TODD

An inventory access was still in the suite close to the entrance. Todd thought the suite was the same configuration he saw years ago on his first exit. He mentioned it to Grandmother.

“I noticed that,” Grandmother replied. “It should have changed multiple times by now. Of course the configuration of the entrance hasn’t changed in all this time either. Perhaps this suite is tied to it?” It wasn’t a question for Todd to answer. They picked up the scrap and put all the debris into their inventories. Grandmother paged through her inventory for about ten minutes before finding a portable stove. The inventory access put on a little light show, before the stove appeared. Putting found tools into storage caused them some wear. Grandmother cast a restore on the item before handing it to Todd.

Todd accepted the stove from her thankfully. He tucked it into his pack with care. He felt completely unprepared for travel without his cooking tools. He knew it was silly, but it didn’t change his feelings. He was relieved to have the stove.

Grandmother patted him on the back as she led the way out of the suite and back into the halls. They ran up to their rest. The entrance to the rest appeared the same, except for the sound of water. The west wall was pushed back again. The third set of furniture was looking out across a collapse instead of at the old blank wall. Artistically placed I-beams and stone blocks tumbled down from above and from the north wall. Huge roots reached down through the pile of debris and disappeared into cracks in the floor below.

The floor was below where they stood. There was a small flight of four steps leading into the section. The area under the collapse bowed down even more, leaving a kind of bowl of standing water that if it got any deeper, would drain down the same cracks the roots had taken hold in. Looking up, Todd could see daylight above and feel the movement of air.

“I think it really opens to the outside,” Grandmother commented as she leaned in and looked up. She swung the pack from her back and set it down far enough back it wouldn’t get wet. She grabbed a hold of the lowest roots and began to climb. Todd was left scrambling. He dropped his own pack and with some regret set down his spear. He followed the older woman up. She moved as nimbly up the tree roots as her earthen squirrel climbed the pipes near the south gallery.

Todd was forced to rely more on strength than agility to pull himself up behind her. The passage up seemed longer than it should be. The window to the outside world was not that far away. It was also a tight fit for him. When finally dragged himself up though the last narrow passage, he found himself among the bulbous roots of a true beast of a tree. Looking up at the massive trunk, he could readily believe it was a thousand years old. Its enormous branches shaded out a large area of forest floor. The branches didn’t have leaves, instead they were covered by a kind of compact green scale.

“The window should be that way,” Grandmother said, from her perch a little higher up on the roots. She started stepping from root to root, heading in the direction she pointed. “Watch your step.”

Todd put one hand on his new knife and followed along. He was being careful to keep a watchful eye out, between checking where he set his feet. He didn’t want to end up falling back down into the rooms below after Grandmother’s warning.

The relatively flat area they came out in very quickly transitioned into a steep hill, dropping down to the east. Even on the peak of this slope they couldn’t see far because of the heavy forest. The heavy exposed roots made it difficult to walk in a straight line. Grandmother stopped and looked straight down. Todd was walking roughly parallel with her a little to the south. He slowed his pace down the hill when he saw her stop, and turned to work his way back closer to her.

“That must be it there,” she said, pointing down. Todd found a pie wedge cut out of the steep slope. He swung a little farther downslope, before jumping the last couple feet down the flat bottom of the wedge. The window was set into the side of the hill. It was set back about a foot from where Grandmother was standing looking down. The roots they could see dangling down from above were rootlets from the ancestor tree above.

“Yep, that’s it,” Todd said. The sides of the cut looked like they were through native stone. He dragged his foot through the organic debris on the floor of the cut to reveal a smooth stone surface. Its color matched the native stone sides. He walked over to the glass. He couldn’t decide if it was opaque from this side, or just really dirty. He tapped out the restore spell on it. His restore might not be as strong as Grandmother’s but it was strong enough to clean the glass. A phantom wind rose up, blowing everything loose off the surface. A thin layer of water scrubbed the surface afterward, dissolving stubborn clumps of dirt and roots that disappeared by sinking into the glass and surrounding stone. As the glass cleared, Todd spotted the standard push plate for a door.

