Waking up refreshed, I Cleaned myself up and got ready for the day, then climbed out of the basement. Heading to the yard, I looked around and saw it was much better organized than it had been before. My manager probably wanted to maximize his profits, by getting as many people in as he could. Hopefully he didn’t pack them in too tight though, we didn’t need any fights from being too close together.

I headed to where he was camped next to the gate and waved him back down when he tried to stand up to greet me.

“No need to get up. I’m not someone who insists on formality and etiquette, outside of unavoidable circumstances. Go ahead and finish your breakfast, we can talk after.”

He nodded, his mouth too full to speak. He’d taken a bite right before he’d caught sight of me.

While they ate, I played in the dirt. Or with it, as the case may be. Since he was going to be working for me until after the Founding Festival was over, I made some stuff for his family. A stone table and chairs to replace the wood they were sitting on. As youngest of the kids was only a couple of years old, he got a high chair.

I also amused, and distracted, the kids by making a bunch of toys out of rock. Little soldiers, animals, blocks of all shapes and sizes. Stuff to keep them entertained while their parents were doing other stuff. And to share with the other kids in the camp site. There were a bunch of them, which ticked me off, since a good number of the people here got kicked out by greedy innkeepers who’d rather have money than a good reputation.

After breakfast, I talked to my manager. He’d been able to fit in a good number more people since he was familiar with many of them to some degree, as well as not having to avoid the immediate vicinity of the building. Some of it had collapsed into the yard, and with that gone there was more room and no chance of stuff possibly falling on someone.

Instead of stowing the night’s fees away, I returned the bag to him, receiving a puzzled look.

“I’ve got stuff to do today, and I’m not sure how long it’s going to take. Use that to pay anyone willing to work on cleaning up inside. Collect the rocks in one place and I’ll deal with them myself. You can use any of the wood for fires, just get it out of there and I’ll be happy. If you feel like breaking down any of the stuff I collected yesterday for firewood, I can pile it up somewhere for you. Not gonna charge for the wood, since I want it gone anyways.”

“That would be helpful. Collecting enough wood has been difficult for some people. If you can put the wood you want to get rid of over there, we’ll handle it. I’ll pull a few guys together and we can get started on cleaning up. Anything else you need?”

“Not right now. I’ll let you know if I think of anything.”

He nodded, then went to find some workers, while I headed out onto the streets and started hunting.

It took me a couple hours, but I located my quarry. The company that the guardswoman was related to. I’d meant to do this yesterday, but with the situation I’d encountered regarding my new property, it’d gotten delayed. It was more important that the people had a place to stay than to locate this place to send off a letter. Plus, with how busy the capital is, it’s unlikely the letter would reach its intended recipient any time soon.

It didn’t take me long to drop off the letter. The person I talked to was Morgan’s mother.

“I’ll pass this along to her the next time I see her, but she’s quite busy, so it may take a while to get a reply back.”

“That’s fine. I’ll be around for a while, festival and all that. I wrote where I’d be staying, so she can contact me at her leisure.”

She nodded and was about to say more when someone called for her attention, so she bid me farewell and headed off to head off some problem. I had no more business there, but they were a merchant company, so they had a shop. I browsed their wares before leaving.

Delivering the letter concluded all of my obligations until my dungeon delving pals arrived in a few weeks, so I was free to do whatever I wanted. And right now I wanted to wander around.

While the festival itself wasn’t for a few more days, there was already plenty of stuff to do. I spent the rest of the day roaming the streets, checking out what people were selling, trying various types of food, many of which I hadn’t seen before, some good, some not. It’d help if they’d warn people when the cuisine was designed for palettes of other races rather than humans.

There were a few enterprising folks who had opened game booths early, so I had to give them a shot. Especially the ones built so as to be theoretically impossible to win any significant prizes at. I of course took the prizes from these cheaters by cheating. Not all of them went to me, since I may have helped a few others to succeed so as not to draw too much attention to myself.

I considered stopping by the Adventurer’s Guild, but dismissed the thought quickly. There could be people who would recognize me there, and even if there wasn’t I’d have to show my card if I found a quest to take or wanted to use the library. Hmm, was there a public library I might be able to access?

As the day grew later, I headed home, though there was a quick detour to pick up something to eat when I came across a restaurant from which delicious scents were emanating.

Back at the ranch… house… I strolled through the gates to the yard and was greeted by the site manager. He’d been able to get plenty of help to clean up the rest of the ruined building. They’d also gotten through the entirety of the pile of wood I’d left them, cutting it down to manageable firewood sizes.

After he gave his report he asked about what I had planned for the building. With the debris out of the way, people could theoretically stay there, but I shook my head. With it all cleaned up, I’d start rebuilding it tomorrow, and I didn’t want anyone in the way when I did so. I didn’t have a set idea of what I wanted it to look like or contain yet, but I had some ideas.

