Chapter 230: 231: Fashionable

Nobody is really mad at her. It’s not like she’s explicitly ever told them that she can’t come back from death. Sure, she hasn’t mentioned that she’s died before now, but they don’t ask either. Fresh just explains that she died in her workshop and that her patron god brought her back, after a harsh scolding for being dumb. This seems to earn the fountain a few sympathy points with Jubilee, who listens intently and then nods approvingly.

“Well, that’s all fucking great,” they say. “But still we have a problem.”

“Yeah,” says Fresh, pulling her blanket up higher. “Can I get a new robe?” she sheepishly asks.

Jubilee rolls their eyes, nodding their head to the side of the bed where her old white dress is lying. The one she arrived in this world in. Jubilee must have dug it out of her bag. “A black one?” she asks. Jubilee spins with their finger in the air, turning around to look the other way and Shamrock turns as well, following their instructions. Basil is just laying there, drooling on the side of the bed. But at least she’s not flailing around. Losing your soul-points must really be deeply exhausting.

“I'll make you a new one, but that’s not the problem,” says Jubilee. “The problem is that we’re opening in eight hours.”

“Huh?”

“It’s night-time, dumb-ass,” says Jubilee, pulling the curtain to the side. Fresh looks out of the dark window for a moment, before slipping under the covers and putting on the robe beneath their shelter. Though, wrestling her hand free from Basil’s is a significant challenge.

“We’ll manage without Basil today,” says Fresh. “We can run a store easy-peasy,” she explains, pulling herself out of the bed again, now that she’s dressed in something that hasn't been shredded into tissue paper. “Thanks for letting me use your bed, Jubilee,” says Fresh. “You can turn around now.”

“She’s not the fucking problem either,” says Jubilee, nodding their head to the door. Fresh hobbles over, noticing that her body still aches in a lot of places. She looks out of the door. The workshop is blown apart. The door and inner wall are blown clear away and so is the outer wall. She can see the neighboring house.

She gasps, realizing all of the rubble must have flown down onto the staircase. “Did anyone get hurt?!” she asks.

“Just you,” says Jubilee, shaking their head. “But the guards were fucking pissed. Not to mention the neighbors, who want us to cover the damages to their house.”

“Take the money from my share,” says Fresh. “I’ll make it back. We should clean up the rubble before morning,” she says.

“Already done,” says Shamrock. Fresh stops, looking at him.

She sighs, relieved. “Sorry I’m a bad friend, guys,” she says.

“Apology accepted,” says Jubilee.

“Hey!”

“Let’s get to work,” they say. “We have a store to get ready,” says Jubilee, staring at her expectantly. Fresh blinks, waiting for a moment, not sure what Jubilee wants from her.

“Ah!” she realizes. “Uh, okay,” Fresh looks around. “Shamrock, bring Basil to bed please, then keep stocking the shelves,” she instructs. “Jubilee, we still need price-tags and numbers for everything, can you take care of that, please?” Jubilee nods. “I’m gonna put up a really fast and quick roof and wall,” says Fresh, looking out towards the destroyed workshop. “In case it rains. Then I’ll make more stuff for downstairs. We still need a display for the bracelets.”

The three of them set to work. Fresh makes her way to the workshop, looking around. The room is entirely destroyed. The table is broken in half, the outside wall and a chunk of the roof are both entirely missing. The inner walls are blackened and scorched and she isn’t sure, but she feels like that little red spot that she can see there on the wall is still a bit of herself.

Talk about grim.

She’s just relieved that the others weren’t here. The floor seems to have survived, more or less, except for a small ‘crater’. That stuff is dangerous. In a world full of magical fireballs, glass spells, monsters and all sorts of things like that, gun-powder seems like a fairly harmless invention. That being said, it certainly was dangerous for her. Oh well, she can ask those kinds of questions later. First things first, she has to fix this roof. It hasn’t rained here yet, but knowing their luck, today was going to be the day. The last thing their new house needs is water damage now too. Fresh scrubs a bit of ash off of the wall.

It takes a couple of hours to ‘fix’ the odd damage. Making an outside wall is certainly a different task than an inner wall. But she manages, working while being constantly terrified that she’s going to fall off of the wall and flop down onto the staircase below. Interestingly enough, she notices that she can get up to their roof this way. Taking a second, she climbs up and walks around on it. It’s entirely flat. Could something be done with this? Maybe.

But not right now.

Bending down, she pulls up several sheets of wood and some plaster and begins making a ‘fake roof’ to keep things dry. After the workshop is sealed back off, she heads to the ledge above the balcony and slowly lowers herself down.

