Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 311: All bark (Patreon)

Fresh blows the air out of her mouth, watching the vapors leave through the cracks of her cupped hands. Breathing in through her nose, she waits a moment for the air to warm up in her lungs, before exhaling again and watching the next trail of vapors leave to rise up towards the ceiling of the bubble over the city that she suspects is likely very dewy.

“What are you doing?” asks Basil curiously, looking at her from the side. The priestess has her hair bundled in a loose tail, since it’s getting very long and she was starting to get caught with it in places.

Fresh turns to look at Basil, lifting a finger to blow out another breath of air her way. Basil blinks as the mist of her breath fogs up her glasses. The priestess takes them off and rubs them dry.

 “I’m the dragon, Basil!” says Fresh joyfully.

Basil puts her glasses back on, adjusting them as she looks back at her. “Huh?” she tilts her head, shaking it. “The dragon wasn’t like that, it was like this!” she says, putting her hands by her mouth and blowing out through them.

Fresh narrows her eyes, blowing a puff of warmed air out back at Basil and, the priestess, accepting her challenge, blows a breath back her way.

“I hate you people,” sighs Jubilee.

Fresh turns her head to look at them. “We’re dragons, Jubilee,” she says. “Not people.”

Basil nods. “We’re having a territorial dispute,” agrees the priestess, before blowing back another breath towards Fresh who lets out a surprised yelp at having been attacked while she was unguarded.

Jubilee shakes their head. “At least Shamrock is fucking normal,” they say, shaking their head. The three of them look up at Shamrock who also has his hands by his helmet. Jubilee sighs. “Anyways,” they start. “Are we gonna go or not?”

“Sure, I mean, isn’t that why we’re out here?” asks Basil.

Jubilee points at her. “I thought it was too, until you two started playing make-believe.”

“Oh, try to have some fun once in a while, you grump,” says Basil, lifting her nose.

“It’s fucking cold,” says Jubilee.

Fresh gasps. “I forgot that you get cold easily, Jubilee,” she says, grabbing her friends’ gloved hand and holding it in both of hers.

“Let’s get some coats while we’re here,” suggests Basil.

“I want Jubilee to make us coats!” argues Fresh. “Ones that match for all four of us.”

“We’re not doing that,” states Jubilee.

“But Jubileeeee~!” protests Fresh. “You said we should save money and it’s cheaper if you make some coats than if we buy them,” she counters.

Jubilee stares at her for a moment, pulling their hand away. “It disgusts me that you’re using logic against me.”

“Maybe that’s just some wobbliness because you haven’t had breakfast yet,” suggests Fresh.

“Fuck off,” sighs Jubilee. “Come on, we’re going.”

“Okay!” nods Fresh excitedly. Today another outing in the dungeon is planned and then tomorrow they’re going to look around for a place to stay. The adventurer’s guild is cozy and she feels her heart becoming warm every night when they all get to share the little room and the little bed. But they do need a base of operations so that they can start churning out products and selling them, in order to finance their cost of living.

Spriggan bark, Fresh has found out can be woven into a fiber that makes strong, durable, if not plain clothes like the dresses she and Basil have on. Plus it’s used in a lot of different remedies that Basil wants to make. They need to stop off at a bookstore though, to buy a recipe book, since the priestess has never really worked with the material before and is going simply off of her gut instincts.

As for the orihalcum, Fresh still wants to get some bars of it somehow, but even then, it will do her little good as she is unable to manipulate the metal at all. Maybe she can find a way to bypass the magic-resisting properties? Surely a magic-resistant metal could be used for thousands of powerful applications.

Harpy feathers are being split between Jubilee and Shamrock. Shamrock wants to use them to make quills with and Jubilee wants to use them for their tailoring. As for the boss-drops from the giant snake, they’re saving up their boss-cores again, until they find a useful application.

Fresh meanwhile spends her free-time wondering about what it is exactly that she is going to make. She’s identified things that are eaten as what she likes crafting the most. But she isn’t sure what kind of things like that to make here.

In the north, she had her potions. In the west they had their coughee and snacks. In the east, they had ice-cream and refreshments. So here, in the center, beneath the boughs of the giant tree, she is still uncertain.

What could she make that is profitable, delicious and most importantly, able to bring a smile to many tired faces in these harsh winter months to come? She isn’t sure.

They spend the better part of the day in the dungeon, fighting their way down to floor thirty-something. The little chubby spriggans seem to evolve the deeper they go down, their sprouting heads growing until eventually, they seem to become oddly human-like ‘tree-people’ who are far more competent and deadly than their younger counterparts.

But this just means they have more bark to harvest. Though, some of them drop a lot of seeds too when they’re killed.

[Spriggan Seed]{Normal}

A large, chunky, tan-colored seed with a striped pattern. It’s highly nutritious and packed with some raw magical energy from the world-tree.

Value: ???

Weight: 0.02kg

Fresh likes them. They’re cute little seeds. Apparently, if you plant them, more spriggans grow from the dirt. So of course, it’s highly frowned upon to plant any up in the city. But maybe there’s something that can be done with them as well?

To her delight, mush-mushes make their reappearance into her life too. These ones have spiked, dark-gray caps and a pretty sour attitude, honestly. But she’s happy to have mushroom-caps again. There’s always something to make from them. Plus, alongside of them are other mush-mushes of the usual sort. That means that coughee is still on the table.

Though, she is surprised that mush-mushes appear here in this dungeon around floor fourteen. That’s pretty late, compared to Mr. Mushroom who was on floor one of the northern dungeon. The central dungeon really is the ‘easy’ dungeon, apparently.

As much is evidenced by the bosses they massacre. Even Shamrock seems to be a little bored by the lack of a fight that any of the creatures here put up, in comparison with them.

After a while, they go home for the night, taking their overloaded bags of loot and some easy to-go dinner with them on the way.

The four of them eat and then decide to call it a day. Jubilee makes some fabric from their spriggan bark, for their coats still to come. But all in all, it’s a quiet, if not eventful day.

Fresh yawns, wiggling herself into bed. Today, she’s on the outside with Basil next to herself. She squishes her head down onto the pillow, wrapping her arm over her and pressing her nose into the back of the priestess’ head so that she can sleep better, like the creep that she is.

Tomorrow they’re going to start looking at properties. It’s been a fun arrival here, but life is still going on and they can’t afford to just sit around and have fun forever.

There’s work to do.