Monday, 15th of Summer

Alma stepped out into the rain and heard Robin's hammering from far away. It brought a smile to her face to think that soon there would be cows grazing on the land. She looked at the crops and saw radishes, peppers, and of course, hops. She got to work and did her usual rounds. As she was putting things in her chests, she took a minute to take inventory of some things. She looked over at the trees that she had tapped and remembered that when she made the tappers, she didn't have enough supplies to make one for a pine tree. But now as she looked in the chest, she had what she needed, so she quickly made another one and ran it over to the closest pine tree. She also laid down the new sprinkler she got from the Junimo - though, of course, it would do no good for her today, but it would save her some energy on the next sunny day. She looked at her instructions for making her own sprinkler, but it required a copper bar, refined quartz, and a gold bar. She could make refined quartz, but she didn't have enough gold ore to make a gold bar. It would have to wait for another day.

She did also see, though, that there was a geode in her chest. She must have put it in there and forgot about it. She had some glass shards she found at the beach yesterday that she wanted to show Pierre, so maybe if there was something in the geode, she could take that too. She made her way into town to Clint's smithy. "Hi Clint!" she said as she came in. "Ooh, that furnace feels nice after being in the rain all morning."

"Be glad you're a farmer, Alma. It's nicer to work outdoors than by a hot furnace all day - even when it's rainy."

"Oh, I didn't mean to sound - "

"I'm only a blacksmith because my father pushed me into it."

"I'm sorry, Clint."

"What do you want anyway?"

"Um … just a geode, please," she said, laying it on his anvil. Without saying anything, he smashed it with his hammer. A beautiful white-blue stone broke out, and he handed it to her. "Thank you, Clint. Have a good day!" She quickly bowed out, and when she got outside, she took a moment to shake it off before she headed on to the museum. "Hi, Gunther!"

"Alma! You are a ray of sunshine on this rainy day! Did you bring something for me?" She pulled out the glass shards and the stone. "Ooh … celestine, I believe! And some glass shards from an ancient artifact. Maybe from a stained glass window or something of that nature." He looked up at her and smiled. "These are valuable contributions, Ms. Alma, deserving of a valuable reward." Alma looked at him with surprise as he stepped into a back room. He came back out with a large painting and an even larger statue of a chicken.

"Oh! Gunther!"

He propped the painting up on the counter. "This is 'A Night on Eco-Hill,' an acrylic oil painting depicting one of the largest mountains that surrounds Stardew Valley."

"This is beautiful, Gunther! I'd love to hang it in my house. The walls are a bit bare." She took it and stuffed it in her bag. "And this … statue is …."

"This is a finely-crafted statue of the Institut de Sélection Animale Red hen, a genetically hybridized chicken developed in France and the favorite pick for beginning farmers such as yourself." Alma cringed a little to hear French. "What? You don't like it?"

"Oh, no, it's just … I have bad memories connected with French."

"Prescriptive-y high school language teacher?"

"No, more like … a multilingual ex-husband."

"Oh, I see. Well, we can pretend it's Canadian then. Plus, this rendition is hand-carved from local Stardew Valley pine wood and would make a fine decoration for a farmer with a little chicken coop, don't you think?"

"Oh, uh, yes, I suppose," she said, taking the statue from him. "But how am I supposed to carry this …?" But she was surprised that it fit into her bag. "This bag really is large!"

"And violà - oh, uh, I mean, presto! Now you have not one but two decorations for your self-stated bare house." He looked quite proud of himself, but Alma was still not sure if she should be thankful or not. "You might also like to know that I put another of the lost books up."

"Oh, yes! I'll go read that now!" Alma made her way to the bookshelves and noticed that the Lost Books collection now stretched to the back wall of the library. "Gunther! It's growing so much!"

"Thanks to you!" he said with a small bow.

Alma found the book he was referring to, Scarecrows. It was just about that, giving information about how to build a scarecrow, why they're good, what they can do, how effective they are, etc. Alma flipped through and scanned the pages; she already knew quite a bit of this but learned some too! She looked at the time; it was early afternoon, and she thought today might be a good one to try the mines again before meeting Harvey at the saloon. So she put the book back on the shelf, said goodbye to Gunther, and headed into the mountains.

