“Why don’t you just use your wood skill to build it all in place?" Emma asked as she pulled the enchanted metal saw through one of the logs set up on Zoe’s makeshift mill.

“The wood doesn’t look as nice.” Zoe answered.

“Why don’t you just make it look nicer?” Emma asked.

“Ehh. I guess I could. I didn’t think it was possible, before. But it should be, with what I know now. I still think there’s a benefit to doing it all manually though.” Zoe said.

“Like what?" Emma asked.

“I think it’s more satisfying to do it all by hand. Mostly by hand. We’ll still use some magic to make sure things fit in well but it’ll mostly be by hand, and then we’ll get to live in it. So much care goes into every single plank we put in, every little rock or piece of carpet will be so meaningful. We’ll be living here for, I dunno. Another twenty plus years before we need to renovate again probably. Maybe even more. I think it’s nice to appreciate everything that goes into it, personally.” Zoe said.

“You’re gonna be off exploring the dungeon and learning new skills though. I’m the one who’s going to have to cut all of this crap to size.” Emma shook her head.

“Well, yes. Sort of. But I’ll have to enchant all of them with everything we need, to make sure we don’t suffocate or overheat or whatever. Maybe I’ll try and make better enchantments with what I know now for thermal control, too. That could be nice. We could have heaters in our rooms. Full on HVAC units!” Zoe laughed.

“I don’t know what that is, Zoe.” Emma said.

“I don’t either, to be completely honest. I think it stands for heating, vacuum and air conditioning? Actually I have no idea what the ‘v’ stands for. Ventilation, maybe? That makes more sense. I dunno.” Zoe shrugged.

“Well whatever it is, heating would be nice. And some heated areas in the cats’ room would be really awesome for them too. It gets pretty cold in the winter.” Emma said.

Zoe nodded and put the last large slab cut from the last log off on the pile of other misshapen slabs. Many of the boards they cut had chipped or splintered as they cut through the logs, so Zoe ended up having to make another platform for damaged boards. They’d still be useful for furniture or if they ended up needing shorter boards that could be cut from the still healthy portions of the wood, but didn’t quite fit in with the rest.

Altogether, they had two quite large piles of very long planks, and two smaller piles of much less useful wood. At worst, it would still be firewood, not that anybody in Foizo had much need for natural fires with Flester’s Might providing anybody who wanted it with the Fire skill, Zoe supposed. But a natural fire still had such a beautiful smell to it, Zoe found. And smoking food with magical fire? Zoe wasn’t even sure that was possible.

Maybe there was a smoke skill. Would you be able to change the smoke created by it to make different flavoured smokes? A portable smoke house in your pocket. Your spatially enhanced pocket, anyway.

“So what next? We get to measuring stuff and cutting the planks to size?” Emma asked.

“Yeah, we could do that. Or we could go shopping. There are still a few more things we’re going to need before we’re done with the renovations anyway so while we’re together it could be fun to go on a bit of a shopping spree.” Zoe suggested.

“Sounds like a lot more fun than cutting more wood. I’m down. What do we need?” Emma asked.

“Well, a couple of things. Possibly more that we’re not even remembering. Most important is carpet, though. You want carpet down in the cats’ room right? Anywhere else?” Zoe asked.

“Hmmm. Carpet could be nice in my room, I think. And maybe the library and living room, too?" Emma suggested.

“Sure. Same carpet, or different carpet?" Zoe asked.

“I dunno, what kinds are there?” Emma asked.

“Y’know what? Lets just go find somewhere that sells carpet.” Zoe said.

Emma laughed, and the two wandered into town in search of a carpet store. It didn’t take long before they found themselves outside of Ingleki, a store that either seemed to specialize in carpets or was a museum dedicated to carpets.

They walked in to the racks on racks of small bolts of carpet lining the walls and tables set up throughout the building. An older man was sitting on a wooden rocking chair near the back corner and nodded when they entered.

Zoe waved, and the man groaned as he stood up off his chair, wobbling from the poor rocking chair support as he pushed off.

