Dungeon Item Shop: Volume 2: The original litRPG, item-shop light-novel! (Dungeon Item Shop - The original item-Shop litRPG!), page 13
Fresh opens the sliding door out to the upstairs ring of the adventurers’ guild and the world explodes with loud sounds and rich smells immediately. Only a second after the first few people who are seated at the tables by the washroom door turn her way, does she realize her mistake. The gravity of it is only amplified as they erupt into loud cheers and hollers. Someone tosses a coin her way and it rattles with a loud clamour down at her feet.
"Shut up!" yells Fresh running past them as her wet, almost white robe clings to her skin. "LEAVE ME ALOOONE!" she shouts as she hurries through the party, half expecting to hear a loud ‘bakaw’ behind her as she runs away. Thankfully, the blue-tinge of the fabric of the robe stops it from being too bad, but as she runs past the dozens of tables and nearly five times as many people who sit there drunk and revelling, she tearfully misses the haunting, respectful atmosphere of the old adventurers’ guild. She’s sure the barkeeper there would have helped her out. Fresh runs out of the door, closing it as quickly behind herself as she can as she immerses herself in the freezing night air.
In an instant, she feels a bite on her skin from the frozen mountain winds as they gnaw on her wet body, the sharp fangs of the icy chill, ripping through her soaked clothes. She grits her teeth and ignores the dew in her eyes, attributing it to just being some left-over bathwater as she runs as fast as she can through the, thankfully, mostly-empty city. Pastel light from the large crystals, hovering over her head, wash her body with a soothing glow as they move over her. But she doesn’t feel any warmer. Just better lit, which honestly makes the situation worse in her eyes. Fresh runs, sprinting back to the house, the rock of the streets biting her bare feet, as her damp soles slap against the road, the wet fabric of her robe clinging to her skin and rubbing somewhat painfully beneath her arms and legs as she hurries towards the dungeon.
It’s cold. Deathly cold. She can feel her entire body burning as it nips at her, as the winds that creep down the midnight-lost mountain wrap themselves around her form, pressing her back, as if trying to stop every single step that she takes forward. Fresh lifts her arms, covering her face as the wind grows stronger and stronger. But she keeps moving forward until eventually she reaches the tunnel. By then, she can’t feel her fingers or toes anymore, but she doesn’t let that stop her either and keeps going, opting to just clench her teeth down tighter and tighter to stop them from chattering so loudly, that she’s sure the entire street will wake up from the noise. There is little to do however, to stop the violent hammering that she hears accompanying her. The loud thudding that doesn’t come from her running feet hitting the stones, but rather from the heavy beat of her fearful heart.
Are her friends okay?
Fresh runs down the tunnel, seeing the house just ahead of her now and rushes to the door, grabbing the wet key from her pocket and jamming it into the lock, before dashing inside without a second thought.
A familiar, dusty air comes to meet her. It is cool, but not as cold as the air outside that claws at her back, as if trying to pull her back outside, not for her own safety, but as if it doesn’t want her to escape, only to let her be devoured by something else. Fearfully, Fresh looks around and closes the door firmly behind herself as she turns left and runs up the stairs, her toes painfully tingling as they strike against the somewhat warmer rock. Despite the fact that they haven’t lit the fireplace downstairs once yet, the building managed to stay almost close to comfortably warm, perhaps because of all the warm feelings she has been letting flow out of her heart? Though more realistically, because four people were sitting in the same cramped space together all day.
She reaches the top of the stairs, terrified of what she is going to see. Her mind races from one gruesome, horrible image to the next, as it shows her every possible, disgusting, blood-soaked fate.
Fresh stops. The hairs on her neck stand on end as she looks across the room towards the kitchenette. Towards the two figures, standing outside of the door to Jubilee’s room.
"B… Basil?" asks Fresh nervously, lifting a hand to cautiously wave at the still mostly undressed priestess. "Shamrock?" cries the girl, her voice cracking as she looks at the armored giant standing next to her.
