“Please, open your heart,” pleads the man, holding out an empty bowl.

“Get fucked!” barks Jubilee, waving him off, walking away and rolling their eyes.

Fresh gasps, shocked at her friend’s rudeness. “Jubilee!” she scolds, apologizing to the man who she then gives a few Obols to, before running after her friend. “Jubilee, don’t be mean to people,” she lectures. “The poor guy looks like he’s having a hard time.”

Jubilee shakes their head. “The only person having a hard time here is me, because you keep giving our money away while we’re trying to survive.”

Fresh frowns. “I want people to be happy and healthy though,” she says. Jubilee sure has gotten a lot softer in a lot of ways over the year, but ever since they’ve arrived here in the central-city, she can’t help but feel that they’ve gotten snarkier to everyone outside of their own family circle.

Jubilee looks back over their shoulder and up towards her. “I’d be happier if the streets weren’t filling up with parasites,” says Jubilee. “Fuck ‘em. If you can’t make it on your own, I say it’s fair for the winter to take you with it. The world doesn’t need more dead weight,” says Jubilee, looking at her. “People don’t deserve to live just because they’re alive.”

Fresh rubs her arm. “I wouldn’t have made it if you hadn’t helped me back then, Jubilee,” she admits. “When we first met.”

“That was different,” says Jubilee, waving her off. But Fresh doesn’t really understand how it’s any different.

With the shield up around the city, a lot of people whose businesses and industries relied on the surrounding forest or to excursions outside of the city have essentially been left adrift. Those with no substantial savings or other avenues of business to stay afloat are all going under.

Those who can get their money in the dungeon, do so. But capable adventurers or fighters are only a small percentage of the population. A merchant who has been peddling wares for all of his days will only find very limited success in a real fight. So, day by day, the number of people outside, trying to beg for a few coins, trying to ask for a job, trying to make ends meet one way or the other, has been steadily increasing.

Though, not around the festival grounds. The guards are chasing them all away there, intent on keeping the poor and hungry out of sight, so that they don’t ruin the mood.

“Hello!” says Fresh, waving to the guardsman stationed outside of their door. The one who the city inspectors had told them about. Apparently, it took a few days to organize someone, but now that person is here and standing next to their entrance with a pike in hand.

“Mornin’.”

“Can you fuck off?” asks Jubilee, placing their hands on their hips. “You’re going to scare away our customers.”

The man shakes his head. “Orders. I’m supposed to stay here and stand guard.”

Jubilee points to the left. “Can you stand three steps to the left and stand guard there?”

“No.”

Jubilee sighs.

“Thanks for your hard work!” beams Fresh. “It’s nice to meet you,” she says, holding out her hand.

“Muldrich.”

“Hi, Muldrich!” she says. “I’m Fresh, this is Jubilee,” she says. “Let us know if there’s anything you need,” she says, heading inside and then upstairs to the kitchen, where Shamrock and Basil are getting things ready for breakfast. “We got the eggs!” she says, pulling out a small, straw-packed wooden box that she hands to Shamrock. Jubilee is still the undisputed egg-master, but today is Shamrock’s turn.

“Thanks.”

“There’s a guard outside,” says Basil, sipping her tea.

“Yeah, we saw,” replies Jubilee, sighing.

“Bad mood today?” asks the priestess, looking at Jubilee as they sit down on the chair. Fresh sneaks up behind the priestess, resting her chin on top of her head.

“I’m waiting for my life to end,” says Jubilee, leaning back over their chair. “But the gods have no such mercy for me.”

“Maybe you’re having a bad time because you’re grumpy?” suggests Basil.

“Wow. Thanks, Basil,” says Jubilee sarcastically. “I never looked at it that way before, dumb-ass.”

Basil shrugs. “I’m just saying. Maybe if you actually tried to be happy, you’d be happy.”

Fresh nods. She likes that philosophy. ‘Fake it until you make it’ is a tried and true motto for just about every avenue of life, from business success to personal happiness.

“Maybe I’d be happy if I wasn’t surrounded by tea-cup philosophers all day, every day,” notes Jubilee.

