Chapter 31: Chapter 31: Today we have a lot to think about, but that’s ok because owls are wise and think a lot!

Dots of white fall down on the other side of the thin glass windows, painting the street with a fresh, covering coat which is promptly trodden down flat by the many boots stepping over it. As always, adventurers are on their ways to the dungeon, on their ways to some of many shops and merchants, on their ways to their homes, or on their ways to the frog's adventurer’s guild, down the other way.

 

Hineni stands there, downstairs, standing in front of one of the good windows, staring out over the booth and into the street. But now, unlike in those days that feel like they are long since past, he doesn’t do so melancholically or jealously. He’s doing so methodically, with real, fundamental purpose.

 

“You’re closer,” says Sockel, sitting behind the front desk. She’s digging through the lower shelves, looking at old ledgers and statements from a lifetime of his that has now come and gone.

 

Hineni turns his head around, looking at her. Sockel has sharp eyes in more ways than just regarding the act of seeing itself. Just by his standing here, looking at the people walking by, she had read him and figured out what he was doing, what he was thinking. Hineni turns back towards the glass, smiling beneath his scarf. He has good eyes too, for people, apparently. “We are,” he affirms.

 

Given the location of his structure, the old adventurer’s guild, they’re far closer to the dungeon than the newer one that the frogs have taken over. A solid five minutes closer by foot, in fact. Now with the winter having come, bringing with itself its frigid bite, every minute spent outside is a minute of discomfort. Cold fingers, wet shoes, a chance of slipping on the bad, crack filled streets in this neighborhood, in which ice is prone to form.

 

Being closer to the heart of the city, closer to the dungeon and thereby being right along the daily route of the many adventurers who pass through is a powerful asset. Perhaps their most powerful one, even. Hineni looks around the room. Size is on their side as well. The new guild only has four rooms upstairs, a kitchen, an eating area and the reception. He narrows his eyes as he thinks about the bad number.

 

Four. Ugh…

 

But they have nine rooms, one of them is a large suite that Obscura and himself are currently sleeping in, plus his own family’s space up in the attic. Their kitchen is larger, they have a forge, a library, an ice-cellar, a real wash-room and not just some small bathtub.

 

All that the frog’s guild has are those four rooms to rent and a board for orders and quests. But they can put one of those up here too.

 

They outmatch the frogs in every aspect structurally. It’s a clear cut contest. They’re dominating the frogs in regards to property and its potential. But the frogs are already operational, now, today, while they still have a mountain of work that needs to be surmounted. Plus the frogs have the numbers on their side. There are many frogs. Many, many. As for people in their guild, there are only four of them.

 

Ugh… There it is again, the bad number. Hineni’s eyes shift around, watching the street carefully for any face that is out of place, for any eye that wanders a little too far their way. But none do so.

 

Okay, so there are four people in their house right now. But only three of those are ‘members’. Obscura doesn’t count, since she’s a god. So there are three people. It evens out, right? Yeah. That makes sense to him.

 

Also, the frogs have money, while he’s broke down to his last coins. The forge is burning furiously right now, heat is pumping through the building and drying out the damp forge, warming up the old bones of the house which is creaking and groaning like a lost ship out at sea. Though the heat doesn’t spread evenly into every room either. The shaft seems to be broken or jammed in some places. Another thing that needs to be repaired. Given it’s relative uniqueness as a structural feature, he’s willing to bet that it’s going to be expensive. Maybe he has to find a way to do that one himself?

 

Most importantly, he needs to get the window fixed first. They’re heating the neighborhood right now. Then, after that, they can fix the heating shaft, so that the building heats evenly.

 

“Sockel,” says Hineni, looking back towards the elf, who is trying to make heads and tails of old calculations from his childhood. “Can you run around the house, please?” he asks. “Make a list of everything you can see that needs to be fixed, repaired, replaced. Everything,” says the man. “Down to the door-handles. We need a plan and I need to know what kind of costs we’re going to run into.”

 

She nods. “You got it,” she says, closing her book and yawning loudly.

 

Hineni turns around. “Rhine.” Rhine, sitting at a booth with his knees up against the table, looks his way. “Shouldn’t you be working?”

 

The boy shrugs. “You were just standing there, so I thought we were taking a break.”

 

“I’m the boss,” says Hineni. “I get to stand around and think about things during work hours.” He points at the broom, which is leaned against the wall next to him.

 

Rhine lifts his hand to ask a question. “Isn’t the owl-god the boss?”

