“Bleeeeh!” calls out an elf wearing a wide-brimmed wizard's hat, shoving a sheep into the face of his party-member.

“Are you nine?” asks the man, draped in a heavy cloak with a high trim that rises up to his gaunt cheeks, as he stares down at the stuffed toy being held up his way. The little sheep’s legs kick idly in the air as it tries to move.

“Look! They can walk!” says the elf wizard, setting it down on the ground. The sheep marches forward towards the counter, bumping into it and then falling over helplessly onto its side, its legs still continuing to kick. “Can we get it? Huh? Huh?” asks the elf, picking it back up excitedly. “Pleeeeease?!” they beg, clenching the sheep in front of themselves as they stare up at their annoyed party member who rolls their eyes.

“We don’t have the money for your stupid sheep. We need to buy some gear,” they explain. “If we get a wand, we can use the physical damage to make it through another two or maybe even three floors!”

“Pleeeeease?!” asks the wizard with a cracking voice, sounding as if near to tears.

“Gods! You’re such a giant baby!” scolds the dark-cloaked man.

Fresh watches them from the counter, standing next to Basil. She wonders why she has such an odd sense of déjà vu as she stands there with her hands full, having stopped to watch the scene unfold. The elf lets out a throaty noise, sounding as if they’re about to start crying. “FINE!” yells the man, snatching the sheep from their hands and heading to the counter. “I swear, you’re going to drive me crazy one day. If we don’t have enough money for food this week, I’m eating your stupid sheep!” He glares back at the wizard. “And then you!” he warns, jabbing a finger into their head through the cone of their hat.

The wizard runs after him, entirely unfazed by his threats. Fresh presumes that to signal that they know that there is no weight behind them to begin with. The elf’s eyes are clearly filled with excited delight, as they bob up and down on their feet behind the man, jumping to try and look over his shoulder as he looks away, more annoyed now than before. Fresh heads down to the basement, carrying the next load of items that they’ve been buying downstairs to the basement.

“One…” the man’s eye twitches as he sets the sheep down onto the counter. It starts walking across to Basil, who catches it from falling. “One sheep. Please,” says the dark-cloaked man, appearing to have great difficulty in forming the sentence, which is the last thing Fresh hears of the oddly familiar conversation, as she heads downstairs to sort away the items. She hasn’t made any shelves or anything like that down here just yet. But for now, she just sorts the drops into different piles. Mush-mush caps from the forest, kobold fluff and ice-drake scales seem to be the biggest things coming in so far. There is a bit of odd equipment here and there that people found in the dungeon, but she has little idea about that stuff. Jubilee assesses most of it and decides what to buy and what they don’t need.

She comes back out of the basement a few minutes later, noticing that Basil is gone and that Shamrock has taken her place behind the counter, that he barely fits behind.

“Two-hundred Obols!” says an extremely fluffy and thickly dressed man across from him. Shamrock shakes his head. The boy, that Fresh recognizes as the one who confronted them during their first night here, stands there too.

“We’ll give you three-hundred, plus priority choice on drops!” he says, clenching his fists. His party, all about his age, stand behind him and silently nod. Fresh scratches her cheek, wondering why they wanted Shamrock to begin with? They seemed like kids. Did they really need to go into the dungeon at their age? She looks around, trying to figure out what it is that they’re bidding on.

“If you want physical damage, then buy some wands, you shit-heads!” yells Jubilee. “The employees aren’t for sale!”

“Shut up, pipsqueak!” yells the boy at Jubilee who narrows their eyes. Fresh quickly runs over, noticing that it’s time for her to intervene, before Jubilee finishes reaching into the bag of dirt on their waist.

It takes another few minutes, as well as a group-discount on a set of glass weapons for her to talk everyone down and to get them to leave happily. Or at least happily enough. Though she has to endure a new scolding from Jubilee for giving away their merchandise again.

She sighs, leaning over the counter once everything is resolved. “Where’s Basil?”

“Lunch break,” says Shamrock, having trouble opening the tiny change drawer with his large hands, looking up for a moment to stare at the window, at a group of three giggling adventurers standing outside. They run away with shrill shrieks and flustered faces as his eyes, buried deeply beneath his scarred, dark-cobalt helmet, move towards them.

“They all really like you, huh?” asks Fresh, laughing and patting the giant on the back. “I’m glad that nobody here is afraid of you. Shamrock.”

“They’re probably more intimidated than afraid,” says Jubilee. “But like I said, the church isn’t big here in the west. That means their dogma isn’t either. Still…” Jubilee rubs the chin of their mask. “Maybe we can use him as a mascot? Like to draw people in. It seems to be working so far.” They look him up and down. “Maybe we could get you some less spooky armor? Something bright and heroic? Really sell the image.”

