Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 370

Sunlight shines in through the hole in the ceiling. Fresh has opened up the retractable, sliding covering to let in the glow of the outside world. She squints, covering her eyes with her hand for a moment as the unexpectedly bright light of the morning sun blasts through the shield and straight down onto her face.

Fresh turns around, blinking a few times as she gets everything ready. Looking over the tower for a second, she watches as Jubilee and Shamrock hustle around the kitchen, getting breakfast ready. The smell of it rises all the way up to her at the top of the tower.

Her stomach growls.

She shakes her head, returning her focus to the task at hand.

Set atop the tower is a small, stone basin on a pedestal. She had carved it out of the rock of the mineral-pool cave, just like she had done with the three bowls that she made for their dishware, shortly after they moved into the house. Though, this new bowl is wider and flatter. It kind of looks like a birdbath.

It’s filled to the brim with mineral water from the roots of the world-tree.

“So, are you sure that this is safe?” asks Basil, standing up atop the tower with her. Fresh turns her head, looking at the priestess.

“Uh… no, actually,” admits Fresh. “I think it’s like back in the west, Basil,” she says. “When we were down in the basement and made that crystal, you know?” Basil nods. “It’s safe’ish… probably.”

The priestess sighs. “You really do cause a lot of trouble, you know?”

“Sorry, Basil,” apologizes Fresh. “That’s just how it is.”

The priestess shakes her head. “I’ve come to understand that as well.”

Now, the process of making moonwater is something that Fresh doesn’t even think about that much anymore, since she’s made perhaps a full lake’s worth of the stuff. A container full of water, an item with sentimental value, some witch magic, ta-da! Moonwater.

But sunwater?

She assumes that it’s the same, really. Though, the problem is, that she can’t make something like sun water, as far as she knows. Witch-magic is based off of moon energy, after all.

“- That’s why it’s great that you’re still officially a priestess, Basil!” explains Fresh, finishing her rant. “I don’t think I could do this without you.”

“You think?” asks the priestess, playing with the bracelet on her wrist.

“Mm!” nods Fresh, fairly certain of that. It’s good that Basil hasn’t changed her class yet. If she was something other than a priestess, this likely wouldn’t work. Now, she doesn’t exactly have any proof of that theory holding true, but she feels like it’s true, so, objectively, in her mind, it is. “We’ll just use the same recipe,” says Fresh. “But with the sunlight instead.”

She lifts her gaze to the ceiling, looking at the sun that is shining in very opportunely right now, its rays landing perfectly on the bowl of glistening water between the two of them.

“Okay,” says Basil. “Do you have your Obol?” she asks.

Fresh digs around in her pocket, looking for the old Obol she had flying around. Her very first one. But it doesn’t seem to be here. Maybe she left it somewhere else? Hmm… “I have the key for the adventurer’s guild?” she offers instead.

Basil thinks for a moment and then shakes her head, pulling out her necklace. “How about this?” she asks. “It has to be something sentimental, right?”

Fresh blinks, staring at the shard of broken metal that had belonged to the armor of Basil’s former companion. “Basil… yeah, sure, we can use that,” she agrees. The process has never destroyed an item so far, so it should be fine.

Basil lowers her head, taking off the necklace and slowly lowering it into the water.

“Ready?” asks Fresh. “We’ll do it just like back then. But be careful not to touch the water,” she warns. “I don’t know if it’ll get weird or not.”

“Mhm,” nods Basil, holding her hands out.

Fresh lifts her hands too, taking a moment to look back at the warm shining sun and then at the warm glow of Basil’s face and then at finally, at the warm, reflective shine of the water. “Now!”

The water begins to bubble as the purple aura of Fresh’s magic imbues itself into the metal pendant which has sunk to the bottom of the stone bowl. At the same time, the brighter shine of Basil’s holy magic works its way into the water, covering it like an oily film, until it sinks down, coating the bubbles that rise to the surface, suffocating them, dragging them back down to the bottom of the bowl.

The water, unsettled, slowly changes color from its azure, mineral-rich blue to something far clearer, far thicker as the bubbling stops entirely.

Medium: Water

Strength: 100%

If drank:

+5% HEALTH Regeneration – 12 Hours

+10% HEALTH – 12 Hours

+6 to all RESISTANCES

+ Removes all status effects of types: [DARK][POISON][ICE][WITCH][FEAR]

“Oh, wow…” says Basil, clearly surprised in a calm way. “Uh… hmm…”

“Basil?” asks Fresh. “Are we going to get kidnapped for this?”

Basil leans over the tower. “Hey, guys?” she calls down to Jubilee and Shamrock. “We made a thing again,” explains the priestess. “One of those ‘we’re gonna get killed’ things.”

Jubilee sighs, rolling their eyes. They lift their hand with a spatula in it. “Can you at least wait until breakfast is done?” they ask. “Fuck’s sake.”

“Sorry!” calls Fresh, looking back at what they’ve produced.

This is good. Really good. Dangerously good.

But then again, isn’t this just item number one-thousand that she’s made of which this could be said? She’s constantly made seemingly trivial things that the others had warned her could in and of themselves cause wars to break out, should word ever spread. So far, this prophecy at least, has remained unfulfilled. Basil reaches in, fishing out her necklace and carefully drying it off with her sleeve, her smile is a little warmer again.

“Thanks, Basil,” says Fresh. “I’m really glad you’re here.”

“Yeah,” says Basil, smiling as she looks at the water, her hands wrapped around the necklace. “I sometimes lose myself a little, you know?” asks the priestess. “Things keep happening and then I wonder if I made the right choices,” she explains. “But then, other things happen, like this, and I think that I did.”

Fresh smiles, looking at the two happy reflections in the water.

“Come on, let’s go get breakfast,” says Basil, turning to go down the tower. The priestess stops, looking over her shoulder at Fresh. “Hey… listen…” says Basil.

Fresh lifts her eyes, looking at her. The priestess seems a little tense.

“- Last one downstairs has to do the dishes!” exclaims Basil in a fast, breathless sentence. She swipes Fresh’s broom and hovers off of the edge of the tower.

Fresh yelps in fear and makes a run for it, sprinting down the tower as fast as she can. But not fast enough.

Razmatazz

‘The center’ is probably going to be the last arc of the story, by the way. But fear not, we still have a few weeks together, friends. x-x