Chapter 49: Hustle and bustle (Patreon)

The rest of the day passed without any further excitement and Fresh goes upstairs with gleeful eyes, opening her door to run into her room and to jump onto her new mattress with open arms. She lands down onto it, face first, kicking her feet into the air in excitement. “Jubilee! I have a mattress!” calls out the girl’s muffled voice, her face pressed down into the fabric.

“Yeah…? That’s what happens when you buy something. You get it.”

The girl looks up, wobbling her body back and forth. “It’s so soft! Come here! Try it out!” she calls out, lifting her face up off of the fabric.

Jubilee sighs, shutting her door for her.

“Creep.”

“I’m not a creep!” shouts Fresh as the door slams shut and her head falls back down onto the soft mattress.

The night passes and the dawn of a new day breaks. Fresh, deciding to get them something to eat before the store opens today, leaves early to go into town.

Stretching and yawning loudly she stands outside, at the plaza near the entrance to the city and leans against a tree. The girl stares curiously out through the open gate, down the road beyond, that leads off towards the horizon. She isn’t sure why she stopped here. It just felt like the right thing to do. Somehow, the bird-song calling from the crowns of the trees above her head, the busy, shuffling feet of the people walking this way and that, the gentle touch of the morning sunlight shining through the dewy air, all of these things made her want to just stop and just stand here for a while.

As she looks out through the gate, listening to the sounds of the newly awakening city, the girl realizes that she really doesn’t know anything about this world. Where does that road go? Did it go to ‘the south’? And what did that mean to begin with? Her eyes follow it down its entire length, until it fades into the dawn-tinged sky and she wonders what her new life would have been like if she went towards the right at the intersection back then?

She could do it now. She could walk straight out of the gate with her bag on her back and just follow the road to wherever it went. It wouldn’t be the same compared to if she had done it back then, she has a class now, a place now. But this is a brand new world and she hasn’t really seen any of it. She hasn’t learned anything about it. Hasn’t she metaphorically just locked herself into her room again? Though, all things considered, the city was a lot bigger than her old room.

The girl taps her finger against her chin and looks down as the black of her sleeves catches her eye. Her new robe. She smiles and turns away from the gate, walking around the plaza.

She wasn’t really thinking about leaving. It was more of a random thought that suddenly came to her, a call to adventure from some voice in the back of her head. A whisper that wasn’t saying that she should, but that she could. If she really, really, really wanted to. But -

The girl hums as she walks.

- she doesn’t want to. She likes it here, despite the city’s flaws. She’s found a place to call home, sure it needs a little work. But so does she. She’s also found a friend. Fresh stops, scratching her cheek.

“Jubilee needs a little work too.” But that’s fine. So does she. Fresh nods to herself, accepting that they’ll both just have to work on themselves together. She has about an hour until they open and she circles the plaza, looking down the many side-streets she has never ventured through and, in order to subdue that tiny flame of adventure in her heart, decides to go down one of them today.

The road that she chooses winds on in all manner of directions, curving in a rather serpentine fashion that feels oddly organic in comparison with the straight, trimmed path that is the main road. However here too, the still fairly broad street is filled with adventurers and people heading every which way, some down towards the dungeon talking loudly about their plans for the day, without a care in the world, others darting from shop to shop in a hustle to get their morning shopping in before the crowds grew.

Fresh walks by a group of three people walking past her, average adventurers by the looks of them.

“- hear about the murder?”

“Yeah. They found another body,” says a man.

“Again? Wasn’t there one just one a little while back?“

“That’s why I only sleep in the guild!”

The girl watches as they vanish into the crowd. Wasn’t she here on the day that happened? She vaguely remembers someone talking about that. Actually, wasn’t that on her first day here?

Fresh shakes her head and keeps walking. The city really is a dangerous place, despite its well kept appearance.

On her way, she finds an open air stall with a man spinning an arrangement of different vegetables and meats, skewered on a long stick over an open flame. Fresh stops, smelling the deeply rich flavor in the air, intermingling with the smoke. Seeing her interest, the man flourishes with his hand and a puff of fire shoots out, coming together into a coil and wrapping itself around the skewers.

“Good morning Missy, you hungry? Only twenty each!” says the man, waving her over as the fire dissipates.

Satisfied, Fresh smiles brightly and collects their breakfast and then hurries back before it gets cold. She had paid an extra five obols for two small sweet-rolls that the man had as well. Sure, she could be frugal and use every coin she had to pay back the guild. But that had time and what good is money if you can’t use it to get anything you want?

