Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 73: Housework (Patreon)

Fresh sits upstairs, locked in the pantry and tinkers around with the harvest-moonwater, her grimoire at her side. Usually she wouldn’t work on these kinds of things during the middle of the day, while Basil is here. But the woman is downstairs and there are two locked doors between them and she can’t just sit around and waste a full day.

Flipping through her grimoire, she looks for a recipe that would suit her needs and at the same time, racks her brain, wondering if maybe she already simply ‘knows’ one. Like with the soul potions. The more she thinks about it, the firmer and less foggy the idea becomes. The harvest-moonwater is already half of the way there on its own.

“It just needs a little pep,” says Fresh to herself, closing the damp grimoire and setting it to the side.

She needs something, some new ingredient. Some final step to make her stamina potions. But she isn’t sure what just yet. Getting up, she exits the pantry and heads downstairs to look for an idea.

The store is fairly busy, but Basil and Jubilee seem to have everything under control. It doesn’t look like there are many repairs today either, as the pile of equipment behind the counter for her to carry up is very small today.

“Basiiiil~?”

“Yes?” asks the priestess, handing a man his change and a tote-bag.

“What colors of mush-mushes are there?” asks the girl, coming down.

“Uh… the priestess lifts her hand, counting off her fingers. "Orange, blue, green, purple and red. I think?”

Fresh thinks for a moment. “If anyone comes in with some other colors, buy a few please. I want to try out some new potions.”

Basil looks at her curiously but then nods. “Okay!”

Smiling, Fresh goes back inside, taking a moment to look over the crowd from up atop the stairs. She smiles, seeing the glass chicken held in the excited hands of a young caster in the middle of the line.

Heading back into the pantry, she decides to put the potion-work aside for now and to set to a more pragmatic task. Crossing her arms, she looks down at the hole in the ripped up floorboards, where the rat had tunneled through. She shudders at the thought.

Grabbing some tools and some wood, she sets to work, wanting to make the pantry as sterile as is possible in a world like this, with materials like these. Maybe she can’t make absolutely hygienic conditions, but she can certainly patch the insulation and replace all of the morose wood. She can make actual containers for their food with lids and she maybe could even make something more abstract to keep pests and rot at bay? Some magical item or token, maybe something out of the grimoire.

She taps her chin, thinking and heads back outside to the stairs again. Standing up-top, she calls down. “Baaasiiiil~?”

“Yes?” asks the woman, down on the floor with a rag and staring at a cracked chicken-bottle that apparently someone had dropped.

“If anybody brings any ice-monster drops, can you buy some please?”

“Sure, but they’ll be pretty expensive,” calls the priestess up to her.

“That’s okay,” calls Fresh and waves to the priestess before heading back to the pantry and returning to work. First she decides to make several wooden boxes, each about the length of her forearm. Once they’re completed, she starts making a square glass door for each of them. The tricky part is carving the thick glass panes down all around evenly, except for one tiny protrusion of solid material that acts as a handle. She scratches her head, looking at her third failed attempt.

“This would have been easier with the glass-working ability…”

The fourth one turns out okay. But then the fifth one turns out just like she had envisioned. The glass has to be matted, so the doors don’t offer any insight to the contents of the box. But it just looks nicer. She wonders if maybe she should have just made the entire box out of glass. But that seems like a disaster waiting to happen. What if one of them fell? What if all of them fell?

Twenty minutes later, she lifts up one of her new creations. A small, tightly sealed wooden box, with a hinged, matte-glass door. Smiling, she sets to work making the rest of them.

So far, their food had just sort of been lying around the pantry out on the open faced shelves. A lot of it was wrapped in parchment paper, like the bread and a lot of their herbs and dried fruits. But a lot of it is also just sitting out in the open, literally gathering dust. This obviously won’t do.

An hour later, she lifts the last box back onto the lowest shelf and takes a step back, looking at the row of containers with pride. All she needs to do now is to make some labels and glue them on. Their food, while not imperishable, would at least be safe from pests.

“Hopefully.”

Not done yet, she sets to work replacing the floorboards. It’s a dirty, long process that is made difficult by the many boxes and crates in the way, as well as the large barrel in the corner that she has never been brave enough to look inside of. But given that the pantry is small, she finishes within a few hours. Any spots between the floors that had thinning, or chewed up insulation, she did her best to patch back together. She would need to buy or make some real insulating material to do this right later on, but for now, it’s good enough that the boards are tightly sealed.

Fresh wipes her brow and gets up, opting to check how things are going downstairs.

“Do you make anqas?” asks a small elf, holding a chicken out to Jubilee who stands with crossed arms, glaring up at them.

