Chapter 229: 230: Alchemical reaction

Blazing rays of sunlight shine down onto the beach, on what feels like a particularly hot day, even by the desert’s standards. But despite the heat, the shoreline is full of adventuring parties, most of whom end up as red as the crabs they’re fighting, from the intense sunlight.

The four of them are just getting everything set up for their opening tomorrow. Basil and Jubilee are running around the beach, carrying a large, isolated metal container filled with pre-scooped ice-cream, served on little waffle-crackers, that they’re handing out as free-samples to the many adventurers all around the dungeon. It seems that fighting the crabs outside of the dungeon is even more popular than going into it, at least amongst the low-level groups. Apparently, the eastern dungeon is bordering on close to mid-level territory already in the lower floors. Mr. Monkey seems to be the cut-off point, which really does make Fresh wonder. Most of the world’s population must be low to mid-level at best, from what she has seen. It seems that high-levels are really rare, for whatever reason.

Maybe nobody just ever lived long enough to get there?

The ice-cream seems to be a hit though and she spares an occasional glance off of their balcony, watching as her friends make the rounds and are accosted more than once, not only by some crabs, but also by some people hoping to get a second helping.

Shamrock is stocking the shelves downstairs and she sits here, trying to come up with a use for those monkey paws. They’re really a very awkward item to process. What can you even do with a hand?

She could use the monkey’s bones to make weapons…?

No, Fresh shakes her head. They already ‘did’ bone-weapons back in the north. She sighs, leaning out over the balcony. They were said to be good for magical crafting, but…

Looking down, she watches as a crab scuttles its way towards the front-door below that she can’t see from here. She is sure that it’s closed, yet somehow, she knows that the crab is going to find its way inside despite that. She turns around, cupping her hand by her mouth to yell back down the stairs. “Shamrock! Crab!” she calls, listening to the sound of metal boots after that.

Crab?

She blinks, repeating the word in her mind and grabbing a monkey’s paw, running past the kitchen and into her workshop. She throws the paw onto the table and grabs a jar of moondirt and a big, hollow crab-claw. There is a large crate at her feet that she shifts to the side with her boot. Basil had brought it in here for some reason days ago. Probably dried herbs. In a rather macabre spectacle, she stuffs the monkey’s paw inside of the hollow claw and then pours in the moondirt, giving it a good shake, before setting it into a bowl and closing her eyes, focusing on her abilities.

She opens her eyes again, looking at the odd thing that lands into the bowl before her. It’s uh, it’s kind of gross, honestly. It’s a big heap of moondirt, crab dust and ground up monkey’s paw, all in a big bowl. This would work better with sand than with dirt, she feels. Related to that, Fresh makes a mental-note to ask Jubilee to help her make glass out of ‘moonsand’ later. But for the sake of the experiment, it should be fine.

“Rest in peace, Crabby,” she says under her breath, using a scoop to get a heap of the ‘gunk-dust’, that not even the system has given a name, out of the bowl and spreads it out on the table into a thick line of powder, about the width and length of her fore-arm. The principle of the composite material is in a sense, the same as crystal-drakonium, but different. This isn’t supposed to be bouncy. Though, she honestly doesn’t even know what it’s supposed to be. She’s just doing what feels right, as she listens to the crashing waves outside of their house.

Her hands glow. The long streak of powder solidifies into what looks like a stick. She picks it up, tapping it against the edge of the workbench curiously. In that second, Fresh turns her head, looking at the menu that has appeared for a moment before the flash of light envelops her eyes. “Hu-”

☠️ POISON ☠️

Warning: Highly volatile. Highly explosive. Handle with care!

[Demon’s Tether] absorbed: {Explosive damage(20)}

(Fresh) [HP: 0/13]

+~*-_ YOU HAVE DIED _-*~+

Her ears ring and she completely loses her orientation in the ensuing flash of light that roars around her. Everything is bright. Everything is loud

And then, everything is quiet. The world turns black.

An audible sighing can be heard coming from all around her, being carried through the rushing water. “You had to smack it against the table, didn’t you?” asks an exhausted voice that rings out all around her.

“Did I die?” asks Fresh, floating in the black-ocean as a vague entity with no body.

“You sure did,” replies the fountain. “And how. That explosion turned you right into mist.”

“Is Shamrock okay?!” she asks.

The entity that is the fountain floats around her. “Who? Oh. He’s fine,” it says, indifferently. “Usually we’d lose some time when you have to respawn, but I’m cutting some corners here,” says the fountain. “We need to make progress. Don’t throw that stuff around next time.”

