Fresh floats there on her flying broom, not sure if she should feel bad or not. Though, she’s tending towards feeling bad, in all honesty.

Shamrock stares up her way and gives her a thumbs-up from down below.

The horrible witch gulps, looking at the little spriggan that is bobbing around in the middle of the first floor of the central-dungeon.

She lifts a finger, pointing at it from near the ceiling that she is hovering just below. ”Sorry, little guy,” says Fresh, a glow collecting around her finger.

(Fresh) casts: [Malediction]

Given their current circumstances, Fresh had decided that it would be in their collective best interests if she finally got herself together and did some dirty adventuring work down in the dungeon. If she levels up a little more finally, she’ll get more stats. If she has more stats, she can be more useful for her family. When Basil gets sick, she’ll have more energy to take care of her and to compensate for the missing person. When Jubilee has a bad day, she’ll have more capacity to help them out with their troubles. When Shamrock decides to eat half of their food in the cooling cabinet in the middle of the night, she’ll have the ability to save him from Jubilee’s wrath.

But in order to ensure that she wouldn’t get in Shamrock’s way while he tears through the dungeon, Fresh took her broom with herself, so that she could always just float away, outside of any particular danger.

It has the added advantage that from up here, she can just blast the dungeon-monsters with her spells and most of them can’t do a single thing about it.

It actually feels a little like cheating?

She wonders if this is why flying is seen as somewhat taboo?

Hmm…

During their stay in the east, she had gotten a lot of ‘passive’ experience points and levels because of all of the crabs, before the weather-vane incident. But they’re in the big leagues now, the center is full of high-level people and she’s nowhere near that.

It’s the hour between breakfast and their opening and they make the most of it, the two of them essentially strolling down the first twenty floors of the freshly reset dungeon, until she levels up again.

[Level up! You are now LEVEL 21! ]

{Cooking 7}{Crafting 9}{Gathering 4}{Adventuring 5}{Witch-Crafting 9}{Mercantile 7}

~*+- PROFILE -+*~ HP: 20/20 +1 "FRESH" SOUL: $%§ / §**+'# LEVEL: 21! "Fresh"

STATUS: ???

CLASS: [WITCH]

- of the Black-Fountain

OBOLS: 4327

SUB-CLASS: [CRAFTSMAN]

RACE: HUMAN

[INVENTORY]

STR: 11 WIS: 09 +1 LUK: 06 DEX: 11 INT: 11 +1 LOV: 09

*~+- PLEASE CHOOSE AN ABILITY -+~*

[1] Choice Remaining

[Witch-crafting 9]{Hexenjagd}

Spawns a mirror version of yourself from any reflective surface that will, while in combat, theatrically fly around the area, distracting any enemies. The mirror version takes half of your stats while present.

[Cooking 6]{Cookie Crumble}

All sweets baked by you have an enhanced shelf life of 25%, as well as an additional +15% to any offered stat bonuses. Allows you to use SWEET food items as weapons.

[Adventuring]{I have been to the western-mountain}

Passively regenerates your SOUL-POINTS at a rate of 1 / Minute when the temperature is below 10°C.

Fresh stares at the menu, before then lowering her gaze towards Shamrock. The choice is clear.

The giant man shakes his head.

She nods, lifting a finger.

He shakes his head faster.

Fresh nods faster. Her finger pressing against the screen.

Ability chosen: [Hexenjagd] !

“Jubilee! Jubilee!” says Fresh excitedly, standing on the other side of the counter. “Look at this!” she exclaims, holding out an open book that she found in the library. It’s a compendium of the cutest monsters known to man. Thankfully, there are a lot of very cute, very detailed pictures.

She looks down at the page. Oh, this is the wrong one. This is the succubus page. Laughing to herself, she flips the page to the thing she actually wanted to show Jubilee, the page on baby mush-mushes.

Spriggans only rank in at about spot seventeen, which she thinks is a travesty. But she’s not going to show the spriggans that.

Jubilee stands there, their head resting on their hand, their elbow on the counter.

