Dungeon Item Shop: Volume 2: The original litRPG, item-shop light-novel! (Dungeon Item Shop - The original item-Shop litRPG!), page 26
They fly around the groups trying to retreat into their beds, pelting them with giddy questions. Fairies press their faces against darkened windows, staring inside at the inhabitants on the other ends.
By the time Fresh gets upstairs, throwing her boots and robe off and falling into bed, she can still hear the tiny voices squeaking in her ears, even if the doors and windows are all tightly shut.
Chapter 152: Unusually quiet
Fresh lays in bed, her entire body is wrapped up inside of her blue blanket, which she has cocooned herself into. The smell of yellow flowers is still present in the soft fabric. The new mattress is much harder than her old one and it holds her body temperature extremely well, without feeling sticky while doing so. Her head lays pressed beneath her pillow, rather than on top of it. Though she had poked her finger out of the side, lifting a little bit of the pillow up, in order to make a small channel for air. It is much later during the night now, many hours after they had gone to sleep.
The room is still dark and she can see Basil and Shamrock out of the tiny hole. Both are still asleep. Basil, the violent sleeper that she is, has kicked her blanket off, apparently. Shamrock lays there, limp as a dead man, as always.
There isn’t any particular reason that she has woken up. She just has and in reaction to that, Fresh closes her eyes, opting to fall back to sleep.
However, she doesn’t manage to last longer than two seconds before her eyes shoot open again. The girl, as heartbreaking as it feels for her, breaks free from her warm, soft hiding place and gets out of bed. Creeping through the darkness a few steps forward, she picks up Basil’s blanket and shakes it out quietly, before heading over and covering the priestess with it. Though, that is easier said than done as Basil’s hand flies past her face. Once covered however, Basil seems to calm down, at least for now, as the weight of the blanket seems to keep her settled.
Looking over further towards the balcony, Fresh stares at Shamrock, seeing that he isn’t covered as well. What’s with everyone? It’s like they want to get eaten by monsters in the dark. Everyone knows that blankets keep you safe from them. Fresh isn’t surprised that Shamrock ignores that sage wisdom, but Basil doing so does surprise her a little bit. It seems like something a priestess should know, simply due to the nature of their work. What were they teaching them, back at the church?
Though… she scratches her head. Covering Shamrock seems like an impossible task, not because of his size, but because he’s laying on his blanket. Fresh frowns, looking over her shoulder to Jubilee’s room. She isn’t sure how to picture the scene exactly, given her friend’s vague nature. But she’s going to assume that they have a blanket at least.
In order to quiet her mind, Fresh grabs her old blanket from her thin wardrobe and walks over to the man, throwing it over him. Satisfied, she goes back to her bed and crawls inside, pushing down the floating mattress as she tries to achieve that same sensation of comfort and warmth she had felt just a minute ago. But it just doesn’t feel the same now.
Despite that, she falls back to sleep.
The next day begins, all of them having slept in late. Jubilee put up a sign downstairs, saying they’re closed for the day. All four of them sit at the table, having just had a lazy breakfast just before.
Basil yawns, covering her mouth with her hand, a cup of steaming tea set down before herself. Shamrock says nothing, but nods in agreement, as he takes a drink from his third glass of milk. Even Jubilee is at the table, leaned back on their chair with their hands behind their head.
"So…" starts Fresh, looking around at them. "A day off, huh?"
"Yup," says Jubilee.
"Mhm," nods Basil, taking a loud sip from her mug.
Shamrock just nods again, emptying his glass and setting it back down.
Nothing happens. They all just sit there quietly together. But Fresh doesn’t mind. It’s nice too. Smiling, she takes a sip of her coughee and thinks about what to do today. "You guys wanna do anything?" she asks.
"Nope," says Jubilee. "Going outside is a death sentence."
"Huh?" asks Fresh.
Jubilee shakes their head. "Fairies."
"What about them?" she asks.
"They’re magic," replies Jubilee plainly. Fresh looks at the others who just sit there in quiet contemplation.
"So?" asks Fresh, scratching her cheek, having not understood.
