“Hey,” Zoe said as she appeared in her home next to Emma in the kitchen.

“Hey, how’d it go with Joe?" Emma asked.

“He’s going to bring it up, but it’s a whole annoying process apparently. I’m going to have to wait to be vetted for the opportunity to come get vetted for the opportunity to come propose my theory for the opportunity to-” Zoe rambled.

Emma rose a hand. “I get it. So what are you gonna do then?”

“Well I’m gonna wait to be vetted for the opportunity to come get vetted-” Zoe started repeating with a growing grin on her face.

Emma rolled her eyes. “Shut up. How long’s it gonna take?"

“Well first I have to wait for the opportunity-” Zoe started.

“I swear to god, Zoe.” Emma laughed.

“I dunno. A year, maybe? Two at most I’d guess? Joe wasn’t super clear, depends on how interested people are. And then depends on if it’s even something that can be done. And then I have to wait for-” Zoe explained.

“Shut. Up. Oh my god. If you say you have to wait to be vetted again I am going to. I don’t know. Go pet the cats and ignore you, probably.” Emma said.

Zoe laughed. “Alright, alright. So anyway I’ll be here in town for a year and I thought it was a good chance to do some renovations here at home. Joe sort of introduced me to somebody who knows some light magic, so we might be able to get real light in here if I can learn from them.”

“Oh that would be nice, the little fire things work pretty well but it would be nice to have the option for something brighter if we can.” Emma said.

Zoe nodded and sat down at the table. “With that in mind, I think we need to decide what we want from the renovations. Obviously a bathroom. That was a terrible oversight when I first made this place.”

Emma sat down next to her, laughing. “Yes, yes it was. It’s not so bad since we can both teleport down to Joe’s in a flash, but it sure would be nice to be able to do our business here at home, like normal people. A cat room would be good too, I think. Somewhere with lots of different textures and toys and little places for them to explore. If we could do it first that would be ideal so they have somewhere to stay while we’re fixing up the rest of the place.”

Zoe summoned one of her notebooks and a couple pencils then drew a medium sized square on it, labelling it ‘cats.’

“Okay, so we start with a cat room. We can expand that way and make them a place to stay. We’ll build it first, then move the cats in, and then get to the rest. What else do you want? I really want a forge, personally. I’ve wanted one since I made this place and have just never actually gotten around to making one.” Zoe said, ripping off another page from her notebook and writing ‘toilet, forge’ down on it.

“I think that everything we have right now could be made a bit bigger. My bedroom could use a little more space for some storage. I’d like a closet a lot. The kitchen is pretty okay, but it needs a lot more counter space and also we need more floor space here for a larger table in case we have guests over. I know you never planned on that before, but well, things have changed since then.

“The library could be expanded, but I think it’s fine if we just build you a better enchanting room somewhere else then expand the library up into your current enchanting room.” Emma said.

“Okay, so what if we move the entrance from where it is now to somewhere between your room and the cats’ room. Then we could extend your room into where the kitchen is now, and move the kitchen over towards where the entrance is now. Both would get more space, but we’d have a smaller entrance.” Zoe said.

Emma waved a hand. “The only people that use the entrance are visitors anyway. Or you when you feel like walking once every decade.”

“Fair enough. Smaller entrance, larger kitchen and bedroom for you. We can also gut my bedroom then expand the library into it for some more space too. We could expand the library upstairs too, but I don’t like craning my neck to see the books up that high.” Zoe said.

“You can literally see everything around you, Zoe. You don’t need to crane your neck.” Emma said.

“But I like seeing them with my eyes sometimes, and I’d rather all the books be around my level personally. But it’s not that big a deal, really.” Zoe said.

“Yeah I mean I don’t mind either way anyway. I can’t see around me so having them at my height works better regardless.” Emma said.

“Okay, so toilet, cat room, new entrance, expand your room, the kitchen and the library, then add a new bedroom for me and a forge somewhere. Anything else? Oh, I do want a better workshop so I think we can make upstairs more of a general purpose office kind of space instead?" Zoe suggested.

