Chapter 25: 26: In the water

“You did what?”

Fresh clutches her damp hair, crying. “I had a dream about being underwater and I paid a magical-spirit to give me a class because I went left!” shouts the girl a second time at the masked figure, who is standing there in the doorway that leads into their darkened room. A hastily gloved hand rubs the front of their mask to securely adjust it into place.

Jubilee stares up at her, lost. “What…?”

With shaking legs, Fresh falls down to her knees and grabs their shoulders with both of her hands. “I’m sorry! Don’t be mad at me!” Jubilee winces as she touches them.

“…What?” They repeat again, letting out a sharp breath and tilting their head, their voice still just as emotionally lost and confused. Blinking, Jubilee shifts their gaze downward, looking down at the wet spots on the Fresh’s robe. “Look. If you wet the bed, you can ju-“

“- I didn’t! Look!” Fresh opens her menu and Jubilee stares at it for a moment, before looking back to her and then back to it.

“I thought you wanted a crafting class?” They ask her, somewhat confused and a tinge annoyed. “Did you really sneak out in the middle of the night just to pick some -” They stare at the window again. “A FUCKING WITCH?!” Jubilee’s voice is loud and confused. They hush themselves a second later, their posture tightening as they eye her warily up and down. “Where did you even…?! How did you -”

“- It was in the water!” Fresh holds her crying face as she looks at Jubilee who is backing off and moving a step away from her. “It was the thing in the water!” yells the girl, placing her hands back onto Jubilee’s shoulders as she shakes their small body, pulling them back closer. “Please don’t be mad!” cries the girl as she looks at Jubilee’s deeply narrowing eyes and hand that is moving to the pouch of dirt on their belt.

Jubilee inhales sharply, pushing her hands back off of themselves. “So let me get this straight. You had a dream -”

“I did!” says Fresh with a nod, looking back up to them.

“- And in this dream, some ‘thing’ offered you a class, if you… paid it a coin? In the dream?” asks Jubilee.

“It did!” Fresh says, leaning in closer to Jubilee, who does the opposite.

“- And now you’re telling me that your dream was real and that’s why you have some obscure, evil, caster class from the ass-end of the world?”

“It iiis~” cries Fresh, slumping over Jubilee, who takes in another sharp breath and tenses up as she touches their clearly uncomfortable gestalt once more.

“Are you stupid?”

“I aaam, p-please don’t stop being my frieeend~” howls Fresh, grabbing them tightly. Jubilee lets out another strange, sharp grunting sound as they inhale a single quick breath, just as Fresh clutches them. Somewhat agitated they push the girl back off once again and look back to the menu. Raising a gloved finger, they tap against it. “Well, putting all that midnight-fuckery aside, at least you have a decent sub-class.”

Fresh sniffles. “I- I do?”

“Yeah,” Jubilee holds her palm out, to keep the girl at a distance. “Craftsmen aren’t really great at anything, but they can do a bit of everything, you know? Real all-rounders. I didn’t think about it before but… having a crafting sub-class isn’t a bad idea for you.” They rub the bottom of their mask, where their chin is, as they think. “Maybe combined with the witch-class… hmm… but, shit.”

“So you believe me?!” asks Fresh, clenching her fists at her chest.

Jubilee makes an uncomfortable noise that spans somewhere between a sigh and an unsure groan. “It’s a stretch, but I guess cursed people have had weirder things happen,” they say. “It makes sense that whatever cursed you also made you a witch… I guess…? I don't know.” They look down again, thinking. “This is all fucked. But-” they repeat a second time now.

Fresh looks at their troubled eyes. “But what?”

“You’re really pushing it, you know? It’ll be a real problem if anyone from the church finds out a cursed person is in their city. It’ll be twice as bad if a cursed witch is in their city and especially with this specialization…” Jubilee rubs their head in frustration. “You really are trying to die, aren’t you?”

Fresh tilts her head. “Huh? Aren’t there casters everywhere?”

“Witches are all casters, but all casters aren’t witches, dumb-ass!” barks Jubilee. “Most of the casters in this city are more mainstream. Wizards, tower-mages, priests and so on-” Jubilee lets out a noise that sounds like a quiet scream which is trapped down in the bottom of their throat as they grab their head, turning around and waving her off to think for a second. “Of course you’d get a class that’s going to be a pain in my ass!”

Fresh gets back up, wiping her eyes. Is this bad? Witches were a common staple in her old life, at least in popular media while she was there. Though perhaps historically their reputation was problematic, to say the least. Seeing her confused expression, Jubilee relents, perhaps having expected nothing less and turns back around to face her.

“Look slime-brain, witches are real child-eating, cauldron-stirring, mushroom-picking forest dwellers. Okay?!”

“Huh?”

“They were common enough that people still sort of, vaguely, know about them now. But not really!” Jubilee pokes a finger into her gut and Fresh winces. “There’s a real, justified stigma in the cities, especially up here in the north against witches,” they explain. “Like, really rarely one gets called in from the most ass-backwards neck of the south. When some fat-ass noble gets an obscure hex or whatever put on them and then it’s always a real hush-hush thing,” they say in a hushed whisper. “Covered carriages in the middle of the night, armed escorts, veils, the whole deal. But even those witches are all specialized in primal magics or brewing. Those can be used for good things now and then.” Jubilee pulls their finger back and pokes it into her stomach again several times, perhaps just for the sake of watching Fresh wince and make a slight squeaking sound each time.

