The magistrate looks at Fresh. He’s sitting on the chair across from her in an unusual moment of quiet rest, as he swirls the bottle of coughee around in his hands, considering her request.

“It’s unusual,” he explains. “I don’t think anything like this has happened before.” His eyes wander up towards the ceiling. His haggard, overworked face is covered by several days’ worth of stubble. “Are you sure about leaving? You guys are making a real splash here.”

Fresh rubs her arm. “We’d really like to stay, your city is very nice. But we have to go,” she explains. “There’s nothing we can do about it.”

The tired man sighs, taking a sip of the coughee. The sheep that had accompanied him in his bedding are now busy flying around the room again, as the ram leads them around the room, flying through the air.

“Where are you heading?”

“I can’t tell you,” says Fresh.

“I see,” he says. “And you’re sure you don’t just want to sell the structure back to the city? We can arrange for the money to be ready in a couple of days at the latest,” he offers. “All one-hundred and forty thousand. There's no ghost anymore, after all.”

Fresh thinks for a minute. Jubilee had already told her that this would be a possibility. All purchases regarding housing in this city have to go through the magistrate first and so, he’s also the first to offer on any emptying buildings. But the choice was left up for her to make. Fresh is sure that Jubilee already knew, though, what she would choose. Her friends had planned for their future without using the large heap of Obols that ‘they’ had paid for the house.

She shakes her head. “I’d really like to follow through with our plan,” she explains, scratching her cheek as the magistrate’s gaze lowers back down to her. “If you’d bless it.”

He sighs, rubbing his tired eyes. “It’s going to be a huge hassle. I’ll have to talk to the council and get them to sign off on it,” he explains. “They’re a real bunch of hard-asses, you know?” he mutters unenthusiastically. “Bureaucrats.”

“The fairies will earn their keep,” explains Fresh, reciting the arguments that Jubilee had repeated to her three or four times. “We’re teaching them how to make things and how to run a business,” she says. “They’ll become productive, tax-paying members of your city and they’ll get out of everyone’s hair. We’re covering all expenses ourselves.”

“What about the forest and your fairy-houses out there?” asks the magistrate.

“Not all of them will want to live in the city,” explains Fresh. “Or maybe some of them won’t get along with the others. They’ll be able to stay out there instead. Everything is already set up.”

“When are you leaving?”

“I can’t tell you.”

He frowns, continuing to swirl the bottle in his hands around. It’s quiet for a minute. “I like the idea. You have my blessing,” he explains.

“Really?!” asks Fresh, jumping up halfway out of her chair.

“But there are some conditions,” states the magistrate.

She eyes him, a little warily. “What?”

“You need to designate a single owner of the structure, who we can contact for any tax issues.”

“Done.”

He thinks for a second. “We need a list of the names of everyone who is going to live there.”

“Done,” nods Fresh.

“You also need to teach them the recipe for this,” he explains, pointing to the bottle in his hands. Fresh nods, laughing. “And leave the temperature cabinets.” She nods, also understanding of this, though she’ll have to find a way to let the moonwater in the cooling mechanism recharge without her active help. “And also,” finishes the tired-man, looking at her. “City employees get a twenty-five percent discount.”

Jubilee won’t like that last one. But Fresh nods. “I’ll arrange it.”

The tired man nods back, satisfied. But then sighs again, not saying anything else.

“Hey,” asks Fresh, leaning in forward. There’s something that she’s been meaning to ask. Something that she’s come to understand a little better lately. Maybe it’s because of her raising stats, or maybe she’s just growing up a little as a person. “Do you like Jubilee?” asks Fresh, a little embarrassed, holding her hand to the side of her mouth as if to muffle her words, like a flustered child speaking of scandalous schoolyard rumors.

“As you get older,” starts the tired man. “You’ll start to realize that you have an affinity for certain patterns, even if they seem bad for you,” he explains, finishing his coughee.

“Was your wife mean to you too?” asks Fresh. Only after she asked her question, does she realize the rudeness of what she had just asked. Especially since she knows that the man’s family is gone. “Ah… I’m sorry,” she mutters, leaning back again and looking away to the ground.

