Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 7

Patreon formatting options are garbage. You literally can't set text colors. So none of these 'screens' look like they are meant to. Just assume they are colorful while I go cry haha

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Fresh lets out a small burp, turning her head away, before taking another bite of the steaming, giant mushroom that had been sitting over the make-shift cooking pit. She had made it after the so-called battle. Though ‘cooking’ was also a bit of an exaggeration, she thinks to herself, looking at the small hole, which she had dug with her bare hands and filled with the magical torches. With both hands, she pushes the creature back onto the flames to cook some more while she chews. The fire hisses and she wipes away the wet from her eyes with the back of her wrists.

“Y-you really are delicious, M-Mr. Mushroom,” she lies, looking at the dead creature as she swallows down another bitter mouthful. It seemed wrong to her to not only kill it, eat it, but then to also, as a final insult, to say that he tastes bad. She can’t explain why, but she feels like she owes it that at least. Grabbing the mushroom, she turns it over again, hoping that maybe if it gets a little crunchy, that it might taste better. But as is, it tastes like dirt. Not even a little tangy or bitter. Just… dirt. But at least it’s hot and at least it fills her growling stomach.

Crying, she leans in towards the mushroom creature sitting over the fire and takes another bite, wincing and creating new tears. As she chews, she looks with wet eyes at the creature, specifically at the orange cap adorning its head. She had seen people walking outside with these. So that meant it was worth something, that meant she could sell it. Through the sadness comes a bitter pride and she takes another bite from the side of the giant mushroom, before pushing him back on the fire. She had gotten some experience points, apparently, from the fight, not enough to level up though. But it was good to know she thinks, as she recalls the simple screen that had appeared after the battle.

[ You got {2/10} Experience ! ]

The mushroom hisses and she turns him around, wondering if she should take the cap off. Probably actually, if she was going to sell it. It would be no good burnt. The edges were already a little charred, actually.

Reaching over the fire, she grabs the mushroom cap, pressing one hand against the other side of his body and closing her eyes, pulls back to rip it off. It comes a little loose with a strange tearing sound. Like pulling glued paper apart. She winces and pulls again.

“Sorry!”

The cap comes off and she falls backwards onto her bottom, holding it with wide, but damp, eyes. Her first loot. Her first item! Sort of.

“Torches don’t count,” she mumbles to herself.

A tiny text window pops up, not even half the size of the one of the torches.

Found: [MUSHROOM CAP (Orange)] !

“Neat,” she looks at it, spinning the round, saucer-like growth around in her hands, before setting it down. Apparently there wasn’t any ‘black-hole’ magical inventory, at least that she knows of right now. That would explain why everyone outside was carrying their stuff by hand or in giant bags she thinks. Something hisses, Fresh lowers the cap to look at the fire, at the burning mushroom creature.

“AH!” she leaps forward to pull it from the flames below. Mr. Mushroom is heavy though, even with four bites missing from him and no cap. The window pops up again with a small chime, as she heaves him to the side of the pit again and away from the licking flames. Thankfully, even if his lower body was sitting on the fire, his upper is still only mildly warm.

[COOKING: 1] {Extra Crispy!}

Panting, she sets the heavy thing down and looks. Apparently there is a cooking skill? Fresh stares down at Mr. Mushroom who looks back up to her. Coughing once to herself, she grabs him and spins him around, before looking back to the menu. Can she do anything with this? She taps the window, but it just vanishes.

“Hmm…,” she ponders. “There’s got to be an adventuring guild or somebody I can ask about this stuff,” she says. “Right, Mr. Mushroom?” She takes another bite from the back of the creature, eating a bit of the char. Now he tasted like dirt and like ash. Great. She coughs, hitting against her chest with a fist. Taking a second to breathe and to wipe away another tear, she leans in to take another bite.

It’s disgusting, she feels awful. But eating makes her feel better. It’s risky, eating a mushroom that she had never seen before. It was even riskier because that mushroom had never seen her before either before this morning. Real stranger danger. Fresh takes another bite, wincing and leaning back against the stone wall behind her as she looks with one eye down the way. Down towards the wall of red-fog that had now vanished, opening up the path down to the next part of the dungeon.

She swallows.

Should she look? Or should she sell the cap first? If she dies again, will it be lost? She supposes so, doubting that she can carry it with her through whatever inter-cosmic gateway lets her respawn.

Fresh wipes her last tears away on her shoulder, before taking a final bite of Mr. Mushroom. No. Her gaze turns to the stairs upward, in an effort to distract herself from the taste. No. She’ll go to town again first. She should sell the cap. It probably isn’t worth more than the equivalent of a few cents, being such an ‘easy’ creature and just one single one. But it’s all she has. Besides, she swallows with a loud gulping sound, maybe she can find out something about getting a class? Maybe then… Fresh looks at her meager, pale hands that are almost translucent in the firelight.

“Maybe if I had some abilities…” she thinks. With her low health, perhaps becoming a close-combatant was a bad plan. But… what about something else? Magic! If she could learn some simple combat spells, like a tiny fireball, then she could work with that for starters. She could stay at a distance, where it didn’t matter how low her health was. Or maybe she could learn to heal? If she learned some healing magic, people would want her, she could make friends then.

Fresh likes that idea a lot.

“What do you think, Mr. Mushroom?”

Mr. Mushroom falls over and doesn’t respond.