Chapter 113: Progress

Arthur heard laughter all around him as he looked to Mizu for support and found her sitting on the ground as she tried to get enough air in her lungs for a real laugh.

“Oh, no,” Mizu said, finally getting a bit of oxygen in. “’What a nice wall,’ he said. His face. He’s so polite…”

She tipped over into the dirt.

“Okay, okay,” Arthur said. “It’s a good joke. Or whatever this is.” He looked at the wall quizzically, then upwards where both Milo and Karra perched like a couple of laughing gargoyles. “It’s a warehouse? Is that the gag?”

“No. Karra, let’s put him out of his misery.” Milo hooked his hand on something behind the wall, and waited until Karra had done the same thing. “Get him out of the way, Lily. We wouldn’t want him crushed.”

Lily dragged Arthur several yards back from the wall, then nodded. All at once, Milo and Karra pushed hard on whatever handholds they were grasping. A cracking sounded as the wall shifted, tipped, then fell entirely over into the dirt in front of Arthur’s feet.

“Behold.” Lily waved her arm with dramatic flair. “The plaza.”

With the wall now on the ground, Arthur found a massive U-shaped structure, the arms of which were lined with different units that all looked to Arthur like they were ready to house different businesses. The center between them was entirely brick, a pavilion with a surprisingly large amount of room, capped at the connecting end of the U with an elevated stage.

“He’s frozen,” Mizu said. “But you can tell he’s thinking about how many tables it could hold.”

Damn. Arthur really had been doing that. She has me pegged.

“This is incredible, guys.” Arthur goggled at the sheer size of it all. “I pretty much don’t believe you got it done so quickly. It’s gigantic.”

“Thank Karra for that, mostly. And the fact that all of us worked on it at once,” Rhodia said. “But mostly Karra. She’s unbelievable.”

“We figured we could leave it open when the weather’s nice, Just like it is now.” Lily pointed up at the top of the pavilion, where it had several bare beams that stretched from one side of the U to the other. “We can fill this whole thing up with tables. And then in the winter, when it’s cold, we can cover the roof and lift this wall back into place and heat the inside. Then we can use it all year.”

“Damn.” Arthur’s eyes bugged out as he started to figure out how this had worked. “Like the community center in Leena’s hometown. Only better. No offense, Leena.”

“None taken. This is much better than that. It’s an outside space that can be inside. Lily’s a genius.”

“This was you?” Arthur suppressed the reflex to either drop to a knee or lift Lily up to his eye level. “I’m honestly impressed.”

“It was just… the right idea. The right ideas. Mizu wanted something outside so she could see the sky. Milo was talking about how the best part of Leena’s town was the gathering spot. And you were trying to bring tea to everyone and making sure everyone ate their meals in one place. I just put those things together.”

“Don’t believe her. The system doesn’t. She’s level six now.” Leena hugged Lily from behind. “She pretty much drew the blueprints herself. And of course, that’s double true for your shop.”

“My shop?”

“Oh.” Leena looked shy as she realized what she had said. “I probably shouldn’t have said anything.”

“It’s all right, Leena.” Lily shook loose of Leena’s hug and grabbed Arthur’s hand. “I was going to show you now anyway. Come on.”

Lily dragged Arthur towards the center of one of the building’s arms, where a high table with stools stood at attention. Behind the table was the shop that was just a little larger than his old shop in the city. And everything about that extra space was used well. Places the old shop had wasted space no longer existed, and spaces that had once been a little narrow were now satisfyingly large.

“See? We can put tables in here if people want to sit inside. Or if people want to drink outside, they can. They can get food from another chef and drinks from you, and it can all happen in one place. For the whole town, at least until we get too big for it to hold everyone.”

“But that will be a long time. Lily, it’s perfect.” Arthur looked at the empty space and imagined what it could become. “It’s a little empty, but it’s perfect. Everyone, this is amazing. Thank you.”

“Empty we can fix.” Davin the lumberjack, whose name Arthur had finally learned, stepped forward.

The demon was a variation of tree elementals like Eito, and what Arthur could see of his hands and face reinforced that. But Davin spent his days in a heavy hood, and Arthur was confident he wouldn’t stand out in a crowd like Eito did. He wasn’t quiet. He talked, but not about himself, and had a skill in guiding a conversation straight to business in a way that kept Arthur from ever having a real conversation with him. It was a hard nut to crack, but one Arthur was determined to break open eventually.

“I’ve been busy getting wood for… well, all sorts of things,” Davin said. “Roofs and firewood. Firewood we still need, but I’m a bit ahead of the game with all we trimmed off the roof beams and shingles. For the next few days, I’m spending most of my time getting wood for furniture. I can’t carve great, but I can rough out most of the parts we need for beds, chairs, and that sort of thing. And then I can make enough tables and chairs to get the common area equipped with what we need right now.”

