Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 398: The rounds (Patreon)

Fresh hovers in the air, looking around at the chaos. People are screaming and running through the streets, flooding towards the castle. Somewhere, nearby, but out of sight, a baby is vehemently crying and not being quieted.

She turns her gaze, looking towards the walls of the city. The eastern flank is essentially entirely untouched, barring the brickwork knocked loose by the battle being fought outside of the city by the hero and presumably the red-wizard. Fresh doesn’t know for certain, but she likes to think that, ironically enough, this time she didn’t run away from the fight.

As for the other walls…

Her eyes wander towards the west, where the fog has already reached the walls. The soldiers of the central-city are already well at work, fighting off groups of monsters from the western dungeon to varying degrees of success.

Fresh blinks, squinting her eyes together and staring for a moment as something soars her way. She yelps, diving down to the ground just in time as a dragon from the mountain dungeon shoots through the sky, lashing out at the spot she was just at with a gaping maw, full of gnashing, giant teeth that are each the size of a full-grown adult human.

The ground lights up, down from the alleyways and Fresh watches as a dozen and then some spells fly up into the air, smashing into the dragon’s breast. The creature screeches, falling out of the sky and down into the city, crashing into a row of houses and flattening them as it flails, breathing magical ice everywhere as it tries to get back up to its feet.

The northern end of the city seems to have a far more grim task, as the shambling zombies, skeletons and the lurching, lashing vampires of the northern dungeon make their assault.

Jubilee and Shamrock should have been back by now, but she hasn’t seen them yet.

Fresh hovers back into the air, looking at the spot the fight with Patala had begun. But apart from heaps of glass and destroyed ruins, there isn’t any sign of them there. Somewhat worried, she looks around the area.

*Bak* *Bak*

“…Huh?” Somewhat confused, Fresh watches as a chicken runs by down the street, having escaped from its coop. She watches it run past. The chicken stops, turning its head. Their gazes meet and the two of them stare at each other in a moment of familiar tension.

*Bak…*

Fresh lifts her hands, slowly kicking off of the ground. “Hey, little guy. How’s it g- IAH-”

*BAKAAAAAAW!*

The chicken charges towards her with indignant fury in its eyes. Terrified, Fresh kicks her boot onto the ground, pushing herself up into the air. Something grabs her leg and Fresh screams, shaking it as hard as she can as the bird has latched onto her robe with its beak, flapping its wings furiously. “Bad! Bad chicken!” she shouts, shaking the chicken off. It falls back down to the ground, flapping its wings angrily, clawing at the stones as it carefully watches her from below.

Fresh sighs, turning her head just in time to duck down again as a spell blasts over her head, cast from some alley down below by some unseen person. The witch flies off, trying to find a safer place to be. She needs to find her friends.

Her eyes scan the streets as she flies around the city. The east is fairly quiet, apart from the very nervous guardsman on the walls, watching the spectacle of the hero essentially vaporizing the entire landscape. It’s so bright that it’s hard to even see anything. It’s as if the sun itself were sitting just outside of the city.

The north is in much rougher shape. The walls here have been breached and the undead are already in the city. Those who didn’t run to the center are now either barricaded in their homes, or being eaten on the streets. Fresh lifts her eyes, away from the grim sights below herself that don’t disturb her as much as she had expected they would and hovers above a tower that is completely surrounded by zombies, who are hammering against the door.

She lands on it, looking around the city.

No, it doesn’t look like her friends are here either.

Something breaks noisily beneath herself, the door, presumably. Screams come from below. People rush upstairs towards the top of the tower and Fresh gets back onto her broom, flying away before they can get up here and do something troublesome like asking her for help or to fly them away.

She has to find her friends. It’s not that she doesn’t want to help everyone, it’s just that she can’t solve their problems while she’s worried about Jubilee and Shamrock. She thinks that’s understandable.

The horrible witch heads towards the west. The wall here seems to be holding well, at least on top.

The guardsmen who line the walls with long pikes easily repel any creatures and monsters trying to scale it. Strong eyed and armed archers and casters take care of anything trying to fly over it.

Fresh hovers downward, tapping a guardsman on the shoulder. “Hey, uh, excuse me?” she asks.

The man, wide-eyed and terrified, turns around and looks at her, his bloodied pike shaking in his hands. Fresh points down towards the ground. “They’re kobolds, you know?” she asks. “They’re digging down beneath the wall,” she explains. “You should probably m-”

The wall collapses, breaking apart. The man vanishes with a scream as do the others around them as a cloud of dust and debris fills the air, obscuring the silhouettes of many stabbing, biting, gnawing creatures below.

Fresh frowns, looking towards the south. It looks like her friends aren’t here either.

She flies that way, looking around the surprisingly quiet neighborhoods. If she was Perchta, she’d have sent some people down to breach the southern wall, personally. But, looking around, it just doesn’t seem like any of that is happening here.

“Jubilee!” calls Fresh, cupping her hand by her mouth. “Shamroooock!”

Nothing.

The terrible witch stares around at the empty streets, listening as explosions ring out in the distance.

She rubs her arm nervously, hoping that her friends aren’t hurt as she turns her head to look at a familiar street shrine.

She supposes that it makes sense that any collection of members of the witches’ sect would be on the southern end of the city. She supposes that they really are all gone though, having moved on from this world and time.

On one hand, it would have really been practical to have a bunch of people to help her out at a time like this. On the other hand, it would be annoying. The good thing about there not being a witches’ sect anymore, she supposes, is that there isn’t anyone running after her, hounding her and worshiping her all day, every day.

It would be troublesome, if there were people everywhere who knew their faces.

Fresh kicks back off into the air, looking at the empty shrine that belongs to a faith that has left this world.

Flying back to the center of the city, she lands at the ruins of their house, looking around for her friends, of which there is still no sign.

Now what?

Fresh frowns uncertainly. The fight is still going to consume the city for a little while, but…

The witch lifts her eyes towards the still cloudy sky for a moment, but a glimmer catches her eyes, coming from something sticking out of the rubble. Walking over, she picks up the oddity and looks at it.

A tarot card from her deck; the fool.

Fresh turns her gaze back towards the sky as the clouds begin to part with unnaturally smooth movements, drifting to obscure the moon, contorting and twisting its features into that of a long, crooked face.

The world itself shakes, rumbling as a great happening shakes the very foundations of the entire city. Rocks and rubble fall down everywhere from the ruined building. Fresh quickly jumps back onto her broom, watching as the world below, the streets, the ground, the grass is all permeated by a thick, gooey ooze that begins to flow up through the cracks. Black-water.

The world begins to sink.