Chapter 75: 76: Summer Days

It’s a new day and Fresh sits outside on a bench, near the entrance plaza to the city. The summer sun is shining brightly already this early in the morning. She looks up towards the sky with lazy eyes, feeling the warmth fall down onto her face. The sun seems to rise a little earlier each and every day, as they move away from the spring.

“It’s getting hot,” she mutters to herself, closing her eyes and listening to the sounds of summer coming to surround her. The city seems to be coming alive earlier and earlier every day as well, not only the birds and the cicadas, but the people too. Adventurers rush past her in all directions, heading into stores and down the way towards the dungeon. The streets are fuller than they had been at this time, only a few weeks ago.

“Good morning!” calls out a chipper voice.

Fresh turns her head and looks at Basil, who is standing next to her. “Good morning, Basil! You’re out early,” notes Fresh.

“I was about to say the same thing,” says the priestess. “May I?” she asks, perhaps simply out of politeness, as she sits down at the same time next to Fresh, before she gets an answer. Fresh just nods and scoots to the side.

She looks back up towards the sky, watching the early morning clouds drift on by, her mind distracted by an odd quiet and numbness, perhaps due to the summer heat that was making her a little drowsy. Something jangles next to her and without looking away, she realizes that Basil has bought herself another piece of jewelry which she is playing with, another bracelet.

“How are you enjoying the work so far, Basil?” asks Fresh.

Basil looks at her. “Hmm? Oh. I like it a lot!” says the priestess, following her eyes up towards the morning sky. “What are you looking at?”

“The sky,” says the girl, lazily. “I know it’s not as exciting as adventuring, but I’m glad you’re with us,” notes Fresh.

“Of course,” replies the priestess. “It’s a little weird for me too, but I appreciate the opportunity.”

“Mm…” says Fresh, lost in her eye’s dreamy wandering over the fluffy, light, summer clouds.

Basil fidgets. “Can I ask you something? About the shop?”

“What?” asks Fresh, blinking and looking back down at the priestess who is fumbling with her hands, the bracelet on her wrist jangling. A small cart rolls by them heading down a side road, away from the entryway plaza. The anqa, attached to the front of it, shoots a deathly glare her way as it passes.

“Don’t you want people to like you?” asks Basil.

“Huh?” asks Fresh, tilting her head at the odd thing the priestess asked. “Sure,” she nods, not quite understanding Basil’s question.

The priestess looks up at her. “Then why do you make such… macabre things? You know… the bones and the dark-elemental equipment. It’s rather… unsavory.” The priestess looks away. “People get uncomfortable. But you also make a lot of really nice things! Like the holy enchantments and the potions. So… why?”

Fresh looks back towards the sky, lifting her hand into the air to watch the sunlight streaming through her fingers. Memories of her vision from the bad dream return to her, yet don’t disturb her mind which has found peace in the warm summer morning. She wonders, is Basil asking because she’s genuinely curious herself, or if she’s digging deeper into their life at the behest of the church higher-ups. Maybe it’s a little of both? The girl tilts her head, watching a ray of light come down her way, the warm beam touching her clammy skin, which never quite seems to get warm anymore.

She ponders for a while and decides to ask Basil something else instead, unable to come up with a ‘safe’ answer that Jubilee would approve of. “Basil? Why did you used to be afraid of the dark?”

Basil fidgets, pulling her knees and feet together as she scuffs her boots over the ground. “You should know,” says Basil, looking down to the ground. “You’re from the south. So you should know about…” the priestess fumbles with her hands. “- about it,” finishes the priestess with a quietness, as if her uttering of the words would call a great evil onto them both, even out here in the bright summer sunlight.

Fresh tilts her head, before looking back towards the sky above, not sure what the priestess means. But she is unable to ask any further without revealing her own lies. “Sorry, I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable, Basil.”

The two of them stare in opposite directions, sitting in a tense silence for a while. Fresh, gazing up towards the sky and Basil, gazing down to the ground, past her tightly clenched hands.

“Is that why you’re scared of the dark too?” asks Basil timidly.

