Chapter 320: 321: It’s all coming together

“Those sure are a lot of mushrooms,” notes Fresh, looking at the giant basket of mushrooms that Basil is bringing back out of the ‘farm’ in a basket. The priestess walks over to the table in the middle of the library, setting them down, the spriggan running alongside her.

“They’re not good to eat, sadly,” she sighs. “But these can be used in medicine.”

Fresh blinks, staring at the mushrooms and then back towards Basil. “How can we use them for medicine, if we’re not allowed to eat them?” she asks.

“Well… look, see this one here?” asks Basil, picking up a red mushroom with cream-white swirls all over it. “This is a conchatus,” she explains. “They’re very deadly if you eat them as is, but if you boil the caps into a goo and then let it cool and then reboil it again a second time, it’s a very powerful poison-antidote,” she explains. “It’ll give you some stomach trouble for a day or two, but it’s better than dying.”

Fresh nods. That makes sense. “What about these?” she asks, picking up a very long, slender mushroom with a thin, almost spiky cap.

“That’s a kobold’s wart,” explains Basil. “If we dry them and then let them soak in ash-water and then dry them again, they’re potent magic-enhancers,” explains the priestess. “Honestly, these mushrooms are all pretty high-level materials,” she notes, playing with the red bracelet on her wrist. “There’s nothing like them in the other cities, apart from one or two in a rare forest-grove somewhere.” She rubs her forehead with the back of her sleeve, seeming very content, erasing the streak of dirt on it.

“You sure do know a lot about plants, Basil,” remarks Fresh. She still isn’t sure if mushrooms are technically plants or not.

Basil laughs. “Like I said, I spent my entire childhood collecting plants to eat. Then whenever I had free time, I was in the library at the cathedral reading about plants, so that I would know which ones to collect.”

“But none of these are good to eat?” asks Fresh, lifting up a few and looking at the bright blue, wide caps laid down on the floor of the basket.

“Afraid not,” replies Basil, shaking her head. “That kind was only growing inside the house. But maybe it isn’t the best for our house to have fungus growing inside of it,” she says. “It could be bad for our health.”

Fresh frowns, crossing her arms. “I thought it looked mystical and enchanting, right, little guy?” she asks, leaning over sideways to look at the spriggan who is currently running around Basil in a circle for some reason.

“Pakew!”

Basil laughs. “That’s very like you. But we should certainly replace the walls, at least downstairs in the store and upstairs in our area. As for here…” The priestess looks around at the library. The shelves, covered in books and plant-matter that Jubilee has plucked out three times now, are fully regrown and full of life once more. “It might be a lost cause,” admits the priestess. “I think the dungeon-magic is leaking out of the portal and touching this room,” she says.

“Is that why the spriggan’s here?” asks Fresh.

“It could be,” nods Basil, rubbing the spriggan’s giant leaf as it runs another circle around her. “He might just be a ‘wild’ spawning monster like the crabs in the east.

“Wonder why he doesn’t give experience points then?” ponders Fresh.

Basil shakes her head. “Who knows? The world is a weird place.”

Jubilee and Shamrock are currently down in the dungeon, determined to make a real push towards its depths today, in order to get them a solid chunk of money and materials to work with. “Oh, I looked at that powder,” remarks Basil, talking about the harpy-dust. “It’s interesting. Harpies are odd creatures, but we could use it to make some really strong medicine, I think.”

“Really?” asks Fresh. “I figured it would be dangerous because of the dark-attribute.”

Basil smiles, shaking her head. She digs through the basket, picking out a very flat, almost square mushroom that has a dark purple cap. “This is inpertus,” she explains. “It only grows in places where someone with holy-magic has bled,” notes Basil. “Obviously, there are some unsavory connotations about it. But, at the same time…” She turns the mushroom around. “It’s one of the most potent consumption-medicines for children that we know about. It’s very hard to find.”

Fresh scratches her cheek. “Consumption?”