“Hello dearies,” the man said with a somewhat strained voice.

“Hi!" Zoe responded. ”We’re looking to buy some carpet for some renovations.“

“Oh my, well you’ve certainly come to the right place.” The man hobbled over towards Zoe and Emma with short quick steps, dragging his feet along the carpeted floor. “What can I help you with, dears?"

“We don’t really know what we want.” Emma said.

“Oh ho ho, well I’ll be glad to help you figure that out. What will the carpet be used for?" The man asked.

“We’re planning on carpet for four rooms. We’ve got a cat room, my bedroom, a library and a living room. Though I’m not super sure if I want carpet in the living room or not, we might just want a nice rug.” Emma answered.

“Well, for your cat room I simply must recommend a cut pile. Loop piles are wonderful, but I fear your cats would get their claws stuck in the carpet. Though I would recommend loop piles for some sections on the walls, or if you have any scratching posts. But for the floor, I think they’ll be more comfortable with a cut pile, though it is a little pricier.” The man said.

“That’s fine, do you have examples of cut versus loop pile?" Zoe asked.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Why yes! Please, come with me.” The man hobbled his way through the maze of tables over to a small mound of carpet. He pulled out a couple squares and handed them to Zoe and Emma.

“The one you have,” he pointed to Zoe. “Is cut pile. And the one you have, missy, is loop pile. They’re quite different.”

Zoe looked at the two squares of carpet. The one that Zoe had felt much more premium, with pleasant feeling tips of frayed wool. The one that Emma had was much tighter, with loops of wool winding in and out of the backing material’s weave.

“The loop pile is wonderful for anywhere that is high traffic — hallways and such, but if your cats are going to be relaxing on it, I think they’ll enjoy not having their claws getting stuck in the floor.” The man explained.

“Okay, I think that cut pile will be good for my bedroom, the library and the cats room. And maybe we just get a nice rug for the living room?" Emma suggested.

“Sounds fine to me.” Zoe agreed.

“Wonderful, what colours will you be needing, then?” The man asked.

“Black would be fun for the cats room.” Emma said. “Fennel would just disappear when he laid down.” She giggled.

“Black would be fine.” Zoe agreed.

“I think gray for the library, maybe?" Emma suggested.

“Or we could do a dark red?" Zoe suggested.

“Ooh! I like dark red, yeah. And then in my room I want white.” Emma said.

“Lovely!” The man smiled. “So black, red and white then? How much will you be needing of each?"

“Hmm. Well the cat room is going to be about fifteen by about thirty five feet. Library is quite a bit larger than that, and Emma’s room is about the same size I believe. How do you do quantity for carpet?” Zoe asked.

“By the square foot. You’ll get a roll of carpet that is about six feet wide by however long you need, and then you would cut it to size and glue it into place.” The man explained.

“Right, do you sell the glue we’ll need?" Emma asked.

“I do!” The man smiled.

“Okay, so how long do we need for the cat room. We’ve got about five hundred square feet so maybe a hundred foot long roll of carpet for the black. We’ll go for two hundred of the dark red and one fifty for the white?” Zoe asked Emma.

“That sounds good enough to me. We can always come back for more if we need it, or find some other use for it if we have too much.” Emma said.

The man raised his hand to get the girls’ attention. “You’re more than welcome to come back for more, but I must warn you, we can’t colour match. We can make a whole roll of carpet to a specific colour, but if you come back in another month or two and want more, it won’t be the exact same colour.”

“Okay, so we can’t come back and get more then. How much for what we already said? A hundred feet of black, a hundred fifty of white and two hundred of dark red?" Emma asked.

“Hmm.” The man rubbed his chin. “We charge ten silver per square foot of cut pile carpet. So you’d be buying,” the man waved his finger and head back and forth as he thought. “Two thousand seven hundred square feet of carpet. Which would be twenty seven thousand silver, or two hundred seventy gold.”

Emma whistled. “Wow, that’s a lot more than I expected it to be.”

