The mountain wind blows past Fresh’s face, pressing the loose fabric of her robe against the side of her body as the frigid breeze continues to flow down the crest of the mountain. It moves as if it were water, splashing out from an endless source. The starry night hangs over her head, yet it feels surprisingly light tonight, not in brightness, but in its perceived weight. It’s not melancholic or sad, despite her reasons for being outside right now.

Despite that, as she looks around herself, Fresh shudders just a little as the wind encapsulates her and her alone, as she stands there by herself, surrounded by the field of yellow flowers near the edge of the mountain.

The others are back at the house, getting things ready in her absence. In truth, she should be there too as she needs to make a lot of items tonight, including new items that she still has to think of. But this comes first.

Breaking off from the path, Fresh walks in and through the forest, thankful for the bright light of the stars that feel so very close tonight, as they dot the sky behind the flowing loose clouds which break up the calm surface of the heavens; their cumulative presence shimmering like sunlight off of the surface of a disturbed ocean.

Walking for a few minutes, she pushes out through the small forest atop the mountain plateau, feeling a fresh push of wind rush against her from the front now instead. The breezes push against her body, as if two motherly hands were holding her back from the cliff ahead of her, out of fear that she wouldn't see it.

This looks like a good spot. Fresh stares out over the night-washed expanse before herself, listening to the rustle of the waving trees so far beneath them. The sound of the million billowing leaves is entirely indistinguishable from the rush of the mountain gale. All of it mixes together into a calm, serene ambiance which seems to carry out over the cliff, as it drifts away towards the unreachable horizon.

Bending over, she sets the wrap full of bones gently down at her side and starts digging.

“I hope you like it here,” says Fresh to the pile of bones. The others had forbidden her from going outside on her own, especially into the forest where there might be monsters. So Fresh just ended up sneaking by herself while nobody was looking. They didn’t seem to understand her desire to have the man buried as quickly as possible. Even Basil, much to her surprise, said it was fine, since his spirit had moved on by now. His body was just an empty shell that held no more significance than that. Only Shamrock seemed to acknowledge her desire, but she wouldn’t be able to escape Jubilee with him in tow. She hopes he understands her leaving him behind tonight.

Maybe it’s a cultural difference of sorts, or maybe she’s just overthinking it. But she feels that the dead man can rest easier if he knows that his body is somewhere where it can sleep quietly. And also, more to the point, she doesn’t want to sleep in a house with a dead body inside of it, let alone work in the same room as it.

A dead body, repeats Fresh in her mind, looking at the bag of bones and realizing that it doesn’t disturb her as much as she thought it would. Sure, she doesn’t want it in the house, but she isn’t terrified or disgusted by it. By having a dead person next to her, that is. Maybe she’s become desensitized?

Fresh shakes her head and returns to her work, making a bed for the man to sleep his final sleep inside of. Pursing her lips, she sinks her hands into the dirt, promising to make it good. The night is young and there is still so much else to do, but that’s no reason to not take this seriously.

A few hours later, she returns back home, sweaty and covered in grime, but with a satisfied, calm smile on her face. Even as she stands outside the door and gets ready to open it, feeling prepared for the scolding that is to come in a few seconds.

It comes about as expected, with Jubilee yelling at her for being irresponsible. Basil stands next to them, nodding in agreement like a disappointed mother. But soon enough, everything settles back down and she sets to work, making a slew of new items for their opening tomorrow with the help of Shamrock and Basil to fetch her materials from the pantry or to carry things downstairs and to start stocking the shelves. Jubilee is busy making a new ledger and thinking of appropriate prices for their items as they are created. They don’t have any marketing strategy or anything for their opening to drum up excitement, especially since they didn’t know about it themselves. Their plan is to just open the doors and to see what happens.

A few hours pass. It is now past the middle of the night, but still a few hours before daybreak. Basil, looking just as tired as she herself feels, comes from the kitchen and sets down a cup of tea next to her.

“Thanks, Basil,” says Fresh, looking at the steaming fruit tea. Basil nods to her with a tired expression, bringing another two cups downstairs for Jubilee and Shamrock.

Fresh looks back at the thing in her hands. A long, glass staff. It’s still missing something though. Glass weapons had the interesting attribute that they all caused monsters to bleed, but that did little to help the casters of this city. She ended up making a few swords, just for posterity’s sake, like the one she had made in the adventurers’ guild the other day. As well as some daggers that had equivalent, but slightly weaker attributes.