“An office works. We could get some nice desks up there, some comfortable chairs. It’ll be nice. Hmm. Anything else we might need. Oh, we could definitely use a general purpose storage room. If you could enchant it to be an actual storage room then that would be even better.” Emma suggested.

“I could try. Technically I have access to a Storage skill but I’d have to give something up. Cosmic Armour, I guess? I don’t really use it, to be honest. I don’t use Cosmic Rift either but if I had to choose, Rift is more important to me. I already have Elemental Arsenal for armour, even though I’m not sure how they compare.” Zoe said.

Emma nodded. “If you’re not using Cosmic Armour then it might be worth it just so you can make some better enchantments.”

“Yeah, you’re right. It’s probably better, really. Plus with the scare of losing my storage items in the valley maybe I should have made the swap a long time ago.” Zoe said, pushing the system to replace her Cosmic Armour skill with the Storage skill.

“It’ll be a bit before you can make much storage in an enchantment though, right?" Emma asked.

“Probably.” Zoe agreed.

“Okay so then we can just ignore it for now, maybe once it’s higher level you can prepare some enchantments for the next renovation. For now lets just try and get a decent place to store gardening supplies and whatever other junk we might need.” Emma said.

“Alright, anything else you want?" Zoe asked.

“Yeah, I think that instead of just a toilet, it would be nice to have a whole bathroom. Sink and bathtub. Ooh, make it a really big bathtub, with showers. That could be nice.” Emma said.

“Will do,” Zoe said as she scribbled down some more squares on her notebook, drawing a rough outline of what their new home would look like. It was quite different from what they had, but different would be nice for a while, Zoe thought.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“And a living room. We have the library, but it would be nice to have somewhere that wasn’t the kitchen or the library to sit down in too. Maybe a nice little fireplace, a nice rug and some comfortable chairs. Something cozy.” Emma said.

“Okay. If we’re gonna have rugs then I wanna learn how to make rugs, which means that we’ll need another room for rug making. What’s that? Like weaving or something?” Zoe asked.

“Braiding?” Emma suggested.

“Maybe. I’ll ask around. We can just buy a rug for the time being though, but if we’re gonna have a rug here then I wanna eventually have made it myself. That’s kinda the whole thing with this place to begin with, was me being self sufficient.” Zoe said.

“And now you’re me sufficient.” Emma grinned.

“Something like that. And cat sufficient.” Zoe said.

Emma chuckled.

“Back home I know that people made tufted rugs. They had special fabrics they used with a larger weave or something? And then they had these machines that pushed bits of wool through the weave, and if you put enough through each weave then it made a soft rug, with fun designs on it. I guess I could do it without a machine though. It’s just pushing yarn through fabric. Yeah, maybe I’ll just try it out.” Zoe nodded.

“After you build the rest of the home. After.” Emma said.

“Right. After.” Zoe said.

“A spare room could be nice too, maybe.” Emma said. “Just in case we want to have some guests over.”

“Oh right, I joked about making a room for Joe while I was there too, but I think we should make him one. It’ll be funny. We could make it all tavern themed, too. It’d be cute.” Zoe said.

“It so would be. I’m down.” Emma agreed.

“Do we want a basement?" Zoe asked.

“Maybe? What would we put in it?” Emma asked.

“The forge. Wine? You ever make wine before?" Zoe asked.

Emma shook her head.

“I had a friend who used to make wine. It’s pretty simple, to my understanding. We could have a wine making place in the basement. Maybe we could put your storage room down there, too. And a prison. We should make a prison.” Zoe said.

“For who?" Emma asked? ”Fennel when he’s being a little asshole and bullying Oliver?“

“We can put Lauren in it when she comes to visit. I bet she’d think it’s funny.” Zoe said.

“She probably would, but no. We’re not making a prison.” Emma said.

“Aww.” Zoe whined.

“But storage and the forge works.” Emma agreed.

