TODD

It was another twenty minutes before Sarah and Companion came hustling up.

“The blacksmith got a good look at Companion’s breastplate and realized it wasn’t steel. I told him it was part of the spoils from fighting bears far to the south. He started telling us some wild story about glass,” Sarah said to explain their absence.

“Glass?” Grandmother said questioningly. She looked thoughtful.

“Yeah,” Sarah said. “His uncle’s spouse’s sister went to the far north and returned with a set of glass gloves or shoes or something. His mother and him were in disagreement about the exact item.”

“Glass slippers are in an old earth fairy tale. I bet it was gloves, probably gauntlets. Companion, what did you think of the blacksmith’s story?” Grandmother asked the selkie.

“He talked too fast,” Companion replied.

“Alex, can you ask Companion if he has heard of glass armor?” Grandmother asked.

“I’ve heard of it,” Companion replied quickly after Alex translated the question. Todd got the impression the selkie did not have any trouble understanding Grandmother’s simplified question. “Glass is better than light metal or copper. It is very hard to find.” Light metal was how Companion described the aluminum of his breastplate.

“A long time ago I picked up some glass scrap,” Grandmother admitted. “I never found a use for it. I wonder if it is still in my inventory.”

“Did you find it in the north?” Sarah asked.

“No, it was in the upper rooms around an open green,” Grandmother responded. “It looked like a chunk of the structure glass that broke from a wall.”

“Structure glass would explain its strength,” Ellen commented.

“Are we going to the inn?” Alex asked.

“Yes,” Companion chimed in. “We can taste the beer, while friend Alex tells us of the Elder's mother.”

“Didn’t you want to show Sarah the shop?” Todd asked before Alex and Companion could get away.

“The shop?” Sarah asked. Grandmother turned to look at the darkened edifice. She reached out and pushed the door open. The door opened smoothly under the hand of its owner. As Grandmother stepped inside the lights came on. Todd wasn’t certain if it was automatic or if Grandmother used a spell. The rest of the party followed her. Todd brought up the rear, exactly as if they were entering wild space.

The space inside the door was filled with furniture. Todd wasn’t certain what he expected, but this wasn’t it. There were tables, chairs, both soft and hard, benches and even a bed. Scattered on the tables and shelves were other small items found in wildspace that people found useful. The space was narrow at the front, but then widened out about halfway back from the storefront.

The shop was really deep. Todd mentally paced the distance back. It was twice the depth of any other shop he could remember. He stepped forward into the back section, scouting for any danger. There were even more pieces of furniture back there. There were shelves and bookcases, desks and trunks. A door to the side led to a small restroom. Todd could see why Grandmother called it that. Although it was the same organic technology as the sanitation facilities, it contained only a single plant and no ground pools. There was a sink hollow built into one wall.

“This is your shop!” Sarah said excitedly. “You told me you didn’t have it anymore.”

“That may have been a bit of a misstatement,” Grandmother responded. “I haven’t run it in a long time. I am surprised the stock is still here. I expected it would have decayed by now.”

“It reaches back really far,” Todd commented.

“I didn’t have any need for the workshop, so I removed the wall,” Grandmother responded. “The interface allows you to make changes.” She said to Sarah, “You can put the wall back or maybe divide the space with a counter. That way you could keep the spell books in sight, but out of reach. Looking around, Todd spotted a small counter that protruded from the left wall near the front of the shop. He missed it amongst all the furniture. This counter would contain the pay surface and likely the shop interface. The only time Todd visited a shop was to buy something from it. He came from a family of warriors and upper floor cooks. He knew very little about how a shop worked.

Ellen was running her hands across the surface of a wooden table. There were pieces in here made out of metal, wood or a combination of both. Some of the chairs were upholstered in shades of brown, while one chair was hunter’s green. There was a set of shelves in the back that was made of copper and glass. Todd didn’t think he’d ever seen anything like it before, even in the south. They were around the corner from where Ellen was standing, so she hadn’t seen them yet.

“There are some beautiful pieces in here,” Ellen commented. “Who crafted them?”

“These are all found pieces,” Grandmother responded. “They come from the local area. I did learn a few tricks to help with transport, but it is just too hard to move large items very far. I paid a few crafters to do repairs. It took me forever to convince a tailor to try and reupholster that chair,” she said pointing at the green chair Todd noticed earlier. “I was disappointed when no one wanted it.”

“Why did you close the shop?” Alex asked, from where he was laying on the bed. Companion was standing next to it poking it with a flipper-hand. On the Speedwell Companion slept in a shallow box filled with river rock. When the selkie rented an inn room in the structure the provided bed was something similar.

“Furniture lasts a long time,” Grandmother said. “I think I sold the early pieces for too little. I set it up so the clerk got a percentage of the sales for their pay. There was a glut of furniture in the square and people stopped buying. Without sales I couldn’t get anyone to run the shop for me. It was easier just to shut it down.”

