Chapter 36: 37: Dark Clouds

Several hours have passed and it is now just beyond the start of the evening. Fresh looks at the gray-clad man, standing there with crossed arms, her face somewhat agitated as she stares at what appears to be their last customer of the day.

"I'll give you forty," he says, upping his offer from before.

Fresh raises a finger, pointing at the bone-dagger with her other hand. "It costs forty-nine though."

"Fine, forty-two."

The girl rubs the back of her head and meekly smiles. "It costs forty-nine Obols."

The man opens an eye and grumbles in agitation.

An equally agitated voice calls out from across the room. "Listen you schmuck! This isn't a bazaar! No haggling!"

He shoots an annoyed glance at Jubilee, who stands there with their hands on their hips. Muttering under his breath, he slaps the last seven coins down onto the counter and takes the dagger with him as he leaves.

Sold: 1x [BONE-DAGGER](Normal) - {49} Obols] !

"Thank you, come again!" calls Fresh after him, waving to the muttering man who doesn't respond. Walking after him, looking around the ransacked room, she shuts the door and falls back down against it, holding it closed as she slides down towards the ground. A long, exhausted breath leaves her body, like the departing soul of a warrior, slain on a battlefield, wafting out of their mouth together with their final, dying gasp.

It’s late in the day. The hours had flown by with incredible speed. Fresh barely remembers any of it. She opens her eyes and looks around the store and at the mostly bare shelves. Apparently she had survived today, but she really doesn’t remember doing so. It’s just a flash in her mind’s eye. A jumble of colors. Of voices. Of people. Even if she feels like she just came down the stairs ten minutes ago, that was more than ten hours ago now.

A bunch of coins clink with a sharp jangle, rousing her from her dazed state of exhaustion. With tired eyes and a sore neck, Fresh lifts her head and looks up towards Jubilee, who is laying out a heap of coins onto the counter and sorting through them.

“Jubileee~” cries the girl.

“What?”

“I’m tiiired~” she sighs, letting her head tilt forward. “Being a shopkeeper is harder than going into the dungeon.”

Jubilee tilts their head, looking back to her. “Well yeah, because you never did anything productive down in the dungeon to begin with?” they suggest, turning their gaze back to keep sorting the coins. “You did good today, though.”

Fresh beams with pride, her eyes closed, her fingers running over the cover of the damp-grimoire in her lap. She had brought it with her downstairs, in hopes of being able to read it in any idle times where nobody came by. But there wasn’t a single minute like that today. From the second they had opened until their closing just now, the store was packed full of people. She looks around. The wooden floors which she had swept so meticulously are filthy, including the spot that she’s sitting on. The shelves she had worked a week to stock are now mostly bare.

Just about every potion they had was gone, even the antidotes. Just about every dagger was gone. The girl narrows her eyes in annoyance when she sees that most of the chickens are still there though. She sighs. “Some people just can’t appreciate art.”

“What?” asks Jubilee, not bothering to look as they sort the pile of coins.

“Can we eat something?” asks Fresh, pulling herself up onto her shaking legs. “I’m starving.”

“We can,” says Jubilee, sliding another coin to a separate pile. Fresh smiles with joy as she walks up to her companion, who then expands. “As soon as we’ve finished.”

Fresh winces. “Finished?”

“Yeah. We need to get ready for tomorrow.” Fresh feels a pain in her soul. “We need to clean again, the floors are filthy.” The girl stumbles, bending over to grab onto the counter. “We bought a ton of loot that needs to be processed, which only you can do.” Her legs give out and she falls to her knees, falling forward against the counter. “Plus the shelves need to be restocked. Which means you need to make more bottles too.”

Fresh falls back down into the same position she was sitting in by the door, only now against the counter, next to Jubilee. Her eyes are damp with tears. “Also, we need to figure out where to put this money. I’d suggest putting most of it into the guild. One of the perks of joining is that they work as a bank,” explains Jubilee.

“I’m hungry~”

Jubilee sighs and turns to look out of the window at the evening sun. “Look, we’re still going to need a few hours. But… considering your shit stats, you really powered through.”

Fresh beams and speaks with exhaustion. “I tried my best!”

“I saw. Here.” Jubilee hands her a single coin, a silver one, like the one the wizard had paid for their potions with at the start of the day. “This one is worth a hundred Obols.” Fresh stares at the thing wide-eyed, despite having seen dozens of them today.

“Is this my share?” she asks, taking the coin with gleaming, grateful eyes and shaking hands. One-hundred Obols?! She had never had this much money before…

(Fresh) got: [{100} Obols]

Their companion stares at her for a second, lost, and then back to the mountain of coins next to them and then back to her, gesturing with open arms towards their obvious bounty. “What? No, dumb-ass. We both made way more than this today, but we’ll do the math once I finish sorting.” Jubilee shakes their head. “If you want, the street vendors should still be open for another half hour. Go find us something to eat.” Jubilee turns back to the coins. “I’m getting sick of bread and dry fruit, so maybe see if you can’t get something more interesting.”

The prospect of something more nourishing than their dried staples is greatly exciting for her as well, overpowering the fact that she apparently had even more money than this. With new vigor, Fresh rises up to her feet, walking around the counter to grab her bag and packing her things in it. “Okay, I’ll be back in a bit!”

“Yeah, don’t do anything stupid.”

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“I won’t!” says the girl, smiling and feeling filled with a new determination. She clenches her shaky fists as she stands in front of the door, deciding that she’s going to find them something nice to eat and then she’ll help Jubilee finish the rest of their work, so that they can do this again tomorrow!

