Chapter 115: 116: Go West

They seem to have reached a plateau of sorts here on the other side of the bridge. The thin mountain-road quickly widens out further and further as it presses inward towards the heart of the mountain. The gray and lifeless harshness which was all around them on the lower rung, seems to be entirely out of sight now as the grassy knoll here is filled with dark and rich green tones. The grass is tall and plentiful. It is as if they were in the forest again and there, even further along the road, the space is filled with tall needle-trees that grow on both sides of the path.

Fresh looks around herself, surprised at the stark contrast found in the landscapes. Her eyes follow the road that vanishes into the small woodland which grows here atop the mountain. Rising up behind it in the distance, as well as to both the left and the right, are high, jagged cliffs that rise higher and higher into three separate peaks that shield this place from the world. Much to her relief however, the path seems to stay entirely flat at this point.

The four of them walk down the road together, entering into the forest. The world seems to be just a little kinder here to all of them as soon as they enter into the greenery, as the many trees and the large boulders which fill the area around them block the shearing mountain winds from reaching them any longer. The road slowly becomes more ornate as well, the simple rock and dirt path turns into a loose brickwork that then becomes more tightly compacted the further that they follow it through the woodland.

She takes a deep breath, inhaling the crisp air here as she notices how much cleaner it smells than what she had gotten used to in the northern city. It’s so light and clean and so rich in a thick perfume of pine that she almost feels light-headed from it. The cold stings her lungs as well.

Jubilee stops, looking around the forest.

“What’s wrong?” asks Fresh.

“Nothing, just checking that we’re alone,” says Jubilee. “People here aren’t really into snooping. At least the humans. But you can’t be too careful.”

Fresh scratches her cheeks, not sure what Jubilee means with that ‘humans’ remark. “A- are there elves here too?” she stutters out, her teeth starting to chatter.

“What? No dumb-ass! I mean, yes, elves are everywhere these days, the lanky fucks,” says Jubilee. “But I’m not talking about them. Just… look, forget it -” Jubilee waves her off. “Listen up, shit-heads.” Jubilee points at the others. “We’re about an hour out. We need to get our story straight.”

“Our story?” asks Fresh. Jubilee stares at her, placing their hands on their hips as they stand there quietly. Fresh looks around at the others. Basil clears her throat and stands upright. Shamrock just stands there, breathing loudly as evidenced by his lurching breastplate. Her eyes wander back to Jubilee. “Uh…?”

Jubilee lets out a long sigh. “If anyone asks us what we’re doing here? Who we are?”

“Oh! Uh… we’re here to open a shop!” says Fresh.

“And why did we come all the way here to open a shop?”

“Because. Oh…” Fresh realizes what Jubilee was getting at. Obviously they can’t tell anyone here the truth about their arrival. “Uh, we really like the mountains?”

“That’s not very convincing,” says Basil. “The west is big on magic, so we’re going to have to work around that,” says the priestess, nodding to Fresh as she thinks. “You’re a wet-crafter, so we’ll just say that this seemed like the best place to make and sell magical items.”

Jubilee thinks. “Yeah, that makes sense. It’s simple. Okay. We’ll go with that. If anyone asks, we’re from the north-east.”

“The north-east?” asks Fresh, now entirely lost.

“Yeah, there are a bunch of villages out there in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere. It’s far enough to be a safe bet that nobody will ask too many questions,” explains Jubilee. “We just have one last problem.”

“What?” asks Fresh as she looks around, trying to discern where Jubilee is looking. She follows her friend’s eyes as they gaze at Basil. Not sure what’s happening, she looks at Shamrock who does the same. Basil looks at all of them, just as confused as Fresh.

“Conspicuous,” says Shamrock.

“Huh?” Basil raises her hands.

“You look like shit, fuck-head. Look at you!” snaps Jubilee, pointing at Basil’s destroyed, bloodied and muddied white-robe. “Besides. If you come into town wearing priestess’ robes, people are going to ask questions. What if you run into another kook like you here?” Jubilee’s finger raises, pointing at the lantern. “And that ugly fucking thing. Look at it!”

“Hey!” argues Fresh, pursing her lips.

“Ah… uh…” Basil fidgets, pulling on her sleeves. “I uh… that’s a good point, but what should I do?” She looks at Shamrock. “And what about Shamrock?”

“Shamrock is fine,” says Jubilee, pointing at the man. “He’ll be okay. They love close-combatants here. Enough to ignore his politics.” Jubilee sighs, crossing their arms as they think.

“It’s not exactly like we have extra clothes with us. Maybe…” Jubilee looks up at Fresh. “Can you make anything like fabric?”

Fresh shakes her head. “Uh… no, I don’t think so, but…” The girl rummages through her bag, feeling around for it. “Ah!” Her fingers feel something soft. “I have this?” Fresh pulls out her old white robe from her bag, the one she arrived in this world in. She holds it out to Basil who unfolds it, her eyes widening in horror as she sees the generous cut-outs missing from the fabric.

“Absolutely not!” shouts Basil, quickly handing the dress back to her. “How would that not draw more attention?!”

“Stop being a baby!” yells Jubilee.

Fresh looks down at the old robe and then back towards Basil, not sure what’s wrong with it. Though, then again, she does remember feeling very uneasy about it back then as well. She purses her lips. “You can have my black robe and I’ll wear this?” Basil looks at her, but doesn’t seem too thrilled with the idea either.

“You fucking people. I swear,” sighs Jubilee before snapping their fingers at Basil. “Get undressed.”

