Chapter 227: 228: Home improvement

Fresh yells in joy, her arms up in the air as Shamrock rolls the ‘shopping-cart’ around the still mostly empty downstairs area. They’re on their third lap and she shows no signs of losing her enjoyment in any sense.

Following her burst of inspiration from before, she had set to work on making a large metal-basket out of dozens and dozens of small metal-rods which she had extracted from iron-bars. Then it was just a simple matter of attaching wheels to the bottom of it. It almost looks a lot like the things she remembers existing in her old life, but she’s adapted the design a small amount to account for the longer items they would likely have on sale, such as swords or pole-arms.

As such, there is a tall, thin cage on the left side of the cart that goes down all the way to the bottom, for people to put longer objects vertically inside of. Whereas the rest of it after that is simply a ‘normal’ shopping cart. Shamrock and Basil had returned, having purchased the construction supplies that she requested.

“It’s certainly an interesting idea,” says Basil as they come to a stop near the front of the store. “You think it will work?” she asks, holding the cart steady as Fresh climbs out of it.

“Mm!” she replies. “Thanks, Shamrock!” she beams, receiving a thumbs-up in return. “As long as we don’t get sand in the wheels.”

“Why don’t you make it floaty, like the sheep?” asks Basil. “Then there won’t need to be any wheels.”

Fresh gasps, grasping the fabric of Basil’s robe. “Basil!” she exclaims.

“W-what?”

“You’re a genius!” says Fresh, letting go and running over to the finished counter and sliding over it to dig around in her pile of materials behind it. With some crystal-drakonium and some of their magic-crystals, they could…

They could… hmm…

Would it be suspicious for them to have magic-crystals that work outside of the mountain? She could power them up with moonwater, but maybe people would ask how they did it? It would draw a lot of attention directly to their doorstep. Fresh shakes her head. Sure, they could explain it away with some trick or some lie, but it’s too risky. Even worse, she could imagine where it leads. People will want to buy them to take with them into the dungeon, to carry all of their loot. Then eventually, someone is going to want to use the magical-technology to make some kind of carriage drawn by an anqa. Before she knows it, the military will finally start knocking at their door, if not the nobles.

This idea is too big, too clean, too efficient, it opens too many doors. She better not. Fresh stands back up, looking over the counter. “I think we shouldn’t do that,” she says. “People would start asking a lot of questions.”

Basil crosses her arms, thinking for a moment. “Huh… actually, you might be right,” says the priestess. “Sorry. I didn’t even think about that this time.”

Fresh shakes her head. “No! It’s a really great idea!” she says. “That’s the problem…”

Basil nods, understanding. “Wheels it is,” she says, looking over to the cart. “Can I try?” she asks, wanting to change the topic. Both of them look at Shamrock, who is already somehow sitting inside of the cart, watching them both.

“Me first,” he says.

Fresh scratches her cheek, turning to Basil. The priestess nods, not needing to be asked. Fresh takes one side of the cart and she takes the other and together they, very strenuously, run Shamrock around the store a few times.

By the time they finish and Basil has had her turn as well, it’s already the evening and Fresh heads upstairs, determined to start on Jubilee’s room now. She doesn’t know if she’ll finish, but she wants to at least make them a wall.

“Jubilee?” asks Fresh. “What do you think about us having a biiig dinner-table right here?” she asks, coming up the stairs and pointing to the center of the room.

“Don’t care,” says Jubilee, sitting in the corner by the balcony, working on some tailoring project, sewing by hand.

Fresh frowns, looking around the giant, empty, square of a space. “So where do you want your room?” she asks. “I could set it up here in the corner if you want? Then you can have an ocean-view window,” she offers, pointing at the bottom-left corner, opposite of the staircase.

“Don’t care,” says Jubilee, picking up a pair of scissors and snipping some loose threads. Fresh scratches her cheek. It’s not unlike Jubilee to be grumpy, but it’s not like them to be indifferently-grumpy. Maybe they really are getting sick?

