“Hey, how do I get a class?” asks Fresh.

Jubilee looks up at her, eyeing her up and down. “Eh... I don't know if you're cut out for it, really. Let's just -”

“Pleeease~!” begs Fresh, clasping her hands and looking with a hopeful expression towards her only companion.

Jubilee rolls their eyes. “Fine, It's your funeral. Think about what you want to do. Uh.. actually, think about what it is that you even can do and we'll talk about it once we get out of here, okay?” they ask. “Let's just focus on our work, for now.”

“Really?!” asks Fresh, excitedly.

“Yeah. Yeah, take it easy,” sighs Jubilee, waving an idle hand at her and looking out towards the next dungeon floor ahead of themselves. Fresh bounces on the tips of her toes, her excitement returning to her expression again as she smiles a satisfied smile.

Floor three of the dungeon is just about the same as the first two. By the looks of things, it’s also just a small, compacted-dirt room. But now there are some slight differences. The floor isn’t entirely just an open-space. Rather there are small, half-crumbled, waist-high walls scattered throughout the layout. The bouncing tips of orange mushroom-caps can be seen from just behind them, from up here on the staircase. Fresh stands there, her arms full with the two caps, which she is already struggling to hold in front of herself, like a large pair of stacked bowls. But there is something else moving around down there too. She only catches a glimpse of it at first as it moves around the decrepit, brickwork walls. The room looks like somebody had tried to make a labyrinth at one point, but had given up half-way through.

“It’s a snail,” says Jubilee, following her gaze. Fresh nods, understanding. But also not really understanding. Snails? What kind of dungeon is this?

Sure enough, it sloshes around a corner a moment later, lazily coming into their line of sight. A ‘giant’ snail, about the size of a medium-sized dog with a dark, marine-blue shell on its back, trails around the bend, leaving a bubbling streak of a vaguely viscous goo of the same color just behind itself. Listlessly, it looks at the two of them standing there on the stairs as it passes them by, its eye-stalks turning idly away a moment later in indifference. It does not respond to Fresh’s eager waving of her free fingers towards it.

“Isn’t it going to attack us?” asks Fresh curiously.

“Most of the easy creatures don’t really mind us, as long as we don’t step down from the staircases,” they explain. “Deeper down though, they do get a little..” Jubilee shifts around. “- bitey.”

After a few seconds, the trail of snail goo dissipates as it soaks into the dirt and Fresh watches as the small figure steps down the staircase, grabbing a clean handful of the soil. The snail lazily turns its eye-stalks around to look back at the masked person, who is now down in its territory. It barely begins to narrow its eyes in anger, in the same instant as the magical glass splinters pierce straight through both of them, sending them flopping down to the ground like leaking water-balloons. Fresh winces and looks away for a moment, before turning back and observing the rather gruesome spectacle, feeling rather nauseous at the macabre sight. This was somehow more grim than with Mr. Mushroom. Maybe because the snail is bleeding profusely, spasming and spraying a thick, red blood on the walls, as it is still more than alive right now.

A second skewer of glass comes out from below, burrowing through its soft underbelly before piercing out of its neck, killing it instantly, much to Fresh’s relief.

Jubilee doesn’t say anything. They just keep walking, looking rather bored as the next two mushrooms come around the bend with fury in their tiny, adorable, gazes. Their expressions are erased in an instant as well, as the glass cuts their lower bodies in half in a clean horizontal-arc that slices through their mouths. Jubilee, not even having broken their stride, heads towards the next staircase. As Fresh watches them, rather awestruck, she realizes that they’re already too strong for these early floors. She’s basically being carried right now. The thought makes her feel a little unwell. She wants to be useful too.

A loud ringing sound explodes around her and Fresh jumps, dropping both of the caps down the stairs as she yelps in surprise.

You got [10/10 Experience] ! (Party)

[Level up! You are now LEVEL 2 ! ]

{No-class} {Cooking: 1}

STATUS: ???

OBOLS: 01

[INVENTORY]

[ You got {2/15} Experience ! ] (Party)

Jubilee looks back, stopping only for a moment. “Oh. Wow. Level two..” They shake their head and keep walking forward, waving a hand idly back behind themselves. “Great..” they sigh defeated. “Congratulations. Get the mushroom-caps and the snail-shell. We’ll do one more and then we’ll go back out,” is all they say, before they vanish down the next few steps, just as the red fog dissipates.

“Ah, wait!” calls Fresh, wanting to ask what she should do with this new window. But Jubilee doesn’t really bother to stop, likely not caring. Fresh looks at the menu that has appeared before herself, feeling rather thankful to the strange person for letting her get experience points so easily. Her life is literally being saved again. She’s going to pay them back somehow, she promises herself that and looks at the menu which has appeared.

It looks like some of her stats had automatically raised themselves. Also, much to her relief, her maximum health-points have also been raised back up by an entire full point, setting her back to where she was on her first day here. Some of her stats haven’t though. Fresh isn’t quite sure how this is determined, she’ll definitely have to ask somebody. But just the extra health-point alone is reward enough. She smiles, looking at it. Her wobbly legs feel just a tiny, teensy bit sturdier than before. Though she does feel kind of exhausted still, despite that. Her body is frail in more ways than just in regards to her maximum health-points.

