Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 19

Warning: Things get a bit dark here.

---------------------

Fresh looks at the adventurers around them, all carrying their loads on the large bags on their backs, as they all walk towards the dungeon to put in a new day’s work.

“How come you don’t have a bag?” Fresh asks Jubilee.

“Don’t want one,” they say dryly back to her.

“Oh… How come?”

“Mind your own business,” snaps Jubilee up to her as they move past a large crowd that is standing outside of a butcher’s stall.

“Sorry,” Fresh scratches her face, not sure what she did wrong. “Do bags cost a lot of money?”

“Not really, about a hundred Obols will get you a really shitty one.” Fresh winces at the incredibly high price. Jubilee stops, looking back to the girl, as they seem to be thinking. “If you’re going to be glued to my ass, maybe we should get you one.”

Fresh waves her hands. “Ah. I only have one Obol…”

Jubilee rolls their eyes. “Yeah, I saw. Come on, there’s a stall right there. If you can’t be useful, then you can at least carry things for me when we’re in the dungeon. Which you’re not going to be a lot, by the way.”

“Ah! No!” Fresh waves them off, not wanting to be even more indebted. She was starting to lose count of how much she already owed Jubilee and doesn’t want to add anything else to it.

Jubilee looks back to her. “Look, we’re in this now. So shut up and take the bag before I change my mind.” They slap a coin on the counter of the stall and point up to a drab, brownish rucksack in the corner. The vendor nods and hands it down to them. Fresh just barely catches it, as Jubilee throws it over and keeps on walking down the street without her.

Fresh looks at the bag in her hands. It’s a shapeless, tough looking, light brown fabric. It isn’t exactly pleasing on the eyes. Basically being a brown sack with a few straps. She looks at her gift and then up towards her benefactor, who has already vanished into the crowd. Fresh yelps, slinging the pack and running after Jubilee. A window pops up and she hears a few laughs from around her from some more seasoned looking adventurers as they see it, to which she responds with an awkward smile and a laugh of her own, vanishing as fast as she can.

EQUIPPED: [Cheap Backpack] {Capacity: 20}

[Adventuring: 1] {Fresh start}

 Fresh runs through the buzzing crowds filling the street, panting, wheezing and sweaty as she catches up to Jubilee not a minute later.

“Th-thank y- you,” says Fresh, gasping for air.

“Don’t thank me dumb-ass, I expect you to pay me back, so make yourself useful. We’re even further in the red than we were yesterday now.”

Fresh feels woozy, but clenches her fists. “I’ll do my best!”

They step into the dungeon.

Walking down the steps, Fresh looks around the first floor that looks just as they left it. Jubilee points towards the hole in the wall, where the mushroom creature slept. “Congratulations on your newfound employment. Rootwood flowers grow beneath roots. Who would have guessed? Have fun, catch up when you’re done.”

“Huh?”

Jubilee walks away, heading down deeper into the dungeon and waves her off. Fresh looks back to the hole in the wall, where the dirt was still pocked with scorches from her devious trap. Adventuring was dirty work, sighs the girl. But that’s fine, that’s what she wants it to be. Fresh breathes in and out deeply and gets down on her stomach, crawling into the small crevice. It’s bright enough that she can see, thanks to the torches just outside, but the hole is cramped. She reaches the end where Mr. Mushroom slept, and looks around herself. Sure enough, just above her head are several of the blossoms, growing out of the bottom of the dark roots that permeate the walls. She smiles and turns over onto her back, the bag compressing beneath her as she reaches up to grab the first one. It’s firmly stuck, the flower feels oddly hard. Like wood, actually.

“Oooooh…” says Fresh to herself, realizing now why they had that name. She yanks again, twisting a little and the flower breaks off, coming loose. Some dirt from the compacted earth above her falls down onto her face.

Gathered: [Rootwood Flower]

[GATHERING: 1]{Tunnel rat}

“Pthhhbt-“ Fresh spits out the crumbling, damp dirt, blowing her lips and rubbing it out of her eyes as she reaches up for the next one. She could just sell these to the nice old lady. As a plus, maybe she would teach her some tricks of the trade. Fresh doesn’t think she really wants to focus on alchemy, it doesn’t seem like the thing that really excites her in life. But… it’s good to know a lot of things, plus alchemy has a very strong foundation in the general topics of items, doesn’t it? It would be good to know a little about everything, plants and powders and so on, thinks the girl and grabs a second flower only barely managing to avoid the cascade of dirt this time. Looking around, she grabs a third and last one, already feeling the dirt stick to her very sweaty, cold skin as she flops back around onto her stomach and wiggles backwards out of the tight tunnel.