“There,” says Fresh, dusting her hands off on her old, white ‘robe’, stopping to look at herself for a second. She hasn’t had this thing on in ages. She hadn’t noticed it back then, but it really is rather brave for her, or at least for who she used to be. Now she doesn’t really mind so much. Fresh rubs her shoulders, turning her head to look at the old scars on them. She really has changed as a person in a lot of ways. But in a lot of ways she hasn’t. She herself would usually say that she’s gotten smarter and learned a lot since her arrival. But after today, she isn’t so sure if she isn’t just imagining that. But at the very least, if nothing else, she’s become more comfortable in her own skin.

Closing the balcony door, she makes her way downstairs to help get the store ready. Though, she first makes a stop by Basil’s bed, pulling the priestess’ blanket up higher around her shoulders and apologizes to the sleeping figure for making her worry. After that, she sets to work. The first thing is to make the display for the bracelets. That’s easy enough, it’s simply a few bowls in a circle with a wooden stand in the middle, covered in the bracelets. She carves a small, wooden sign with an explanation and sets it next to them.

Four hours remain.

The shelves are ‘entirely’ stocked. Though in all honesty, they’re essentially just stuffed full of the same products, lined all the way down. It isn’t exactly a diverse assortment of wares, but there is certainly at least an abundance of them.

Nodding to herself, she grabs a cart from the door and makes a ‘test run’ through the store. For the authentic experience, she takes off her boots and steps into the damp sand outside past the deck, dragging it in with her on the soles of her bare feet.

The first thing she sees when coming is the counter to her left with Jubilee behind it. To her right are the first shelves. This is where their ‘comfort items’ are. Things people from the beach will want right away, without much fuss. The cooling cabinet stocked with refreshing teas, coffee and coconut drinks is here. Plus some light snacks, like ready to go ice-cream or their ‘crab chips’. She rolls the cart forward, past the heated cabinet next to it, which is full of hot drinks for those gray, cooler evenings, when people are walking along the beach.

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After that comes what Fresh has dubbed the ‘cosmetic’ section. It’s essentially Basil’s area. The priestess has apparently been grinding harder than even Fresh noticed, as the shelves are literally stacked full with creams, soaps, shampoos, salves, bandages and all sorts of lotions to treat everything from sunburns to minor-poisonings. She rounds the corner, heading down the aisle.

Fresh stops, holding the cart in front of herself, letting out a wowed gasp as she looks around at the bright array of colors surrounding her on all sides. Clothes, shawls, towels, swim-wear and summer-dresses of all manner and design line both sides of the aisle. “Jubilee!” she calls out, rushing through the vibrant aisle. “When did you start making all of this?!”

Jubilee looks up from the numbers they’re writing on some paper. “Literally since we got here?” they say, shaking their head. “Thanks for noticing,” sighs Jubilee, turning back to the paper.

“It’s beautiful, Jubilee!” she says, feeling the fabric of a sky-blue summer dress that seems to have been made with particular craftsmanship. She holds it up in the air at an arm’s length, so that it looks like Jubilee is wearing it. Noticing her doing so, Jubilee takes a step to the side. Fresh moves her arm to follow, but then seeing that Jubilee isn’t in the mood to play, she sets the dress back onto the rack.

Heading down the next aisle, past the door to their staircase, she looks at the last aisle which is full of equipment from the dungeon that Shamrock has collected, not having had the opportunity to come up with some items of his own just yet. He’s standing there, stocking the shelves. Fresh lets her hand slide over his back as she walks past and turns the last corner with her cart. “Great job, Shamrock!” she praises. It all still needs some work and a lot of things are still missing and there’s a lot of room for improvement here and there. But as a foundation, the store is solid. Pushing the empty cart around to the counter she stops in front of Jubilee.

“What?” they ask.

Fresh digs into her pocket, setting a coin on the counter. “One hug please,” she requests, leaning over.

Jubilee places a finger on the coin, sliding it back towards her. “All sold out. Come back tomorrow.” Fresh frowns, taking her coin and putting the cart back.

Another hour passes.

She helps Shamrock stock the rest of the shelves.

Another hour passes.

Fresh checks on Basil and then gets the outside area ready. Who knows if they’ll even get any customers today? But if they do, she wants it to be nice and neat outside so they can all sit and eat.

The last hour passes.

Fresh, Jubilee and Shamrock stand downstairs. “Okay, Jubilee, you handle the inside-counter,” says Fresh. “I’ll do the window-counter and try to keep up with the shelves,” she explains. “Shamrock, you’re on crab and shelf duty.” Everyone agrees and Fresh takes a deep breath, not sure what to expect, if anything at all. “You guys ready?” she asks.

“Yup,” says Jubilee. “Not like we haven't done this a thousand times already.”

“Yes,” is all that Shamrock says.

Fresh nods and turns around, grabbing the shutter of the large sales window, looking out towards the beach, she lifts it up.

Razmatazz

And so ends the quarterly 'pre-store' arc =)

That being said, hold on to your butts, because we got big non-store stuff coming soon.

Thank you kindly for reading!

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