Chapter 158: 159: The new idea

Fresh stands outside of the adventurer’s guild and stares up at the building. She’s surprised that she can’t hear the loud voices coming from inside of it from out here. Somehow, the building seems almost airtight, not letting a single squeak or murmur escape out into the world. As if the structure itself were keeping all of their words, all of their secrets, for itself.

The door slides open and a small group of people walk out of it, all three of them, clearly drunk, holding on to each other, as they make their way down through the city.

Fresh isn’t too sure why she has stopped here. It’s a little out of the way, in all honesty, considering that everything she still needs to buy is to be found on the other side of the city, closer to the store.

The water of the river trickles on quietly behind her, the sound not filling her head with any strange ideas or inclinations, rather, it just fills her ears with noise. She turns away, looking away from the structure for a moment as she instead stares down at the reflection in the stream, which shimmers in the light of the early morning sunshine. It looks up at her, looking just as perplexed as she herself does down at it, as if neither of them knew what the other wanted from them.

The day is beautiful and surprisingly lively. Yet Fresh, with her old memories, in a sense returned to her, feels… out of place.

It isn’t so much that old anxiety or glumness that has caught her today, rather, there is a sensation, a feeling that she can’t quite put her finger on. Something that makes her suspicious, but she doesn’t even know about what.

Why did she forget her old life? These past few weeks, she has been running her life as if it were automated. She has been running from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’ doing this and that simply for the sake of doing this and that. For progress on the store. For progress in their purses. For progress in their home. For progress in all manner of crafting and skills and level-ups and for progress in the dungeon and for progress in exploring the city and for progress in meeting new people.

But progress isn’t what it is that she’s missing. There is something else. There is something wrong. There is something…

- Unfulfilled.

Fresh turns away from the river, heading into the adventurer’s guild. As soon as she steps into the door, her senses explode, becoming overwhelmed with noise and smells and sights. The party is as wild and chaotic as ever. She jumps back a step, as two casters, locked in a tussle, roll past the door and tear at each other’s hair, as they drunkenly fight over something stupid.

Laughing quietly to herself with a nervous smile, she side-steps the anarchy, moving out of the way just in time, as a full mug flies past where she was about to go and slams into the wall by the door.

“Settle down!” yells a shrill voice, flying past her towards the fight. Fresh, heading towards the room in the back of the upstairs area, spares a second to watch as the young fairy, wearing a waitress’ apron hovers over the two combatants. Her hands glow with a bright magic and then a second later, the two of them are pushed apart, as the wooden boards of the floor come apart and curl themselves upwards, pushing the two of them away from each other’s throats.

The rest of a group of fairies, who all apparently work here now, come to help as well. They seem to have integrated pretty fast. Fresh can’t help but scratch her cheek, as she realizes that they found sensible employment much faster than she had. She wasn’t even new-born either when she arrived here. She was just dumb.

Fresh looks away from the fight and pulls the iron-key out of her pocket, scooting past the full, bustling tables as she heads into their room inside of the adventurer’s guild, where none of them have stepped foot since their buying the suspiciously cheap and convenient house.

The world is suddenly quiet, as she slips through the blue fog.

Fresh stands there, alone in the room, her full bag on her back. In truth, she knows she could go to the barkeeper and do what the note from the thieves’ guild had instructed her to do. But that’s not what she came here to do.

Though actually, the truth is that she doesn’t even know what it is that she came here to do. Somehow, coming to the empty room, to the quiet room where she was separated from everyone and everything, from her friends, from the party, from the trickling water of the river, felt like the right thing to do. It’s what old Fresh wants her to do.

“Just dumb, huh…” she repeats to herself, dropping her bag and sliding down against the wall, so that she can think in peace for a moment. And as she sits there, the more and more she realizes what she has been doing.

In this new life, she has been pushing forward so hard and with such determination that she has forgotten one critical thing. That she is still herself. It doesn’t matter how far she runs, how heavy her bag is, how hard she pushes; if she doesn’t fix the girl in her reflection, her adventure would never begin like she wants it to.

The reflection…

Fresh narrows her eyes, thinking about reflections, thinking about mirrors, thinking about the person she connects first and foremost with those things, after herself.

Jubilee.

Her best friend. Fresh knows that she trusts Jubilee more than anyone, she trusts Jubilee with her life. But Jubilee has a secret. Jubilee has many secrets.

