Chapter 66: 67: Three

Fresh stands outside, just next to the dungeon gate. But her eyes don’t look towards the dungeon, rather she scans the ring of houses around the plaza, looking for what it is that’s bothering her. It’s the middle of the night. The rest of the last day was quiet and uneventful, but she was happy that Jubilee relented and the two of them shared what was left of the fruits for dinner. Basil had taken a few for herself, on top of the ones she ate during her shift. Apparently, the priestess has a real thing for food.

But that’s not what’s important right now to her.

No, what’s important now is… this… Figuring out what it is that’s bugging her. Fresh crosses her arms, feeling a cool night-wind on her clammy skin as she stares at the ring of multi-storied, timber-frame houses which line the inner edge of the dungeon plaza. Tilting her head, she lifts an arm and points a finger at Jubilee’s house, her gaze resting on the front door as she counts from the ground up.

“One.” That’s the store. “Two.” She lifts her arm. That’s where their rooms are. Her arm lifts one floor higher however. “Three?”

She lowers her arm again, scratching her cheek as she thinks. Three? Looking at the run-down house, she realizes that it’s like all of the others around here and has three floors. But… she hasn’t even seen any other stairs. She tilts her head the other way, as if shifting her perspective would cause everything to make sense at once.

It doesn’t.

The house had always looked like this, she’s sure of that. But somehow she just never really paid it any mind. Kind of like how she ‘saw’ her inventory for the longest time, but didn’t. She tilts her head back the other way. “No, still three.” She sighs.

Having two rooms locked off to her is bad enough, though she really doesn’t even look at the handles of the doors anymore. But a whole floor? She tilts her head back the other way again, supposing there’s probably a staircase behind one of the closed doors. Fresh shakes her head, determined to ask Jubilee about it tomorrow. No matter how scary her friend can be sometimes.

Hoisting her bag onto her shoulder, she turns towards the dungeon. First of all, there is something more important to do. Mr. Mushroom should have respawned by now and there are things she wants to talk to him about.

Stepping through the blue fog, she enters inside and heads down the stairs. Reaching the bottom, she carefully bends down and looks at the familiar hole in the wall, the cursed-dagger in one hand, just in case. “Excuse me?” she asks, not sure how her new ability works.

Something stirs in the darkness in the back of the hole.

“Sorry. Mr. Mushroom? Are you awake?” whispers the girl, leaning in towards the hole with her hand next to her mouth.

“Nyaaaah?” calls out a sleepy voice, as she sees something wet blink, the pupils glistening in the darkness of the back of the hole. Two moist eyes open wide, the firelight of the torches outside reflecting off of them as they bring her into focus. The mushroom narrows its eyes in agitation and Fresh flinches, feeling its cool gaze.

“Nyah!” yells the mushroom in anger, seeing her once again.

Fresh raises her hands, waving to the thing that is approaching. “Wait! I just want to talk! I don’t want to fight today,” she says nervously.

“Nyaaaah?” asks Mr. Mushroom, who doesn’t loosen his suspicious gaze, but slowly crawls out towards the entrance.

The girl nods, answering his question. “Nyah.”

“Nyah?” asks Mr. Mushroom.

Fresh nods enthusiastically. “Nyah!”

Mr. Mushroom grumbles, but relents with a loud yawn, apparently convinced by her arguments. But he’s still sour because she woke him up in the middle of the night. He asks her to get to the point, so he can go back to sleep.

“Nyah, Nyah?” asks Fresh.

Mr. Mushroom thinks for a second and then nods. “Nyah.” But then adds on at the end a particularly cold statement. “Nyah.”

“Nyaaah,” says Fresh, laughing uneasily and tapping her chin as she thinks.

Mr. Mushroom yawns again and slowly crawls back into his hole. Remembering her manners, Fresh reaches into her bag and pulls out a piece of fruit, sliding it towards him and nodding. “Thank you, Mr. Mushroom!”

Mr. Mushroom nods, biting the red fruit to drag it back into the darkness, willing to compromise with her this time. If only because he is tired.

Fresh thinks, looking around the dungeon as she ponders the answer he gave her and its implications. Apparently, he remembers her. Sort of. He remembers that he killed her and he remembers that she killed him. Twice now. Apparently, the fact that both of them are still here despite that doesn’t really bother him. Or he simply isn’t able to process the logistics of it. Fresh can’t help but think that his phrasing seemed rather… primitive.

