Chapter 46: 47: A Moonless Night

*Dink*

Fresh taps the sword with the small, metal hammer. Not for any specific purpose, she just doesn’t know what else to do with it.

*Dink*

The girl groans. How is she supposed to repair a sword? She’s never done any metalworking in her life, apart from the few craftsman sub-class recipes that she has used. But none of them are of any help to her now. Could craftsmen even do repairs on equipment like this?

*Dink*

Her shoulders droop as she sighs and looks at the sword laying on the counter-top before her. No more daylight shines in through the outside window, as it is the middle of the night now. Only her potions, lining the sides of the counter, fill the room with a vague light, giving her enough to see her ‘work’, which so far consisted of nothing but sighing and idly tapping the sword with the hammer as she thinks. She doesn’t even know why she has the hammer. It was just the first thing that came to her mind. Isn’t that how blacksmiths made swords? They hit them with a hammer. But…

She looks down at the blade and supposes it has to be hot for the metal to bend. She doesn’t have any way to accomplish that though. Fresh rubs the back of her head and finally sets the hammer down on the counter.

Jubilee had long since gone to bed and she sits downstairs alone, her fingers running along the nicked side of the metal sword as she thinks. Looking down beneath the counter, she picks up her grimoire and places the damp thing onto her lap. It’s rather uncomfortable, as the fabric of her robe becomes wet, but she opts to leave it there. Not that anybody was looking through the window now, as far as she can tell, but… better safe than sorry.

Her fingers flutter through the pages. Wasn’t there something about moonwater being able to enchant weapons? Or bless them? Or something like that? Maybe that means there’s something else in here too. Something…

Her eyes narrow as her fingers flip through the damp pages, seemingly knowing directly where to go, even if she doesn’t herself. Fresh’s hand stops, her finger pointing to the title of a page as if she were showing it to herself.

“Cauldron of rebirth…” mutters the girl, tilting her head as she looks over the depiction. The wet ink shows an image of a single, large cauldron sitting on a pile of dead wood. Strange vapors rise from the picture, the nebulous fog creating a rather morbid image of something akin to a rising soul, as it coalesces above the opening. Sitting inside of the cauldron is a resting skeleton, holding itself in a loose embrace with one arm, the other lifted to raise a single finger in front of its mouth, as if to shush the reader.

“A magical cauldron that is able to revive the dead…” Fresh purses her lips and looks at the skeleton. “This seems kind of shady,” she mutters, lifting a hand to scratch her cheek. But how is this supposed to help her? She wants to repair a sword, not practice necromancy. Besides…

She looks at the skeleton and it looks at her. This seems like something Jubilee would get mad about her doing. Still… her eyes scan the page, reading the muddy handwriting.

A magical cauldron that is able to revive the dead.

1) Place the body of the departed into a cauldron filled with moonwater from a full moon, during the next moonless night

2) Add the second branch of a tree

3) Channel your energy to activate the cauldron

Once activated, the cauldron will continue to work until emptied or as long as the light of the sun doesn’t reach the water.

Fresh tilts her head curiously. Is that all it takes? Resurrecting the dead seems pretty easy. She wonders how the church would feel about this? Probably not great. Her eyes narrow, her suspicion of such things having grown over her time here. She scans the pages for the catch, but most of the text is smeared and obscured as well. Only single fragments of a few sentences remain here and there.

[illegible] only half of him came back.

Took his eyes-

No tongue-

Spiritus-

She sighs and slams the book back shut. This seems like a bad plan, even she can see that much. Her eyes wander over the sword. Besides, would placing the sword in such an ominous cauldron even do anything? Does repairing a broken sword count as a resurrection?

Then again…

It is just a sword. It’s not like it has eyes or a tongue… and her body brought her to this page for a reason, right? It hasn’t led her astray yet. The girl thinks, tapping her wet finger against her chin.

“Has it?” she mumbles, wondering.

No, so far things have been going pretty well for her. She has a friend. She has a home. A life. All things considered, it’s going pretty well as far as she sees it. Her eyes rise towards the window. Tonight is a moonless night… What a lucky coincidence.

Maybe…

The girl gets up.

Maybe she just needs to have a little faith. “Besides…” she mutters to herself as a smile grows on her tired face, as she thinks about how impressed Jubilee will be with her when they come down in the morning and see that she’s succeeded in fixing the sword. They’ll be really happy with her and the thought of that makes her happier than anything else. Friendships are complicated and a lot of trouble, but Fresh promises herself to go above and beyond to put in the time and effort. She hums and sets to work, collecting everything she needs. Her first and only friendship is worth the effort. She’s going to do whatever it takes to make it good.

Her friendship, her life, her home; she’s going to do whatever it takes to make it all good. This time… This time she’s going to get it right. She’s not going to waste a single second or opportunity to be the person she wants to become. As she hums, she can’t help but notice the vague, oddly loud sound of trickling water, splashing out from across the plaza outside. The fountain really does get loud sometimes for seemingly no reason.

She sets to work, preparing the ritual. Hours later, morning comes.

“Well. Fuck me, I guess,” Jubilee looks over the sword, turning it around on the counter to inspect the other side. “I wasn’t actually expecting you to manage. I was hoping you’d take it as an opportunity to learn something new. How did you do this?” they ask incredulously, inspecting the perfectly sheen and smooth metal before looking back up to Fresh who stands there with tired, but happy eyes.

Fresh winks, raising a finger as she explains. “I used the power of our friendship!”

“…What?” asks Jubilee dryly.

Fresh coughs, clearing her throat and lowering her voice. “And maybe… some… witch-craft.”

Jubilee narrows their eyes and looks up to her. “Okay. I don’t want to know.” They look over the sword, holding it up at a slight angle. “Can you do it again?”