“That’s okay,” says the magistrate. “She was,” he laughs. “But you need to understand that sometimes, people are mean because they just don’t know any other way to act.” Fresh nods, she has assumed this much about Jubilee already. He gets up. “It doesn’t mean they’re bad people. It just means that they’ve adapted to the place that they developed their personality in,” he says, rising to his feet. “We need to give them a new environment to grow in once again.”

He holds his hand out to her. Fresh gets up, grabbing it. The two of them shake hands.

“Let's do our best to get rid of those bad places,” says Fresh.

“Let’s,” nods the magistrate.

[The pact is sealed]

Happy, but a little worried about this ominous menu-window, Fresh makes her departure. All in all though, it looks like the plan is working. Well, it was Jubilee’s plan, after all. Not hers. Jubilee had told her that her floating fairy-houses were stupid and that they had a better idea. The idea was that they’ll just give Veli ownership of the house when they leave. All of the fairies can stay there together, creating a cooperative business to sustain themselves. They’re going to teach them the fundamentals of it all.

Basil is going to show them how to make her herbal items and Fresh is going to show them the fundamentals of crafting. Jubilee is teaching the smarter ones book-keeping and logistics and Shamrock is undertaking a crash-course in fighting and combat for those of them more trimmed to a brash lifestyle. Plus, it’s important for them to know how to protect their new home.

By the time Fresh gets back, it looks like the class has broken up for the day.

“How was it?” asks Jubilee.

“Good,” says Fresh. “Everything is set up like you wanted.”

“Like we wanted,” corrects Jubilee, rolling their eyes.

“Like we wanted,” smiles Fresh, realizing that Jubilee likely doesn’t want the weight of this good deed crushing down on them alone. Seeing that the others are busy with the store, she decides that she has something else to take care of and sneaks past everyone, heading down into the basement.

The areas at the bottom of the slide are already full of items that are ready to be sorted. Repairs. Materials and so on. But that can wait. Making sure that the area is clear, she heads to her workbench and opens her inventory.

During the ‘bad night’ as she calls it, during that night of the fair when she was confronted by the man from the thieves’ guild, who she is dutifully ignoring, Patala, during the night she had felt just as bitter and desperately lonely and unwanted and out of place as she always had in her old life, she had come home and made something that she knows that she shouldn’t have made.

Maybe it was the whispering influence of the fountain, trying to get her to do something horrible. Maybe it was the crackling of the fire, pushing odd ideas into her mind for the sake of disruption, or maybe and perhaps most truthfully, as Jubilee would say -

- She fucked up.

It’s an odd thing for Fresh to realize so blatantly, as she reaches into her inventory. But she did something bad, in a sense. Very bad. She’s deeply ashamed of herself for giving into those dark feelings even just once. But she’s growing up now as a person, a party-leader, as an entity who has learned that she gains her joy not from being nurtured and doted on all day, but rather, by doing these things for others. That’s where her happiness lies and she’s ashamed that it took her this long to find out.

As she pulls the thing that she had removed from the bath a few days ago, the ghost-warding engraved crystal, powered up with witch-magic, out of her inventory and carefully lays it on the table, she realizes why her friends were always warning her and telling her that people are terrified of witches.

Taking a deep breath, she looks at the thing before her, pulsating with a dark, twisting magic.

[The Shard of True-Sleep](UNIQUE){CURSE OF THE BAD NIGHT}

After death, a soul is usually returned to the [WELL OF SOULS]. After a cool-down period, the entity is able to reincarnate into a new life and to try again with fresh eyes.

Engraved with intricate ghost-warding sigil-work, this powerfully resonant crystal holds inside of itself true-darkness, born of a sickly mind lost beneath the crushing weight of the black-water.

From so far down below the surface, there is no light left to see.

CURSE OF THE BAD NIGHT:

When activated by a dark true-wish, during the bleakest night of a lunar-cycle:

-) Permanently steals 100% of the [HEALTH-POINTS] and [SOUL-POINTS] of the {USER} touching this crystal

-) Permanently removes the {USER} from the [WELL OF SOULS], allowing them to reach a final true-sleep, from which there is no waking

"§$%&$- &§$?-!

