be sure.”

“Sure, then, everyone else thinks it’s good,” Smolder said, squirming a little under the attention.

“Do you really mean that, or are you just saying that?” Sandra narrowed her eyes.

Spike suddenly grabbed one of Smolder's worrying hands. "I get it."

"You do?" Smolder hiked a brow at the smaller dragon. "Do share."

"You're not sure, but you're willing to give it a try. You don't like her, but you like us enough to see where it goes. You're not really--"

Smolder placed a finger on his lips, silencing him. "We get the idea. Yeah.. that's about right." She smirked past Spike, towards Sandra. "We'll give your friend a try, see if she's changed her spots."

“I think that’s good,” Spike said, nodding. “Maybe we can do other stuff before we go into the tower? Or something?”

“Probably will need to,” Sandra replied, then clasped her hands together. “It’s settled, then, we’ll give Tabitha a try.”

----------------------------------------

"So the first thing we're going to do is not go right back to the top of the tower."

Garble hiked a brow at the idea. "Yeah, see, I thought you were super ready to rush to the top. Why wouldn't we, you know, get back to it?"

Tabitha waggled a finger. "I hear you all run by an equal say thing here, so this is an idea, not a command." She looked to Sandra. "I know who's in charge." Her gaze slid back to the dragons. "Here's the thing. You all have been running up as fast as you can, doing a great job at it, I'll give."

"Darn right," grunted Garble, looking proud.

"But…?" Spike peered at Tabitha, waiting for the rest of the statement.

"But you aren't ready." She waved a hand in a flat direction. "This isn't me telling you to give up. We're on the same team, I want us all going to the top. We need to farm. You know what farming is?"

“Isn’t that the thing ponies do when they want to get food and stuff? They farm them?” Garble said.

Tabitha furrowed her brow and mouthed ‘ponies?’ but discarded it and was about to speak, but Spike spoke up first. “It’s when you go out and deliberately collect stuff from monsters. Calling it a farm is ‘cause, like, you set up fights you know you can do and just do them over and over.”

Garble puffed in annoyance. “Sounds boring.”

“Well we’ll have to do some tough stuff,” Tabitha said. “The best tower gear won’t be earned by just running easy fights over and over, we’ll have to do some of the tough floors over and over.”

Sandra nodded with growing understanding. "I know what you mean. The end-of-segment bosses have the best stuff, like at all the tenth floors."

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"Exactly." Tabitha nodded, looking pleased that her words were being understood. "Besides, it gives us a chance to see how everyone else works. I haven't fought with any of you except Spike." She fired a thumbs up without warning. "I know he has what it takes. You don't know me, I don't know the rest of you. Let's fix that, and get our equipment in shape. Good equipment makes things possible. Good teamwork seals the deal. We'll be handling both of those."

“Oh, I guess that might be cool,” Garble scratched his chin. “We haven’t redone any of the tower floors, not unless we had to go back to one of them, which we haven’t really done in a while.”

Tabitha blinked. “Wait… you haven’t done that at all?”

The other four people blinked back at her. “Well… no,” Sandra said. “We’ve been either buying, crafting, or taking just the stuff from the tower on the first pass.”

“But… but…” Tabitha grimaced. “What if you needed like, a better weapon with more appropriate stats?”

“With what?” Garble tilted his head.

“Like… I dunno like better attacks, better elements!” Tabitha gnarled up her hands in frustration. “Like… synergies.”

Garble held his sword out. “I have a sword that has fire on it. It’s kinda redundant because I can breathe it, and Smolder uses fire, but it’s cool at least.”

“But what element would be best,” Tabitha said. “What works the best for how you fight?”

“I dunno, probably lightning.” Garble shrugged. “If it’s crackling I can keep the beat better and it works really well with whatever the one is when I call down the big strike from the sky.” He put his sword back. “I haven’t found a nice one in the fifties though, I think this one was from around forty something, I don’t remember.”

Tabitha applied her palm liberally to her face. "Let's talk to your smith. I bet he--"

"--she," corrected Sandra.

"She's really tweaked with how you're doing this."

Spike started in that direction. "She never complained before?"

"She always seemed pretty happy." Smolder fell in line, the entire party headed towards their smith. "But don't you have your own smith?"

