Chapter 123: 124: Staying ahead

Fresh stands with her hands against the stone railing, feeling the cold evening chill, which has been absorbed into the stone construction, running up her fingers. From atop the lookout, her damp eyes stare over the infinite expanse that is visible from here, wandering over the endless forest that seems to stretch on like a boundless sea, as it vanishes over the distant horizon together with the setting sun, which lowers itself to hide down just beyond it.

Today was yet another successful day down in the dungeon. They had cleared another six floors, putting them at floor eighteen now. Floors thirteen to seventeen were filled with a mixture of smaller, crystalline golems and creatures that she calls ‘snowmen’, given their uncanny resemblance to such things. The only thing that set them apart was the fact that they had jagged bones for arms and that their beady, glassy eyes were more akin to an insect’s than to some shimmering marble or black rock. There was also an occasional baby dragon, barely a third of the size of the small sub-boss from floor twelve. Their scales were apparently worth a lot, given their use in making light armor and their strong cold and magic resisting properties.

Much to Fresh’s disgust, the eyes were apparently the most valuable part of the snowmen. They felt oddly hard and dry and she did her best not to touch them with her bare hands, given how gross they looked.

Jubilee had said that things were starting to get dangerous the deeper they got. She would have to start staying further back more often. Fresh argued that she had eleven health-points now, Jubilee countered by asking her to bend down and then hitting her on the head as she obliged, costing her one of them.

The girl sighs, staring out over the forest. Jubilee is away on their own now, having split off from the group to go talk to the thieves’ guild. Shamrock and Basil went back to the adventurer’s guild to drop off their loot. Apparently, they are simply in every city, the thieves’ guild that is. Fresh doesn’t like it. She doesn’t like Jubilee’s connection to them and she doesn’t like that they have a connection and an interest in her.

But they need the money.

If Jubilee can get them to get a hold of some of their savings from the northern city, that would make up a giant chunk of what they needed for the house. Sure, their dungeon diving is going great. She and Basil aren’t too useful at the moment, but Jubilee and Shamrock are pushing through the dungeon with basically no real problems at all. But it will still take a while to get the money by just grinding mobs. Jubilee is confident that they can probably get to floor forty if not forty-five with some effort. That would be very lucrative. But it’s dangerous that deep down, even for them and the reset is still a while away.

Looking further down, she stares at her fingers that are still wrapped around the rim of the wall, seeing them jitter a little. Not from the cold, but from a steady pulse that she traces up the length of her arms, as she watches the subtle shaking of the fabric of her new robe. The beat of her own heart shakes her body. She’s afraid again.

Though now, she feels that she is right to be. Fresh turns around, looking at the large, two story house behind her. The timber-framed construction is well done and, by all objective standards, the building is a beautiful piece of architecture at the edge of the city, with a view from every window that is to die for. But that’s exactly what makes her nervous. Jubilee had told her to wait outside while they went in to handle everything with the thieves’ guild, who apparently didn’t put much effort into hiding their presence here in this city.

The front door opens.

Fresh sighs in relief as Jubilee exits and closes the door behind themselves, heading towards her, but without the glass sword that she had made last night, despite having gone inside with it.

“We got it,” says Jubilee, nodding to her.

Fresh beams. “That’s great, Jubilee!” says the girl in excitement, feeling a giant weight drop off of her shoulders and the pressure in her blood slowly return to normal. “Did they give you all thirty? What did they want for it?”

“They gave me all seventy,” says Jubilee plainly.

“Huh…?” Fresh blinks, staring at her friend. “They did what?”

“They gave me all seventy,” repeats Jubilee, shrugging. “Seventy-thousand.”

In an instant, Fresh drops down and places her hands on Jubilee’s shoulders. “Jubileeeee~!” whispers the girl loudly and desperately, noticing that her fingers are shaking again. “What did you do?! You didn’t promise them anything stupid, did you?!” Fresh’s eyes widen in panic. “Why are you always doing stuff like this without -”

Jubilee swipes her hands off. “First off, no touching!” snaps Jubilee loudly, raising a finger towards her face. “Secondly. I didn’t do anything stupid, goo-brain!”

