Chapter 11: 11

Once they reach the second floor, Fresh looks around for a moment, gazing around at the odd space that is above the tavern below. She had expected perhaps some sort of hallway lined with doors, or maybe a large quarter filled with beds for weary adventurers to rent. That was usually what these things were like, right?

Instead, there is a single door right at the top of the staircase. Rising up to the tips of their toes, the small figure stretches and lets out an annoyed grunt as they stick the key into the lock and then turns it with some strained effort, before sinking back down and pushing the door ajar, stepping towards the blue fog that fills the crossing. She hadn’t expected this. Fresh tilts her head, looking at the glowing aura. It looks like the kind of fog inside of the dungeon-gate.

Unsure, Fresh turns around to look down the stairs one last time. What does the stranger want with her? They had helped her, or so she feels at least, so there is a speck of trust present in her now. But then again, she’s about to go inside of a locked room together with them. Alone with the stranger upstairs. Obviously there’s a squirmy connotation that she carries with herself in the back of her mind. She had never done anything like this before. Fresh shakes her head, getting those weird ideas out of her mind as the hooded figure steps inside, waiting for her.

No. She’s just being naive and misunderstands the situation. Surely it isn’t about anything like that.

She steps inside after them and looks around the new space, as the door is closed behind her. The singing, melancholy filled voice of the haunting spirit of the tavern below is cut off as soon as the door closes, as if it had never existed. It’s cut off, just like with the noise from the outside-world when she had entered the adventurer’s guild. It’s as if a magic were sealing the spaces, keeping them separate from each other entirely. This new room is large and open, having the same size as the tavern below, but being mostly entirely void of furnishings. It’s just a large, square, empty room. It is completely bare, except for one small table with two dinky chairs and a single, small bed in the far corner.

Something sighs from behind herself. She nervously turns her head around. The small figure sinks down low to the ground, their back sliding down against the door as they drop down to the wooden floorboards. Their head lifts up towards her, the spring-shine eyes that tiredly shine through the wooden mask look up towards her with a judgmental expression.

“That was close, you know?” asks the figure and lets the back of their head thunk against the door behind themselves once. “I guess we’re both adventurers now,” it says, groaning a little, as if suffering from what Fresh considers to be a rather joyful revelation. “Fuck me. I managed to avoid it for so long too.”

Fresh has no idea what’s going on. She rubs her bare arm somewhat uneasily. “Um, hello…”

They lift a hand, pointing at her. “You might be bad-off, but are you touched in the head too?” asks the figure sharply, staring up at her somewhat incredulously.

“Huh?” squeaks Fresh, taken somewhat aback by the crude question.

“What do you think you’re doing here? Are you from the south or something?! Idiot!” they snap at her. 'The south', there’s that question again.

But Fresh’s heart flutters as the stranger yells at her. She feels something cold and dewy on her skin, sweat. Her blood begins to race. She never was good with people yelling at her. Or being mean to her. Or actually, just talking to her in general. “W- what?” is all she manages to stammer out, her eyes growing quickly damp. ‘What is she doing here?’ Isn’t it obvious? What kind of question is that? “I wanted to be-become an adventurer…” she mumbles, rubbing her arm.

“What?! You dumb fuck," they say, rolling their eyes. “Why in the name of all that is holy…?!” The small silhouette grabs the sides of their head, their fingers clenching down on the hood in frustration for a moment. After a while, they lift their head again, a light having died in their eyes. “Well, congratulations. You did it!“ they grumble, rising up to their feet. “Hope you liked the taste of that dragon’s blood, cause there’s not gonna be a lot of that in the future!” Fresh flinches. Is there something wrong? Apparently. The figure’s gaze doesn’t leave her.

Wait. Dragon’s blood?

“You have no idea, do you? You really are from the south,” they mutter, shaking their head. “I can see it, you know?” they ask, very plainly. Fresh stands there for a moment. Not sure what they mean. But then she covers her body with her arms instinctively. “Not that, you slime-brain!” they bark, placing their hands on their hips. “I can see the curse,” they explain, stepping towards her. “It’s leaking out of you like you’re a broken pipe. You’re lucky that I’m the only one of my kind in this town and that I’m a nice person!” They groan and hit their head against the door again. “Too nice for my own good. Damn it!”

Fresh looks around. Curse? “Ah… excuse me… but- I…” The eyes glare up at her and she flinches again as she feels their steeled gaze reach her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The figure shifts, its head rising up towards her as if it wasn’t sure what to think anymore. “Those fucks didn’t…” they shake their head and snap their fingers once at her. “Show me your menu,” they demand. Fresh, unsure of what else to do, opens it as she did before, the glass rectangle floats between them.

STATUS: ???

OBOLS: 00

[INVENTORY]

“Wow. That’s… You didn’t think that there was something wrong with this?” they ask, gesturing to the glass-pane with both hands.

Fresh shifts. “I mean… sort of…?”

“'Sort of'?” they ask incredulously. “You have two maximum health. Two!” yells the figure, pointing towards her again. “I could stick my finger in your ass and you’d die! And look at your soul-points, what even…? Fuck’s sake! What is even going on there?!”

