Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 206: High stress (Patreon)

It is late at night, shortly before midnight.

“I TOLD YOU NOT TO GO INTO THE FOREST!” shouts Jubilee as the cart thunders down the road. Fresh flinches, covering her head instinctively with one hand, even though she isn’t the one being yelled at. Her other hand holds on to the cart as they ride down the way at full speed. There is a crack of leather and the anqa sprints faster. “TARJA!” yells Jubilee. Tarja nods at the unspoken command and hits Pentii over the head again.

“Stop hitting me!” yells Pentii, his eyes growing wet as he rubs the fresh bump.

“STOP TRYING TO GET US KILLED!” shouts Tarja at him, lifting her hand again. Her arm is stopped by a giant finger, lightly holding itself in the way.

“A leader inspires belief,” says Shamrock, shaking his head. “Not fear.”

“You dumb fuck!” barks Jubilee at either the fairy or at Shamrock, Fresh can’t tell, their voice rattling as the cart goes over some bumps in the terrain. “We should throw you out right here and let them eat you!”

“You wouldn’t!” gasps Pentii. Jubilee glares at him. They would.

“Jubilee!” yells Fresh, offering her free hand for the red-haired fairy to land on so that he can have some refuge from the others. “Stop being mean to Pentii!” she says, pulling her open hand and him back towards herself. The red-haired fairy hides behind her cupped fingers, clearly closed to crying now. “I’m sure he didn’t mean to do it. Right, Pentii?” she asks, looking down at the fairy in her palm, who quietly nods back in return. If anything, Fresh has sympathy for the little creature. Sure, he’s a trouble-maker, but it isn’t entirely his fault.

The campfire that he had exploded in Basil and Shamrock’s faces the other night, he simply hadn’t known any better, being essentially still as wide-eyed and naive as she was when she arrived in this world. The water-bottle that broke over her own head this past afternoon was the fountain’s doing, in order to disguise the wetness of her clothes. Though she has no idea how it had controlled him. This newest mistake… well… who knows, but she isn’t mad at him. Everyone is okay -

Fresh looks back out behind the cart, staring at the stampede of hauntingly glowing, yellow eyes running after them in the darkness, keeping pace with the cart even at this speed. Wolves.

- so far.

“You liar! Of course you meant to do it!” argues Tarja, placing her hands on her hips. Fresh notices that she’s taking after Jubilee just a little too well.

“I’m not a liar!” argues Pentii.

“Oh!” replies Tarja, rolling her eyes. “So I guess you just burnt those sleeping puppies alive by mistake? Dumb-ass!” Fresh gasps, looking back at the pack of wolves chasing after them with a clean-burning fury in their eyes. It’s no wonder that they’re out for blood, if he killed some of their cubs. Wolves in her old life already carried an aura of mysticism around them, what does that mean about the creatures here then? If these are actual semi-intelligent monsters and not just wild animals?

This isn’t a topic that was just going to be dropped by them, just because the wolves got bored of chasing after the cart.

A howl fills the air, followed by a dozen others and then a dozen more, proving just that very thought. The wolves, being forest-monsters, allows their cry to be understood by Fresh. ‘Small-red. North-east. Road. Kinslayer.’

“How is it different from a snake or an owl?” asks Pentii, defensively.

“It’s different because you were told to stay in the cart!” yells Tarja.

“Did you really, Pentii?” asks Fresh, having a moral dilemma about this. Ignoring his clear endangerment of them all by him forgoing Jubilee’s warnings, the topic of baby-monsters had never crossed her mind before. Let alone the morality of killing them. The fact that this happened through a slow death of burning with magical-fire only causes the conflicted twisting in her gut to intensify.

“Guys!” yells Basil from up ahead. “Maybe focus on the problem at hand?!” she shouts over her shoulder. The light of the dangling lantern, hanging out ahead of her and the anqa, barely illuminates the distance of a few meters. If there’s a single branch or an obstacle anywhere on the road, they’d crash before they can even see it at this speed.

Jubilee snaps their fingers. “Fucking wolves. Alright, you dainty fucks! Everyone of you with magic, get out here!” they order. Several of the fairies look out of the windows of their houses. “Who has any long range spells?” A few of the fairies raise their hands. Jubilee points down to the back of the cart. “Get down here and earn your keep!”

“Jubilee? Should I?” asks Fresh. Her witch-magic could be devastating against the pack of wolves. One or two spells should send them into disarray. But it would be unavoidable for the fairies to see her use it. They might not have a fear of witches, but they could end up saying too much once they part ways.

“No. Fuck off!” barks Jubilee at her, apparently very on edge right now. “Shamrock!” Jubilee points at Fresh. “Break her arms if she tries anything fucky!” He doesn’t reply, turning his head, looking back at the blackened silhouettes chasing after them. Jubilee pushes past him, standing at the back of the cart with the few fairies capable of casting. Without saying anything else, they grab a fistful of dirt and snap their fingers, throwing a cloud of particulate out behind the cart.