“But malificum is bad news! It literally only exists to make other people miserable, so as you can imagine, people-“ their finger pokes into her again. “Get-“ again. “A little-“ again. “- Antsy!” again, but harder now. Fresh squeaks one final time and pulls back, rubbing the sore spot on her stomach. “And what the fuck is a black-fountain?! That just sounds ridiculously evil!” whispers Jubilee in venomous frustration. "What did you do?!"

It couldn’t be that bad, right? Laughing nervously, the girl scratches her cheek, trying to find something to hold on to. “Is it… is it at least a strong class?”

Jubilee stands there for a second, not saying anything. They lean back against the door-frame, staring down to the ground, averting their eyes from her for a time. After a long, quiet, delay, they look back up towards her. “I couldn’t tell you. I’ve never seen a witch in person. Do you have any abilities? You should have learned a spell or two?”

“Ah!” Fresh’s eyes light up and she runs back to her room, coming back out a second later with the dripping book and the ritual dagger. “A bunch! But I also got this!”

“A wet book and a dinky kitchen-knife…?” asks the obscured figure incredulously.

Pursing her lips, Fresh puffs her cheek out and looks at the large old book in her hands. It’s fairly heavy, especially since it’s wet. The cover is rather plain looking, adorned only with the depiction of a chalice and the whole thing is bound with a dark, grayish-blue leather. She doesn’t know what exactly the boundary between a book and a tome is, but she feels like this book is ‘tomey’. It’s heavy and old.

“And your abilities?” asks Jubilee, sounding defeated as they get back to the point.

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“Ah! I can steal people’s luck!” exclaims Fresh proudly, as she explains her very first spell.

Jubilee jabs a finger back towards her. “That’s really bad! Don’t be proud of that!”

Fresh purses her lips again as she scratches her cheek, thinking. “…I can… curse items?”

“That’s even worse!” hisses Jubilee in new frustration, clenching their hood and pulling down on the fabric.

“Oh, and I can make moonwater,” says Fresh, remembering the passive ability.

“Moonwhat? What the fuck-?” asks the obscured figure, ready to give up entirely now.

“Moonwater,” says Fresh simply, her hands instinctively opening the grimoire which is held below herself, as she continues to stare at Jubilee. Her fingers peel the wet pages apart and she opens a specific page in the middle of the heart of the book. “Huh?” The girl lowers her gaze now to look down towards it, only now realizing that she had opened the book at all, let alone to exactly the right page. Somewhat confused, she holds the grimoire out to Jubilee and repeats plainly. “Moonwater.”

Jubilee leans in. “Of all the weird, cauldron-bubbling, forest bulls-“ their eyes narrow as they read the lines of the hand-written text filling the pages, next to an array of occult illustrations that are all drawn in a thick, black ink. “Huh…” The expression of their eyes and posture seems to soften a bit. “This one seems surprisingly… okay. So, it’s like enchanting, but… for potions?”

Fresh shrugs. “I don’t know. But maybe we can use this! For-“ she stops herself. “For… you know? The thing.” She winks. The girl looks around the dark hallway behind herself, half-expecting to see someone standing there and listening to them.

Jubilee looks back up to her, thinking. “Well. Fuck me, I guess.”

“Huh?” asks Fresh, somewhat taken aback. Did she do something wrong? Well, she did, but…

“You might actually have done something useful,” says Jubilee, relenting with a final sigh and a shake of their head. “What a world.”

“Huh?” Fresh’s eyes light up. That isn’t what she expected to hear. “Really?!”

“Maybe. But listen-” Jubilee leans in towards her again, shushing her, a familiar venom growing in their voice. “Don’t tell anyone about this, okay? Nobody. If anyone asks, tell them you’re a craftsman. It’s your sub-class, so you can probably get away with it.”

“What if somebody wants to see my menu?” asks the girl curiously.

Jubilee parrots her in a mocking voice. “What if somebody wants to see my menu~” They plant their hands on their hips. “Then don’t show them, goo-brain!” The small figure takes a second to breathe. “Okay, lets see your craftsman stuff,” they say, waving with beckoning fingers. Fresh nods, but then just stands there idly.

“Well?” asks Jubilee, annoyed.

The girl scratches her cheek. “I don’t know how to… you know…? Do… stuff.”

“Are you st…” Jubilee stops themselves and lets out yet another sigh. “Wait there.” They turn around and walk back into the dark room, grabbing one of the large blue-caps that Fresh had decided to keep for their work. Jubilee hands it up to the girl, who sets her grimoire and knife down to take it. Though she's not quite sure what to do with it. Tilting her head, she feels the idea come to her, though she also isn’t quite sure from where exactly. Maybe it just seems obvious, or maybe it’s because of the vague sound of flowing water coming from outside of the house from some unseen source. It almost sounds like a whisper in her ear.

A glow shines out from her hands, like when Jubilee mended her bag. The light engulfs the blue mushroom-cap entirely.

Her hands become empty, a heap of blue powder seeps through her fingers like fine sand and falls down to the ground, sending a wave of extremely soft, smooth particulate up into the air. The girl gasps, her face beaming. “Jubilee! Jubilee! I used an ability! I have an ability! I have magic!” shouts the girl proudly, too loud, bouncing on the balls of her feet, as she looks down to her friend with her excited and shining eyes.

Jubilee glares up towards her with a fuming expression. Their gaze clearly scowling through the heap of blue dust that covers their head.

Razmatazz

-) Sliiiight easter egg in this chapter for any Respawn Condition readers.

-) Tomorrow, progress happens. Is such a thing even possible in this story? Apparently! =)

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