“Here is your door,” Todd called to Grandmother. The older woman walked down the slope on the top of the northern retaining stone. She walked all the way down before stepping onto the flat section in front of the window. She saw where Todd scraped the dirt layer off the stone patio. She leaned down and cast restore on the stone revealed. Todd closed his eyes to save them from the flying dirt. The roots all pulled up from where they were hanging and braided themselves into a rope that decorated the top edge of the small overhang.

Grandmother pushed the door open and stepped inside. Todd followed her. The door closed behind them. A quick look at the inside surface proved that it now sported the complex latch that was found on all structure doors.

“Whenever that happens I always wish I felt the wall before to see if I could find the handle through the illusion,” Grandmother commented.

“Well your camera is fresh,” Todd observed. “Hopefully it filmed in this direction when we stepped in.”

“Maybe,” Grandmother responded. “Honestly the collapse captured my attention, I may only have recordings in that direction.”

“Speaking of the collapse,” Todd said, “I don’t remember that cluster of furniture debris over there.” On the other side of the collapse there were now four steps up, a hall width of empty space and a cluster of debris piles. Grandmother stalked through the space and up to the far wall. She flicked a couple light spells up onto the ceiling panel and proceeded to run her hands over the entire surface of the wall.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Todd left her to her self appointed task and went to look at the cooking area. The room was transformed. His portable stove grew into the full size version that was in the galleries. In addition the large bowl of water he left on a small separate table, was now a water source. The wall was constructed out of sandstone. A large basin was carved into the stone. He realized the basin was almost exactly the same size as the bowl he filled with water. He insisted they keep looking for an extra hour before he found it. Grandmother was willing enough but Todd knew it was his idea.

Todd held his open hand facing up over the basin and water began to seep and then flow out of the sandstone above falling to fill the basin. Todd tapped out the pattern to make the water hot. When it was flowing hot he switched to the pattern to make it cold. It was a thing of beauty. He moved to look at the rest of his carefully gathered equipment. What was once a mismatched set of pots, pans, bowls and tankards was now a matched set almost exactly like the equipment in an inn's kitchen. There was even a set of knives. Todd knew they had not found any knives in their last search. It appeared that he had crossed some kind of minimum and won the full set of equipment. There was a small brewing tank in one corner. Under the counter on the far side of the room there were three temperature boxes. The large central worktable was equipped with a heavy wooden top. The only thing missing was a vendor.

“You look happy,” Grandmother commented from the open doorway. “Is it worth the loss of your stove?”

“Yes it is,” Todd confirmed. “Did you find anything?” he asked.

“Of course not,” Grandmother responded. “It looks like a sofa, chair and two tables to me,” she commented. “The entire space is starting to look like a gallery. It has multiple furniture groupings, a central display and a food preparation area. Do you think we got the food preparation area because of the stove accident? Or do you think it took the stove because the food preparation area was already on the list?” Todd thought about that for a moment before replying.

“I think we got the room because of the stove. Just like I got that sink because of my bowl of water,” Todd replied. Grandmother walked over to inspect the sink.

“I was afraid of that,” she said to him. “I think the next thing we need to trigger is the sanitary facilities. I was trying to think up what could trigger that. Although your bowl of water trick might add the sinks or pools or both.”

“Could we go back to that overgrown facility we found and dig up a plant or take cuttings or something?” Todd asked.

“I don’t know,” Grandmother said. “Although that makes me think we should ask Harry's daughter Muriel how she would transplant a toilet.”

“I have a thought about plants,” Todd commented. “The plants in the galleries are just a random assortment out of a green. Some of them are edible, but none of them are anything we really like. If we are going to bring in potted plants, I’d like to bring spices and fruits.” Grandmother stepped back out of the kitchen and into the main room. She looked around.

“We have been ignoring the plants, haven’t we? There is also the storage shelves and the prize… inventory access,” Grandmother commented. “I wonder if we set up a loom or anvil if we would end up with a workshop?”

