Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 24

Several doors line the dingy corridor that they wander down, all of them seem as forgotten and untouched as everything else inside of the dilapidated building. There are no furnishings in the upstairs hallway, just as with the downstairs area. There is nothing at all to fill the space, apart from the sound of their dirty boots. Apart from the floating dust particulate that is held aloft, suspended in vague streams of an evening sunlight that lazily shines in through the windows, sneaking past the heavily closed, drab curtains. All of them float gently downward, drifting down towards the creaking wooden boards below at a meandering pace that makes them appear to be stuck in time itself. Several doors line the hallway on the right side, all of them are closed. The thick coating covering the handles of most of them indicates that these too, are untouched and forgotten. A familiar feeling comes to Fresh as she sees the empty state of this place.

“Here, you can set the bag down here,” says Jubilee, opening the door at the end of the hallway. Fresh steps inside, feeling a strong sense of familiarity in herself at the sight of the dark room. The single window is obscured heavily by the same kind of ugly curtain, the fabric is pulled as tightly shut as possible. The furnishings are simple and unkempt. An unmade bed standing free in the center of the room, the sheets of which obviously hadn’t been changed in a long time. The floor is covered in dirt and dust. Fresh sets the bag down. This might as well be her old room. Kneeling down as best as she can, she winces, as she slips out of the straps of the bag and rises back up to her feet. Her hands touching the tender, slightly bleeding spots on her shoulders.

Jubilee drags a heap of green clothes and fabric off of a chair by the door, opting to throw them from the chair to the bed rather than put them away anywhere. “Here, sit. Watch out, the legs are a little wobbly.”

“Thanks,” says Fresh and drops down onto the fairly uncomfortable wooden chair. But to her body, it’s a gift from the heavens, the girl immediately droops downward, sliding down the back of the chair, her legs pressing out forward. She exhales, all of the heavy strain and tension leaving her body at once. “What a day,” she says somewhat dreamily.

“What a day,” says Jubilee back, somewhat less soft in tone than Fresh was.

“Thanks for helping me,” says Fresh, still leaning back with her eyes closed. The room is quiet for a moment.

“Yeah,” responds Jubilee rather dryly.

“So this is your place?” she asks, trying to make some small-talk with her party member.

“Yeah.”

“It’s nice,” lies Fresh to be polite.

“Yeah.”

“Mm,” says Fresh, if only to make a noise.

“Hmm…”

The room is quiet. The girl opens her eyes to look over to Jubilee, who is standing there on the other side of the room, leaning against the wall with crossed arms as if thinking. Her vision is interrupted by the yawn escaping her, mixed together with the audible growling of her stomach. Jubilee lowers their gaze and looks back towards her. Fresh laughs meekly, she hasn’t eaten anything since the bread that she wasted. But she wasn’t going to ask Jubilee for anything else.

“Sorry I yelled at you in the guild,” says Jubilee, looking back to the ceiling.

Fresh tilts her head, sitting back upright and scratches her cheek. “It’s okay, I was being a dumb jerk.”

“Yeah,” says Jubilee dryly.

Fresh lets out an uneasy laugh. “You didn’t have to agree with me.”

“It is what it is,” says Jubilee and sighs. “You want to eat something?”

“Ah, no! I-“

Jubilee interrupts her, raising a hand. “- You worked for it.” Fresh looks back at her, somewhat lost. Jubilee sighs, seeing her vacant expression and expands. “We have forty-four goblin teeth. Five orange caps and two blue caps. Oh, and these-“ Jubilee digs in their pocket with their gloved hands, pulling out a bunch of the rootwood flowers that Fresh had entirely forgotten. The girl’s eyes light up at the sight of them. “The old lady would usually only give a rookie like you one Obol for each of these, but since I know her game, she’ll probably give you two per. Together with the rest of the stuff, that means we’re at about ninety-seven Obols total, give or take.

Fresh jumps up, the chair scooting back against the wall as she springs to her feet, her eyes shooting open wide. “Ninety-seven?!”

Jubilee shrugs, as if that wasn’t very impressive. “Yeah, so half of that is yours. But if you want to keep some of the stuff to craft, then obviously it will be less than that. You can’t keep the orange caps though, we need to sell the whole bundle of five, otherwise they won’t take them.”

Fresh nods, excited. “That’s fine, the ones back at the guild should be enough for my tests!”

“Don’t talk about that here,” snaps Jubilee at her.

“Huh?” Fresh asks, somewhat perplexed, as she looks around the dark room.

