Fresh grinds the mixture together, this time taking extra precautions around the grim-powder.

“Are you sure you should be making that gunk?” asks Jubilee, leaning against the door-frame of the workshop.

“You shouldn’t be standing there, Jubilee,” replies Fresh, looking over her shoulder. “It might be dangerous here,” she explains, carefully letting the powder sift off of her fingers as she then blows over her hand, getting the rest of it off of herself.

“Uh, yeah? No shit,” replies Jubilee. “That’s exactly why I’m here.”

“We have to do something with the monkey’s paws and uh…” She shrugs. “This is the least evil thing I could think of.”

“What were the alternatives?” asks Jubilee. “Actually, wait,” they interrupt, seeing Fresh opening her mouth. “I don’t want to know that.”

Fresh nods, closing her mouth again. The alternative would of course have been some sort of wish-granting charm, but that seems like a horrible item to mass-produce. Currently, the locals just use the monkey’s paws as non-wish-granting talismans or they dry and grind them up for their magical attributes. Some of the braver types even like to eat them, apparently.

So. Gunpowder it is. Though, of course, it isn’t like she doesn’t know that this is a horrible idea. This is one of those ‘too good to be safe’ ideas. Once the applications become apparent, word will spread around. The guard, the nobles, the military. It’s going to be a huge item of interest that will put them in danger. That’s why she has to render its explosive properties inert, while still leaving the power of incredibly volatile magical charge in the powder.

“Jubilee?” she asks, turning around to stare at her friend’s face for a second as she remembers something that she wanted to talk about. “Sorry that I didn’t realize you were upset the other day because of your acquaintances,” she explains, looking back to the pile of powder on the table before herself as she remembers the bodies that Jubilee and Basil had found. “I’m a dumb friend.”

“I’ve gotten used to it,” says Jubilee.

“Hey!” argues Fresh, but then sighs, realizing that that’s a fair answer from Jubilee. “I need your help with this,” she says, changing the topic.

“What do you need?” they ask, skeptically.

“Can you get some beach sand and make glass out of it for me, please?”

“Uh… sure?” asks Jubilee, shrugging and going downstairs. Fresh hears the sound of glass shattering and then the sound of the front-door.

(Fresh) uses: [Craftsman: Grind{Fine}]

“Thanks, Jubilee,” she says.

“Sure, what’s the glass for?”

“It’s the beach-sand-glass,” says Fresh. “It has a tinge of water properties that the normal dirt-glass doesn’t.”

Jubilee blinks, looking at the pile of glass that looks exactly like any other pile of glass. “Are you just making stuff up now?”

Fresh shakes her head. “No, really!” she explains, putting on her crystal-drakonium work-gloves and carefully mixing the pile of grimpowder and beach-glass-dust together. “It’s true.”

“Never heard of that before.”

“It’s like…” Fresh stops, considering her words and wondering if they’re something she should say. She lowers her voice. “Was your magic different before, Jubilee?” asks Fresh. “You know, before you…”

“It was,” replies Jubilee.

“It’s like that,” nods Fresh. “The magical properties of things as well as people are based on their foundations,” she explains.

“Those are a lot of big words for you,” replies Jubilee, crossing their arms.

Fresh rubs her cheek on her shoulder. “I think I’m getting smarter, Jubilee.”

“A frightening thought,” chimes in Basil’s joking voice. Fresh turns around, seeing the priestess standing behind Jubilee, her hands cupped around them from behind and resting on top of the center of their chest.

“Mm,” nods Fresh. “One day, I’m going to be smart enough to figure out all the embarrassing things you guys don’t want me to know about,” she explains and watches as Basil and Jubilee exchange a glance with each other.

“Let’s hope not,” says Basil. “Are we going to go to bed soon?” asks the priestess, before yawning. “I’m exhausted.”

“You’re allowed to go to bed on your own,” sighs Jubilee, yawning themselves a second later.

“No, I’m not,” replies Basil.

“Are we really making this a thing?” asks Jubilee’s exasperated voice as Fresh turns back to her work, yawning herself now into her sleeve as she has been infected by it.

“I’ll be finished in a minute,” she says. “Do you guys need me tomorrow?” she asks. “Otherwise, I want to work on the shower and on crab-proofing the house.”

“Uh… I think we can manage,” says Basil.

Fresh holds her hands above the mixture of powder, focusing on her ability.

(Fresh) uses: [Craftsman: Alchemist{Meld}] [Solidified grim-powder]{Water}(Excellent) Made out of a blend of organic ingredients, this is a solidified mass of extremely unstable grim-powder. It smells slightly of the ocean.

☠️ POISON ☠️

Warning: Mildly volatile. Somewhat explosive. Handle with care!

Weight: 1.2kg Attribute: Water Value: ???

“Hmm… interesting,” says Basil, taking a step back and pulling Jubilee with herself. “What does it do?”

Fresh lifts a finger, gesturing for them to wait as she grabs some green mushroom-powder and sprinkles it into a small portion of the mixture. Picking it up with pinched fingers, she tosses the mixture down onto the floor.

The instant it strikes the ground, a series of sparkles fly out in a noisy clamour, as there is a series of tiny, minuscule and very colorfully green explosions.

“Stop ruining the floor!” barks Jubilee.

“It was very pretty,” notes Basil. “But I still don’t see what it does?”

“That is what it does!” exclaims Fresh, taking another pinch and tossing it up into the air, against the ceiling. It sparkles, dozens of tiny explosions crackling out as they then fall back down to the ground like fading stars.

