Chapter 222: 223: Close quarters

It’s been a week since then.

Life in the desert isn’t so bad really, once you get used to it. Fresh stands out on the terrace of a small teahouse and bakery that Basil had invited them all to and stares out over the endless expanse that they had left behind themselves on the way here. In a way, staring out over the desert is a lot like staring out over the ocean. The shifting sand, moving in the strongly gusting wind, is in many ways a lot like the crashing waves of the sea. Dunes rise and fall, coming and going. Though perhaps not at the same tempo as the water, only ever changing over the course of days. Still, in her mind at least, the principle is the same.

Jubilee and Shamrock had both declined, the former saying that ‘there isn’t time for them all to have a play-date tea-party like a bunch of five year olds.’ Shamrock simply said that he wanted to kill monsters. Certainly, both of them have a point in that they don’t have a lot of luxury-time right now. But maybe a little relaxation will help their work more than grinding through and risking burning out.

“Are you ready to go back?” asks Basil, standing next to her and finishing the last of her tea. Fresh nods.

“Thanks, Basil,” says Fresh, setting her empty cup down. “This was nice.” The two of them head back to their room that is slowly starting to become more and more grisly day by day.

“Do something about these fucking monkey-paws!” barks Jubilee, gesturing at the cooling-cabinet that is entirely full of crab-claws, severed monkey-paws and coconuts. “I’m getting sick of those fucking things falling out every time I want to get some water.” It was a little grim at first, but she finds that she’s gotten used to the sight very quickly.

“I don’t know what to make with them, Jubilee,” says Fresh. “What am I supposed to make with monkey-paws and crab-snippies?” she asks, making a pinching motion with her hands.

Jubilee sighs, crossing their arms. “You’re the witch, think of something, will you?” they ask.

“Ooh…” relents Fresh sadly, softly beating her chest before picking up a paw from the fridge. Actually, now that she’s holding one, she realizes that this is pretty grim after all. The poor monkeys. She wishes the dungeon had come up with some other kind of monster. She quickly sets the paw back inside, opting to take a crab-claws instead.

This somehow doesn’t make her feel better. Those poor crabs…

She sighs. Her friends are counting on her, so it’s time to do some grim work, if she likes it or not.

Fresh spends the day cracking the claws open, separating the meat and the shell. The meat she puts into cold storage. Food is always good to have around. As for the defleshed shells, she isn’t really sure yet, honestly. Fresh sits there, snapping a large, processed claw open and closed for a while as she tries to think of an idea.

“Will you stop that damned clacking?!” barks Jubilee from across the room.

“You sure do complain a lot,” says Basil from the other corner.

“I have a lot to complain about,” sighs Jubilee. Fresh clacks the claw closed one more time. Or is it a pincer? She blinks. What’s the difference? She has no idea. Her eyes wander down to the snippy-thing in her hand. Well, the menu says it’s a ‘claw’ so that’s probably right… right?

She shrugs. It really doesn’t matter. Though, the cramped space is even getting to Basil too, apparently. Everyone is getting a little crabby.

Fresh starts laughing at the joke that she had told herself in her own mind, receiving some annoyed looks for her trouble.

But in all seriousness. After weeks of being heaped on top of each other in the cart and then in the shared bed here, everyone needs a few meters for themselves now. That’s why Jubilee has the ‘box corner’, Basil has the front-right, across from the door, and Fresh, having the luxury of luxuries, has the ‘bed corner’, which she doesn’t really use. Shamrock just kind of doesn’t care and sleeps wherever he happens to drag his mattress to that day. Fresh had unrolled some of her crystal-drakonium mattresses for the others too.

Crab… weapons? No, she’s already rejected that idea. Crab… armor? Eh… maybe. Fresh ponders, scratching her cheek. Crab… crabs? Her eyes go wide. She could grind up the crab shells into a fine powder and mix it with some resin to make tiny crabs that are made out of crabs!

