Lauren entered the house with her girlfriend and older sister. The rest of her family were here as well–her mom and aunt were digging into the wall some more, while her younger sister perused the bookshelf.
“Oh, you’re back,” Lucia said. She glanced at Emma, who nodded, then went back outside to work on the garden. “Where do you want all this stone? It’s piling up in here.”
Lauren rolled the large, hemispherical window to the side, letting the sound and smell of rain directly into the house. “Out here is fine. There isn’t anything below to worry about.”
Maeve brushed some dust out of her gray hair as she examined it. This window came from a fish’s eye, you said?” She rapped her knuckle against it, creating a dull, ringing sound. “It really is like glass…”
“Mhmm. “I’ll have to get some more for all the new rooms.”
Savannah and Heather joined Maeve in looking at it. Savannah ran her hand along its surface. “Do you know what kind of fish it was?”
Lauren walked to her bookshelf in the corner to find a specific book, and opened it to a specific page. “Here’s my drawings and notes about it.”
The handmade book was more of a stack of paper that was sewn together than an actual book. The pages were brown and a bit rough, and drawings and writing had somewhat faded and smudged due to the low quality materials.
Savannah’s eyes eagerly scanned over it, her tail wagging. “This is pretty meticulous. You could be a researcher if you wanted to go that direction.”
Lauren smiled. “Thanks. I had to keep myself busy, so I did my best. I tried to think of what you might do while I slowly figured things out.”
“Aww. How much did all the camping we did as kids help you?”
Lauren started making tea. “Somewhat, though there’s a huge difference between camping and surviving. The universal edibility test you taught me was probably the most useful piece of knowledge I had.”
Savannah chuckled and carefully turned the page. “Well, after you ate a random forest mushroom that one time, I had to figure something out.”
Lauren laughed sheepishly. Seeing her mom and aunt dropping armfuls of rocks out the window, Lauren started moving the other rocks outside with magic.
“Maybe we should get lunch started?” Heather suggested.
After a brief but fun time making food with Heather, Lauren went to the training area. She found all the members of both Wine Witches and Dad Joke digging into the walls as well. Several of Lauren’s projects had been moved to make room, but were otherwise untouched.
Near her was Oliver, a ferret-kin in Dad Joke. Lauren asked him, “What plans do all of you have for this space? You were thinking of making individual rooms for yourselves, right?”
“Yep.” He wiped sweat off his brow and took a swig of water. “We don’t know how much time we’ll be spending down here, but we know we’ll be here pretty frequently at least. It’s important for Andrew and Mist. Plus, this is way too good of an opportunity to pass up. As for plans, we’re just making rooms for now. We’ll work out the details later.”
Lauren refilled his water. “Alright, let me know what takes the most priority and I’ll help with that. But before that, I need to finish making necklaces so everyone can pass through the ward without me.”
She then got to work on her project, which involved imbuing small crystals with her barrier spell, then tying strings around them for wearing. These could be used for passing through the ward, or in emergency situations as an extra layer of defense, so long as they kept the crystals filled with mana.
Once she was done with that, Lauren moved on to making rooms for everyone. By the end of the day, several new spaces had been created.
Lauren groaned as she stretched, working out the kinks in her muscles from several days of hard work. Everyone now had their own simple rooms. The couples—Emma and Mist, and Noah and Theo—would be sharing rooms. With a communal kitchen in the center of everything, the training area had become a guest area.
In Lauren’s house, several new rooms had also been dug out, along with another bathroom. Lauren had also spent several hours lowering the height of many aspects of her house to make them more accessible to everyone.
She spotted Heather nearby, chatting with two Wine Witches members, and frowned.
Other than announcing our relationship on social media, we haven’t actually done anything together yet…
Heather checked her phone, looked surprised, then whipped her head around. The moment the bee girl locked eyes with Lauren, she rushed over.
“Lauren! Marama’s here!” Heather said, her wings spreading out slightly.
Lauren reeled back from the sudden closeness. “She is? It’s only been about a week, though?”
