Stepping back into the guild is always… awkward. Fresh has gotten into the rhythm of simply nodding to the barkeeper when entering inside of the bar during quieter hours, as she simply doesn’t really know how to talk to her, as weird as that sounds. Jubilee and Basil have handled all of the ‘logistics’ that she didn’t have the stomach for. Now it’s just up to her to complete the fountain’s ritual and to uphold their end of the deal.

Right now, the bar is empty, except for herself and the elf, who is polishing an already polished glass, as always.

Clenching her fists and steeling her resolve to overcome this awkwardness, Fresh breaks their ritual and heads to the bar instead of their room. The composed barkeeper tenses up immediately and just by her reaction, Fresh can tell that Basil and Jubilee did little to dispel the whole ‘evil witch’ rumor.

“Can I get something to drink, please?” asks Fresh, sitting down on a stool. She slides a few coins across the counter. “Something non-alcoholic,” she adds. “And that won’t put me in debt.” The barkeeper looks at her nervously and then gazes around the bar.

“Uh… in that case I have… juice?” she says, picking up an apparently forgotten bottle from some equally forgotten shelf.

Fresh looks around, double-checking that the bar is really empty. “I know you don’t believe it, but I’m really not evil and scary,” she says in a low voice, leaning in over the bar. The barkeeper pours some juice into a glass, sliding it over. “So do you travel a lot?” asks Fresh.

“It’s why I took this job,” says the barkeeper after a silent few seconds. “I can move around pretty freely whenever there’s an opening.”

“To find a cure?” asks Fresh.

“There isn’t one, it turns out,” says the barkeeper, grabbing the empty glass from before, starting to polish it again. “Doesn’t matter where you go. Some things go beyond health-points.”

Fresh nods, understanding. The woman has devoted her entire life and career just for this one goal. “I think this is going to work,” she says. “I’m just waiting on the last ingredients,” explains Fresh. Her arm suddenly lifts itself up and she downs her glass of juice in one chug, before setting it down onto the counter. Her legs involuntarily force her to get back up. It looks like the fountain wants something from her. “Ah! I uh, I gotta go finish some work,” says Fresh, a little surprised as she already starts walking back to their room. “See you later!” she says to the curiously staring barkeeper.

Opening the door, she steps into the cut-off space and closes it behind herself, looking around. The others are all gone, busy working on ‘the plan’. Jubilee and Basil are running around town, making whatever connections that they need to make and Shamrock is off gathering resources. Apparently… she’s going to be doing something too?

The fountain sure has gotten impatient these days. Usually it would just trickle around and whisper ideas into her head, making her think that they’re her own. But now, it’s just taking control of her body and making her do stuff. She sighs, still being allowed to do that, as she ‘walks’ over to the corner of the room where the roll of dark-fabric is that she had bought the other day.

Grabbing some tools, she flops down onto the stone floor, a little too hard, and sets to work, mumbling about the new bruise she’s going to have.

Her body is ‘let go’ and she feels her arms falling slack as her control returns over herself. There is a clear idea in her head and she understands that she has to do it. But…

Fresh looks around the empty room. “Are you sure?” she asks the emptiness. “It seems a little on the nose.”

The fountain, if it can even hear her, doesn’t reply.

She shrugs. Oh well, best not to ask. Grabbing the fabric, she unrolls it and cuts out the pieces she needs with a pair of scissors. She’s surprised that she knows the exact measurements of the material she needs. But then, she realizes a second later that of course she does.

After that, she slides the fabric to the side and grabs an iron-bar. She only needs a little. Since she doesn’t have cardboard or anything like that, this will have to do. Holding her hands above the bar, she closes her eyes and focuses. She needs a good dozen or so millimeter thin, long cylinders. Sort of like the spokes of a wheel.

(Fresh) uses: [Craftsman: Metalworking{Extract(Cylinder)}] x12

A layer on the top of the iron-bar is shaved off and a dozen tiny, long, thin rods roll off. She catches them and puts them by the fabric. Taking four of them, she bends them with her hands and makes a circle out of them, connecting them with her abilities to make a large ring.