She opens the door and steps outside. A waft of cool, dusk air comes to run against her body, touching the skin of her face with its damp chill. Thankfully, she as a whole feels much warmer now, thanks to her new robe and even though she still feels the cold through the cloth, it’s far more bearable than it was in her old outfit, which she had stashed up inside of her room. With excitement in her tired eyes, Fresh turns right and goes down towards the plaza. Another draft of wind comes to pass by her as she walks and the girl can’t help but turn her head, to look back towards the glowing gate of the dungeon that sits there in the middle of the plaza.

Next to nobody is around the streets anymore at this hour, save for the occasional gestalt weaving in from one alley to vanish into the next. She stares at the dungeon, not quite sure why. But something draws her attention to it. Something… indistinct. The trickling of water, coming from behind it? Maybe? Hmm… Fresh can’t place her finger on what it is that’s bothering h-

“Oh, look at you!” says a voice from in front of her.

Fresh jumps with a slight squeak, shocked awake from her drifting thoughts, as she stares at the old woman standing in front of her. Puzzled, she looks her over for a second but then recognizes her in the dim evening glow of the world as the old woman from the potion shop that Jubilee had taken her to. Donata, the alchemist.

“It seems you were serious about not wanting to be an adventurer,” says the old woman with an odd smile, tilting her head with closed eyes. “You’ve made quite a splash… Those are quite the interesting wares you have…”

Fresh stares at her curiously, but then smiles brightly. “Ah! Hello! Thank you, it’s been really hard!” The girl rubs her head. “You scared me, how are you?” she asks, laughing meekly.

Donata opens her eyes, narrowing them as she glares at the girl. “Oh, you know. It was a slow day today, so I had a lot of time to think.”

Fresh tilts her head, placing a finger up to her lip, not reading the situation in the least. “That’s nice! We were swamped, so I didn’t have a second to breathe,” she sighs. “Ah!” The girl leans forward towards the old woman, clenching her fists as her bright eyes shine. “Will you still teach me about alchemy sometime, please?”

A dog, or at least some creature that sounds like one, barks in the distance. It is the only audible sound on the quiet street, apart from the sharp crack that then shoots through the air like the strike of a whip. "DON'T TOY WITH ME, GIRL!"

Fresh stumbles back, holding a hand to her stinging, red cheek, looking back at the old woman in shock and confusion, through her damp eyes. "-Teach you about alchemy?! I don't know what your secret is, but -" A chime makes itself heard as her combat screen appears. Fresh’s eyes go wide as the fearful realization dawns on her that the furious old woman is about to see her low health-points. Her distorted soul-values.

She needs to stop her. Time seems to slow, as Donata, glaring with venom, begins to turn her head towards the right, towards the combat menu that hovers to their side.

Fresh’s hands shake as she realizes in that moment that she needs to protect her secret, she needs to protect their secret. But she’s too weak. What would Jubilee do? What would… her fingers lock themselves down tightly and a wordless shout leaves her mouth, as her fist flies out with a loud crack and she punches the old woman straight in the face with everything she has left in her weak body.

The hunched-over, elderly woman stumbles and falls down to the ground, dazed, and Fresh quickly swipes away the now renewing combat menu, before she can reopen her eyes. Donata falls to the dirt, glaring up towards her. “YOU USURPING LITTLE BI-“

Fresh clenches her fists, she can’t be Fresh now. She can’t be herself now. She has to be someone stronger. Someone colder. Someone harsher. Is this what Jubilee was warning her about? Was the old woman trying to threaten her? Threaten them? She has to get out of here, before it escalates. What would Jubilee do? What would Jubilee say? What would…

Fresh narrows her eyes and plants the sole of her boot on the old woman’s chest, pressing her back down into the dirt just as she starts to get back up.

“Shut the fuck up!” yells Fresh through tears, channeling as much of Jubilee's personality into herself as she can pretend to, as she pushes the elderly woman back down. She points down towards the old alchemist beneath her with a shaking arm. “I don’t know what cow’s uterus you slipped out of, but if you cross the line one more time-“ Fresh leans downward, her boot pressing against the old woman’s ribs. “I’ll cut out your eyes, brew them into a potion AND SHOVE IT UP YOUR ASS!” she screams at the alchemist, her own nails digging into her palms and her eyes filling with a feigned malice that is foreign to her.

The street is quiet, apart from the sound of the trickling fountain behind the dungeon gate, the splashing of the water seems to be unusually loud tonight, to be able to be heard this far away.

Inhaling sharply, Fresh looks away from Donata and steps off of her to continue quickly walking down the street, before the old woman can see her cry. She hopes she didn’t break anything or leave a bruise. She didn’t want to be mean. But she had to. She had to. It’s like with the goblin. It’s like with the goblin, Fresh tells herself over and over. The pressing of her nails into her own hands begins to sting a little.

Fresh ducks away into a side alley, leaving the sight of two separate pairs of eyes watching her from behind, as she leans against the wall and cries where nobody can see her do so.

Five minutes later, once she has managed to calm herself, she peeks out of the alley and heads down towards the plaza. Still determined to get her friend and herself something nice to eat, despite her shaking legs and hands and heart. There’s still so much work left to do and the night is still young. She looks up to the darkening sky and sees the thick, heavy clouds starting to come together. A storm is brewing in the dusk above her head.

Razmatazz

Wew. If you're wondering about Donata's actions, don't fret, you'll see soon enough.

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