Fresh lays on her back down on the floor, swirling the bottle of ectoplasm around above her head with both hands. Her eyes are fixated on the faintly glowing white-goo that is sloshing back and forth inside of the glass jar.

“Ghost-goo. Ghost-goo.” She narrows her eyes. “Ghost-goo-ghost-goo-ghost-goo-ghoost-gh…” She clears her throat and starts over. “Ghost-goo-ghost-goo-ghost -”

“Ghost-shut-up!” yells Jubilee from behind the counter, throwing a wadded up ball of paper at the girl, laying on the floor of the store. It donks off of her head, rolling off to the side.

“Jubileeeee~?”

“What?” asks Jubilee, clearly annoyed.

“If ghosts are real, does that mean we have souls?” She tilts the bottle to the left, watching as the liquid pools on one side.

“What? Why would you think that?”

“Well… ghosts are souls, right?” She tilts the bottle back towards the right.

“Fuck me if I know what ghosts are, the spooky fucks.” Still laying on the ground, Fresh tilts her head backwards, looking at Jubilee. “Ask Basil, she’ll be able to tell you.”

“Jubileeeee~?”

“What?” asks Jubilee, having gotten used to this ritual after several nights of essentially the same.

“You’re upside down.”

“The only thing upside down here is my life,” says Jubilee, shaking their head and continuing on with writing the ledger.

Fresh looks back at the bottle and keeps playing with it. The only sounds in the quiet store are the sounds of Jubilee’s writing and the sloshing of the ectoplasm. Fresh tilts her head, sliding it sideways, over the floorboards.

“Jubileeeee~?”

“What?!” asks Jubilee sharply, sliding the pen across the page with some force, as if using the sound it makes for emphasis.

“Are you a ghost?”

“…What?” repeats Jubilee.

“Are you a ghost?” repeats Fresh

“…What?”

Fresh spins the bottle around in her hands, holding it up to the ceiling. “Is that why you don’t like being touched? Because I’ll find out that you’re not real?”

Jubilee tilts their head. “Are you real? Have you been drinking the ectoplasm?” They sigh. “Goo-brain.” Fresh looks back at the bottle and then sloshes it around some more. “Weren’t you going to make something out of that? Or did you just want a shiny toy?”

“Mm! I’m going to! I’m just thinking -”

“Does it hurt?” interrupts Jubilee.

“Huh?” asks Fresh, looking over at Jubilee who just sighs and shakes their head, defeated.

“Never mind.”

“Huh…” Fresh looks back to the bottle. “Hey!” she rolls over onto her stomach, puffing out her cheek and scowling at Jubilee who simply slams the ledger firmly shut in response.

“Come on, I’m done.” They look down at her. “You don’t always have to lay there and wait for me, you know?” says Jubilee. “If you finish your work before me, you can just go upstairs and go to sleep.”

Fresh lurches forward, crawling on her stomach towards Jubilee, wiggling like a worm as she slides closer. “But Jubileeeee~!”

“You’re creeping me out,” says Jubilee, looking down at her.

Fresh slaps her hand down on top of the toe-cap of Jubilee’s boot. “I want to spend time with yoooooou~”

Jubilee sighs, pulling their foot back. “We spend just about all day, every day, together.”

“Mm!” nods Fresh.

“You’re really clingy, you know?”

“Mm!” nods Fresh. “You’re my best friend, Jubilee!”

“That’s really sad,” says Jubilee without missing a beat and shakes their head, looking around the store. “…Wanna go to the dungeon?”

Fresh’s eyes shoot open wide. “Yeah!” she exclaims, jumping up to her knees and holding out her arms wide open.

“I’m not hugging you,” says Jubilee plainly, walking past her without sparing her a second glance.

“Jubileeeee~” whines Fresh, turning around and walking on her knees as she chases after her party-member, who runs away, making a circle around the bins as the girl hounds them.

“Get away from me, you creep!”

“Ju-BI-LEEEEEEE~”

Five minutes later they’ve gathered their things, Fresh having lost the chase and they stand outside of the dungeon.

“Should we start at the shortcut?” asks Fresh, realizing that if they enter from the top that Jubilee will see that she went into the dungeon alone to fight Mr. Mushroom.

“You mean down on floor eight?” Jubilee thinks for a moment. “It might get dangerous there for you. You have to promise that you’ll stay back.”

“Okay!”

“Promise,” says Jubilee, placing their hands on their hips.

Fresh tilts her head, wondering what the big deal is. But she nods. “Okay! I promise!” Jubilee nods back, satisfied. The two of them enter the dungeon.

Once Fresh reopens her eyes, she looks around, realizing that she’s standing on a large staircase, but not the one at the usual entrance. Up behind her is a large, double-sided wooden door.

“The boss-room is behind there.”

“You mean the flower?” asks Fresh.

“Yeah,” says Jubilee, walking down. “But I don’t want to go back there with you. Things got weird last time.”

“It’s really easy experience though, can’t you just kill it? You’re really strong, Jubilee!” beams Fresh, running after her friend.

“Let’s just do a few normal floors and then call it a night, okay? We still need to get some sleep before tomorrow.”

Fresh thinks for a moment but then nods. “Okay! The party-leader approves!” She can’t see it from behind, but by the movements of Jubilee’s head, she’s sure that they just rolled their eyes.