“Huh?!” yell the priestess and Fresh at the same time.

“So I can tailor your robe!” Jubilee shakes their head. “You fucking knuckle-draggers.”

“My robe?” asks Basil.

Jubilee shrugs. “Sure, I’ll just cut off the trim on the bottom and on the sleeves and take off the hood.”

“You can’t! This is my holy cassock! It’s sacred!” argues Basil.

“It’ll be twice as sacred once I twist it around a stick and shove it up your virgin ass!” barks Jubilee. Basil gasps. “What else do you want to do? Either you lose it, or we lose you!” The priestess seems close to crying now and she looks over at Fresh, but the girl doesn’t have a better answer herself and scratches her cheek.

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“Ah, wait! Uh…” She opens her inventory window, pulling up her sleeve as her fingers move towards it. The girl’s hand stops just short of the water. Nervously, she looks back at her distraught friend, and purses her lips. She has to do this for Basil. Closing her eyes, she sticks her hand into the hole. Her arm is surrounded instantly by a thick, oily wet as feels around for what it is that she’s looking for. Something grazes her hand and she yelps, pulling it back out in an instant together with a green mushroom-cap that she doesn’t recall grabbing. “Ta-da!” says Fresh proudly, quickly closing the window again with her free hand as she does her best to hide her nervousness.

She smiles at her friends. “I think you’ll look really cute in green, Basil! Because you’ll be more Basily then!” explains the girl, looking at Basil’s confused gaze. “If we can’t cut your robe, can we dye it?”

“Will… will it wash out?” asks the priestess nervously.

Fresh thinks for a moment. “Uh… I think so, if we use the purification-mixture. It’s just until we can get you some other clothes.” Basil sighs and finally gives in, relenting with a very uneasy nod.

“Okay,” says the priestess, still sounding somewhat uneasy as Fresh sets to work, grinding the mushroom-cap into a powder that she then mixes into one of their small bottles of water. Jubilee makes a glass chunk that Fresh then carves into a small basin. The hardest part of this process is convincing Basil to take off her robe. The priestess hides behind a tree, shivering as Fresh works on dying the fabric. Basil’s hand constantly swats out from behind the tree, pushing away the lantern that keeps trying to float around to get to her, despite her ever increasingly loud and angry shouts at it.

Eventually, perhaps because of the biting cold, the priestess relents and wears Fresh’s old white robe, while the green-dyed priestess’ robe hangs to dry next to a fire that they’ve made.

“You look really cute, Basil!” says Fresh excitedly, trying to make the priestess feel better. But the woman, holding Fresh’s bag in front of herself, just hunkers down further, hiding herself behind the brown fabric.

“I- Is it dry yet?” stutters Basil and Fresh isn’t sure if it's from the cold or if the priestess is trying not to cry.

“Not yet,” says Fresh, doing her best to be reassuring. “Maybe ten more minutes.”

Eventually, the process is finished however and Basil, dressed in her ‘new’ green robes, returns out of the forest.

“Is… is it okay?” asks Basil.

“No, it’s shit,” says Jubilee. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Jubilee!” scolds Fresh, grabbing Basil’s hand. “It looks very nice, Basil! You look like a flower! See? You’re all green except your head.”

“Dainty,” says Shamrock and Fresh nods approvingly, pulling the still distressed Basil behind her as they walk towards the city.

“So people aren’t going to be nervous about Shamrock?” asks Fresh. “And what about you, Jubilee?”

“What about me?”

“Aren’t you conspicuous too?” she asks.

“That’s a pretty big word for you to be using,” replies Jubilee. “It’s fine. People never pay much attention to me and Shamrock, well… you’ll see. Don’t worry about it,” explains Jubilee.

The road widens up further and further, the trees on the sides growing sparser and sparser as they travel and soon, they breach the edge of the forest. Something massive comes into sight again, the details of which were hidden and obscured just a moment ago.

“Wow…” says Fresh as her eyes wander up the road, towards the giant stone wall which spans from one side of the plateau to the other, connecting the two peaks on the side, save for the giant gate before them that looks just like the one from the north. But past that are tall, timber-framed houses for as far as she can see through the giant gate. The mountain peaks rise up higher and higher and dotted all along them are walkways and stone houses, nested into the rock. No, they're made out of the rock. They're carved out from it. All along the side of the mountain are windows and balconies out of which shine warm, welcoming orange lights that fill the valley with a calm, heartfelt glow. Strange crystals float through the air, hovering above the city.

Just before the large gate of the western city, stand two giant, time-worn statues, one on each side of the entrance, as with the northern city. But these, rather than being close-combatants of sorts, are clearly casters, given their long, flowing robes hewn intricately out of stone and the bent, gnarled staff held in one’s hand.

“Well. Here we are,” says Jubilee. “Caster city. If you can do five push-ups, then you’re basically king here.”

None of the others say anything. They all just stare together with Fresh as the city before them bustles with life. As hundreds of silhouettes, just on the edge of their sight, hurry all around this new place and the walk-ways along the mountain-sides, like ants scurrying through a nest. Particularly interesting to her are the things that float high in the air above the houses. Those large, radiant crystals that suddenly begin to bathe the city below in a wash of colorful, pastel-tinged light, now that the sun is beginning to set and that the world is beginning to grow dark.

A loud growl rings around the edge of the forest and all of them look at Fresh, who only notices their collective gazes a moment later. Laughing, she scratches her cheek. “Let’s get something real to eat and find a place to sleep! My treat!”

Razmatazz

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