The day goes by fairly quickly as the three of them work. Fresh finishes her projects upstairs, putting Jubilee’s room in order and then finishing her own work on their shutters. She isn’t sure if these will stop a vampire from coming into the house. But they might slow one down, at the very least. Demons and ghosts she isn’t so sure about either though.

“Basil?” asks Fresh, after she comes back downstairs, wanting to inquire about such things. Basil looks up to her, clearly on the verge of tears.

Jubilee snaps up at the priestess. “Hey! Eyes down here! Write it down!” they bark.

“I did!” says Basil, pointing at a line in the ledger.

Jubilee shakes their head. “Not like that! Look,” they snatch the pen from her. “Here, like this. You gotta write the change and then- Hey! No crying behind the counter!” Jubilee looks around the store. “You’re going to make us look bad.”

Fresh laughs meekly, trying to defuse the situation. “Jubilee, be nice to Basil.”

Jubilee’s head snaps up to Fresh. “I’m just as nice to Basil as I am to you!” Fresh looks at Basil’s quivering lip, realizing that that’s probably true.

“Basil? How do I keep ghosts and demons out of the house?” asks Fresh, trying to give the frightened priestess some respite.

Her eyes go wide. “Do you have ghosts in here?” Basil looks around nervously, whispering. “Demons?!”

“Don’t listen to her,” drones Jubilee, scratching in the book. “She’s just overly imaginative and afraid of the dark.”

“No I’m not!” argues Fresh. “Just because the foot-demons haven’t gotten us yet, doesn’t mean that they aren’t going to try!”

Basil blinks, confused. “..Foot-demons?”

“Yeah, you know?” Fresh shrugs. “Foot-demons.”

Jubilee shakes their head again. “Like I said, afraid of the dark. One time, she even ran out of her room screaming for me in the middle of the night with a wet spot on her dress.”

“That’s not.. entirely true!” pouts Fresh, looking at Basil’s confused face. “You’re making me look bad in front of Basil!” says Fresh.

“I’m just passing on the truth,” says Jubilee, snapping their fingers to get Basil’s attention back to the ledger. Fresh puffs out her cheeks, scowling at Jubilee who isn’t paying her any mind, which makes her even more agitated.

Seeing that the two of them are busy, Fresh takes care of other things, like carrying the equipment for repairs upstairs and restocking the shelves. Their flow of customers is slow again today, but steady enough. During the middle of the day, Fresh brings the two of them some food from the pantry that Basil takes with much more gratitude and excitement than Jubilee does, given that they don’t eat any of it.

Eventually, the day comes to an end.

Jubilee sits at the counter, taking care of the end of day calculations. Basil is sweeping, while Fresh restocks the shelves with things from upstairs. “Good work today, Basil!” says Fresh to the very tired looking priestess.

“Thank you,” replies the exhausted woman, sweeping a pile of dirt together. Her dazed eyes shoot open as she remembers something. “Ah! Here.” She digs into the pocket of her robe, pulling out a piece of paper and handing it to Fresh.

“What’s this?” she asks, taking it from her. This is one of their sheets of paper, but with some symbol drawn onto it. A circle with a series of lines and letters that she doesn’t recognize.

Minor warding-seal

A blessed seal that prevents haunting energies from entering beyond.

Weak HOLY energy radiates from this seal.

Basil nods with a smile. “It’s a minor warding-seal. Glue it somewhere and it should keep away minor ghosts and spirits from the building.” The priestess returns to her sweeping. “I can’t do anything about foot-demons though.”

Fresh looks at the thing, beaming. “Thanks, Basil!” She’s a step closer to securing the store. With this, the ghost threat would be averted.

“Don’t encourage her,” says Jubilee, sighing. “The only ghost here is in her hollow skull.” Fresh turns her head away with an indignant ‘hmpf’.

Not much later, the three of them finish their work and Jubilee gives a wide-eyed Basil her pay for the day. With shaking hands, Basil looks at the one-hundred and fifteen Obols, held in her palms, with wide eyes. The coins jangle as she nervously jitters, suddenly not so tired anymore.

“Go wild,” says Jubilee. “But don’t show up tomorrow morning pregnant or with a hang-over.”

“I don’t think she drinks, Jubilee,” says Fresh, thinking with a finger to her chin. Jubilee sighs.

“T- Thank you! I look forward to working with you again tomorrow!” says Basil, lowering her head in a half-bow.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jubilee waves her off indifferently. “Today was a slow day, get some sleep because tomorrow’s probably gonna be a rush again. At least if the weather stops being shit.”

“Good night, Basil!” waves Fresh as the priestess turns to walk out the door, never stopping her staring at the coins in her hands. “Tomorrow we’ll do the counter together!”

“Good night!” The priestess only barely remembers to call back to them, as she exits together with the sound of jangling metal.

Fresh sighs with a satisfied feeling in her heart. “I like Basil, she’s nice.” The girl turns around, looking at Jubilee who hasn’t answered. They stand there with crossed arms, their boot tapping in agitation against the hardwood floor. Fresh thinks for a moment, looking at her friend’s tight posture. “Are.. Are you still mad about the mattress thing?” she asks warily.

Jubilee narrows their eyes.

The girl laughs, scratching her cheek, slowly beginning to walk a circle around Jubilee. “Jubilee?”

“What?” asks Jubilee, suspiciously, following her movements carefully.

“Chicken-butt!” yells Fresh, bursting into a sprint up the stairs.

Jubilee runs after her, swiping and missing as Fresh bolts away. “Get back here! You creep! Jerk!”

“Noooo~!”

