Chapter 35: Montage

The rest of the day would come to pass without further event. Fresh sits inside of the house, processing the mushroom-caps that Jubilee had carried to the entrance of the dungeon for her to pick up and bring the rest of the way to the house, along with some other assorted loot. Fresh isn’t sure how deep down Jubilee can go on their own, but apparently there are plenty of mushrooms, thinks the girl looking at the stack of caps next to herself. Next to them are indistinct heaps on the floor, covered by blankets from the girl’s room. More unprocessed glass bottles. Fresh looks around herself and then down to her new robe, smiling at it, thankful that the black color did a good job of hiding the blue smears. She had thanked Jubilee earlier, but they just waved her off.

The girl rubs her face into her elbow, getting some dust out of it before rising up with the pot in hand to get more water. There was still a lot of work to do. If they were going to open in a week from now, they needed a stockpile of potions and hopefully some other odds and ends as well.

The night ends without further events and a new day dawns.

The pile of glowing blue soul potions is becoming larger and larger. Jubilee had insisted that they bring them upstairs into the pantry, because the blue glow from all of the bottles was shining out of the window and attracting weird looks from the neighbors. Fresh isn’t too sure anymore how many she had made so far. It’s an exhausting process, but each night she goes out to fill several pots with fresh moonwater and so each day she has enough to make more potions. Jubilee seemed to be slowly running out of caps to bring back, having said that they would need to wait until the dungeon resets again. But that’s okay, thinks the girl. Thanks to all of her work, her secondary skills have improved a lot. Her crafting has jumped by several levels, as well as her witch-crafting and with almost each upgrade, she gets just a little faster at making each potion and on some particularly lucky ‘level ups’ she learns a new recipe.

This process goes on for another day, until all that the girl has left to work with are other odds and ends from the dungeon. Her antidotes have gotten significantly better, but the side-effects were still too much. According to Jubilee, apparently commercially bought potions are so good that they don’t even have side effects. She’s getting close though, but isn’t quite there yet. Fresh stares at the heap of goblin teeth, wondering what to do with them. But then the idea comes to her, though she does think that it’s rather grisly.

But what else is there to do?

Following the new witch-crafting recipe that she’s learned, she takes two dozen of them, not thinking about how many goblins those came out of and how wet some of them still are, simply opting to instead hold her hands above the heap and to focus on the witch-crafting recipe. As the glow leaves her hands, the teeth rise up into the air, collecting together.

(Fresh) [Witch-Crafting: Bone-Dagger] (Normal quality)

3 Melee Damage

1 Dark Damage

0.9kg

A loud clunk is heard as the dagger falls to the floor and the girl scrambles back with a squeal, trying not to get cut.

She manages to make another three of them as well, before they run out of teeth. The girl ponders if she should try her ‘item cursing’ ability out. But Jubilee smacks her in the back of the head, costing her a health point after she makes the suggestion.

Another day passes and soon half of the week is over.

Fresh looks around the empty room. Her crafting level has gotten ‘okay’ish’ according to Jubilee who was out ordering wood. They needed to make shelves and a counter and Fresh had offered to make them herself. They would save a lot of money that way. Jubilee isn’t convinced at first, but relents once the girl wouldn’t stop nagging and insisting on doing it herself, so that she could be useful.

Another day passes.

Fresh wipes the sweat and sawdust off of her forehead. Apparently, using crafting abilities on wood still makes quite the mess. She sighs, looking around at the floor that she would clearly have to sweep again. But… her eyes raise up to the simple, large shelf that she had made with pride. It’s set against the right wall, by the window. This would be their potion section. Jubilee changed their mind about the glowing bottles, apparently they were good marketing, as people would always stop by on the plaza in the evening to stare into their window with curious faces. Occasionally, the odd wizard or eccentric caster would come to press their face against the glass to stare longingly at the bottles, which was always rather awkward for Fresh who could only ever offer them a timid wave and smile.

Jubilee insisted that they don’t sell a single potion before the opening, it would help build up some more hype.

Another day passes.

The shelves are done, Jubilee got more wood than they needed and so all around the room stands shelving now, as well some waist high bins in the middle. At first Jubilee had asked what Fresh was doing, building the store up like this. But the girl just winked and said to trust her. Jubilee said no to that statement, which stung a little, but wasn’t entirely unfair. She couldn’t tell Jubilee that she had watched a documentary about supermarkets once in her old life though, that would be weird. But she could implement some of the strategies that she vaguely remembers. Make people walk around to the store to get the staple goods they needed, so that they would pick things up on the way. Put the cheaper items down on the lowest shelf and the most expensive ones on the eye-level shelves. The girl explained the ideas as if they were her own and Jubilee stands there, dumb-founded at her suggestions. Fresh almost feels bad, as Jubilee approvingly praises her for using her brain.