But now, more interestingly, she’s finishing up their primary sellers in Jubilee’s eyes, equipment-wise. Glass staves and wands. But… she tilts her head, right now it’s just a glass stick. There’s nothing to make it ‘castery’.

The idea comes quickly enough though. She takes one of the magical crystals from the dungeon and sets it atop the staff. In an instant, as if it knows what she wants from it, it locks into place atop the head, pressing down against the glass. There is a crackling and for a second, Fresh thinks the staff is about to shatter and holds it away from herself. But the crackling isn’t a breaking, it stems instead from the glass growing out of the head like fresh ice over a lake, during the onset of a frigid winter. Several glass prongs rise up, slowly growing around the crystal, encasing it with bars as if caging it. She beams, looking at it in excited delight. Jubilee will love this! She should enchant it too.

Jumping up, she gets up to make some fresh moonwater. Tonight is a full-moon after all, so she makes a lot of it. Sitting by the balcony door on the inside with a pot of water, with Shamrock watching over her shoulder, having come upstairs again, she enchants the glass staff. The first of many.

[Glasswork Staff](High) A long staff made out of dense, prismatic glass. The enchanted crystal floating in its head shimmers with a jubilant radiance.

2 DMG

+8 SPELL-DMG (PHYSICAL)

-15% SPELL SOUL COST

Effect: Regenerates 1 SOUL every minute while on the mountain

Quality Effect: Passively collect ambient SOUL energy inside of the crystal up to a maximum of 40. Once a day, this can be depleted to restore the wielder’s SOUL equal to the amount saved.

Enchantment: All spells do an additional 10% HOLY DMG/HEAL

Weight: 1.27 kg Durability: (10/10) Fragile Value: ???

Fresh lets out a tired sigh, wiping the sweat from her forehead. Despite the fact that her crafting abilities cost her nothing to use, they’re still fairly tiring to use so many of, especially since it is late at night. But she doesn’t let that exhaustion deter her as she continues to work. The next project is a wand, which she ends up making with the same process as the staff. It’s just a lot smaller.

[Glasswork Wand] (High) A short wand made out of dense, prismatic glass. The enchanted crystal that makes up its body shimmers with a jubilant radiance.

1 DMG

+4 SPELL-DMG (PHYSICAL)

-7.5% SPELL SOUL COST

Effect: Regenerates 1 SOUL every minute while on the mountain

Quality Effect: By condensing magic into the fine tip of this wand, a spell can be made more impactful once a day at great durability cost

Use: Your next spell costs 3x SOUL and does 3x DMG/HEAL. This wand loses 9 points of DURABILITY

Enchantment: All spells do an additional 10% HOLY DMG/HEAL

Weight: 0.17 kg Durability: (10/10) Fragile Value: ???

“Wow,” says Basil, flicking one of the little glass wands around the air a few minutes later. “These are really charming!”

Fresh nods in excited agreement. “I think they’re really going to like them! Look!” says Fresh, pointing to the window. “They make spells do a little physical damage too, so maybe we can help some of the people here out in the dungeon with that?”

Jubilee rubs their mask, thinking. “You might actually have something here too. Good job, you’re on a roll.” They look at Basil and Fresh sighs, already knowing what’s coming. “Ninety-nine Obols?”

Basil flicks the wand around, listening to the satisfyingly sharp swishing noise that it makes as it cuts through the air. “No, that’s too cheap. Hmm… well…” she looks at the thing in her hand. “Maybe for the wands, actually. I would do double for the staves though.”

“How about we do one-hundred-ninety-nine then for the staves,” suggests Jubilee. “It’s a cleaner price.” Basil nods in agreement. Fresh sighs, a second time because she wants them to hear her, but decides not to get involved. She still wants to make a batch of sweet-tea, a few more candies, a few more sheep and a lot more of the glass weapons and the night is already drawing to a close. She’ll also have to make something new up for the tea, since they didn’t have the same things here as they did in the north.

