"I'm very in favour of you getting armour. Want to pick up a couple health potions before we delve, just as insurance?"

"Mmhm, if we don't use them they'll keep."

She leans in towards Thorn. Kiss?

Very definite kiss. 

Then off to the potion shop!

The potion shop knows what it has and is unwilling to haggle much.

Then they can go to the dungeon together. But before they go in, Bys says, "Just to warn you, don't - mock the dungeon. Don't act like it's too easy, and if it does get very easy, we need to do something harder, or it might get angry and send something high-level at us, or an unfair swarm. Try to kill us, basically."

She nods. "Engage with the dungeon in a way that makes it actually challenging, got it."

"...They don't tend to jump straight to Definitely Murder, they'll let you know they're mad. but yeah."

They go in. Abyssia embraces her more front-line role and wants Thorn to use melee a bit too - to save money and to make the first floor more challenging. Still, even with just the two of them, they're making considerably faster progress than they did yesterday.

Thorn needs to train her old dagger reflexes anyway, and saving shot is worth it. She refrains from using her TK or other trump cards. 

The monsters all start to look the same after a while. It gets kind of monotonous.

"I think it's time to attack the boss. Bosses respawn and low-level monsters aren't very smart at all or I'd feel worse about this..."

"It's just a big pig, I don't see the harm." She stuffs the last of the floor's loot into Bys' pack. "Let's do it."

The fight takes a lot longer this time, but it's also a lot easier.

For one, they don't have to worry about anyone else. Just two things to keep track of - Thorn and the pig. Two, she's faster now, and stronger. The only thing it can really surprise her with is the frost breath, so long as she stays away from corners, and she can see its tell for that - the sudden inhalation.

After the pair of them expend a fair amount of ammo and spend ten long minutes running around, just barely ahead of the enemy's blows, it finally falls. This time the loot is a tiny glass vial full of deep blue crystal snowflakes.

"Hah- I, huff, don't know what this is, but, hah, we can probably sell it."

Thorn isn't even winded; her enhanced body is still thrumming along where Bys' Fischer physiology has failed her. "Yeah," she says. "That's the first floor clear. All by ourselves. Think I wanna kiss you." 

So she steps in and does so. 

Her skin is flushed and warm. She's out of breath, that's the reason she leans into the kiss and blushes deeply. Yep, definitely.

"...Keep going? I'd say keep going. We know how to handle the second floor monsters too. The boss, probably not. I'm not sure what it even is, and there's brave but then there's stupid."

"Yeah, we have space in our packs still for all the second floor loot. And it's nothing we haven't seen. I bet we could beat the boss, but better to go in with someone who's done it before."

"Or at least some idea what it is..."

She flops to the ground, takes off the pack, then - sort of leans on Thorn's leg while digging through a side pouch. "Five more minutes' break, though. I brought a snack. Want some?"

"Yeah, I'd love some. I need it less than you, but - I appreciate a good victory celebration, you know?~"

Abyssia thinks of something, opens her mouth to say it, then can't and blushes very hard instead.

She wordlessly hands up a handful of trail mix before starting to munch on it herself.

Thorn takes it and munches on it. She makes an appreciative mmm.

"Well. Let's get back to work."

"Let's."

They head down a level and clear. Frost Spiders continue to lurk above doorways, but they're not too hard to dispatch if you're ready for them. It gets kind of monotonous quickly. Just with a slight edge chance of death. 

When all's said and done and they retreat from the second floor boss room, Thorn's levelled eight times. Their haul of monster parts and shoddy random gear gets dumped on the Guild brokers, and the Guild hands back ten silver three copper after their cut. They restock and get inn rooms for the night, separate this time; sixteen copper for them, one silver seventeen copper for powder and shot, and they're left with... seventeen pence, fifteen copper, ten silver. 

"We've made seven silver, eight copper," says Thorn. "I want to pay my guild dues out of that, but that's probably just me being overzealous. I think armour for you is the next thing to buy."

"Probably, yeah. They only actually charge you at the end of the month, anyway. I think... Let's not go in again tomorrow. Another day in the dungeon would be a bit much, it gets - wearing. But they have other jobs sometimes, escort missions are common, or we could travel to a different dungeon. Or try to find something else to do."

"I could think of some things to do with a spare day," she says, not blushing at all, "but I'd rather earn money right now. An escort mission sounds decent. How about we ask the local guild what they have that's our speed?"

"Well, there's a bulletin board."

The bulletin board is kind of sparse right now, actually. All the available quests are either marked as D-rank and up, bounties on some creature in the wilderness that may or may not actually exist, or something like a month's worth of guard duty on a ship. Well paid, sure, but not what they're after at all.

"Rather slim pickings," says Thorn. "I guess we could take a rest day. I'm tempted to do what I did back in Bydhof for spare change, what do you think?"

"Wouldn't it be better to try to get leads on better-paying work? Then again, in a town with a dungeon there's going to be more divers with expensive things like helmets and swords to fix. Even if most of them will have magic gear."

"I made seven silver first day in Bydhof, if it's comparable here it's worth doing."