“Yeah! Let’s go pick her up!”
They armored up and left, and arrived at the dome soon after. Since Lauren had last been here, it was now larger, and had additional domes attached to it, like smaller bubbles attached to a larger one. There was now a wall surrounding the structure as well, along with several more people standing guard than before.
It’s like some kind of spherical fortress…
They landed in an open spot near a tree, and casually entered the building, getting the side-eye from some guards as they passed. The interior was partitioned into a few different sections, but there were no individual rooms. One area was a makeshift office, and another was a rest area for Explorers. There were separate locations for the telepad and signal booster, and the central area served as a gathering point.
Around twenty people—not including the guards—were here. Lauren’s ears swiveled as she caught bits of conversations, mostly about how they could go further into the jungle without dying.
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A cat-kin Explorer in wood-like armor approached the moment he spotted her. “Hi! Lauren, right? You should help us tame this crazy place.”
“No,” Lauren said flatly, stepping past him. He tried to move in front of her again, so she did a small leap forward.
From behind her, he shouted, “This jungle isn’t yours, you know!”
She looked at him incredulously. “Obviously. It doesn’t belong to anyone.”
Moving forward before she got caught up even more, she walked past the rest area. The guard she had saved yesterday was sitting there, and nodded at her, which Lauren reciprocated. Leaning against a wall near the telepad was a familiar mushroom girl, wearing new armor, and a new hammer was resting on the floor next to her. Unlike her previous government-issued set, this one did not have a special helmet to go over her head.
“Marama!” Heather yelled, and hugged her.
Marama hesitantly patted Heather’s back.
“Hey there,” Lauren greeted. “It’s nice to see you under better circumstances.”
“Yes.” Marama nodded. “Can we leave? It’s uncomfortable here.”
Lauren glanced around the dome, seeing several people glaring at Marama. The three left the building, and several minutes later, had arrived at the stone stairs to Lauren’s house.
“What was that about?” Lauren asked.
Marama scowled. “The fact that I was alone in a Dungeon meant I was no longer on Adam’s team, and they recognized me—there aren’t exactly a lot of other mushroom people. The ones who were upset thought I had betrayed some great cause.”
“Oof. Well, at least you’re not stuck there anymore?” Lauren said, and placed a barrier over Marama.
“Yes,” the mushroom girl said, examining the faint shimmer surrounding her body. She smiled. “Being free of that is an immense relief. And thank you for the blacksmith recommendation, Heather.”
“Mhmm!” Heather said. “Audrey does pretty good work, doesn’t she?”
“She does. I hope she gets more business soon, though.”
“I send people to her when I can,” Heather said. Upon reaching the top of the stairs, she and Lauren removed their helmets.
Marama stared at Heather for a moment. “You seem happier.”
The bee girl giggled and shared a look with Lauren, who also giggled.
She’s so cute.
Heather gave Marama another hug as they entered the guest area. Lauren’s mom came over to greet them.
“Are you okay?” Maeve asked Marama, a freshly-made cup of tea ready for her. “It must’ve been so stressful for you…”
“It was,” Marama said, wriggling from Heather’s grasp. She sighed. “I should probably discuss what happened. Are there any cameras streaming at the moment?”
Everyone glanced around to check, and it was Heather who confirmed that there were none once everyone else in the area had gathered.
“Alright.” Marama nodded, leaned her hammer against a wall, then sipped her tea. “So, Adam was asked by some politician—his dad, I’m guessing—to secretly come here and raid Lauren’s house. That meant everyone else on the team was dragged into it as well, with the threat of further debt and incarceration if we didn’t go along with it.
“Your ward,” she nodded at Lauren, “prevented us from getting in. In lieu of that, James controlled a drone to at least look around the house. I grew a mushroom by the stairs while everyone was busy. Even with how much mana I poured into it, I wasn’t sure that it would last long enough…”
Marama gave another sigh, then smiled wearily. “Thank you so much for helping me get out of there. Without Heather, I was at my limit.”