Pulling herself out and sitting upright, she looks at the things in her filthy hands. The three tiny bulbs. She collected these herself. These were hers. She was finally managing to do something of value. Her eyes shine and she can’t help but make an excited squeal as her fingers clench them tightly. Though, rather embarrassed a second later, she does turn around to look if Jubilee had heard. But Jubilee is already down deeper.

Fresh takes her bag off and opens it up and tosses the bulbs inside, wondering if maybe there is any sort of… magical inventory. The bulbs unceremoniously plop down to the bottom of the sack, thudding as they hit the dirt surface beneath. Apparently not. Oh well. She smiles as she looks at them and rises up to her feet, slinging the bag back over her shoulders and heading down after Jubilee.

You got [10/15 Experience] ! (Party)

You got [12/15 Experience] ! (Party)

Ah, she’s already down there working. Fresh goes down the staircase, bracing herself against the wall this time, as she hurries to catch up. Thankful that she has someone so strong in her party.

You got [14/15 Experience] ! (Party)

You got [15/15 Experience] ! (Party)

[Level up! You are now LEVEL 3 ! ] {No-class}{Cooking 1}{Crafting 2}{Gathering 1}{Adventuring 1}

~*+- PROFILE -+*~ HP: 3/3 +1 "FRESH" SOUL: $%§ / §**+'#   LEVEL: 3

STATUS: ???

CLASS: NONE

OBOLS: 01

RACE: HUMAN

[INVENTORY]

STR: 03 WIS: 02 +1 LUK: 03   DEX: 02 +1 INT: 02 LOV: 03

You got [1/22 Experience] ! (Party)

“Wow…” Fresh stops, looking at the new window that has appeared. This was going really fast. She looks at her available abilities.

[Idle Hands]{Crafting 2}

Crafting an item restores soul once a day.

[Fresh Start]{Adventuring 1]

Every day, a random stat is raised +1 for the duration of the day

[Hands On]{Crafting 1}

You are more precise when working without tools.

These all looked a lot more interesting to her than her previous choice. Her finger hovers above [Fresh Start]. It seemed like the best choice, plus it had her name. A free stat, even if only temporary, could be worth its weight in gold for her. An extra max health point could save her life, or an extra point of luck could maybe brighten her day a little more… [Idle hands] seems useless as long as she doesn’t know if she even has any soul points, which are apparently what magic costs in this world.

You got [3/22 Experience] ! (Party)

Fresh stops, looking at the experience window that has appeared and her hand moves towards the entry level crafting skill [Hands On]. Jubilee is doing so much for her thinks Fresh and if she’s going to craft things, then she doesn’t also want to ask for tools or anything more from her party-member. She looks down to herself, to this new body of hers, this is all she has to work with. But this should be enough, she wants it to be enough. She’s going to make it be enough. She selects the skill, promising that she’s going to make something to thank Jubilee and rushes, carefully, down the staircase and then the next until she arrives on the fourth floor.

[New Floor: 4] {Putting in work}

Fresh looks at the window and swipes it away. Apparently new floors triggered her menu, but only every two floors? She’s pretty sure she didn’t get one last time. Though… she did fall down the stairs. Maybe she just missed it? The girl looks around and flinches. A group of mushroom creatures are pinned against the walls in a rather gruesome display, impaled on long jagged spears that hold them in place. Fresh steps down onto the floor that Jubilee isn’t on anymore, apparently they had already gone deeper. As she comes closer and looks at the crystal shards, seeing her own reflection, they shatter apart in an instant just as they had last time. Fresh scratches her cheek curiously shrugs, setting to work carefully ripping the caps off, before stacking them neatly inside of her new bag that she feels very proud of, even if it was a gift.

Found: [MUSHROOM CAP (Orange)] ! X 5

You got [3/22 Experience] ! (Party)

You got [5/22 Experience] ! (Party)

You got [7/22 Experience] ! (Party)

You got [9/22 Experience] ! (Party)

You got [11/22 Experience] ! (Party)

You got [13/22 Experience] ! (Party)

She should hurry. Straining, she gets up and begins struggling forward. The load is a lot easier to carry on her back than in her hands and as a bonus she can see where she’s going this time. In-fact, the loot seems to be a bit lighter than last time? Maybe because she’s stronger, having leveled again. But maybe the bag has some kind of reductive effect on the weight? Fresh smiles, another blessing by the universe. But her smile changes as she hears something. What’s that sound? It sounds like…

Carefully, she steps down the staircase, stopping near the top and looks at the horror unfolding below. Dead, eviscerated snails are scattered all over the rocky room, which doesn’t shock her that much. But something else in the center of the room still moves, still makes noise. Jubilee stands before it, looking up at the little, green hominid that is suspended in the air a meter above them, as it writhes in agony and terror. A large glass spear is on each side of it, pushing through both of its clearly broken elbows and holding it aloft, as it kicks and makes a strange, screaming sound, as its own weight slowly makes it slide down the length of the glass crystals ,that grow thicker near the base. Splitting its impaled arms further and further apart the more it struggles and kicks and slides down.