“Lung sickness,” replies Basil, setting the mushroom back down gently onto the basket.

“Oh. Wait, Basil, how much are all of these worth?” asks Fresh, looking at the basket that is heaped full. These all sound very useful and potent, surely it has to be a significant amount?

“Not much,” replies Basil, sadly.

Fresh frowns, her hopes of lunch having been dashed. “Really? Even with this many?”

Basil shakes her head. “By weight, mushrooms are really just mostly water. By the time we dry them, there’s not much left to ground into dust.” She points at the inpertus. “This one has a weight value of one kilogram, but when we dry it and turn it into powder, we’ll probably only get about a tenth of that as an end product.”

“Oooh,” says Fresh. That makes sense.

“Still,” smiles Basil. “This is a real blessing. In the east, I could only make creams and salves with the plants I had. Things for little burns and maybe a sniffle. But this,” she says, sounding very satisfied. “This is going to be real medicine. Even if it’s only a little,” she beams. “As for your harpy-powder, I think we’ll find something for it.”

This is pretty motivating news for Fresh, honestly. She smiles, nodding and then leaves Basil to her work, together with the spriggan who has chosen the priestess today to accompany.

Fresh stands in the downstairs area, looking around the room that they’re going to have the shop inside of. Framing it with her fingers from where she stands at the staircase, she makes a plan.

Medicine, huh?

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That sounds nice. So far, they’ve always sold things like snacks and foods. But with the winter being here and the city being cut off from the outside world for whatever reason, maybe a local source of powerful and readily available medicines is exactly the right thing to offer the people?

It’s something useful. Something that people can eat or drink and, while it might not bring a smile to their face taste-wise, it might do so to those around them, upon seeing their loved ones become healthy again. It fits all of her criteria for the basis of their products. With Basil here willing to make some and to work together with her as well, the abundance of natural, organic ingredients from the dungeon, plus the secret farm, the universe has really perfectly aligned to allow this to happen.

Fresh can’t help but continue to carry her smile that she had brought with herself from upstairs. Fate really is always so kind to her and her family.

So, that means that they need an easily visible counter that people can come to and ask questions at. The shelves need to be lower, so that they can guide and the customers to the right aisles should a question arise and so that there is a smaller chance of any mishaps, should anything get knocked over. Safety comes first, after all.

She supposes that they need to have a section for freely available remedies and one for more dangerous potions and medicines that should only be distributed on advisal, similar to her cleaning-solution from the north. Medicine can have side-effects, after all.

So that means…

Fresh nods. They’re going to have a long, rectangular counter by the door, on the left-hand side when you enter. The entire right side of the store can be dedicated to their products. The left ‘wing’ on the other side of the counter, where the room dips out, can be used for more shelves. Maybe a different section of goods could go there?

They’ll have to block off the staircase though. So that nobody goes upstairs. But she prefers to have the counter by the door, rather than across from it. It feels like it improves the flow of foot-traffic, honestly.

Fresh nods. But she won’t use the scrap wood here for that. They need the store to look professional and clean, after all. Especially if they’re selling medicine. The floor needs to be fixed down here as well.

But what she can do is use this scrap-material that they have heaped here for their own areas of the house. The library needs a good fixing as many of the shelves are crooked and offset and damaged from time and overgrowth.

The upstairs needs a good remodeling, especially the roof that needs to be professionally tended to. But she can start by making it more cozy. They need furniture and while they have beds, there aren’t any closets or wardrobes yet. The kitchen cabinets are dinky and loose and old and, while Jubilee hasn’t asked for a room of their own yet, she assumes that it’s going to happen soon. Some heaters like in the eastern house would be a real luxury too, if she can get some metal again.

Nodding to herself, Fresh grabs a hunk of wood, noticing how light it feels in her arms that have gotten much, much stronger over the course of the year and heads upstairs.

There’s always more work to do.

Razmatazz

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