"What's this?" Delilah asks when I lead them all to the elevator after letting them get a good look around the lobby.

"Climb in and find out." Amelia and I just smile at her.

"Trapped in a small room with a pixie and a tentacled shapechanger." Helen laughs and walks in followed by Lianna. "What could go wrong?"

"Ooh!" Apricot perks up. "We haven't done it in here yet."

"Food first, we can fool around later." I pat her on the head. "Now, are you two coming, or would you prefer to walk up to the third floor?" Delilah looks interested and tows her cousin along with her into the car.

"Just make sure that one watches her wings this time." Lauren shoots Apricot a wary look. "Eep!" A startled squeak escapes from her when the floor starts moving.

"I know adding a lift to a building with only four aboveground floors is probably a bit much." I say while ignoring the death glare the elf sends my way. "But, if you all sign-on, I might have to add another level just for executive housing."

"Name your price." Delilah says in a dead-serious tone while marveling at the carriage. "My family will give you whatever you want for one of these."

"They own one of those big apartment buildings in town." Amelia answers my questioning look.

"And, what if we want you?" Delilah gulps at my words and the rest of the girls blush. "Amelia and I need someone we can trust to look after things when we're out of town." Apricot and I share a grin, knowing exactly what they all thought I meant.

"Promise not to say or do anything like that again and we have a deal." She holds out her hand with a nervous look at me.

"No teasing the General Manager. Understood." I bow my head to her. "It's sorta in my nature, but I'll try my best."

"You'd better!" Amelia smacks the back of my head.

"Sorry, Babe." I duck my head towards her. "I just couldn't pass up that opportunity, and we did get her as our manager."

"What about us?" Lianna says when the doors open to the third floor.

"I promise not to tease you either." I say with a wink that earns me another smack.

"Yeah." Helen ignores my antics. "I like working for Mistress Pru, but just look at this place. You did say there was housing available, right?"

"I suppose I could use some assistants." Delilah says already getting into her role

"Speaking of hiring people." I cut in. "We need some operators for the lift and a cleaning crew for the building. Oh, and include a gardener or two; we're still waiting for the neighbors to move out but, once they do, I'm going to add a small park for the employees and their families."

"Ren-Ren, you like plants right?" Delilah teases her cousin. "Or, maybe you'd prefer to run the lift? It didn't seem that hard, so you should be able to manage."

"I think you meant to say 'Lauren, will you please be our fashion consultant?'" The elf takes on an imperious air.

"Well, while you decide who's doing what." I chuckle at their byplay. "I'm going to go finish cooking dinner. But, first I want to thank you all for helping us out here. This started as a small side project, but it's grown much larger and faster than I thought it would. If there is ever anything that any of you need, you have but to ask and I'll make it happen."

"What about a tonne of gold?" Lianna jokingly asks, setting the girls to laughing.

"That might take me a week or two, but alright." Their laughter dies in the face of my serious reply, so I just pull out a chocolate bar. "How long do you think it would take if I hit every decently sized settlement within a few hundred kilometers of here, one or two each day?"

"I know a few gold-filled streams up in the Teeth." Apricot offers. "As fast as you run, you could be there and back in a week. That way you can save all that chocolate for me."

"I still don't know if money doesn't mean anything to him, or if he just says stuff like this to mess with me." Amelia admits with a sigh. "You saw the lobby, he used gold because he didn't have any brass and said it would be easier for the cleaners because it wouldn't tarnish."

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"Of course it means something to me." I wrap my arms around her. "Everything that means anything to you means something to me. I just like teasing my little merchant, is all. And, don't worry; I'll give you ten times as much gold as I give to anyone else."

"Look at the grin on her face." Helen laughs.

Leaving Amelia to her friend's teasing, I head back into the kitchen to finish dinner.

...

"Ow!" A chorus of grumbles ring out from the fire chief and her people when they each get pelted with a paper airplane to the back of the head. "What the? Oh, dinner's ready." She says after reading the note.

"Just a few more minutes..." Guthrie trails off when I materialize a platter of food just long enough for them all to get a good whiff. "You know what? We can come back to this later." He changes his tune quickly and leads the rest of them out of the lab.

"In here." Adriana guides them into the waiting elevator. "It's faster." They look at her skeptically but follow her into the carriage. "Sorrel is just full of tricks." She grins when they all panic a little when the floor moves.

