Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 330

Fresh digs through the soil on the farm, pulling out weeds and roots. She’s opted to make herself a straw hat out of some old bark. There isn’t actually any sunlight in this room. It just seems to be illuminated by the same ambient glow that many rooms down in the dungeon are also filled with. But she figured that if she was going to do farm work, that she needed a straw hat. It’s just the way things are.

“Hmm…” says Basil, sounding a little concerned. “That’s odd…”

Fresh looks up at the priestess. “What’s up, Basil?” she asks, rubbing her sweaty face on her rolled up sleeve.

“Something picked at these, look,” remarks the priestess, pointing at a mushroom that something has nibbled on, down near its stem. “I didn’t think we’d have pests here. But maybe that was optimistic…” sighs Basil, looking around the space.

Fresh gasps.

“Varmints…” she mutters under her breath, looking around the room.

But there is nothing to be seen.

The shelves are all lined up and ready. The price tags are set up and the ledger, that Jubilee had to make a brand new one of, is tabled out and also ready to use.

When entering the store, the counter is immediately to the left hand side. To the right, in the direction that the customers are automatically channeled into by the set-up of the shelves, are Basil’s day to day medicines. Things that one could always make use of. Salves for aches and pains. Little glass ‘shots’ with small concoctions of brew that help fight off headaches after too much drinking or after using up too many soul points. Ready-made bandages, coated with a disinfecting blend of herbs and bees’ wax.

The more potent medicines, which need to be explained, are behind the counter on a shelf on the wall.

After that, when walking around the aisle, past an ‘L’ shaped shelf that makes use of the right outcrop of the building as foot space, comes Fresh’s section, which is full of healing wands and baubled-staffs and the shielding-statues. It’s still missing one or two items though. She still wants to make some medicine herself. It’s very important to her, actually.

Past that, further ahead, is Jubilee’s area which is currently full of thick coats, gloves, scarves and even long underwear.

“How come we didn’t get any long underwear, Jubilee?” asks Fresh. “It’s always so cold.”

Jubilee taps their open palm with a finger. “Thirty Obols and they’re yours.”

“Jubileeee~!” complains Fresh, setting them back onto the shelf. She doesn’t have thirty Obols right now. At least they have the floor-heater. It’s always nice and warm when one steps inside of the store. The warm, only slightly damp air, is very comforting. Somehow, it has intermingled with the smell of the many flowers and mushrooms that still invade the house despite their best efforts to remove them, giving the entire building an easing, floral perfume. Stepping into their home is like stepping into a calm, sunny forest grove.

While it’s hard to say that the long-term effects of this kind of overgrowth could possibly be positive for the integrity of the structure, it certainly does give it a charm in a way.

“I’m still not convinced that it’s healthy,” says Basil, poking a mushroom that is coming out of the shelves. The dungeon-magic just seems to cause greenery to grow everywhere, no matter what. “But I suppose we’ll have to live with it.”

“If walking through a forest is healthy, then I don’t see the issue,” says Jubilee, shrugging.

“Mushroom spores can be really bad for you,” explains Basil, her finger resting on the cap of the mushroom as she looks back towards Jubilee.

Jubilee, resting with their elbow on the counter, shakes their head. “We all gotta die of something, Basil,” they say.

Basil frowns, but then shrugs, giving up the fight.

The plants have won and are here to stay.

The others are outside drumming up business for their opening tomorrow. Fresh, meanwhile, is down in the basement, working.

She swipes her hand over the workbench, getting rid of a heap of dust that had collected surprisingly quickly. Maybe these are those mushroom spores Basil was talking about?

Fresh sneezes, blowing a load of harpy feathers all around the room.

The house-spriggan runs around, picking them up for her. Rubbing her face, she bends down and takes them. “Thanks, little guy,” she says, setting them down onto the table.

So. Dust, huh?

She shakes her head, grabbing a load of feathers and bundling them together at the stems with a cord. Then, she grabs a wooden cylinder that she uses for her wand-crafting and grinds it down into a grip.

With a dab of glue, she takes the bundle of blue feathers and holds it to the handle, attaching them to each other with a new ability.

The new construct falls down to the table.

Fresh blinks, picking the odd thing up. She places it to the table and swipes across it.