The walls of the dungeon are different here than they were above. The brickwork has entirely overtaken the compacted dirt and vines. And a strange, dark ivy grows from between its gaps, giving the gray-bricks a strange, almost bluish hue. She shudders, even with her new robe, it’s getting chilly down here. The damp underground air makes it feel even colder than it likely is.

Something shifts on the floor below. Lots of somethings, as they step down and Fresh looks over what looks like a graveyard. A dark-metal iron-fence runs around the floor, combined with the many tombstones and stone-wrought crypts filling the space, it almost has a labyrinth-like quality to it.

“Floors one to eight were the cutesy beginner things, forest creatures,” says Jubilee. “Floors nine to sixteen are where the first undead are.”

“Undead? Like ghosts?” asks Fresh nervously.

Jubilee steps down onto the floor, gesturing for her to stay back. “Ghosts aren’t until floor thirteen. Floor nine is zombies.”

“Zombies?” Fresh looks up over the graveyard now as she sees it. The dirt below the tombstones begins to ripple and quiver. Stones begin to shift and wobble, as gray, fetid hands rip themselves free from the muck. Bones crack and wet meat lurches and tears as it snags on roots and the ivy, that both seem to grip the dead, as if trying to hold them in place. Fresh feels somewhat unwell as she stares at the rotting, human corpses making their way towards them.

Jubilee grabs the wet dirt at their feet and throws it into the air, snapping their fingers as it flies.

You got [18/52 Experience] !

You got [20/52 Experience] !

You got [22/52 Experience] !

You got [24/52 Experience] !

You got [26/52 Experience] !

You got [28/52 Experience] !

You got [30/52 Experience] !

You got [32/52 Experience] !

You got [34/52 Experience] !

You got [36/52 Experience] !

You got [38/52 Experience] !

You got [40/52 Experience] !

An hour later, the two of them return back up the way they came. Fresh’s bag is significantly fuller. Zombies usually just dropped Obols, but sometimes they had the occasional piece of equipment. A sword, a shield, a single boot without a partner. After floor nine was done, they had gone to floor ten, which contained skeletons and then floor eleven, which was filled with a mixture of both zombies and skeletons. Root-flowers apparently only grew on floors one to eight, so she assumes at least, not seeing any down here. Fresh wants to keep going, but Jubilee waves her off, saying that floor twelve has a ghoul and that they don’t feel like dealing with it tonight.

Apparently ghouls are what happens when a vampire bites someone. It warps their body into something like a zombie, but more cunning and graceful. At least until the process is finished and new bones sprout and skin grows over their eyes, while their necks stretch out far and long. Fresh shudders, accepting that explanation and happily turning back to go upstairs again, buzzing with pride at the new level-up that she has finally gotten. Though Jubilee had been pretty snarky about her selection of available abilities…

You got [52/52Experience] ! (Party)

[Level up! You are now LEVEL 6 ! ]

{Cooking 2}{Crafting 6}{Gathering 2}{Adventuring 2}{Witch-Crafting 6}{Mercantile 5}

~*+- PROFILE -+*~ HP: 7/7 +1 "FRESH" SOUL: $%§ / §**+'# LEVEL: 6

STATUS: ???

CLASS: [WITCH]

- of the Black-Fountain

OBOLS: 6507

SUB-CLASS: [CRAFTSMAN]

RACE: HUMAN

[INVENTORY]

STR: 04 WIS: 04 +1 LUK: 04 DEX: 04 INT: 04 +1 LOV: 03

*~+- PLEASE CHOOSE AN ABILITY -+~*

[1] Choice Remaining

[Witch-Crafting: 4] {Snips and Snails}

Allows you to communicate with low-level forest monsters.

[Witch-Crafting: 5] {Hex Bags}

Allows the crafting of a cursed charm that brings grave misfortune to anyone nearby.

[Crafting: 6] {Glass-worker}

Allows precision glass-work for delicate jewelry and ornaments and instruments.

Hex Bags were out from the start, she didn’t even have to ask, as she felt Jubilee’s ireful gaze the moment the window had appeared. Jubilee had suggested that she should take the glass-work skill. She could make all sorts of new, interesting things for them to sell. But the girl protests, arguing that this was her chance to make new friends.

“With… snails and mush-mushes?” asks Jubilee.

“Mm!”

Jubilee tilts their head, looking at the girl. “I suppose you do have a lot in common with them.”

“Mm- Hey!”

Her friend walks away, waving her off. “It’s your choice, but I don’t know if the monsters have anything to say, honestly.” Fresh’s finger hovers over the menu as she goes back and forth, unable to decide. Making more things is always great, but…

The concept of being able to talk with monsters is also very exciting for her and it’s, judging by Jubilee’s reaction, a rather unusual ability for this world. Maybe there is something of value here? She isn’t quite sure for what yet, but it also just sounds more fun and that’s the real reason her finger finds its way towards it.

Ability chosen: [Snips and Snails] !

Smiling, she runs after Jubilee and the two of them leave the dungeon. Fresh makes a mental note to drop back in again when she finds the time. Maybe Mr. Mushroom will talk to her? The thought makes her giddy and she beams. “Thank you, Jubilee!”

Jubilee tenses up, and for a second Fresh thinks it’s because of her. But their head turns further past her, as they look around her, over their shoulder. Jubilee stares down the dark street to their side, leading down towards the entrance to the city. Fresh follows their gaze, but sees nothing down in the darkness at the end of the empty way. Jubilee turns back and opens the door. “Yeah, yeah. Come on, let’s go to bed. I’m losing sleep because of this.”

“Mm!”

The two of them head inside.