The mines were pretty straightforward today; not a lot of difficulty, but not a lot of specialties either. She mined a lot of stone, got some copper, and a few cave carrots and pieces of quartz too. She saw some slimes, cave flies, and cave beetles; but she was able to handle them pretty easily. She did have to eat a few snacks to keep her energy up, but other than that, she was doing pretty well! And by around 7:30, she dropped down to the twentieth level. She heard the elevator ding, and just like the tenth level, there was nothing but a treasure chest sitting in the cavern. Alma carefully opened it up and found a steel sword inside. It wasn't chipped like her rusty sword now, and it was more lightweight. She thought it was probably an improvement. She tied the steel sword's sheath around her waist, and she couldn't help but feel like she was starting to look the part of an adventurer too! … except for maybe the straw hat and overalls.

In this cavern, there was also a surprisingly blue lake. Alma stepped to the edge of the water, trying to see anything inside, but it was too dark. She pulled out her fishing rod from her bag and cast it into the water, and not long, she got a bite! She reeled it in fairly easily and pulled out a strange-looking white fish. It looked almost ghostly. Then she gasped. "A ghostfish!" She remembered that from the specialty fishing bundle. "Oh heck yeah!" She rushed to the elevator, went to the surface, ran out of the cave, and made her way to the community center. Sure enough, the ghostfish was something needed for the specialty fish bundle. She bounced out of the old building with a sense of accomplishment and went into town to the saloon.

When Alma opened the door, she saw Harvey turn around, and when he saw it was her, he smiled and straightened up in his seat at the bar a bit. She wiped her boots at the door and went to sit next to him, taking her hat off and smoothing her wet hair into some form of order. "Some wine?" he asked. She nodded and thanked him, taking off her bag and placing it on the floor next to her. He ordered a glass for both of them while she tried to dry off, wringing out the edge of her shirt and pants legs. He noticed her sniffling and clearing her throat, shivering a bit as she settled at the bar. "Do you mind if I feel your forehead?"

"Sure, go ahead." He placed the back of his hand to her forehead and then to the back of her neck. "But I'm not sick. I'll be fine in a minute, I promise."

"All right. But be careful. This on and off rain and the change in temperature can cause a cold. Remember to cover your mouth when you sneeze. Then make sure to wash your hands."

"Thank you, Doctor," she said with a smirk. "Besides, even if I got sick, that would mean more business for you, right? Not such a terrible thing."

"Funny," he said flatly.

Gus gave them their wine, saying, "There's nothing like a dry red wine on a day like this, huh? I love my job." He chuckled as he walked away.

"This will make me feel better too," she said to Harvey, raising her glass to him.

"L'chaim." He clinked his glass to hers and noticed the swords hanging off her waist. "What are, uh … what are those for?" he asked before taking a sip.

"Oh, yeah, I look a little ridiculous, don't I?" she said with a laugh. "I was just in the mines, and I had this rusty sword that Marlon gave me. But today I made it to the twentieth level, and this other steel sword was there. I'm going to sell the old one to Marlon at the Adventurer's Guild, but for now, I guess I have two."

"Are you not … s-scared in the mines?"

"I was at first," she said, "but not so much anymore. It depends on the day, really. Some days are good, and some days are not."

"What makes them good or not good?"

"Well, so, the old elevator in the mine shaft can only stop every five levels, and it hasn't been used in so long that you have to manually go down five levels to make it work at the next fifth level. Does that make sense? So I go down the elevator to where I left off and try to access five levels each time I go to unlock the next fifth level." Harvey nodded, his brows furrowed. "If I'm able to get down the five levels and do so pretty quickly, that's a good day. But if the spirits aren't happy, there are a lot more rocks to mine through and monsters to fight - "

"Whoa, wait," Harvey interrupted, holding up a hand, "Spirits? Mon - You said monsters? What else are you going to tell me is in town?!"

"Do you watch much TV?"

"Well, yes, some - mostly the History channel. What does that have to do with anything?"

"The next time you watch TV, check out Welwick's Oracle."

"Oh, Alma, that's just a fortune telling hack."

"No, I know how you feel. I was skeptical too! But have you ever actually watched? She reports on 'the spirits,' whatever they are, and she says each day what mood they're in. And I'm telling you, there's a pattern. However those spirits feel makes a big difference to how things go in the mines. If they're happy, I find ladders to the next level more easily, I find more geodes and resources as I go and things like that. But it's not just that; my crops produce more, I find more to forage around town, even the trees seem to drop more wood! And you remember that day I fished and got a treasure chest full of five thousand gold? That was on a day when the spirits were happy!"