The man nodded. “I’m afraid cut pile is rather expensive. Producing it takes time and expertise. Loop pile is half the price, but as I said I’m not sure it would be better than wood floors for your cat room, at least. I must say though, this is a bad example of loop pile. When it’s on your floors and has been walked on, it does soften up quite a bit. I could recommend loop pile for your bedroom and library, if that makes it better.”

“What do you think?" Emma asked Zoe.

Zoe shrugged. “Cost doesn’t really matter. What do you want?"

“Hmm. Do you have any loop pile carpets that have been worn? I’d like to see what they feel like after a while.” Emma asked.

“Yes, of course. Come with me, we have loop pile in our back room.” The man hobbled his way to a door at the back and led them into a small workshop with a large table and a massive pit off to the side filled with what seemed to be clean water. The floor was covered in the same looking loop pile carpet which was itself covered in different colour stains from dyes that had fallen or dripped onto the floor over the years.

Zoe and Emma took off their shoes and walked around on the carpet for a moment. Rather than the tightly wound loops from the previous, this felt much softer and plush. Many of the wool fibers had loosened and had enough give to feel soft and comfortable, but were still firm enough to keep Zoe’s feet from sinking down and feeling the cold floor below the carpet.

Emma looked at Zoe and nodded. “I like this a lot. I think we should have this in my room and the library.”

“Okay. So double the quantities of everything, but we’ll take cut pile for the black carpet and loop pile for the red and white, if that’s alright?” Zoe asked.

“Of course, I’ll get to preparing that for you right away. For such a larger order, we’ll have it ready for you in oh, three weeks time? If that’s alright with you?" The man asked.

Zoe nodded. “That’s fine. We pay now?"

“Yes,” the man nodded and rubbed his chin as he worked through their sum. Zoe could have sworn she heard his neck creak as he did. “That would come to three hundred and thirty gold, and I’m afraid I do need full payment up front before I get started spending time and materials on your order.”

“You have a storage item?" Zoe asked.

The man nodded and held out his hand. Zoe grabbed it and pushed the gold through to him, accepting the trade when the system gave her the prompt.

“Thank you very much.” The man said. “Come check back in two to three weeks and I’ll let you know how things are going, alright?"

“Thanks.” Zoe and Emma said in unison.

“You two have a lovely day now!" The man shouted as they left.

“You too!” Zoe and Emma called back.

“Well he was nice.” Emma said when they were back out on the street.

“He was.” Zoe agreed.

“That was a lot more expensive than I thought it would be, though. Think we should have shopped around a bit?” Emma asked.

“Eh.” Zoe shrugged. “Might have found a better deal elsewhere but he was nice, and we have more than enough money to pay for it now anyway. Flester’s Might shits out money. Actually, does that affect the economy here?”

“Probably. Most things are a lot more expensive here than they were in Flester. I never thought much of it, but it probably is cause of the dungeon.” Emma said.

“Huh. Neat. I wonder how that kind of thing affects the kingdom on a larger scale. Does a high level dungeon appearing cause the value of gold to drop on the other side of the kingdom after some amount of time has passed?" Zoe asked.

“Maybe? I’m not an expert on all that.” Emma said.

“I might ask Joe. I bet he knows. Or knows somebody who knows. Anyway, next stop should be a lot simpler. We need to find somewhere that sells wood stains.” Zoe said.

“What’s the wood stain for? I like the colour of the wood as it is, to be honest.” Emma said.

“We still need to stain it, though. It also acts as a protective layer to keep water off of it. Which probably isn’t that important since we can enchant things here. But if we use a physical barrier, we can better enchant it against the cats scratching it and stuff.” Zoe said.

“I see. Interesting. This is kinda fun, when we’re not just slaving over the logs all day.” Emma said.

Zoe chuckled. “Well, it’ll get even more fun once we start putting the rooms together and seeing everything come together. That’s my favourite part.”

“I’m looking forward to it.” Emma giggled.