Jubilee explains, leaning forward with some agitation at her naivety. “This house isn’t cut-off. In the guild space, nobody can hear you if they aren’t inside with you. But if someone were so inclined to listen to us, they could do it here.”

“Oh, sorry,” says Fresh, understanding now. Her mind drifts back to the other topic at hand. If she had money now, then maybe some actual food would be a great idea. With a smile she looks to Jubilee. “Will you come eat something with me?”

“Huh?”

“Do you want to go eat something together?” asks the girl, beaming as she leans forward on her wobbling legs.

Jubilee tilts their head and looks at her. “No.”

“Oh…” says the girl, somewhat let down. She rubs her arm and looks away. Was she being weird? Did she read the room wrong? “Sor-“

“If you’re hungry, I have some stuff you can eat here,” says Jubilee. Fresh looks back up to them. “You shouldn’t go outside with one health point,” they say, walking past her and out of the door. “Stay here.”

They vanish down the hallway, into the first door by the stairs. Fresh looks around the room and sighs, it really does evoke familiar feelings in her being here. In a weird sense, it’s making her nostalgic. She looks down to her pale hands that are shaking from weakness. It’s hard for her to explain to herself, but she has been working so hard from the start to become someone else, someone better, that she had entirely suppressed this part of herself. In her frenzy, she had entirely forgotten who she was for so long, that person she was for so many years. But being here, here in this dark room brings back that old feeling. It makes her realize, in an odd sense, that she almost misses the sadness and melancholy that had been overpowering her. It had been a part of her for so long and in a sense it still was. Is that weird? She isn’t sure.

Jubilee walks back in, carrying a small tray. Fresh looks at the little pink flower on their belt and clenches her fists tightly, coming back to her new self. Even if that sensation of sadness was a part of her for so long, she’s going to get rid of it. Even if it felt in a sense like cutting off a part of her own body, she was going to do it. She’s sure of it.

“Here,” says Jubilee, holding up the tray to Fresh. “Thank you!” cries the girl as she takes it and looks at the bounty. Adorning a small wooden plate are a few slices of some old bread, some cured meats and an array of various colorful, apparently preserved, fruits that she doesn’t recognize. She looks at it, realizing something.

“Aren’t you going to eat anything?” asks Fresh curiously.

“No. I’m not hungry,” says Jubilee and walks off. A loud growl breaks the silence. Fresh looks down embarrassed, but realizes a second later that it hadn’t come from her. Jubilee clears their throat and stands on the other side of the room again. Looking at Jubilee, somewhat lost, Fresh holds the tray out towards them. But they wave her off. She thinks for a moment, wondering why Jubilee doesn’t want to eat. She looks around the room, somewhat unsure of what to do.

“Eat, before you die. I’ll get something later,” says Jubilee. Fresh narrows her eyes. If they were friends now, then that obviously won’t do. Besides, as party leader, it’s her obligation to make sure her party is taken care of, right? Her eyes scan over the unmade bed in the middle of the room, before she looks down to the tray in her hands and thinks.

“Ah!” The idea hits her. Setting the tray down, quietly thanking the universe for giving her some extra brain power during her leveling, she takes the plate off of the tray and sets it to the side.

“What are you doing?”

Fresh doesn’t answer, she takes half of the food from the plate and places it onto the tray. Getting up and carrying both, she sets the tray down by Jubilee.

“I told you I don’t wan-“

“I won’t look,” says Fresh with a smile as she raises a finger into the air.

“Huh?” asks Jubilee dryly.

Fresh grabs her own plate and walks around the bed, sitting down on the floor on the other side, with her back leaned against it. Her finger waves in a circle in the air behind her head. “I promise!”

The room is quiet.

Looking at the food with hungry eyes, Fresh picks up a piece of the bread from her plate. It’s a little dry and old, but her face beams at the sight of it nonetheless. But she doesn’t start eating, it would be rude to start before everyone is seated after all.

The bed shifts, as a small body pushes against the other side of the mattress, sitting down on the floor there.

Fresh smiles and bites into her bread with delight, saying between chewy mouthfuls - “Let’s work hard again tomorrow, Jubilee!”

“Will you shut up and eat?” says Jubilee, their mouth clearly full as well. “We’re going to get your class tomorrow so you can start pulling your weight.”

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Today was just some character building, very important stuff. I hope you enjoyed the somewhat quieter chapter! Tomorrow's the big day! =)

Chapter 22 was missing an important menu, I added it now. Thank you for letting me know @SolarLancer! <3