Jenny and her shop worked fast, and four days later, I was driving the caravan up to Redwater Palace to show it off to Duchess Melody and Lady Emily.

"So, this is what you've built?" Melody asked, looking over the enameled sheet steel exterior of the van- as Uncle Frederic called it, because he loved making up new words. "I suppose it must be an enchanted caravan, but... It looks so unlike any caravan I've ever seen. Why is the front of it sloped like that?"

"So that it's less affected by air resistance," I said. "When you get going fast enough, air resistance becomes much more noticeable- if you've ever ridden a horse, or some other fast, un-covered transportation, you'll notice that the wind blows your hair back away from the direction of travel. Now imagine that, instead of just blowing back your hair, the air is blowing back a sail the size of the front of your caravan."

"I see..."

"Also, I happen to think it looks nicer this way, but the functionality is key, here," I added. "Anyhow! While the exterior is something I worked hard on, I'm here to show you the interior, so that you, Lady Emily, can give me your feedback on the layout."

Emily nodded wordlessly, standing just a touch behind her mother.

"Anyhow. Where's Duke Redwater?" I asked.

"Sebastian is currently away on business," Melody explained. "He often speaks of how, in his words, 'the luxuries of this station are effeminating,' and if he were here, he would regard every measure you took to be considerate of his daughter's comfort to be an insult to her constitution and ability to withstand hardship."

"...Alright then," I said diplomatically. Sure, I could just say he sounded like a tremendous dickhead, and if Melody and I were alone she might even agree with me- women who liked their husbands generally did not cheat on them with an elf- but Emily was also here, and I had no idea how receptive she would be to me badmouthing her father. "Well, with the understanding that I intend no insult with my compassion and consideration, let us begin the tour."

I grabbed a metal latch just below the back doors of the van, and pulled on it, extending out a thin yet sturdy ramp of rigidly-corrugated sheet steel. The step up into the back wasn't that bad, but I figured I might as well make it easier on people who weren't as nimble as an elven mage-knight. With the ramp deployed, I then pulled open the back doors, revealing the spatially-expanded interior of my van.

"Oh, my," Melody murmured. "Now that really is something..."

"It turns out that portable houses, usually but not always in the form of enchanted caravans, are very common among adventurers," I said. "This one in particular is unusual only in that it is made of metal rather than wood. And, as it so happens, the University of Mount Fate's orientation packet even mentions that there are extensive accommodations for students who choose to live out of a portable house rather than the dormitories."

"Fascinating," Melody said, nodding as she followed me inside, Emily trailing after her.

"Anyhow, most of the downstairs is a mostly-open common area," I continued. "Kitchen, dining table, some couches and armchairs around a low table for socializing or entertaining guests, et cetera. In the back is a compact machine shop where I can fabricate replacement parts as needed, in the event of a breakdown in the field. However, the bedrooms are where things get particularly interesting- if you'll follow me upstairs?"

Without waiting for an answer, I made my way up the spiral staircase to the second floor, being followed up by the Redwater women I was going to be stuck with for the foreseeable future.

"Now, there's four of us going to Mount Fate, and thus four bedrooms," I said, taking a few steps down the hallway. "Everyone gets their own personal, private space, even if that space isn't quite as spacious as I'd like. The bedrooms are all more-or-less identical, differing only in where the doors are, so we'll use this one for demonstration purposes, shall we?" The bedroom doors opened inward, to avoid anyone walking into an unexpectedly opening door first thing in the morning. I stepped inside the bedroom, and immediately headed to the far corner because, as I was realizing, a bedroom that was on the small side of comfortable for one person was not going to do well with three people, two of whom were quite voluptuous and one of whom was broad-shouldered.

"It looks rather austere," Melody remarked. "I suppose Sebastian would be happy you aren't letting Emily go soft."

I very carefully did not make a comment about Emily's plush figure, not only because Melody would probably try to kill me, but also because I barely knew Emily and that's just not the sort of joke you made about someone you didn't already know would be okay with you saying that they had nice tits.

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"Oh?" I prompted, gesturing for her to elaborate.

"It looks empty," Melody continued, looking around the room that currently did not have any of its fold-up furniture deployed, aside from a wood-and-brass travel trunk perched on legs made of steel pipe, which could be made to retract into the trunk itself (which also had wheels on one of the bottom edges) for moving it somewhere else and re-deploying it.

