Jennifer looked at her companions. Kevin’s fur made him look bigger. Woozle found a spot he liked on the table and laid down. This was not the kind of place Jennifer liked to be in. It seemed like a cross between a bar shown in old westerns and the kind where health inspectors left with fatter wallets. The juice was good though.
The group did not wait long before the blond guy showed up at their table along with a donkey that had a squid on its head. “So, what services can Hammer and Squid provide for you today?” The blonde spoke in a fake, upbeat customer service voice.
Woozle raised his head and looked at the two. “How many points have you put into the carpenter class?”
The blond man poked his elbow into the donkey. “See, I told you taking that class would get me places.”
Jennifer closed her eyes, parted her mouth slightly, and moved her lips to make a ‘what’ sound silently. She opened her eyes when she noticed the donkey had six legs and was wearing a pink collar.
She was still staring at the donkey with the squid on its head when the blond went into his sales pitch. “I can build you anything from a chair to a sailing ship or—”
“Can you build a house?” The question that came from Woozle cut off the sales pitch and got them to the point.
The blond man again nudged the donkey, and the squid rolled its eyes as a projected image appeared on the table. The projection was blue with white lines.
“Is that a blueprint for a house?” Jennifer asked in astonishment. Looking back up to the squid, she noticed a wizard’s staff in one of the squid’s arms. The staff, with its large pearl on the end, was glowing blue.
The blond replied, “Yes, this is the basic house design. One floor, two bedrooms, large living space connected to the kitchen area, as well as a bathroom, and laundry room. If you invite us to be a member of your party, we can see what bonuses you have that can add to this.”
Jennifer sent the mental command to add party members.
“Tenchno-Necromancer-Alchemist and a Great Forest Wolf. Odd matching. A few pets. Humm. As a necromancer, your bonus seems to be able to switch basic stones and bone stones. And as a tech base, you can have a seventy percent reduction in power needs. None of the other classes add to the building, but the forest will double the bonus from gathering wood.”
Jennifer blinked. She had forgotten Kevin had been with her when she added the quest, but she was the only one to turn in the quest. She did not mean to share the quest with him. Of course, Kevin was always welcome at her place, but the house was just for her. She turned to Kevin, not knowing how to mime any of this. But Kevin was not paying attention to her anyway. He had his head tilted, looking at the blueprint projection.
“Umm, the house is just for me, but maybe we can add a doghouse later?”
“Of course, of course. So do you want us to go with this design or do you have something in mind?”
Jennifer looked into the blond’s eyes as a smile crossed her face. Her eyes narrowed.
Giant Intimidation partly successful. Target’s current actions have been interrupted.
Jennifer asked, “Do you have a pen I could use?”
Once the hammer wielder was in her party, she could interact with the blueprint, just not well. Her lines were not straight, the curves were not uniform, and the corners were not at ninety degrees. The aerial view of the building looked like the letter U reaching with the bottom of the u facing the back of the property. Outside, between the ends of the U would be a garden.
Jennifer explained that the arm on the right was the entry hallway. Her house needed an inner and outer door so people could only come in one at a time. The entryway opened out into the living area. To the visitor’s left would be the exit hallway, having the same inner and outer door as the entry and allowing only one person out at a time.
The living area, with floor to ceiling glass windows, looked out onto the garden and the town square. Behind the living area was the kitchen. Beside the kitchen, was storage and stairs going up and down. Upstairs would be the living area with a bed and bath. The bathroom needed to be extra-large in order to have a bathtub large enough for a half giant. The large basement would be unfinished, but she decided that laundry machines would be going down there along with her alchemy. She also wanted to have wall mounted sconce lights on the sides. After being in the dark inn she wanted the place to have lights.
With Kevin in the party, he added a room for himself.
Looking at the wolf. She wanted a place, but after not having a place, she decided she wanted a home with an open door. So, her friends, allies, or people she met would also have a safe place to stay. She decided to label the room as a guest bedroom and added two more rooms to the second floor. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath. She would need to work out how much rent would be if people needed to stay a while. She felt conflicted. Kevin had been with her the most out of any of her party members, but what happened if he decided to leave? What if she decided to leave? She wanted to be close to her friends, but would they want to be close to her?
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Kevin changed the name of the guest room to Kevin's Room. Was he asking to stay with her, or was he demanding to stay with her? She looked over at the fanged beast. He would need a place to stay. By adding his name, he wanted to stay with her at the least. She had a plan, but what if she needed to stay in the dorms during the week and could only come back on the weekends?
As she was considering the situation, the wall between Kevin’s room and Jennifer’s was removed. The room was labeled Kevin and His Human.
She did not mean to do it, but she growled.
The great wolf did a quick lip lick, and the room’s name changed to Jennifer and Kevin.
