Ten of Masks walks into the new office of the Halftropes and Squirrels Banking Corporation. The masked figure in a trenchcoat standing behind the desk bows slightly in greeting. Bits of stray hair poke through the seams and buttonholes of the coat.

“I'd like to redeem these, please”, Ten says, showing six Halftrope notes. The cashier takes them, sniffs them, and puts them away before handing over the Tropes from under the counter.

“Are these… nibbled? The Mysterious Egg isn't even a real Trope! It's just a card. Do you know who I am? I'm not the sort of person you want to be not paying properly if you like staying in one piece.”

Ten leans over the desk intimidatingly and pulls off the cashier's mask. A squirrel's face is revealed.

“Squeak! T-t-t-t-t-t-t-t! Squeak-squeak. Aaaaaxaaa. Squeak!”

“What?”

The squirrel, or, given how short squirrel arms are, probably a different squirrel further down the coat, pulls out a contract and points at it.

“…it will give one Rank I Trope (selected at the Bank's discretion), in exchange for the set of notes.”

It taps “at the Bank's discretion” repeatedly.

“It still has to be an actual Trope though, which this one isn't, and this one is only most of a Trope at best.”

The squirrel raises a section of face that would contain an eyebrow if it were human (there is fur there, it's just not distinct from the rest of the fur), and slowly slides over a 0.1 Trope note.

“That's not what the contract actually says though.”

The squirrel remains silent. Ten adopts a fighting stance. The squirrel reveals a surprisingly impressive looking bladed weapon and continues staring back.

—A sheet posted on a NFWS noticeboard

(OC note: The main text here is not decipherable, so don't waste too much time trying to decipher it.)

Two pairs of hands, one small, bony and covered in fur, the other larger, humanoid and covered in cloud, knead dough side by side in peaceful silence. They tease it off of hair floof and cloud floof alike, and set it aside, watching it rise. Growing dough is easy—you could make it a mountain with little effort—but the old-fashioned way, with yeast and time, has a certain charm. Time to relax, and reminisce with Mister Squirrel about past adventures.

From above the bakery, you hear the sound of wings flapping and… barking? The sound is a halfway between a dog bark and a cat meow. Beside you, Mister Squirrel appears alarmed at first, but then he draws your attention back to the oven. The strange sounds soon pass, into the direction that you recognise is the Squirrel Kingdom.

The bread is baked, coming out perfectly crusty with a Heartwarming Meal turning up in the oven with it. That (and the bread—Best in Spindle! Squirrel-Baked!—very popular) should be enough to pay for your next few Juice infusions at least. Buying more time to relax, out here, bake bread. A virtuous cycle. A nice way to get by.