Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 167: Secret hopes (Patreon)

“Hey,” says Fresh to the fairy, waving him over with a finger as she finishes her project, with Basil looking over her shoulder, to see if she did it right. She’s never made anything like this before, let alone something so small and so delicate.

The store is already busy and running. Jubilee and Shamrock take care of it, while the two of them handle this off to the side.

The fairy flies over, landing on the counter, a dirty rag in his hand. Fresh leans over to him, sliding the tiny thing towards him with a finger. A small splint, made out of what is essentially toothpicks and string. “We need to take care of your arm.”

“My arm is fine, thanks,” says the fairy, getting ready to fly off and to get back to work.

Fresh narrows her eyes and frowns, realizing that this is a ‘Jubilee moment’. She hates these. “Don’t lie to me again, or you’re fired,” threatens Fresh, softly poking a finger into the fairy’s chest. The fairy stiffens up, stumbling back a few steps as its face grows pale. “If your arm doesn’t heal right, you won’t be any good to us in a week,” she explains and turns to nod to Basil. “You’re going to let Basil take care of you and then you can work as much as you want,” explains Fresh, looking down at the fairy with a stern gaze that she finds very hard to maintain. It isn’t an expression that she has to make a lot.

The fairy gulps, looking at the priestess nervously.

“What’s your name, little guy?” asks Basil, leaning down and holding out her hand openly.

“V-veli,” stutters the fairy, looking at the two of them as he grabs the tip of Basil’s finger to shake it.

Fresh nods to him, her expression turning into a smile. “It’s nice to meet you, Veli. I’m Fresh,” she says. “This is Basil, that’s Shamrock and you already know Jubilee.” She nods to Basil, who nods back to her, apparently able to handle it from here. “Do your best, Veli, okay?” she beams at him, before heading down by herself into the basement.

She closes the door tightly behind herself and sighs, standing there for a moment. She wonders if she was just as troublesome for Jubilee, back when they first met. The girl shrugs and heads downstairs, sparing a glance at the washroom, as she thinks about the engraved crystal hidden in there.

Maybe she’s still just as troublesome?

Fresh shakes her head and heads to the table, stopping to look at Basil’s planter. “Ah!” She realizes that today is the day that Basil’s creams and teas are going to go on sale. She’s going to miss everyone’s reactions if she stays down here all by herself in the dark basement. She frowns, crossing her arms and staring at the planter. Five of the six are growing again, but the one is still empty, filled with nothing but blank soil. She walks over towards it, bending down to look at it.

Barren.

She wonders what’s up with it, but decides that it isn’t her business and heads over to her workbench.

“Magical floating fairy house,” repeats Fresh to herself, trying to come up with an idea. The idea in general is to make a sort of doll-house, insulated with crystal-drakonium to keep it warm from the elements and to lift it up off of the ground, to keep the fairies out of harm's way. Maybe…

Her hand taps against the table. She found a way to create a cooling mechanism with the magic-crystals, maybe she can find a way to make them heat up things too? If autumn was really going to be upon them soon, that means that winter isn’t far around the corner. How many of the fairies didn’t have a clue as to what they were running blindly into? How many of them would only realize, far too late, what this world truly has in store for them?

By then, it would be too late for them all to sharpen their teeth, to harden their minds, to become hungry and desperate to survive, like Veli. Obviously, in Fresh’s eyes, that isn’t the ideal solution to their problems either, but it is the pragmatic, realistic one.

This world is gritty and dark and painful and anyone who is too innocent to see that, isn’t going to make it. She thinks about Veli’s desperation, about his violent initial reaction to Basil coming to him with tweezers and she wonders what exactly it is that he has already seen, that he has experienced in his single week of life to make him ‘switch faces’, like Jubilee had said.

Fresh wonders, as she sets to work, grabbing a heap of materials, what this world would be for her, if she didn’t have her friends. As she sets the pieces of wood together, she thinks that she would despise it with everything that she has in her. Without the anchoring of the people she cares for, there would be absolutely nothing for her here, as far as she can tell. It would be without meaning, it would be entirely without redemption. Disgusting. Putrid. Hateful. Ugly. Terrible. Cruel.

Fresh is sure, that if she didn’t have her friends, that she would think that this world wasn’t worth the daylight that shines down upon it. She is sure that she wouldn’t be down here, thinking of something to make someone else’s life warmer.

It’s funny how the kind actions of one person can create another reaction that ripples out into the world to create more kind reactions. But she can’t help but wonder if it is enough? If all of the kindness and warmth that she is trying to build is enough to help even a tiny splash of the ocean of cruel souls here?

Or if they aren’t all beyond redemption?

Fresh has no idea how to make a doll-house, truth be told, so she starts with smaller things. Things that she knows how to make. A tiny bed. A tiny dresser. A tiny wardrobe. All using the same principles as the real ones, just… tiny.

The bed is the easiest. She takes a slice of wood, about an inch longer than the length between the bottom of her palm and the tip of her longest finger. She then cuts out several small, square holes, creating a mesh grid in the middle of the board while leaving a rectangular frame. These holes were for air, to stop the bedding from getting funky. While she remembers the concept of a box-spring, in truth, she doesn’t really know how to make one. The wood here all seems to be very brittle and not so flexible and bendy. Maybe if she had a special kind of wood? Or maybe the trees here in the west just aren’t the right kind. But this concept is good enough.

(Fresh) uses: [Craftsman: Extract (Square)] x 12

Setting the holed frame down, she then takes four of the squares that have fallen out and with some glue, attaches one of them to each corner of the frame as legs. She presses them down, holding them for a minute in place so that the glue can dry, before flipping it over and standing it upright.

She scratches her cheek, looking down at it and she smears a little glue on her face. “Yup… that’s a bed-frame all right,” mutters Fresh to herself. The horrible, ugly witch of the north, huh?

Fresh can’t help but sigh once again. Despite how her friends had explained to her before, that she had an incredibly powerful cosmic gift for crafting dangerous and rare items without limit, she just likes making perfectly normal things. Beds. Boots. Toys. Candy. Drinks. Lanterns. Some weapons and some equipment. Furniture. These kinds of things are all her favorite things to make. Because they don’t just excite people with some incredible power and bedazzling effects, like some ultra rare witch-weapon or magical trinket could.

Rather, they keep everyone warm. They keep everyone safe. They keep everyone fed and keep their thirsts quenched and maybe even, on really good days, they would create small smiles on their faces, which in her own deepest hopes, could become infectious to those around them.

Fresh leans over, grabbing a knife from against the wall and an ingot of crystal-drakonium, as she sets to work making a tiny mattress.

(Fresh) uses: [Craftsman Flatten]

Maybe things like this, maybe small smiles like that, maybe those tiny sparks of warmth and comfort, maybe those were enough to help make the world and all of the souls in it, lighter. Perhaps that is the true deviousness of the horrible, cruel, ugly witch of the north.

She walks amongst the people as one of them, hiding in plain sight for all to see, corrupting their cold, hard, ruined personalities with her deadly poisons of love and care, one drop at a time, like toxic sludge dripping into a river. No matter how furious that would make them and no matter how much they hated her for it, she would come for them all eventually. In the darkest hours of midnight, the horrible witch would creep through their houses as they slumber, and would cover their feet with blankets and fill their pantries with candy.

She is truly a horrible monster, thinks Fresh, as she sets to work lovingly adorning the fairy-bed with a tiny blanket and pillow.