Basil lifts her cup, sipping from it. “It’s a coughee cup, actually.”

Fresh nods. “It’s true, Jubilee!” she says, pointing at the cave-stone cup. “I made it especially to drink coughee out of.”

Jubilee groans, sinking deeper into their chair.

“If you slouch like that, you’re going to turn into a slime,” says Basil, sipping her coughee. “Ah!” she looks over to Shamrock, who is staring over his shoulder. “No offense, it’s just an expression.”

The man turns back to his cooking, his chestplate heaving as he lets out a loud exhalation.

“Anyways,” says Jubilee. “If we’re done dissecting my personal life, we need to tighten up some things.”

“Like what?” asks Basil.

“No more talking about ‘business’ downstairs or when the windows are open,” says Jubilee. “Last thing we need is that fuck, Moldorf -”

“Muldrich,” corrects Fresh.

“- Mulberry overhearing us,” says Jubilee. “If he asks to use the washroom, tell him to fuck off into the dungeon,” explains Jubilee.

Fresh frowns, rubbing her chin over Basil’s hair. It smells like lavender. “That seems mean.”

“What’s going to seem mean is when we all get executed because the city-guard saw your fucky cauldron,” says Jubilee.

Fresh shrugs. “We could move it upstairs? Or I could just like… put a big crate around it?” she suggests. “Then it would look like any other box in the basement.”

Basil thinks for a moment. “It’s just a little thing. But it would be smart to make a good impression with the man,” she says. “He might just be a low-ranking guard, but having him on our side is always better than having him against us.” The priestess sets her cup down. “If we can win him over with some small neighborly kindness, it could save us a lot of headaches in the future,” suggests the priestess. “Especially if we’re going to be stirring up trouble with the nobles eventually.”

Fresh blinks. Basil sure has taken on a lot after Jubilee. That sounds like one of their ideas.

Though, sometimes she wonders if Basil isn’t a lot like Jubilee to begin with and if their presence has simply allowed her to be freer from the metaphorical shackles of her priesthood?

Shamrock sets down the plates onto the table. Breakfast is ready.

The four of them enjoy a nice meal before getting ready for their opening today.

Fresh has been banished into the basement.

She frowns, looking at a glass bauble.

A man had come in, asking for something to eat. He was the same man that Fresh had given some coins to this morning. Jubilee yelled at her and sent her to the basement, before going outside to Muldrich and telling him to keep out any riff-raff.

She sighs, looking at the small ball of glass down before herself. The spriggans are running around behind her, chasing each other around the basement.

The future is always such an uncertain thing.

“The future…”

Fresh stares at the glass in her hands, realizing her latest idea. She sets to work.

Really, it’s a very simple thing. First, she takes a block of moon-glass from their collection, one that’s about two fists in width and length, and then carves a sphere out of it.

(Fresh) uses: [Glassworker: Extract {Sphere}]

Then she carefully hollows it out, leaving a tiny pin-prick hole on the bottom.

(Fresh) uses: [Glassworker: Hollow]

Dusting it off with a damp rag, she wraps the hollow glass ball into a cloth and then holds the edges of it as she dunks it into a vat of mineral-moonwater. The ball fills up with water, becoming heavier. She pulls it out and sets it back onto the table, unwrapping it. Drying it off, she grabs some paste and then seals the tiny hole shut again.

Now all that’s left is a pedestal, but that’s easy enough. She just takes some normal wood and makes an indented circular shape with a flat bottom.

Setting the ball inside, she steps back and admires her work.

Nothing happens.

Fresh blinks.

One of the spriggans wobbles over and it taps the glass-ball with its staff. The crystal lights up.

“Pakew!”

“Thanks, little guy,” says Fresh, nodding in satisfaction as she looks at her latest creation.

[Crystal Ball](Masterwork) A crystal ball, filled with pulsing magical energies of the world-tree. For as far as its roots stretch, it allows the user to observe events that are either happening right now, or that one day might perhaps happen. Though it is impossible to tell which. Use: Observes a random fortune related to a person or location within 500m of any part of the world-tree.

Quality Effect: Recharges its energy on a daily basis.

Weight: 1.3kg Value: ???