"You saw them last night, right?" asks Jubilee. "The hyper fucks."
"Mm," nods Fresh.
"Well, what do you think will happen once they find out that they’re all casters?" asks Jubilee, lifting a finger to point it at her. "I’ll tell you what’s gonna happen - " They narrow their eyes, as if looking in disgust. "Fuckery." Their finger taps loudly against the table once. "Those little shits are going to be blasting fireballs and lightning in all directions, come the afternoon. I’m not going out there."
Basil nods in agreement. "Adolescence can be a dangerous time for everyone involved."
"But Jubilee~" starts Fresh, taking a sip of her coffee, before continuing. "As the fairy-queen, shouldn’t you be there for them?"
The priestess next to her starts laughing, but Jubilee seems less amused with her joke. "I could kill you right here, right now and nobody could stop me."
"But you won’t!" says Fresh, lifting a finger as she gets up and drinks the last of her breakfast. "Because we’re friends!"
"For now," replies Jubilee, very dryly.
"Forever~" says Fresh, leaning in towards Jubilee only to meet a small hand that pushes her face back away.
"Go be creepy down in the basement, where you belong, goo-brain."
Fresh doesn’t think that this is a half-bad idea. This could be her chance to catch up on the mattresses she has never made for the store. Plus she still needs to make the armor pieces and maybe some other stuff.
She goes downstairs to do exactly that. Grabbing a sweet-tea from the cold shelf on the way, she then heads down into the basement and sets to work.
The mattresses are easy enough to make, if not a little resource intensive. But Jubilee has been buying plenty of stuff. So much so, that they actually needed to raise their savings percentage by a lot, so that they would stay afloat financially. But nobody really seemed to mind too much, apart from a short pained look that came from Basil.
After making a stack of them, she dusts her hands off and sets to work, making an assortment of gloves and boots in all different sizes.
Later, after finishing those, she finds herself turning around as she looks over at Basil’s construction in quiet pride for a moment. Now, she only has to wait and see what Shamrock can come up with. She hopes that the two of them will enjoy the same feelings that she does, when people buy her items. That’s all she wants for them. Though maybe Basil will share some of her plants with her? When they’re done growing, of course. She hopes so, but she isn’t going to ask.
Jubilee had forbidden her from making any items from the old shop, that included the magical-talismans. But that doesn’t mean she can’t use the same ideas in a different way. Iron-bars are a little more expensive up here, since there aren’t any goblins who can sometimes drop them, but being a low-level metal, they’re still cheap enough.
Fresh stops at that odd thought. ‘Low-level metal’.
She wonders what high-level material is like? So far, literally everything she has ever touched or made has been low-level, much like all of the people she has interacted with, more or less. Somehow, both high-level resources and persons were scarce everywhere.
That’s fine though, she’ll just make the best things that she can out of what she has. What else is there to do?
Grabbing the iron-bar, surprised at how light it feels in her arms these days, she slides it across the table towards herself and cuts it into segments that are each about a thumb-tip in width.
(Fresh) uses: [Craftsman: Cut] x12
- And then cuts those in half as well, though this time, through the middle.
(Fresh) uses: [Craftsman: Cut]
Twenty-four small iron strips lay before her, clattering down loudly onto the table. Nodding in satisfaction, she sets to work. Grabbing an ingot of crystal-drakonium, she cuts out a tiny sphere of the bouncy material and sets it to the side.
(Fresh) uses: [Craftsman: Extract Material {Sphere}]
Fresh then takes a strip of iron and focuses on the idea in her mind. She’s pleased with this one, she’s sure that people will like it. Plus if it works, they’re ridiculously cheap to manufacture.
(Fresh) uses: [Craftsman: Jeweler {Ring}]
A small iron ring falls to the table. Grabbing it, she smiles and rubs it against her robe. It is rather plain looking, missing any embellishments or engravings, save for a tiny hole at the top that is empty of stones. But that’s fine, they are for adventurers after all, so they don’t need to be too fancy. Taking the rubbery sphere, she presses it against the small hole at the top.