"About that…" Tabitha reached into a pocket, drawing a glowing chunk of some strange metal. "Smiths belong to parties. My party is gone, and I joined a new one, so this is it." She held it securely, gripping tightly between her hands. "When we get there, I'll give it to your smith, that should make them really happy."

"I heard of that," noted Sandra in uncertain tones. "Our smith didn't have anything, you know, when I… stopped being in it." She coughed softly into a hand. "But you'll recognize her!"

"Wait, it isn't?--"

They had arrived, Tabitha gawking at the sign and the door in equal shock. "You fell in with her?"

"Most of the other ones kept being weird about the whole dragon thing," sheepishly explained Sandra. "Whereas she got to work, so we went with her."

"You're back!" The door swung open, a mechanical hand withdrawing. Their eager smith was at the forge, a manic grin on her face. "And you brought a new friend! Ooo, come on in. Don't let the heat out."

Garble hiked a thumb as he went inside. "She likes it hot. I like that. Most of you humans are so busy hiding just when it gets comfortable."

Smolder stomped in, something new in her eyes. "Hey! Can you replace something I lost?"

"Oh, sure! Was it a knife?" Her eyes scanned over Smolder. "Your armor seems to… Oh no!" She hopped down to the ground and ran at full speed at Smolder, grabbing her by the shoulders. "What have they done to my precious little dragon girl!" Her eyes were past her, to her tail, its tip missing. "Give me their name!"

“I don’t think a trap has a name,” Smolder said. “But I need something for it. I ain’t taking it’s removal lightly.”

Tammy nodded. “Yeah… yeah I can whip up something. Let’s do it. Hop up I need to measure.”

Tabitha cleared her throat. “Ahem, I also have a thing? For you, that is.” She held out the sparkling metal.

Tammy leaned over. “Oh.. oh wow.” She looked up at Tabitha. “This is a forge fragment… it’s strong too, someone spent a lot of time upgrading their forge… who lost out on that?”

“Wait, it’s stronger than yours?” Sandra asked.

“Oh yeah. I mean, I have a great time working with you, but we’ve upgraded your forge like… three or four times? Max?” She pointed at the flame. “Not that dragonfire was not a good upgrade. But no other parties work with me, I just spend most of my time using normal forges for the markets, so it’s not like I’ve got another forge built up...”

Tabitha almost bounced the ball, stopped only by its prodigious weight and inertia. "And this is what we start fixing. Tammy, your days of neglect are at an end. We are going to farm the fifties like they're going out of style and bury you in the good stuff."

Tammy clapped her hands, eyes shining at the promised reward. "Well! I won't say no to that. Speaking of." She reached out a hand, accepting the great metal jagged ball. "Let's get this in there and crank it up a few notches, hmm? Hey, my dragon friends. Why don't you help? A little dragon flame to melt it down feels right." A sudden underhanded lob and a great thunk as the metal landed in her forge, sending molten bits splattering upwards briefly. "Do it!"

All three of the dragons, in sync, all breathed in, and their three different colors of fire struck the orb. Tabitha looked on, the completely unexpected three different colors of fire stunning her as the flames all mixed, heating the orb to white hot, the flames mixing with the forge briefly, lighting it up with green, deep red, and bright orange.

Tammy moved over, cracking her knuckles and neck, bringing up her hammer, hammering the metal into her forge, which caused the whole thing to glow, not with heat but with a different magic, until the metal was incorporated, and the flames died down. “Whoo, good times.”

She twirled her hammer even as she sent it in an arc to land a its resting place. "And now I can make better stuff, like… say something for my poor little dragon girl." She punched in her fists against her own hips, glaring at the injury on Smolder. "Step on up and let's get you measured. I'm gonna make something good, just for you."

Garble watched his sister mount up into position to be fussed over. "Yeah, I like the tip I have, thanks."

"I, uh, hope you like it," allowed Spike more supportively. He turned to Tabitha. "Alright, so we put in yours, so we're closer to ready now, right?"

"Closer, sure." Tabitha shrugged softly. "But we could do better, and we will! Some farming in the fifties, learn each others moves, and give Tammy here plenty to work with. When we set our feet down past sixty--"

"Sixty?!" Tammy looked over, forgetting what she was doing a moment. "You got past sixty?! You didn't tell me?!" She slapped her hands down on Smolder's shoulders. "Congratulations! Oh, wow, that explains that… Stupid tower, hurting you like that…" She grumbled as she got back to work.