Chapter 81: 82: Milky

Fresh looks around the upstairs area of the third floor, having snuck up again in the middle of the night. Though she doesn’t quite remember what it is exactly that she wanted to do up here.

Confused, she looks around the large, dark room which is filled with nothing but shadows that recess away from her presence, pressing themselves away from the light that she has in her hand. Lifting the lantern, Fresh shines it around the room, looking for what it is that had disturbed her in the middle of the night. She walks past the reading nook and looks down towards the meeting area, with the large table. Nothing.

“Hmm…”

She turns her head around, walking back the other way. Something snags her boot, some obstruction laying in the darkness and the girl trips. The magical-lantern flies out of her hand, spiraling across the room and as she falls, she feels a terror at the idea that it is about to crash down and shatter loudly in the middle of the night.

Fresh thuds against the dusty, wooden boards of the floor, scraping her elbows as she half-catches herself. Looking up, she watches in relief as the enchanted lantern rises up on its own, flying back upright, having never hit the floor at all. She exhales a deep breath and looks behind herself, seeing what it is that she had tripped over in the half darkness.

She flips around, her hands covering her own mouth, suppressing her scream at the last second, as she looks at the white-robed person laying on the floor behind her. Basil’s dead eyes shine her way, their glossy surface reflecting the light of the lantern floating back towards herself. The priestess’ body is shredded and mutilated, her bones broken, her chest flayed from the neck down.

“Basil!” she falls forward, looking at the dead priestess in the hopes that there is anything that she can do. There clearly isn’t. The woman has long since departed. Fresh clutches the mangled body, pressing her hands against it, trying to scoop the blood back into the gaping wounds.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!” asks a furious voice from behind her. Fresh turns around and looks as the door on the far side of the room opens up and Jubilee steps inside. They look around the dusty space that she has encroached inside of. “You piece of shit,” is all that Jubilee can hiss through their clenched teeth. Even from here, Fresh can hear the straining of their leather gloves.

“Jubilee! Basil’s hurt!” cries Fresh to her friend as they march over towards her. Water splashes as Jubilee crosses the room. The stagnant water that covers the entire floor splashes away, rippling as their boots trudge through it.

“Yeah? No shit, dumb-ass!” A hand grabs the cuff of her robe, Jubilee pulls her closer towards themselves. “She found out about you. She saw your grimoire. So I took care of it.”

“…What?” asks Fresh, turning back to look at the glistening fragments jutting out of the priestess’ corpse that is half-submerged in the rising water. “You killed her?” asks Fresh with a shaking voice.

“I asked you, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” says Jubilee coldly, twisting their glove and stretching the fabric of her robe taut against the front of her neck. “I trusted you.” The collar of her robe compresses tighter as Jubilee’s knuckles press against the base of her collarbone.

“Jubilee!” cries Fresh, coughing, black-water leaks from her own mouth as she tries to push her friend off of her. “- You’re hurting me!”

With one hand, Jubilee grabs their mask and starts to pull it free. Their other hand continues to grasp the girl’s neck tightly. As the wooden mask releases from their face, thick strands of a tainted, oily slime connect it to the hollow space beneath their hood. Like strands of dried pus connecting a rotting scab to old meat. Jubilee’s face is nothing but a shapeless, black mass of ooze that drips and leaks out over their neck, down their arm and onto her body. Their hollow face pressing itself closer to hers, as her vision grows weak from her lack of air.

“I haven’t even begun to hurt you yet,” says the voice coming from the black-water.

“Ju-bi -”

The wet voice hisses at her with a venom she has never felt before. “Get. Back. To. Work.” Jubilee tilts their head, slime leaking out of it and crawling down their arm, towards her face. “Goo-brain.”

Fresh screams into her pillow, kicking and flailing wildly as she throws her limbs around herself, her blanket long since kicked off and flung across the room. Falling out of her bed, the girl lands on her rug and rolls onto her side, her legs pulled into her chest, her fingers clutching her head. Sniffling, shaking from the nightmare, she rubs a hand over her eyes to wipe the tears away and then recoils in horror, seeing the thick, black smudges on her fingers.

