Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 297: The colors (Patreon)

“We’re not taking the fucking cart,” says Jubilee.

Fresh, laying on her back on the floor beneath the sales-cart that she had made together with Basil a while ago, turns her head to look at Jubilee. “But Jubilee~” she argues. “Basil and I worked really hard on it and I think there’s something we could do with it.”

“Yeah, you can run around the city with it a few times to lose some weight,” sighs Jubilee.

“I lost a lot of weight since we left the west!” protests Fresh. “Especially after I realized how muscly you are, Jubilee. I’ve been trying super hard to not eat so much candy!” she explains.

“Again. Weird thing to say. Besides that, I’m pretty sure you’ve been going hard on the ice-cream,” says Jubilee, leaning back against the counter.

“Ice-cream isn’t candy!” argues Fresh. “It’s ice-cream.”

“Really?” asks Jubilee. “This is the hill you’re willing to die on? That ice-cream isn’t candy?”

Fresh frowns. “Okay. So. Maybe it is sort of, kind of related to being candy.”

“It’s candy.”

“It isn’t!”

“Basil!” calls Jubilee around the shelves. Basil, who was stocking up the shelves together with Shamrock, looks around the corner. “Is ice-cream candy?” asks Jubilee.

Basil tilts her head, her hair dangling down loosely at her side. It’s gotten very long and ever since Fresh had built the salt-water filter into the shower, it’s gotten a lot softer. “Hmm… I’m going to say that ice-cream is as much candy as the crab-chips are.”

“Chips aren’t candy,” sighs Jubilee, shaking their head. “You’re hopeless. Get back to work.”

“They’re all junk food though,” notes Basil. “Anyways. What about you? You’re just standing there. Why don’t you do something productive?” she asks Jubilee.

Jubilee points at Fresh. “I’m the supervisor. I’m supervising.”

“It looks like you’re just standing there,” notes Basil, somewhat dryly.

“Perks of the job. What can I say?” asks Jubilee, shrugging. “Work hard and one day, you’ll be able to live the dream like I am.”

Fresh laughs. Jubilee is in a good mood today, for whatever reason.

“Anyways. I’ll miss the ice-cream when we’re gone,” says Jubilee.

Basil sets a bottle down onto the shelf. “I never saw you eat much of it?” she asks.

“What? Eat it?” asks Jubilee, sounding a little confused. “I try to avoid eating slop.”

Fresh gasps, deeply offended. “Hey!”

“I’m saying that I’m going to miss selling it. The profit-margins are the best we’ve ever had. Better than the potions or the coughee.” Jubilee crosses their arms. Basil rolls her eyes and ducks back behind the shelf. Fresh sighs, continuing her work on the cart. She’s trying to refit it with some springs below the axle, to make it easier to move up and down staircases and bumps in the road. Her hope is that whenever they’re ready to leave, that they can take the cart and just attach it to the back of their wagon. Though, wherever they’re meant to go after they leave the east, is still uncertain. She supposes the fountain will let her know when it’s time.

For a moment, she stops her work, holding her hands where they are on the bottom of the cart, as she stares blankly at its lower side, thinking about that phrase she had just thought.

‘When it’s time’.

When it’s time, they’re going to have to leave their home once again. When it’s time, they’re going to have to pack up, likely leaving some form of disaster in their wake. When it’s time, they’ll have to go to a place unknown and start all over again from scratch. A whole new store. A whole new house. A whole new everything. Days, weeks, months of work and for what?

For it to be that ‘time’ again afterwards. They’ll have to pack up again then, perhaps after the end of the winter that is soon to break the dying autumn and then?

And then, after a full year of being in this world, after the most fulfilling year of her entire existence, what is going to happen? More of the same? Will there just always be more places for them to go to? Or are they already reaching the end of the road? Is the fountain’s will, whatever it might be, already almost achieved?

And then what?

If everything goes perfectly, if everything goes well, according to her patron deity’s wishes, it will have no more need of her and especially not of her friends. Will the fountain just… let her go? Will it just let them go? Will -

“Psst,” hisses a voice from next to her. Fresh blinks, turning her head to look at Jubilee and Basil who are both crouched down, looking at her.

“Uh…” Fresh scratches her cheek, getting some black grease on her face from the wheels.

“See?” asks Jubilee, still holding onto the fabric of Basil’s robe. “This is why I’m the supervisor,” they explain. “Because otherwise she’s going to get lost in her empty head and lay there for an hour like a fucking corpse.”

Basil sighs. “Let her daydream. What’s the rush?”

“I can’t help it, Jubilee!” protests Fresh. “I always have a lot to think about!” Jubilee raises an eyebrow. “It’s true!”

