Chapter 30: Mirror Mirror, Quite the Haul

I noticed I hadn’t received any experience for Brill leaving this time. I hypothesized the System only counted it if there was some sort of combat involved.

Ooh, that’s a good fifty cent word. Hypothesize. Makes me feel like a junior scientist instead of some dimwit trying to figure out the controls on how to move a character in a video game.

Combat? Yuck. You’re out of your mind, airplane lady. And you too, Brill, for that matter. Why does everyone think I should be putting up my dukes and having an old fashioned fisticuffs brawl.

I like the idea of getting experience from tea parties. Can we do that instead?

What a shame. I could have used the extra boost for leveling.

Guess I’ll do this the only way I know how. With grit, determination, and household chores!

Jellybee had given most of the tour to Bonny. Spinemess had tagged along, since they had only seen the basement and the living room. Jimbo-no hobbled along with them too, for whatever reason.

I had listened to the short, yet amusing tour quietly while Mana Dusting away the rocks from the fresh tunnel collapse, all while seated in my favorite rocking chair next to the fire.

By the time they went down the stairs, I had reset the trap entirely. The only sign of it being triggered were the bits of dirt and dust on the ground. And an entire carpet of mushrooms that lay beyond.

Jellybee waved his arm dramatically. “Aaand here’s the best for last. The hidden cellar that’s not so hidden anymore. Down here is where we work our magic. We brew tea, summon goose monsters, and get drunk off your aunt’s wine.”

“Very nice! Miss Tanner never mentioned a cellar.” Bonny gazed about in wonder at all the shelves and weaponry, then raised an eyebrow at the shattered wine bottles. “What’s behind that door?”

“Food,” Jellybee answered. “Enough to last the end of the world, I reckon! Again!”

Bonny let out a low whistle as she peeked inside. “And she didn’t mention this either. Very nice. Very cozy. I love it.” When she turned around she noticed the other ‘door’ we had made. Bonny pointed down the dark tunnel we had mined out, “What’s that way?” She shivered. “Is this where the Core came from?”

“What? No, silly. That way leads to our rooms. It’s a dead end after that.”

“We have rooms?” Jimbo-no asked. “Since when?”

“Like, dunno. A couple hours ago? Maybe?”

“Which one is mine?” Jimbo-no asked.

“First door on the left. But no peeking! They aren’t finished yet.”

"You don't say," Bonny muttered. "It could use some decorating. And flooring. And lighting. And a door..."

Jimbo-no ignored the other skeleton and shambled ahead into the darkness. He gave a whoop, then scuttled back. “Fellas, ya won’t believe this! It must be my deathday or somethin’. She grew drugs! Drugs in my room!” He held out one of the mushrooms before him like it was a rose.

Oh, so that’s what those mushrooms with the blue bruised stems were?

I just thought they looked pretty.

Whoops.

Bonny’s suspicion dissipated. She brightened at the news. “Wow! She is able to grow that strain here? In less than a couple hours? That’s incredible!”

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“My, my, this girl certainly knows how to party,” Jimbo-no said. “And Spinemess too? My boy! I mean, gal! I mean, uh, tree! Whatever ya are, ya rock!”

“No, that’s Granny,” Jellybee said. “Easy to mix up.”

Spinemess had strode into the hall and stood at the edge of the darkness. They called back. “Which room is mine?”

“The second one!”

“Thanks. I’m going to bed.” There was a sound of a tree falling, then silence.

“Mood,” Bonny said.

****

I Soul Strolled up the stairs into the master bedroom and took a look about.

I hadn't spent much time here at all. There had been no reason to dive deep here when there was so much else going on. It was a simple room, yet surprisingly unexpectedly austere compared to the rest of the home. Bonny's luggage lay on the bed, unopened. She hadn't unpacked at all yet.

Perhaps she was still on the edge. A moment away from running away. When I was around her age I knew I always had a suitcase packed, just in case I ever had to run out the door at a moment's notice and never return. Ah, youth.

It wasn't exactly like I was snooping. No sir!

Okay, I was wee bit curious.

What had driven this girl to leave everything behind? What mysteries lay within those bags?

No, I truly was in the master bedroom for one reason. And one reason only. This was my last chance to visit. The moment Bonny started unpacking I would never physically return to this place, even if it was part of my Dungeon. The young woman deserved her privacy in her own home.

I was here for the gold framed mirror that hung on the wall, above the vanity. Obviously.

I walked up to it and looked at my reflection for the first time. Sure, I had seen myself a lot already. I was basically able to look at my Soul Stroll avatar with a third person point of view at any time. This was the first time I had zoomed in with my own two glassy peepers. And actually looked.

Despite my omnipresent sight, putting myself in front of a mirror felt fitting. Prettying up my hair and makeup was a daily habit of mine for quite a few years. Why change? Despite this limited view, I still knew how to get a good view of myself all the right and wrong angles.

It was a shame that I didn’t appear to be younger. This was a mental projection of myself, right? So why didn't I look younger. That may sound surprising to hear, but I wasn't always old. You see, that's one of the funny things about getting older: one never feels like the outer self matches up with the inner self. In my mind, I was still just some young adult with no idea what I was doing. Nothing had changed, except for the shell.

I was still me, after all the decades and wrinkles through time.

My two skeletal Minions were chatting in the basement with Bonny. They seemed to be getting along well enough. They started coming up the stairs.

For a second I had gotten lost staring into this strange representation of myself. The ghostly reflection of a woman that had died, who technically looked as old as a rock in dirt, that felt like she should be sixty years younger.

There you go again, you old fossil. Getting all distracted. You're here for the mirror.

Reaching out with my Mana Dust Skill, I carved away a small corner from the edge of the mirror, near the bottom. A neat little sliver Bonny would never notice was missing.

The usual materials of compounds and elements flooded my brain. This was the kind of baloney I really didn't care much for. I was no engineer or chemist. In this case, I didn't need to be a scientist to know what I wanted.

It was a common misconception that mirrors were only made of glass. There were other elements within each mirror. Most seemed useless, though there were a select few I had special interest in. This mirror in particular was made of copper, limestone, silica sand, sodium carbonate, tin chloride, and ... ah, there it is.

The most important.

Gold!

There wasn't much, but it was there. A thin plating of it for the glass to adhere to.

I think most phones had more gold than I had scooped up. The quantity didn't matter. This was all I needed. In this way, it was quite the haul. Better than I expected!

Most mirrors back on Earth have aluminum backings, since that tends to be pretty cheap. They weren't always though. Most were made out of silver before modern industrialization times. And sometimes gold. Gold backed mirrors were especially prized though, since the gold wouldn't tarnish as easily.

This could be another hint towards how valuable that food pantry filled with mason jars could be. Or this could be another dead end towards figuring out what century of technology I had landed in.

I didn't need to be a scientist to get rich. Alchemists had spent centuries on Earth trying to figure out how to turn one material into another. One of which was gold. The gold standard for wealth.

And let's just say, as a Dungeon Core, I was something of an alchemist myself.

I Soul Strolled away. Content to leave the master bedroom and not return.