Basil and Shamrock, who both stand in the back corner, both turn to face her and as they do, Fresh notices that there is something wrong with the way they move. As they turn, they don’t use their legs to face her, taking a half-step to the side as someone usually would. They instead simply rotate, as if some force from above were turning them towards her, spinning them flat on their heels like two little dolls. "…Guys?"
Any warmth that could be felt in the room a moment ago vanishes instantly and as that last word leaves her mouth, so does another puff of vapor just like in her dream.
Basil and Shamrock slide towards her, not walking, their feet staying perfectly flat on the ground as they are pushed her way. Their hands lift up into the air and reach for her. Fresh shrieks in terror and runs back down the stairs out of pure instinct.
Her hands grip the front door, trying to yank it back open. It doesn’t budge. With wide, terrified eyes, she looks behind herself, seeing the two silhouettes standing on the top of the staircase and yells again, letting go of the door and running to the only route left, the door to the basement. Grabbing it, she yanks it open and bolts inside, only realizing as she goes down that there is nowhere to go. Terrified, she holds the door closed from the other side, pulling back with all of the weight of her body to keep it shut.
Her feet slip, as something grabs the door from the other end and tries to pull it open, doing so successfully, at least for an inch.
The wood lets out a loud slam as she digs her heels in against the frame on either side and pulls back as hard as she can. "Basil!" yells Fresh. "Shamrock! It’s me! Snap out of it!" The door rattles again. "Guys! It’s me!" The door rattles again, opening an inch wider, in the second that it pulls open, a giant, metal hand slips through the gap, wedging itself between the door and the frame. Fresh screams, as it grips the door and begins to pull it open no matter how hard she presses back with her legs.
"Hey!" yells a voice from the other side. Jubilee. "Up here, you fucks!"
"Jubileeeeee~!" yells Fresh.
"Run outside! I’ll break the door!" There is a loud sound on the other side as glass explodes just beyond the door. Something heavy thuds out, striking against the rocks. The giant hand pulls itself out of the basement door, the wooden construction slamming back tightly shut. "Now!" yells Jubilee.
Trusting in her friend, Fresh ignores the terror in her heart and the tears in her eyes as she rips the basement door open and makes a break for it. Shattered glass lies everywhere and she is amazed that she doesn’t step into any of it as she runs towards the front door which is torn off of its hinge, by a giant glass spire that holds it aloft in the air, just outside of the building.
As Fresh runs out through the broken door, back to the outside, she spares a second to glance over her shoulder. She sees a pale, soft hand reaching for her, stopping only an inch from her face.
Fresh stumbles, falling backwards and crawling away in terror, as she looks at Basil who stands at the precipice of the doorway.
"Get out of my friends, you stupid ghost!" yells Fresh, crying as she glares at the priestess’ lifeless expression. She jumps to her feet, ignoring the voice in her head that screams not to, as she reaches forward, wanting to grab Basil’s wrist and to pull on her as hard as she can. Basil slides to the left before she can reach her, her body sliding up the stairs as if a force were dragging her up by her head.
Fresh stands there, whimpering as she doesn’t know what to do. Confused, lost, she stays outside for a few minutes and shivers as she holds herself, not hearing anything else except for the drafty wind that pushes past her wet body as it moves through the tunnel, as well as the slight trickling of the river that flows out of the dungeon-gate.
Clutching herself, she feels a new wave of tears come on. Is Jubilee okay? What should she do? What’s going to happen to Basil and Shamrock? Should she… Fresh lowers her gaze. Should she cast a curse on them and kill them? They’d respawn in the guild then, right? Apparently the ghost can’t leave the house. But… what if her curse stays with them after they respawn? She can’t risk that. She -
"Hey!"
Fresh’s eyes widen as she turns around and sees Jubilee running down the tunnel towards her. "Jubilee!" cries Fresh, running to her friend and grabbing them in a tight hug as she falls onto her knees.
"Get off!" snarls Jubilee, trying to push her away unsuccessfully. But she just holds them tighter as she sobs into their shoulder. "You’re all fucking wet, can you not?"
Fresh can not not, doing her best to suppress her howls by shoving her face into Jubilee. "Ju-Ju-Jubileeeeee~!" cries Fresh. "You’re alright!" She pulls back, holding onto both of her friend’s shoulders. "Are you okay? How did you get out?!"
