Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 69: So below (Patreon)

Fresh rubs her tired eyes, yawning as she stretches herself out in her bed. The girl’s lower back pops and she yelps, the tension in her body falling slack as she stops her stretching and sinks back down into her mattress, exhaling a long breath.

Taking a moment to breathe in again, the sore girl gets up and takes a second deep breath of the morning air, realizing something. It feels unusually crisp inside of the house right now. She sits upright, listening to the noises of the outside world that also seem particularly loud today. The babbling of the fountain, the excited voices of the first people heading towards the dungeon. Fresh looks around and throws on her robe, taking a moment to make sure that there’s no dust or grime on it from her ‘adventuring’ last night.

Sitting up out of the bed, she places her feet down. Today not onto cold floorboards, but rather down onto the large rug that she had bought. Smiling to herself, she wiggles her toes through the fabric. Proof that they were safe from the demons for one more night.

Getting up, Fresh walks to the door of her room and unlocks it, opening it wide and sticking her face out into the corridor.

A cool, morning breeze strokes her face, carrying with it the smell of some hearty, rich foods. Her eyes light up and she lifts her head a little as she smells the air, looking down the hallway. The hallway window is wide open, the curtains pulled open and morning air streams inside together with the voices of summer birds and the early song of waking cicadas. There is another sound that she can’t place. Summer has come now in full. It’s getting warmer day by day.

Thankful that it’s still rather cool now though, especially in the mornings, she walks barefoot down the hallway towards the stairs.

“Jubilee?” asks Fresh curiously.

“Good morning,” says Jubilee. “I’m down in the shop,” calls her friend from below. Something seems off though, something in their voice that Fresh can’t quite place. The girl walks down the stairs, looking at the counter that is lined with a fairly broad selection of foods and drinks. Steam still rises out of the cups. That sound is still in the air, a sound that she recognizes, but can’t quite place into this context.

“Jubilee?” asks Fresh, rubbing her eyes as she yawns again, feeling the cool morning air on her skin.

The sound stops. “I got us breakfast today,” says Jubilee.

Fresh tilts her head, looking at her friend who is arranging the chickens again. Jubilee is wearing their usual outfit, but a bright blue one that she doesn’t recognize. It apparently hasn’t seen the light of day often, as there are barely any tatters and rips in the fabric, which is highly unusual for Jubilee’s clothes. A dried, pink flower is pinned to the side of the hood, just by the left ear. The outfit is oddly…

“Dainty,” says Fresh, thinking with a finger to her chin.

“What?” asks Jubilee, looking back at her.

“Ah, nothing!” The girl rubs her hair, wondering why Jubilee likes doing that, as she watches them turn the chicken again. But she decides not to ask, deciding to just be happy that there is something that they enjoy doing. “You’re up early,” says the girl, looking at the open window down here too. “I like your clothes.”

“Yeah,” says Jubilee, turning the chicken once again as the sound returns. Jubilee is humming.

Fresh looks at her friend’s back in surprise. Her eyes shift over the open window, to the food on the counter and then back to Jubilee who is dressed in bright, undamaged clothes wearing a flower. The girl’s mind processes the things that she’s seeing, but doesn’t quite manage to take hold of the summation of all of these facts. Suddenly hurrying towards her friend, she grabs Jubilee, who yelps as she spins them around.

“Jubilee!” she leans in. “Are you sick? Should I go get Basil?!” She places her wrist on Jubilee’s mask to check their temperature. “You’re ice cold!”

Jubilee doesn’t even yell at her, they simply tilt their head and brush her hands off of themselves. Fresh jumps up, pointing to them. “Stay there! I’ll be right back!” says the girl, getting up to go run outside.

“Are you stupid?” asks Jubilee. “I’m fine.” Fresh stops as something tugs on the frill of her robe.

“Jubileeee~” whines the girl with a quivering lip as she looks at her friend with worry.

Jubilee sighs, letting her robe go as they walk towards the counter. “Can we just eat breakfast? I’m starving, I’ve been down here smelling it this whole time.” They look back to her. “Put on some socks, nobody wants to see your ugly goblin-feet.”

Fresh looks down to her feet, wiggling her toes again and then back to Jubilee who is apparently fine after all. “I don’t have ugly goblin feet! You have ugly goblin feet!” pouts the girl, crossing her arms.

Jubilee sighs, getting a plate ready for themselves and then sitting down behind the counter. Fresh tilts her head curiously, watching as her friend vanishes.

“Are you coming or not?” asks Jubilee.

She smiles, if only to herself and gets a plate of her own ready and sits down on the other side of the counter. “Jubilee?”

“What?”

“I’m glad you’re in a good mood today. Thank you for getting breakfast!”

Jubilee doesn’t answer with more than a grunt, which Fresh finds oddly relieving. She ponders asking Jubilee about the upstairs area, if for only a brief moment. But even she knows that Jubilee would be furious with her if she admitted to it, even if they were particularly chipper today for whatever reason. Feeling bad about having given in to her curiosity like that, she quietly begins eating her fill of the breakfast and then some. She isn’t too hungry, but Jubilee has gone out of their way to make an effort, so she wants to show that she appreciates that.

