Chapter 137: 138: Down to business

The store is surprisingly busy, considering that this is only their second day of being open. But word of mouth seems to spread pretty fast here in this city. Fresh isn’t sure if it makes much sense, but her theory is that it’s because of the tunnels causing voices to echo and carry. So when people left their shop, talking about the things that had gotten, they were far more easily overheard.

Then again, that might be a bit of a reach she thinks, as she squeezes past Shamrock on her next trip to the basement. The man is busy demonstrating one of the stuffed sheep to an excited caster. As her hand touches the handle of the door, she stops, the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end. She knows this feeling. This cold sensation of being watched. Fresh turns her head around and looks back over her shoulder towards the window, wondering why those adventurers standing outside of it were shooting her such nasty looks?

She frowns, shaking her head and opening the door. Maybe they didn’t like the snacks she made? “Oh no…” mutters Fresh beneath her breath. As she returns her gaze back forward, she sees that Shamrock is looking her way too and before heading downstairs, she flashes him an approving thumbs up for his hard work. The excited caster pulls on his gauntlet, trying to get him to show her the sheep again. The third time now, as far as Fresh knows. She barely has time to close the basement door behind herself, before she hears the complaints coming from the other casters standing in line. One of which she recognizes as the wizard from the center of the drinking circle that they saw during their first night at the new adventurer’s guild.

She sighs, leaning back against the door for a second, as the sounds of voices outside are dampened by the heavy wood of the door and the stone walls. It almost sounds like she’s underwater.

Fresh slaps her cheeks, shaking her head once as she pushes herself off of the door and heads downstairs. There’s no time for her to have the blues because some people outside didn’t like her items. Maybe she didn’t add enough salt? Or maybe they thought the wands were flimsy and dumb? Fresh frowns. She’d just have to make these new items better then, so that the people outside the window would smile at her like she wants them too.

That feeling, that warm, glowing sensation of joyous bewilderment she felt when entering the western adventurer’s guild with her friends, she wants everyone to feel exactly that when they come inside of their store, every time, every day.

So, she sets to work, determined to make that happen. Convinced that that’s the solution to make these weird, sad feelings go away. Her eyes wander around the piles of monster loot and raw materials that they had been collecting downstairs for her. The first thing she does is to make herself a table and a chair, as well as some small, simple shelves. The process is quick and dirty and thanks to her crafting abilities, it is done within a few minutes flat.

She wipes her forehead, wiping off some of the sawdust and sweat. Casting is always a mildly exhausting process, but not terribly so. Like running up a single flight of stairs. It’s not the end of the world, but do it often enough and long enough and then it adds up.

Grabbing the table, she pushes it against the back wall, realizing that she should have just crafted it there to save herself the effort. There is a loud screeching as she barely budges it over the stones a few inches. It takes all of her strength.

She pushes it again, moving it another few inches. Fresh realizes that she could just go up and ask for help, but she doesn’t want to do that. Everyone already has enough to do without her making their lives even harder than she already does.

So, she pushes it again.

Eventually, she gets the table across the room, wondering if it hadn’t taken longer to move the table than to make it? In all likelihood, it had. She takes a deep breath, looking back behind herself and then getting the chair, which she manages to carry at least.

There’s only one last thing to do.

Fresh looks over at the fireplace, heading towards it to light it like Jubilee had explained to her. She stands in front of it, scratching her cheek for a moment as she wonders what it is that is bothering her this time? Today is a really weird day for some reason. Something else is nagging at her, but she can’t figure out what it is. She tilts her head, hoping that perhaps looking at the fireplace from a different angle will help. It doesn’t. There’s something about it, but…

Curiously, she looks inside of it and then, bending over, looks up it. Though she isn’t sure what she expects, if anything at all. There is little to see but a dark hole.

Sighing, wondering what’s going on with her mind today, she sets some wood and kindling into the fireplace and lights it, using the stones just like Jubilee had shown her. It quickly catches, the small smolder quickly bursting into a flame that then rises upward, licking the cool, stone walls.

“Hello, Mr. Fire,” smiles Fresh at the fire. The fire doesn’t respond. Finally free of distractions, she gets to her work and begins wondering what new items she can make.

Something from the ice-dragon scales seems like a good idea. They were buying them, but not using any so far. Plus armor is always good. Fresh grabs a batch of scales from the box, throwing them onto the table as she excitedly thinks about some adventurer coming into the store in the future and giddily telling her how the armor that she had made for them saved their life. Fresh smiles, spreading the scales out. How do you even make armor? She’s never made anything like this before.

