Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 11

Once they breach the second floor, Fresh looks around at the odd space that is above the tavern below. She had expected perhaps some sort of hallway lined with doors, or maybe a large quarter filled with beds for rent for weary adventurers. That was usually what these things were like. Instead, there is a single door right at the front of the stairs. Rising up to the tips of their toes, the small figure stretches and grunts as they stick the key into the lock and turn it. Before sinking down and pushing the door ajar and stepping towards the blue fog that fills the crossing, like with the dungeon.

Unsure, Fresh turns around to look down the stairs one last time. What did the stranger want with her? They had helped her, she felt at least, so there is an odd feeling of trust present in her now. But then again, she’s about to go inside of a locked room together with them. Alone with the stranger upstairs. Obviously there’s a squirmy connotation that she carries with herself in the back of her mind. She had never done anything like this before. Fresh shakes her head, as the hooded figure opens the door and steps inside, waiting for her. No. She’s just naive and misunderstanding the situation. Surely it wasn’t about anything like that.

She steps inside after them and looks around as the door is closed behind her. The singing, melancholy voice of the haunting spirit below is cut off, as soon as the door closes, as if it never existed. Just like with the noise from outside when she had entered the tavern. It was as if a magic was sealing the spaces, keeping them separate from each other entirely. The room is large and open, having the same size as the tavern below but being mostly entirely void of furnishings. It’s just a large, square empty room. Empty save for one small table with two dinky chairs and a single, small bed in the far corner. Fresh gulps.

Something sighs from behind her and she nervously looks as the small figure sinks low to the ground, their back sliding down against the door as they drop down to the stone floor. Their head raises, the eyes that tiredly shine through the mask look up towards her.

“That was close, you know?” says the figure and lets the back of their head ‘thunk’ against the door behind them once. “I guess we’re both adventurers now,” it says, groaning a little, as if suffering from what Fresh considers to be a rather joyful revelation.

Fresh has no idea what’s going on and rubs her bare arm somewhat uneasily. “Um, hello…”

“You might be bad-off, but are you touched in the head too?” asks the figure sharply, staring up at her somewhat incredulously.

“Huh?” squeaks Fresh, taken somewhat aback by the crude question.

“What do you think you’re doing here? Are you from the south or something?! Idiot!” There was that question again.

But Fresh’s heart flutters as the voice yells at her. She feels something cold on her skin as her blood begins to race. She never was good with people yelling at her.

“W-what?” is all she manages to stammer out, her eyes growing wet. What was she doing here? Wasn’t it obvious? What kind of question was that? “I wanted to be-become an adventurer…,” she mutters.

“What?! Why in the name of all that is holy…?!” The small silhouette grabs the sides of their head, their fingers clenching down on the hood in frustration. “Well, congratulations. You did it! Now we’re both gonna get fucked seven different ways. Well maybe, you are. Nobody is gonna want me. Hope you liked the taste of that dragon’s blood, cause there’s not gonna be a lot of that in the future.”

Fresh flinches. Was there something wrong? The figure’s gaze doesn’t leave her.

“You have no idea, do you? You really are from the south. I can see it, you know?” they say, plainly. Fresh stands there for a moment. Not sure what they mean. But then covers her body with her arms instinctively.

“Not that, you idiot! I can see the curse. It’s leaking out of you like you’re a broken pipe. You’re lucky that I’m the only one of my kind in this town and that I’m a nice person!” They groan and hit their head against the door again. “Too nice for my own good. Damn it!”

Fresh looks around. Curse?

“Ah… excuse me… but- I…” The eyes glare up at her and she flinches again as she feels their steeled gaze reach her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about…”

The figure shifts, its head razing up towards her as if it wasn’t sure what to think anymore.

“Show me your menu,” it says plainly.

Fresh, unsure of what else to do. Opens it as she did before, the glass rectangle floats between them.

“Wow. That’s… You didn’t think that there was something wrong with this?”

Fresh shifts. “I mean… sort of…?”

“You have two maximum health. Two!” yells the figure, pointing towards her. “I could stick my finger in your ass and you’d die! And look at your soul, what even…? Fuck’s sake! What is even going on there?!”

“I had three…” argues Fresh.

“You had three…?” replies the figure and even beneath the mask, Fresh can see their face drop to an expression that is even more disappointed.

