Chapter 24: 25: Something wicked this way comes

Fresh tosses and turns, rolling around on top the pile of blankets down on the floor, as she uneasily tries to sleep. Jubilee had said that she could stay in one of the rooms here, but they hadn’t mentioned that the rooms were completely empty and unfurnished. Fresh grabs one of the blankets that she’s laying on top of and wraps it tightly around herself, shivering and huddling together into a tight bundle. It’s cold in here. The walls stop the wind from blowing in from outside, but they don’t do much more than that. Soon enough though, her exhausted body gives out and she falls into a deep sleep. As her mind drifts away to that dark place and her sense of self seems to be lost to the void, the girl can’t help but notice the swaying sensation of her limp body, which seems to sink downward, as if she were being pulled deep down into the floorboards.

Everything goes black.

A loud yawn rings out around her. If she didn’t know that she was sleeping right now, she’d be sure that it’s her own. Groggily, Fresh looks around, as she floats in the empty void.

“And? Are you enjoying the ride?” asks the voice, stemming from the fountain. Fresh isn’t scared as she hears it ring out around her in the black-water ocean that she finds herself in. It’s like before, when she paid it no mind because she thought it was just part of a weird dream. Though perhaps now, she does give its presence a little more credence.

“It’s harder than I thought it’d be,” answers the girl, sighing, as if this were the most natural event in the world. “- But I made a friend!” she adds on with excitement, trying to clench her fists. But she doesn’t have any hands.

The voice clears its throat and sleepily talks, as if it were just waking up itself from a long nap. “Good for you! Anyways, if it was easy then you’d just get bored and end up like before,” it explains. “The soul needs a struggle to fight against, otherwise it withers.”

“You could have at least made me a little smarter. I feel like my head is a bag of flour,” protests Fresh, trying to cross her arms. “It almost got me killed like four times.”

“But it didn’t and you made a friend. One point for me, zero for you. The method works,” quips the spirit of the water. The current pulsates and surges forward, carrying her bodiless form through the darkness, as the presence seems to float alongside of her.

“But what if I really did die? Or what if I got sold into debt-slavery?!” asks the girl, clearly frustrated.

Her soul is jostled around, as the current takes her somewhere deeper and darker still, though seemingly for no concrete purpose. The entity just seems to want to ‘walk’ while they talk.

“Then you would have learned a lesson,” says the voice, indifferently.

“That’s a really dark thing to say!” protests the girl, remembering all the horrible scenarios that Jubilee had described to her.

The voice yawns again sleepily, going on. “It would have been a dark lesson.” Fresh obviously finds this answer unsatisfactory. “Our deal was that I give you a chance to earn happiness and money,” it explains. “Since then, you’ve made your own choices, since the very first second. Any darkness that might have befallen you, would have been brought by no-one but yourself. You chose to go left.”

The water is quiet for a moment. Fresh looks around herself at the shifting darkness. “Huh…? Left?”

“Sure! Remember when you ran away from the chicken and went left?”

“Yeah,” answers Fresh, somewhat embarrassed that the entity knew about that.

The voice goes on. “What about the other ways?”

“Huh?” repeats the girl.

“The other ways. You could have gone right at the intersection, you know? That would have been a fun life for sure, really heroic, you honestly have no idea. Or you could have gone back and fought the chicken. That would have been a whole thing too, believe me. Real drama. Really romantic; not with the chicken though, mind you. But you chose to go left instead.”

Fresh thinks for a second. “I guess I did, but…”

“- But you don’t know why?” asks the spirit of the water.

“Yeah, I just kind of… went left. I never even thought about it,” responds the girl, pondering.

“Exactly.”

“Huh?” asks Fresh for the third time.

“Left is good too. I can work with left. We can make a whole thing out of it, you know? Really dig our heels into the underlying themes at play here. I might have just the class for that, if we're gonna take a hard turn here.”

The water is quiet.

“Huh?” repeats Fresh again, still lost.

“Give me a coin,” demands the voice rather suddenly.

“No,” says Fresh, her ‘hand’ reaches to hold her pocket tightly closed. But her ethereal fingers grasp at nothing but wet.

The spirit responds, sounding somewhat snarky. “Fine, see if I care if you get some dinky run-down, useless class. Maybe you can become an ornate glass-blower or a scented candle-maker for the church. I don’t care.”

“What kind of class?” asks the girl suspiciously.

The voice sounds annoyed. “Do you want to go all in or not? Is this a new attempt at life, or is it just you half-assing it again and hoping something will change on its own?”

Fresh fidgets. Her non-existent fingers fumbling around with an equally vague coin in her pocket.

The spirit yawns, this time longer and louder than before, as if it were trying to make a point. “If I hadn’t made you as dumb as a bag of rocks, would you have gone left? Or would you have been stuck in your old patterns and grooves and just kept on wallowing, but only in a new body and place?”

Fresh floats, unsure if she has an answer. “I want to choose my own class though.”

“Did you choose your new body?” asks the spirit.

“No…” mumbles the girl.

“Do you like it?”

“I guess so,” relents Fresh, looking away.

“See? I have excellent taste! Give me a coin or let me go back to sleep and figure it out yourself. Time is money.”

Fresh groans.

