Chapter 172: 173: Another day

Fresh stands with crossed arms outside of the door, watching as the crates of glass weapons are loaded up onto a cart. She doesn’t see many of them up here on the mountain, carts, let alone any of the anqas who apparently aren’t fond of heights, which she thinks is funny for birds. But then again, they don’t seem like the kinds of birds that can fly. No, rather this is a hand-drawn cart that a couple of men had simply pulled behind themselves.

A cloaked man stands next to it, going over a ledger with Jubilee, as they check off everything in the delivery. It wasn’t exactly a lot of work for her, to make this many glass swords and daggers. She had made a few on the side now and then over a few nights and that was good enough.

“Very good,” says the man from the thieves’ guild, as the last load of weapons are carried out of the store. “This is satisfactory. We’ll be in touch,” says the stranger, stowing the ledger away before climbing up onto the cart.

“Like hell you will,” says Jubilee, pointing at him as the other two men head to the front of the cart. “We’re done. If I see any of you cloaked fucks around here, it’s straight off the side of the mountain with all of you,” threatens Jubilee, pointing at him.

“Sour as always,” says the man, laughing as he nods to the two down before him, who both look as if they’re about to ask why he’s sitting up there, but they both change their minds and start pulling the cart away without saying a word.

Jubilee stands there, their hands on their hips as the men from the thieves’ guild vanish down the tunnel.

“Is everything okay, Jubilee?” asks Fresh as Jubilee sighs and turns back around to go back inside.

“Everything is fine,” says Jubilee. “I’m just glad that’s over with. Good job on the weapons.”

“Mm,” nods Fresh. “Thanks for getting us this opportunity, Jubilee. Even if you don’t like them.”

Jubilee rolls their eyes, walking past her to go back inside. Fresh isn’t sure if she hears right, but on a day that she might have had a clearer mind, she would have thought that Jubilee had said that that’s what friends do.

The day is pretty busy. The new copper rings, despite only being out on the shelf for an hour, have attracted a flurry of attention from customers of any class.

“Do you think it works if you drink wine?” asks an elf.

“It says water,” replies his party member, a fluffy-robed caster that Fresh recognizes. She points at the window.

“…Juice?” asks the elf, sounding desperate.

“It says water,” they repeat. The elf sighs.

“It will do you some good,” explains his friend, poking at his gut, to which he seems to take great offense, judging by the shift in his posture. “Besides, think about it. There’s the river in the dungeon!”

“So?”

“So, it means infinite health!” says the fluffy-robed caster excitedly.

The elf sighs. “Yeah, until my bladder explodes.”

“It’s fine! You can just drink more water to heal that too!”

He groans, uncertainly. “But for this price?”

“We’ll make up for it with the money we save on health-potions!” she argues and he seems to agree with this. The two of them decide to take one ring and then share it between themselves, which in all honesty, isn’t a terrible idea. But it does hurt their sales a little. Most parties opt to follow this method, as the water-healing effect seems to be far more popular than the status-effect negation. Nobody really seems to care about that one.

“Three-hundred-ninety-nine Obols,” says Jubilee as another group comes to buy a ring. Fresh walks past Shamrock, listening to the customers ask him about the resonant-crystal. They had agreed not to make a bunch of them and put them on the shelves. Rather, they’re keeping the one behind the counter as a display piece and are offering them as special orders. Jubilee had said that for an item like this, that this was a great strategy. By creating an artificial scarcity, they could drive the price up and make the item seem even more valuable then it was.

The fact that Fresh and Basil could probably make a dozen together in a couple of hours was, of course, a closely guarded business secret.

“Nine-hundred-ninety-nine,” says Shamrock, pointing at the sign.

“So a thousand?” asks the confused caster talking to him.

He shakes his head. “Nine-hundred-ninety-nine.”

“That’s basically a thousand!”

Shamrock’s breastplate lurches. “One less.”

“That’s a whole gold Obol!”

“Strength comes at a price.”

“I’m only level five, though.”

Shamrock turns his head, looking at Fresh before turning back to the customer and shrugging.

“How else am I supposed to get strong?”

Shamrock lifts his hand, pointing across the room. “Dungeon.”

“Will you take me?”

“No.”

“Aww!”

Someone butts in from the side. “He can’t take you, because he’s going to take me!”

“No,” says Shamrock, his gruff tone never changing. Seeing that he has this under control, Fresh keeps walking. Basil is still fast asleep upstairs, apparently she’s really knocked out from last night.

“Veli! Veli!” asks an excited voice. “Where’d you get those clothes?!”