The woman from the other day had a sort of chain-mail on. It looked like a lot of small scales woven together with some thick string or cord. But… hmm… weaving a hundred or so scales together sounds like a lot of work and it feels like it would be super expensive to make and to sell. She taps her fingers onto the counter, thinking about the adventurers that she’s met. A lot of them didn’t have a lot of money. A lot of them needed a little extra nudge, to push them forward towards their goals, a helping hand, reaching down towards them to pull them up. Her eyes wander over towards the very red fire, crackling loudly in the corner like a snickering voice.

‘A lot of them…’ Fresh begins to repeat the thought, as she feels her mind begin to meander. She looks down, seeing that her left hand has left the table and now rubs the side of her chest, just beneath her right arm, feeling her ribs where she feels a small knick in the bone where she had been kicked once by something red.

Maybe she didn’t do a good enough job?

She gazes into the fire again, losing herself to its spell for a while as its flickering flames dance in the black of her eyes, filling them with a vivid light and at the same time, fill her nose with the smell of acrid, burning smoke. Her eyes sting from the heat of the flames that she stares into, the sharp pain reminding her of the feelings of that bad night. Of when they had to run away, from when they lost their home because of her carelessness.

Because she didn’t do good enough, because her lack of efforts had let a bad-thing find them and their home.

If she had been something of value, people wouldn’t have just left her laying there, right? She isn’t sure if she is asking herself that, or if her thoughts had turned into words for the fire to hear. But the only answer she gets is a loud thudding, as the wood in the fire collapses together. The clamber snaps her out of her daze.

Fresh blinks, squeezing some moisture back into her eyes as she returns her focus back to her work. “No more distractions,” mutters the girl, seeing that her hands were already above the dragon-scales, as well as a crystal that she doesn’t remember grabbing.

As the glow leaves her fingers, the crystal shatters, falling into a heap of jagged pieces.

Taking the broken crystal-shards and the heap of scale powder, she scoops it into a pot and then adds a dash of moonwater. In all truth, she has no idea what she’s doing in the least. She’s just going with her gut-feelings.

Swirling the water in the pot around, letting the mixture mix together, she sets it next to the fire, confident that this plan of hers will work, despite it just being an average fire. Though she has no idea why she thinks that.

Holding her hands out, she focuses on using an ability she hasn’t tried out yet.

Grabbing the pot, she looks inside and sees a shimmering ingot. It’s dark, almost nightshade, but has shimmering fragments in it that she supposes is crystal dust. It reminds her of a starry sky.

Fresh flips the pot over, flopping the bar onto the table. It lands with a surprisingly dull ‘thwup’. She had expected it to sound like metal, though she, again, has no idea why in hindsight, considering that she put no metal into it. Setting the pot down, she leans forward and pokes it.

It’s warm, but pliant to the touch, giving way a little beneath her finger. Almost like a thick, dense and very sleek leather. Picking it up, she grabs both ends and bends it. It gives way with very little force, up to a certain point at least and then springs back once she lets go.

She pulls on it, seeing if it's stretchy. It stretches out a tiny bit, but barely any. At least not with the force that she can apply to it.

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Fresh thinks, not disappointed with the outcome, but also not sure what to do with it either. “Weapons…?” she wonders. But apart from a whip, she has no idea what kind of weapon to make out of this floppy material. That’s apart from the fact that she doesn’t want to leave whips lying around the house that might get used against her by Jubilee. Maybe stretchy bags? No. She shakes her head, deciding not to use that idea either, so that she doesn’t steal Jubilee’s thunder. It’s important to her that everyone has something to contribute.

She realizes on that note, that she needs to figure out something for Basil and Shamrock to make, even if both of them aren’t crafters. Do they have sub-classes? She just realizes that she’s never asked. Fresh sighs. Didn’t Basil say something once about that? “I’m such a terrible friend.”

Her plan was to make armor, but… hmm…

She swings the thing through the air, watching it flop around. Maybe it’s no good? Maybe by mushing the scales down, the entire purpose of them is defeated? Well, one way to find out. It’s only a small bar, so she can’t make much. But…

“AH!” Fresh realizes what she can make that will solve a lot of her problems, plus she has just enough material for one.

Smiling, she holds her hands out over the ingot. Maybe this is a little like leather-working? She’s never done that before. But she assumes that it’s a little like tailoring. So maybe with a bit of abstraction…

Fresh focuses.

The single dark glove, meant for a left hand, flops down onto the table and Fresh beams with pride upon seeing it.

A stretchy, lightweight glove made out of Crystal-Drakonium. It smells vaguely of fire.

2 DEF

-) Increases maximum SOUL by 2.5%

-) Increases COLD damage by 2.5%

-) Reduces PHYSICAL damage taken by 2.5%

+4 COLD RESISTANCE

+1 DARK RESISTANCE

Quality effect: +1 HOLY RESISTANCE

Razmatazz

*The jungle trees rustle as 'Fortunate Son' plays quietly in the distance*

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