Doremi had a boring job, and a boring life. Having just been hired at the Dungeon Association, the only thing she could do was sit and wait for an assignment to fall onto her. New things in dungeons don’t get discovered all that much; All of the ‘cool’ things have already been studied and documented, and whatever stragglers remain are just little variations, like a cat having a new variant where it’s a lighter color.

Point was, Doremi’s job was to just sit around, do the odd tasks that they didn’t specifically hire anyone for, and wait for something fun. She didn’t get perfect grades at that stuck-up wizard school for nothing!

From the boring tests to the boring studying of boring spells that have been done a billion boring times, Doremi hoped that joining the Dungeon Association would at least have something interesting. And it did; But not for long. Sure, dungeons are undoubtedly - according to her - awesome, but there's only so many times she could read about the six basic kinds of dungeons over and over again. There were Insect dungeons, Passive dungeons, Deadly dungeons, Rock dungeons, Water dungeons, and Volcano dungeons.

Insect dungeons are known for plagues, illnesses, and insects, Passive dungeons are known for plants, trees, and maybe a cove of rocks, Deadly dungeons got subdued as fast as possible, Rock dungeons in caves mostly made cool crystals all around themselves to disguise the real crystal, - and thus, require all the warning signs to make sure a miner doesn't accidentally collapse one, - Volcano dungeons kept volcanos in check and used the heat to power themselves, and finally, Water dungeons that stayed underwater and helped out to filter the water around them.

Grumbling to herself about how unfair it was that she couldn't do any of the fun expeditions and that she'd already read 'Dungeons 101' for the umpteenth time, she was rather startled when she noticed someone leaning on the door. Her coworker and friend, Sola; A healer hired in the case she’d ever need to go on expedition, and a medic for everyone else in the building. They'd known eachother in school, and fate shoved them together.

“Gah- When did you come in here? Actually, scratch that, it’s not lunch yet- What’s going on?” Doremi asked, looking at Sola with confusion as her words overflowed. “Did you just want to see me? Did something burn down? Do I need to go on the most urgent snack run of all time?”

“We’ve got an assignment.”

Sola responded simply, grinning like a Cheshire cat. It took Doremi a moment to realize that - based on Sola’s expression - this wasn’t just some ‘Check out this slight variation in one of the species, see why it’s there’. This was something fun!

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“You’re- You’re not pulling my leg, are you? We’ve actually got something fun for once?”

Doremi asked with hope, looking at Sola with a smile.

“That’s right. There’s word of an insect dungeon that has a spider made of donut. Just one - at least, according to the letter - but even if it’s a variation, it’s something far more interesting than some kind of fur pattern change.” Sola responded. “So, let’s go do our job.”

Doremi squealed, kicking her legs as she spun in her chair. Sola patiently waiting for Doremi to calm down, but she was practically hopping around the room like a bunny on fresh Pikio beans. Somewhat startled by getting squeezed in a hug and dragged into Doremi’s excitement, Sola laughed.

“Cut it out, pipsqueak! Get your things ready and stop bouncin’ around like a rabbit. I know you’re a wizard so you hunger for knowledge as much as I hunger for snacks, but we should get ready.”

Doremi, unfortunately, did not stop bouncing around the place as she collected her stuff and kept asking Sola what they should bring. The trip wouldn’t take all that long - The association was important to the structure of many towns, and they had a ridiculous amount of funds to spare when something interesting finally showed up - but nothing would be issued automatically. Taking their pick of things to bring, Doremi and Sola calmly got in the carriage.

The animals attached to the carriage weren’t exactly horses; They looked more like large crows or ravens, making clicking noises at the driver - Tido - while he double-checked to see if things were properly ready to go. Tido took a moment to fawn over his beloved, ridiculously large crows, before sitting down and looking back at Doremi and Sola.

“You two ladies ready to ride?”

He asked with a childlike grin. Clearly, Tido was excited for this too. Although he wouldn’t be directly involved, one of his favorite parts of riding around with his beloved mounts was how much they seemed to enjoy adventure. Tido didn’t care if he was paid or not; He had his crows.

Meanwhile in the carriage, Doremi and Sola were chatting up a storm. Doremi was as excited as a little kid waiting impatiently for birthday presents, while Sola was more subdued. Doremi rambled away to Sola.

“-How do you think the dungeon figured out how to make the insects like baked goods? Do you think it did it with other insects in the dungeon too? Would it taste the same, or would it taste different? Speaking of tastes, what would they taste like? Imagine a spider that tasted like a muffin, looked like a muffin, but didn’t move like a muffin because muffins can’t move. Speaking of muffins, one time I found this really neat baker who had the strangest muffins I’d ever tasted-”

Sola was paying attention and following along, but not for the subject matter. She just liked hearing Doremi get so excited; It’d been a while since she’d sounded so happy, and Sola planned to take in the nice sight of a good friend having a good time. Sola heard Tido’s question and responded for the two of them.

“Yeah. Take off whenever you’d like, Tido.”

Tido grinned, yelled to his birds, and they set off to the clear blue skies. They were curious and slightly stupid, but they were going to figure this out together.