Jubilee sighs and turns around, trying to pull themselves out of Basil’s clutches to leave. “I’m going to bed.”

Fresh puffs out her cheek. “They’re fireworks! They’re like… little, pretty explosions.”

“Good night,” says Jubilee, still trying and failing to get away from Basil.

“Why though?” asks the priestess.

“Because it looks pretty,” explains Fresh.

The priestess nods. “Certainly. But… why would an adventurer buy this?”

“Because…” Fresh’s finger droops. “- It looks pretty?”

Basil nods, nodding her head to the side and adjusting her glasses. “Come on. Let’s go to bed. You can figure out the rest of this idea tomorrow.”

Fresh sighs, walking after them and closing the workshop door tightly. “But that is the whole idea!”

“It needs some work,” says Jubilee. “Will you let go of me?!”

“No,” replies Basil, waddling after Jubilee. Fresh scratches her cheek. She’s a little jealous. ‘It needs some work’, huh? She’ll show them how great fireworks are. They just don’t see it yet. They’re missing the scale of the invention.

Shaking her head, she makes a run around the upstairs, closing the windows and the balcony doors and adjusting the heaters to a comfortable setting. Fresh shudders, now that she’s starting to notice the night-born chill, creeping its way over the ocean towards their home. Looking around, Fresh notices something out of place.

“Hey, where’s Shamrock?” she asks, looking at Jubilee who is still trying to shake Basil off.

“Uh…” Basil thinks for a moment, looking up towards the ceiling.

“Dungeon,” says Jubilee. “Said something about killing monsters.” They shake their head. “I get the feeling he’s getting into old habits again.”

Basil laughs. “I think we did manage to domesticate him for a while there,” she jokes. “I used to think he was so scary, back when we first saw him. But he’s really a big softy.”

“Oh no!” gasps Fresh.

Basil looks around. “Huh? What?”

Fresh crosses her arms. “We can’t go to bed now if he isn’t here.”

“Good night,” says Jubilee, very clearly, rolling their eyes and slipping out of Basil’s grasp.

The priestess shrugs. “He’ll be fine on his own,” reassures Basil. “I’ve never asked what level he is, but honestly, I think he’d give the best paladins of the church a run for their money.”

Fresh frowns. She doesn’t like the fact that he’s alone in the dungeon. What if something happens to him? And besides…

She rubs her arm, sighing as she heads towards her bed. “Hey, Basil? How come it’s weird if he doesn’t have abilities?” she asks, remembering Basil and Shamrock’s fireside conversation during their journey here.

“Huh? Oh… well…” Basil thinks for a moment. “It’s just that everyone has abilities,” she explains. “There isn’t a class that doesn’t have abilities. Even low soul-point classes like fighters still have abilities that don’t cost soul-points.”

Fresh nods. “So, he doesn’t have a class?” Basil throws off her robe and changes into her ‘grandma pajamas’, as Fresh likes to call them.

“I’ve never asked. It’s not what we do, you know?” asks Basil and Fresh nods. Emotional privacy and an emphasis on personal-pacing is the basis of their entire relationship to one another. As for physical privacy, it doesn’t seem to be a big deal for any of them, apart from Jubilee. “To become a member of the sect, let alone perhaps one of the last ones left on this side of the south, requires, uh…” She thinks for a moment, laying down beneath her blanket. “- a very specific mindset.” Basil adjusts her pillow. “I don’t know what made him the way he is, but I wouldn’t worry. He knows what he’s doing, probably more than any of us.”

Fresh nods, deciding not to run out after the man. If he needs space in the dungeon to kill things on his own, then it isn’t her place to barge in and ruin that. Crawling under her blanket from the bottom, she slips off her robe and worms her way through until she reaches her pillow.

“Good night, Basil,” says Fresh. She lifts her voice. “Good night, Jubilee!”

“Pipe down and go to sleep!” barks Jubilee from the other side of the wall. Basil presses down a laugh.

“Good night,” replies the priestess.

Fresh lays there for a while. But she doesn’t find any sleep. Basil seems to do so quickly however and she watches as the priestess’ arms flail around, as she begins her nightly fight to the death with the invisible demons in her dreams.

After about an hour of this, Fresh gets up, realizing that this isn’t going to work. Throwing her robe back on, she decides that she might as well work until Shamrock gets back. She’ll be able to sleep then.

Going back into the workshop, she pulls up her sleeves, opens her inventory and removes the magical-lantern that she had once given to Basil.

“Hey, little guy,” says Fresh, stroking the destroyed thing. “How are you?”

The lantern doesn’t respond as she sets it down onto the table. It tries to lift itself up, but fails to do so and drags itself an inch to the side.

She nods to herself. Something about the lantern had always made Basil uncomfortable. Fresh had never asked, but maybe the priestess just… didn’t like it? Basil had always stuffed it away into a closet or a box of some kind. Even here, it had just been shoved in a crate that was beneath her workbench. It was oddly and uncompassionately out of character for the priestess. She must just really not have liked the present.

It’s a little sad. Fresh remembers how happy she had felt initially, making the thing for the priestess and even how she had then stopped herself from giving it to her at first, for fear of being perceived as weird. Fresh strokes the jagged metal of the lantern with her thumb.

“Let’s get you fixed up,” she says, remembering that despite all of that, she owes the lantern a debt that she really ought to repay.