Suddenly, Jubilee vanishes, letting out an annoyed snarl and a swear. So does Basil, letting out a surprised yelp instead. From down below the cart, Fresh can only see a pair of large boots walking away, carrying the two of them off to the shelves.

“Work,” is all that Shamrock says, as he drags both of them around to the aisle that needs to be stocked for the day.

Fresh laughs to herself, before she continues to fiddle around with the cart. Sure, the bad days are going to come eventually, no matter what she does. Every adventure has an end. But for now, they’re still in the kind season of life and so it would perhaps be best not to waste it by thinking too much.

Later that day, after the store is up and running, Fresh spends her lunch break making some small sandwiches for the others to eat on their breaks. Usually Basil and herself trade this task between themselves. Deciding to add something to the side, Fresh grabs some apples and a knife and begins cutting.

The blade slices through the red apple in her hand, pushing down to the cutting board beneath, clacking loudly as it strikes the wood. In that second, even if she does her best not to think, the sound, the action, the color nonetheless make her do so.

Red.

For the briefest flash of a second, Fresh could swear that she’s still up on the broom, that she’s still flying away from the tower in which the girl, Peridot, was locked away inside of. With large eyes, she lifts her gaze and stares at the wall in front of her face as she expects to wake up any second now, as if this, as if every one of these last few weeks had all belonged to one singular, long dream. As if she were still there, as if it were still happening.

But she isn’t dreaming and that was a while ago now.

Peridot is missing as far as she knows and she hopes that whatever fate befell her, that it was a kind one. Because if it wasn’t, then it’s Fresh’s fault, as far as she herself sees it. Sure, the girl had made her own choice. But the only reason that she had a choice to make was because Fresh went there. Though… did she herself have a choice in that?

Fresh sighs, shaking her head. Maybe. Maybe not.

She looks down at the red apple she had cut a piece off of and slides it to the side, grabbing a new green one from the basket instead. She’d rather use this one.

The day goes on.

The store closes. The sandwiches were appreciated, though she does get scolded by Basil for wasting food.

Later that night, Fresh lays in her bed, clutching her blue blanket as she stares at the ceiling. Colors. There are always colors everywhere. Is that a weird thing to think? It seems like an obvious thought. Of course there are colors. Things have colors. Colors are a part of the world.

Fresh closes her eyes, trying to force herself to sleep, but all she can think about is the vivid red of the apple. The sky-blue of her cherished blanket, that still needs a good washing. The gray of the grease she had smeared on her own face earlier that day. Everything has a color.

Why is she thinking about this?

Fresh opens her eyes again. She doesn’t know. She can’t sleep. Tonight is just one of those nights.

Sighing, she sits upright and plants her feet on the cold stone of the floor, getting up and rubbing her face as she walks to the kitchen. Basil’s lantern flies off of the nightstand, nudging her from the side and she looks at it, a little perplexed.

“What’s up, little guy?” she whispers to it, rubbing her tired eyes.

The lantern of many colors opens its shutter just a smidge, just enough to show her the color inside of it.

White, with a soft glow like warm starlight.

Fresh smiles, petting its top as she turns to look at the balcony, at the taupe curtains that Jubilee had made when they moved in here. The chickens.

She turns her gaze to look at the wooden chicken, brown. Tonight, it holds no contempt or judgment for her presence, because tonight, she hasn’t yet done anything wrong. But, she has the feeling that before the morning comes, that she will have done so. Not because she wants to. But because as she stands there in the kitchen, she finds that she is no longer standing there in the kitchen. Her feet move on their own towards the closet as her arm opens her menu and pulls out the hat and the broom.

Oh no.

“Uh, guys!” says Fresh as she puts on her robe and boots. “Guys!” she calls to Shamrock and Basil who start to stir.

Basil mumbles. “…Hmm?” says the groggy priestess, pulling her head up off of the pillow, hair matted to her face.

“I think, uh -” Fresh gets up. “I think I’m doing a thing.”

Seeing her levitate up off of the ground on the flying broom, Basil lets out a surprised yelp and jolts upright, scrambling out of her bed and jumping over the stone wall between their beds as she tries to grab her and stop the broom from leaving. Fresh bolts off and Basil flops down over the wall.

“IAAAH!” yelps Fresh as the broom shoots through their house, towards the balcony door where it thankfully stops, if only for a second.

“What the fuck is that ruckus?!” barks Jubilee, opening their door just as she opens the balcony with Shamrock and Basil scrambling after her.

“Uh, I gotta go! Be right back!” cries Fresh. “I hope!”

And before any of them can grab her or the broom, Fresh and the enchanted-lantern fly off into the black, starless night.