Fresh doesn’t see the glass anymore, they’re moving too fast. All shes is a vague glimmer, illuminated by a moonlight glow, as the glass spires take shape in the road behind them.

From the five fairies, capable of ranged combat magic, come five separate glows. For just the briefest second, the night erupts with a bright, blinding flash as two arcs of lightning, a single fireball, a crystalline shard of ice and what looks like a spire of condensed air, pressed together into a spinning needlepoint, all fly out of the back of the cart at once.

The world behind them explodes into a spectacle of shimmering light. Yelping, howling voices fill the night. Several different combat menus appear, one from Jubilee and two for the two separate fairy parties, encompassing their long-distance fighters. But, the result is about what even Fresh had expected. Only Jubilee did any real damage. The fairies, despite their impressive magical foundations, are still all young and low-leveled and Jubilee only has so much dirt in their bag. For them to use any of the forest-ground as glass, they’d need to touch it.

The wolves don’t seem to be hindered by this preemptive strike at all. In fact, they seem to be running faster than before now, as if their growing fury were only pushing their adrenaline further towards the edge, intensifying the hunger in their eyes.

Fresh clenches her fists, knowing that she has to do something. Shamrock looks at her and shakes his head. She puffs out her cheek in protest. “No.”

“Shamrock!” she pleads.

“No,” he says again.

“Fuck off!” yells Jubilee at the darkness, throwing out another spire of glass and then another and then one last one, before just throwing their empty bag at the night as well.

The wolves do not fuck off.

“Hold on!” shouts Basil from ahead as the cart takes a slight curve in the road. Fresh yelps, seeing Jubilee loose their balance. Shamrock reaches out, grabbing them and pulling them back inside. The fairies all yelp in surprise, all of them managing to brace themselves down at the rim of the cart. For a horrified second, Fresh was sure they were all going to fly off into the night.

“Fuck’s sake! WATCH WHERE YOU’RE GOING!” yells Jubilee back to the front of the cart at Basil.

“FUCK YOU! I SAID HOLD ON!” yells Basil back at Jubilee, who is seemingly as surprised by this as Fresh is, as they don’t manage to say anything. “HOLD ON!” repeats the priestess. The cart takes another turn, leaning dangerously far towards the side. Shamrock pulls Jubilee in, holding them against himself.

“Let go of me!” they bark. Shamrock waits until the cart has steadied itself again and then lifts their protesting, swearing form up, setting them down onto a surprised Fresh’s lap.

“Fine,” is all that he says.

“Hi, Jubilee!” smiles Fresh.

“Shut up!” snaps Jubilee, trying to get away, but Fresh locks her arms around them. Just in case, so they can’t fall again. Certainly not for any other reason. “Let go of me!”

“No,” says Fresh. “What are we going to do, Jubilee?!” she asks. “We can’t run for the whole night!”

“We could throw them Pentii?” suggests Jubilee. “Maybe they’ll be fine with that.”

“JUBILEE!” snaps Fresh, making clear that that isn’t an option.

“You baby! What’s one tiny fairy-sacrifice for the greater good?”

Fresh lifts her head indignantly. “If you want to throw Pentii off, you’ll have to throw me too!”

“Tempting,” says Jubilee, making a show of it, as if they were thinking about it.

“Jubileee~!” shouts Fresh, glaring coldy at her friend.

“FINE!” relents Jubilee. “I have an idea,” they say, wiggling free from her. “Shamrock, grab my legs. I’ll just make some glass out of the road. Hold the fucking cart steady!” they instruct Basil.

“SHOVE IT UP YOUR ASS!” yells Basil at Jubilee, Fresh lays a consoling hand on the priestess’ shoulder. She seems really stressed right now.

Jubilee rolls their eyes, Shamrock grabs their legs. “Get out of the way, pips-“

“Let go of me!” shouts Pentii, some of the other fairies are wrestling with him.

“HEY!” barks Jubilee at the group of fairy-casters. “CUT IT OUT!”

Pentii struggles, trying to get away. “LET GO-IAA-!”

“PENTII!” shouts Fresh, jumping up from her seat, reaching out towards the back. Spit flies out of her mouth as Shamrock’s arm quickly collides into her gut, knocking her back down to the spot between the benches and as she falls, she sees the fairy Pentii vanish into the darkness, a collage of spells readied in tiny hands to pierce through his wings.

The night erupts into light one more time and as the cart rolls as the cart rolls away into the night and Fresh shakily manages to rise to her feet, she sees no more eyes behind them.

The only thing that comes after that is a howl.