Once they leave to go to the dungeon, Fresh sighs and sets to work on the counter. She had asked if Jubilee could take her down again to get some more levels, but Jubilee had denied her for now. There was too much else to do, they said, and they weren’t entirely wrong. Fresh looks over to her grimoire, that even now after days is still damp. Apparently it just always is. She hadn’t had a quiet moment to read it either. The girl sighs, and sets to work making a counter, promising herself that she’s going to make it good.

Another day passes.

Their ‘inventory’ is still rather plain, and the shelves are mostly bare, save for the blue potions that lined a full wall, sorted by the strength of their effects, given the variance of the moonwater. The daggers made for good optics though and she had managed to make a few more now. Apparently they were pretty decent beginner weapons, according to Jubilee. All of their other assorted ‘left-over’ goods from crafting, they opted to put into the bins in the center of the space. Fresh smiles though, as they set to work. Her antidotes are just about side-effect free now and Jubilee had said that they could put the low-risk ones out as well. Then each night after their work, Fresh would loudly insist that they eat together. Jubilee protests at first, but relents eventually after the girl starts loudly crying in front of the window. People were watching, after all.

Another day passes and it’s almost time.

Neither of them heard word from the merchant’s guild once during the time and simply assumed that they were in the clear for now. Though occasionally they would feel a pair of prying eyes pressing themselves just a little too close to the window. Fresh’s crafting skills were fairly decent now and the girl is able to make their glass flasks in more or less a flick of the hand. But they still have the problem that they have a very poor selection of wares. The girl stares at the block of matte sanded glass in her hands, wondering what to do with it. Bottles are always good, but people don’t seem to want to buy empty bottles, apparently. Adventurers had more bottles already than they knew what to do with, since they bought potions so often. Glass bottles on their own are about worthless here inside of the core of the city.

The idea hits her and her eyes go wide.

(Fresh) [Crafting: Chip{Clean}]

“What are you doing?” asks Jubilee, standing there with crossed arms, as they watch the girl who is huddled over the block of glass, a possessed look in her eyes. She shoots a glance to Jubilee, but doesn’t say anything as she returns to her work. Jubilee shrugs and goes upstairs, mostly indifferent.

Fresh works, tears forming in her eyes as the glass takes shape. It’s beautiful, she thinks.

An hour later, the small boots come back down. Fresh raises her gaze and her eyes meet Jubilee’s with fire as she holds out her arms, lifting up the heavy thing that she had spent an hour making. With a strong feeling in her heart, she leans forward towards Jubilee and shouts with a bright smile -

“BAKAAAAAAW!”

Jubilee stares at the glass chicken. “What the fuck?”

“I made a chicken!” beams Fresh with pride.

“…Why?” they ask, incredulously.

Fresh stops, taking a moment to turn the chicken around, so that it faces her and she tilts her head curiously as their eyes meet. Why did she make this? Lost, the girl looks back to Jubilee, facing them together with the chicken once more. “…Bakaw?”

Jubilee groans and leaves.

Another day passes, the final one having arrived. They will open tomorrow. The shelves are filling fast. Jubilee has brought some other curiosities back from the dungeon, but Fresh isn’t too sure what to do with a lot of them just yet. The final day, the two of them spend some time together, cleaning up the ‘construction site’ of the store. With some pride, Fresh sets to work on her final task, engraving a sheet of matte glass with the name of their store. Once the grooves are made, she takes a tincture made out of a very thick soul potion and some charcoal and smears it into the rough pores of the letters. It’s a fragile construction, but it‘s catchy to the eye and that’s what’s important.

Fresh looks with pride at the glass sign, their name standing out and glowing with a dull shine from the hardened residue of the magical potion and Jubilee nods to her in affirmation again. This time she feels that she’s earned it.

The evening comes one last time and then the night. The store is ready, or as ready as it can be. Jubilee had also brought back some assorted items from the dungeon. Uncommon drops, apparently. Some clothes, some weapons, some trinkets. They would get more for them if they sold them themselves, rather than to a merchant.

Night comes and as they say goodnight to each other, Fresh enters her room and flops onto the mound of blankets on the floor, opting not to make any moonwater tonight for the first night in a week.

Her eyes fall shut in an instant and she falls into a deep, well-earned sleep.

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A little montage today. This chapter needs some cleaning up and will be edited to add some stat values soon, but I needed to do a little time-skip otherwise people would mutiny haha x-x