After everyone agreed to leave Auna alone for the time being she went back to class. For the rest of the week nothing else happened. Even her prayer class on the weekend went by without any issues. They were now all gathered in the dungeon on the first floor. Currently tilling the land with the little farmer.
“Wow you really are working us little farmer.” Jensen joked taking a break.
“If I really was, I would tell you to get back to work.” Ciela stuck her tongue out.
“How much more tilling do we have to do?” Diego also sat down. They had tilled about the size of their crater by now. It was nearing dinner; they had taken a break for lunch. They had a few time pieces to keep track of time, so no teacher sought them out.
“Just a bit more. If we do all of this today, then we just have to plant tomorrow. I already have all the signs to label everything made. I did them in arts and crafts class.”
“Do we really have to do this much though? Isn’t it a bit excessive?”
“We are going to sell right? So, we should have a decent amount. Plus, we now have a lot of flowers to sell. We didn’t even make a dent in the useable farm space here. We could probably till six craters worth of land while keeping a ring the size of our crater around everything untouched.”
“Kid are you trying to tell me this is only a small part of what you actually plan on tilling?” Diego had wide eyes as the rest of the group laughed.
“Got a problem with that?” Ciela was holding her hands on her hips.
“Jensen why are you in love with a girl who has such a dedicated little sister?”
“Shut up Diego.” Jensen threw some dirt at him.
“Well, the kid reminds me of Jensen. So fixated on something that interests her.” Bruno smiled. “However, please wait till we grow some more before making us till more my muscles are on fire. Muscles I did not know existed are on fire.”
“I can appreciate that request.” Ciela nodded causing everyone to laugh again.
“Tomorrow we should head to town first thing.” Jensen said setting a tray of food in front of Auna. They were now at dinner. Tonight, was something similar to tacos with brownies for a snack.
“We can go to town first, come back for lunch, plant the seeds, then be back for dinner.” Auna started with her brownie.
“Please be sure to eat properly.” The doctor was back making Auna sigh.
“I will doctor.” Auna put down her brownie to eat her meal first.
“You stayed inside your room all day today, were you resting?”
“Doctor I don’t want to be rude, but you seem to have a problem if I am in the library during my free time, and a problem if I just stay in my room instead. My friends are even kind enough to stay in my room with me.”
“Yes, I heard the boys also stayed inside their room.”
“Sir, I can’t be scolded for that can I?”
“No, you’re right. I will let you kids go back to your meal.”
The doctor left them giving them a short nod.
“Is it just me or is he too invested at this point?” Meredith watched the doctor leave.
“Who knows. If they go to our rooms, we can just say we were else ware. Taking a walk around campus. They can’t possibly think we left campus so we should be fine.”
“My moon is right. They can’t possibly be angry kids are spending time in their room after they were warned about being sick.”
“True.” Meredith nodded.
The kids ate their meal and headed back to their rooms. The girls were playing a board game Auna had recreated from her last world. It was a version of monopoly. They were interrupted.
“Come in!” They called as Meredith rolled the dice.
“Hello girls. Just wanted to check in with you. See what has kept you all so occupied.” Mrs. Hopper walked in.
“Just playing games.” Ciela said taking the dice to roll her turn.
“What are you playing?”
“Big sister made it from her memories of a different world.”
“I see.” Mrs. Hopper then spent about thirty minutes watching the girls play. She had a book with her and sat on one of their beds as they were playing on the floor. Finally, Meredith had enough.
“Should I be telling my parents we are being watched so closely even though we have not misbehaved? It is becoming borderline stalking.”
“No lady Bloodwave we are just looking out for you.”
“This is harassment at this point. We are being good kids.”
“I will make sure everyone understands. Have a good night girls.” Mrs. Hopper left.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Hey, can I ask a weird question?” Auna was putting away the game as they got ready for bed.
“Sure.”
“Is there only one religion in this world?”
“Well, there use to be one for each God. My mom said they all came together to one church. Except for Lichen he is seen as a bad God, one that causes only fear and pain. I don’t know why though. Mom said there are some smaller religions in the waste lands, islands of isolation and maybe another place?” Chloe was thinking very hard with her eyes shut trying to remember.
“Yeah, that’s about as much as I know as well. Why do you ask?” Meredith was looking at her.
“In my last world there where a lot of religions at one point. Then none, then more, then one. It was a bloody mess. I was just curious at what point in the cycle we were at. Also, why everyone just calls it the church and not an actual religion name. They seem to hold a lot more power than they should.”
“I’m not sure. Other churches are known by their name. The church is officially known as ‘Seven God faith’.”
Auna thought about her questions with the religion for a while before falling asleep with Theo and Ayda. She awoke to Theo whining to go outside. He needed to use the washroom; she took Willow with her as well. She walked into the tamed monster pen so they could do their business. They were not supposed to go anywhere else; the pen was cleaned by staff daily. It was a wide open with a few structures to give cover. The stables were connected allowing most tamed monsters free roaming privileges. Some were dangerous and had have their privileges removed. It came down to training and if they could be trusted without their master near them.
“Hey kiddo, early morning walk?” A staff member from the stables came up with a pitchfork in hand. He would often greet the girls when they came over. “No Ciela?”
“She is asleep still.”
“It is amazing how well Willow listens to you. She even listens to me when you are not here. That is surprising for a tamed monster. Even some animals aren’t that well trained.”