Fresh thinks, tapping her chin as she looks at the large pot of water sitting down behind the counter, covered with a cloth. It isn’t exactly a cauldron, but… well, a cauldron is just a big pot, right? Same difference. The entire sword hadn’t fit in the pot, just the tip of it. But apparently that had been enough to ‘count’.

“I think so, but don’t take the cloth off and uh…” the girl fidgets nervously. “Don’t touch the water, okay?”

Jubilee eyes her suspiciously. “Did you do something stupid again?” Fresh straightens up, raising her hands to deny the questions and feigns an uneasy laugh. Jubilee sighs. “No. No. I don’t care. I don’t want to know.” They shake their head. “Can you repair other things too? Armor? Clothes? What did this cost?”

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Fresh shrugs. “It didn’t cost anything. Just the moonwater.”

“Fucking moonwater…” grumbles Jubilee. “This is going to come back to bite me in the ass one day. I can feel it. But for now, it’ll have to do.” They look up back towards her, setting the sword down. “Good job. I’m really impressed.”

A warmth runs through Fresh’s face as her hands clench together in excitement at the long-awaited praise. She fidgets, lurching forward, but stops herself. “Can I hug you?” asks Fresh.

Jubilee places their hands on their hips, leaning in forward towards her. “Depends, how many fingers do you want to wake up with tomorrow?”

Fresh stops, lifting her hands to look at her fingers, lowering them one at a time. “Uh…” a moment later she looks back up to Jubilee. “Ten?”

“Did you really just…” Jubilee rolls their eyes and walks away. “Never mind.”

Fresh purses her lips. “So… no?”

“No,” says Jubilee dryly, walking up to the pantry. Fresh looks down to the pot behind the counter and grabs the heavy thing. It would be best to leave it upstairs where nobody could go near it. The moonwater had taken a strange tinge after she activated the spell and she doesn’t feel comfortable having it down here around people.

“Can I put this in one of the other roo-“

“No,” snaps Jubilee before she can finish. Fresh looks up the stairs, staring at their hard gaze curiously and the two of them stand there in silence for a while. Jubilee turns away. “Just put it in the pantry or in your room.” The girl sighs, straining herself to walk up the staircase with the heavy pot of water towards her own room. She doesn’t want to put it in the pantry, Jubilee might run into it there. Fresh can’t help but stare at the dusty door-handles of the many doors she has never attempted to open, but she shakes her head and returns to her room.

It isn’t her place to ask.

Returning downstairs a few moments later, a new idea comes to her and she grabs a bottle of pure moonwater from the pantry. “Jubilee! I have an ideeea~” she says with excitement as she runs past them with the bottle, rushing back down the staircase.

“What are you doing now? We’re opening in five minutes, don’t make a mess!” barks Jubilee, going down after her.

“I won’t!” she says, not quite sure if that’s true.

Fresh stares at the sword on the counter and at the bottle of full strength, full-moon, moonwater in her hands. She certainly isn’t going to curse the orc’s weapon. But moonwater is free. Maybe she can do something extra for him? He was nice and besides, he was their first customer in this new avenue of their business. More pragmatically than that, he has a priestess as a companion. Everything they can do to get in the good graces of the church is a bonus and will only help their business in the long run.

“It’s good to have friends in high places,” explains the girl to Jubilee.

“Huh? What are you babbling about?” The girl uncaps the bottle of moonwater, trickling it over the length of the sword laying on the counter. “What are you doing? Stop making everything wet, you goo-brain!” snaps Jubilee, walking up to her.

“Moonwater,” says Fresh plainly, not expanding any further as she sets the bottle down, holding her hands out over the sword.

A dull glow escapes her fingers and Jubilee lets out an annoyed yelp, quickly turning to the window at the front of the store. Thankfully, nobody is standing there watching. “Not down here! Not during the day! Idiot!” they hiss at her.

The glow envelops the sword, the water that had pooled on the surface of the blade, soaking into the metal, like water from a spring rain sinking into thirsty dirt, quenching it, nourishing it.

Moonwater Blessing

Blessed by a holy light, this sword deals an additional 10% of its damage as holy damage.

“What the fuck?”

Fresh smiles, lifting a finger and explaining to Jubilee. “Moonwater!”

Razmatazz

Here's another thing that may or may not haunt us in the future. But I wouldn't worry about it...

Trivia - Pair Dadeni, The Cauldron of Rebirth

You ever see 'The Black Cauldron' by Disney? Well that's based off of Welsh mythology. Originating from a Welsh story telling of 'Pair Dadeni' (Eng: Cauldron of Rebirth). Welsh mythology has a number of cauldron stories. As their main 'mythological story' is the Mabinogi, which is multi-branched prose. In-fact, it's the earliest in the history of written literature of Britain. Though in truth, it's an oral telling since long before that, the tradition of which dates all the way back to the 11th century!

The cauldron of rebirth was said to be a magical cauldron that was able to revive the dead. Simply place the body of a slain person into the cauldron and they will be revived. It was said that the Irish used such a cauldron to reanimate their warriors on the battlefield. Though there was a slight issue with the process. The issue being that the revived would return being unable to speak and with a particular dullness to their eyes. Almost as if... almost as if their souls had left their reanimated shells behind. Spooky.

There are several magical cauldrons in Welsh and Irish mythology, though for now, only this one is relevant to us.

The 'real' Pair Dadeni was said to have been destroyed by a man named Efnysien, who pretended to be dead so that his body would be thrown into the cauldron, where he then sacrificed himself to destroy it from the inside. So if you ever wonder why we don't have zombies, thank the Welsh for stopping the zombie apocolypse sometime between 1001 - 1100AD.

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