Chapter 71: Brain

“What time is it?” wonders Fresh out loud. She isn’t sure, she still hasn’t slept a wink. Instead, Fresh now stands down inside of the dungeon. Her eyes aren’t able to decide if they should be staring at her hands or at the hole in the wall, out of which comes a quiet series of sleeping ‘Nyaaaah~’s.

Fresh rubs her head, feeling awkward about this now. She had come down here to try out her new ability, but… she doesn’t think she’s able to kill something that she’s talked to before. Even though it isn’t really ‘killing’ him, since he’ll be back in two weeks anyways. She has a personal connection to Mr. Mushroom and apart from that, she’d feel bad if she woke him up again in the middle of the night a third time.

Sighing quietly, she walks to the stairs, heading down to floor two of the dungeon. Apparently, once a floor has been unlocked once, then it’s open forever, much to her relief. She remembers there being two mush-mushs down here and so she carefully looks out ahead of herself, watching the ripples in the dirt, where they are apparently busy burrowing, even this late at night.

She checks her waist, to see if the bottle is there. It is.

Clenching her fists and gulping once to get the frog out of her throat, the tired girl steps down onto the dirt of floor two. “Just like the red-wizard. Just like the red-wizard,” she chants, motivating herself.

Two figures explode out of the muck, the pair of large, orange mush-mushs charging towards her in an instant. Both of them yell, but they don’t really say anything of particular substance.

“Nyah~!”

“Nyaah~!”

The strange, slithering smoke leaks out of her hands. Not with any substantial force, but rather as a lazy trickle, like a viper winding its way down a tree, as the nebulous, foggy entity that it makes up intercepts the two monsters charging at her. Striking one, it sinks its fangs into before vanishing. The smoke then blows away, as if blown apart by a gust of wind.

(Fresh) did 1 DARK DMG to (Mush-mush)[Applied status: {Maledy}]

She curses the other one and then she gets ready to run.

(Fresh) did 1 DARK DMG to (Mush-mush)[Applied status: {Maledy}]

Her boots thud out, kicking up the dirt of the floor as she runs in a circle around the tiny arena. The two mush-mushs hop after her, clearly annoyed at her presence and so far, indifferent to her curse.

“Nyah~!”

“Nyaah~!”

Fresh gasps and covers her mouth in shock, surprised to hear something so rude from the mushroom creatures. Fresh points an accusing finger back towards them as she runs. “You jerks! You deserve to get cursed!” The girl lifts her hands, throwing out her luck-stealing jinx now as well, if only to make a point.

(Fresh) uses: [Jinx] !

(Fresh) uses: [Jinx] !

“Nyah~!”

She sticks out her tongue and keeps running. “Nyaah!”

Only four minutes. She only has to keep this up for four minutes. Mush-mushes, at least the orange kind, have twenty health-points. She has three love, whatever that stat means. So... “Four minutes,” she reassures herself as she moves, glad that the curse did a little instant damage.

(Mush-mush) took 4 DARK DMG {Maledy}

(Mush-mush) took 4 DARK DMG {Maledy}

Ignoring anything else that the mush-mushs have to say, she begins to jog small laps around the floor with the two mush-mushs pursuing her in a circle. Sometimes they try to intercept her, but she manages to avoid them as they often seem to stumble over each other or over roots that somehow seem to, very unluckily, appear in their way.

Two minutes remain, but she can feel her legs about to give out already. Sweat drips down her forehead, her robe is damp and spotted and even if she wanted to argue back with the very rude duo of monsters chasing her, she doesn’t have the capacity to do so anymore.

(Mush-mush) took 4 DARK DMG {Maledy}

(Mush-mush) took 4 DARK DMG {Maledy}

With shaking hands and wobbly legs, the exhausted girl grabs the glass bottle full of clear moonwater on her hip and drinks it.

Immediately, a surge of energy rushes through her as if a large amount of the exhaustion she was feeling a second ago just simply seems to vanish. Her body is still sweat-tinged and wet, but her skin somehow feels cooler. Plus it’s just important to drink water when you’re exercising. Fresh nods with a smile, looking back towards the mush-mushs, who are looking in pretty bad shape compared to her now.