“Will my friends know that I died?” she asks.

“Is that still a secret?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” it asks. “They already know that they can come back, so why is it weird if you do too?”

“I don’t know!” she replies, frustrated and unable to explain her feelings. It sighs.

“We’re fixing your body where it is. Well… ‘is’. You’re really a little bit everywhere right now,” it explains. “Maybe take a deep breath,” suggests the fountain. “This is gonna hurt.” Fresh feels herself floating away. The current pushes her off to some dark place, as if shushing her out of the door. “And uh, don’t open your eyes.”

“What do you mean?” she asks.

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“I mean it’s going to hurt,” says the fountain. “A lot. And don’t open your eyes. Bye.”

Fresh opens her eyes and screams. It hurts like nothing she’s ever felt before. Before her vision goes black again immediately from the pain, the last thing she sees is a black-goo oozing out of her body where her arms should be.

She isn’t exactly asleep after that, but she also isn’t awake. For the next period of time, Fresh feels like she’s just floating in that vague state that one is in when laying in bed and only a second before falling to sleep. It feels heavy, like a pull, like an anchor restraining her down to the ground. All the while, while she’s in that foggy state of existence, she can feel a constant, throbbing ache in her entire sense of self.

Eventually, she returns to wakefulness, finding herself laying in a bed that isn’t hers. She smells Jubilee all around her. This must be their bed.

Fresh opens her eyes, looking around the room. Yup. This is Jubilee’s new room. She wiggles her toes and fingers. All still there. Sheesh, what a dangerous item. She supposes that she just made some kind of gun-powder at the fountain’s behest. “Hey, guys,” she says, looking at her friends. All three of them are hovering around the bed and in a way that she feels very guilty about seeing, it makes her happy to see them all worried. Because the pained expressions visible on their faces, the expressions of their eyes and postures are all painted as they are in this second for her sake.

Fresh realizes that she maybe really is a bad, selfish friend.

Basil doesn’t stir, her head resting on the side of the bed as if she were asleep. Jubilee just sighs and Shamrock seems to lessen his stiffness. That’s about the only initial response she gets. “Sorry,” says Fresh. “Are you all okay?”

“What the fuck happened?” asks Jubilee, ignoring her question.

Fresh rolls her neck from side to side, getting a feel for her body. It really does seem to be in one piece. “I was making some stuff and I exploded,” she explains, pulling her hand out from the blanket and scratching her cheek. “Poof.”

“We were fucking worried,” snaps Jubilee, glaring at her.

Fresh stops, lowering her hand again, realizing that she shouldn’t make any jokes right now. “Sorry,” she apologizes. “I think Basil’s lantern saved me,” lies Fresh, looking down at the priestess who is fast asleep at her side despite the commotion. “I’m okay. Sorry if I made you guys worry,” she says, sitting upright and holding the blanket against herself. She realizes that her left hand is still trapped in the sleeping priestess’ grip.

Jubilee sighs again. “I fucking told you people it would be fine,” they say, looking at Shamrock as he’s the only left to talk to. He just shrugs.

“What’s with Basil?” asks Fresh, shaking her. The priestess mumbles something, but doesn’t lift her head.

“Drained dry like a vampire’s tits,” says Jubilee.

Fresh looks around. “Huh?”

“She used up all her soul-points,” explains Jubilee. “Told her it was a waste of time since you were at full health anyways,” they say, shrugging. “But when does anyone ever fucking listen to me?”

Now Fresh doesn’t feel good about her friend’s worry anymore and she realizes rather suddenly why she hasn’t been telling them about her ability to respawn for this entire time. Because she wants them to worry about her. She wants their attention in a powerfully dramatic, childishly selfish way. She wants them to dote on her and to look out for her and to care for her well-being and to pat her on the head and tell her how good and important she is and they will, in her eyes, do this far more extravagantly if they feel that she only gets one precious life which they have to protect with every fiber of their beings. If they knew that she could respawn, then that would cheapen the value of her existence to them. That’s what she has apparently felt, at least.

But now she realizes that that’s nonsense and that she really is a horrible friend. She is terrified for each of them every single day even if she knows for a fact that they can respawn too. So why would it be different the other way around? Maybe she really does deserve her old life more than this one? Maybe she really does deserve this world’s perception of witches.

“I just lied,” admits Fresh, lowering her head. “I think I died. I think I died and came back,” she says.

Razmatazz

*Rattles empty Chekov's gun*

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