Too distraught to fall back asleep, she cleans herself up and then gets dressed, deciding that she might as well get up now and put in some work. Putting on the same black robe as always, she wanders outside and heads into the kitchen, taking a moment to really appreciate the little room again. Jubilee had really opened up a lot to her. Sure, it’s just a room. But the symbol of the act of letting her use it is what makes her happy. Fresh isn’t sure why, but as she thinks of her friend, she can’t help but also feel a little frightened of them at the same time.

“It was just a dream,” she sighs, slapping her cheeks and walking towards the kitchen window to rip it wide open. She had promised to make them a real breakfast today, so that’s exactly what she is going to do. She had gone out of her way the other day to buy some real food. Food that needed to be cooked. Some kind of eggs. Some kind of milk. Some kind of butter. ‘Some kind’ is putting it mildly. The eggs came from chickens, she’s sure enough of that. But as for the milk and the butter… well, she didn’t really want to ask. Maybe there are cows in this world? If there are chickens, then it might be a logical bet to make on some level. But…

She uncorks the bottle and smells the thick, frothy liquid. “Maybe it’s… monster milk?”

The mental image of a simple, straw-hatted farmer sitting on a stool deep down in the dungeon, with a pail at his side, milking a giant dragon comes to her mind. It’s an interesting idea. But she’s somehow sure that dragons don’t make milk. Probably. It’s something she should ask Basil about later.

What she does recognize though is the flour. It’s a rough, whole-grain flour with a coarse, crumbly texture and a light tan color. Smiling, she sets to work, mixing it all together into a pot, together with a few more spoonfuls of her fruit mash from yesterday for sweetness. The mixture slowly becomes thick and gloopy as she stirs it, adding more milk and butter until it becomes less of a dough and more of a batter.

Fresh hums to herself, listening to the early morning birdsong coming from the trees. She was never much of a cook in her old life. At least regarding anything that didn’t come pre-frozen. But pancakes she could always make. It’s so simple, that even she could always do it right. Even if they sometimes looked a little… odd. They still tasted great. “And that’s all that matters!” says Fresh to herself, finishing her own thought out loud.

“Are you talking to yourself now?” asks a voice from behind her and Fresh jumps, yelping in surprise.

“G- good morning Jubilee,” says the girl, somewhat nervously.

Jubilee tilts their head, shrugging. “Good morning.”

“I’m… I’m just making us breakfast!” says Fresh, laughing nervously and turning back around to keep stirring the pot somewhat quicker than before. “And nothing else!”

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“Should I be worried?” asks Jubilee. Fresh looks down at the bubbling mixture in front of herself, as she thinks about the question. As she looks at the wet goo, she realizes that she’s lost her appetite rather suddenly.

Half an hour later, she’s finished cooking and the two of them sit down to eat the pancakes, together with the fruit mixture as a topping. She sets a couple on the side for Basil, she’s sure the priestess will like these a lot.

“It’s suspicious if you don’t eat any,” says Jubilee to her from behind the counter.

“Huh? Oh,” says Fresh, looking down to her untouched plate on her lap. “I had a bad dream again and I don’t really want to eat.”

“How does that make sense? Was it about pancakes?”

“I don’t know, it just does,” says Fresh. “And no.”

“Well… they’re really good,” says Jubilee.

Fresh smiles in relief, but still not hungry in the least as she stares down at her pancakes. “I’m glad you like them!”

The rise of the morning sun comes with the usual early crowd of customers. All of their sales and purchases seem to happen during the mornings now, as the many adventurers go to the dungeon to grab their full bags and then trek across the plaza towards their store. The cool morning-time is the only time that the city seems to be active anymore, though apparently late at night things get pretty wild too, from what Fresh overhears.

“I’ve never really been much of a socialite,” says Basil, as they overhear a party talk about their wild night at an, apparently, particularly rowdy tavern.

“Me neither,” says Fresh, carrying a load of armor downstairs that she had finished repairing. “I don’t think I do well with alcohol,” says the girl. Not sure if that’s true, but willing to assume so at least. She never drank much before, except a sip here or there to try.

“Same here,” says Basil, handing a customer back his change and a tote-bag full of potions. "I prefer the quiet life."

“Basil?” asks Fresh, remembering something important.

“Yes?” asks Basil.

She looks at the priestess curiously. “Do dragons make milk?”

Basil returns her curious gaze. “Uh…” The priestess shrugs, not having a clue. Though she does look down to her half-eaten plate of pancakes with a slight nervousness in her eyes.

Razmatazz

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