She isn’t sure how the curse is doing damage to them, as they seem perfectly fine on their exteriors. But they are slowly losing health-points. Either due to their sudden clumsiness, or due to the constant draining of four health a minute.

(Mush-mush) took 4 DARK DMG {Maledy}

(Mush-mush) took 4 DARK DMG {Maledy}

Only one minute left.

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She stands at the end of the room, the two of them not able to keep up and only slowly lurching after her now, both of them on the brink of defeat.

Sweaty and with dirt sticking to her somehow still clammy skin, Fresh leans back against the wall, her chest heaving, and catches her breath as she watches the two creatures slow to a halt.

She waves. “Bye!”

They stop moving.

Fresh tilts her head, looking at the two mushroom monsters standing in the center of the room, having never quite reached her. Both of them simply stay there, as if frozen. Their eyes open, unblinking, still stare towards her with empty gazes. The two of them, having died standing, without a single wound on their outsides.

“Huh…” she says curiously, walking closer to look at them.

Bending over to stare into their eyes, wondering what it is that killed them, she mutters to herself. “Maybe it’s just magic?” Scratching her cheek as she looks into a deep, solidly black pupil, she watches as it begins to shift.

The mush-mush’s eyes fall out.

“IAH!” she yelps, jumping back as a thick, black goo seeps out of the new openings. Oily streaks running down from the sockets of the eyes. The eyeballs of both creatures pushed out from the inside, fall down into the dirt, where they are covered in sludge from their entirely liquefied insides. Their bodies begin to crumple and deflate, the heavy caps of their heads sinking down and squishing their now empty shells. The skin that held their liquefied insides together, bundling together like an empty bag with a weight on top of it.

Black-water seeps out in all directions, leaking everywhere and the girl finds herself back against the wall again, watching in horror as the two mushroom monsters become nothing but goo. Watching as the thick, black-sludge seeps into the dirt, soaking into the world below, leaving nothing behind but two orange mushroom-caps with a few smears on them and Fresh herself. She, with a horrified expression, decides that maybe it’s time to go to bed for tonight.

Nodding to herself, she quickly runs up the stairs, doing her best to ignore the odd bubbling sound that she hears down below. As for the two mushroom-caps, well… maybe she doesn't need them that badly.

Five minutes later, Fresh throws off her boots and robe and falls into her bed, pulling the blanket over herself, covering her head. For the rest of the night, she hangs between a state of wakefulness and half-sleep, tossing and turning as she shifts, as some strange, wet sounds in her mind somehow keep her brain from ever turning off the lights entirely.

The next morning comes and she barely manages to pull herself out of bed again, shuffling like an undead as she opens her door and goes downstairs.

“You look like shit,” says Jubilee to greet her, not even looking up towards her as they say it. Fresh looks around, realizing that it’s a little later than her usual waking time.

“I didn’t sleep much,” says Fresh, telling only a half-lie. “Do you still want to eat breakfast?” she asks, rubbing her eyes.

Jubilee shakes their head. “There’s no time, Basil should be here any sec -”

As if summoned, the priestess opens the door and walks inside. Fresh can’t help but notice, even with her tired eyes, that the rim of her white robe is spotlessly clean and the rose-gold bangle on her wrist that occasionally peaks out of her long, billowing sleeve.

“Good morning!” calls Basil as she walks inside and looks at them. Her eyes stop on Fresh. “Oh! Are you sick? You look terrible!”

Fresh sighs and falls down onto the stairs, leaning her warm forehead against the cold, wooden wall.

Four experience points? All of that for four experience-points and she could only do it once every two weeks anyways? No… she racks her tired mind. She can do the next floor too, tonight. Maybe even one more than that. She’s faster than the mush-mushs with some luck and she’s definitely faster than the snails. It’s going to be a lot of work, it’s going to be exhausting. But she has to do this, if she wants to keep this new life of hers safe. If she wants to stop it from being taken. If she wants to stop the wind from blowing it all away like scattered ashes. She’s just going to have to skip a little sleep now and then.

Rising back up to her feet, Fresh grabs Basil’s hands, as the priestess was reaching to touch her forehead. “Good morning, Basil!” smiles a deeply tired Fresh. “Let’s work hard today too!”

Basil looks at her curiously, but then smiles, seemingly satisfied and walks around to the back of the counter.

Razmatazz

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