Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 56: Another day, another Obol (Patreon)

The day ends without anything else of notable excitement happening and Fresh falls asleep in an instant, after finishing her work. Still feeling deeply exhausted from the night before.

Waking up early, feeling much better after a night’s rest, if not a little frazzled, Fresh washes up and gets ready for a new day. Meeting Jubilee downstairs who is already up, getting the store ready to open in a little, she goes about her usual routine of ‘hunting’ them breakfast somewhere out in the city. The girl enjoys the crisp morning air, as it helps wake her up from her morning lull and immersing herself in the vibrant life of the city as it just starts to wake up past the crack of dawn is always exciting, as she finds herself in the core of the hive, listening to the buzz of excited voices growing louder and more active by the minute.

Finding something that looks nice, she returns back to the store and they eat and then open up for another day. Repairs are the bulk of their work as the soul-potions are selling slowly again now, being in their ‘down’ phase. But the money from the repairs is enough to keep them more than above water.

The day is busy, but quiet and then ends just like the one before.

Fresh spends hours fiddling around with the bone-daggers as they have started buying goblin teeth by the heaps and she makes an extra few every night in order to meet their large order. All the while, she fiddles around with the ideas of arrows and swords. A sword seemed easy enough, it was just a long dagger… right?

She taps her chin, thinking. That makes sense to her. Looking down at the goblin teeth below her, she flaps through her grimoire, looking for the page on bone-crafting. As she skims over it, the simple idea comes to her as if she had known it all along. Scattering the teeth out, she takes seventy-two of them and lays them to the side. Though she has to count them three times, as each time she gets half-way through, she loses track and has to start over.

Once she has them all together though, with Jubilee carefully watching her from the counter, she holds her hands above the teeth and concentrates on the witch-crafting ability.

(Fresh) uses: [Witch-crafting: Bone-Sword]

[Bone-Sword](Normal)

A longsword made out of bone. The macabre weapon carries a dark, ominous tinge to it.

4 DMG

4 DARK

1.14kg

Her eyes light up as she catches the long weapon falling down to the ground, though she only realizes after feeling Jubilee’s glare that maybe catching a falling sword was a bad plan. Thankfully, she got away unscathed and Jubilee even nods in approval as they look over the weapon.

“These are good. But seventy-two teeth is a lot… we can make three daggers from that. That means we’ll have to charge… one-hundred-fourty-seven Obols for one of these swords. It’s getting up there in price for a beginner's weapon…” they tilt their head. “The dark damage saves it though. But… hmm…” Jubilee thinks for a while and looks back to her. “Put some moonwater on it.”

Fresh looks at Jubilee, somewhat lost. “Are you sure?” she asks, surprised that Jubilee would make such a suggestion. But they nod and the girl gets up to get some.

[Moon-water blessing: Blessed by a holy light, this sword deals an additional 10% of its damage as holy damage.]

[Bone-Sword](Normal){Holy}

A longsword made out of bone. The macabre weapon carries a dark, ominous tinge to it, which is permeated by a holy light. The two essences seem to be swirling around each other in communion.

4 DMG

4 DARK

10% HOLY

1.14kg

Jubilee nods. “It’s an interesting combination. Dark and light damage. But this might be the move. Do we have enough moonwater to bless all of the swords?”

Fresh thinks for a moment, not sure what Jubilee means. “…For free? That’s not like you, Jubilee.” Seeing this, unsurprised, Jubilee goes on. “Just the swords. The daggers are good enough on their own for that price, if anyone wants an enchantment, we can start offering those for a fee. But the swords? They look great, but stat-wise they need a little… pep, to be worth the price.” They look over the very light longsword. “It’s nicely done though, good job.” They nod to her. “I’ll get us some more teeth, can you make more of these? They’ll look great on the shelves.”

Fresh nods, beaming, more than pleased at Jubilee’s unusually high praise and she sets to work, making the other two swords for their order, plus a large batch to fill their shelves.

Soon enough night falls and the next day comes and the two of them follow their well-practiced routine, beginning yet another busy day of work.

“Woah, look at these!” says a large man being dragged into the shop by his caster companion, on their way to the potions.

The caster turns back and looks in distaste. “Those are pretty creepy looking…”

The large man picks up one of the bone-swords. “Some people just don’t appreciate good craftsmanship,” he sighs, shaking his head and holding the sword up to look at it, running his finger along the edge. “Huh…?” He looks over to Fresh who is behind the counter, watching the spectacle. “Dark AND holy damage? Are these enchanted?” The others coming in the door start to look at him.

“Uh…” Fresh starts. Jubilee elbows her in the side and interrupts her lack of thoughts.

“You bet your giant, metal-clad ass they are. Only one-hundred-forty-seven a piece.” Jubilee points to their caster companion. “With two kinds of magical damage on your own weapon, you won’t need them anymore.” The caster crosses their arms and lifts their nose, the man seems impressed enough though and nods. Several other brawny fighter types scurry over to grab their own swords, leaving their rather worried looking companions standing either by the door or by the rack of soul potions, as they grab up the enchanted bone-swords and rush to the counter.