(Fresh) uses: [Craftsman: Metalworking{Join}] x4

Then, taking the remaining eight spokes, she lines them around the outside of the circle, creating what looks like a child’s drawing of the sun, out of the tiny, metal rods.

(Fresh) uses: [Craftsman: Metalworking{Join}] x8

So far, so good! Grabbing the large, circular piece of fabric, she sets the ‘sun’ into it and wraps it around the skeleton, attaching it with some quick-drying glue from their materials. Then, opting to use her abilities, she cuts out the fabric from the inside of the ring, creating what looks like a large, stiff, really flat, fabric-doughnut.

(Fresh) uses: [Craftsman: Tailoring{Cut}]

Now it’s just missing the top. Grabbing the other piece of fabric, she cuts the edges with her scissors and rolls it together into a large, loose, floppy cone shape. Fresh then attaches the hollow cone to the ‘sun’.

There! Now it just needs a little touching up to hide the seams.

Going through Jubilee’s tailoring supplies, she takes a big purple-ribbon that she likes a lot and wraps it around the base of the cone, hiding the area that the two large pieces are joined together at.

Finally, she takes a dried flower and sticks it down into the ribbon, as a little ornament. There’s only one step left.

Fresh pulls a jar of moonwater out of her inventory, dipping her fingers into it, she then sprinkles some over the construction and waits a moment.

[Witch’s Hat]{Holy}(Excellent) A floppy, wide-brimmed witch’s hat that belongs to the witch of the black-fountain.

While worn: Obscures your face with an impossibly nebulous shadow, even while being illuminated by a direct source of light.

+4 LOV

Quality Effect: Sticks to your head until removed by your own hands, even under strong winds.

Weight: 0.4kg

Durability: 60/60 Value: ???

She beams, holding the large hat out in front of herself. In truth, she had always wanted something like this. But even she knows that it’s an unwise idea, that’s why she never made anything like it. But, well, what the fountain wants, the fountain gets. Grabbing a small piece of mirror-glass from her supplies, she puts on the hat and looks at herself in her reflection.

“Bubble bubble!” says Fresh, doing her best to make a ‘witchy’ voice, while maliciously wiggling her fingers. The shadow effect really does work surprisingly well. It’s just like in some old movie, she can’t see her own face at all. Well. If this is all that the fountain had wanted from her, then maybe things are still pretty good.

She should definitely hide it though. Jubilee will for sure get mad at her for this and she doesn’t really blame them.

Opening her inventory, she takes the hat off and stuffs it inside of the wet hole in her menu. Her hand however, instead of pulling itself back out, instead fumbles around inside of the inventory, grabbing something small and hard.

Fresh pulls her soaking wet hand out, looking at the flattened crystal-drakonium, magical-crystal and a couple extra-large, iron, weight-reducing rings.

“…Uh?” She begins walking back to the corner. “This is a really bad idea!” she says, realizing what the next step is. “Everyone is going to get so mad at me!” protests Fresh. But the fountain doesn’t seem to care. ‘She’ grabs the broom in the corner, which she had bought the other day, and runs the weight-reducing rings down the length of the shaft, sitting one at the base and one near the front. With some glue, she secures them there.

Then she wraps the mat of crystal-drakonium around the middle of the broom, securing that with glue as well. As for the magical-crystal, she essentially just shoves that into the bristles of the broom. It flops out a second later, falling down to the floor. “It’s not gonna hold like that, unless we-”

(Fresh) uses: [Witch-Crafting: Witch’s Broom]

The entire broomstick glows, rising up into the air as the purple aura of her spell surrounds it. After the magic dissipates a moment later, it doesn’t fall back down however, simply floating there before herself instead.

Staring with wide, worried eyes, she watches as her hands sprinkle some extra moonwater onto the broom as well.

[Witch’s Broom]{Holy}(Excellent) A flying broom that belongs to the witch of the black-fountain.

Effect: Allows the user to fly through the air at incredible speeds. As long as they don’t fall off.

Quality Effect: Collects magical residue from the air around itself in a protective cloud of energetic vapors.

Weight: 2.1 kg

Durability: 52/52 Value: ???

Her friends are going to be so mad.