Chapter 42: 43: Healing

Minor Soul Potions: 19 Obols each - 48 sold = +912

Antidotes: 15 Obols each - 12 sold = +180

Bone Daggers: 49 Obols each - 3 sold = +147

Odd and ends: ~40 Obols each - 2 sold = +80

Glass Chickens: 30 Obols each - 1 sold = ~30

Mushroom-caps(Blue): - sold 0, bought 41 (6 each) = -246

Mushroom-caps(Orange): - sold 0, bought 28 (5 each) = -140

Total (Gross) = +963

5% Merchant’s guild deduction = -46

12% Taxes = -111

10% Savings and upkeep = -93

Deductions = -251 Obols

Total (Net) = +682 Obols

Earnings = 341 Obols each

Fresh tilts her head, pursing her lips. “It’s a lot less today.”

Jubilee shrugs, pulling the paper back to look at it again. “Well yeah? It’s like I said. Until everyone burns through their stockpile, they won’t come back.” Jubilee points at her. “Assuming they don’t all die down in the dungeon because of your freaky witch-potions.”

“They’re not freaky witch-potions!” argues Fresh, crossing her arms. “I make them with a lot of love!”

“Yeah, yeah.” Jubilee looks at the necklaces. “These are good though,” they say. “The day-night thing is a little weird, never seen that before. But one to all of these resistances? The low-level adventurers will be crawling over each other for these.” They spin it around on their finger, the glass bead swinging through the air. “Our shop is becoming a little unusual, but we’re going to corner the entire low-level market if we keep this up.”

Fresh places the broom against the wall, having finished sweeping. “Unusual?”

“Oh, sure.” Jubilee sorts their coins for the day. “Most things have been pretty cut and dry here for a while. Potions? Go the alchemist. Weapons? Weaponsmith. Trinkets? Jeweler. And so on and so on. Everything was cut into little pieces.” They slide a heap of coins to the side. “But we have a little of everything.” They look back towards Fresh. “It’s an unusual idea for a store, but you know…” they nod to her. “Maybe you really do have a knack for this sort of work.”

Fresh beams, raising a finger. “That makes sense, it all started with a single coin when I arrived here.”

Jubilee tilts their head. “Huh?”

The girl blinks, lowering her finger and looking away. “Ah! Uh… nothing! Just… you know me! Haha!” Fresh knocks on her head and turns around towards the window, humming as she walks away. Should she tell Jubilee about how she arrived here? Would Jubilee even believe her? If there’s anyone she trusts here, it’s Jubilee. But… maybe this particular secret was best kept for now. Besides -

She looks back to Jubilee who has returned to their work.

- It’s not like she knows anything about Jubilee’s past either. Actually… Fresh realizes, she’s never even seen Jubilee’s menu, did it even appear during their fighting in the dungeon? What level is Jubilee? What class? Where are they from? Are they human? Or something else? Are they a boy or a girl? Fresh looks out of the downstairs window at the reflection, in the glass, of Jubilee’s back.

But maybe it’s all just none of her business. Jubilee is her friend and sometimes friends keep secrets from each other. That’s fine. She has her own secrets too. Smiling, she looks past the reflection and out of the window.

Still. If they kept this up, even if every day was a ‘slow’ day like today, they’d be able to pay the guild back before the year was even close to over. Heck, they’d probably manage before the end of spring with some elbow-grease. Fresh smiles. Maybe everything is turning out alright after all? She sighs in relief. She was so worried about everything after the initial disaster of her arrival, but now everything is slowly coming together. The smile on her face widens, as she realizes her good fortune and, watching the rain-droplets splash against the window, she silently thanks the fountain for having given her this bounty.

Something shifts in the dusk outside and her eyes open wide, as she sees the figure moving towards their door. “Uh, Jubilee, I think someone’s coming.”

“We’re closed, tell them to fuck off.”

Fresh scratches her cheek meekly as she watches the white-robed man walk up to their door. She expects him to try and open it. But he doesn’t, instead something slides down beneath it and she watches him get up and walk away. Looking down, Fresh bends over to pick up the letter. “We got mail,” she says, staring at the plain envelope, sealed shut with a thick, red-wax seal.

“What?” asks Jubilee.

