Chapter CXXIV – Behold, how great a progress a little time kindleth!

49th of Autumn 5859
Libertycave, Mount Curry

Libertycave, despite its name coming from a cave where liberty certainly had happened, lacked caves except the one that Brown had stumbled upon. The cave had been important at one point considering it had housed the one and only resident of the settlement, John Brown, though now there were a whole lot more people (and still only one John Brown) who had long overshadowed the one cave in Libertycave.

Long gone were the little mud huts which once took weeks to figure out and construct for the green workers of Libertycave. Now the chimneys of the brickmakers billowed smoke all day long to make an endless array of bricks for the houses which were popping up like dandelions. They were tall dandelions at that; some of the braver architects of Libertycave had dared go up for a second floor. Members of the Glassmithing Guild of Casamonu had set up their shops relatively quickly, providing the view of the great outdoors from the convenience of the indoors to the lucky few who had snagged up the first panes of glass to be dragged out of the furnaces.

Ayomide herself was one of the lucky few glass-owners. She was enjoying her ownership on the second floor of her house where the view was clear. Good money had been paid for this view and Ayomide was going to make sure that she was going to get her money’s worth of indoor-outdoor viewing time. Not to mention, she wanted to compensate for all the time where she was locked in the maid café with no sun to see. The cup of tilia tea in her hand warmed her up, she had spent way too much money on the window to get heating on the second floor, and it was as if the cold of Autumn wasn’t there at all. Looking down she could see the streets of Libertycave. Yes, the streets. The road building projects outside of Libertycave had been cancelled, so the road builders had decided to move their business to inside the city. With a bit of city planning and road building, Libertycave was finally starting to look like other cities that Ayomide had seen - not an unorganized collection of buildings scattered around everywhere unlike how Libertycave used to be.

Ayomide idly wondered if “Libertycave” would continue being called the same name despite its lack of caves, though her idle thoughts were interrupted by the sound of footsteps rushing up the stairs “Ayomide! I have found it!” screamed Shinasi as he rushed up the stairs.

“What, you found the meaning of life or something? What’s the ruckus for?” Ayomide sipped her tea to calm down. Having somebody barge into your house and scream wasn’t exactly the most pleasant thing to experience when you were resting…

“Better than that, I have found donuts!” Shinasi rushed to where Ayomide was sitting and held both her hands “Do-nuts!”

Ayomide jumped up from her seat, shaking Shinasi’s hand vigorously with every word “Donuts… Y-you’re telling me that they are real?!”

“Not only are they real, we can get some right now!” Shinasi began walking Ayomide out of their house. “Come on, let’s go!”

“I-I guess I have nothing better to do.” replied Ayomide, though having dinner with Shinasi had been a thing she had wanted to do ever since that disappointing date attempt back in Casamonu.

Through the streets the pair went, and both realized at the same time just how crowded Libertycave felt all of a sudden. “You know, back in my day, it was me, the old man, and the bear pelt” commented Ayomide.

“The bear pelt? I don’t think it’d count as a denizen…” replied Shinasi, too focused on weaving through the crowd.

“It’s been here longer than you, I think it deserves some recognition.” Ayomide patted the pelt still on her, still hanging on after all this time. It’s not like there was anything much better than a literal bear’s pelt for insulation, after all.

“Yeah, but can a bear pelt hold your hand and lead you to donuts?” asked Shinasi with a cheeky smile on his face.

“Maybe, if I ask it nicely enough” replied Ayomide with an equally cheeky smile. Her smile disappeared when she almost bumped into a passerby “Sheesh, it sure is crowded. Maybe we should’ve just stayed as a dozen people in a cave…”

“Eh, we can move out of here once this is all over. To a quieter place, hopefully.”

The pair went up and up the street, climbing a little hill. Ayomide was getting a bit confused, considering that they were heading out of the city, and the houses (alongside the street, giving way to a simple gravel path) were slowly disappearing. “Where are these donuts that you speak of? They are not in a dungeon now, are they?”

“No, just a bit far away. You see the side of the cliff over there?” Shinasi pointed to the cliff, where Ayomide noticed a few holes and doors that she definitely hadn’t seen there before.

Ayomide exclaimed, in surprise “What are those?! Mole people, or something like that? When did we get them in here?”

“First of all, mole people are just a baseless rumor. I have never seen them in all my adventures. Secondly, yeah, we do basically have mole people now. The dwarves, didn’t you notice them arriving?”

Ayomide shook her head “No… I mean, yes, but I assumed they’d stay in houses like everyone else.”

Shinasi looked at Ayomide with disbelief “Ayomide, do you not know much about dwarves? They’re famous for living inside a mountain. That’s their whole thing.”

“I just assumed that they were like small people…” Ayomide watched as a dwarf, almost tall as her, passed by.

Shinasi watched the dwarf pass by too, and then he turned his eyes back to Ayomide “…I’m wondering if you are a catgirl-dwarf hybrid, Ayomide.”

Ayomide gave a jab right on the sides of Shinasi “Shush! I’d be way hairier if I was.”

“Ow-” Shinasi had to admit one thing: the dwarf catgirl packed some heft behind her punches. “Ow, ow… You’re plenty hairy already” he put his hand on Ayomide’s head, and ruffled her hair a bit, and the other hand held her tail “see?”

“You’d be dead right now if not for promising me a donut.” Ayomide didn’t make an attempt to escape as her hair was thoroughly ruffled by Shinasi on their way to a hole in the cliff. Actually, it wasn’t much of a hole, more of a quite spacious outdoors area carved on to the side of the cliff, with the seating simply being uncarved bits of stone that had been flattened for sitting. There was a sign on the side, one written in Latin script which both of them could read by now: “Holemaker Ironside’s Donut Hole”.

“That is indeed a hole, yes” replied Ayomide to the sign she just read. There was a window of sorts carved into the shop, from which smoke was coming out of it along with a delicious, sugary smell. “Quite a nice hole, in fact.”

“Better than most dungeons I’ve been to at least. Most dungeons smell of mold, not sugar.” Shinasi approached the dwarf wearing an apron standing behind the window. “Good morning. Uhh, donut?”

“Can’t you read the sign at the front? I’ve got nothing but donuts. The freshest donuts, the best donuts. My family’s been doing this since my otherworlder ancestor from long ago taught them how!” The dwarf smacked a tray of donuts so fresh that they had smoke coming off of them, not to mention how soft their dough looked. “So, how much would you like?”

Shinasi turned to Ayomide. She had four of her fingers held up. He took a deep gulp and turned back to the dwarf. “Five, please.”

“Aye.” Shinasi received a threatening-looking stack of five donuts, and he had to make an equally threatening payment in money for that much snackage.

“I guess I’m not going out drinking tomorrow” lamented Shinasi as he placed the stack on a “table”, which like the seats as uncarved stone shaped like a table. Ayomide took four of the donuts, Shinasi took one, and both of them bit into the sugary dough circles with great anticipation.

“Mmh…” It was warm, soft, and quite delicious, just a whole load of dough and sugar. “You know, I’m glad that I managed to survive all the nonsense of the maid café and experience this.” She looked out, towards the view of Libertycave that stretched before her. The city looked beautiful, in its own way.

“I’m glad to have you here with me” replied Shinasi, looking at the scenery alongside Ayomide. It was quite impressive, and beautiful, indeed, with the white rolling hills, and the houses on top, with countless chimneys smoking to show signs of life…

Perhaps there was hope in this world, despite them having so many enemies.