Fresh sighs.

“Will you stop moping?!” barks Jubilee. “I’m going home.”

She straightens upright, grabbing Jubilee. “Nooo~!” pleads Fresh. “Sorry, Jubilee,” she says, looking around at the festival. “I’m just worried about Basil, is all.”

“Basil’s fucking fine,” says Jubilee, waving her off. “She just has the sniffles,” they explain. “It’s what happens if you hang around people all day who’re sick. It gets you too.” They nod their head. “Come on. I saw a snack stand over here. Let’s get something, okay?”

Fresh looks at Jubilee for a moment, realizing that they’re trying their best too. She puts a smile back on her face. “Okay!” agrees Fresh. She reaches down, grabbing the spriggan’s hand in one palm and Jubilee’s in the other.

Jubilee shakes her off, rolling their eyes and walking away. But the spriggan remains in her grip.

Fresh blinks, having an odd sense of déjà vu for a moment.

Shrugging, she pulls the spriggan after herself and runs to Jubilee. It’s unusual for the house-spriggan to want to leave the house, but it seemed to want to do so today. So of course, Fresh had nothing against taking it with them to the festival. The more the merrier.

Unfortunately, Basil has fallen ill again, having caught ‘the goo’ from one of the customers. So she’s at home resting now, with Shamrock in charge of ‘keeping her alive’.

Jubilee had said that Fresh was being dramatic, telling him to do that. But she just wants to be careful. She only has one set of friends and what would she do if anything happened to one of them?

“We still have to find something for Basil and Shamrock,” says Fresh, catching up to Jubilee.

“I’m sure we can find a rat on a stick or something,” they reply.

“Jubilee!” protests Fresh. “That’s gross.”

Jubilee waves her off. “Oh excuse me, misses high and mighty. I wasn’t aware that we had standards now.”

Fresh blinks. She understands. “Basil’s going to be fine, Jubilee,” says Fresh. “She just has the sniffles.”

Jubilee holds their hands out to their sides, shaking their head. “…What? Do I sound worried?” they ask.

The spriggan lifts a hand, patting Jubilee’s side. “Pakew.”

“Fuck off.” Jubilee swipes its stubby arm away.

Fresh looks around at the many stalls while Jubilee buys a bunch of junk food which is, ideally, not primarily rat-based.

There’s a small stand with some trinkets and jewelry and the like. There are many beautiful stones and simple gems that aren’t of extreme value, but that still carry a simplistic charm to them. They’re adorned to strings and straps or simply sold as loose contents in bins.

“Looking for something specific?” asks the man, seeing her perusing. He lifts a red stone on a string. “Some red-jasper will get those suitors running your way, missy.”

Fresh laughs, scratching her cheek. “No, thanks. Do you have anything for someone who’s sick?” she asks, looking around at the many rocks, minerals and crystals. The man nods.

“Sick-sick?” he asks, pointing at his heart with his thumb. “Or ‘sick’?”

“Sick-sick,” says Fresh. “She has a cold.”

The man digs around, pulling out an apple green, translucent, smooth stone. “In that case, you want some peridot,” he explains.

Fresh blinks, lifting her gaze, a little surprised at the word. “Peridot?” she asks.

The merchant shows her the stone. “Yup. It’s a great stone. It’s really more representative of renewal and rebirth,” he notes. “Great after a hard time. It has a very warm energy,” he says, handing it to her. Fresh takes it and holds the thing in her hands. “It’ll help clear that all right up.”

It feels like a rock.

Fresh shrugs. The man is clearly an expert in this field. Best to trust his judgment. “Thank you, I’ll take it,” she says, wrapping her fingers around it. She pays the man and then promptly gets scolded by Jubilee after they return for spending her money on rocks.

(Fresh) bought [Peridot]{Small}(High)

for

[{30} Obols] !

[Peridot]{Small}(High) A bright green, glassy stone. Weight: 0.08 kg Value: 11 Obols

On the bright side, Jubilee bought some good snacks. They’re sour fruit pieces, dipped into a sweet sauce that’s frozen on fresh snow and then seasoned. They get put into a paper bag, together with a set of small wooden forks.