By the time the early morning rolls around, all four of them sit downstairs, exhausted. Fresh doesn’t let it bother her as much as it seems to get to her friends though, as she stares with wide, bewildered eyes at the sight downstairs. The shelves are filled with shimmering glass. Swords, daggers, staves, wands all line the walls, catching the faint light that illuminates the tunnels outside; the glow, which seeps in through the windows. Yet the translucent constructions themselves seem to emanate a soft, pastel light much like the magical crystals outside. Fresh attributes it to the moonwater enchantments, but it gives the entire storefront a soft, kind spring-washed aura that reduces the harshness of the mountain stone dramatically.

Walking through the store, she runs her fingers along everything as she goes down the small aisles that they’ve made, towards the back corner where the mountain of sweets is laid out in an open bowl, next to a shelf filled with ready-made packets containing one of each color. Next to them are several bottles of the sweet-tea, made using roughly the same formula as in the old house, just with different fruits. At the front just near the counter, they have a bunch of the sheep who stand atop a shelf that Fresh is particularly proud of. It’s jagged and multi-triangular shaped, like the mountain and stands freely on its own at the end of the shelves, facing the front door. Sheep line its exterior, looking like they’re climbing upwards, standing on little cliffs.

Was this project a wise investment of her rare time? She thinks so.

But there’s one final thing left to do. Smiling giddily, she heads back to the counter where everyone else is waiting on her.

“It really came together, didn’t it?” asks a tired Basil. “Thanks for helping me carry everything,” she says, patting Shamrock on his back, much to Fresh’s surprise. He looks down at her and nods.

“We serve the witch.”

“Huh?!” asks Basil. “No we don’t!” says the priestess. Shamrock lets out a loud huffing breath.

“Shut up you two, I’m trying to concentrate,” barks Jubilee, forming a long piece of glass. “And don’t either of you look at it and shatter it with your ugly mugs.”

As the glass block forms on the counter, everyone looks away from it, as Fresh raises her hands over it to cut it into a thin rectangle and to sand it down afterwards. Before carving in the three words into the sign.

‘Dungeon item shop,’ mouths Fresh as she works.

“Should we really use the same name? Isn’t that conspicuous? What if an adventuring party comes from the north and recognizes it?” asks Basil cautiously.

“If they did, they would have recognized us anyway. So that’s not really a huge problem,” says Jubilee. “Let her have the stupid name, unless you want to listen to her crying for the next week.”

“It’s not stupid!” says Fresh, grabbing a hand-made tincture of colorful mushroom powder. She sticks her finger in it, covering it with paint as she carefully traces the engraved letters in the glass sign. “Here, you guys do some letters too!”

“Why?” asks Jubilee.

“Because it’s our store!” says Fresh, pushing the inkwell towards them. Not needing to be asked twice, Shamrock tries to stick his finger in but it doesn’t fit. “Ah! Wait.” Fresh grabs his hand, pulling it back out and then smears some of the paint onto his fingertip. The man, almost giddily, paints in a few letters of the sign. Basil and Jubilee look at each other, somewhat unsure still, but both relent as Fresh starts pouting at the two of them. Once the last finger leaves the glass, a window appears between them all.

*~+- New Venture Founded -+~* ~ THE DUNGEON ITEM SHOP ~

+ FRESH +

(JUBILEE)

(BASIL)

(SHAMROCK)

Shamrock lets out a heavy breath. “The pact is -“

“SHOVE IT!” snaps Jubilee. “No spooky fuckery in this shop, got it?!” They point at Shamrock and Fresh. Basil nods in quiet agreement.

“But Jubileeee~”

“No! Talk like normal people, you moonlight-bathing fucks!”

Fresh sighs, grabbing the sign as she heads to the door. She stops, listening to a strange, but familiar sound. “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” asks Basil and Fresh lifts a finger, quieting her as she listens and then recognizes the sound as that of a flurry of excited, eager voices, all on their way to the dungeon. The day is starting. Nodding with an excited smile to her tired friends, she rips open the door and holds up the sign.

“Hello everyone!” she cries out into the crowd of people who are starting to stream towards the dungeon. “Having trouble in the dungeon without a fighter? Or do you need some new equipment or something to eat?” She holds the sign up higher into the air, smiling. “We’re open for business!”

Half of the crowd stares at her and half of it moves on, uninterested in some hawker trying to sell them something. But the half that looks at her all lower their gaze to her feet, as they watch the small, stuffed sheep that had escaped from the shelf, run out of the door in a bid for freedom, as it runs through her legs.