“That’s a great idea!” says Fresh, looking up at Shamrock. “What do you think?”

The man shakes his head and lets out a loud breath. “I keep the faith,” is all that he says ,as he finally finishes pressing the coin into the drawer. Fresh takes that as a ‘no’. Shrugging, not exactly let down, she returns to work. Another hour passes and Basil eventually returns. Fresh doesn’t make a big deal out of her absence and to her surprise, neither does Jubilee.

“Thanks for covering for me,” says the priestess to Shamrock who just nods in return.

“Hey! Check this out!” says a voice from the back, stemming from a figure who is swinging a glass wand around. Her friend jumps away as the thing swishes through the air.

“Watch where you’re swinging that! It’s really fragile!” yells the smaller one at the girl with the wand, who is wearing extremely puffy, gray pants and a tighter fitting top that Fresh notices is made out of small ice-dragon scales. She makes a mental note. Maybe there’s some kind of armor that she can make out of the scales?

“But it’s pretty and look!” she says, opening the window for the wand. “It has soul-regeneration!”

“Huh? The wand does?” asks her companion curiously, leaning in closely to read, apparently having bad eyes. “Just by holding it?”

“Yeah! I used my points up already, but look. They’re coming back now!” she says excitedly, swishing the wand around some more and listening to the sharp sound that it makes. “We should get some! Think about the money we’d save on potions!”

“You think?” Their friend leans over, looking at a staff. “They’re really fragile though. If you trip once, that’s it.”

“So we just won’t trip, duh!” says the girl, walking past their companion and tapping them on the head once with the wand, as they head down the aisle towards the candies. The window closes a few seconds later.

Fresh shrugs to herself and heads upstairs for a moment to get some water from her bottle up in the kitchen and then comes back down a minute later to see Jubilee standing there with an annoyed posture, as they talk to a confused man standing across the counter.

“So… what do they taste like?” asks the man. Fresh notices that he has a particularly sleepy demeanor to his body language and tone. It’s as if his entire body and voice were both hanging slack.

Jubilee places their hands on their hips. “What color you got there?” they ask in a tone that Fresh recognizes as vivid sarcasm. But the man apparently doesn’t, as he lifts the red candy towards his face to look at it.

“It’s red.”

“Then it tastes like red,” says Jubilee plainly. “Five Obols each, unless you buy a bag of five for twenty,” they explain.

“But what if I don’t like the taste?”

“But what if I gave a fuck?” Jubilee taps the counter. “Five Obols and you can find out if you want to buy a second one after that.”

“You’re very rude,” says the sleepy man, sounding not too shocked or even bothered however, as his tired eyes stare at the thing in his hand. The statement sounded more matter of factly than anything signaling that he was offended.

“You’re wasting my time. But I’ll tell you what,” Jubilee leans in, pointing a finger at the man. “I'll give you a bag for free if you shov -”

“Jubilee~!” yells Fresh, coming down the stairs, having heard enough of the conversation to realize that it wasn’t going anywhere productive. She waves to the man. “You can try that one if you want, on the house.”

“What?! You social-reject!” snaps Jubilee back up at her, swiping her hands off of their shoulders. “How many times do I have to tell yo -” Jubilee looks back over the counter. “Hey! Don’t eat that without paying for it!”

The sleepy man takes a bite of the red candy, the hard shell crackling with a loud crunch as he bites through it, his teeth sinking into the sweet-dough filling inside. His eyes, blood-shot and tired, open in surprise as he chews and looks back at them.

“How was it?” asks Fresh, wincing as she feels a small boot step down onto her toe-cap.

The sleepy man looks back down at the candy in his hand and then back up towards them. “It tastes like red,” he says, as his attention turns towards the stat window that had appeared.

“I fucking told you!” snaps Jubilee. Fresh winces as they twist their heel, squishing her toes through her boot a little more. She laughs a nervous laugh.

“If you like it, please come and buy some more!” says Fresh. The sleepy man looks at her and sets down the remaining half of the candy onto the counter, walking away without saying a word. “Ah-!”

He leaves.

“What was that…?” asks Fresh, feeling somewhat offended now as she looks at the half-eaten candy laying on the counter.

“Fucking deadbeat,” says Jubilee, lifting their foot off of hers and shaking their head as they turn around towards her. Fresh gets ready for another lecture as she feels Jubilee’s glare reach her. But it never comes, Jubilee just lets out a defeated sigh and shakes their head. Their tight posture loosens. Perhaps they are unwilling to scold her again a second time, or maybe they’re just wondering if there’s even a point to using the energy. “Clean that up,” says Jubilee dryly, pointing to the half-eaten candy.

“But Jubilee…” starts Fresh.

“Shut up! You said he could have it, you clean it up!” Jubilee crosses their arms. “And no. You can’t have my gloves,” barks Jubilee up at her.