There are also a lot of games and stuff. Fresh plays a few together with the spriggan and she even manages to convince Jubilee to play a toy crossbow shooting game with her. It’s a lot of fun, actually. She just wishes everyone could have been here.

“I got you a rock, Basil!” says Fresh proudly, holding out the stone with both hands to the priestess whose face just so happens to be the same shade of green as it.

“Thank you,” says Basil, sounding very stuffy. She takes it.

Jubilee walks by, waving both of them off. “What she’s trying to say is that she got scammed and she’s trying to pass it off as it being intentional now.”

“Huh?!” Fresh puffs out her cheek. “I didn’t get scammed! I bought it on purpose!” she explains. “The man said it helps with this stuff.”

“Does the menu say it helps with this stuff?” asks Jubilee.

Fresh looks to the side. “No…”

Jubilee sighs. “Then it doesn’t.”

Basil wraps her fingers around it and lays back down. “I’m sure it’ll help me feel better soon. Thank you,” says the priestess, laying back down.

“Mm! Try to get well soon, so we can still go to the festival together, Basil,” she says. But she receives no response, as the priestess seems to have fallen directly to sleep the moment her head hit the pillow.

Fresh sighs and walks out of the bedroom. Time to finish the walls, so Basil can have some quiet and some privacy while she’s suffering.

Jubilee sits down at the kitchen table. “When Basil dies, we should hire a druid as her replacement,” says Jubilee. “They’re more useful than a priestess.”

“We’re not going to replace Basil with a druid!” protests Fresh.

Jubilee rolls their eyes. “Fine. We’ll take a battle-alchemist or something then. Sheesh.” Jubilee thinks for a moment. “Actually… that could be a good profit avenue.”

“We already did potions, Jubilee,” says Fresh. She looks at Shamrock and then grabs a rag, wiping him off. He has a little Basil-goo on his armor.

“Not potions to drink,” says Jubilee, tapping against the table. “Potions to throw.”

“Huh?”

Jubilee considers it. “Then again. I don’t want you making explosives in the basement. Forget I said anything.”

Fresh shrugs, sitting down too. “Okay.”

Explosives…

Fresh stares down at the table for a moment. Wasn’t there something in the east that happened with explosives?

She rubs her head, trying to think. Man, everything really is an odd blur these days. She supposes that it’s to be expected with all of the stress and chaos they’ve been undergoing. Maybe that’s why Basil gets sick so often? Her body is probably just under a lot of pressure.

Fresh sighs. She hopes that they can stay here for a while. For a longer time than their other homes. All of this moving around every few months is bad for their health. She’d really like to have some peace and some long-term stability in her life for a while. Maybe just a year or two to start?

That would be nice.

“Why the fuck are you moping now?” asks Jubilee. “We just spent all morning at the festival. What do you want?!” they bark at her.

Fresh blinks, looking up at Jubilee and Shamrock who are sitting at the table, staring her way. She’s worried about so many things and she’s right to be. But that worrying is putting a bad energy out into their home and her friends are seeing it.

She’s making things worse.

She lifts her hands, pulling her cheeks up as she redraws the smile on her face. “I’m fine!” beams Fresh. “I was just thinking that we should make something really hot and heavy for dinner, like a stew.”

“Meat’s running expensive,” says Jubilee. “Unless you want dungeon meat or rats.”

“I ate a rat once,” adds Shamrock.

Jubilee shakes their head. “What the fuck haven’t you eaten?” asks Jubilee.

“Demon,” replies the man, his chest heaving as he exhales.

The room is quiet for a while as they sit there.

“Okay. We’re just going to leave that standing there as is,” says Jubilee, looking back towards Fresh. “I’ll go get us some groceries if you promise to brighten up, okay?”

What an unusual thing for Jubilee to request. Fresh supposes that her worrying must have really been getting to them in a bad way. She nods, accepting the terms of the arrangement.