She nods. Ocean-view it is. A nice blue-view every morning, some sunlight and some ocean air might be just the thing to perk their spirits up. Jubilee probably doesn’t get a lot of sunlight, given their wardrobe. Maybe they could sit in their room without clothes and tank some sun-energy in private? It would certainly do a lot of good for their health.

Fresh scratches her cheek, deciding on that note that she’s going to make a big table outside on the balcony for them to eat on, when the weather is nice and then she’ll make a smaller one inside for when it rains. The materials here are a little different than in the west. Brickwork is far less common, though there is some sand-stone here and there. Instead, everything is mostly made out of things like clay and lime packed into wooden or metal framing.

The first thing she does is to mark the area of the room with some chalk. It’s about twice as big as Jubilee’s old room in the west. Space is really cheap here in the east, like they had said on the way here. It takes her about five measured steps to reach the end of the new room from where she has marked the door and four from the window to where the side wall is going to go.

Setting to work, she takes the wood that Shamrock has carried upstairs for her and begins to make a wooden frame that reaches from the floor up to the ceiling. While she’s working, she can hear the snipping of Jubilee’s scissors as they work on their secret project, as well as the rattle of wheels downstairs. Shamrock is apparently pushing Basil around in the cart again.

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Putting up the wooden skeleton is easy enough. It’s just always segments of wooden frame, made up out of four boards that shape a large rectangle and then four more that serve as a cross section on either side. She makes about eight of these, leaving room for the door, and sets them up on her chalk-markings. Using some long, metal bolts, she drives them down through the frames, with her abilities, fastening them into the stone of the upstairs floor.

All the while, she resists the urge to ask Jubilee if they’re mad at her. Asking that would just make Jubilee mad at her. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, really. Maybe Jubilee is just mad at everything? That sounds more reasonable to her.

As for the filling of the wall-frames, first she packs in bricks of ready-made ‘insulation’ into them, which is essentially just mud, wood-chips, some straw and some other mystery-goo packed into large, brick-like shapes. It takes about an hour, but since everything is prefabricated, it’s essentially just a task of stacking things on top of each other inside of the frames.

All that’s left now afterwards is to put a coating over it all, to cover the frames and to fill in the gaps.

She nods, grabbing the large buckets and dragging them over to the construction-site with great effort, feeling the pop in her lower back return painfully to her as she reaches the half-way point. Sweaty, covered in dust and a bit of grime, she wipes her forehead on her sleeve. Making a home sure is a lot of work.

Oh well, that’s what makes it all worth it in the end, right?

Excited to make progress, she grabs a putty-knife and begins filling in the goopy material from them.

Basil comes back with dinner a little while later. Some kind of rice-like grain covered with a thin, peppery brown sauce and thin strips of browned meat. the three of them sit out on the balcony and eat together. Jubilee is skipping dinner tonight, still sitting in their corner and working on their project that Fresh hasn’t inquired about. It’s very hard for her to give her friends space, but she’s managed so far.

After that, Basil and Shamrock set to work carrying more of their boxes from the adventurer’s guild to here and then they start arranging everything upstairs. By the time it’s all finished, Fresh finishes up the very last spot in Jubilee’s room, which now exists as a door-less construct. She stands back, admiring her work with pride.

“Thanks,” says Jubilee, handing her a giant bundle that she takes without asking.

“What’s this?” she asks, unfolding the first of the many giant things that Jubilee has been working on all day.

“Curtains,” says Jubilee, walking off and dusting their hands.

Fresh blinks, looking down at the set of large, ornate curtains that Jubilee had handmade, one for every upstairs window in the house. Clenching her fingers around the soft fabric in delight, she decides to set to work, to hang these all up right away.

She wouldn’t dare leave her friend’s hard-work just laying around somewhere.

Razmatazz

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