Chapter 88: 89: Too much free time

“Are you stupid?” asks Jubilee, placing their hands on their hips, as Fresh looks back over her shoulder towards them. It’s early in the morning and the two of them are standing upstairs in the kitchen. Fresh is cooking them both some breakfast, having woken up earlier than Jubilee, who just came by and saw the repaired golem-core sitting on the kitchen table.

“So you don’t want salt on your eggs?” asks Fresh, repeating her question and tilting her head, as she places a lid over the pan.

“What? No.” Jubilee shakes their head. “Salt on the eggs. But I mean this.” They raise a hand, pointing at her night’s work.

“Aren’t you happy about it?” asks Fresh, somewhat let down. “I thought you’d like it.” She purses her lips and looks back to the pan, waiting for the bottom of the fried egg to harden a little. “So we can stay cool? You know? And if we keep the store cold, maybe people will come in more often!” she explains, looking back over her shoulder.

Jubilee sighs. “That’s all great and everything, but what are you going to tell Basil?”

“Huh?” asks Fresh.

Jubilee leans against the door-frame with their arms crossed. “Basil? You know?” asks Jubilee. “She works here? How are you going to explain to her that the golem-core un-melted?”

Fresh thinks for a moment. “Uh…” her eyes wander out of the kitchen window, looking out over the plaza. “Ah!” The spatula slaps against the palm of her hand. “We’ll just tell her that we bought a new one!”

“Bad plan, goo-brain. Don’t tell lies that are easy to disprove.”

“Easy to disprove?” asks Fresh.

Jubilee shrugs. “What if she asks where you bought it from?”

“Uh… from an adventurer?”

“An adventurer who came by when? Because she was here all day,” says Jubilee. “I think the egg’s burning.”

Fresh yelps, lifting the lid off of the pan and quickly scrapes the metal spatula under the fried egg, lifting it up to look at the bottom of it that is fairly dark on the bottom surface. “Sorry, I’ll take this one,” says Fresh, plating the egg and reaching for another one together with a pat of butter to re-grease the pan. “What if we say we got it at a store?”

“What store?” sighs Jubilee. “She can just ask them if we did. They’ll remember a big ticket item like a golem-core being sold.”

Fresh sighs. “You’re really smart, Jubilee.”

“Yeah,” says Jubilee.

“So should I get rid of it?” asks the girl.

“Woah there, I didn’t say that. We can keep it upstairs, where she can’t see it.”

Fresh throws the dab of butter into the pan, it bubbles up and melts right away. This conventional fire-stove gets a lot hotter than she had expected. Waiting a second, she cracks the egg on the corner with two hands, getting some on her fingers as she messily pulls it apart. But at least no fragments of the shell fall into the pan. The egg drips out against the hot surface and begins to sizzle with a loud hiss, solidifying immediately. Grabbing the lid, she places it back on top of the pan and listens to the quiet noise coming out, the sound intermingling with the birds outside the window.

Fresh nods, a little let-down, as she was looking forward to Basil’s happy reaction. But she understands that Jubilee has a point. She didn’t even think about it, honestly. This could have ended really badly for them. Even if she counts Basil as a friend and even if the priestess works here together with them, she’s still probably spying on them for the church. All manner of thoughts go through her mind for a while, as she stares there, vacantly gazing at the pan.

“- ey. Hey!” Jubilee snaps their fingers a few times and Fresh rouses from her daze, looking back at her friend who is still standing in the door. “The egg?”

“Huh?” she looks back at the pan, where a little bit of smoke is coming from the edge. “AH!”

Eventually, the two of them finish preparing their breakfast. While Fresh finishes with the eggs, making some that actually manage to come out properly, Jubilee goes out into town, coming back with a jar of honey just as Fresh finishes taking the last slice of toasted bread out of the pan. In excitement, she stares at the new golden treasure, wide-eyed and giddy. She didn’t even know that there was honey here in this world to begin with.

It doesn’t really go great with the eggs, but that doesn’t stop her from slathering it onto a piece of bread before placing an egg over it, as she prepares her own plate.

“That’s not…” Jubilee shakes their head. “Nevermind. Whatever floats your boat.” Fresh nods excitedly, remembering to sprinkle salt over Jubilee’s eggs.

A while later, Basil arrives at the store and they open for the day. The two of them had decided to leave the golem-core upstairs, out of Basil’s sight. With any luck, it’s presence in the house would hopefully, at the very least, allow some cool air to trickle down now and then.

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After helping with the initial morning rush, Fresh leaves the downstairs area to her friends so that she can get back to her work. Though she does make a few trips first, bringing down the rest of the purification-mixture that the thieves’ guild had ordered for reasons she isn’t too keen on digging into all too deeply.

“Are you sure about this?” asks Basil quietly, as she sets the last bottle down.

Fresh looks at the priestess. “Merchants,” says the girl plainly.

“But what if they…” she looks around, to see if anyone is listening. “What if they use it to… you know…?” she points to the flower on the bottle that was once a skull. Fresh catches her insinuation nonetheless and shrugs, doing her best to pretend to be Jubilee.

“If they want to do that, they’ll do it with or without our wares,” she explains, raising a finger as she talks. “So we might as well make the sale.”

Basil doesn’t really seem pleased with that answer, even though it was perhaps the one she expected. But she seems to let the topic drop. By the time Fresh comes downstairs again to pick up another load of armor, which needs to be repaired, the bottles are all gone, apparently having been picked up in an incredibly quick and organized manner, according to Jubilee.

The upstairs door shuts behind herself, as she leans back against it and sighs, having come upstairs for the fifth or sixth time now since they had opened. At least it’s somewhat cooler up here. The afternoon heat hasn’t quite arrived just yet, but it’s certainly on its way.

Fresh thinks, wondering what it even is that she wants to achieve today. There’s always more crafting that needs to be done, especially because of the order for the lanterns. Their stock downstairs isn’t moving too fast, so it’s fine if she does that stuff in the evening. She hasn’t worked on the house in a while either and she really wants to do that.

Oh, and she also wants to make something for Jubilee too, like she had been thinking about for so long, though she still isn’t really sure as to what. Jubilee never seems to like anything in particular and doesn’t really appear to have any hobbies either. She tilts her head looking down the hallway. Or she could try to come up with new items? New things are always good.

Stepping inside of the pantry, she looks around at the boxes lining the shelves. It certainly looks a lot more organized than it had before and if nothing else, at least their food is rat-proof; as far as she can tell at least. Entirely overloaded with possibilities, the girl rubs her head as she thinks and walks around the small space. Something shiny flutters past her eye and she catches the little thing and looks at it. It’s one of her hairs.

Spinning the single strand of her hair around in her hand, she looks at it as the sunlight begins to slowly shine inside through the pantry window, reflecting off of the shiny thing.

She never really did try to manipulate her curses more. This is another avenue that is technically open to her, if she really feels like it. Sure, it could go disastrously wrong, but on the other hand, curses seem extremely powerful and maybe it’s a waste if she doesn’t learn how to use them?

Her own words that she had spoken to Basil not that long ago come back to her. Something is going to go disastrously wrong anyways eventually, so why not try to get ahead of it? Fight fire with fire. She purses her lips as she thinks, continuing to spin the single hair around between her fingers. The birdsong slowly begins to fade away, as the small creatures clear the stage for the buzzing cicadas and the gentle trickle of the fountain.

Razmatazz

Don't mind me, just building up some foundation for a future disaster 'fun slice of life event in which nothing goes wrong' here.

*whistles innocently, smoothing over the wet cement*

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