“I work here,” says Veli, talking to the group of excited fairies that is circling him. “Get off the sheep!” snaps Veli, as one of the fairies rides by on a floating sheep.

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Fresh laughs, glad that he has his hands full too. She had heard him talking with the other fairies earlier, trying to convince them to get jobs or to find some other way to make money, but none of them seemed interested. Eventually, his desperation seemed to vanish after he realized that none of them would listen and he started focusing solely on his duties as an employee. Fresh makes a mental note to console him later, seeing that he just wants to help the others too. They just aren’t able to see what he sees, to see what she herself has seen.

The rest of the morning runs fairly productively. The new rings seem to be attracting a larger customer-base of more extravagant spenders and of course, most of them end up at least buying a few drinks or candies while they’re here too. Fresh isn’t sure if they had any money problems to begin with, in all honesty, but if they did, they seem to be resolved as most customers end up spending several hundred Obols each.

Fresh stops, having reached the far wall. Her head looks back at the resonant-crystal behind herself, floating behind Shamrock with a proud price-tag attached to it.

She should curse it.

“Huh?” mutters Fresh to herself, looking around, as she wonders where that sudden idea came from. She hasn’t cursed anything in a while, not since the lantern. But perhaps for good reason. Then again… maybe she’s leaving money on the table? She crosses her arms, thinking.

On one hand, cursing the crystal sounds like a horrible idea. Even she knows that.

On the other hand, she can modify curses to an extent, so she could make a super-powerful item out of it, in all likelihood. She contemplates asking Jubilee, but then she realizes that she will just get a new bruise for the question, which might not be entirely undeserved.

Deciding that she will just end up causing trouble if she stays down here, Fresh decides to go upstairs and to check on Basil.

The priestess seems to be fast asleep, her head pressed down against the body of a squished sheep, whose front legs are splaying out forward, as if trying to crawl away. Fresh exchanges a deadly glance with its desperate button eyes.

“There’s no escape, Mr. Sheep,” she whispers quietly to it, wagging a finger as she heads to the kitchenette. Seeing the sheep, she remembers her promise to the tired-man, to make him something that would stop good dreams. Though she still doesn’t know why he would want such a thing. Taking a minute, she cooks a herbal tea and then sets it down next to Basil’s bed.

Deciding that that’s a good project to work on today, to keep her idle hands from causing trouble, Fresh heads past the others and down into the basement. They seem to have it covered, so her absence doesn’t appear to be so desperately missed right now.

Heading to her table, she sets to work, making a sheep at first, but then she stops half-way, wondering if this is the right way to go? Making it a sheep would cause it to stop bad dreams, she’s sure of that. Maybe if she painted the kobold-fluff black? There’s certainly some symbolism about black-sheep that she thinks the spell could play off of. But… hmm…

She isn’t feeling ‘it’, whatever it is.

Instead she modifies the body, making it thinner and less fluffy.

As she works, she notices that she’s sweating a little again. It feels oddly stuffy down here in the basement these days. Fresh spares a glance over her shoulder back towards the little air-shaft in the corner. She hopes there isn’t a body in it too. She shudders, returning to her work and making a mental note to bring some flowers to the man’s grave, when she gets the chance.

Lifting up the thin, short-haired sheep, she looks at him, considering what it is that he’s missing to make him look right.

“Ah!”

She sets him down, grabbing a block of wood, which she then first saws in half.

This process is a little wasteful, in all honesty. But she’s only going to make the one, so it’s probably fine. She hopes the trees will understand. Setting one of the wooden blocks before herself, she extracts the shape of a tightening spiral. A heap of saw-dust falls to the table, leaving only the odd shape behind.

Fresh smiles, picking it up and blowing it off. It’s still a little too heavy and too rough though. To remedy that, she first hollows out the inside as best as she can, to get rid of excess material.

Then, she sands the outer layer, leaving a millimeter thin ring, every few inches unsanded, as she worked her way up the spiral. These rings, she leaves there on purpose, so that it has the right texture.

Happy with the results, she repeats the process with the second wooden block. Then, using some of the heavy-duty glue and her abilities, she attaches the horns to the toy’s head.

Fresh nods in satisfaction, holding the thing up in the air, its body silhouetted by the fire of the hearth. “Bleeeeh~” she says to it, beckoning it to life. The ram starts wiggling its legs, as if trying to charge straight at her, but it doesn’t manage to escape her grasp.

A toy ram, enchanted with strong magical energies. Due to its stubborn nature, this ram will ward off any dreams, good or bad.

While within 8m:

Razmatazz

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