Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 292: Squeaky (Patreon)

Given the stressfulness of the entire situation, Fresh finds her mind distracted most of the day. Should she pull Jubilee to the side and ask them about it? What if she’s misreading the situation entirely? Maybe the body was just higher up in the chimney, where it was dark? Maybe Jubilee just saw blackness and assumed that it was just what it was supposed to look like?

Fresh blinks, staring at the thing that she’s working on downstairs in the shower, in order to keep her mind and hands busy. It’s a water-filter, meant to pump out the salt from the ocean water.

She sighs. And what if her asking them about it, expressing her concerns and thoughts offends them because of what she might be implying? It’s certainly a very serious matter.

And even if the worst is true, which she still isn’t certain of, even if Jubilee had a hand in the death of Basil’s companion, if they had a hand in the body stuffed in the chimney of their home in the west, what would that mean?

Would she stop being their friend? Could she, even if she wanted to? She’d die for Jubilee, even if it was true. She’s sure. She’d do the same for Basil, for Shamrock. But how can she allow these feelings to coincide with what might have happened?

Fresh finds her fingers tinkering with the metal box before herself, lined with crystal-drakonium. The inside is a complicated mess, filled with several filters, like for her coughee production, as well some extremely hot heating beads to evaporate the water and to let it rise without the salt, which then sickers down a sideways slant into an opening, that she is going to attach a pipe to, to let it flow back down into the ocean.

It’s possible that Basil would hate Jubilee more than anything else in the world if it’s true. But even if that ends up happening, what is she, herself going to do? Honestly, as horrible as it sounds, she doesn’t think she has it in her to be able to hate Jubilee, or to stop being their friend, even if they did something so horrible, so heavy. Even if it hurts Basil in an incomprehensible way.

Or maybe she’s just afraid to confront them and just wants to pretend that nothing happened, that everything is fine.

And isn’t it all still fine? This is all just ‘what ifs’ and ‘maybes’. There’s no proof either way for anything. What if she’s just being overly imaginative and letting her wild thoughts allow her to be a bad friend again?

Fresh slaps the lid closed on the metal box, connecting it to the pipes and seals it tightly shut with some liquefied crystal-drakonium. Giving the shower nozzle a turn, she steps to the side and waits a moment for the water to run through. Letting some fall onto her hand, she sticks out the tip of her tongue to test it.

It mostly works. The water is definitely a lot less salty than before. There’s still a hint of ‘ocean’ to it. But it’s not salty. That’s a big improvement.

Turning it off again, she sets her hands on her hips and nods proudly at the construction. Despite having completed the first task on her to-do list without so much as a single setback, she still feels unfulfilled, however.

Fresh sighs again and heads upstairs. The others are running the store, so she is running around in the meanwhile, crafting and getting their home into shape. Maybe it’s just a coping mechanism of some kind, but…

She stands upstairs, looking around their room. The next thing on the list is a light for the fridge, er, the ‘cooling cabinet’. It’s honestly a bit of a clunky phrase, but the others seem to have adopted it as well now and it doesn’t seem like something that she’s going to be able to change soon. So it’s best to just stick with it.

The idea is already present in her mind’s eye though. Just a simple enchanted-lantern, affixed to the inside of the thing. She could attach a little string to its shutter and then tie the other end to the door, so that when the door opens, the shutter is pulled open with it and when the door closes, the light does too.

Though…

Why?

Why not just leave the light on, when the door is closed? Does it make a difference?

Fresh stands there, scratching her cheek as she thinks about it. Practically, no. No it doesn’t. Pragmatically however, she feels like she has to. That’s just what it is. That’s how it has to work. The door opens, the light goes on. The door closes, the light goes off. It’s the law of the universe. It is what it is.

So, with it being what it is, she heads into the workshop and gets all of the materials that she needs, before setting to work with the mundane, but for herself, in this instant, important, task.

About an hour later she’s finished and steps back, staring at the open door of the cooling cabinet, dusting her hands. Grabbing it, she slowly closes the door, watching as the shutter lowers on the little lantern mounted inside of the cabinet.

“Perfect,” she mutters to herself, closing it entirely now.

Fresh stands there, upstairs in the kitchen, listening to the crash of the ocean waves and the many happy voices coming from outside, from down below the balcony. People are having a happy time, people are laughing and playing and shouting, talking noisily about their days and their snacks, enjoying the sunshine present on the beach and in the worlds that they each inhabit as individuals. From the sounds of their joy, Fresh can only interpret that their worlds are colorful, lively, happy.

“Perfect…” she mutters to herself again, staring sadly over her shoulder, towards the empty upstairs area. Everything was perfect, even if it was only for a little while, for that little while, everything was perfect.

She takes in a deep breath, her chest heaving as she inhales, feeling the emptiness in her hands and the reflection of this lack of doing present in her mind. She’s just standing here, alone with her thoughts, alone with herself.

Herself and that damn chicken.

Fresh narrows her eyes, staring at the wooden chicken by Shamrock’s bed. She doesn’t know what it is exactly about it, but she doesn’t like it. She doesn’t trust it.

Is that a weird thing to be thinking?

Yes.

Does she realize that?

Yes.

Is that going to stop her from doing so?

Yes, actually.

Fresh shakes her head, rolling her shoulders as she gets back into a productive state of mind. There has to be something else that she can do to keep herself busy today. At least long enough until her thoughts can settle, together with her uneasy heart.

It’s all just a misunderstanding. Jubilee would never. Even ‘old Jubilee’, as far as she had gotten to know them. They were a grump and a jerk sometimes, but Jubilee would never go that far… right?

Then again, Basil was a real, credible threat to them back in the north. A threat that was ‘taken care of’ very effectively. Too effectively, perhaps. As Basil, in her desperation and solitude, was able to be recruited into their lives, giving them an inside person…

This sounds exactly like something the thieves’ guild would do, right? They’re trying to help her to achieve some nefarious goal, even though she’s just trying to live a life of peaceful contentment. They would most certainly kill a simple low-ranking nobody, most likely without thinking twice about it, right?

But then again, wasn’t there a murderer in the north? Could it just be an unrelated, unfortunate coincidence? Like the drowned sheep in the west? Like the two corpses found here in the east? It’s a violent world, after all. It could just be happenstance.

Fresh feels her fingers running through her hair as she scratches herself in frustration. It’s all too confusing.

The girl claps her hands together. “No time for silly thoughts,” she tells herself. “Busy, busy, busy~” she hums, walking to the staircase and down into the store. There’s always something to do down there.

Sure enough, she finds the work that she’s looking for to keep herself busy.

“You good?” asks Jubilee as she spins the wheels on an overturned cart.

“Just oiling the wheels, Jubilee!” she says, beaming as she smears a little more grease into the grooves of the wheel. Jubilee turns their head, looking at Basil and then back towards her. “This one cart has been squeaky for a week now!”

“You seem a little… frantic?” asks Basil. “Did you drink too much coughee?” she asks, tilting her head.

Fresh laughs, her body tensing up.

“You’re acting sketchy as fuck, is what Basil is trying to say,” states Jubilee, placing their hands on their hips and leaning in towards her. Beneath their mask, she can clearly see an eyebrow being raised. “Are you hiding something?”

“You know me, Jubilee!” she laughs, looking back at the cart. “Just oiling the wheels! Just oiling…”

She looks down at the rag in her hand, seeing the red smear on it. At first, she thinks that it’s blood. But then she lowers her gaze, staring at it from close up as she sees the little crumbles. This is grimpowder. The highly explosive kind. How did this get in the wheels of the cart?

“…Just oiling the wheels…” she says, as it slowly all starts to come together.