“I had an idea,” says Jubilee. Fresh drinks a sip of her hot tea and listens. “Do you think you can make normal things?”

“Normal things?” asks Fresh curiously.

“Yeah,” says Jubilee’s voice. “You know, like tools? Hammers or scissors or saws. Or maybe some other things like cups or bowls or bags?”

Fresh thinks for a moment. “Uh… I think so, yeah. But do adventurers need those things?”

“Not everyone is an adventurer, goo-brain. You make all sorts of weird, creepy shit. But only adventurers want that stuff. But if we had some normal things, we could pull in the non-adventurers as well. It’s a whole market segment that we’re ignoring right now.” The sound of ripping bread comes from behind the counter.

“Yeah, I think I can do that!” says the girl, thinking about what kinds of objects counted as ‘normal’ things.

Soon after, Basil comes in, the woman’s eyes wide as she stares at the still substantial pile of food sitting on the counter. Fidgeting nervously, she does her best to ignore it and sets to work after greeting them both. Jubilee gets up from behind the counter, setting their mask back on, as Basil enters and the woman stops, staring transfixed at the light blue Jubilee with the pink flower on their head.

“You have three seconds to get to work or you’re fired,” states Jubilee dryly. Basil yelps and runs around the counter, grabbing the ledger to get it ready for the day. Fresh gets up as well and leans over the counter, whispering to Basil and pushing the platter towards the woman.

“Help yourself, Basil. Jubilee’s in a good mood today,” says the girl with a wink to the priestess, whose tight posture loosens just a little, as she looks at the temptations before her.

Fresh returns upstairs to start looking into new ideas. She also wants to spruce up the pantry today to make it rat-proof. She supposes refrigerators don’t exist here. But maybe if there’s some kind of ice magic or something along those lines, she can think of something? The girl calls down the stairs. “Basil?”

“Yesh?” asks the priestess with a whole sweet-roll in her mouth.

“Are there ice monsters in the dungeon?”

The woman swallows with some difficulty and then thinks for a moment. “I think so, but they’re deeper down. I’ve heard around floor thirty-two.”

The girl scratches her head. Thirty-two? That’s really deep. She sighs. Any drops from them would be expensive.

“Basiiiiil~?”

“Yef?” asks the woman who was brave enough to take a second sweet-roll, even with Jubilee watching her.

“How deep is the dungeon?” asks Fresh.

Basil swallows, striking her chest as she clears her throat. “It’s said to be one-hundred floors deep.”

“Oh,” says Fresh, nodding. “Thanks Basil!” Basil nods with a smile, taking a third roll from the platter. Fresh tilts her head, looking at the woman who returns to her work, opening the shop up for the day. She really likes food and money. The girl scratches her cheek. She wonders if those are maybe bad qualities for a priestess? Shrugging, she walks into the pantry, doing her best to not look at the boards on the corner of the ceiling, as she stares around the rest of the room for a few minutes, trying to come up with an idea.

“Hey!” snaps Jubilee from down next to her.

“IAH!” yelps Fresh, flailing with her arms at the sudden appearance of her friend. “I wasn’t doing anything!”

Jubilee tilts their head, looking at the girl standing in the pantry. “Yeah? I see that.” They shake their head. “Listen up, goo-brain, some schmuck from the guard just came in.”

“The guard?” asks the girl.

“Yeah, the guard? You know? The city guards?”

Fresh shrugs. She isn’t sure she had ever seen such people before. Guards? The gate to the front plaza of the city is wide open and unguarded.

Jubilee sighs. “Look, I told you.” They wave a letter at her. “They just placed an order for the lanterns.”

“That’s great!” says Fresh, clenching her fists in front of herself in excitement. “How many?”

“Three-hundred.”

The room is quiet.

“Huh?” asks the girl, not sure if she heard right.

“Three-hundred,” repeats Jubilee, shrugging.

“Jubileeeeeeee! That’s a lot!”

Jubilee nods. “It is.” They look down as if disgusted. “Because of the bulk order, they’re also paying ten percent less than retail price.”

Fresh is quiet and Jubilee looks up to her, annoyed. “That’s a lot!” they say this time.

“Until when?” asks the girl nervously, looking around the pantry. They didn’t have the materials for even close to that many lanterns. It would take her ages to make that many, especially if she has to make all the other items too. Where would they even store that many lanterns at once? The pantry is far too small.

“They want them by the harvest-moon at the end of summer.”

“Huh?” asks Fresh, surprised to hear Jubilee talk about that.

“The harvest-moon? You goo-brain, you know? When the moon gets big and orange during the end of summer?” They shake their head. “That’s still plenty of time. If you make a couple extra every night and we set them on the side, we’ll be fine. This is a big opportunity for us.”

“Is it?”

“Of course it is!” says Jubilee as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Ignoring the fact that we’re making a ton of cash from the sale. If the guard wants some, then the church will come next.” They crumple the letter in their hands into a ball and throw it into the corner. “We’re going to have a busy summer,” says Jubilee. “So get yourself some work clothes with short sleeves, it gets hot here.” They look down at her still bare feet. “And put on some shoes.”

Fresh narrows her eyes and grumbles, wiggling her toes at Jubilee in protest.