“When did you run it?” Todd asked. He didn’t remember a furniture shop in Londontown in his childhood. As he thought about it he couldn’t recall what was in this space at all. He supposed the empty space never caught his younger self’s attention.

“I set this up when Agatha died. I realized I could buy the space. I was about your age at the time, maybe a little older,” Grandmother responded to Todd, “so probably thirty years ago or so.”

That was before any of the rest of them were born, except maybe Companion. Todd didn’t know how old the selkie was. Todd suspected Companion didn’t know either. It meant Grandmother was in her sixties now. That solid number really frightened Todd. He knew she was old. They called her Grandmother for a reason. She was a big part of their lives, not just the party members, but lives of their entire Home Square. He couldn’t conceive of what they would do if she died.

The flight crew almost all passed away in their eighties. A few made it to their nineties. Todd thought the mad queen herself lived into her early hundreds. Todd wondered if Control kept her alive longer because she was good for the Narrative. If that was so, maybe Control would keep Grandmother alive longer too. He remembered Grandmother’s words about being afraid of what Control was turning her into. He couldn’t believe that anyone would want to grow old and die, but what if the price of longevity was becoming the next mad queen?

“I can understand if you want to set up a shop in Home Square,” Grandmother told Sarah. “I just wanted you to know this was here.”

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“My ego likes the idea of having a shop in Londontown,” Sarah told Grandmother. “Everyone knows it is the oldest square. At the same time I am a little intimidated. I think maybe I need to work out the kinks in Home Square before I set up here.” She turned her attention to her sister Ellen. “There are still empty shops at home, aren’t there?” she asked.

“Last time I checked,” Ellen replied. She reluctantly left the wood table and moved farther in to inspect a wooden chest. Storage pieces were really rare. This simple wooden chest was bound in black iron straps. Ellen blew a fine layer of dust off the top before opening it to reveal a set of drop in trays.

Grandmother frowned. She leaned down and tapped out her clean spell on the floor. A swirl of dust rushed past them to vanish under the door. Everything in the room sharpened. That wouldn’t have happened if any of the rest of them cast the spell. Todd thought that the rejuvenation effect of Grandmother’s clean was the result of her tier six status overpowering the spell. The same thing could happen if she stood in one place too long.

“The beer is not tasting itself,” Companion commented. Or at least that is what Todd thought he said, it seemed an odd turn of phrase and Todd wasn’t certain he translated it correctly.

“We need to be careful in the inn,” Grandmother said in a serious tone. “It has been many years since I was welcome there.”

“Were you ever welcome?” Todd heard himself ask. He wanted to take the words back as soon as he said them.

“Yes, I was,” Grandmother told him. “That was even more dangerous.”

“Is that glass?” Ellen exclaimed. Companion said something about beer escaping. Alex replied with something about bravery and endurance.

“The uprights are copper,” Sarah commented excitedly. The two crafters found the shelves around the corner.

“You found these?” Ellen questioned again.

“Yes,” Grandmother responded. “They spawned in a room not far from here. They are modular. I got them a piece at a time and reassembled them here. If you want them we can try taking them back apart. The shelves alone might be too large to carry through the transportation door.”

“You assembled them from pieces?” Ellen asked in a surprised tone.

“Yes,” Grandmother responded, her tone of voice was that she was confused by Ellen’s surprise. Usually this meant Grandmother knew something none of the rest of them had ever heard of, but she thought everyone already knew. This was the moment to ask questions. Todd reviewed the exact wording of what she just said.

“What do you mean by ‘spawned’?” Todd asked.

“It was part of the Furniture of the room, so it was replaced in the reset,” Grandmother said with a frown. Todd could hear the capital letter in the word furniture. She was not talking about just chairs.

“What reset?” Ellen asked, as she too realized Grandmother was describing some fundamental property she didn’t know. Grandmother looked thoughtful for a moment. She went over to the green chair and sat down.

“I guess we haven’t farmed a small area very much,” Grandmother said. “The closest we have come is that area around the southern gallery. We only did that for a few days. You know how rooms return to how you found them if you leave them alone long enough? That is what I am calling the reset,” she asked.

“No,” Alex said, lifting his head off the bed, as the conversation finally caught his interest. “Do they?”

“Yes, they do,” Grandmother explained. “Different item types return at different rates. Ignoring tools, the rooms will reset to exactly how you found them in six to thirty six days.”

“Are you talking about the animals returning?” Alex asked.

“The animals are a little different too. They aren’t an exact assignment. They are distributed more inline with a random number generator picking from a possible set. Even the replacement time is a little random, from minutes to hours or even days sometimes,” Grandmother said thoughtfully.

“What are the different item types?” Sarah prompted. She was sitting at the desk, with her spell diary out and a stylus in hand. Todd was glad to see her pose. Her notes on this subject might prove valuable in the future.