 

“Wise! Wise Rhine!” hoots Obscura from up on the rafters. “Hineni is strong, but he lacks reverence for queenly Obscura!” she hoots, spreading her wings out wide. “Who~” Hineni rolls his eyes. But Rhine seems to smile brightly at the unusual praise he receives from the owl-god.

 

Hineni thinks for a moment. “Rhine.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Are you afraid of heights?” asks the man, thinking. The boy is small. He’d fit.

 

“Heights?” asks Rhine, blinking. “I mean, uh… not really. But I also never liked going upstairs past the third floor in any house, why?”

 

“I have a job for you,” says Hineni, before looking up at Obscura. “And you.”

 

“Frogs?” she asks. “Obscura and the river-boy hunt frogs? For dinner?”

 

Hineni shakes his head. Tonight, there will be no frogs. There’s work to do.

 

---

They're in the forge.

 

“I- I don’t know about this!” says Rhine, his feet kicking as he’s lifted off of the ground.

 

“You’ll be fine,” says Hineni, giving him a thumbs up. Now, of course, he doesn’t know if that’s exactly true. But he feels that it’s exactly true enough that he isn’t worried. It’s just some air ducts and it’s not like it's hot-hot. It’s just where the rising warm air pushes through. It might be a little dusty in the worst case. “But if you don’t want to, you don’t have to.”

 

Rhine gulps for a moment, thinking, but then nods in agreement.

 

Obscura, in the form of a giant owl, holds Rhine in her talons and flaps her way up towards the shaft, beneath the now-closed windows of the forge tower.

 

“Just find out what’s blocking it and deal with it if you can,” he calls up after him. Obscura lifts her leg, holding the boy towards a shaft in the wall.

 

“Hey,” says a voice from the side. Sockel. She’s peeking into the forge. “Come check this out.”

 

Hineni nods, waving up to the other two. “I’ll be up front, you two take care of this, okay?” he calls, watching as Obscura flaps around in front of the heating-shaft that Rhine has vanished into.

 

---

 

“Money?” asks Hineni.

 

“Yeah,” says Sockel, tapping against the open ledger. There’s an entire stack of them. “Whoever did the book-keeping back then was a real stickler for the rules,” she explains. “Which means that your folks didn’t have their money just lying around here in a drawer. There has to have been an account somewhere.” Hineni thinks about it. That does make sense. “Didn’t you get an inheritance or anything?” she asks.

 

He shakes his head, gesturing to the building around them. “Just this place. The city held onto the deed until I turned of age.” He thinks for a moment. “Should we ask the city bank?”

 

Sockel shakes her head. “They would have turned it over to you too, if they had it.” She flips through a few more pages. “It’s probably a private bank and for an operation of this size…” she says, nodding over her shoulder to the stack of ledgers. “- Avarice.”

 

“Avarice?” asks Hineni.

 

She nods, shutting the ledger. “I’ll see if I can find the banking papers. But my gut feeling is that if there is anything to find, that it’s there,” she explains.

 

Avarice is the god of wealth. Naturally, his guild is the most powerful and reputable bank in the city. Hineni considers this for a while. Man, Having people around is really a big help. He would have never thought of something so obvious like this, even in a million years. Of course his parents had money somewhere. He doesn’t know if it was a lot or a little, but they had surely had something on the side somewhere that is now his by right. …Right?

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“Is it okay with you if I dig around upstairs?” she asks. “In the attic.”

 

Hineni looks at her for a moment and then nods, happy that he doesn’t have to do it himself. “Thank you, Sockel,” he says. “You’re a big help.”

 

“I want to get paid in money too,” she replies. “I can only accept soup for so long.”

 

Hineni frowns. “You’re getting free meals and you’re allowed to sleep at work and now you want to be paid too?” he asks as a joke, shaking his head.

 

“The labor market is really tough these days,” she replies, closing the ledger with a smile. “Just wait until I start charging you for my overtime hours.”

 

Hineni raises an eyebrow as she walks off to the library to take the fast way upstairs. “Overtime? You’re here all day. You live here.”

 

“Exactly,” she beams, before closing the door.

 

Hineni looks back down to the ledgers that he had walked past a thousand times before, having never spared them more than a glance. It feels as if they had simply never been meant for his hands, for his eyes. But that’s fine.

 

He has people for that now and as for his own hands and eyes, he has other, more important things to do with those.

 

---

 

How does an adventurer’s guild even make money?