The mask. The thieves’ guild. The mirror. The old house. The telescope. Their initial obsession with helping her, despite her being a stranger. Plus something else, something she hasn’t quite come to understand yet, something about the new house…

She could get answers from the cloaked stranger, from Patala. But then again… is it her business to begin with?

No.

It isn’t.

Jubilee could be a six-headed, fire-breathing werewolf and it would be none of Fresh’s business. They were friends. Mask or no mask, secrets or no secrets. She has betrayed that trust once and she regrets it to this day. She won’t do it again.

The same applies to Basil. The same applies to Shamrock. Fresh realizes now what her problem is.

She has become too obsessed with progress.

She has been working, she hasn’t been having an adventure. The reflection. She hasn’t been paying attention to her reflection. To the girl in the mirror. To the witch in the mirror. To herself.

Fresh looks up at the matte windows that show nothing, seeing no reflection, as she realizes what her next idea is. Grabbing her bag, she hoists it up and runs out of the room, runs out of the adventurer’s guild, jumping over the broken floorboards as she hurries back home, not sparing a single glance back towards the barkeeper or the washroom, no matter how loudly the river whispers.

“I’m home!” says Fresh loudly, jumping behind the counter with unusual energy.

“You took your tim- agh!” snarls Jubilee, as Fresh grabs their hand and drags them towards the basement. “Let go!”

“Jubilee~! I need your help!” says Fresh down to her friend who glares up at her skeptically, but lets themselves be pulled along. She spares a second to wave to Basil, who is restocking a shelf. Then she hurries past Shamrock, who is talking to one of the casters that she recognizes from that night at the fair. Fresh stops, narrowing her eyes, locking her gaze with the elven woman, who looks over at her scornfully all of a sudden.

“Shamrooock~” coos Fresh, looking up at the giant from the side. He turns his head and looks down at her, curiously. “Thanks for being my friend, Shamrock!” beams Fresh, wrapping her arms around him as best as she can, in a hug. His chest heaves, pushing her head, held sideways again it, back a little, as he lets out an excited breath and a single large hand finds its way awkwardly to her back.

“Until the moon falls to the world,” he says, unexpectedly poetically. Fresh opens her eyes, shooting a devious, smug glance towards the elf on the other side of the counter. Just to rub it in, she sticks out her tongue once to the side so that only she can see it. She’s a horrible, cruel witch, apparently, so why not try to live up to that at least a little? The elf’s eyes shoot open in a murderous glare. Fresh spares her a final wink and then grabs Jubilee again, tearing them down to the basement.

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“What’s your problem, goo-brain?” asks Jubilee, as they go down the stairs. “You smell like vomit, are you drunk?”

“I was at the guild. But I don’t drink, Jubilee,” says Fresh. “I mean, I’d like to go drinking sometime, but only if you go too,” she says. “So I know everything will be okay.”

“No thanks,” replies Jubilee, sounding both flattered and bewildered by her odd behavior.

“Mm,” nods Fresh, having expected as much, but not really being disappointed. She stops. “I need glass, please.”

“Is that it?” sighs Jubilee. “I thought this was going to be something big,” they sa

“It is something big!” replies Fresh, lifting a finger as she explains. “You’re my best friend, Jubilee! So can you help me, pleeease~

Jubilee stares up at her but then sighs, their boot shifting along the stones a little. “Do you always have to say stuff like that

“Mm!”

“Don’t you have any sense of embarrassment?” asks Jubilee, placing their hands on their hips.

“No,” replies Fresh plainly. “I’m an evil, heartless witch who crawls through the night to eat children. But only if their feet are hanging out of the bed,” she explains, not skipping a beat.

“Uh… huh…” replies Jubilee, staring at her somewhat lost and confused. “So, how much glass do you need?” they ask, trying to get to the point.

“It’s not about how much. It’s about with what,” says Fresh. “You need dirt, right?”

“Yeah?”

Fresh grabs a bowl and runs over to the sacks of extra dirt that Basil has in the corner and grabs a large handful, filling it up. Hurrying back to the table, she grabs a bottle of moonwater and soaks the dirt with it, making a thick mud. She holds it out to Jubilee.

“Moondirt,” she says plainly, offering them the bowl of muddy slop.

“You can’t just put moonwater in dirt and then decide that it’s called ‘moondirt’, goo-brain,” says Jubilee, shaking their head. Fresh blinks, staring at them blankly for a moment.

She gives the bowl a light shake, allowing the contents to settle.

“Moondirt,” says Fresh again, pointing at the window

Jubilee sighs.

Razmatazz

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