She added the wall back in. She still did not know what was going to happen, but in the end, Kevin wanted to stay, and she wanted him to stay too.
At first, the blond man looked confused but said he would add bathrooms on the first and second floors.
Jennifer looked over the plan for her house and smiled. It was going to be a wonderful home for her and allowed her to have an open door policy if her friends wanted a place to stay. It would serve her purposes.
“So how much will it be?” Jennifer dreaded asking the question. The economics of this world made no sense to her, but she had earned a lot of money from the paper raid. She just hoped it would be enough.
“Seven hundred wood, five hundred stone, or one hundred fifty wood and one thousand five hundred stone. We will also need eighty metals, fifteen glass, five coral, and fifteen clay. It will have standard energy and water hook up from the city. City rules are standard for the building so fifteen yellows, and two thousand five hundred yellows added for the work and making sense of this. But we’re only staying in town for the next three days, mostly doing repair quests and local ones before moving on. The fragments coming in have a lot of repairs that need done, and it’s good XP for us.”
Blinking to reign in her running thoughts, the first being that the cost was a lot less than she was expecting. Even after adding on the ten percent the table was going to get from the deal, the plan sounded too easy to be true. Then she remembered she would need to get the materials in less than three days.
What were her priorities?
Her mind flashed with barely connected thoughts. In order to help Woozle, she was going to need more skeletons in her inventory. She did not like her necromancer abilities, but the set was powerful. Remembering when they killed Kevin, she laid flowers and thanked the wolf for the first of the fur, meat and bones. She was hungry and she would need to get food soon. She believed the wolf to be a beast and not a person. It was not like she could just walk up to the grave and speak to the dead.
There was so much more to do, and it was tiring. With a dry mouth, she reached for her drink. As she picked up the cup, she paused. What was stopping her from going to a grave and speaking to the spirits? There was no harm in asking a question. A no was a no;[AP1] a yes was a yes. And if they made her do a quest, at least it would be better than digging up the bones.
“How do I speak with the dead?” she asked absentmindedly.
The donkey spoke in a well-mannered voice, with clear pronunciation and near musical tone. “Historically, mediums have used coins—normally silver—to help communicate with the dead. Each flip of the coin is assigned an answer with more coins leading to a higher accuracy in communication. Birds, like crows and ravens, have also been known to send messages from the living to the dead.”
“I’ve seen crows,” said Jennifer. “They’re blue here and already doing the messenger thing.” She mimicked the movement of flipping a coin. “But for coins, I don’t know. I wouldn’t trust a coin flip.”
“Psychopomps like angels, willow wisps, owls - Hmm. I hadn’t thought about this, but a lot of winged creatures seem to work well for speaking with the dead. The game normally operates on near functionality of our myths and legends. If this was the real world, how would you attempt to speak with the dead? Maybe put in a request with a mod?” He was well spoken, and considering that he was a donkey with a squid on his head, his mannerisms were even more impressive.
“Umm,” she said, as her mind kept turning. Multiple worlds here. Coupling that with the fact that she was missing much of her memories from her old life, his statement only confused her. Nothing in her mind to speak with the dead, beyond becoming dead herself was possible, except that was out of the question. She had too much to do. Put simply, she was too busy to die.
“Are there graves here?” She had not thought about it, but there had to be a place where the dead go. Not to mention leaving loot behind. There had to be more to it.
Again, the donkey spoke. “There’s Hogan’s Field, an enemy mob called the Grave Digger’s Union, and lots of gravestones.” The hesitation in the donkey’s voice could not be missed as he added, “We’ve not been given a quest line to go there yet, but there are some interesting rumors about the area.”
“Can you give me the location? Do you want to come with Kevin and I?” Jennifer could feel the excitement in her voice. She thought if they were unionized, there had to be someone to speak to.
The blond man, the donkey, and the squid all exchanged looks before turning to Jennifer and saying in unison, “No.”
“Well, what about the location?”
The squid and donkey shrugged, and a squid icon appeared on Jennifer’s mini map. The location was far south of the town.
Jennifer was unsure if their party was two or three people, so she simply thanked them as a group.
Once outside, she waved at one of the many blue birds flying around. One alighted on a nearby branch. Jennifer spoke clearly to the bird as she had seen others do. “Message from Just Jennifer to Sarah No Val and Large Soup Bowl 14. Going to speak to a union. Want to come?” With that, the small blue bird flew off.
The group took some time to gather. Mostly because Soup Bowl needed to finish his homework before joining the group. Jennifer did not have many memories of doing homework but remembered that it took a lot of time. As soon as he arrived, they all headed down the road.
“Where we go? Why we go? What loot?” Soup Bowl’s words sounded more robotic than usual.