“You did something risky! I’m sure of it!” argues Fresh, her worried expression growing more and more obvious. “It’s just like back when you gambled your house on a coin-flip! You can’t always ju -”

Jubilee cuts her off again, pressing their gloved finger to her lips. “Shut up, dumb-ass.” They dig into their pocket, pulling out a coin and holding it in front of her face, showing her both sides. Lowering their hand, they place the coin on their thumb and Fresh watches as they flip it with a snip of their finger and as the coin flies through the air in the oddly familiar second, she notices, as the evening sun is just about to make its departure for the day, how a single ray of ruby light reflects with an odd gleam, as is strikes the spinning body of the coin in mid-air.

Jubilee catches the coin in their palm, closing their fingers oddly tightly around it. “Heads,” they say and Fresh looks at them and then back to the coin as Jubilee opens their hand. The coin is facing heads up.

Jubilee repeats the process. “Tails.”

It’s tails.

“Heads,” they call, flipping it again.

It lands. It’s heads. Jubilee holds the coin out to her, not crushing it in their palm this time.

“Jubilee,” says Fresh, realizing now as she takes the coin and looks at it. She spins it around, looking at the tail side, where there is a thin, but dense, layer of translucent-glass, cob-webbed between the features of the imprinting on the coin. “You cheated?” whispers the girl, looking at her friend. Then again, she cheated too by jinxing him. So…

“I played it safe,” says Jubilee defensively. “Do you think I’m stupid or something?” asks her friend, placing their hands on their hips after snatching the coin back from her.

“But how? He looked at the coin, I remember,” says Fresh. “He seemed so surprised!”

“It’s glass, slime-brain. It shattered off when the coin hit the ground.” Jubilee shakes their head. “But yeah, I don’t know what game he was playing, but he was up to something.”

“That’s so risky! What if he noticed?!” says Fresh.

Jubilee shrugs. “He didn’t.”

“What if the coin landed with the glass side up anyways?”

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“It didn’t,” says Jubilee, shrugging. “Sometimes you have to have a little faith, you know?” asks Jubilee almost sarcastically, while shaking their head.

“Jubileeee~!” she cries, but Jubilee pockets the coin and shushes her again.

“Listen. I don’t take stupid risks for no reason. The guild is good for the money.”

Fresh rubs her arm nervously, watching as Jubilee turns around, motioning for her to follow as they set on back towards the adventurer’s guild. “What do they want in return?”

Jubilee looks over their shoulder, but doesn’t slow down. “Remember what Basil said last night? They want that.” They turn back forward. “But to start, they want a load of glass weapons in a month and then we’ll pay the rest back in items.” Fresh frowns, running after Jubilee.

“Jubilee, why are you in such good contact with them? Why do they -” she lowers her voice. “Why did they know about me? You know, even before?”

Jubilee doesn’t say anything as they walk through a dense crowd of people, the cool mountain winds pressing through together with them, causing Fresh to shudder even in her new robe. She holds herself, wrapping her arms around her body. “The fountain incident,” says Jubilee.

Fresh looks at Jubilee, looking around them as they pass through the crowd and into an emptier street. “The fountain incident?” asks Fresh.

“When you fucked with the fountain by the dungeon-gate. People asked questions.”

“Ah, but didn’t w -”

“No, dip-shit!” barks Jubilee, looking back up at her. “The merchant’s guild had no idea how the fuck you did that and they hired the thieves’ guild to look into it.” Jubilee turns around, now that they’re somewhere empty of people. “You don’t think they just dropped it and forgot it, do you?” asks her friend, incredulously. “It was a huge fucking deal!”

“Ah… well… actually…” Fresh scratches her cheek, feeling a little embarrassed. Jubilee sighs.

“Let’s just say I was owed an old favor and that we managed to come to a mutually beneficial agreement.”

“An agreement?” asks Fresh, somewhat unsure.

“An agreement,” nods Jubilee, plucking the satchel from their belt and tossing it to her. Fresh yelps, just barely managing to catch the bag full of jangling metal. “Come on, you’re paying for dinner tonight. We’re going to need our energy tomorrow,” says Jubilee. “Plus there's something else that we need to talk about with the others.”

Fresh blinks, looking at the bag in her hands. “Are we going to the dungeon again?” she asks excitedly.

“What? No, goo-brain,” snaps Jubilee. “We’re buying a house.”

Fresh looks down at the bag in her hands, pulling open the drawstrings to reveal seven giant, golden Obols inside. The largest variants that she knows of. There aren’t any faces on the front of the coins. Rather, there are hollow skulls, smiling the widest smiles that she has ever seen.

Razmatazz

The truth is, the game has been rigged from the start    x)

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