(Fresh) uses: [Malediction] !

Fresh’s sleeves are rolled up to her elbows. Her bag, full of potions, is sitting on the stairs as she runs in a circle around floor four of the dungeon. She had just finished clearing the third floor of the dungeon a few minutes ago. After a short break to catch her breath, Fresh made her way down deeper. She’s alone in the dungeon and it’s the middle of the night, she had snuck outside again to go level up on her own. The lantern that she had made for Basil floats at her side. She had decided to take it with herself, if only out of practicality.

In truth however, she also felt bad for it. The odd construction, floating near her bed, always seemed to want to follow her, but it couldn’t ever escape the chain that she had tied it to. It’s not like the lantern is alive or anything like that, but -

Her eyes glance over to the silver thing floating at her side, as the monsters chase her around the floor. The depiction of the guardian-angel shimmering with a pale, white light.

- It’s just that she felt bad for it. It had tugged at her heart-strings, watching it pull against the chain as she tried to leave the room in silence. So she just took it with her. Fresh hopes that Basil will forgive her for using her present, but she’s sure that the priestess wouldn’t mind. It’s not like she even knows about the lantern to begin with.

Fresh rounds the bend, running past the staircase again as she makes the next loop around the floor, the mush-mushes are a little harder to avoid than the snails. The snails are so slow that she barely has to bother running away from them at all. But they have a little more health than the mush-mushes. None of them really have anything of substance to say. In fact, the snails are even ruder than the mush-mushes. She had no idea that monsters could have such crude ways of expressing themselves. Talking to forest monsters had sounded like a nice idea at first, but the reality is that monsters seemed to have personalities to match their title. In short, they’re jerks.

Five minutes later. Everything is dead and she swipes her experience-points-screen away, before falling down onto the staircase, getting her weight off of her wobbly legs.

“It’s going to take a long time,” sighs the girl in exhaustion, leaning back against the steps as sweat drips down her forehead. It’s cool and damp down in the dungeon, a welcome change from the oppressive heat of the overworld. But she has work to do. She needs to get stronger. She’s sure that Jubilee would take her to the dungeon, if she asked and pleaded long enough, but she wants to do it herself. Her fingers dig around the bag, pulling out a glass flask filled with water.

Jubilee can’t always be there to save her. One day, she might need to save Jubilee and she has to be strong enough to do that on her own. The cool water drips down her chin as she drinks it just a little too hastily, coughing and spluttering as she leans forward, striking against her chest as she clears her throat. Fresh looks at the lantern. Water dribbles down its sleek surface, as she spit all over it.

“Ah! I’m sorry!” She grabs it out of the air, wiping it off on her robe. It simply floats back into place next to her as she lets go again. It’s entirely indifferent.

Sighing in midnight exhaustion, Fresh gets up and slings her bag back over her shoulder, heading down to floor five. There’s still so much work to do. A vision of the cobalt-armored man from the sect flashes through her mind as she marches towards the next set of stairs. She wonders if he is down here as well, in his own dungeon? ‘Putting in the work’, as the expression goes. She isn’t entirely sure what it is exactly that she should believe in, like he had said. What it is that she should place her faith in, so that she has something to hold on to and to motivate her when the bad times come.

Her fingers grasp the straps of her bag, pulling it higher onto her shoulders which have become slightly scarred from all of the rubbing and friction of her heavy bag. For now, this will have to do.

Fresh heads down to floor five, putting in the same effort. After another break, she moves to floor six and looks down the stairs after clearing it. Floor seven has the goblin. She looks at the cursed-dagger on her belt. Considering the amount of teeth she uses, she should be past this point of self-doubt about killing goblins. Yet somehow, she isn’t entirely. As for the dagger itself, it isn’t of much use to her with her current strategy, but she thinks she’s ready to use it if she has to. Downing another stamina-potion, her third one for the night, she takes a deep breath and heads down the staircase.

Her eyes lock on to the goblin and it rouses itself out of its nap, looking at the intruder. Fresh narrows her eyes, lifting her hand towards it. She hopes it understands that this is nothing personal, she’s just doing what she has to do. The world is going to eat one of them before tonight is over, so in the end it will come down to only one, single thing that determines which one of them will survive; -

(Fresh) uses: [Malediction] !

- which of them wants it more.

Half an hour passes and Fresh falls against the door to the boss-room, gasping for air, her legs trembling and about to give out as she does her best not to look up behind her. So that she doesn’t see the thick, black spot dripping down the steps from just above her. A giant puddle of oily ooze, in which float two small, beady monster eyes, that had been popped out of their sockets.

