“What..?”
Lime asked, staring down at the report as they read it, reread it, then reread it one more time. This was nonsense- Friends with a dungeon? Baked good insects? It just didn’t make sense. It took the rules known about dungeons and spat on all of them. Dungeons can’t do anything unnatural-
But here it was, using baked goods instead of naturally occurring rocks or insects like it used to.
Dungeons can’t be befriended-
But here it was, with a man named ‘Fizz’ baking- Baking in the core room!?
If Lime was just a rookie, Lime wouldn’t have believed it. But the very first policy in the Dungeon Association was simple; Be honest at all times, or your job gets thrown to someone else. John had been supervising the dungeon for at least 5 years, and he wouldn’t just throw that away to make a distasteful joke.
Lime just didn’t understand how to feel about this. This was certainly a discovery that would make Ineptias Town go down in history, but would practically shatter the foundations that all the rules had set. Of course, there were always exceptions, but this many? It made no sense… And yet, just like others in the association, Lime couldn’t help but smile.
There’s never a need to be scared of new things, as long as they’re controlled well. Since everything seemed fine - aside from the nonsense happening in the dungeon - no action needed to be taken. Letting the information out before the ones testing the dungeon are done would only cause them issues, so Lime decided to put the report where it should be and wait in hopes they’ll get to visit soon.
The news will probably get out soon, anyways.
Lemrio was thinking to himself, uncharacteristically distracted from Fizz’s baking for once. When more adventurers came in, wouldn’t it get harder for Fizz to bake? Lemrio knew that adventurers always distracted him too much for him to make much progress, but he didn’t want that to happen to his dearest friend! Considering this, he decided to command his spiders to block off his core with a door, like the one on the cupboards Fizz showed him.
Fizz raised an eyebrow at seeing things happen right in front of him His little amount of knowledge around dungeons says that unless they’re in mortal danger, they avoid building in front of adventurers like the plague - but otherwise focused on baking some lime pie.
Lemrio was happy with how it ended up looking, but just a door wouldn’t do. It wouldn’t do at all! He wanted Fizz to be able to easily go through the dungeon, maybe with some kind of tunnel like how Lemrio’s ants snuck around. But adventurers are upright, so it would need to be more tall than wide… Plus, Lemrio didn’t forget that it should only be for Fizz.
Hmm… This was going to be hard to do. The best idea Lemrio could think of at that time was creating a hollow cake spider so it could ‘eat’ Fizz and safely transport him inside of it, but adventurers seemed to have a very large fear of being eaten. He didn’t want to scare Fizz.
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Out of ideas, Lemrio decided to just decorate the door to his core a little bit and add a door to the entrance of the dungeon. Small changes, but he liked how it looked. It seemed good enough to him, and Fizz didn’t seem to mind.
Lemrio remembered how occasionally Fizz would leave the dungeon to get some ‘fresh air,’ which meant that the air wasn’t fresh enough in the dungeon. He also remembered that Fizz usually had to bring his own water due to how the dungeon didn’t have ‘clean’ water. This was a problem, because it inconvenienced Fizz and that made Lemrio feel bad.
After a few moments of thinking, Lemrio decided to change things. Not wanting to get dirt into Fizz’s baking, Lemrio patiently waited for Fizz to leave. It took a while - and Lemrio paid rapt attention, as always - but once he was gone, Lemrio began to work.
Dorem and Sola were considering what they planned to do when the news was freely let out. John had given them a deadline earlier that day; By the end of the month, John would tell the Dungeon Association the new name of the dungeon, what they’ve dubbed its’ ‘type’ as, and any other important details will be scribbled down in a handy packet.
The two knew that they’d get a slot to delve the dungeon with John on a monthly basis, so they planned on getting a nice house in the area together at some point. Ineptias Town seemed like a nice spot to settle down and they’d be able to learn more for the Dungeon Association so they’d still get paid; Win-win!
Every important dungeon has more than one person paying attention to it, and the Dungeon Association won’t leave John to perish under the weight of all the things he has to handle. However, after getting their plans sorted out together, the two were a bit exhausted. It was time for a lazy day. Deciding to meet up together with Tido at the tavern near the inn - which, for some reason, didn’t have a name, - the two went out together.
Tido, meanwhile, was trying to figure out if it was alright for him to bring his crows to a tavern or not. The tavern allowed dogs, sure, but his crows were… a bit too big. Even if he only brought one, Cwoh was almost as big as a horse and Kraa was bigger than Cwoh. Eventually settling on leaving his crows behind again, he told them that he’d be back in a few hours.
Sitting down at the somewhat quiet tavern - adventurers weren’t around as much since the dungeon closed off - Tido liked it. It was quiet, he could see birds outside, and flowers were in bloom. Idly ordering a cup of pikio for himself, he idly sipped on the hot drink. It was just about midday; Tido wondered where his coworkers were at. They said they’d be here right about now-
Tido noticed that Doremi and Sola had just entered the tavern, lightly waving to him. He smiled. Tido didn’t know Sola all that well, but he knew Doremi from how she would pet his crows before heading home. His crows liked her, so he liked her. He might have forgotten her name one too many times, but that was alright; He didn’t really need to know names to know that she was nice.
“Good morning, Tido.”
Doremi said idly, sitting down across from Tido. Sola sat down next to her, and thus, the three began chatting. Tido told them about how he was having fun, practically on vacation in the place. Sure, he had to do one or two odd jobs to pay for his crow feed, but things were easy and quiet in the town. He liked that. Doremi and Sola told Tido about their plans for the future, and Tido suggested being some kind of carrier. He knew that the dungeon association would either call him back to transport others, or they would tell him to stay and help out.
Either way, he got to stay with his crows, so he was happy. After suggesting the idea they discussed it some more. Doremi found a fair bit of irony in the fact that after setting this up to relax and stop thinking about work, she just ended up talking about it more. Sola, on the other hand, didn’t mind as much; These things had to be done.
When that was done they all went their separate ways.