Jubilee looks over to her and nods in approval, seeing that she hasn’t stepped down the staircase yet. “I saved one for you.” She snaps her fingers, a pinch of dirt held in her thumb flies out. The glass spears lower themselves down, the goblin’s feet kick wildly as it writhes.

“Huh?” asks Fresh, paler in the face than usual.

“It’s a goblin. They’re disgusting, horrible little monsters and I hate them.” Jubilee tilts their head. A new spike shoots out of the dirt, cutting the goblin’s left foot in half lengthwise and it screams as the two parts flop around beneath it. Fresh winces, pulling back and covering her mouth.

“Stop!” she yells through her clenched fingers.

Jubilee tilts their head another way as if curious. A second crystal emerges from the first. Fresh watches in horror as the other foot of the goblin simply flops down, no longer attached to the body that screams so loudly. It screams in a tone Fresh has never heard before, she hears it in her core, she feels it in her heart as it screams.

“STOP!”

“No,” says Jubilee plainly and looks at her, shrugging.

“You can’t just torture it! It’s cruel!” yells Fresh, looking at the black blood oozing out from the creature.

“Didn’t you burn that mush-mush on the first floor alive?”

“I…”

“This is what adventuring is, dumb-ass! What do you think going down into the dungeon means?!” Jubilee points at Fresh. “It means killing things! It means you kill them or they kill you!”

“But you can’t-“

“I saw the scorch marks on the first floor! I’ve seen em a thousand times, everyone burns the mush-mush alive at least once. It’s basically a rite of passage.” Fresh winces, she did do that, but… it was her only way to fight. It was a necce-

“It was necessary, right? That’s what this is, dumb-ass! I need you to get it through your thick skull, once. Just once. Dungeon work is dirty, disgusting, filthy stuff and I want you to see it. We’re in this together? Then come here.”

Fresh hesitates.

“Why is this different from the mush-mushes and the snails?!”

“Because it’s… - ” starts Fresh, but is unable to finish. Because it has two legs? Because it’s… human’ish?

“You want me to work with you?” Jubilee points to her. “You want me to place my trust in you? You want me to go down into the dungeon, alone, to collect materials and risk my life, so that I can come up to help you fulfill some screwball plan that will also risk my life?” They step forward, reaching down into the dirt, grabbing a fist full of it, grains oozing from their gloved fingers as they squeeze down tightly. Fresh’s legs shake as she watches the goblin languishing, as it bites down on its own tongue and black blood oozes out of the corners of its mouth, splattering on the side of Jubilee’s hood. “Then you need to show me that you mean it. You’re trying your hardest? You’re willing to do everything it takes to live a new life?! Then prove it!” Jubilee clenches their fist, a long, slender prismatic shard appears in their hand and they hold it out to her.

Fresh gulps and shakily steps forward, looking at the glass dagger as she approaches Jubilee. The goblin sinks further, it’s arms are basically entirely removed at this point. Only holding on by the sinew on both ends of the elbows.  With shaking hands, Fresh reaches out and grabs the piece of glass. It’s rough. Jagged and elongated. She’s crying, the goblin screams and she looks at it and it looks at her as it lashes out, gnashing in a rabid fury with its long, yellow teeth. Its black eyes shining with firelight and blood as it struggles, as it screams a wordless scream that never seems to stop, as blood gurgles out of its mouth, as its body leaks.

Their eyes meet and Fresh clenches her teeth together, feeling her gut pull herself down forward. Why is she crying? It’s just a goblin. It’s just a goblin… she tells herself. She wants to do everything in her power, right? Does she? Really? She wonders, staring at her shaking hands. Really and truly, no matter what that means? It’s a mercy, right? She’s just giving it mercy, she tells herself, as her eyes open and meet its eyes. As her scream rings out to meet its scream and as she pushes forward, stabbing the glass crystal into its heart.

It screams, not dying. Fresh screams and pulls the glass back out, stabbing in again. It scrapes against a bone on its ribcage and shatters on the sides, sending a strange, vibrating sensation up her arm as the glass cracks in its body. The goblin screams, black blood hitting her face, running down her cheeks as she stabs it again, pulling the glass out and pushing it back in over and over and over. Until finally, she notices that there’s only one scream left.

You got [16/22 Experience] !

[Daggers: 1] {Heartstrings}