“Well, we do our best, and it helps that they are very smart animals. Even Ayda here seems smarter than her peers.” Auna poked the jelly body of her little slime.
“I’d say so, she doesn’t wreck the fencing or try to eat the other monsters. The rest of the slimes tamed by students are in stone pens.” The man was laughing watching Ayda lazily roll around her masters’ feet.
They talked for a while longer. Allowing for the monsters to get a good stretch. Just before breakfast Auna took them back to her dorm. She had to wake up the other girls. After breakfast they took the wolves, Ayda, and themselves through the moon doors to the border city. Auna just had to add the boys to that door, it was relatively simple.
“I am surprised no one cared a bunch of kids came out of a closet.” Diego was walking just behind the girls who were leading the way to the guild.
“The first time a women screamed. I guess they got used to it.” Auna pulled her hood down further. Burt had been following them quietly after being told they wanted to be discrete. She did not know what his deal was.
“Can we please see Gary?” Auna asked the person who had once looked over their bore tusks.
“Sure, he was wondering when you would come back. Let me get both of them.”
“Just the one please.” Auna called out but both Garys were brought to the front desk anyway. Quickly they led them all, except Burt to a room.
“So, what can we do for you little ladies today? Been a while you know.” Merchant Gary offered snacks as he spoke. “You even brought friends.”
“We want to form a party, buy Chloe a guild membership, and sell under our dungeon name some dungeon flowers.” Auna watched as both Garys faces went from shock to curiosity. Auna put two silvers down for Chloe, it had taken some convincing for Chloe to accept.
“Okay, we can do that. Sure, so that new Ember Moon dungeon is yours? You know people have been looking very hard for it and the owner. Apparently, the owner set their name as private immediately so only the dungeon name has been visible. Smart girl.” Merchant Gary took a sip of tea.
“My moon you are too smart sometimes.”
“Where is your dungeon?” Adventurer Gary asked as he finished Chloes’ registration.
“In our crater, where else?”
“Of course, no will find it there. How lucky.”
“Can you show us your guild plates, we will create an account for you as a party. There are not enough of you to create an official guild account. When you do have enough people, you can create your guild under either the adventurers or the merchant guild. We don’t allow you register for both as a guild.”
“Your party is also not allowed to register for both. We recommend registering your party as an adventure one, keeping your individual memberships for the merchant guild. This will allow you to enter dungeons together in the future. It will also make it more believable that you are not selling the Ember Moon products. You won’t get a discount though or any privileges for bulk selling.” Merchant Gary nodded along with Adventurer Garys’ words.
“I don’t know. Can we see how much these are worth first? We might want the bulk selling privileges.” Auna opened her storage, there were about 80 flowers in it. They had kept 40 in Cielas’ storage for experimentation.
“Are these all dungeon flowers?”
“Yes.”
“How did you get so many?” Merchant Gary was almost drooling at the sight of the flowers. It seemed like a lot for him but to the children they only gathered the ones in the least populated section of the 1st floor. They assumed it would make less work for them. Other parts of the floor were covered more densely.
“Why are you surprised?” Ciela asked.
“Well usually a dungeon produces one to six every month at most. This is ridiculous. Just how many flowers are growing in there?”
“We aren’t going to disclose that to you. We will be selling crops if our experiments work. You can tell customers that if the ask too much. We would like you to sell around as well.”
“You won’t need bulk privileges. Normally we buy at 50% of what we can sell it at. With privileges we buy at 70%. However, since you are kids, I don’t think you need that extra 20%, if it was a low quality or cheap product maybe.” Merchant Gary began to inspect the flowers.
“I can give you eight gold coins for the lot. You took very good care of removing them, even have the roots, good job.”
“I think we register under the adventurers’ guild.” Jensen started a vote by raising his hand. Soon everyone including Auna had their hands raised up. It was settled. The money could be sent to a party account or paid out. They had it paid out directly as some of them, namely Chloe and Meredith, wanted to go shopping.
Soon everything was completed. Proper paperwork was completed to set up the dungeon account without a direct link to the owner. It was done in a way that someone would have to break into the secure file room to figure it out. The guilds upper management that controlled the branches wouldn’t even know. Only the head of the accounts ‘home branch’ would know. Unless there was an order from the king, or an investigation from the guards.
They left the room all smiles, ready to go back to the crater. Burt followed them into his house, he had waited the hour it took to get everything done.
“Will you be leaving now?” Burt asked as they went to the closet.
“Yes, have a nice day.” Auna motioned for everyone to start going through the door. They began going, leaving just Auna and Jensen behind. Jensen reached out his hand to Auna wanting to walk through the door together.
“Can you stay back a moment?” Burt glanced at Jensen.
“We can sure. What do you need?” Auna took a step closer to Jensen out of reflex.
“I just wanted to talk to you for a bit. Alone.”
“I don’t really think that is a good idea though.”
“I think we could be good together. You’re very pretty. I am willing to make you mine despite the fact you are a disgraced noble.”
“You are too much older than me sorry. Besides I don’t want to be with someone who calls me disgraced. Goodbye.”
Auna walked through the door with Jensen. They turned around to see Burt staring into the door, again he was trying to push through it. It sent shivers down Aunas’ spine. She did not want to deal with it though, shutting the door calmly.