Dungeon Supervisor John truly regretted his career choice. Just as he’d suspected, when he went out of the dungeon, a dozen people greeted him relentlessly, and he had to explain that not only was the sign put there by someone other than him, but also that the Insect dungeon would remain closed because of a sudden change in growth direction.

Luckily, most of the adventurers understood that the Insect Dungeon of all things having a change would render it unavailable, since the change could be anything from plagues to poison swarms.

That didn’t mean they wouldn’t complain, though. And complain they did, to John specifically. Sure, it was his job, but with a dungeon all the way on the outskirts he had expected things to go a little easier.

But it came time for him to do something he never thought he had to do: inform the Dungeon Association of the discovery. None of the books on insect dungeons mention the bugs turning into baked goods, after all. Despite John’s hesitation, he knew that this could be very interesting.

Grabbing the pen Fizz gave him, John began to write a letter;

“To whom it may concern,

The Insect Dungeon at Ineptias Town has gone through a recent development where it has possibly taken up the concept of ‘bugs’ and ‘baked goods’. A spider with the smell and texture of a donut has been discovered during the latest check. As this is something that has not been documented before, this letter is requesting a team to study the cause and/or learn from the new development.

Best regards,

Dungeon Supervisor John, Insect Dungeon #23, Ineptias Town.”

There was no need to be fancy; The association valued directness rather than some overly elaborate note with a holier-than-thou attitude. John felt satisfied with the letter and calmly sent it out by artifact. The artifact in the middle of his office was a fantastic showpiece, but its’ main job was to ensure easy communication between him and his employers.

John also appreciated that they didn’t need titles on the letters, just stamps of importance.

Hoping that the association would be quick, John left and went to Fizz’s bakery instead. Fizz may not have had any beer, but he always had a way of taking some of John’s stress away.

John opened the door to be greeted with Fizz carefully carving through a spider monster that Fizz paid an adventurer to grab for him. Chuckling to himself, John walked in and started helping out. Sure, it’s weird that a baker of all things would be using monsters, but it didn’t matter all that much to John. He knew that he’d probably end up being the second unfortunate test subject anyways.

“Long night?”

John queried, looking at Fizz’s eyebags. Fizz laughed and shook his head, waving John’s concerns off as he continued slicing through the spider.

“No, no, a productive one.”

John raised an eyebrow.

“Did you get any-”

“I haven’t slept in 15 hours.”

John stared at Fizz for a long moment while Fizz tactically avoided his gaze.

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“Damn it Fizz.”

After a little while of dissecting the spider for reasons that John wouldn’t like to know, he broke the comfortable silence.

“Anyways, so the Insect Dungeon’s going to be closed for a little while.”

Fizz looked up and raised an eyebrow.

“Huh. Guess the rumors were right. From what I’ve heard from some adventurers, it’s closed because changes are happening. Right?”

John nodded.

“An unexpected change, yeah. There’s a pastry spider that seems to be made of your jelly-filled donuts-”

Fizz stared at John with what could only be explained as a manic grin that slowly crept upon his features. John shut up, recognizing the look on his friend’s face. He quickly shook his head, pausing his work.

“No,” John said.

“I need it.”

“No you don’t, Fizz.”

“But I could do so much with it.”

“Fizz, no.”

“We’re friends, right? C’mon! It wouldn’t be that much of a crime to let me in-”

John took his leather gloves off and cupped Fizz’s face, staring him in the eyes.

“Fizz. It’s probably poisonous. You shouldn’t- You shouldn’t even be making pastries with the normal spiders.”

“So I should make them with the pastry spiders.”

John leaned closer.

“As your best friend, and as the Dungeon Supervisor, I expressly forbid it. I’m drawing the line here. It could be poisonous, or deadly, or - I don’t know, - cause a plague in the town. It’s an Insect Dungeon. They are notorious for plagues.”

Fizz’s face scrunched up. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, trying and failing to figure out a good argument to that. John felt like Fizz got the point, so he let the poor guy go and put his gloves back on as both of them went back to work on the spider. John found it somewhat ironic that right after telling Fizz to not make pastries with one kind of spider, he’s helping him make pastries out of another kind of spider.

“Sometimes, I wonder how you’ve never killed anybody. It’s a damn miracle.”

“I wonder that too!”

Fizz responded with a smile, which did everything except comfort John’s quiet fears. Fizz continued.

“I mean, one time I put dragon meat in a cupcake I gave you-” “You what.” “-But you were fine, so I kept doing it until I ran out of ‘em.”

John looked at Fizz. Fizz looked at John. John blinked, before his expression became genuinely bewildered.

“And… you’re sure you’ve got no magic in your veins? This is all just… your baking and your baking alone? You- I-... Buddy, I don’t even know what to say to that.”

Fizz shrugged.

“You said you liked the secret ingredient. You were sad when I ran out of ‘em.”

After a bit of silence, John found himself snickering. Then he started laughing, then he started wheezing. John often forgot that Fizz was more eccentric than he looked at first glance, but this was a pleasant reminder. Fizz joined in, happy that his friend was happy even if he didn’t quite understand it.

It didn’t matter if one of them kept accidentally trying to poison the other. It didn’t matter that one of them was serious, and one of them was assuredly not. What mattered was their friendship, one that had stood the test of time.

And really, John was glad he visited the bakery. Fizz - odd as he may be - always knew how to lift his spirits. John knew that Fizz would bug him again about the donut spider later, but for now, they could continue chatting together as usual. John enjoyed his life, even if the world seemed gray to him...

And Fizz? Well, Fizz loved his life regardless.