“We got a letter,” says Fresh, waving it at Jubilee, who is walking over to her to take it. Snatching it from her, they look at the seal.

“Fuck,” their fingers rip the side of the envelope open and they pull out the letter, reading it to themselves, muttering under their breath. “Fuck! Nothing good ever comes in a letter!”

Fresh tilts her head curiously and Jubilee holds the page out to her. “We’ve been ‘invited’ to a meeting with the fucking cardinal,” barks Jubilee. “Shit! I fucking hate this city.”

She takes the letter and looks at it. “Is that bad? It seems like a real privilege,” she says. “The priests all seem like nice people and maybe we can make some connections?”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” groans Jubilee. “There’s only one reason the church would want to talk to us.”

Fresh racks her brain and her eyes go wide. “Do… do they know that I’m…” she looks around. “You know?”

“What?” Jubilee stars at her. “No. If they knew that, the only letter you’d get would be the letter “X” that they’ll brand onto your forehead, before you get locked away underground for the rest of your very short life. This is worse.” Jubilee narrows their eyes and Fresh can’t help but feel a shiver run down her spine. Worse? What could be worse? Her friend walks away, back towards the counter. “With Donata gone, their supply of soul-potions has been cut off. They want ours -” Jubilee looks back to her, the letter crumpling as they clench their fist down tightly and hiss with disgust at the very concept that they now utter. “- for a discount.”

Fresh, having been caught up in Jubilee’s rant, clutches her cheeks and shouts. “Nooo…!” The girl’s voice trails off as she stops and thinks. “Huh?” She looks around. “That doesn’t sound so bad, though?” Her finger taps her chin. “Like I said, the priests seem to be really nice. I wouldn’t mind helping them. I bet they do a lot of good here in town!”

“- And by discount, I mean basically free.” Jubilee kicks the counter. “Fucking Donata, even now that old hag found a way to fuck me over.” Jubilee sighs. “It’s a good thing we have such low costs. Maybe we can still squeeze this somehow.” They shake their head. “Come on, let’s finish up and then let’s go to sleep.”

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The girl’s lips quiver as she rubs her fingers together meekly. “Jubileee~”

Seeing where she is going, Jubilee glares at her. “No! You got one freebie. Go to sleep in your own room, weirdo,” the snap at her. “Are you scared of the dark because of one little vampire?” Jubilee places the necklaces into a bin. “There are hundreds of them down in the dungeon.” They wave her off. “Your half of the coins are on the counter. Tomorrow should be a slow day, so you run the store. I’ll take care of the church business.”

“Can I go too? I really want to see it!” asks Fresh, scooping up her coins and running after Jubilee. before she has to stay down here alone in the dark. “Pleeease?”

“Can you please just use your head? No, you can’t go to the church! Goo-brain!”

“You never take me anywhereee~” whines Fresh.

“What? If you want to go anywhere, go yourself, dumb-ass. You’re an adult!” Jubilee shakes their head as they walk up the stairs. “Maybe not mentally, though.”

Fresh pouts, however she has no choice but to give in. Jubilee slams their door shut and, despite standing outside of it in the dark hallway nervously for five minutes alone, it doesn’t open again a second time for her. Scared, Fresh runs into her own room, but not before getting several of her potions to place inside of it, their glow acting as night-lights.

Somehow the rain still continues, the storm never quite seems to pass, even after this many days. But there is no more thunder, it’s just a constant drizzle that never ends. Blocking the door with a bunch of junk that she can scrape together, Fresh falls down onto her pile of blankets, making a mental note to finally make a bed tomorrow and maybe something to bar her door and windows with.

The night comes and her eyes fall shut, as the rain lulls her to sleep. The droning rattle of its splashing outside humming like a midnight lullaby to soothe her fearful mind.

Soon enough, the next day comes and Jubilee is already gone by the time she gets up, and has left a note to remind her that they went to the church. Fresh gets ready for the day, taking a moment to read another few pages of her grimoire, which isn’t nearly as spooky to read in the morning as it is during the night. Somehow, the sun helps to repel those bad feelings, even if it is only sparsely visible through the thin rain-clouds. The rain seems to have mostly stopped today, but the clouds still linger overhead.