By the time they've reached the third floor, I've remotely vented the pressure tank. I was keeping a loose eye on its structural integrity the whole time and it seemed fine, but I still don't feel comfortable just leaving it pressurized.

"Just in time." I greet them and start filling the tables with food. Most everyone else had already filtered in earlier, so I was just waiting for the firefighters and a couple of stragglers to show before dishing up the food. "Just grab whatever looks good. The red pitchers are meant for beastkin drinkers, and the yellow dishes are for those who don't like seafood." Fawne sends me a grateful nod for that.

"Is this saffron?" Delilah picks up on the expensive spice right away.

"Being a nature mage does have some advantages." I pull a couple of the purple crocus flowers from storage and tuck them into my girls' hair. "Now, eat up. The seafood Amelia and Apricot picked out is amazing."

"Now you see what I'm dealing with." Amelia says with a smirk for her flabbergasted friend. "Sorrel, Baby, how long would it take you to grow... oh, let's say a kilogram of those little red threads?"

"I dunno, an hour or so? But, most of that time would just be spent reproducing the plants." I shrug, more interested in eating than Amelia getting back at them for their earlier teasing. "I'm guessing that it's even more expensive here than back where I came from. I never bought in bulk, but that kilogram would probably be worth somewhere around five or ten gold."

"So cheap?" Delilah looks shocked. "Here, I'd think I was getting scammed if someone offered it for even ten times that price."

"Well, here. Consider it a signing bonus." I slide a glass jar across the table with the extra that I didn't use for dinner. "There's only about ten grams left, but you like it enough to be able to pick it out at a glance, so you might as well take it."

"What's the big deal?" Apricot asks. "It's just another plant, right?" To answer I pluck the flower from her hair and point out the stigmas.

"These three red things are saffron." I explain. "The bulbs only flower for a few weeks every year, and to get a whole kilogram worth you would need hundreds of thousands of them."

"You lunkers are weird." She shakes her head and turns back to the food. "It does taste good though."

...

"So, who wants to play with fire?" I ask the crowd after everyone finishes with dessert. "Everyone will get to try one of these, and learn how the fire extinguishers work." I open the window behind me and toss a co2 grenade out it before making the thing explode in mid-air.

"What in all the hells was that?" Lianna was taking a drink and nearly spit it all over the table when the bomb went off.

"The same thing that makes those drinks fizzy." I reply with a smile and start walking towards the stairs, with a quick stop at my guards' table. "I've dropped the increased growth for now, but expect to still be hungry come morning. I left a few smoothies and snacks in your iceboxes to help you out, but let me know if you need anything else."

"Will do." Stan says and the rest of them nod along. I smile back at them and continue on my way.

"Uh..." Helen hesitates to ask the question I know she must be dying to have answered.

"I figured out a regeneration spell based on how salamanders re-grow missing bits this morning." I answer when she clams up. "It would have taken far too long to replace their limbs with just my healing sap otherwise. That, and Amelia always gets worried when I use too much sap."

"He had to cut up those poor little lizards too." Apricot pouts.

"They're all fine, and you know it." I tousle her hair. "But, at least you running off like a scaredy-cat gave me the chance to fill the fourth floor with hidden images."

"Nng." She grumbles. "Dammit, I wanted to see where you hid them all."

"Well, you could still have a chance." I console her. "If all of the girls move in, then I'll have to add another floor to give them some nice places to live. Maybe move Melanie and Felicia up there too, make the top floor all management."

"The apartments get nicer than the one that Amelia showed us?" Lianna's eyes go wide.

"Those are the basic model." I bring out scale models of the other two apartments we have so far. "This is the family model, and this one the managerial suite. Nothing too fancy, but I want my people to have a nice place to live. Oh, quit looking at me like that, these are stylish at best, far from fancy."

"If you say so." She replies with a smirk. "Though one of these days, you'll have to show me what you actually consider to be fancy."

"I'd like to see that myself." Delilah agrees and the rest of them murmur similar sentiments.

I just roll my eyes and lead the way outside so I can set up the fires for my demonstration. It went fairly well, at least until Apricot decided to blast me with her extinguisher. From there it just dissolved into one giant free for all.

***