"All of the furniture is compact and foldable, to make the most of a small space," I explained. "The design and fabrication were done by a workshop in Greenwood Village run by a two hundred year old carpenter by the name of Jenny Jones, who is, incidentally, the current employer and mentor of one Robert Thorn."

"You know Robert?" Emily asked, blinking.

"Mhm," I said, nodding. "I met him while I was looking into the theft of my grandmother's funerary effigy, and did my best to help him out. He's got an apartment in Greenwood Village that has actual bedrooms now, and his mother Amelie is currently recovering from surgery- we're reasonably confident the cancer didn't metastasize, but she's going to want to come back to Greenwood to see Napoleon Ironheart once a month for the next decade or so just to be sure."

"I'm glad she's okay," Emily said quietly. "Can... Is she seeing visitors?"

"Well, I did tell her that I'd made your acquaintance, and could bring you down to see her if she wanted, but she said she didn't want you to see her in that state, because it'd worry you a lot," I said. "I disagree with her assessment, because you're a Healer- if you aren't yet used to seeing people who are in poor health, you will be soon enough."

"I'm a trauma surgeon," Emily said. "I... I deal with things like stab wounds or broken bones, not... Not cancer."

"...Point," I said. "Well, while Amelie does need to regain a lot of weight, and can't walk unassisted, we're fairly confident that, with the help of a good druid, she'll be back to full health soon enough. Anyhow, we're getting off-track- this was supposed to be a tour of your new bedroom. First and foremost, the bed."

I grabbed what looked like the handle of a cabinet, and upon pulling it, revealed it to actually be a bed that had been folded up against the wall. The mattress was fairly large, and had been enchanted by yours truly for longevity and comfort- it was a more complex enchantment than I could've put together on my own, with a lot of different factors to consider, but that was the cool thing about having a mentor who was very, very good at this. This enchantment was the one I'd put on my own mattress several years ago, when I'd decided I wanted a bigger bed.

"And why precisely have you given my daughter a bed big enough for two?" Melody asked archly.

"All the rooms are identical, and I knew I wanted a larger bed because if I was sleeping in a smaller bed, my girlfriend would simply sleep on top of me," I said dryly. "There are many benefits to a curvy girlfiend, but one of the downsides is that they are not exactly lightweight."

Emily blushed, fully aware that she was also quite curvy and weighed more than a scarecrow.

"Anyhow," I continued, before folding the bed back up into the wall. "Also in each room is an enchanted trunk for storing all sorts of belongings, including clothing, tools, books, et cetera, along with a folding table and a set of four folding chairs. And Emily, if you happen to already have an enchanted trunk that you like better than this one, you are of course free to bring it with you and replace this one; I'm sure I can find a good home for it."

"How much space is inside that one?" Melody asked.

"Almost thirty times as much as there should be," I said. "The spatial expansion was split into nine separate, overlapping pocket dimensions- you just pick which one you want when you're opening it, and that's the one that appears under the lid. Each pocket dimension is a bit bigger than the inside of the trunk should be, but only by about half again in each dimension- I wanted this to be a useful storage chest, not a second, less-convenient bedroom. Still, it amounts to a factor-of-three enlargement, so..."

Now, as it so happened, I knew rather a lot about the market for pocket dimensions and spatially-expanded storage. A trunk like this one was pretty high-end, with a low-end one being equivalent to just one of the nine separate compartments in this. However, House Redwater was a Ducal House, and had absolutely obscene amounts of money. For all I knew, Emily had a trunk whose interior was the size of a house.

"Could... You could do that?" Emily asked.

"Well... Probably?" I hazarded. "I am fairly good with pocket dimensions, but the issue at hand is thusly: that would be a serious undertaking, and I don't have a practical use for that." I tapped my chin. "...Of course, now that it's occurred to me that I possibly can do this, now I want to do this. Hrm. Well, I can do that after we get you to Mount Fate. I'd like to leave early, because supposedly there are classes they run during the summer that aren't as demanding as those of the main academic year, and some of them caught my eye, but-"

"Leaving soon works for me," Emily said, nodding. "When can we leave?"

"Hrm..." I chewed on this for a bit. "...Well, we need to do some last-minute packing, make sure we aren't forgetting anything, say our goodbyes, et cetera... Let's say, a week from today. And tomorrow, I'll come by at noon to introduce you to the rest of the party. How's that sound?"

"I, um... I'm not sure what to bring," Emily admitted.

"...I will also offer constructive criticism on your packing," I said dryly.

"That all sounds agreeable to me," Melody said.

"Then it's settled," I said. "See you two tomorrow."