Fresh shakes her head, lowering her hand as a cloud comes to drift over the sun, blocking it out for a while. “I’m not scared of the dark, Basil.” She lifts a finger, explaining. “I’m scared of what’s in it.”

The two of them meet eyes, her sentence having entirely different meanings for the both of them.

“That’s why I became a priestess,” explains Basil, looking away. “To help keep the light burning in people, you know?” she asks. “I’m not very strong or big or anything like that… this is all I can do. But I want to do it. I want to be able to help, when people need me-” Basil stares down the way, towards the gate leading out of the city, towards the lush green grass beyond, having stopped her own sentence rather abruptly. The two of them are quiet for a while, just sitting there, listening to the sounds of the city. “He was really happy about the sword. Thank you.”

Fresh scratches her cheek and looks back up towards the cloudy sky, not sure what else to say or where else to look. “Yeah.”

Another cart rolls by, pulled by an anqa that shoots her an equally as dirty look as the first one as it quickly passes. Fresh’s eyes follow it down the way and the girl sighs, getting up. This is such a beautiful day and this gloomy mood between them simply won’t do. It’s bad enough that she has to be sad and scared at night, but she won’t accept it during the day too. She won’t accept the priestess’ mood, which is a stark contrast to her pristine, shining robe either. Basil looks up at Fresh who is standing next to her and holding out her hands to help the priestess get up. “Come on, Basil! Let’s go to work!” says Fresh with a smile. “I’ll get us some breakfast!”

Basil smiles in return, perhaps relieved herself and then takes her hands, getting up off of the bench, apparently not even having noticed that Fresh had entirely ignored her question about the weapons. It looks like she got away with it.

The day kicks off with a large rush. Repairs seem to come in at a steady pace again, though the sale of lanterns is slowing down a lot, now that the most excited customers had already gotten theirs. Especially since parties often shared one or two lanterns between all of themselves.

“It’s really coming together,” says Jubilee, taking a moment to admire the full shelves of the store, as well as the full crowd. Now that they have their stamina-potions, hammers and scissors added to their stock as well, the store really is becoming an interesting place to look around. The adventurers seemed curious about the former item, but the latter two only moved sparsely.

“Mm!” says Fresh, grabbing another load of armor to carry upstairs, her back as sore as ever. Halfway up the stairs, she stops and looks down to the red-wizard who is just coming in excitedly, running towards the shelves and ogling the stamina-potions with a glimmering sparkle in her eyes.

Fresh listens in to the conversations happening down below, trying to focus on any of the tidbits she can pick out from the barrage of voices.

“- Stamina regeneration?”

“It’s another combined potion!”

“- telling you! There are ghosts! I heard the scream! There was even a light a few -”

The elf rolls her eyes. “Stop being a baby, why do you tell me about that every time we come here?”

“Because it’s t -!”

Fresh tilts her head, losing track of the voices. Shrugging to herself, she goes up inside and stows away the armor, coming back down to get more. By the time she’s back, the red-wizard is at the counter, bouncing up and down excitedly with two bags full of potions now. Fresh winces, raising a finger.

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“You really shouldn’t drink so m…” she stops, seeing Jubilee glaring up at her. “I mean… I hope you like the new potions, they were your idea, after all!” beams Fresh to the red-wizard, who shares her gleeful expression. Though the wizard’s look is perhaps a little more convincing. Fresh can’t help but notice how oddly sweaty the red-wizard is today, her face is flush and red and almost dripping with perspiration. Must be the heat.

“Thanks! You guys are the best,” says the wizard, practically bouncing up and down on her heels, as if her body were buzzing with electricity. The muscles in her face seem to twitch and spasm ever so slightly around her cheeks.

“You seem excited today?” asks Fresh curiously, as Jubilee hands the wizard back her change.

She nods. “Yeah! It’s the new potions! They make me feel great!”

Fresh tilts her head, thinking for a second as the red-wizard takes her bag to leave. “Aren’t these your first ones?”

“What? No, I was here earlier and bought five. Anyways, gotta go!” says the caster, zooming out of the store straight towards the dungeon. Five…?

Fresh’s eyes widen in horror. “Jubilee! Don’t let her drink ten potions! It’s not even midday yet!” She calls out towards the door to the wizard. “Drink some water!”