She walks into the shop, half expecting to see the red wizard standing outside, waiting to buy more potions. But their usual first customer of the day isn’t there yet.

“I’m back!”

“Took yo-“ Jubilee looks around. “Actually, no, you made good time today.”

Fresh smiles. “I don’t know what these are, but I thought they looked nice so I bought them!”

Jubilee looks at her, adjusting the glass chicken they are standing in front of. “That’s one way to live your life, I guess…”

“Mm!” nods Fresh. “Here you go!”

“Thanks,” says Jubilee and they head to the counter. Fresh falls down to the floor, leaning back against the front and Jubilee sits on the inside, leaning against the back.

“Jubilee?” asks Fresh. “We’ve saved up some money already, right? I want to fix up some things in the store. I think we should put in some new locks.” She bites into her bread.

“Are you still crying about that vampire thing?”

“Can I?” asks Fresh, not wanting to get deeper into it.

Jubilee sighs and relents. “Well, fuck, I guess that’s what we were saving the money for to begin with. Okay, the next time things are slow you can take care of that stuff.”

“Thanks!” smiles Fresh, taking a bite of her skewer and feeling a lot better. The charred, green vegetable that she bites into has a somewhat bitter taste, but it’s not entirely unpleasant either. “Are you sure you don’t want to sleep in one room?” asks the girl, just to be sure.

“No, I don’t want to share a room. What? What kind of fucked up life have you had to make you so clingy?” asks Jubilee, taking a bite of their food, talking as they chew. “Seriously. You have the stats of a child at your age and not a scar on your pasty ass. Are you some kind of noble’s daughter on the run or something?”

Fresh takes a bite of her bread, ripping into it loudly so that Jubilee can hear her eating, so she doesn’t have to answer right away. The girl swallows.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” She looks at her skewer. “What about you?”

“Huh?”

“What about you?” repeats the girl.

The room is quiet.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Yeah,” says Fresh, dryly.

“Yeah,” repeats Jubilee with the same lack of tone.

“Jubilee?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for being my friend.”

“Yeah.”

The two of them eat in awkward silence, before getting ready for the day, not talking about it any further.

Soon enough it’s time for them to open up and Fresh unlocks the door and looks out of it, expecting to see the wizard. But they are nowhere to be seen. Instead however, a group comes bustling in past her and walking to the shelves of potions.

“These were pretty good!” says a man with a chipped metal spaulder.

The priest of the group rubs his head. “I don’t know about the taste though.”

“Really? I liked it,” says a caster next to him.

Fresh pushes past the people surging in. Today is going to be a busy day apparently. Jubilee seems to have been right, in that they would come back once they drank all the ones they had bought last week.

“What’s with these necklaces?”

“One to all resistances?! Hey!” calls the man and Jubilee looks over.

“What?”

“What do these cost?” he asks, pointing to the necklace in his hand.

“It’s on the sign. Fifty-one obols.”

“For this?!”

The crowd shifts, buzzing as they move away from the rack of soul-potions, heading towards the bin of necklaces that Fresh had filled up. Fresh retreats behind the counter as the mass of people and curious faces grow.

The man with the chipped spaulder grabs four and heads to the counter.

“That’ll be two-hundred and four Obols.” Jubilee looks up to his shoulder. “You need that repaired? We do it here in-house, it’ll be done by tomorrow morning. Ten percent less than the standard rate.”

The man thinks for a second, his hand pushing the shoulder armor around to see if it was still good enough. Apparently it isn’t, as he then sighs and grabs it, unstrapping it and setting it down onto the counter.

“Sounds good to me.” He slaps the coins down and Jubilee starts making change.

The line starts to move quickly as the man leaves and Fresh sets to work. The minor soul potions, which were their original hot-sellers, still do well, but the necklaces are the real attraction today, much to Fresh’s surprise. Were they that good? Apparently. Though the girl realizes as she runs up the staircase for the fourth time now, carrying a load of armor into her room to repair tonight, her robe from a boss-drop only gave her two resistances. So four? For their price? It was a deal too good to pass up.

She wipes the sweat off of her brow, pushing her door open and dropping the armor down onto the growing pile of the rest of it.

Apparently repairs were going to be a big business opportunity too.

Fresh sighs in exhaustion and runs down the stairs again. It’s going to be a busy day.