Chapter 34: 35: Montage

The rest of the day has come to pass without any further events of note. Fresh sits inside of the house, processing the mushroom-caps that Jubilee had carried to the entrance of the dungeon for her to pick up and bring the rest of the way back, along with some other assorted loot. Fresh isn’t sure how deep down Jubilee can go on their own, but apparently there are plenty of mushrooms down there, she realizes, looking at the stack of caps next to herself. Next to them are indistinct heaps on the floor, covered by blankets from her room. More unprocessed glass bottles. Fresh looks around herself and then down at her new robe, smiling at it, thankful that the black color did a good job of hiding the blue smears. She had thanked Jubilee earlier, but they just waved her off and told her to get to work.

Fresh rubs her face into her elbow, getting some dust off of it, before rising up with the pot in hands to get more water. There's still a lot left to do. Fresh looks around herself at the piles of ingredients. If they’re going to open in a week from now, they need a large stockpile of potions and hopefully some other odds and ends as well. Jubilee had said there was no need to be secretive about some of her crafting, since her 'witchiness' wouldn't be obvious, as long as she doesn't do anything dumb. If they worked in secret, it would just raise more questions than anything else, if anyone was watching them, which they surely are. So it’s fine for her to work here downstairs in the store, by the window. Especially now that they’re safe from the merchant's guild.

Eventually, the night ends and a new day comes.

The pile of glowing, blue soul-potions is becoming larger and larger. Jubilee, after coming back, insisted that they bring them upstairs into the pantry, because the blue glow from all of the bottles was shining out of the window and attracting weird looks from the neighbors. Fresh isn’t too sure anymore how many potions she had made so far. It’s an exhausting process, but each night she goes out to fill several pots with fresh moonwater and so each day she has enough to make more potions. Given the varying strengths of the moonwater, depending on the current phase of the moon that a particular batch was made in, they all end up being just a little different.

Jubilee seems to be slowly running out of caps to bring back, having said that they would need to wait until the dungeon resets again. But that’s okay. Thanks to all of her work, her secondary skills have improved a lot. Her crafting has jumped by several levels, as well as her witch-crafting and with just about every upgrade, she gets just a little faster at making the potions and on some particularly lucky ‘level ups’ she learns a new recipe or two.

This process goes on for another day, until all that Fresh has left to work with are other odds and ends from the dungeon. Her antidotes have gotten significantly better, but the side-effects are still too much. According to Jubilee, commercially bought potions are so good that they don’t even have side effects. She’s getting close though, but isn’t quite there yet.

Fresh stares at the heap of goblin-teeth, wondering what to do with them. But then the idea comes to her, though she does think that it’s rather grisly.

But what else is there to do?

Following the new witch-crafting recipe that she’s learned, she takes two dozen of them, not thinking about how many goblins those came out of and how wet some of them still are, simply opting to instead hold her hands above the heap of teeth and to focus on the recipe. As the glow leaves her hands, the teeth rise up into the air, collecting together.

[Bone-Dagger](Normal)

A small, but heavy dagger made out of a single piece of solid, dense bone. The sharp edge of the blade seems to glint with an unusually dark luster.

3 DMG

+ 1 DARK DMG

Weight: 0.9kg

Value: ???

The dagger falls back down to the floor with a loud clamber and Fresh scrambles back with a surprised squeak, trying not to get cut.

She manages to make another three of them as well, before they run out of teeth. The girl ponders if she should try her ‘item cursing’ ability out. But Jubilee smacks her in the back of the head, costing her a health point after she makes the suggestion.

Another day passes and soon, half of the week is over.

Fresh looks around the empty room. Her crafting level has gotten ‘okay’ish’ according to Jubilee, who is out right now, ordering wood. Apparently her class-leveling would stagnate a little now. They still need to make shelves and a counter. Fresh offers to make them herself. They would save a lot of money that way. Jubilee isn’t convinced at first, but relents once the girl won’t stop nagging and insisting on doing it herself, so that she could be useful.

Another day passes.

Fresh wipes the sweat and sawdust off of her forehead. Apparently, using crafting abilities on wood still makes quite the mess. She sighs, looking around at the floor that she would clearly have to sweep again. But… her eyes raise up with pride towards the simple, large shelf which she had made all by herself. It’s set against the right wall, by the window. This will be their potion section. Jubilee had changed their mind about the glowing bottles, apparently they’re good marketing, as people would always stop by on the plaza in the evening to stare into their window with curious faces. Occasionally, the odd wizard or eccentric caster would come to press their face against the glass, a little too closely, to stare longingly at the bottles. This was always rather awkward for Fresh, who can only ever offer them a timid wave and smile from her side of the glass.

Jubilee insists that they don’t sell a single potion before the big opening, it would help build up some more hype.

Another day passes.

The shelves are done, Jubilee had bought more wood than they needed and so all around the room stands shelving now, as well some waist high bins in the middle of the space. At first, Jubilee asks Fresh what she is doing, building the store up like this. But the girl just winks and says to trust her. Jubilee plainly says ‘no’ to that statement, which stings a little, but isn’t entirely unfair. She couldn’t tell Jubilee that she had watched a documentary about supermarkets once in her old life though, that would be weird. But she could implement some of the strategies that she vaguely remembers.