I was nice and relaxed, so I would think on things and plot… plan how I wanted to proceed tonight. It’d been quick taking the place down, but I needed to be careful when rebuilding it since I wanted the place to be nice and sturdy. Also, compressing the rock to be hard as steel took a good amount of time and energy, so it’d be a few days to rebuild.

Heck, I considered just making the place with only the framework of exterior walls, floors and roof with support pillars to begin with and then adding the interior walls as needed. Doing it that way would make more room for people to stay, though there’d be a lack of privacy since people wouldn’t be able to set up tents…

I’d have to think about it.

Business taken care of, I headed into the remains and down the stairs into the basement. Down here hadn’t been quite as messy as upstairs, but it had needed some cleaning as well. Now that it was nice and clean, so I pulled out some stuff to make it more comfortable. Sure, it’s nice in the hut, but out here I could set up a bunch of tables and spread stuff out on them, like drafting papers for the building I was going to work on.

Ah! Before I forget, I should strengthen the place a bit more. I’d already done some yesterday, but it was best to work on it further, while retaining enough mana for emergencies.

The stone that made up the floor, walls, and ceiling was compacted and reinforced, becoming as dense and tough as possible. I’d tried using creation magic to put steel girders in the walls, basically transmuting the stone that was already there, but it took too much energy to do much at a time. I still wanted to do it as a means of reinforcing the building’s structure, but that’d be a long term project. For now, I just made it so I’d be able to grow the building several stories without it being likely to collapse under its own weight. I would be making it with stone after all.

More stone had to be pulled from inventory to make up for what was compacted down, like the suddenly much shorter stairs, but that was no problem. I had a nice large collection of compacted bricks I’d made over the years that were useful in a variety of situations. Like rebuilding buildings, creating cover or fortifications, dropping onto enemies from the skies… Yep! Lots of uses.

I still had enough mana that I started doing the same on the outer walls on the ground floor. Save myself some time tomorrow.

Doing this also let me survey the remains of the building. Sure I’d been through it before, but now I was checking how it’d been laid out before.

I didn’t like it. The design was inefficient and messy.

I’d been told the place had been a boarding house with two apartments per floor, but it was more complicated then that. First off, while there were apartments, they didn’t have anything but basic rooms. No fireplaces to keep the rooms warm. No kitchens, the residents had to share the one on the ground floor. Toilets and baths were the same way.

Shaking my head, I finished up reinforcing the remaining walls, while also raising the shortened sections so the entire outer wall was the same side, then headed back downstairs. I knew what I was going to do with the place.

In the short term anyway.

For the moment, I was going to just make it into nice big empty spaces. I’d start at having just two floors above ground, and then slowly increase it to however tall I felt like over time. It would take time to make sure it was reinforced to my satisfaction, so doing it slowly over weeks or months would suit me.

Plus it’d give me time to decide what I wanted to do with the place.

Right now the only thing I knew was that I’d be creating a personal living space, but even more importantly, I’d be making a workshop, or more properly a place to be able to deploy my Divine Workshop. The thing took up a good amount of room, but less than I’d thought it was going to. While it had a ton of different tools, from tiny ones to the enormous forge, most were stored in a walk-in closet, but for tools instead of clothes. It reminded me a bit of the Tardis.

Most of the room the workshop took up was from the stationary equipment, like the forge, anvil, and so on. Also workbenches and tables. There were a bunch of them, with more inside the tool storage. There were places where tools could be hung for easy access.

The Divine Workshop had walls, floor, and a roof, so it could be deployed outside while still having protection from the elements, but as I wanted to keep it a secret, I’d make it fit inside the building. Sure I could play it off like it was similar to my hut, but I couldn’t store it when it was expanded, only when it was compressed into snow globe form, which would make it seem like it could be stolen from me.

Anyways… It was big so it was going to be taking up about half of the ground floor. Most of the rest would be taken up by the kitchen, dining hall, and bathrooms. What little remained I would leave open to use as a lounge or something. I’d make my living quarters on the second floor. Probably make some guest quarters.

Hmm. If I got the place set up before the others arrived, they could possibly room here while they’re in the city… but do I want to give up my privacy like that? I’ll make some guest rooms, and consider whether I want to invite them to stay with me.

As I considered the possibilities and decided what I wanted to do, I built a little model of the structure I was planning on building out of some rock. It took me quite a while before I was happy with the ground floor, and I’d barely begun to work on the second floor when the light above me dimmed.

The light dimming was a precursor to it going out. Basically, it was a warning that it was pretty late. I cleaned things up, then headed to bed. I could pick this up in the morning, I had plenty of time.