Jubilee pushes her arms off of themselves, this time successfully and then rolls their shoulders. "I broke the balcony door and climbed down with some glass," says Jubilee, looking at the door behind them. "Fucking ghost can’t leave the building. The spooky fuck."
Fresh sniffles, looking at the house. "What do we do? Basil and Shamrock ar -"
Jubilee cuts her off, pointing to the two figures standing in the very back of the room behind them, both of them staring out towards the two of them.
The broken front door rattles, as something grabs the corner, breaking it free from the glass spire that punctures it. The heavy wooden thing is pressed back into place, swinging shut with a loud slam and then, all there is left to hear is a silent click as the lock is turned back shut as well.
* * *
Note for occultists - Ghosts
Ever since the dawn of religious philosophy, there has been the idea that there is a separation between the body and spirit. It doesn’t matter what continent you’re on, Europe, Asia, Africa, etc etc, every single one has stories and mythologies regarding the human spirit as an entity in and of itself, separate from the physical body.
Though here, right off of the bat, we’re already in muddy water. Since this itself is more of a concept of ‘the soul’ rather than a ‘ghost’, which is what I want to talk about. While it is difficult to separate, today we will be looking at ghosts in the sense of spooky-bed-shoot oOoOooo~ kind of ‘classical’ ghosts. Of which, there are many different variations of haunting spirit. Poltergeists, revenents, phantoms, spectres, wraiths, apparitions, haunts, spooks are all names for the same thing, spooky ghosts.
Though, depending on what string of ghostlore you follow (Ghostlore is an offshoot of folklore that revolves explicitly around ghosts. It’s a real word!) these are either all the same thing, or each an individual ‘type’ of ghost, if they are even counted as ghosts. In some modern mythology for example, the poltergeist is considered to be a result of latent psychic ability manifested by strong emotions of a living person, rather than an actual trapped spirit of the dead.
It is impossible to say when the first ghosts were told of, though the oldest records we seem to be able to find are… you guessed it, in Mesopotamia, Babylon, Sumer (Everything starts there in western mythology. EVERYTHING). Here, ghosts were as we understand them today, created at the time of a person’s death. But in the old lore, they didn’t ‘stay’ with us, rather, the ghost departed and left for the underworld. From there, it would cause misfortune for the living if it received no offerings of appeasement. Ghosts appearing as ‘physical’ things in our plane of reality seems to have (In western mythology) originated from the ancient Greeks, most notably in Homer’s odyssey, where they appeared as physical manifestations of transparent vapor and smoke.
Myths of bodily possession only ever seemed to start appearing during the middle ages in Europe, where the myth of the ghost likely became someone interwoven with the church’s mythology regarding demons.
Chapter 131: Spirits
"Are you sure that this is gonna work?" asks Jubilee, looking around nervously to make sure that nobody is watching them. Surprisingly, no doors are opened along the street, no windows are lit up and no faces peek out of any shadowy glass-panes. Despite the noise, everyone here is either fast asleep or simply doesn’t care in the least. Fresh appreciates that a lot right now, ironically enough. The two of them stand at the end of the tunnel, next to the crystal clear stream of water that runs out from the dungeon-gate.
"It has to!" whispers Fresh loudly, as she holds the bottle of freshly made moonwater up into the air to take a closer look at it. Dew pearls off of the sides of the quickly made glass flask in her hand, shimmering with a strange hue as a mixture of moonlight of the full moon and the pastel wash of the crystal’s glow combines inside of the droplets.
"Do we gotta make them drink it?" asks Jubilee. "Basil we could get. We could pin her down. She’d probably be into it."
"Jubilee!" hisses Fresh.
Jubilee ignores her and goes on. "Shamrock though? Not a fucking chance, he’ll body the both of us before we get near his mouth." Jubilee thinks, rubbing the chin of their mask. "If we can even get his damned helmet off. I’m starting to wonder if it isn’t just melted on?"
Fresh shakes her head. "I think we just have to splash them. Maybe on their skin?"