“There is no vendor either. I wonder if the inscription, the vendor and the inventory access are all more advanced quests?” Todd commented.

“We should ask the selkie if they know of a quest to get a vendor or inventory access. Maybe they would be more forthcoming if Companion did the talking.” Grandmother observed. “I think we need to be careful. If it follows the pattern of a gallery, we will only have seven furniture groupings all together. It took two groupings to get the food preparation room and fit it out. If we want to try to get any other rooms, we only have three more tries to get them, with one left at the end to decorate them,” Grandmother commented.

“What do you want to do?” Todd asked.

“For now, we will continue with the plan and head back to Home Square. I want to stop at the north gallery and make some notes. I don’t think I ever really looked at the pots the plants are in. Who knows what else I have missed,” Grandmother commented.

“I never paid that much attention to them either,” Todd responded. “I am not even certain how many plants are in each grouping.”

“We need to plan out what we want to try and start gathering supplies. You can see about collecting the plants you're interested in. Talk to Muriel about what she is using for containers. You can ask her about transplanting the toilet plants at the same time,” Grandmother commented.

“Will do,” Todd acknowledged. “But I am not calling them toilet plants.”

“When you find a better name, tell me.” Grandmother responded. “I would like to put together higher tier materials for the remaining furniture groupings. I’m interested in if that changes the results. I would like to get bronze or copper structure components. We can stick with wood for the seats but maybe glass or ceramic for the shelves and table tops. I will get together with Alex and see what we can gather.”

“If we are going to haul that much stuff back here through the halls, I’ll look into putting together some kind of transport. Alex has his cart, but I think we will need something bigger, or with a bigger capacity. I will talk to Sarah about what she can do with enchantments,” Todd offered.

“That’s a good idea,” Grandmother agreed. “I’ll also ask Ellen and see if she thinks she could upholster a sofa or chair on site if we brought in the fiber, leather or cloth. I will also work with her to put together as full a set of starting crafting tools as I can. I really like the idea of getting a work room of some kind.”

“Are you sure that is possible? The two galleries we have don’t have anything like that,” Todd observed.

“I am not certain, but it would be really nice. I’m thinking that the galleries we found are kind of the minimum set, food and waste disposal, at a higher tier. They are just enough to give you ideas. The way the inscription at the south gallery added the transportation room makes me think we could add other stuff.”

“When you say it that way, maybe we just need to piss in a corner to get a sanitary facility to spawn,” Todd commented.

“That seems a little crude, although we could try pissing in a bucket,” Grandmother responded. “In preindustrial times on Earth they made special buckets they called chamber pots they used in the night. I’ve seen them used in Chicago.”

“This food service room is close to a miniature kitchen in an inn. I wonder if we could get bedrooms added?” Todd hypothesized.

“Hmm…” Grandmother said. “Beds are rare, but you saw that one in my shop. Maybe we should sneak in there and smuggle it out. There was a bowl of round rocks in Alex’s shop. The rock looked a lot like the stones in Companion’s bed. I wonder if he has found a selkie bed?” Grandmother made an almost physical effort to stop her mind from wandering too far down that path. “When we get back, if Sarah is done making the books for Enchanter we’ll go to Seagrass and deliver them. We just have Chicago left on the tour. After that, we’ll come back here before we go to the Speedwell for maintenance.”

Todd agreed to the plan, but reminded Grandmother there was still the coliseum to figure out.

“At this point, I want to put that off until next season,” Grandmother admitted. Todd hoped that meant he was safe from her sneaking off to try it. Although he admitted, puzzles and construction always interested Grandmother more than fighting. She could fight with the best of them and would if it meant protecting those she was loyal to, but she didn’t kill things for no reason. The closer the bears got to looking like thinking creatures the less she wanted to attack. The group spent hours under camouflage waiting for the bears to leave an area.

At the same time Todd held no doubts that if the first selkie they came across spotted them and made aggressive moves, Grandmother would have killed them. Todd didn’t want to think about what would happen if Londontown came against them.