“No,” says Jubilee dryly. The elf seems disappointed.

“What about mush-mushes?”

“No. We only make chickens.”

“What about snails?”

“Is a snail a chicken?” asks Jubilee, their boot tapping in annoyance.

“Mm…” The elf turns the chicken around, the face of it looking back up at him. He looks back to Jubilee. “What about dragons?”

“Look. We only make chickens. What do you want me to tell you?” asks Jubilee with some snark. “Buy the chicken or get out.”

Fresh scratches her cheek and turns around, heading back into the pantry and picking up a block of glass. Apparently her chickens just aren’t good enough.

“Bakaw…” sighs the girl sadly, as she sets to work, carving the glass into a new shape. It doesn’t bring her as much joy at first, but as it slowly comes into form, she begins to see him more and more in the little sculpture.

She rotates it around, looking at the little glass figurine carefully. It might not be as delicious as the real deal -

“But you’re just as beautiful as the real Mr. Mushroom!” she assures the statuette, feeling that it is nervous about its big debut. She takes a moment to carve the smile on its face just a little wider. “There!”

A little later, she carries her new item downstairs. It seems that the afternoon rush has died down and that things are quieter now. “Jubilee! Basil! Look!” She holds out the new glass mushroom statuette with pride out in front of herself.

Jubilee and Basil look up from the counter, staring at her somewhat perplexed for a moment.

Basil’s face grows flush and the priestess quickly looks away. Pulling her hood up to obscure her line of sight, as she nervously looks down at the ledger.

“Told you. A real degenerate,” says Jubilee, shaking their head.

Fresh purses her lips. “Hey! Rude! I worked hard on Mr. Mushroom!”

Jubilee tilts their head. “You may want to go back to the drawing board with that one.”

She looks at it. “Why?”

“Because you’re going to tempt Basil away from her holy ways,” shrugs Jubilee. “I mean, apparently that’s what you’re into. But it’ll be bad for business.” Jubilee places their hands on their hips. “No corrupting the employees!”

“Huh..?” asks Fresh. She looks at the mushroom statue and then back to her friends and then back to the mushroom statue, who looks up to her, knowingly.

Then she understands and runs, yelping as she vanishes back into the pantry.

“I’m sorry Mr. Mushroom!” she cries, looking at the mushroom statue whose wide smile seems to have grown just a little flatter. “The world just isn’t ready for yooou~!”

Setting the glass mushroom statue onto the shelf and covering it with a cloth, she sighs and returns to her work, replacing the boards of the exterior wall by the window.

An hour later, she finishes and returns downstairs where something green catches her eye, sitting against the wall behind the counter. A green mushroom-cap. Her eyes light up and she runs downstairs in excitement towards it. “Thanks, Basil!” cries the girl, wrapping her arms around Basil from behind, who fidgets a little, her head shifting to Jubilee, the priestesses’ expression as if awkwardly pleading for help.

Jubilee just shrugs and turns back to the chickens, rotating one of them on the shelves an inch to the right.

“Of… Of course,” laughs the priestess nervously, as Fresh lets go and looks at the green mushroom cap. It has a bright, vivid forest color and is far larger than the orange or blue caps. Rolling it, she notices that it's really light however. As if it has the same weight as the other caps, but the composition is simply less dense. It does seem a fair bit more flat-brimmed than the other types.

Still, with some effort, she rolls it up the staircase and through the door, leaning it against the wall outside of the pantry.

Then, getting one of her new boxes, Fresh places it on its back and holds the far too large cap above it and uses her crafting ability, hoping that at least most of it will land inside.

(Fresh) uses: [Crafting: Grind{Fine}]

The giant cap dissolves into a heap of powder that, thankfully, mostly collects in the middle. The grains fall down and fill into the box like a fine, flowing sand. A little bright green dust gets on her robe and onto the floors, but she’ll take care of that later. Rushing back inside, she grabs some unused glass and makes a new bottle. Opting to just make a simple, not decorative bottle. If only so her friends wouldn’t misinterpret her intentions again.

Filling some harvest-moonwater into the bottle, together with a scoop of the green powder, she holds her hands above it and uses the recipe that comes to her mind.

 (Fresh) uses: [Witch-Crafting: Minor Stamina Potion](High)

[Minor Stamina Potion]

A small, bright-green potion that restores stamina when drunk. This potion is glowing with a radiating magical energy.

If drunk:

+ 25% STAMINA

+1% STAMINA Regeneration, every two minutes - 12 Hours

+ Removes draining spirits (50%)

Smiling, she runs downstairs and shows off her newest creation. “Jubilee! Basil! Look!” The two of them do so, if only nervously and seem relieved to see that she’s only holding a potion.