Curiously, those memories of her old life are becoming oddly nebulous though. Still, the ideas are there. Make people walk around to the entire store to get the staple goods that they need, so that they would pick other things up on the way. Put the cheaper items down on the lowest shelf and the most expensive ones on the eye-level shelves. Fresh explains these concepts as if they are her own and Jubilee stands there, dumb-founded. Fresh almost feels bad, as Jubilee approvingly praises her for using her brain.

Once Jubilee leaves for the day to go to the dungeon, Fresh sighs and sets to work on the counter. She had asked if Jubilee could take her down again to get some more levels, but Jubilee had denied her for now. There was too much else to do, they said. Fresh knows that they aren’t entirely wrong. She looks over to her grimoire, that even now after days is still damp. Apparently it just always is. She hadn’t had a quiet moment to read it yet either. Fresh sighs and sets to work, making a counter, promising herself that she’s going to make it good.

Another day passes.

Their ‘inventory’ is still rather plain and the shelves are mostly bare, save for the blue soul-potions that line a full wall, sorted by the strength of their effects, given the variance of the moonwater. The daggers make for good optics though and she had managed to make a few more now. Apparently they're very decent beginner weapons, according to Jubilee. All of their other assorted ‘left-over’ goods from crafting, they opted to put into the bins in the center of the space, if only to fill them. Fresh smiles. Her antidotes are just about side-effect free now too and Jubilee had said that they could put the low-risk ones out as well.

Each night after their work, Fresh loudly insists that the two of them eat together. Jubilee protests at first, but relents eventually after she starts loudly crying in front of the window. People were watching, after all.

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Another day passes. It’s almost time.

Neither of them heard word from the merchant’s guild once during the week and she simply assumes that they're in the clear, for now. Though occasionally, they feel a pair of prying eyes pressing themselves just a little too close against the window, staring a little too keenly with an oddly serpentine gaze. Fresh’s crafting skills are fairly decent now and she is able to make their glass flasks in more or less with only a flick of her hand. But they still have the problem that they have a very poor selection of wares. Fresh stares at the block of matte sanded glass in her hands, wondering what to do with it. Bottles are always good, but people don’t seem to want to buy empty bottles. Adventurers have more bottles already than they knew what to do with, since they buy potions so often. Glass bottles on their own are about worthless here, inside of the core of the city.

The idea hits her and her eyes go wide.

“What are you doing?” asks Jubilee, standing there with crossed arms, as they watch the girl who is huddled over the large block of glass with a possessed look in her eyes. She shoots a quick glance over to Jubilee, but doesn’t say anything as she returns to her work. Jubilee shrugs and goes upstairs, mostly indifferent.

Fresh works, tears forming in her eyes as the glass takes shape. "It’s beautiful," she mutters to herself.

An hour later, the small boots come back down. Fresh raises her gaze and her eyes meet Jubilee’s with fire as she holds out her arms, lifting up the heavy thing that she had spent an hour making. With a strong feeling in her heart, she leans forward towards Jubilee and shouts with a bright smile -

“BAKAAAAAAW!”

Jubilee stares at the glass-chicken. “What the fuck?”

“I made a chicken!” beams Fresh with pride clearly shining in her eyes.

“…Why?” they ask, incredulously.

Fresh stops, taking a moment to turn the chicken around, so that it faces her and she tilts her head curiously as their eyes meet. Why did she make this? Lost, Fresh looks back at Jubilee, facing them together with the chicken once more. “…Bakaw?”

Jubilee groans and leaves.

Another day passes, the final one having arrived. They'll open tomorrow. The shelves are filling fast. Jubilee has brought some other curiosities back from the dungeon, but Fresh isn’t too sure what to do with a lot of them just yet. On the final day, the two of them spend some time together, cleaning up the ‘construction site’ of the store. With some pride, Fresh sets to work on her final task, engraving a sheet of matte glass with the name of their store. Once the grooves are made, she takes a tincture made out of a very thick soul-potion and some charcoal and smears it into the rough pores of the engraved letters. It’s a fragile construction, being made out of glass and goo, but it‘s catchy to the eye because of the bright colors, the glass and because it glows all by itself and that’s what’s important.

Fresh looks with pride at the glass sign, their name standing out and glowing with a dull shine from the hardened residue of the magical potion and Jubilee nods to her in affirmation again. This time she feels that she’s earned it.

The evening comes one last time and then so does the final night. The store is ready, or as ready as it can be. Jubilee has also brought back some more assorted items from the dungeon. Uncommon drops, apparently. Some clothes, some weapons, some trinkets. They would get more for them if they sell them themselves, rather than to a merchant.

Night falls and as they say goodnight to each other, Fresh enters her room and flops onto the mound of blankets on the floor, opting not to make any moonwater tonight for the first night in a week.

Fresh's eyes fall shut in an instant and she sinks into a deep, well-earned sleep.

Razmatazz

Today's chapter was written a little differently as you might have noticed since we 'time-skipped' a week, given that the week was basically nothing but repetitive crafting and small stuff. This marks our first time-skip in this story and I would like to know how you feel about it. Are you in favor of skipping over 'idle time' like this in the future, or if you would rather we don't do it again and take the long way from now on? This chapter for example would have probably been about a few days worth of 'plotless' content as it were, if we had taken the long way. So mostly character interaction, world-building and so on.

Thank you kindly for reading!

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