Chapter 126: 127: Cleaning

“So is this safe?” asks Basil, looking at Jubilee and Fresh. “Taking money from such… unsavory sources?”

Jubilee stares at the priestess, somewhat dumbfounded. Lifting a hand, they point at Fresh, who is standing next to Basil, carrying some wood across the room that she had bought in order to make them some real beds, as a first order of business. “You’re standing next to the most unsavory source of anything in the world and you’re worried about the thieves’ guild?”

Fresh sticks her tongue out at Jubilee, not letting it distract her from her work as she carries the single plank over to the wall. Loud, heavy steps thud out behind her as Shamrock sets down his load next to her. The massive bundle of wood on his shoulder is so wide that it might as well have been the entire tree itself. “Thank you!” says Fresh, smiling as she wipes the sweat from her forehead. The balcony door is open and a heavy, cool breeze constantly pushes through it, pressing down the staircase and out of the open windows by the front door.

Shamrock nods back to her, not saying anything. She sets to work, listening to Basil and Jubilee bicker at each other again. The girl blinks, looking up at the two of them as Shamrock heads downstairs to get more things like she had asked him to do. Sometimes she wonders if the two of them are really fighting because they are at odds, or if they just argue because it’s just become their main form of communication? She tilts her head, wondering about the two of them. It’s an odd dynamic, but she’s happy that they’re engaging with each other at least.

Smiling, Fresh sets to work. “So should I make four separate beds, or two bunk-beds so we save some space?” She looks around the single open room. “It’s a little… cozy.”

Jubilee looks past Basil towards her. “Are you fucked in the head? You should make yourself a noose,” says Jubilee coldly. “I’m not sleeping out here with you people. Let alone stacked with one of you creeps.”

“Huh?” Fresh frowns. “But Jubileeeeee~”

“Don’t ‘but Jubileeee~’ me!” argues Jubilee, pointing at her. “You’re always making a huge ruckus in the middle of the night and getting weirdly touchy because you’re scared of the dark.”

“I am not!”

Jubilee points at Basil “And she’s always flailing around like she’s possessed!”

“I do not!” argues Basil, crossing her arms.

“And that giant, spooky fuck breathes so loud that I can feel my bones shake!” exclaims Jubilee. “So no, it’s not happening. I need my own space. I need to get away from you people once in a while.”

“Jubileeee~”

“Jubileeeee~” mimics Jubilee, waving their hands by their head and rolling their eyes as they copy her in a high tone. “Shut up, goo-brain.”

Basil lifts her nose, closing her eyes and looking away in a huff. “If we’re not good enough for you, you can always sleep by yourself in the adventurer’s guild.”

“That’s right,” says Jubilee, pointing at her. “You’re not good enough for me, no. And also, no. So shove it,” says Jubilee poking Basil in the gut. The woman swipes their hand away and the two of them scowl at each other for a moment. Fresh sighs, listening to the heavy thudding steps coming up the stairs as Shamrock returns. Thankfully the other stores are much closer by here than in the northern city, so the general store was just down the bend, only a minute away.

Fresh looks around the room. The obvious solution was just to let Jubilee have the pantry as their own room. But then they wouldn’t have a pantry. Maybe the basement? But she doesn’t feel comfortable if her friend is down there with things like the cauldron. What if they accidentally fell in or if something happened during the night? What if vampires escaped the dungeon and Jubilee was all on their own downstairs? No. She won’t accept that either. But she supposes she does understand Jubilee’s point, even if they aren’t getting it across well. Jubilee is a reserved person, she supposes they want an opportunity to just take off all of their gear in peace sometimes too.

The girl nods, having made up her mind. “Shamrock?”

The man lets out a loud breath as he turns to look back at her. “Sorry, can I ask you another favor please?” She accentuates her plea, trying to make it sound soft and kind. But she has the feeling that the man would do whatever she asks him, even if she took a harsher tone. Fresh digs into her bag, pulling out a few large, silver Obols. “Can you go to the general store and order a load of bricks for me?”

Without asking any questions, the man takes the coins and heads down the stairs right away.

“Bricks?” asks Basil.

Fresh nods, lifting a finger. “This is a home for all of us, so I’m going to make an extra room here next to the pantry.”

Basil frowns. “Seems like a waste of money and time. Some of us aren’t so spoiled.”

“The only thing that’s going to spoil is your dead body before it's found in a ditch,” says Jubilee, glaring at the priestess who doesn’t respond, opting to take the high road.

“Is there anything you’d like, Basil?” asks Fresh, knowing that the best way to get them all to cooperate is to have them all be invested in this new place.

The priestess blinks, her posture loosening. “What I’d like?” she asks, a little confused.

Fresh nods. “It’s your home now too!” The priestess stares at her dumb-founded for a moment, looking around the room before her eyes land on the back corner, outside of the pantry door.

She points towards it. “If it’s not too much trouble, I think a little kitchen would be really nice…?” suggests Basil, sounding somewhat unsure of her words, as if they were too much.

Fresh nods excitedly in agreement. “I think so too! We can have breakfast every day together!”

“Will you cook?” asks the priestess, fidgeting with her sleeves.

“If you want me to,” says Fresh without thinking about it, turning back to her work to start making the beds, humming as she begins working, indifferent to the many looks that she keeps getting as the others run around the house, putting in some work as well. Jubilee is sweeping and dusting the entire building. Basil takes her time to delicately polish all of the windows to a crystal clear shine, as well as to oil the squeaky doors and hinges on Fresh’s behest. Shamrock spends the day running around town, buying and carrying all manner of things from raw materials to a new cauldron that Fresh has him put in the basement for her. Apparently, delivery isn’t a really popular thing here, everything had to be transported by the person who bought it.