She grabs another stamina-potion. Her fifth, as she had one during the chase with the goblin, which was a really fast creature. It took everything she had just to avoid it by a hair’s width. She’s starting to think she understands what the red-wizard meant. Her legs and arms feel jittery, her blood seems to be rushing. She isn’t sure if its a mix of adrenaline and a post-exhaustion burst of energy or just the stimulating effect of the potions, but she’s buzzing with energy, despite her tired and heavy eyes and wobbly legs.

The boss-room. She looks up towards the door. “How much health does a boss have…?”

She realizes that she doesn’t know. Jubilee had simply absolutely shredded it with their glass magic. Looking back on it, Fresh realizes that Jubilee is probably really strong, since they basically destroyed the boss with a single attack. It probably would have gone even faster, if she herself hadn’t gotten in the way.

Fresh smiles, but at least she got Jubilee the flower. So it was worth it. She doesn’t know if she has it in her to run around the boss arena, at least not anymore tonight. Her eyes rise up to the lantern that floats alongside her.

“I wish I could fly, like you,” says Fresh, reaching for the lantern. The moment she places any of her weight on it however, the lantern sinks down immediately. Whatever magic holds it aloft certainly isn’t strong enough to hold any weight, let alone hers. She’ll just have to do it the hard way. But not tonight. Exhausted, she throws the unopened stamina-potion back into the bag after all.

Getting up, the girl trudges her way back up the dungeon, doing her best to not look at any of the many disembodied eyes along the way, floating, suspended in puddles of black goop. As she then later falls into her bed however, her aversion to the sight of them does little to erase them from the visions playing through her mind’s eye.

[+1 DEX]

The next day comes and she forces her way through the morning. Her deep exhaustion apparently not distinguishable from a listlessness born of a heat-caused lethargy, much to her relief. The morning is busy, but then later on, the entire day is just as it was yesterday. Quiet. Hot. Fresh leans over the counter, her face pressing into the wood. No matter how hot it gets however, no matter how sweaty and warm she gets, her skin never seems to get any warmer than a cold, clammy tinge, much to Basil’s abhorrence. The priestess insists on casting a healing spell on her, which only makes her feel even worse because of the inner heat that radiates from her body as the white-magic surges through it.

“I’m fine, Basil, thank you,” says Fresh, somewhat bothered because of her exhausted crankiness, but still happy that the priestess is worried about her. The last puffs of the magic float away from her slack body, which is pressing itself limply against the countertop. Basil isn’t convinced, but relents after noticing that her spell isn’t having any effect at all. Much to Fresh’s relief, healing spells apparently don’t activate her combat menu.

Despite any of that, she still manages to smile as she looks around at her equally sweaty, listless friends. While she had overslept a little, Jubilee had been putting in extra work to finish up the kitchen. To make it up to them, Fresh had promised to try and make them a real breakfast tomorrow. Basil had gone out of her way as well and brought a small batch of fresh fruits with her when she arrived this morning, the bundle suspiciously missing any signs of anything orange.

Her eyes wander around the empty store, as she listens to the buzzing cicadas outside. A glint of light reflects off of the body of a glass-chicken that stares her way. Her eyes lock on to its and the two of them stare at each other, sizing the other up.

“The chicken is judging me,” says Fresh quietly to herself.

“What?” asks Jubilee, leaning back against the stairs again.

Fresh sighs, pushing herself up off of the counter. She’s tired and exhausted, having only slept an hour or two after running around in the dungeon all night. But there’s still so much work to do. She can’t let the heat stop her again. The glint of the sunlight shining off of the glass body reminds her of that, of the bad dream, of the prophecy. The great dawn is coming, a true dawn and it will wash away any inkling of darkness in the world, when that deistic sun finally rises, when the summoned-hero arrives, as was foretold.

The girl walks up the staircase, grabbing some wood and other materials from the pantry before she comes back down to continue her work on the walls, sealing them tightly shut. She herself is included in that collection of dark things, whether she likes it or not. She can’t waste another day, no matter how hot it is, no matter how tired she is, no matter how gross it is to work on the dusty, grimy walls in this heat.

Her fingers dig into the morose wood and she rips the first boards free, setting back to her work of fixing the shop up and making it as nice as she can. She has to be a good example after all, her friends are watching her. ‘It’s just what a good party-leader should do’ is all that she thinks, as she wipes her grimy forehead onto her sleeve, pursing her lips and ripping out another old board from the rotting walls.