"Great idea. Oooor -" starts Jubilee, lifting a finger as they are about to make a suggestion. "We could just k -"
"We’re not going to kill our friends!" hisses Fresh, leaning in close to Jubilee so that they can hear the venom in her voice. "What if the ghost goes with them when they come back?"
"Hmm…"
"Jubileeeee~!" cries Fresh quietly. "Why is there even a ghost here to begin with?! I told you! I told you there were gho -"
"Shut up," says Jubilee, interrupting her this time. "We got the place half-off, okay? We should be thanking the damned thing," says Jubilee, grabbing the moonwater from her and holding it, along with another few bottles that they made.
"That’s so heartless!" protests Fresh. "Poor Basil! Poor Shamrock!"
Jubilee walks away, heading back towards the house. "’Poor Basil’ and ‘poor Shamrock’ tried to kill us both in our sleep, so maybe don’t go so easy on them."
"It’s not their fault!"
"The dumb-asses shouldn’t have let themselves get possessed." Jubilee looks back at her, shrugging. "I say the two of them had a good run, you know? Easy come, easy go," says Jubilee. "We’ll just axe them off and run the store ourselves. It’ll be fine! Three problems less!"
"Ju-bi-leeee!" scolds Fresh, nearly horrified as she clenches her fists.
Jubilee waves her off. "It’s just a joke, goo-brain." Jubilee stops, thinking for a second. "Well… it is for Shamrock, maybe. But the ghost can keep Basil if he wants -"
"No!" says Fresh as they approach the house. "As party-leader, I say that we aren’t going to murder each other!"
Jubilee sighs as they stand before the broken windows, the two of them peeking inside. They hand her some of the flasks. "Fine. This should be easy enough," suggests Jubilee, lifting a hand with some dirt pinched in their fingertips. "We go in, we splash Basil. We pull her out. We go in, we splash Shamrock. Easy. We’ll be done in time for you to make me breakfast, to make up for all the garbage you put me through every day."
"I had nothing to do with this," pouts Fresh, crossing her arms.
"Yeah, yeah. See anything?"
Fresh gazes into the dark window. "No, I don’t think they’re down here."
"Great." Jubilee snaps their fingers and a spire of glass shoots out instantly from the stones below as the dirt trickles down out of their hand. The door caves in and as it flies, Fresh realizes that she hopes that neither of her two other friends are behind it. It crashes down on the other side, inside of the downstairs room with a loud thudding.
The glass spire shatters just a second later, before the door even finishes rattling, but Fresh is sure that she didn’t look at it this time. That means…
"Jubilee! Wait!" cries Fresh as Jubilee steps inside the house. Basil slides along the floor, having been wedged down beneath the window where she couldn’t be seen and wraps her arms around Jubilee’s legs.
"Get out," says the priestess, entirely emotionlessly.
"AGH! FUCK!" Jubilee slides along the ground as the ghost pulls Basil, who pulls on Jubilee, back towards the back of the room, towards the basement door. Jubilee grabs hold of the door-frame, holding on tight. "SPLASH HER!" yells Jubilee and Fresh snaps out of it, fumbling with the bottles on her waist and swinging one out more haphazardly than she would have liked. She hopes Basil’s mouth is closed.
[Moonwater: Haunting Spirit (50%)] {Failure!}
Jubilee’s grip fails as they’re pulled back across the room. Fresh yelps and runs after her friend, grabbing another bottle from her waist. "Get off of me, you spooky fuck!" yells Jubilee as Basil climbs on top of them, their hands clenching together as she tries to reach Jubilee’s throat, who holds her wrists to keep her off. All the while the two of them slide further and further towards the basement. Fresh swings out her hands, flinging the second bottle out as hard as she can. The wet glass, despite being matted and rough, slips from her fingers and there is a loud shattering as the bottle of moonwater breaks against the back of Basil’s head.
Fresh Basil
HP: 10/10 72/76
SOUL: -?%&?- 184/184
‘FRESH’ HIT ‘BASIL’ FOR {4} PHYSICAL DAMAGE!
[Moonwater: Haunting Spirit (50%)] {Success!}
