Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 326: Book smarts (Patreon)

Fresh is laying on her back on the floor of the library.

Her legs are bent up and resting on a chair, her feet dangling over the other side and wiggling as she does her best to read the book on orichalcum that the spriggan had brought her. She squints, skipping over a particularly hard chapter. A lot of this text is technical jargon that a trained smith or an alchemist might understand, maybe even someone who went to the magic-academies that supposedly exist in every city. But she’s just always been a person who made it up as she went along, no training, no education.

“Jubilee?” asks Fresh, tilting her head. “What’s a ‘fulcrum’?”

Jubilee sighs. “It’s the feeling I get when you ask me stupid questions all day.”

“Oh…” Fresh blinks, looking back at the book. “Man. This book sure is specific.” She tilts her head, rubbing it across the floor. “Wait. What do feelings have to do with orichalcum?”

Jubilee plants their head on the table, as evidenced by a silent ‘thunk’ and then quietly screams into their crossed arms.

“Everything is going to be okay,” consoles Basil, rubbing the back of Jubilee’s head as she walks past them. “I don’t think that was a serious answer,” explains Basil, looking over the table and down towards her.

“Oh.” Fresh frowns, looking back up at the book and turning another page. There’s got to be something in here somewhere that she can understand. Is metal really this complicated? Isn’t it just… kind of like a rock, but just more ‘rocky’? It’s like how dirt is also rock, but less ‘rocky’.

Maybe that’s not entirely right though?

Fresh flips the page and blinks.

‘Orihalcum can only be melted through a process of undergoing sustained, intense heat, not able to be achieved by most conventional forges. Given its magic-resistant properties, all forms of fire and heat magic applied to it have failed to be of useful application.

An attempt was made by Hearthmaster Uorsar during the advent of the twelfth hero to coax a captured male red-dragon to use its flames to heat up a specially prepared forge. This process worked, however, given its highly unconventional nature, the costs of capturing and sustaining such a creature inside of a city, it was deemed a scientific success, but a clear economic failure.’

“Basil?” asks Fresh. “Can we get a dragon?”

“Ask Jubilee,” says Basil, sipping her tea at the table.

Fresh rolls her head to the side. “Jubileeee~?”

“No.”

Fresh frowns, sighing, looking back at the book. How does one melt a metal that is both magic and heat resistant?

She flips the page, determined to figure something out.

___________________________________________________________________

“We’ll set it up here,” says Fresh, pointing at the spot by the door.

“Right in the middle of it?” asks Jubilee, looking around.

Fresh nods. “I think it’s good to be by the door because it helps flow,” she says, swaying with her hands from side to side and making a soft ‘whooshing’ noise.

“Hmm…” Jubilee looks around. “Basil. How’s the medicine coming along?”

Basil looks around. The priestess is on the ground, trying to set some loose stones back right. “It’s going well,” she says. “The mushrooms are coming in nicely and there are a lot of different kinds. But…” She looks around the room. “I certainly don’t have enough to fill all of this space.”

“Good thing you’re not,” says Jubilee. “Dumb-ass.” Basil narrows her eyes, glaring at them. “I’m going to be taking a section here for coats and gloves and winter-shit. Armor for the dungeon.”

Basil smiles a smug smile. “I bet you’re sad about not being able to make those creepy bathing suits of yours anymore,” remarks the priestess, crossing her arms.

Jubilee waves her off. “The only thing I’m sad about is that I never got to see you wear one.”

“As if!” protests Basil. Fresh thinks for a moment, wondering what that would look like. She bets that all of her friends would look cute in bathing suits. She blinks. Is that a weird thing to think?

“Why are you such a creep?” asks the priestess.

“Please,” says Jubilee, pointing at Fresh. “She sniffs people.”

Fresh looks at them and shrugs. “It helps me think,” she explains, scratching her cheek.

“What about you, fat-ass?” asks Jubilee, looking at Shamrock.

Shamrock’s massive chest heaves. “Books.”

“…Books?” asks Jubilee.

“Books,” repeats the man.

Jubilee lets out a sharp exhalation, holding the tips of their fingers together and pointing them his way. “Shamrock,” says Jubilee, letting the word float around the room for a while. He turns his head towards them. “You can barely fucking write.”

“I practiced,” says the man.

Fresh raises her hand. “It’s true! He did! And I think it’s a great idea!” she says, wondering what kind of fun stories the man wants to write about? Or maybe he wants to do something practical?

“What kinds of books?” asks Basil.

Shamrock looks at his hands, thinking for a moment, the stones beneath him pressing downward onto a soft part of root below the floor as his weight presses them down. “How to kill.”

“Books on how to kill monsters?” asks Basil, thinking. She looks back towards him. “On how to kill monsters, right?”

“It’s relative,” says the man.

Fresh lets out an uneasy laugh. “That’s my kind of answer!” says Jubilee, slapping him on the leg. “Okay. So we have medicine, winter clothes, murder manuals and…” they turn to look at Fresh.

She lifts her hand. “I have stuff.”

“…Stuff?” asks Jubilee. “What the fuck is ‘stuff’?” They place their hands on their hips, staring at her.

Fresh shrugs. “You know. Stuff.”

They raise an eyebrow. “Give me an example.”

“Uh… oh!” She lifts a finger. “I made the shielding statue!”

Basil frowns, letting out an unsure groan. “I don’t know if we should be worried about those,” says the priestess. “They seem very powerful.”

“We’re in the center, it’s fine. What else?” asks Jubilee, shaking their head.

“Uh… oh!” Fresh lifts a second finger. “I’m making medicine together with Basil.”

“Doesn’t count.”

“Oh… uh… huh…” Fresh wiggles with her third finger, not sure if she should raise it or lower her second one, since medicine ‘doesn’t count’. “Wait! Why doesn’t medicine count?” she asks. “That’s my big idea!”

“Your big idea is Basil’s idea?” asks Jubilee.

“Uh…”

“It’s fine,” says Basil. “I’m looking forward to working on it together with you.”

“Huh… uh…” Fresh is unsatisfied with this turn of events. “I dunno.” She shrugs. “I’ll think of something. I still need to use the rare-wood and the orichalcum and I want to keep trying with those cards.”

“Pakew!” shouts the spriggan. Fresh looks down at it, seeing that it’s holding a new book up towards her. ‘Rare-wood and its applications’

__________________________________________________________

Fresh hums, laying on her back on the floor of their bedroom. It’s later in the evening, they had spent most of the rest of the day constructing the shelves for downstairs. Her legs are swung up over the foot of her bed and she squishes her feet down into the mattress as she reads.

Fresh tilts her head, listening to Jubilee walk past her, helping Basil clean up the kitchen after their dinner.

“Jubilee?” she asks. “What’s a ‘kiln’?

Jubilee sighs. “It’s the feeling I get when you ask me stupid questions all day.”

Fresh blinks, having the oddest sense of familiarity with this moment. “Hey!”

“It’s like our oven,” explains Basil. “But it’s meant to dry things out, rather than to bake them. I think?”

Fresh tilts her head, rubbing it on the floor. “Aren’t those the same things?” Basil thinks for a moment, looking up towards the ceiling. She shrugs.

“Go take a bath and stop trying to read,” sighs Jubilee. “It’s sad.”

Fresh glares at them, puffing out her cheek. She lifts the book above her head and squints, trying to focus on the next word.

Something chimes next to her.

[+1 INT]

[+1 WIS]