(Fresh) uses: [Craftsman: Jeweler {Set Stone}]
Her hands glow, the magic of the spell dissipating a moment later. It’s an odd thing, simple and plain. Yet there is a deep satisfaction in her when she looks at it, as if a voice in her subconscious were pleased and lets her know it, rising over the sound of trickling water.
[Iron Ring]{Crystal-Drakonium}(High)
A small iron banded ring studded with a midnight tinged piece of crystal-drakonium. It smells like fire.
While wearing
+ Jump height increased by 20%
Quality Effect: Reduces all worn equipment’s weight by 15%
Weight: 0.04 kg Value: ???
Chapter 153: Bad
It’s just as chaotic outside as Jubilee had said it would be. The festival, still in full swing, seems to have embraced this anarchy rather than being disturbed by it however. The merchants were all apparently prepared for this to happen and had come with an arrangement of protection wards and sigils to stop their tents and stalls from burning down. Though the streets themselves are practically a war-zone, as the fairies, eager and naive as they are, begin to discover their own innate, magical abilities.
So much so that the town-guard seems to be out in numbers, to Fresh’s surprise. The robed and hooded figures run around, chasing after particularly troublesome fairies with nets in order to put them in confinement until they settle down. Though, the bigger surprise for her is actually seeing them at all. Somehow the guards in the cities only ever showed up when they were needed. On one hand, this makes sense to her, on the other, she doesn’t really get where they stay all day, when they’re not needed. Another great mystery of life.
But none of that is important. What’s important is this.
Fresh stands down in the basement, the rings laid out before herself in a small, hand-made jewelry stand that she had crafted. Then, after getting the design down right, she had made a second one and gifted it to Basil for her own personal wardrobe.
The priestess, Jubilee and Shamrock now stand down here behind her, waiting for her to show them her latest idea. She had beckoned them all down here to do it.
"So?" asks Jubilee impatiently, crossing their arms. Fresh looks back at them and holds out a sheep towards them all.
"Sheep," she says, explaining the obvious.
"Yeah? What about it?" asks Jubilee.
Fresh gestures for them to wait and grabs a ring from the table. "Ring," says Fresh plainly, holding the sheep in one hand and the ring in the other. Basil and Jubilee look at each other and shrug in confusion, though she still has Shamrock’s undivided attention. Fresh slips the ring around one of the sheep’s legs and holds it out towards her friends. She lets go, dropping her hands to the side of her body.
But the sheep stays in place, floating in the air where she left it. She gestures towards it. "Magic sheep."
"I’d be impressed, if I wasn’t so very disappointed," says Jubilee in an emotionless tone.
"That’s really cute!" says Basil, smiling. "But what does it do?"
"It floats," explains Fresh, holding her hands out before herself, to frame the floating sheep that is slowly starting to drift over at a tilted angle.
"Yes," nods Basil. "But… why does it float?"
Fresh blinks. "Because of the crystal-drakonium and the ring."
"No, I mean… for what purpose?" explains the priestess. "Why does it float? What does the floating achieve?"
Fresh stares at her for a moment, then down to the sheep and then back to Basil. "It beats walking?" To her surprise, Basil doesn’t laugh at this. But she can hear Jubilee catch their laugh in their throat, shortly before it can leave their mouth.
"Hmm…" Fresh thinks, feeling a little disappointed in her friend’s lack of enthusiasm. She thinks it’s super neat. "Maybe we can tie them to strings and people can carry them behind themselves?"
Jubilee lifts a finger. "But why?"
"Uh…" Fresh looks around for an answer, her eyes landing on Shamrock who stands behind the other two. But the best that he can offer is a shrug. Her eyes continue wandering, until they eventually land on the cauldron of rebirth. "Ah!" She grabs the sheep, setting it onto the table and then grabs a bottle of moonwater from the side. Popping it open, she pours some over the sheep, soaking some of its body.