The rest of the night passes and soon enough the morning comes. The two of them, having taken care of all the lantern crafting and witch-work after Basil left, now sit downstairs and share their breakfast together. Though Jubilee doesn’t seem to want to talk to her much today.

Earlier that morning, Fresh had gone to the guild to pay back some more of her debt. Much to her surprise, she realized that she has about enough to pay it off entirely now. But she opts to keep paying it back piece by piece. She has time, and what if they suddenly needed emergency money for something that came up?

Repaid - {1000} Obols] !

-{ 5998 Obols Remain Due }-

Basil eventually shows up after Fresh has made her way back, a little before they open the store and the three of them stand around in a semi-circle together. With wide and well-rested eyes, Basil admires the lanterns, of which they’ve managed to make a few the night before. One sits on the counter as a display piece, the rest are lined up neatly into the shelves, by the daggers and swords.

“These are really amazing, did you make these?” she asks Fresh.

“Mm!” nods the girl, satisfied with this most recent praise. “But Jubilee helped me!” she says, looking over at Jubilee, who is still ignoring her. “Today is their first debut, so I hope people like them a lot!”

“I’m sure they will,” assures Basil, eying the lanterns curiously.

Once the store opens, they get a heavy rush of customers right from the start. Fresh grabs Basil’s hand and hastily drags the woman behind the counter, as the crowd pushes itself into the store, diverging in all directions as they split up to get some more potions, to have their equipment repaired or to pick it up, or to look at the weapons on display.

“Hey, look at that,” says an elven man wearing chainmail, tapping his colleague on the shoulder and bending over to pick up one of the lanterns and spin it around. “I told you they always have weird stuff here.”

The crowd turns, several faces moving away from the potions to look towards the lanterns on the other side of the room.

“It’s a little heavy, but..”

“Is that an enchanted lantern?” asks a voice from the crowd.

“I think so?” chimes in another.

“In a run-down place like this?” asks a skeptical woman in the front, crossing her arms. Fresh taps her fingers against the counter in agitation, but does her best to keep the smile on her face. Though it is a little strained.

Jubilee barks out from the stairs. “They’re enchanted lanterns, two-hundred-ninety-nine each. Waterproof and they’ll burn non-stop. So buy something or keep moving! No loitering!”

That’s all the crowd needs to hear and any skeptics are quickly pushed to the side, as the mass of people shifts and the lanterns start flying off the shelves. Fresh spends the day with Basil, showing her how to work the counter in a somewhat more compassionate manner than Jubilee had done the day before. It’s a lot of work, explaining everything to the priestess and Fresh can’t help but feel like she’s making it harder than it really is, because of her own poor explanations.

Much to her relief however, Basil seems to be a quick learner and picks up everything fairly easily, despite her blunders. By the time the afternoon rolls around, Basil is able to hold the counter on her own for a few odd minutes at a time, while Fresh runs back and forth, carrying the armor up the stairs. The process of which is made a lot more annoying, because she has to close the door behind herself every time. She can’t help but wonder if this just makes things more suspicious than they would have been without the door.

She sighs, well, it’s too late now. Fresh looks back up towards the door on the stairs, smiling in at least some small sense of satisfaction, as she sees the anti-ghost sigil glued to it.

Later than usual, the red-wizard walks in, back in perfect shape apparently, which she makes clear through a series of lively stretches and dramatic poses, showing off her very muscley legs, to which Fresh claps in delight. Basil just looks on unsure, not really understanding what’s happening.

“I like your new staff!” says Fresh.

“Thanks!” The red-wizard holds the black-metal staff with a red orb at the top out proudly towards her. “I had it made from the boss-core! It’s given me a huge boost!”

“That’s great! Will you be going down into the dungeon again today, then?”

“Yeah! The reset is coming soon, so I want to get a few more floors in!” She waves goodbye, taking her bag of five potions with her as she goes out towards the giant gate, sparing a nervous glance towards the giant man who was standing behind her in line.

Once the counter is clear, a large, heavily-breathing man in full, dark plate-armor walks up and places a dozen fragments of a bone-sword down onto it. “I need this fixed.”

Fresh looks down at the utterly destroyed sword. “What.. what did you do with it?”

He looks at her through the vertical slits of his helm, a shadowy eye twitching beneath the metal. “I killed monsters,” is all that he says. His body heaves with every exhalation, as if the breath pushing out of his lungs were too strong for him to restrain.

“Oh.. Huh.” The girl scratches her cheek, laughing meekly at the intimidating figure. “It’ll be done by tomorrow uh..” She looks down towards the sword, trying to remember what Jubilee charged for these. “Thirty Obols, please.”

Without another word, the heavily-breathing man places the coins onto the counter and walks out and away. The floor-boards creak under the weight of his massive body and heavy armor, as if crying for mercy.

Basil looks at her uncertainly. “Don’t you mind?”

“Mind what?” asks Fresh, placing the sword bits into a bag, to make carrying it easier.

“Making dark weapons?” Fresh looks back up at Basil, who goes on. “And that man is clearly from an.. unsavory background,” says the priestess, watching warily as the giant of a man returns towards the dungeon with no weapons in hand, his metal gauntlets clenched, as if that was all he needed.

Fresh gets back up, thinking. “Hmm..” She wonders. What would Jubilee say? Jubilee has been avoiding her most of the day, probably because of the mattress thing. Fresh smiles, tapping the coins on the counter. “It’s fine, we got the money.” She lifts a finger. “We’re merchants, Basil. It’s our job to sell things. What people do with those things is none of our business,” she recites, finishing with a wink to the priestess, who quickly looks away for some reason.

Razmatazz

Boss 'fight' tomorrow. =)

Thank you kindly for reading!

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