"Oh? And what are you looking to purchase?" The duke began. Then, in a less official voice, said "And do you really think so, about that necklace? I have been looking to spice up the old wardrobe." 

"W-well, if this isn't too bold a request, I'd like to purchase some real estate." I responded. "And I'm confident about that necklace. Though, now that I'm looking at it, maybe a green gem, like an emerald, would complement your eyes better... we can workshop this later."

S seemed a little surprised at first, but quickly agreed with this purchase. "Yeah, somewhere to return to and store stuff would be quite nice. Think that's possible, Goldy?" He said.

"Ah, that's no problem at all! We can start work on something right away! What did you have in mind?" The duke asks.

"Somewhere out of the way, I think. A-and size no issue." I say.

"That can certainly be arranged! Actually, you might be in luck. See, a few years ago we began work on a small cottage near Basenholm. It would have functioned as a bit of a rest stop of sorts that we'd use on trips to the border, since Basenholm didn't have an Inn at the time." 

"At the time?" S asks. "It has one now?"

"Yes, indeed. It wasn't until we were near completion that we'd realized that we could have just funded the building of an inn! It'd be a little more expensive, sure, but it'd increase revenue in town, which it desperately needed, and we'd eventually make back our investment, anyways. So, we scrapped the previous project, and funded the inn. It's worked out quite well for us and the town, but that nearly completed cottage has been collecting dust all this time. Really, you'd almost be doing me a favor by taking it off my hands."

Wow, this is incredibly lucky. Like, absurdly lucky. Well, no use looking a gift horse in the mouth, I guess. 

"Deeeee-lightful!" S says in excitement. "We'll take it!"

"Y-yeah." I say.

"Wonderful! It wont take long to finish up the work, and we can take care of making you the legal owners right away."

The process of making us the legal owners didn't take long. Actually, all we really had to do was have the duke recognize us as the legal and official owners of the property, and then write something down in a comically oversized book that he kept in the room behind him, which seemed like his bedroom or something. After he was done writing, he told us to touch some glow-y spots in the book, next to what he wrote, and let out a little magic. I guess this is, like, a magical fingerprint or something. Now, if anyone touches those spots on the book, our faces will appear on the pages for a moment. 

"S-so is that it? We own the place now?" I ask after we finish.

"Indeed, it is yours. You may do what you like with it, but leave it to us to finish the construction, if you don't mind." Huh. I guess we own a house now. I didn't expect it to be that easy. Neat.

Man... my first house in another world. And I get to own it with S. It's quite exciting.

"Oh, and I can't believe this slipped my mind, but you need to know where the place is, don't you? One moment, please." He stepped outside the room, out of the large door that I came through earlier. "Adelyn, could you please grab a map to the Basenholm project mark 1?" He seemed to be talking to the same housekeeper I met earlier. Wait, has she been standing out there the whole time? Also, that's quite a title for a project like that. 

"Certainly." She said simply and professionally, nodding her head, before heading down the halls. 

The duke turned over to us, and headed back over to his chair. "That shouldn't take too long. In the mean time, let us discuss-"

"M-MY LORD!" A guard of some kind came rushing through the door. They were clad entirely in semi-expensive looking leather armor, complete with a helmet that obscured the top and sides of the their head. It's clear they were in a rush, as they were rather short of breath. This must be urgent.

"What is it?" The duke said, concerned.

"It's the prisoner! They've, they've-"

"Ah, one moment please!" The duke said, before urgently rushing himself and the guard out of the room. Huh.

There was a surprised silence in the room, for a moment.

"Dang, looks like that purple robed guy broke out." S said, breaking the silence. 

"Yeah, seems like it." I kind of want to do something, but what can I do? I don't have any idea where they are, since it's likely I was out cold when they left. Well, I'm sure they'll get caught eventually, anyways. Probably. Maybe.

Crap, thinking about it, during the fight, they saw me using the holes, didn't they? And there's no doubt that Desk guy did, as well. There's also the possibility that either of them could have seen me using my noodle magic thingies. I mean, I doubt anyone would see that and immediately assume that it was dark magic, but they still might be curious about what exactly it was that they were seeing.  Maybe I could pass it off as some other kind of magic? Actually, speaking of odd kinds of magic, I should ask S what was going on with whatever that purple guy was doing earlier. 

"Hey, S, what was the deal with those things they attacked us with? The purple guy, I mean." I ask.

"Summoned creatures, probably. Though, certainly the ugliest examples of 'em I've ever heard of." 

"Summoned creature? What kind of magic is that? How does that work?"

"Right, you're new to magic and such. Well, that's a kind of magic that'd fall under no categories, or in some ways, the largest category. See, magic is typically split up into several arbitrarily defined elements, for the sake of convenience. These are fire, wind, earth, water, and light, or in same cases 'holy'. Oh, and I suppose darkness, in your case. Magic that doesn't fit into any of those categories is lumped in a category I like to call 'everything else'. Summoning magic would fall under that category. I think."

Miscellaneous magic, huh. "What other kinds of magic would fit into this category?"

"Well, to be honest, I'm not too familiar. I find that most people tend to focus on 1 or 2 elements in particular, and I'm no different, so finding someone who primarily uses 'everything else' magic is a little rare. But, I've heard of people who use it to pick stuff up with their minds, people who can see in the dark, and people who can create stuff out of thin air, like equipment, or, in some cases, semi sentient beings. All sorts of weird stuff." 

I wonder if my holes thingy is part of this category. "That all sounds incredibly useful. Why doesn't everyone learn how to do that?"

"Well, to put it simply, it's a real pain. Elemental magic is far, far easier, for some reason. Maybe because it's easier to understand? I dunno. The point is, people who master 'everything else' magic are typically only good at 1 or 2 things, and they have to spend a loooooooootttta time on those things." 

Ah, sounds rather inconvenient. "I wonder how much time that purple guy spent on their magic, then. I mean, summoning 8 fairly powerful beasts like that, that can't have been easy."

"Yeah, I can only imagine... Actually, speaking of those creatures, I wonder what possessed Purple to make 'em look like that? Wouldn't it have been easier to make, like, normal wolves or something?"

"Maybe they just thought it'd look cool?"

"Yeah, maybe... Still way past weird, though."

That's certainly true. The color scheme was very annoying, as well. I mean, come on, grey head and torso, black tail, and tan paws? It's silly. Though, I might be a little biased against them, as they did force me into more pain than I'd ever hoped to experience in my entire lives.

Heh. Because, y'know, second life, so it's lives, instead of life. It's funny.