 

Hineni lies on his back, having used neither his hands nor his eyes effectively. He’s still lost in the logistics of it. It seems insurmountable, but people are counting on him to figure it out. So he has to figure it out or die trying. The sun is starting to rise outside of the windows of his home once again, which means that it’s just about time to sleep. He’s muttering to himself, talking loudly to the empty bedroom about his thoughts.

 

His weaponsmithing and ability to repair equipment is perhaps their biggest ticket item. Then he supposes that they’ll be renting rooms for anyone who wants them. That's a good source of potential income. Then, technically speaking at least, there’s the restaurant. Plus they could sell ‘passes’ to allow people to use the bath, or perhaps they could do so for free, if they’re already renting a room.

 

Maybe they could make a deal that you’re allowed to use the bath if you buy a meal? Is that economical? It could draw in adventurers who’ve had a long, hard day. Maybe a package deal? Room, food and a bath. But more importantly, who’s going to cook said meals? He certainly can’t cook and he doesn’t know if they’re allowed to serve wild frogs to the public. Maybe not.

 

If Sockel is going to run the counter, then that leaves Rhine and Obscura. Neither seem suited for kitchen-work on the scale that they might perhaps need it at. Home-cooking and a restaurant are two different things. Plus maybe they should find a way to elevate Obscura’s godliness, especially her image. It could be a big deal for their marketing. An adventurer’s guild with a legitimate god? It would be a big draw. There’s something here in this idea, he can feel it.

 

“Hiring a cook shouldn’t be too hard,” says Sockel. “But why not start in stages?” she suggests. “Offer simple services like the bath and the rooms first. A cook can come later.”

 

Hineni nods, his head rubbing against the pillow. That’s a good idea. Sockel is really smart.

 

The man blinks, sitting upright and looking around his empty room that he is alone inside of.

 

“I can find stuff by the river?” suggests Rhine, his voice coming from everywhere at once. “There’s always something there to sell. You’d be surprised at what gets washed away.”

 

“I don’t think that’s a reasonable thing to calculate into our regular income,” mutters Sockel.

 

“Rhine! The river-wizard can’t be stopped by bookkeeping!”

 

He hears something moving. “Get your boot off of me,” sighs Sockel.

 

Hineni stands up, looking around the empty bedroom. “Where are you guys?” he asks. “I can hear you.”

 

Something hoots. “The followers of Obscura are many? Yes,” she says. “Eyes! Eyes in every shadow. Who~” He can hear her talons scratching the walls. “Mysterious… Intriguing! Hineni is bewildered, yes? By powerful Obscura’s will? He is spell-bound by her wiles? Yes?”

 

Rhine clears his throat. “- We’re stuck in the walls.”

 

“WHO~!” protests Obscura. Rhine yelps, scrambling. Hineni can hear a thudding on the other side of the walls. “Insolent! Hineni has stained the river-boy with his insolence!”

 

Hineni looks at the wall. “How did you get in there?!” he asks.

 

“Well…” says Sockel.

 

“The heating shaft,” says Rhine. “It’s uh, it’s kind of a whole thing.”

 

Hineni sighs, rubbing his head. “You’re stuck?” he asks. “Can’t you just go back out?”

 

“Well, we could,” says Sockel. “But the thing is, uh…”

 

“- The thing is, we’re stuck,” says Rhine.

 

Hineni rubs the wall, trying to feel them. “What? Like in a tight space or something?” He doesn’t even know if they’re here. It might be that their voices are traveling down the chute. “Should I get help? Are you okay?” he asks. “Wait. Sockel, how did you get in there?”

 

“The attic,” explains Sockel.

 

“The attic?” asks Hineni.

 

“Yeah, I was upstairs digging around in the attic and then I heard the others calling, so I lifted up the trap-door beneath the rug and climbed down,” she explains. “But now I’m stuck too.”

 

“…Trap-door?” asks Hineni. “We didn’t have a trap-door beneath the rug.”

 

“Did you ever look beneath the rug when you were a kid?” asks Sockel. “Cause there’s a trap door there all right.”

 

Hineni rubs his chin. Honestly, he didn’t. The man sighs, shaking his head as he heads to the attic. “I’ll figure something out. Stay there,” he says.

 

“…Was that a joke?” asks Sockel.

 

Hineni grins, walking away. It was.

 

There’s always some new problem popping up somewhere. But maybe that’s just what having a home full of people means? The man heads down the hallway, walking with the same posture that the many of those adventurers who pass by his window have. It seems silly, since it's just a little thing. But it feels good, to walk somewhere with intent and purpose, without looking at the ground.

 

 

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