No… no… that’s too dark. She shakes her head, trying to come up with a better idea. She spends the rest of the day on that project.

The next day comes.

Fresh is walking on the beach, together with the others. They aren’t hunting crabs though, this area is already very densely populated with adventurers. All around them, spells are flying and people are running this way and that, carrying all manner of swords and other more exotic weapons. Crabs die left and right. It’s a slaughter. But more crabs just appear in the sand a few meters away, their constant respawning perpetuating the cycle of carnage.

“It’s a really lively area,” says Fresh, looking around at the starter-zone. Low-level groups of all kinds are running around, slaughtering crabs left and right.

“Yes, I’ve heard that the forest outside of the north used to be like this too,” says Basil. “Just with mush-mushes. Also around the dungeon-gate there.”

Fresh nods, she had assumed as much. She would have loved to see that. “So what are we doing out here, guys?”

“Observing the target market,” says Jubilee, leaning back against the stone wall of a house down on the lowest tier, next to a staircase, its door opening right to the soft sands. Fresh imagines it must be a nightmare to sweep.

“Oh,” she says, having expected something more dramatic. The three of them stand there for a while, just watching the adventurers run along the beach in all directions. It’s an absolute frenzy. But the exercise does prove useful. She sees a lot of things.

For example, after about an hour or two of crab-hunting, most groups go back up the staircase again, to take a break for some fresh water and to get out of the sun for a while. Cold drinks could do well here. Plus maybe some kind of shady area to get out of the sunlight, but closer to the beach? Like a beach-café of sorts? Others instead take the bolder way and dive into the ocean to cool off. Swim-wear seems to already exist here, though the material is less than ideal, being what looks like some kind of dense linen? She isn’t sure. But maybe some kind of crystal-drakonium blend could work as a great swim-wear fabric?

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Some of the adventurers also have absolutely no problems fighting the crabs inside of their bathing suits. Enchanted-battle-bathing suits? Fresh nods. It’s a good idea.

“Ow. Ow. Ow,” says an elfish-girl, walking with her arms outspread away from the beach. She’s as red as Jubilee’s clothes. The orc behind her slaps her on the back and she lets out a pained scream as he leaves a pale, white imprint on her sun-burn.

Sun-screen! Fresh nods. “This was a really great idea, Jubilee! I got a lot of new ideas!” she says, looking out at the dungeon across from them. Her eyes wander over the back of the orc from a second ago, seeing a large, intricate, tribal tattoo of… a chicken? She blinks. Leaning over, she whispers to Jubilee, not sure if this is a rude thing to be asking. But now she really has to finally find out. “Jubilee? How come orcs like chickens so much?” she asks quietly.

Jubilee looks at her, leaning to the side to look past her at Basil. “She’s asking the chicken-question,” says Jubilee. “This is your territory.”

“Hey!” says Fresh, looking over her shoulder, feeling only a little betrayed.

Basil seems indifferent. “Well, you see,” starts the priestess. “The very first hero was an orc,” she explains. “- and a chicken-farmer.”

“Really?” asks Fresh.

Basil nods. “This was hundreds of years ago, mind you,” she says. “But since then, their culture has adopted the chicken as a symbol of good power, stemming from humble beginnings.”

“Oh,” says Fresh. That makes sense.

“It’s kind of like how we humans attribute the symbol of the sun to the hero. It’s the same thing, just… with a chicken.” Fresh nods. “Anyways,” says Basil, turning her head to look at Jubilee. “Can we get to it? I’m getting red.”

“Some sunlight will do you some good,” says Jubilee.

“Says you!” argues Basil, crossing her arms.

“Says me,” says the fully obscured Jubilee, turning around.

Fresh looks at them. “What are we doing, guys?” she asks curiously.

“House-hunting,” says Jubilee, pushing open the unlocked door of the sky-blue house. Fresh stares down at the entry-way. There is sand everywhere.

She knew it.

Razmatazz

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