The bellows hiss as Rhine presses the weight of his entire body down onto them, wanting to push some air into the furnace.

“Boy, put some muscle into it,” says Hineni, watching him from the other side of the forge, the hammer still in his hand. “We need to speed up.” He looks around the room. Despite his best efforts to keep up with the repairs, Sockel is just too good at accepting new business. He’s considering asking her to stop accepting new repairs, but he’s hesitant about the idea. A burned customer right now, right at the start, might never return to ask a second time.

No, there’s no way around it. They need to finish the repairs and they need to do it in a timely manner.

Rhine, his long hair tied back, rolls up his sleeves and grabs the handles of the bellow, straining himself to press it down. The old thing is tough and stiff and isn’t used as often as it might once have been in days long since past. But surely it can’t be that bad?

“You got it!” grunts Rhine, scrunching his face together and pressing down again. “But I have to ask,” starts the boy, looking up at Hineni. “Can’t you just… I don’t know, use some abilities to repair this stuff?” He looks around the forge, sweat dripping down his forehead.

Hineni lifts a hand, pointing at a damaged pike. “One iron bar.” He moves his finger over to a staff. “Copper-aluminum alloy. A whole bar.” His finger lands on the next item, a sword.

“- Iron bar,” sighs Rhine, getting the message. Sure, it would be easy to repair some of these items instantly through use of a crafting spell. But it would consume an entire ingot for material costs with each single repair. This is highly wasteful. Sure, it’s instant. But using five kilograms of iron to patch a nicked edge that only needs an hour on the wheel isn’t a great plan. They’re trying to make money, not spend it, after all.

“That’s what you get for not just getting frozen!” barks a voice from above. The two of them look up from their work, staring at the shapeless blob that is Eilig the fairy, who is apparently peeking out of the entrance to the heating shaft at the top of the forge tower. “Should’ve just lived with it! Now you have to pay the price.”

Hineni lifts a hand up towards the shaft. “No freeloading. Go do something productive, Eilig,” he says in annoyance.

“Huh?!” barks the fairy, its tiny voice squeaking out from above their heads. The creature raises a blobby arm, apparently shaking its fist at him. “I already GENEROUSLY gave you some ice from my cellar -”

“- My cellar,” corrects Hineni

“- And this is the thanks that I get?” finishes Eilig, not letting itself be interrupted by Hineni.

Rhine shrugs. “I mean, I can make a ton of water in like three seconds?” he says. “Magic isn’t a lot of work. That’s what we were just talking about.”

“I saw!” barks the sharp voice from above. “Do you know how wet my cellar got when you flooded the kitchen?! Dummy!”

Rhine tilts his head. “…Isn’t the cellar full of ice already though…?”

“Shut up!”

“Eilig,” says Hineni. “We’re busy. Go do something productive. Please.”

“What do you think I’m doing?!” snaps the fairy. “Your mother was a lot more grateful for me than you. I’ll tell you that much,” it barks, grumbling as it retreats back into the heating shaft.

Rhine sighs. “What was that about?”

“Don’t worry about it,” says Hineni, returning his focus to the blade of the dagger he’s fixing. “I’ll talk to Eilig later.”

Rhine nods, pressing down on the bellows again with all of his strength, given the clear straining present on his face. Something cracks and the boy yelps. The bellow sinks in an instant. Sparks fly out of the furnace from the sudden blast of air it receives. For a moment, Hineni thinks that the handle of the bellows had broken off. But Rhine, awkwardly slung half-way over the thing, that had suddenly given way, pulls himself upright and picks up something small, which had been blocking the bellows from closing.

- A piece of ice shimmers in the annoyed boy’s hands, catching the light of the growing fire.

Something laughs from up above.

“Hey, is there breakfast today?” asks a voice.

“No, sorry,” replies Hineni, looking at the adventurer. “That was a special offer from Avarice. But it’s over now,” he explains.

It is two days after their initial opening. The rooms are still booked and people are coming in to drop off repairs. So many in fact, that Sockel had to throw away the paper list and rewrite everything in a brand new ledger, which she seems to find an enjoyment of that Hineni just can’t quite understand.

“Oh, that’s sad,” replies the orc.

“Sorry,” says Hineni. “We don’t have staff for the restaurant yet. Maybe in a little while.” He looks around. There aren’t really hands to spare. Sockel is running the counter and trying to manage the guests while he and Rhine are working the forge. That just leaves…

- Something flops down at their feet.

Hineni stares down at the bloody, eviscerated rabbit laying there between the two of them. Excited hisses and clicks come from above. He lifts his gaze, staring at Obscura who is sitting up on the rafters, tilting her head with wide eyes, watching him excitedly as she apparently expects praise for her efforts.

“Thank you,” says Hineni, picking up the rabbit by its ears, more or less unphased at this point. “How do you feel about rabbit?” he asks the man, looking at the somewhat troubled orc.

“It’s uh… it’s okay…” replies the customer, staring warily up towards the hissing and clicking shadows above his head. “- Thank you.”

Hineni nods. “I’ll get started. Take a seat,” he says, heading to the kitchen. Something rustles, moving behind him like a gust in the night as he steps through the door, stepping over an old bloodstain on the wooden floor.

“Matriarch Obscura did good, yes?” she asks. “Hineni is pleased by her ability to hunt, yes?” asks the owl. “She provides good nourishment. Strong partner, strong mate, strong, motherly Obscura, yes?” she asks.

Hineni sets the rabbit down on the counter, turning around and kissing her. She hoots in surprise. “Thank you,” he says. “We really need to organize something for the food,” he says, thinking out loud. “I thought it would be fine if we just had the rooms and no food, but it might leave a bad image for our hospitality…” he considers, pulling out a knife from a drawer. A taloned hand grabs his from above, holding it.