“I had three maximum health, but I lost one…”

They’re silent for a moment. The figure takes a deep breath, holding their hands out beside themselves, as they slowly inhale and then just as slowly exhale that breath back outward.

“Let me break this down for you, because I’m about to cry at the mistake I just made.” They look at her, locking their fingers together with their indexes raised to point towards her. “You are literally cursed. Literally. I don’t know who you ticked off, or what sacred temple you pissed in. But something put a heavy spell on you. Your stats are like a child’s. Hell, I know children who are stronger than you!”

Fresh rubs her head, she already knows that she is sub-par but… she’s willing to work on that. If that’s all that the small figure has to say, then she was actually still feeling pretty good about this as a whole, despite feeling shaky from being yelled at. The tension in her shoulders loosens, as she sighs out deeply in relief.

“I don’t know about any curses or anything like that. But I know I’m weak. I’m going to work hard though and I won’t let that stop me,” she says, feeling her determination return to her. She was going to do this, no matter what.

“No. You don’t get it, dumb-ass!” yells the figure jumping up now and pressing a finger directly into her stomach rather painfully. “Do you know how much money we owe the guild?!”

That was a sentence Fresh understands. “M.. Money?”

“We became adventurers, officially! Don’t you understand?! By taking the initiation, you agreed to the terms! That shot was dragon’s blood! Don’t you know what that costs?!”

Fresh’s eyes widen. The small figure grabs the cut of the front of her robe, pulling her down towards its face. “TEN-THOUSAND OBOLS!” They yell, yanking the single coin from her hand and holding in-front of her face. “TEN-THOUSAND,” they repeat and throw the single coin far across the large room. It rolls and strikes the far wall with a small clamber.

Fresh’s legs feel wobbly now and now she stumbles, taken aback and holds herself against the bricks. What? Ten-thousand? She could never pay that back. What did she do? She could never hope to pay that back, not in a million years. Not in… her eyes fearfully look back to the figure.

“How long?”

“A year,” says the masked person quietly, turning around and clenching their own fists as they turn their back to her, to look across the empty room. “We have a year to pay the guild back. Ten-thousand each. Otherwise they own us. They own you. They own me. You’ll probably be able to squeeze into a brothel and pay them back within another year, but me?! I’ll be rat-fodder! Nobody is going to pay for this!” they yell, pointing at themselves.

They both stand there quietly for a time. Fresh’s heart is beating fast and her body is shaking. But there is one thing she still doesn’t understand.

“Why did you drink it too?” she asks the figure, who lashes around to point back at her in an instant.

“Because, dumb-ass! - What do you think would have happened if one of those other parties took you in and saw your worthless stats?! Best case, you’d get left behind down in the dungeon to get eaten, worst case, you’d skip the year and be sold directly to the red-light district, probably chained up in some back alley shed! Once the glass is poured, there’s no taking it back! They wouldn’t have let you leave after you went up to the keeper! Making a new party was the only way to get you out of it at that point!”

The figure walks out across the empty room, clutching their head again and mumbling loudly. Fresh’s body shakes. What did she get herself into? She should have done some research before diving straight in like this again. It was the same thing. The same thing she did in the dungeon before. She ran straight ahead with her eyes closed and it got her killed. And now, it might as well have gotten her killed again. It was the second day of her new life and she was indebted beyond belief. She never had had any debt before, not even in her old life.

How? How was she going to get ten-thousand Obols? With no health. With no abilities or skills. Wait… Wait! She looks at the figure, apparently her very first party member, which does ease the pain a little.

“What do we get out of joining the guild?” she asks the small person who was halfway across the large, empty room. Maybe there was a new door opened to her now, maybe with membership, there would be access to some teachers or somebody who could show her the ways of fighting or magic. Ten-thousand? She grips her fists tightly, steeling her resolve. She can get ten-thousand! If she learns how to fight, how to go through the dungeon and how to earn money. She can put in the hours. She’s willing to do everything it takes. It’s scary, but she’s going to do it, she promises herself.

“Huh?!” laughs the small hooded figure, turning back around to face her as they hold out their arms wide at their sides in a welcoming gesture.

“This is it! This is what we get! Welcome to our new home, Fresh!”