[Enchanted-Sheep]{Holy}(High)
This fluffy enchanted-sheep protects its shepherd while in their presence. A magical aura radiates from its squishy body over a distance of 8m
(Owner) While inside:
+1 to ALL resistances
Absorbs 1 negative STATUS-EFFECT per day
Quality Effect: Prevents bad dreams
Weight: ??? Value: ???
"Ta-da!" she says, lifting the sheep back up. Giving it a small push, she watches as it floats lazily towards Jubilee, spinning as it flies through the air with its wide, goofy smile and button eyes glistening in the light of the fire. It bops against Jubilee’s mask and starts slowly floating back the other way.
"Well. Fuck," sighs Jubilee, looking at the item window.
"For something you don’t have to carry, these are strong bonuses," mentions Basil, sounding somewhat worried, oddly enough. "What’s with the bad dream thing?"
Fresh shrugs. "Dunno. Moonwater stuff."
"Huh…" mutters Basil, perplexed. "Is it possible to get these bonuses on something less… goofy?" she asks, looking at the sheep that hovers past her face, upside down.
"Huh?! The sheep is the most important part!" argues Fresh. "It wouldn’t work if it wasn’t a sheep."
"What do you mean?" asks Basil.
Fresh scratches her cheek. "A lot of the things I make get their magic from my intent for them." She points to the sheep. "I bet if I had made a mush-mush, it wouldn’t have had the bad dream ability."
"Please don’t make those anymore," laughs Basil, somewhat nervously.
"Wait," asks Jubilee. "So what happens if you put a ring around one of the mattresses?" Basil’s, very nervous, laughing stops rather abruptly.
"Huh? Jubileee~" laughs Fresh. "The rings are too small for that!"
Jubilee rolls their eyes. "I meant if you made a bigger one, dumb-ass."
"Uh…" Fresh taps her chin. "I guess it would float? The ring bonus seems to be just enough to get them into the air. So if I make a big one, like an iron band, it would… float more? Maybe… hmm…"
"Would it hold a person?" asks Jubilee, getting to the point. Basil, already pale, tenses up at this question.
"What?"
"If it floated, would it hold a person up in the air?"
Fresh thinks for a second, staring up towards the ceiling. "Maybe? I bet I could make it do that!" When she looks down, excited about this new possibility, she sees that Jubilee and Basil are exchanging, what she assumes, are nervous looks. Without saying anything, the two of them nod to each other and then look back at her. Whatever exchange they were having, Shamrock seems to have no part in it.
"We can sell the sheep. But you listen to me, goo-brain," says Jubilee, pointing at her.
"What? Is there something wr-" starts Fresh.
Jubilee interrupts her. "No, stop. You need to listen to what I’m about to say."
"I will," says Fresh, nodding, leaning down to hear what Jubilee has to say, since it’s apparently important. To her surprise, Jubilee grabs the sides of her face.
"No. You need to LISTEN," warns Jubilee in a tone that she hasn’t heard from them since their early days together. "Never -" Jubilee’s eyes grow a little larger. "NEVER," they say louder and clearer. "- Tell anyone about this. NEVER make anything bigger than a ring for someone’s finger with these properties."
"Huh? What’s wrong, Jubilee?"
"Promise."
Fresh, confused, tries to argue. "But -"
"Promise!" repeats Jubilee, stopping her and narrowing their eyes which carry a very serious expression.
Fresh purses her lips, her face still being squished together. Her eyes wander up towards Basil who stands there with an equally grim look. Not really understanding what’s going on, she nods to her friends. Did she do something wrong? Were they mad at her? Did she mess up? Maybe the sheep was a bad idea after all?
She nods, looking down to the ground. "Okay, I promise…"
Basil sighs in relief. Jubilee lets go of her and she stands back upright, rubbing her arm. "Why? Don’t you guys like the sheep?"
"The sheep are good," says Shamrock. She looks up at him, seeing that he has caught the sheep out of the air and now holds the fluffy thing in his hands.
Basil walks over to her, patting her on her shoulder and then dabbing Fresh’s wet eyes once with a sleeve of her robe. "It’s dangerous," she explains. "Flight magic."
"Huh? Why? Because people fall?" asks Fresh.