But this window here.. she looks at it, apparently she gets to choose an ability? But.. there’s only one thing here?

*~+- PLEASE CHOOSE AN ABILITY -+~*

[1] Choice Remaining

[Cooking: 1] {Extra Crispy}

+1 heat resistance. You are able to extract more nutrition from burnt food.

???

???

She wonders for a second. But then she thinks she understands. Maybe since cooking was the only skill she had raised so far, she only has access to that ‘pool’ of choices? That makes sense. But it’s a little defeating. She kind-of, sort-of likes cooking, but she never really did a lot of it. She'd have to make sure to try raising some other skills, especially something related to crafting. Still though -

[ You got {2/15} Experience ! ] (Party)

[ You got {4/15} Experience ! ] (Party)

[ You got {6/15} Experience ! ] (Party)

[ You got {8/15} Experience ! ] (Party)

She yelps to herself in surprise. Jubilee must already be clearing the next floor without her, realizes Fresh, simply taking the only skill available to her, before going down to collect the items. The shell comes off of the snail surprisingly easily, with a disgustingly wet ‘schlock’. As she works, she tries not to look at the deflated eyeballs, filled with glittering fragments. Sighing, feeling pretty tired now, actually, she places the shell inside the stacked, upside-down mushroom-caps, of which she has four now, in total. Well. Which ‘they’ have, she corrects herself.

Found: [MUSHROOM CAP (Orange)] x 2 !

Found: [SNAIL SHELL (Blue)] !

Fresh feels a little stronger now after her first level-up, but this load is becoming very, very heavy for her to carry just like this. The four caps alone are bad enough, causing her to strain greatly to keep them all aloft. But then the shell too on-top of that? She can’t see anymore where she’s heading with the tower of stuff obscuring her vision. Sweat beads on her forehead and drips into her scrunched eyes as she takes slow, labored steps. Kicking out with her foot to ‘feel’ the way out before herself.

Her foot misses the first step of the staircase and she stumbles, yelping loudly. The items fly out of her hands, falling down the stairs together with herself in a flurried jumble.

[FALL DAMAGE: {1}]

[{2} HP remaining !]

Her face thuds into the dirt.

[FALL DAMAGE: {1}]

[{1} HP remaining !]

An angry voice suddenly lets out a series of loud, annoyed snarls. Fresh groans, pushing herself up slowly with wobbly arms and coughing out a mouthful of wet dirt as her vision looks up towards Jubilee, who has a mushroom-cap stuck on top of their head.

“Ah! Sorry!” shouts Fresh, scrambling up to her shaking legs to help Jubilee. Doing her best not to laugh at the sight of the figure trying to pry the cap off of themselves. Though that’s easy enough, as she feels incredibly unwell and light in the head. Breathing seems difficult. It’s as if she had run a marathon. Her skin is clammy and covered in sweat and dirt, which also stains her sleeveless robe.

“You idiot!” barks Jubilee back at her as the cap ‘plops’ off, leaving a rather stringy trail of an off-white goo stuck to the top of their hood. “Dumb-ass! Watch your step!”

“Sorry,” apologizes Fresh again, feeling rather bad, getting ready to be yelled at some more. Instead, the figure just sighs, holding their hands out at their sides with the palms facing downward, as they slowly exhale to calm themselves down. They take a deep breath and then slowly exhale. “..Are you okay?”

“I.. I think so,” squeaks Fresh, surprised that they’re asking.

The figure stares up at her for a moment, looking into her eyes. Feeling their gaze, Fresh looks away awkwardly, grabbing the side of her left arm with her hand. “Stay here and get the stuff back together. I’ll go get the rest,” says Jubilee.

“Okay..” mumbles Fresh, as she watches the stranger go to collect the last of the loot. They come back a minute later, only carrying one single extra cap.

Feeling Fresh’s curious eyes on them, Jubilee sets the cap down on top of the stack and rubs the back of their head. “I went a little overboard.”

Fresh blinks, not exactly sure what they mean. She leans sideways to look behind them at the bodies of the freshly killed monsters laying there. A group of three snails, entirely eviscerated, with the glass spikes jutting through their destroyed shells.

“Oh..” says Fresh weakly, feeling a little better about her own mistakes now. It looks like all of the loot from this floor had been destroyed during the fight.

Jubilee bends down and grabs three of their five caps, holding them rather awkwardly, given their smaller size. Despite that however, they’re apparently very strong. “Come on, you take the rest. Let’s get out of here.”

“Okay!” agrees Fresh eagerly, watching the figure walk up the stairs to leave already. She’s tired and hungry. Her stomach growls. Her eyes look up towards the body of the single, cap-less mushroom monster on the other end of the room.

“Chop! Chop! Let's go!” snaps Jubilee from up above. Fresh jumps up to her feet, grabbing the rest of the loot. She runs up after them as they go to leave the dungeon together.

Razmatazz

Thank you kindly for reading!

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