Fresh holds her hands up, closing her eyes, knowing that her friends would never forgive her if they found out about her having created such a horrible thing. She has a lot of problems, a lot of issues that she’s been fighting her way through. But so have her friends and now, Fresh feels like she is at a point where she can put her own sufferings behind her. Thinking about the intimate moments she’s had with them all, with Jubilee, with Basil, with Shamrock, she realizes that she has no reason to be that person who she was anymore. It’s time to let go of that distant past and to start swimming up to the surface of the ocean.

She doesn’t know if she deserves to be happy, or if anyone even really does. The universe doesn’t work on the basis of what anyone deserves. But, she does know that that won’t matter to her from now on. Because she’s going to take it, happiness. When the universe tries to beat her down, she’s going to grab Jubilee and smother them with unwanted affection, until they get flustered and embarrassed and can’t look her way anymore.

Because that makes her happy.

Her hands glow.

When she’s sad and terrified and scared of the terrible dreams that she has, of the horrible things that she left behind and still has yet to run into. She’s going to grab Basil’s hand, the priestess suffering many of the same ailments as her, and she’s going to run and jump around with her all day, no matter how stupid it looks and how embarrassed she gets.

Because that makes her happy.

The glow leaves her fingers, illuminating even her closed eyes with the radiance of the bright purple aura.

When the nights get long and sad and lonely, she’s going to stand up straight and tall and press forward towards the coming day with resolute conviction, like Shamrock has been showing her. No matter how much it’s going to hurt or no matter what people are going to say about it. She’s going to stand up on both of her feet and take another step forward.

Because that makes her happy.

The table vibrates.

And no matter what happens in the future, no matter how bad things are going to get, no matter how many times they have to leave their cherished homes to fulfill goals of some, likely-terrible, mission, she’s never going to stop. Every time they move, she’s going to put in this effort into their newest home. Every time her friends get sad and frustrated, she’s going to put this effort into them.

And most importantly, every time she herself feels such things, she’s going to do the same from now on for herself.

Because it doesn’t matter if she deserves to be happy or not. She’s going to make sure that she is. If she has to tear the heavens and the world apart. She’s going to make sure that she and her family are happy, until the day that they die and then even in the days after that, when they might perhaps reunite in another life.

But for now, she has to assure that this shared life of theirs will go on for as long as it can. She needs to change directions, because she can tell that this road that they’re on will lead to nowhere but ruin and tragedy. She doesn’t know if there’s a way for her to get out of this, but there is a way for her friends to survive the end of this adventure of theirs, should that day ever come to pass. It will, though. She’s sure of it.

All adventures come to an end eventually, right? The person she trusts most in this or any world had told her just as much.

The fire crackles loudly next to her, overpowering any sounds of the water that might have once been coming from the bath. She knows that for now, this secret of hers, will stay just that. The fountain will not know of this, as this time, the source of her magic stems from another place.

She nods to the fire. It nods back. There is no pact or any such chicanery, rather, it’s just the polite thing to do.

Fresh uses: [Hair of the dog] [The Shard of the Rising Sun](UNIQUE){CURSE OF THE NEW DAY}

Engraved with intricate ghost-warding sigil-work, this powerfully resonant crystal holds inside of itself true love, born of a healed mind wandering towards a dawning morning sun. It pulsates with a bright, prismatic energy which leaks out of the mortal plane, dripping back into the [WELL OF SOULS] with colorful, vibrant light.

CURSE OF THE NEW DAY:

When activated by a heartfelt true-wish, during a brightest hour of life:

-) Acts as a resonant, cosmic beacon. Establishing a link with the [SUMMONED HERO]

-) Imprints a smudge of your [SOUL] onto the crystal, allowing the owner to see what you have seen and feel what you felt

"§$%&$- &§$?-!

The fire crackles louder, its radiant, orange hue reflecting off of the sheen, lustrous surface of the crystal, as if it were the glow of a rising sun, coming to break the spell of a long, dark night. Fresh leans down over the crystal, holding it tightly in her hands, as she whispers into it.