Despite that, he had made a rather threatening promise to her that next time, he would even things out. The girl sighs. “Everyone is so cut-throat in this world.” She turns around to go back upstairs, not having entirely given up on her secret hopes of becoming friends with Mr. Mushroom. Maybe even the snails? She ponders, heading up towards the blue fog. Maybe even the boss? Did the flower count as low-level?

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She sighs. Jubilee would never forgive her if she went into a boss arena alone though. Even if she can respawn, she’s thankful that she hasn’t had to since then. “Do chickens count as forest monsters?” she wonders aloud, before shrugging and heading back outside.

After returning back inside of the store, Fresh looks around, curious now. Walking up the stairs, past the pantry, she looks at the closed doors that she had never tried to open. Fresh wonders what could be behind them. For this entire time, she had kept it out of her mind. So much so, that she didn’t even notice the doors anymore every day when she walked past them to and from her room. The girl leans back against the wall, next to the corridor window as she looks at the dusty door handles.

What could be in the rooms that Jubilee doesn’t want her to see?

Her eyes wander down the old hallway of the house, down along the length of the new taupe colored rug that lines the corridor. This place had been so spooky and surreal when she first saw it, like it was frozen in time. Dust and shadows covered everything. But now, through a lot of her own time and effort, it was slowly coming to life again, together with its owner. Sometimes everyone just needs a friend, she supposes, looking back towards the lonely looking doors.

“It was a group investment, huh?” she mumbles, remembering Jubilee’s words when she first came here. Did Jubilee have a party before she had arrived? What happened to them? Jubilee is really strong, so they must have gone deep into the dungeon. Were these their rooms, perhaps? That seems like the obvious conclusion. Jubilee had let her have the one room as her own, but it was entirely empty when she entered it. She purses her lips and looks back to the closed doors.

She wants to look. But she doesn’t. It’s none of her business. Fresh shakes her head and walks away. “I promised Jubilee I wouldn’t go into them,” she tells herself, looking up to the ceiling above herself curiously.

Fresh stops. She promised Jubilee she wouldn’t go into the locked rooms here in the corridor.

A smile grows on her face as she heads back towards the pantry, an idea coming to her. Perhaps a bad idea, but an idea nonetheless. Opening the door and quietly closing it behind herself, she steps into the pantry that is illuminated by the many potions lining the shelves. Walking towards the barrel in the back, the girl climbs up on top of it and runs her fingers along the boards of the ceiling above her head, checking for one that might be a little loose.

Sure enough, she finds one and pushes it to the side.

She had promised Jubilee that she wouldn’t go into the rooms in the corridor. But she never said anything about an upstairs area. Is that a twisting of words? Perhaps. But her curiosity has overtaken her sense of morals now, addled by her tired mind that should have been in bed hours ago. Somehow though, ever since she had gotten her class, she finds herself awake more and more often at night.

The lack of sleep still bothers her, but somehow… It feels nice at the same time. The tiredness under her eyes when the morning sun came to rise, the cool, cold, clamminess on her skin when she feels the morning dew coat her body when she opens the windows wide to air out the house. The exhaustion numbs her inhibitions, letting her talk to her friend easier with less fear and angst.

She pushes a second board to the side and looks into the little hollow space between the floors.

Maybe it’s just like back then though, when she was laying in her bed on the last night of her old life. Maybe it’s like when that cold feeling came to her and she embraced it in an act of minor-self harm. She shakes her head, realizing that she had promised herself to put that part of her life behind her. But…

Her eyes lock up towards the gap in the ceiling and she reaches up through the hollow space, pushing against the next boards above. Pushing against the floorboards of the third floor. They budge, revealing an empty space above.

Too curious to stop now, she grabs a lantern and lifts it up on the tips of her toes to set it down above herself. Straining herself, kicking against the wall, Fresh flails and struggles as she steps onto a shelf against the wall by the barrel and pushes herself up and into the dark room, entering into the third floor.

Razmatazz

Ah, it's been too quiet lately. How are you feeling about a 'Fresh blindly runs into a situation without thinking about it' arc again? It's been a while! =)

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