“And I can build a fireplace. A big clay one, with a chimney.” Rhodia threw her arm apart to show just how big she meant. “And a wood cooking stove, made of brick. We can build it to fit the grates and things you need.”

“Which just leaves nails.” Milo grimaced and turned to Karra. “Did you get all the plowing done?”

“I think so. I did about a fifth more than we thought we needed so we’d have some margin for error.”

“Then I’m taking apart the plow and forging the metal into nails. Which should get us all beds and a few chairs, and what we need for the common area. But after that? We need to find metal. There are only so many tools I can take apart.”

“Don’t worry, Milo.” Arthur put his hand on the bird demon’s shoulder. “You’ll find it. Soon, I bet. Kout and Karra, can you help him? It sounds like that’s getting to be our top priority.”

The scavenger and the heavy laborer nodded.

“All right. Milo, you go make those nails. Rhodia, if you can make that fireplace, great. And I’ll get started on food for tonight. Tomorrow, let's eat dinner here. As a town.”

—

Everyone slept in their new houses that night. They still slept on a cold, hard floor but they were inside their new homes, which had everyone in a pretty good mood the next morning. Even Rhodia, who was winning the award for most-things-to-do with her bricks, glass panes, and fireplace project. And even Milo, who managed to scrounge up some hope overnight that he’d find metal and be able to get back to his own business.

Arthur cooked the biggest breakfast he could, relying on meat that Lith had brought in to give it a hearty kick. He would have liked to have eggs and milk, and eventually, he’d find a solution for both those problems. For now, he was doing the best he could with what he had, thankful that everyone cut him slack on the things he couldn’t change.

Slowly but surely, materials were building up. Rhodia built up a pile of bricks for the oven, which Arthur carefully built into the shape he needed, using a mix of clay and mud also sourced from the town's ceramics expert for mortar. Rhodia was working on her biggest kiln project yet, building what a series of giant sections of bowls to be joined in a way Arthur didn’t understand for what she said would be a huge fireplace. Davin had spent the morning cutting down trees which he then processed into suspiciously chair-leg and bed-slat shaped lumber, pushing the definitions of his class as far as the limits of the system would allow, cheating his way into a heap of almost-furniture.

And, helping in every aspect of the town’s construction, there was Karra. While Milo and Kout identified a few short-list entries for digging, she was running a long circuit, hauling materials for anyone who was producing them and being helpful in every way she could. Arthur was just starting to confront the idea that he’d eventually have to ask her to slow down a bit, but mentally filed it away for another day. She had only been with them for a few days, and might slow down herself. For the moment, she was offering and they needed the help.

Arthur himself was engaged in an important project with Lily, who had more or less taken the entire day off to help him build up the brick oven. As it stood, they had the oven rigged to take a grate and a spit, with more improvements to come later.

Of course, Arthur could have duplicated most of the oven’s effects with magical heating elements, but there were still some cases where wood just did the job better. For one, whenever he used the communal campfire, there was an actual feeling of community. Having everyone huddled together with the flames reflecting on their faces was a special experience.

If things went well, this oven would become an extension of that. It was a physical reminder that food and warmth was there for the town. And between the wood food oven, another small enclosure they planned for a baking oven, and the heating elements occupying the new stone counter built into his shop, making food for the group would be a much cleaner and faster process from now on.

“Oh, Karra’s gone. I wondered when Milo would get her working,” Lily said.

Arthur looked down at Lily as took a quick break.

“Yeah. She hasn’t been by for an hour, and the last time she left I saw her taking a shovel with her. I think she’s probably dug a surprisingly large trench by now.” Arthur’s small laugh to himself at the thought of her demolishing a mountain became a cough, one that he struggled to get over for several seconds. Lily looked up at him with mild alarm, held at bay only by an outstretched palm from Arthur. “Aargh. Ugh. Sorry. Sorry about that.”

“That cough sounds terrible, Arthur. Really bad. Are you sick?”

“I think it’s just allergies,” Arthur said. He had been both coughing and sneezing for the last several days, but he was still moving around fine with no fever that he could readily identify. “At least I don’t feel sick.”

“Allergies? Arthur, it’s cold. Nothing’s blooming. You are getting sick. You need to take a break, or something.”

“I’m fine, Lily, it’s just that…”

Arthur’s excuse-making was cut short as the surprisingly fast Karra burst into the plaza, nearly out of breath.

“Oh, Karra. Did you find metal?” Arthur paused as he noticed the mild distress on Karra’s face. “What’s wrong?”

“We found metal. And something else. It looks like we have a problem.”