The day runs on like this, but much to Fresh’s relief, no caster of any kind seems to be left behind in the store by their party-members. Though she can’t help but feel like she gets a sour look now and then from the occasional wizard or mage or other more exotic variant of caster that she doesn’t recognize, to which she can only respond with an uneasy wave and a smile.

The day passes and she sets to work, finishing the last of the daggers that they’ve set aside for their order from the Thieves’ guild. Only the arrows were left to make now, but she still isn’t too sure about that. Instead, the girl opts to spend a moment after finishing her evening chores to patch another few spots of the walls downstairs. Looking at the scrap-wood remaining, she has an idea.

“Jubilee?”

They look over to her, pushing the glass-chicken to the side an inch. “Yeah?”

“How many arrows is a ‘rack of arrows’?” asks the girl, thinking.

“Uh… it depends where you are in the world, but here it means thirty-two.

Fresh looks at her hands, counting with her fingers and mumbling under her breath, though she loses her count as a tired sigh makes itself heard from the other side of the room.

“One-hundred and sixty. The Thieves’ guild wants one-hundred and sixty arrows.”

Fresh laughs meekly, rubbing her arm, somewhat embarrassed. “Thanks Jubilee!” She realizes now, looking at the arrow that it was a rather simple thing to make. She just needed some wood, a single goblin-tooth and some feathers. The first two were easy enough, the feathers she would have to get tomorrow. 

She returns to her work and starts to rip a board off of the wall, it doesn’t budge. Scowling, she grabs a tight hold of it, pressing her leg against the wall to leverage it. Something gives way, and instead of the board ripping out, her boot presses through the somewhat morose wood. Something wet cracks on the other side with a disgusting crunch and Fresh yelps, crawling backwards and throwing the board to the side, as she pulls her foot out of the hole.

“IAH! JUBILEEE~!”

Jubilee walks over, apparently not too phased by her panic or her destruction of the house and looks at the dead rat in the wall, bending over to look down at it. The two of them stand there for a time, neither of them saying anything as they stare at the dead rat that was, before being crushed, apparently lying asleep in its nest. A small, glass-necklace shattered against its crushed body.

“Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” says Jubilee, bending down to look closer. “Isn’t this your necklace?” They look back to Fresh. “I guess it really is unlucky.” Shrugging they walk away. “Get rid of it and the rat.”

“Huh?” Fresh looks after Jubilee and then down to the crushed rat and the cursed necklace, covered in rat-viscera. “Jubileeee~” protests the girl. “You have gloves, can’t you do it?!”

Jubilee glares back at her. “No. Suffer the consequences of your actions like an adult.” They shake their head. “Maybe you’ll learn not to do something so stupid again.”

With a quivering lip, Fresh looks back to the cursed necklace, feeling bad for the rat. But also thankful that the item hadn’t seen the light of the world outside after all.

The next day comes.

Fresh spends her morning running around, getting their breakfast and a bundle of stiff feathers. Three hundred and twenty-four white feathers and one-hundred and sixty dark-red feathers. Once the store opens up, Fresh feels a smile grow on her face as she sees the red-wizard come in for the first time in three days, bracing themselves against the wall as she wobbles her way in on weak legs.

“How did your boss-fight go?” asks Fresh.

“I spent a whole night running in a circle. That damn thing had so much health…”

Jubilee looks over to her. “Floor sixteen? That’s a rough one alone if you aren’t high level.”

“Yeah,” sighs the wizard, hobbling over to the potions with weary legs, but a satisfied, smug grin. “I nailed him good though. It took twelve hours and it almost got me more than once. But I did it,” she says, hobbling over to the counter and placing their potions down on the wood. “Do you have any kinds of stamina potions?”

“Stamina?” Fresh thinks. “No, but I could maybe think of something,” she taps her chin, adding the idea to her to-do list. “But you really should find a party, what if you get in danger?”

“Isn’t that what adventuring is about?” says the wizard, perplexed, placing their coin onto the counter. “Ah… one bag please. I lost mine.”

Jubilee nods, placing the potions in a bag made with a bright yellow fabric. “I like your spirit. Keep up the good work, but maybe take a day off. Here-“ They slide an extra potion out from beneath the counter. “Have one on me.”

Fresh looks at Jubilee in shock. The wizard, gratefully, takes the potion and hobbles her way back out of the door with a large smile on her face.

“Jubilee? Are you okay?” asks Fresh, placing her wrist on her friend’s mask. “You aren’t getting sick, are you? It’s not like you to be nice.”

They glare up at her. “What’s that supposed to mean, goo-brain? You picking a fight?” Fresh retreats, going upstairs to carry the next load of repairs away, quietly laughing at the fact that apparently even Jubilee could be in a good mood now and then.