Blue feathers fly everywhere as the heap of remaining harpy feathers is thrown all around the room at once, one of them sticking into her hair which flies wildly back. Upstairs, the windows and doors slam shut as a strong gust shoots through the entire building.

Fresh looks back at the spriggan, which stares at her and then at all of the feathers that are strewn around the room.

“Sorry…” she says to it and starts picking the mess up herself.

Fresh reads the line of the book, standing downstairs. This all kind of reminds her of back in the north, back when she used to make potions. Man, that feels like a lifetime ago.

She sighs, closing the book and looking around the basement.

Basil flicks the feather duster her way. A surge of wind moves past her, blowing her hair and dress to the side, Fresh lifts her hands, covering her eyes until the wind dies down.

“No sad faces allowed in this house,” remarks the priestess, looking at the feather-duster.

“Sorry, Basil,” says Fresh, catching herself just as she starts frowning and scratching her cheek. Basil swipes the feather-duster at her again.

“Will you fuck off with the wind?!” barks Jubilee from upstairs.

Basil laughs, setting the thing down before grabbing a strand of Fresh’s hair and pulling it back into the spot it belongs at, next to her ear. “How about something that helps people sleep?”

“Sleep?” asks Fresh. “Hmm… I dunno. That seems really specific.”

Basil tilts her head. “That’s what medicine is. Specific.”

“What about vitamins?” considers Fresh.

“Vitamins?”

Fresh nods. “Mm!” She gestures with her hands. “What if we make something that people can take before they get sick, so they won’t get sick at all?”

“Then we’re going to go bankrupt,” remarks Basil dryly, turning her head to look at her stack of medicine.

Fresh sighs, crossing her arms. “You sure sound a lot like Jubilee sometimes, Basil.”

“What a terrifying thought,” remarks the priestess.

“I heard that!” yells Jubilee from upstairs.

Fresh laughs, looking around the room. Something donks her on the head. “Ow!” She turns and looks at the little healer-spriggan with its staff. “Why’d you donk me?” she asks, rubbing the sore spot.

“Pakew!” it exclaims, as always, before pointing with its free hand to its head. Fresh looks. A little bulb is hanging from its sprout. It looks like it’s starting to grow a seed. She blinks, looking back at their collection of spriggan seeds.

Pulling one towards herself, she looks at it.

“Basil!” she exclaims. “What if we take these seeds and then grind them up with a mixture of different dried herbs? Nothing super potent, just stuff that’s really healthy for you?” she asks. “Then we’ll pack them into little nibbles and tell people to take them once a day!”

“Aren’t those just your dungeon-snacks from the west, but with less candy?” asks the priestess.

“It’s different!” remarks Fresh. “These can use honey.”

“I think those used honey too, for the shell?” ponders Basil, frowning as she thinks.

The priestess yelps as Fresh swipes the feather-duster her way, filling the room with a strong current of wind and the sounds of Jubilee’s vehement swears, carried all around the house, as if by magic.

Fresh beams, looking at the tiny thing in her palm. With her spells, it’s easy for her to make a few dozen of these at a time.

“We should sell these in bottles of thirty,” remarks Fresh. A month’s supply seems generous. Then people won’t have to worry about their health as much. She smiles.

“Good idea,” says Jubilee, thinking.

Basil nods in agreement. “Then they’ll have to come back every month to buy a new one.”

Jubilee seems to agree. “Once the effect starts, they’re not going to want to drop it, ever. We’ll have ’em hooked for life like a bunch of addicts.”

“Huh?” asks Fresh, looking at her friends.

“One Obol per tablet?” considers Basil.

“Fuck that. We’re in the big leagues now,” replies Jubilee. “Three per tablet. We’ll give kids a discount of only two each, get ’em hooked early.”

Fresh frowns. “Guys!” she protests. “You sound super evil!” she cries in distress.

“Pakew!” shouts a spriggan next to her. They look at it. The little creature waves the feather duster in its hand at them.

Shamrock’s papers that he has been drawing on for the better part of the day, fly off of the table and fly all around the house for the third time today. The man sits there at the table, pen still in hand. Silently, he turns his head towards them.

The spriggan quickly puts the feather-duster into Fresh’s hand and then hides behind her.

Fresh lets out a quiet laugh, as one of the pages falls back down and sticks to her face.

Razmatazz

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