The water begins to churn and her body begins to move away from the spirit. “Okay, well, I offered. Good nigh-“

“-Fine!” yells Fresh, tossing the coin out into the darkness with some force. The coin spins down and away just in-front of her, having not flown as far as she had hoped. It lazily sinks down into the black-water, drifting and floating away, as it vanishes down into the murky depths below. The current still churns on however, as strong as ever, and her sense of self still spins around and around. The water begins to carry her away as well and as the darkness before her eyes begins to fade and grow lighter, some source of light makes itself present in the void. Sun-rays shine in through the rippling surface above her head.

“Great! Then it’s settled. Anyways, I just wanted to check in now that your class is available, so I-“

“- Ah, wait!” interrupts Fresh again. “Why am I cursed?”

The water surges around her, pushing her away and off into the distance, further and further away, as if the spirit were shoo’ing her out of the front door, so that it could finally go back to sleep.

“Because you went left,” explains the voice as it fades out; sounding far and distant, as it vanishes into the darkness of the murky waters.

Fresh doesn’t have time to respond anymore to the unsatisfactory answer, as her body spirals and surges, as the water carries her back and away to the plane of existence from which she had come from. The coins in her pocket, one light, rattle as her body spasms against the wooden floor of the house.

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The girl opens her eyes, half expecting to hear a crowing rooster. But the only sounds that she is greeted by are the sounds of a single chiming of her menu and the muddy sounding voices of people moving around outside the building, the early morning hours having come.

Rubbing her eyes, Fresh stares past the dull morning sunlight, shining in through the dusty window of the small room, as she looks at the menu-screen floating just before her face.

*~-+ CLASS CHOSEN +-~*

Unique Class: [WITCH] - of the Black-Fountain

Specialization: Maleficium

Witch

An old-world caster class that was once primarily found in the southern regions. They dwelled deeply inside of old forests, mountains and in the hearts of children, laying fearfully awake in the dark. Witches, unlike mages, directly serve old, primal forces, rather than simply being connected to them. As such, each witch is unique to their patron-entities’ design and intentions. The class-name ‚Witch‘ is therefore a disambiguation, as no two witches are alike; each witch carries the title of their contractor.

Dwindling in numbers, there are only a handful left worldwide, as the old ways have been forgotten and forcefully erased entirely by the holy-church. Though dark memories of their presence still haunt the dreams of those who fear the light-less night.

Title: - Of the Black-Fountain

+ [Curse Specialization]

+ [Hex Specialization]

+ [Jinx Specialization]

Specialization: Maleficium

The third branch of witchcraft specializations, Maleficium specifically revolves around the practicing of the dark-arts in order to damage or corrupt people, items and places.

New Ability: JINX

Channel negative energies into a person to lower their LUK in a value equal to your LOV for one hour.

New Ability: CURSE ITEM

Allows the user to imbue a curse onto crafted items. Curses may backfire if performed improperly. Curses can be stacked on top of enchantments.

New Passive: MOONWATER

Allows the user to imbue liquids with some of their own magical energies. The strength of the imbuement is dependent on the current phase of the moon.

*~-+ SUB-CLASS CHOSEN +-~*

Sub-Class: Craftsman

Specialization: Generalism

Craftsman

Jacks of all trades, masters of none. Craftsmen fill the general positions between all of the specialized trades. Working in tandem with carpenters, smiths, alchemists, metallurgists and masons requires a very broad set of skills. Craftsmen fill this wide niche, supporting everyone through their general work. Though in turn, given their broad capabilities, they are not able to specialize in any manner.

Specialization: Generalism

Craftsmen are unable to specialize in any particular field.

“Huh?” Fresh stares up at the menu and then back to the soaking wet book and black-handled dagger laying at her feet. A second later, she jumps up in shock. Her body runs out of the room, her mind preoccupied with being fairly sure that she just did something bad again.

“JUBILEEEEEE~”

Razmatazz

Bubble bubble ~

Trivia - The Left-Hand path

In common western occult practices, there is a split between the so-called right-hand and left-hand paths. The left-hand path symbolizes darker practices such as 'black-magic' and the leaving of common social conventions in order to acheive a desired result 'no matter what'. While the right-handed path symbolizies adherance to shared moral codes and values and is commonly connected with the term 'white-magic'. Though this isn't to say that one is evil and one is good. Left-handed path occultists tend to see it as an acceptance of both the dark and the light of the world at the same time. Using 'unconventional' tools to transform a bad situation into a good one. Nightfall is just as natural as sunrise, after all.

What I'm saying is, Fresh probably would have been able to achieve her dream of becoming a beloved priestess if she went right at the crossroads. But she went left. Yes. It really is metaphors all the way down, haha.

Trivia - Athame

An athame is a specific kind of black-handled ceremonial knife that is the main tool used for several occult rituals. Primarily used by the Hermetic order of the Golden Dawn for banishing spells, it was later adopted by new-age wiccans, neopagans and satanists. Though the first appearances of the term 'Atha(r)me' appeared in the 'Key of Solomon', a grimoire about demonology that was written during the 15th century during the Italian Renaissance.

It is said that athame's are never supposed to be used to draw blood, but rather for creating sigils, circles and other spell-weaving preperations.

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