Jubilee shrugs indifferently, tossing the coins into the bowl. “If she pays us, I’ll stick a hose right up her ass and pump a barrel of it into her myself,” quips Jubilee. “Merchants, remember? We talked about this.”

“Jubileeee~!” cries Fresh in desperation, watching as the wizard enters the dungeon, her body shaking with excitement and energy. Once the wizard vanishes, the girl sighs in defeat, her gaze meeting Basil’s. She can’t help but notice the priestess looking at her rather curiously.

Laughing nervously, Fresh takes another load of armor and quickly heads upstairs, hoping that the priestess would forgive her for her hypocrisy.

She stops on her way down, looking into the pantry at the supply of lanterns that she is building up for the giant order. Idly, listening to the buzzing of excited voices from below, she stares at the lanterns as an idea slowly starts to form in her mind. She wants Basil to like her, huh?

Fresh smiles, she might just know exactly how to make that happen.

Running downstairs, she looks over the adventurers for one that has a bottle of ectoplasm and then buys it off of them, right there on the sales floor, before quickly rushing back upstairs, ignoring Jubilee’s watchful and suspicious eyes on her back.

Setting to work, Fresh grabs her materials and begins making a new lantern, taking the time to make the metal frame a little more intricate than usual. The normal ones only have a simple iron frame. But this one, she is opting to use her crafting skills to engrave a little. She spends a while, carving small creatures and sigils and animals like anqas into the body of the lantern, onto three of its four shutters. Then, on the last one, she sets to work, making her masterpiece.

Fresh isn’t too sure about religious iconography in this world. But the ‘flavor’ of the church is at the very least, a familiar concept to her as it was akin to the churches present in her old life and Basil, as a priestess will surely like this, right?

Fresh smiles brightly, if only for herself. “It’s going to be perfect!” The girl sets to work, filling the last shutter with a large engraving of a detailed depiction of a floating, white-robed angel, with its arms spread out wide in a healing and welcoming gesture. The little creatures engraved down below it, encased in a small light, as she carves thin channels into the shutter that gives the drawing the appearance, as if the radiant glow seeping through the slits were coming from it.

Mixing the usual ingredients together, she takes some of her white, glowing purification mixture and slowly mixes it into the soul-potion and burnt-fern concoction, together with a few droplets of ectoplasm. Thankfully she had learned over time that the fern only needs to be a little burnt, which made making the lanterns a lot easier, since she doesn't have to go into the dungeon every time to avoid a fire-hazard.

The potion mixture filling the lantern shines brightly, the concoction turning from the cool, blue glow to a much warmer, almost white tone. Holding her hands above the half-finished item, she closes her eyes and concentrates, not too sure what she’s doing exactly. The idea just sort of comes to her, as she listens to the voices downstairs, as she listens to the babbling fountain, trickling loudly outside on the plaza. The bubbling of the water is almost like a whisper into her ears, like a voice that is guiding her.

Opening her eyes in excitement, Fresh spins the lantern around, sealing it shut and putting the entire construct together. “Afraid of the dark, huh?” Her smile grows smug as the girl feels a warm pride in her chest, as she looks at the imprint of a guardian angel, shining out on the body of the lantern.

“Not anymore!”

A waterproof, magical-lantern made out of iron and a thin layer of crystal glass. The inside is filled with an enchanted liquid that glows with ever-present shine, day or night

Imbued with a deep-set holy energy, this lantern radiates pure emotions and repels any form of darkness.

Effect: The leaking holy energy of this light does 1 HOLY damage to any DARK creatures within 12 meters once every three seconds.

Quality Effect: [Guardian Angel’s Tether] - The lantern doesn’t need to be held and will float at your side.

Weight: 0.6kg

Color: Moonlight-White

Excited, she watches as the lantern rises up into the air on its own, floating. “Basil will love this!” says Fresh, clenching her fists and bobbing on her heels, just like the red-wizard had done before. She gets up, grabbing hold of the floating lantern and rushes out, moving towards the downstairs to give Basil her present.

Razmatazz

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