Heather settled for placing an arm around the mushroom girl’s shoulders this time.
Lucia asked, “So what happened after they found out about you leaving a mushroom?”
Marama frowned. “I was put in one of those high-durability cells for Explorer prisoners. Sean eventually showed up and worked out some sort of negotiation. Publicly, the story is that the mushroom was left there from the first visit, and I am not allowed to reveal the truth to anyone. The story goes that I was so stressed from Exploring that I was endangering my teammates, so I was kicked out. I expect it to show up in the news quite soon.
“In exchange for my secrecy, I was going to be put on some other team, but Sean got my debt sorted out, too—you paid it off, I heard. Thank you very much for that. Honestly, I’ve never seen the law move that fast.”
“You’re welcome,” Lucia said, and chuckled. “Sean is just that good of a lawyer. I’ll keep an eye on PIP, since they’re likely to break the story first.”
“What’s PIP?” Lauren asked, grabbing Heather’s hand.
Lucia grimaced. “Patriots In Peril. Trash news network that was created about a decade ago.”
Emma, leaning against Mist, interjected. “We can probably expect some degree of government interference going forward, so we should think of some countermeasures.”
Lauren spoke up. “I’ve been thinking about that since I first came back to the surface. I’ve gained enough of an understanding of the Explorer’s Association to know that they only support those under their direct control.
“So I was thinking that I could disseminate my knowledge about the jungle. Make it accessible to as many people as possible. Specifically, with the goal of hindering anything the government tries to do. Plenty of people already hate them.”
“That would help,” Lucia agreed. “Some other people in our surface community might be interested, and I know others we can ask as well.”
“So we’d have to actually create a little community down here?” Lauren asked. “I’m already amazed that there are sixteen people gathered here right now, but would even more want to stay?
“Lauren,” Emma said, giving her a hard stare. “I think you’re still underestimating just how much people want to be down here. The danger is immense, obviously, but a lot of people stuck in debt could get out of it with items from here. Materials from this Floor would contain a lot more mana than materials from anywhere else. The more people we help get out of debt, the more we can get on our side.”
Marama, no longer pushing Heather’s arm away, added, “Your chantless magic and weapon recall ability would be valuable for any Explorer, and your magic is also incredibly versatile compared to everyone else’s. The way you use crystals is quite fascinating as well. They seem capable of much more, but without the downsides of current crystal tech. You don’t even have to transfer mana to them from Dungeon materials, you just fill them up yourself.”
“I see…” Lauren bit her lip. “Maybe I should do some kind of introductory stream, then? Adam apparently spied on my house and would already have my map copied, so I could talk about that while inviting people to come here.”
“We’ll help with the stream,” Savannah said, smiling. The rest of her family nodded.
Marama looked a little forlorn.
“Are you alright?” Lauren asked.
The mushroom girl nodded slightly. “I miss my family. I want to visit them again now that I’m free, but I felt it was important to come here first.”
“What’d you think was more important?”
“It’s…” Marama pursed her lips. “It’s complicated.”
“Okay,” Lauren said. “If there’s anything I can do to help, let me know.” She looked at Heather. “What about you? Do you want to help with the stream, too?”
Heather let go of Marama after giving her one last squeeze. “Hmm…” She pretended to deeply consider, “If you really need my help, then I guess I can make some time.”
“Oh? Busy, are you?” Lauren said, pulling the bee girl close.
“Yeah, I’ve been trying to flirt with my girlfriend, but she’s just been so occupied lately.”
“Wha- You were helping create rooms and stuff for everyone, too!”
She laughed. “I know. I’m just joking with you.”
Lauren shook her head. “Jeez.”
This dang cutie.
“Oh!” Lauren looked at Marama. “We’ll need to make another room for you, so it might be a little longer before you have a space to yourself.”
“O-Or…” Heather blushed, antennae and wings twitching slightly. “I could share with you, and then the room that was made for me can be hers.”
“Um… S-Sure,” Lauren stuttered, also blushing.