“Jubileeeee~!” says Fresh, standing behind Jubilee, grabbing their shoulders and shaking them. “I was in the dungeon with Shamrock and I found a rock!”

Jubilee’s free hand taps against the wood of the counter.

Fresh flips through the pages of the book, looking for other cute things to show Jubilee. She had no idea that there were so many cute monsters. What a world! She’s been making potions and items and gunk and stuff this whole time, when in reality, she clearly should have gone into the monster trade.

Fresh gasps, looking at the entry on baby dragons. This one is red.

“Jubilee! Jubilee!” she exclaims, pointing at the drawing of a baby dragon. The other Fresh flops her body over the counter, looking sideways at Jubilee, who is doing their best to ignore both of them.

“Jubilee! Look at what I can do!” The Fresh laying on the counter sticks her tongue out, trying to touch the tip of her nose with it.

Feeling Jubilee staring at her, Fresh stops, her tongue held out. She lifts her hand, touching Jubilee’s face.

“Touch.”

The Fresh across the counter lifts a hand, touching Jubilee’s face too. “Touch!”

“I’m going to kill one of you. I don’t care which one of you is the real one,” says Jubilee, reaching around for the bag of dirt.

Both Freshes blink and then lift a hand, pointing at the other one.

“I’m the real one!”

“Nu uh!” argues the other Fresh, crossing her arms. “I’m the real one!”

The Fresh across the counter leans in, placing her hands on her hips. “Oh yeah?! Prove it!”

“Okay! I will!” says the Fresh behind the counter. “One time, I was in Jubilee’s room back in the north and I secretly smelled their pillow!”

Fresh gasps. “That was a secret!” she yells, hitting her fists against the counter. “Okay! Well, one time I stood in front of Jubilee’s bed and watched them sleep for over an hour!”

The other Fresh gasps. “How could you share my secrets like that?!”

“Because I’m the real Fresh! They’re MY secrets!”

“No! I’m the real Fresh!”

Both of them turn towards Jubilee, pointing at the other one. “Jubileeeee~!” shout both of them at the same time, pointing at each other.

Jubilee turns their head, glaring at Shamrock. Feeling them staring, the man who is standing by the shelves, restocking them, lifts his helmet to look their way. The two of them look at each other for a moment.

Metal rattles as Shamrock turns back to look at his work, as if nothing was wrong at all.

“I can’t live like this,” says Jubilee. “I’m just going to kill you both. The real one should probably come back to life… eventually.” They nod to themselves, grabbing some dirt from their bag.

Both Freshes yelp, scrambling away, one of them flopping over the counter as they both run for their lives.

“Just admit that you’re fake!” yells Fresh. “You’re getting Jubilee mad at us!”

“No! You admit that you’re fake!” yells the other Fresh. “Jerk!”

“Meanie!”

They sprint upstairs, making a sprint towards the only safe place, the bedroom.

“Basil! Basil!” yells Fresh, pointing at her double. The priestess, sitting upright in bed with a damp rag on her forehead, stares their way, blinking. “I made a magical copy of myself and now she won’t admit that she’s fake!”

“Huh?!” The Fresh on the right grabs her arm, biting it.

“Ow!”

“You’re the fake one!” says the biter Fresh. “Basil! Don’t listen to her! She’s an evil mirror copy of myself that I summoned with dubious witch magic!”

Basil, still not having said anything, blinks and then continues to stare quietly. She adjusts the rag on her forehead, mumbling something indiscernible as she lays down in bed again, apparently not wanting or able to get involved because of her raging fever.

A pair of large, metal hands grabs the two of them and then drags them out of the room.

“Work,” is all that Shamrock says.

“Noooo~” howls one Fresh.

“Okay!” says the other one. “Aha!” she gloats. “The real me likes working hard!”

“Nu uh!” says the upset Fresh. “I just like working hard so that I can make my friends happy.”

“They’re my friends!”

“They’re mine!”

They glare at each other for a moment before turning to Shamrock who is carrying them both over his shoulders, down the stairs. “Shamrock!” cry both of them at the same time.

The man shrugs. “You’re heavier than before.”

Both of the Freshes over his shoulder sigh at the same time.