An hour later, she stands behind the counter and watches the first people enter for the day. Somewhat nervously, she watches as a giant of a man barges inside, tears streaming down his face as he storms to the counter, something clutched tightly in his arms.

The familiar orc howls and drops his arms down onto the counter. “Pleeease, save him!” he screams.

“Huh?” Somewhat nervously, given the towering, howling, green man before her, Fresh looks down at the counter. At the glass chicken, its head separated from the body. She scratches her cheek, looking back up at the orc. “You didn’t cut yourself, did you?”

“I’m fine!” He slams his palms down onto the counter, the wood vibrating as he leans in forward with surprising tenacity and lowers his head. “Please!”

Fresh looks down at the decapitated chicken and thinks for a second. Her eye catches a glimmer of an orange-antidote down below the shelf. She isn’t sure why the orc is taking this so seriously, but if nothing else, she understands his strong emotions. Clenching her fists, she narrows her eyes and nods to him. “Okay!”

It takes a while. She uses a mixture of the glue for their potion labels and her crafting skills to put the pieces back together. The cracked glass can’t be fixed to look like it was before, it never can if it breaks once. But despite that -

The priestess from the day before barges in, stomping as she rushes towards the howling orc and yanks him away by his ear, as she profoundly apologizes to Fresh for her ‘idiot party-member’ bothering her, a somewhat fearful glint in her eye as she does so. Fresh tilts her head and waves to the angry, strawberry-blonde haired priestess that it’s okay. There’s nothing else going on today anyways. There had hardly been any customers at all today.

- She spins the chicken around on the counter, inspecting it as she finishes her work and with a satisfied smile, hands it over to the orc who takes it and cries as if holding his own newborn, saved from the clutches of the reaper.

A man walks in from outside. “I’ll die for you, Chicken-priestess! Thank you~!” screams the orc as he holds the ‘healed’ chicken aloft. Fresh scratches her cheek, feeling somewhat embarrassed, as the man who had just walked in turns around sharply to leave again. The orc’s priestess companion smacks the giant across his side.

“You big jerk! I’ve literally sewed your finger back on!” She crosses her arms and lets out a ‘hmpf’. The orc stops his dramatics to look at her, as if not sure what she was getting at. She opens an eye to stare at his confused face. Her expression clearly becomes more and more annoyed. “You never say 'thank you' to me!” she argues in a huff, her posture shifting as she jabs a finger into his chest.

The orc tilts his head, as if he doesn’t understand the problem. But then he looks back to his chicken and he holds it out to face her, the battle-scar on its neck proof of its endurance. “Bakaw?” asks the orc and the priestess clutches her hood in frustrated exasperation as she turns to leave.

Fresh can’t help but laugh as she rubs the back of her head, feeling a very strong sense of déjà vu. “Sorry for all the trouble,” says the woman to her before leaving. “We’ll pay you for the repairs soon. I promise,” swears the priestess, fidgeting with her sleeve.

“It’s fine, please come again!” laughs Fresh, waving her off. She looks to the orc and makes a stern face, pointing to the chicken but then also to his companion who is already walking out of the door. “Protect them both with your life!” The orc straightens up and slams a fist against his chest, nodding once, before turning to leave after his party-member.

The rest of the day passes with less excitement, initially, but soon enough the new necklaces get noticed as well and the single metal-clad adventurer in the store takes a look around the shop. “These are really good, are these new?”

“Mm! I just made them last night,” says Fresh, happy that someone finally saw them. The man looks back to the talisman once more before walking to the counter and paying for it.

“Can you put four of these on the side for tomorrow? My party will love these.”

“Of course!” says Fresh with a smile, giving the man his change. She waves as he leaves. Maybe if he tells his party about them, then they will tell others too? Word could spread fast, especially in this city, where such things seem to spread all of their own accord somehow. Word of mouth is a real driving force in the economy, apparently. She has an idea about exactly that as well, one that she thinks Jubilee will like a lot. The girl formulates a plan, thinking about how she's going to convince her party-member to help her with it tomorrow.

Soon enough, evening breaks, putting an end to their slowest day yet and soon after that, Jubilee returns, carrying a parcel of food for them both, just as Fresh is about to close up once more.

Razmatazz

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