Several hours later, after she finishes upstairs making the beds just like she had made her old one in the old house, she stands before them with pride, ready to receive a heap of praise from her friends. Jubilee walks past her and throws their bedroll onto the one furthest in the back, flashing her a quiet thumb’s up before returning to their work. Basil stands next to her.

“Which one are you taking?”

“Me?” asks Fresh, thinking for a moment. “They’re all the same, so… I don’t really care. Uh,” her eyes wander over the four beds. Jubilee had taken the right most one. So she wants to be next to that, even if there is a wall between them. She lifts a hand, pointing at the bed that is second from the right. “I guess that one.”

Basil nods and places her bag on the other one next to it, before returning to her work without saying anything either.

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Fresh sighs, wondering if a little ‘thank you’ was really so much to ask for? Maybe it is in this world? She isn’t really sure. Though maybe her friends are just kind of jerkish sometimes too. She isn’t really sure either. A pair of heavy boots comes up the stairs as Shamrock arrives with another load of bricks. She smiles. The man has never let her down yet. “Ah! Shamrock, here,” she points to the last bed remaining. “This one is yours. I hope you like it!”

The man says nothing, setting the bricks down on the stack and then kneeling down by the bed, placing his hands on the foot of it. As he stands in front of it, Fresh realizes that she should have perhaps made his bed a little bigger than the rest of them. She hadn’t thought about that at all. His metal glove runs along the material and Fresh notices that it is shaking a little. The man turns his head and looks at her, nodding once as he rises to his feet to return to work without saying a word.

Fresh sighs, louder now, simply out of protest. She hopes that they all can hear her. What’s with everyone here? Looking around, annoyed now at not having been lavished with kind words, she heads down to the basement. Jubilee tags along on the way.

The basement is a room just like the two above it. Square. Fresh supposes these shapes were the easiest to make when carving solid rock out of the mountain, though she has no idea how they did it here. Did they use magic? Probably. There is only the downstairs room in the basement and the single staircase in it that stops half-way with a small landing with a door next to it. Through the door is the washroom. Other than that, there is a fireplace that is nested into the wall, much to the girl’s delight and to Jubilee’s dismay.

“At least you won’t be able to set the place on fire…” they mutter, tapping against the rock. Fresh laughs, lifting a hand to feel the air coming from a second small shaft on the other side of the room, which she assumes is for air from above, given the cool draft she feels coming from it.

“Ah, wait, I’ve heard of this,” says Jubilee, stepping into the fireplace and looking up the chimney from below. “The shaft runs up along the walls of the other rooms. If you light this, I’ll bet you anything that the walls across from the stairs up there will start getting hot.”

Fresh nods excitedly, looking at her friend. “Jubilee, will you sit and watch the fire with me sometimes?”

Jubilee climbs out of the dormant fireplace. “Don’t be a creep.”

“I’m not! I just think it would be nice!” says Fresh.

Jubilee walks past her just shaking their head. “Sure,” they say, waving her off as they head back up the stairs. Fresh beams. Jubilee might call her clingy, but she knows that Jubilee is the kind of person that needs extra attention now and then, to calm their own insecurities, even if they’d never admit it. She wonders if she isn’t being a little manipulative?

Fresh shrugs, smiling as she walks back up after her friend to meet the others upstairs. They want to talk about their business strategy. Half-way up towards the landing, she stops, feeling a cool breeze on the nape of her neck that causes her to shudder. But as she looks behind herself, trying to find its source, all that she sees is the little hole in the wall that seems too far away for it to be noticed up here. Looking back up and realizing that she is alone downstairs, Fresh runs after Jubilee, catching up.

“Isn’t our plan just to make things and to sell them?” asks Fresh as they all sit in a circle on the floor upstairs. Several hours had passed since they began their work this morning and it was close to the evening now. None of them had eaten yet.

“No shit, dumb-ass. That’s what a store does,” says Jubilee, shaking their head again.

“But we have to be careful,” says Basil quietly, apparently thinking as she pulls on her sleeves.

“Conspicuous,” says Shamrock.

Fresh stares around at the three of them, not sure what they were getting at. “Why don’t we just make potions and stuff like before?”

Jubilee looks at her, their tired expression perhaps showing that they had seen this question coming. “Yeah, why don’t we just sell the exact same, one of a kind, literally glowing, magical items as in the city we got chased out of, to people who spend their whole lives traveling between them so that they can kill things?” The room is quiet for a moment. “Oh, wait! Because that would be suicidal.”

Fresh rubs her arm, thinking. “Oh, you think people would know that they came from us?”

“If we sell glowing potions, then yeah, probably,” says Jubilee, leaning back against the foot of the bed behind them. “There aren’t many of those going around these days.”

“We need to come up with different things,” suggests Basil. “Things that won’t tie us to the old city. If someone traveled there with a load of glowing potions, it would only be a matter of time before we’re found out.”

“But I loved making potions! I spent so long learning how to do it right!” argues Fresh, even though she knows that they have a point. They would have to come up with a different niche to slide into. General items as always, a bit of this and a bit of that. But they needed a hook. Something to really pull their first customers in when they opened.

Her stomach growls loudly. All three of them look at her, as the girl’s eyes go wide. “Guys!” says Fresh excitedly, her fingers locking together into two tight fists. “I have an idea!”

Razmatazz

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