TW: mention of drxgs, mention of sex
Seven.
After my farm chores were done for the day, I decided to try my hand at the mines again. I packed a couple of cave carrots and parsnips that I felt weren’t good enough to sell and also picked up a couple of grapes and spice berries as I made my way up the mountain. I had visited Marlon and Gil a couple of days ago to get a real sword so I wouldn’t have to use my pickaxe as a weapon. I had almost enough copper ore to smelt into the final bar I needed to upgrade my tools. There’s a couple of stumps on the farm that I can’t quite get rid of and they’re starting to bug me. I checked my watch, noon. I had to be back on the farm by nine for my hangout with Sebastian and Sam. For someone who’s late all the time, Sam expects everyone else to be punctual. I didn’t mind. Even after years of being separated he’s still a good friend to me. As I round the corner between Robin’s home and Linus’ tent, I see Abigail with a small dagger and a flute. I step on a stick and she whips her head around, almost like an owl. Once she sees it’s me, she relaxes.
“Hey, Farmer!” she waves at me. I approach her, sword still slung over my shoulder. She looks up at me in awe.
“Hey, Abigail,” I say. She scoffs and stands up.
“Please, my parents call me Abigail. Abby is fine,” she says with a smile.
“Alright, Abby,” I correct myself, “whatcha up to?”
“Escaping my parents,” she says and kicks some pebbles into the lake, “what about you?”
“‘Bout to mine.” She gasps.
“You’re going in there? I’ve always wanted to,” she says, playing with her dagger in her hands. I wasn’t going super deep which is where I assume all the dangers are. Right now all I had to do was be on the lookout for bugs and slimes, I could get my errands done faster if I had someone watching my back…
“Do you wanna come with?” I ask while pointing to the entrance of the mines with my sword. “I’m not going deep-”
“Really? Yes! A hundred percent I would love to!” She squeals a little which was a little annoying. I haven’t had many girl friends in the past but it would be nice to get to know the other person Sebastian and Sam hang out with. I feel kinda bad for taking them away from her. We start walking towards the mines and I give her a quick run down.
“I’m gonna need you to watch my back while I mine. From what I know, the monsters we’ll probably see aren’t super dangerous but keep your guard up. Bugs won’t provoke you, just avoid them. If they touch you it feels like a punch to your cheekbone. There’s also little sentient slime balls and they will attack when they see you. If they touch you, your body feels like you’re on fire but when they’re as good as dead, the pain stops. You think you can be up for that?” I ask. Her little dagger wouldn’t be able to cut anything down immediately but if she has stamina, she shouldn’t have any issues.
“I can do that,” Abby says. As we take the elevator down to the fifth floor. I talked with Marlon and he said that every five floors I go, the more the elevator fixes itself, which was nice. I didn’t want to end up deep below the surface and then having to restart with the tiny ladder on the first floor. As soon as the elevator doors open, we’re greeted by the damp ominous presence of the mines. I get to work on the first rock I see.
“If you see any rocks with little orange specks sticking out, let me know,” I say to Abby. We made our way through the floor before finding a ladder which took us down. Before I can step a toe off the ladder, a little green slime ball is down there waiting for me. I take my sword and slice it in two and hop off the ladder.
“Holy shit, what are those things?” Abby asks as more green slimes approach us. I sigh and take a big swing, slicing a good majority of them. “Ow, fuck!” Abby says, I turn over to her and watch her stab a slime over and over until it dies. I take out the rest of them and a large cluster of copper ore nodes are revealed to me. Thank Yoba, this should be more than enough. I dig in my bag for some burn cream and toss it over to Abby.
“This should help,” I say.
“Thanks. Were those the slimes you were talking about?” I nod and start mining away at the nodes.
“Marlon says that they’re everywhere. Not necessarily dangerous, just annoying.”
“Yea, this little dagger barely did anything. I need to save up and buy one from the Adventurer’s Guild,” she says. I finished collecting the last piece of ore that I needed.
“You did good though!” I say as we make our way back up the mines, “when I first encountered a slime, I had no idea what I was doing.” Having Abby with me cut our time in the mines in half. We walk back to the farm, chatting as we do.
“Sooo… Anybody caught your eye yet here in the valley?” She asks with a toothy grin. I blush a little, thinking of Sebastian. “OMG! Whooo tell me!” I couldn’t tell her that I thought one of her best friends was attractive.
“Um… Alex and I have…uh been enjoying each other's company,” I say quietly. Abby grabs my arm and starts jumping up and down.
“Holy shit! Like what, girl, tell me everything,” she says. I smile a little. It’s been a while since I’ve had some girltalk.
“Well, I mean, I might’ve… sucked him off a few days ago,” I say, a little embarrassed.
“Damn girl, you don’t play around do you?” she laughs. We walked over the tunnel and over to the back of my house where I put the furnace. After finding my first couple of ores and talking with Clint, he gave me some blueprints for a furnace which I was able to make and now I had nineteen copper bars. I place the ore and coal in the furnace, turn it on, and let it do its thing.
“Alex and I have some… trauma in common. That and in college I had a thing for gridball players soo,” I say. Abby laughs.
“I see. Shane also used to be a gridball player, maybe you should hop on that too,” she says with a wink. I blush deeper. I couldn’t fuck around in the valley like I did in the city. Everybody knows everybody and I was already being reckless with Alex so I need to tone it down. “Alex and I used to date,” she says. My face drops and I start apologizing profusely.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t know, it was a one time thing, I’ll cut things off with him immediately-”
“Chill, chill. We dated for like one summer when we were like twelve. It doesn’t even count,” she says, “but I appreciate… whatever that just was. You seem like a girl's girl,” she says. We walk to the front of my house and sit on my porch.
“I wasn’t always. In high school I used to sleep with everyone's boyfriend. I guess it’s why I didn’t have very many girl friends. I stopped that shit in college but I still found it hard to make friends,” I said. Abby wraps her arm around my shoulders.
“Well, you’ve got me! I also don’t have very many girl friends. I tried to be friendly with Maru, Sebastian’s sister but I don’t know. I guess we just didn’t click like that,” she says, “so tell me more about you and Alex. Did you play with his giggle berries?” I laugh.
“Giggle berries? Is that what you call balls?” I ask. Abby shrugs.
“Male anatomy is weird, might as well give them weird names right?” We laugh together.
“What’s all this giggling about?” We both look up and find Sam and Sebastian standing over us.
“When did this happen?” Sebastian asks and pulls out a cigarette. I look up at him with puppy dog eyes. He rolls his eyes and grabs another one from the pack. He sits down next to me and places it between my lips and lights it like usual. Sam sits next to Abigail.
“You guys have been hogging them! Why didn’t you tell me the farmer’s so cool?” She pouts. Sam shrugs his shoulders.
“You don’t like to smoke,” he says. Abby gasps.
“Doesn’t mean I can’t hang out with you guys!”
“You don’t like the smell,” Sebastian chimes in.
“Well you and the farmer are smoking cigarettes so maybe that smell will cover the weed smell,” she says and crosses her arms across her chest.
“Do not give those delinquents an excuse to chain smoke!” Sam says while packing the bowl. Sebastian and I look at each other.
“I wouldn’t say we’re delinquents for smoking cigs,” I say, “hurry up and pack the bowl.”