Upon checking in with the babyfaced boy behind the counter (Luna appears to be off-duty for once), the party of four discovers that Coventina has hit level three, but she's the only one who managed to level up during the cabbage harvest.

"Oh, sweet, an actual attack spell, and it sounds like it'd work well with Genesic Echo. Requires fifteen Fitness? You know what, sure."

She rounds out her stats, then buys herself two new skills.

COVENTINA
Level 3

CLASS: "Cleric"
Class Bonus: Sanity - Your sanity stat increases the range of your ranged spells.
Class Bonus: Allure - Your allure stat increases the potency of your spells.

Stat Points: 0

Fitness - 15
Ardor - 19
Grace - 15
Moxie - 17
Sanity - 18
Allure - 20

Skill Points: 0

"Nectar of Sin" (Passive)
Your bodily fluids are a powerful restorative.

"Vital Rush" (Instant, Single-Target, Line-of-Sight)
Causes all damage-over-time or heal-over-time effects on the target to expend themselves immediately for the full damage or healing amount.

"Flesh for Flesh" (Instant, Single-Target, Touch)
Exchange your current health value and physical wounds with the target's.

"Create Water" (Channeled, Touch)
Conjure clean water.

"Rain of Mercy" (Channeled, Local Area)
Summon a cloudburst that rains healing water over a large area.

"Etheric Wardrobe" (Instant, Touch)
Store one complete outfit in immaterial stasis while you are wearing it, and summon it back at will.

"Seafoam Barrage" (Instant, Directional)
Send a wave of turbulent water to smother and disorient any monsters in its path.

"Purify" (Instant, Touch)
Cleanse any elemental medium of contaminants and unravel from it any harmful persistent magic.

ELEMENTS: Water - 100% Affinity | Flesh - 89% Affinity | Spirit - 32% Affinity

"Very nice! Hmm, so what should we do next? Celebratory cooking, and then another quest tomorrow?"

"Sounds good to me!"

And Eelesia can lead them to Market Street.

Market Street is a large, quarter circle covered by awnings, bordered by a half-dozen large and well-staffed shops. A bakery. A spice shop. A red-meat butcher. A produce shop. A white-meat butcher. A dairy.

In the plaza opposite, various smaller stands are clustered in the available space, selling more niche items and sometimes basic cookware.

Laurent carefully peruses available ingredients and implements, decides on a simple thing to make and a short list of required items, compares against his memory of the kitchenette, finalizes his choices, and buys a modest amount of things. Then it takes his author six hours to fail to decide what food he is even making and eventually give up. It will be such a questionable yet delicious Unspecified.

Eelesia, it turns out, has apt input on the making of Unspecified. It's actually similar to a local dish her dad's second cook used to make for her when she was little and she has Opinions about various details of the cooking process but she's totally actually not going "suggest" any Unspecified cooking implements or ingredients out of Laurent's hands she's just going to chime in with anecdotes when she sees him doing something wrong different.

It's actually sort of an interesting extra constraint, to try to get through making the thing without revealing that he learned his recipe on another planet. Lots of vague noncommittal uncertain noises about how he remembers this part being like this but maybe they do it differently where he's from or maybe he's just getting things mixed up. The end result is an odd hybrid of his version and hers, but he quite likes it, although he disclaims that it's not up to his standards before letting anyone else try some.

All of the girls decide they're fans of his cooking.

Despite the busy day they've had, it's only mid-afternoon, and there are no further pressing matters. How ever will they fill the time?

"I don't want to bore you all again by suggesting we go back to the gym... I suppose I'd only need Coventina for that, and the rest of you could escape."

Pfff. "I suppose I'd be a lousy cheat item if I didn't go along with that."

Headtilt?

Probably an inside joke.

"I wouldn't mind coming along again to watch. I'm still curious about my new party! I want to know you and I want you to know me but we can converse while you train?"

"I am in favour of you accomplishing those goals! It seemed like I was boring people this morning and I'd rather not repeat the mistake, but if you—either of you," he adds, including Sky, "wants to come despite the risk of boredom, that's fine by me."

"...I think it was just a little awkward, feeling like we were leaving you out of the conversation?" Sky offers as an explanation. "But, um, it was fine."

Eelesia pulls Sky into a hug from behind and rests her chin on Sky's head, feeling the smaller girl melt into her arms, in a rather gratifying way actually. Sky seemed to give off an impression of needing intimacy to be thrust upon her, and she was very cute about that: it's hard not to hug her and pet her and treat her like a cuddletoy when she reacts so positively to intimacy like that. Being a good friend to Sky is probably going to be fun.

"Oh I know. I've got this funny card game my dad got me for my birthday and it's mostly verbal so Laurent can participate too."

"Sounds good to me!"

Then they can all head back to the training ring and play a dumb card game while Laurent exercises.

There are no dramatic revelations or poignant backstory scenes, but by the time Laurent ekes out one more point of Fitness, it's late evening and none of them feel like strangers to each other, even if that feeling is only a bit less shallow than it was that morning. All three girls are the sort of people who're rather accurate to their first-impressions, and all three of them agree that Laurent is a good party leader and also spend a little while teasing him about having a battle harem.

"Surely we're all Coventina's battle harem; she's the one who got me into the business in the first place."

"If it was my battle harem we'd be having an orgy right now," Coventina teases. "Hey, we're all sleeping in Eelesia's bed. Maybe it's her battle harem."

Sputtering giggle.

"But but it can't be mine! I only joined today!" she laughs.

"Then by process of elimination I suppose we are Sky's battle harem. Congratulations."

She knows they're just joking around but she still stares at Laurent a bit like she's just been told she has to perform in front of an audience.

"N-No! Not. Mine? That's," distressed Sky noises. Pout.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to put you on the spot."

Small smile. "It's okay. This is... nice... ... ... ...but it's totally your battle harem," she teases shyly.

"Well, if it's unanimous, then I must accept my fate."