Harvey still looked unimpressed. "I want to believe you, Alma, but …."

She wagged her finger and said, "You didn't believe me about the Junimo either."

His face changed, as if he conceded to that point. Then he looked at her with a look of realization. "What if the, uh, spirits are the Junimo?"

"Now that's a thought …." She took a sip of wine, the wheels turning in her head.

"And m-maybe because they chose you, you're the only one who notices the effects they have. To the rest of us, it just looks like coincidence. That I can believe."

Alma was still thinking, moving her finger along the rim of her glass. "What if I tried to show you? What if I told you how the spirits were feeling that day, and you see if something different happens for you?"

Harvey shook his head. "That won't work. Confirmation bias. But, no, listen," he looked at her more seriously. "You're right; I didn't believe you about the Junimo, and I was proven to be wrong. So even though this sounds unbelievable, I - I trust you. You don't need to convince me." She smiled. "But you also mentioned … monsters?"

"Yes, I mean, I don't know if monsters is necessarily the best word, but there are these … aggressive creatures in the mines. The guys at the Adventurers' Guild are the ones who call them monsters, so I've just started saying that too. But I've seen slimes, beetles, flies, rock crabs, grubs, and duggies so far. Flies and slimes are the worst, for sure."

"They mostly sound like insects."

"Well, yes, but they're big and, like I said, aggressive. Flies are especially relentless! They'll just keep biting and attacking until you kill them."

Harvey was trying to keep up with the story, asking, "So when, uh, when the spirits are in a bad mood, more of these - these things come out?"

"I think it's more that when they're in a happy mood, less of them are there to get in the way. But, yeah, when I was in the mines that time last week, there were a lot of things in my way like monsters and rocks. It made it really hard to move through the mine levels. I was so close to getting to the twentieth level! I had already gone down four, and I just needed one more!"

He looked at her with raised eyebrows, as if he already knew the answer. "Did you pass out?"

"Well ... yes." He nodded and sipped his wine. "But I was okay! Linus found me and brought me home."

"Unconscious?" She took a sip of wine and shrugged. "Those mines are dangerous, Alma. Not just because of the monsters you've told me about but the - the environmental factors as well. There could be a - a cave-in, you could get stuck, dehydrated, lost …. I wish you'd take better care of yourself out there."

"I know. I'm still learning my limits, but I am getting a better handle on it every time."

"Do you know how many levels there are?"

"No, but actually, one of those lost books I mentioned to you at the library is about that very topic! It says that no one knows exactly but that there are three areas. I've only seen the first one."

"And you're at level twenty? So presumably there are at least … sixty levels?!"

"If they're all equal, I guess so. My goal right now is to make it to the twenty-fifth level. Hopefully, one more try on a good day, and I can do it with no problem!" She smiled and took a sip.

He shook his head with a chuckle. "I don't think I - I could even make it into the first level based on what you've been saying."

"Come on! Yes, you could!" Her eyes widened with an idea. "You know, you should join me sometime!"

"What?! No, I - "

"No, really, I could give you this rusty sword, and I'd have my sword too, and you could see what it's like! Fight some of your demons - literally."

"I am not interested in exposure therapy, thank you. I'll just experience it through you. That's, uh, close enough for me." He took a sip of wine.

"Like I said, I was scared at first too. I'd never done anything like this before! But I remember looking down that mine shaft and thinking I'd also never farmed, never fished, never up and sold everything, never moved this far, never had my own house - especially a cabin in the middle of nowhere …." Alma looked down in her drink, getting a little lost in the deep red wine. "But I had also never taken life in my own hands. Never felt the true sense of accomplishment. Never felt really actually proud of myself. Never thought I was strong. Never been so close to nature. Never seen a magical creature, much less ever been chosen by one for some big plan. Never felt part of something bigger than my own little life. Never - " She looked up at him for a moment, not sure if she should say what she was going to. He was listening to her carefully, his eyes soft and kind. "Never met a man who loved me unconditionally."

"Well," he started with a smile, "you, uh … you'd never been to Paradise." Harvey lifted up his glass. She smiled back and touched her glass to his. They both took a drink.

"So," she asked, "you'll come down in the mines with me sometime?"

"Absolutely not."