Services and Amenities

Chp 161

After leaving Elim’s farm, I found myself inspired to do quite a bit of sketching. I’d already planned to have an adventurers’ guild, but the design process had languished a bit thanks to a lack of actual adventurers. The idea of a combat school, or rather a training ground, put me in the mood to revisit it.

Since Dawn had already accepted the position of head of the adventurers’ guild I called her in. The physical shell of the building was already in place on the top side, but shuttered. We needed to finish up the decisions about the interior.

“Hey Dawn!” I called cheerfully when she arrived.

Dawn had an amused Icarus in tow. He and the other halflings tended to enjoy messing around in my build lab like a parkour park.

I already had windows open with my designs on display for them to examine. They all tended toward rustic luxury hotels in design and they looked at them curiously.

“Your sensibilities are… different from what I’m used to,” Dawn said after studying the designs.

“A well-established fact. Now, tell me why you hate it,” I replied, not losing my good humor. Dawn had helped me with other designs and I was used to a certain amount of back and forth.

“Well, it's full of corridors and rooms, so I’m guessing these designs are a bit dated,” Dawn replied. I looked and realized she was right about half of them. We’d been over how even in large buildings those weren’t common.

“Right, not like I mind an open floor plan anyway,” I muttered. Rather than adjust the existing designs I took out a fresh set of floor plans and started making new ones. Trying to save something that wasn’t working was always a waste of time in this phase.

“So, how about this, the administration area upstairs in a loft?” I asked. That was something nobody had batted an eye at with other designs. It was apparently where most people slept in smaller homes as well as using them for storage.

“That looks fine,” Dawn said. She gestured for Icarus to come take a look. He’d wandered off to start scaling a nearby house prototype.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“Hmm… could use a good fireplace and a small bar to make it more comfortable,” Icarus suggested.

“That would be nice,” Dawn agreed. They both regarded me and I dutifully added both features. It increased the plush hotel lobby vibe for me since the service area had been reduced to a single long desk and the area behind it.

“There, seems more like someplace the living would make,” Icarus said agreeably.

“There should be somewhere to receive monster parts,” Dawn said, squinting at the design.

“That’s better done in a separate building. A guild official can run it and issue a receipt to be claimed at the guild when the bounty is turned in. I don’t want people hauling carcasses through a common area,” I said, thinking it would be hell on the flooring.

I pulled up an area map and was thankful the Lepusan hadn’t been into this part of town. I sketched out a location on the street behind the guild building, then added a block next to it. The training arena could go there and I labeled it as such.

The butchery would be a glorified barn in design. There was only so much I could do aesthetically for a place that needed to emphasize utility.

“What’s the block next to the guild?” Icarus asked.

“A dorm for adventurers,” I said offhandedly. The building shell was already in place, though like the guild, it was empty still.

“Like the Lepusan one?” Dawn asked, tone suspicious.

“Uhm… not exactly?” I said. I pulled up the designs and Dawn sighed.

“Why not let the inn handle the adventurers?” Dawn asked, still looking at my dorm design.

“Lots of reasons, but mostly to support newer adventurers or those who arrive low on coin. Having a free option will keep things more orderly,” I said. Dawn thought about it for a few minutes while perusing the design before tilting her head. A gesture I was starting to associate with her having an idea she wasn’t sure about.

“How about a limit for the free stay, say about a month? If they can’t make enough to afford the rent by then, they shouldn’t be part of the guild,” Dawn said. I nodded, that was plenty of time to arrive and get their feet under them.

“But the rooms are too big, the weirdness of personal ones aside. Make it as wide as a bed and maybe a bit longer. They should only need a wardrobe, weapons rack, and locking chest,” Dawn said, and I felt that was a little spartan.

“How about this?” I asked and drew a desk. It was suspended by chains at the front corners and could be folded up into a shallow cabinet.

“They can eat or do paperwork in their room without it taking up too much space,” I said. Even cheap hotels usually provided a desk and a chair in my world.

“That’s fine,” Dawn said, seeming a bit impressed by the idea. There were likely similar ideas floating around in this world. Yet this was the first time she’d seen the fruits of my world's tiny home design fetish. I also raised the bed up so drawers and the locking chest could fit under it rather than taking up floor space.

When the design phase was done, it took half an hour to complete a couple of temporary shell buildings in the build lab. My magic allowed essentially silent construction, but I still didn’t want to be doing that up in the town if I didn’t have a reason. Once the shells were done it was time to start doing walkthroughs to inspect the layouts.

Not unexpectedly, a lot of changes had to be made as we did the guild walkthrough. Nothing major, but the kind of stuff that wouldn’t really seem like a problem on paper. Distances between tables, desk heights; things like that.

On the bright side, the view from the administration loft was as impressive as I’d hoped it would be. At Dawn's request, I added a small lounge near the rail. Heading outside then back in, we all felt the new layout made the building feel impressive.

Happy with the guild, the next two parts of the project were up. The dorm and monster butchery were quicker to put together since both had fewer details. There was only one thing Dawn and I couldn’t come to a final agreement on. Bathrooms.

In the dorm, the bath would be on the ground floor, but each story would have its own set of restrooms with sinks. I could bend on a lot of points but that wasn’t one of them.

"It'll be a hassle to maintain all those bathrooms,” Dawn growled. “Your cleaning magic takes care of what hits the mark, but the rest of it?”

I suddenly had a very unpleasant mental image of a poorly maintained gas station bathroom.

“Assign cleaning duties to everyone staying in it. If they make a mess or refuse to clean up, they get kicked out,” I offered.

“I supposed that’ll work,” Dawn agreed, though she didn’t look convinced.

With the bathroom issue as resolved as it was going to get, we finalized the designs for the dorm and moved on to the monster butchery. A process that stalled out after the addition of an office and break area. None of us knew how to go about the work which limited what we could do in terms of adding equipment.

“Hopefully someone wants to take on the job soon,” Icarus offered with a shrug.

"You know what? Maybe it's best if we let the monster butchery remain inactive,” I admitted. The town needing to build back up in time would probably seem more natural than having everything in place and ready to go.

“Certainly, but… are you alright with that?” Dawn asked with a knowing look.

“No,” I admitted flatly. “But I’ll manage.”

Nothing could prevent an unfinished project from nagging at me. That didn’t change the fact it was best left as it was.

"We'll find the right person for the job eventually,” Dawn said. She gave me a comforting pat on the arm as she did and I was temporarily soothed.

“Didn’t you do something with the temple? Make it all dusty and such? Couldn’t you do that with the butchery?” Icarus ventured.

“Dusty and… oh. OH. Yes,” I said gleefully. If I couldn’t make a fully functional workshop, I could still make a completed design after all. One that might very well be a fun source for local ghost stories if I handled the design right. It was time to make something spooky.