“There is base Furniture, which is everything that doesn’t convert to scrap when you put it on a prize altar. There is debris, which does convert to scrap. Then we have scrap and items.”

“Items?” Sarah prompted.

“Tools,” Grandmother expanded on the concept, “both minor and major, crafting and utility.”

“What is a utility tool?” Todd asked.

“What else would you call a portable stove?” Grandmother asked. “As far as we know there are no crafting options for it, but it is very useful for cooking. I have seen a couple items along the way I thought might be utility tools, but they may have been actual crafting tools I was unfamiliar with.”

“I should make a list of known crafting tools,” Sarah said suddenly.

“I can work on that,” Ellen responded.

“So if I pick up all the scrap in a room it will reappear in time?” Todd asked, not wanting them to get too far off the current subject.

“Yes, eventually,” Grandmother said. “The base Furniture reappears first, in six days. So if you find a chair,” Grandmother pointed at the brown chair set against the right wall, “and carry it away, if you go back to the same room in six days an exact copy of that chair will be back. You can take that one too.” Grandmother turned to point at a brown chair sitting to her right.

Todd went over and picked up the chair by the wall, he moved it to sit side by side with the one to Grandmother’s right. They were identical. He eyed the green chair she was sitting on; it appeared to be a different style. He noticed that the integrated cloth that covered it was starting to discolor from Grandmother’s presence. She hated it when furniture did that. He was curious as to what the result would be, so he didn’t mention it. Since a crafter had upholstered the chair with integrated cloth, would it just discolor purple like Grandmother's cloth armor did when she wore it? Or would it end up with a tapestry scene with spell hints in it, like what happened when she sat on furniture in a rest or gallery?

“As soon as you move Furniture from its original position it starts to degrade. In the early days everyone used bits and pieces to put together useful items. The ends are made to fit together. We built things like stretching frames, work tables or grills. Out in wild space you need to look at the item at least once a day to give it any kind of reasonable working life. Touching it works better. Even the most well maintained solid pieces will break easily in a year or so.

“I expected the same kind of lifespan inside the square. That is why my prices were too low. It turned out they last much longer in protected space. In fact these pieces here have lasted longer than anything I have ever seen. I have to assume it is because they are listed in the inventory of a shop.

“So Furniture respawns in six days, what about the other item types?” Sarah asked.

“Debris turns up in twelve to eighteen days, if you haven’t visited in between. Scrap in twenty four to thirty six days. Tools are a little like animals. If you found a tool in a room, there will be another tool in that room or a room near it thirty six days later, but it may or may not be the same tool. If it is a different tool it is usually one from the same crafting tree. So if you found a spindle in a room, thirty six days later there may be a pair of shears there, or a set of pins. Also, tool replacement can happen faster and usually does with the smaller pieces. If you found a loom, then as little as six days later you might find a spool.”

“What do you mean by a room near it?” Alex asked.

“Items seem to have a spawn region. I think of it like there is a circle on the map that encompasses roughly four to eight rooms. There are multiple places inside the set of rooms where a tool might appear, like on a shelf or under a chair. When the current tool is removed a new tool is selected from the potential set. If the tool is small, six days later it is randomly placed in one of those spawn points. If the chosen tool is a larger, more complex one, the wait is longer. Thirty six days later, as long as no one visited in between, a tool will be there somewhere in the circle,” Grandmother explained.

“Things like bowls and tankards are items. You can put them in your inventory, but they respawn like Furniture,” Grandmother added.

“What happens if someone visits in between?” Todd inquired.

“Best guess, the count starts over. Honestly it gets hard to test at the longer time periods,” Grandmother replied.

“You tested all this?” Ellen asked, surprise in her voice.

“Oh yes,” Grandmother replied. “I did it all nearer the entrance and would go back to the Speedwell in between sweeps. I spent a couple years doing it. Where do you think I got all that scrap in my inventory?”

“I guess I didn’t think about it,” Ellen confessed.

Todd didn’t think about it either. If he did he might have assumed it was just because she was old. Maybe he subconsciously thought that he too would end up with a large inventory when he reached her age. At the same time he didn’t have much in his inventory now. He tended to cash it all in for coins whenever they reached a settlement. He used the coin to replace or repair equipment, buy food and pay rent. If Grandmother kept going back to the Speedwell she wouldn’t have needed structure coins for food or rent. Most of her gear wasn’t integrated. A lot of it came from the Speedwell as well. When they first met, she crafted herself a new set of leathers from the hide of a boar she killed herself. She did that many times in the years since.

“The rooms change over time,” Grandmother commented. “Just when you find a great source for some item the section will get remodeled into a new set of rooms. Eventually the safe rest I was operating out of disappeared. I decided it was a hint to go do something else,” Grandmother concluded.