“I had three!” argues Fresh.

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“You had... three?” replies the figure and even beneath the mask, Fresh can see their face drop to an expression that is even more disappointed.

“I had three maximum health, yesterday. But I lost one…”

They’re silent for a moment. The figure takes a deep breath, holding their hands out besides themselves, as they slowly inhale and then just as slowly exhale that breath back outward to calm themselves.

“Let me break this down for you, because I’m about to cry at what I’ve gotten myself into.” They look at her, locking their fingers together with their indexes raised to point towards her. “You are literally cursed. Literally. I don’t know who you ticked off, or what sacred temple you pissed in. But something put a heavy spell on you. Your stats are like a child’s. Hell, I know children who are stronger than you.” Fresh rubs her head, she already knows that she is sub-par but she’s willing to work on that. If that’s all that the small figure has to say, even so rudely, then she’s actually still feeling pretty good about this as a whole, in all honesty. Despite feeling shaky from being yelled at. The tension in her shoulders loosens, as she sighs in relief.

She shakes her head. “I don’t know about any curses or anything like that. But I know I’m weak. I’m going to work hard though and I won’t let that stop me,” replies Fresh, feeling her determination return to herself. She raises a clenched fist up into the air, rather theatrically.

She’s going to do this, no matter what.

“No. You don’t get it, dumb-ass!” yells the figure stepping forward to her and pressing a finger directly into her stomach, rather painfully. “Do you know how much money we owe the guild?!”

That was a sentence Fresh understands. “M- Money?”

They stare at her for a moment, leaning in. “You didn’t read the sign, did you?”

Fresh blinks, staring at them for a second as she recalls the piece of paper hung up by the front door of the guild. “I didn’t read the sign…” she admits, rubbing her arm.

“You should’ve read the sign,” they say dryly.

“Sorry,” she says, looking away.

“Yeah. We became adventurers, officially. Don’t you understand?” asks the stranger. “By taking the initiation, you agreed to the terms,” they explain, poking her a second time. “That shot was dragon’s blood! Don’t you know what that costs?!” Fresh’s eyes widen. The small figure brashly grabs the cut of the front of her robe, pulling her down towards their masked face. “TEN. THOUSAND. OBOLS.” They yell, yanking the single coin from her hand and holding it between their faces. “TEN-THOUSAND,” they repeat and throw the single coin far across the large room.

The coin rolls and strikes the far wall with a small clamour, before falling over.

Fresh’s legs feel wobbly now and now she stumbles, taken aback as she holds herself against the wall. “What? Ten-thousand?” She could never pay that back. What did she do? She could never hope to pay that back, not in a million years. Not in… her eyes fearfully look back at the figure. “How long?”

“A year,” says the masked person quietly, turning around to look across the empty room. “We have a year to pay the guild back. Ten-thousand each. Otherwise they own us. They own you. They own me,” they explain, waving her off with a hand. “Otherwise after that, you’ll probably have to squeeze into a mine or a brothel and pay them back within another year,” they state.

They both stand there quietly for a time. Fresh’s heart is beating fast and her body is shaking. But there is one thing she still doesn’t understand. “Why did you drink it too?” she asks the figure, who lashes around to point back at her in an instant, apparently angry.

“Because, dumb-ass!” they state. “What do you think would have happened if one of those other parties took you in and saw your worthless stats?!” they bark. “Best case, you’d get left behind down in the dungeon to get eaten by a vampire, worst case, you’d skip the year and get sold directly to the market,” they explain. Fresh recoils. That’s pretty grim. “Once the glass is poured, there’s no taking it back. They wouldn’t have let you leave after you went up to the keeper! Making a new party was the only way to get you out of it at that point!”

“I should have read the sign,” concedes Fresh, feeling her face grow bloodless.

“…You think?” The figure walks past her and out across the empty room, clutching their head tightly again and mumbling loudly about some ‘other’. Fresh’s body shakes. What did she get herself into? She should have done some research before diving straight in like this again. It was the same thing. The same thing she did in the dungeon before. She had run straight ahead with her eyes closed and it got her killed and now, it might as well have gotten her killed again. It’s just the second day of her new life and she’s indebted beyond belief. She never has had any debt before, not even in her old life. How could she be so careless twice in a row? And how- ?

How is she going to get ten-thousand Obols? With no health. With no abilities or skills.

Wait… Wait! She looks at the figure, apparently her very first party member, which does ease the pain a little, even if they are a huge jerk.

“What do we get out of joining the guild?” she asks the small person, who is halfway across the large, empty room. Maybe there’s a new door open to her now? Maybe with membership, there’s access to some teachers or somebody who could show her the ways of fighting or magic? Ten-thousand? She grips her fists tightly, steeling her resolve. She can get ten-thousand! If she learns how to fight, how to go through the dungeon and how to earn money. She can put in the hours. She’s willing to do everything it takes. It’s scary, but she’s going to do it, she promises herself that.

“Huh?!” laughs the small hooded figure, turning back around to face her as they hold out their arms wide at their sides in a welcoming gesture. “This is it! This is what we get! Welcome to our new home, Fresh!”

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