“Alright, so here’s what I’ve got so far then.” Zoe pushed her rudimentary drawing of their plan over in front of Emma.

“The cat room’s all alone over here?” Emma asked.

“I think so. We can make it really big, and see if we could make a place that the cats can have to themselves if we can find some enchantment that would let us do that.” Zoe said.

“Mmk, and where’s the entrance to the downstairs going to go?" Emma asked.

“Oh shoot, I didn’t even think of that. Uh, it can go in the entrance?” Zoe suggested.

“The entrance is too small like this to also have a staircase in it.” Emma said.

“Damn, yeah you’re right. Okay, hmm. Putting it in the library feels wrong. So we’ll need another room then with a staircase. We could get rid of the ladder in the library and have the staircase go both ways if we’re going to do that.” Zoe said.

“But where’s it going to go? Cause right now everything fits in perfectly here. Also are you sure you want the only way into your room to be teleportation? What if you’re in there and accidentally switch your Cosmic Mystic class?" Emma asked.

“I mean, I wouldn’t. But good point, something could happen I guess.” Zoe said.

“I guess it’s the same as your enchanting room back there anyway, but still. You’d be sleeping in it, something could go wrong.” Emma said.

“Okay, so we need a staircase and access to my bedroom. We could just bump everything over a bit so there’s a hallway between the cats’ room and the library. We could put the staircase in there, and the hallway could terminate in my bedroom and the living room.” Zoe suggested.

“That works for me. How do we want to do the entrance? Your little rock thing is nifty, but we’re hardly staying hidden anymore. And honestly, I don’t really care about trying to be hidden anyway.” Emma said.

“We could make a normal door, I guess. But I do like my enchantment so I’d prefer to keep it. Even if it doesn’t really serve a purpose anymore.” Zoe chuckled.

“Okay we can keep it but if we’re going to give people any more keys you need to make more convenient ones than these gems.” Emma said.

“Fair trade.” Zoe said. “I’ll work on something, then. Joe’s the only one who needs a key anyway I think so it’s not a rush.”

“But I’d like to give one to Peter and Lauren too just in case. Also I think we should get a normal door here between the foyer and the hallway just to make sure the cats don’t get out. It’s always a concern with Fennel whenever I need to let somebody in.” Emma said.

“Alright. That’s all doable.” Zoe clapped as she stood up. “Lets go get started on the cat room then, cause that’ll inform us on the scale of everything else, really.”

“Sure thing. I’ll come watch so I can try and get the earth skill off of you too, I guess.” Emma said.

“You should really get a class that lets you see mana first, though.” Zoe said.

“Oh phooey, I’ll just flounder through it like I did before. It worked once, it’ll work again.” Emma said.

Zoe rolled her eyes and teleported to the back wall of the cave, next to the library. Emma appeared a moment later.

“I’ll dig a little hole and we’ll teleport in, then I’ll fill it in and we can get to work without disturbing the cats, alright?" Zoe asked.

Emma nodded and Zoe got to work pushing her mana into the cave wall. First, she carved out a small hole for her to see through and then began funnelling earth through it and storing it away in her and Emma’s storage items until there was a sizable enough space for both of the women to stand in on the other side.

“Alright, lets build this room. Figure out how large you want it.” Zoe said as the two teleported into the rather cramped space on the other side of the wall.

“Well, definitely bigger than this for a start. I love you Zoe, but sometimes I need my space, you know?” Emma laughed.

Zoe rolled her eyes and started ripping away large chunks from the walls that Emma stored in her items to go dump somewhere beyond Zoe’s perception. In the fortified workshop, Zoe assumed.

In a handful of minutes, they had a large rectangular hole carved into the hill, about fifteen feet wide, ten feet tall and stretching about fifty feet into the hill.

“Okay, this might be a bit big for them, actually.” Emma laughed.

Zoe laughed. “This is including the space for the staircase too which will be about a third of it.”

“Ah okay that makes more sense then. Guess we’ve just gotta design the dream home for the kitties then.” Emma said.

“Yup.” Zoe agreed.