“I will make the rabbit breakfast,” says Obscura.

Hineni shakes his head. “We need to establish a reputation for you as a powerful god,” he says. “That’s going to be hard if you’re around here doing chores.”

Obscura clicks with her mouth, swaying her head in a circle. “I will make the rabbit breakfast,” repeats Obscura. “Foolish Hineni!” She lifts her arm out to the side. “He is blinded by Obscura’s majesty as queen-predator of the forest!” boasts the owl-god, before lifting her other arm out to the other side. “But he fails to see her nurturing grace!”

Obscura hoots, peeking down through his arm. “Mysterious!” she pops around to the other side of his body, looking over his shoulder. “Intriguing!” The owl-god spins upside-down, floating in the air, her face in front of his. “Loving Obscura,” she finishes, tapping against his nose with the tip of a talon.

Hineni stares for a moment and then nods. To his surprise, the usually bashful owl-god moves in and returns his kiss from before.

“Hey. No smooching in the kitchen,” says Sockel, peaking around through the door from the front. The two of them turn her way. She points over her shoulder. “There’s a creepy guy here from the pond god or something.”

“Lake god!” says an annoyed voice from behind her.

“- Some obscure water god. Should I send him away?” she asks, her ears twitching.

Hineni smirks, holding down his laugh so that the offended party doesn’t hear him.

“Go,” says a voice from next to him. He looks back towards her. “Speak for Obscura. Hineni will tell them her words!” She smiles. “And I will make the rabbit breakfast.”

Hineni smiles, having been beaten. “Okay,” is all that he says, letting his hand slide over her face as he leaves.

“Aw~ Cute,” says Sockel, her ears twitching.

“Get back to work, Sockel,” says Hineni, going to greet the stranger.

Hineni sighs in relief, leaning back against the bench.

It is late in the evening, the day having come to an end somehow. He’s beat.

Looking around the table, the same can be said of Sockel, who is slumped over sideways, her head pressing against the top of Rhine’s. The two of them seem to have fallen asleep right then and there, before dinner could even get started.

“It’s a lot,” says Hineni, looking at the food. Sure, the food is a lot too. But he was just referring to the sudden increase in work that they all have. Adventurers are, by their nature, fairly independent people. But as guests, they still are somewhat troublesome. They’re always asking questions about the owl-god or the dungeon or about some repairs. They’re asking if there’s breakfast today or not or if the bath is okay to use or this or that. There’s always something.

Then the repairs and the work on new items that he’s been falling behind on. And then finding time to spend with Obscura, Rhine and Sockel. It’s all been a real challenge, it’s just been… a lot.

“The two days were as long as three, yes,” says Obscura, reaching over to start cutting dinner, placing some onto everyone’s plate for them. “But that means that tomorrow is the three day,” she says excitedly. “It will be as long as one.”

Hineni lifts his eyes, realizing that she’s right. Tomorrow is the three-day, er, the third day. He lets out another sigh, this one in relief. That can only mean that their load is going to be lightened.

The door opens, a group walking inside. They had rented the rooms here. He stares for a moment, it’s still an unusual sight for him, having people just waltz right into his home. But he’s slowly getting used to it.

“So, tomorrow?” asks the haggard caster of the group, covering her mouth as she yawns loudly, shuffling through the room after the others. Her hair is full of brambles and twigs.

“Every day,” says the fighter, dragging himself just as gracelessly forward.

“I hope I can sleep tonight,” complains the dark-elf next to him, rubbing a bandaged spot on her arm.

“I don’t see how you couldn’t. I’m beat.”

“Same.”

“Me too.”

The group shuffles their way through the room, heading to the stairwell as they make their way upstairs.

Hineni stares at the table for a moment, getting an idea. He turns to Obscura. “Hey, can I ask you a favor?” She clicks excitedly, turning to look at him. “Can you ask them if you should use a sleeping spell on them?” he requests, thinking about it for a moment. It’s a little thing, a tiny detail. They wouldn’t even charge money for it. But surely it will help their reputation if all of the people who rent a room always fall into deep, restful sleep?

It’s almost an absurd thing to think about, really. But this tiny detail, a good night’s sleep, could be what hooks a customer into coming back for another night. He’s never run a business like this before and he doesn’t know if it makes sense, even. But it sounds right in his head.

They need to get the details right. Details are what frogs are bad at. They have to outshine them.

“Get out of my cellar!”

“Come on, Eilig,” says Hineni, coming downstairs, tired. “Are we really going to do this every time?”

The blob peeks out of its hive-like ‘house’ of ice, suspended from the ceiling. “Not if you’d just stop coming down here!”

“I have to come down here,” says Hineni. “This is where you are.”

“I don’t want you here,” replies the fairy.

Hineni shrugs, looking around the cellar. It seems that Obscura has indeed been busy hunting. In the corner, covered in ice, are several of the forest’s unluckiest rabbits, already gutted and cleaned.

He turns back to look at the fairy. “I just wanted to say thanks,” says Hineni, pulling out some wrapped candy he bought in the city. “I appreciate you going out of your way to help today.”

“As if I would help you. Can you go now, you delusional weirdo?” asks the sharp voice from above. “I want to sleep.”

Hineni shrugs, setting down the candy. “Sure. Good night, Eilig,” says the man. The fairy grumbles, the sound of its wings buzzing filling the room and bouncing off of the ice as he leaves, climbing back up the ladder.

The fairy had been in the heating shaft this morning, after all, taking care of its old, former duties of keeping the bones of the house in good shape. After all, it turns out that the fairy-language inscribed on the wall of the shaft, upstairs, beneath his parents' old room, is nothing but a list of daily chores, for the person he had never known he shared a home with.