System Change

The next few days went by in a flash. Nothing overly exciting happened with the construction of the building. The total time taken was just over four days. Derek had to admit, the efficiency of those with a system was outstanding.

The most interesting things he learned during the construction were all about Geoffrey. Apparently, the businessman was part of a medium-sized noble house from the Capital. His family didn’t approve of his business practices, so he eventually left and came to Savannah to work on his own. Derek was impressed. He built his construction company from the ground up, with no help from his family.

When Derek asked him about his ‘business practices’ that his family didn’t approve of, he told him that his family was all about taking the customer for as much as possible, no matter how shady. Geoffrey preferred to be truthful with his customers. To his credit, it proved successful. Those who know him, and who were able to get over his slimeball like exterior, seemed to come back for repeat business.

However, the most interesting thing that Derek learned about Geoffrey was that he was quite the accomplished Runesmith. Immediately, Derek thought about using him as a mentor for Brandi, but he decided against it for now. The girl would be spending a lot of time in Roman’s shop. Besides, Derek liked Geoffrey well enough, but his connection, although seemingly severed, with a sleezy noble house made Derek want to be more cautious.

At the moment, Geoffrey’s crew were packing all their things into their storage rings, preparing to leave. Soon, everyone by Geoffrey had left the location.

“Time for the grand tour.” Geoffrey said.

“Let’s do it.” Derek had already been inside, actually, he and his group slept in the building the previous night, so he didn’t really need a tour.

Geoffrey led him through the shop door. The open floor plan was the way to go. There was a checkout counter immediately to the left by the wall as soon as they walked in. Shelves and displays were scattered along the walls and throughout the shot. Of course, Derek didn’t have anything to sell yet, but he could imagine what it would look like once they get some things in stock.

The walls inside the shop portion of the building were not as covered by the Oak as the rest of the building. The Pixy Yew shined throughout the store, giving it an almost magical feeling.

“If the glow from the Pixy Yew isn’t to your liking or if you want a change, you can come to me any time and we’ll get it handled.” Geoffrey said.

“I don’t think it’s going to be a problem.” Derek replied. He was still in awe at the ambiance caused by the wood. He rather enjoyed it.

They continued through the shop area before going through a door. Inside the door was a small room with stairs going up and down.

“This is a little private room separating your shop from the contract shop. It’s best not to have access to the basement and top floor out in the open.” Geoffrey explained.

Derek nodded as they kept walking to the next room.

Rudy’s contract room was different from open floor shop. The walls were completely covered with Oak because Rudy didn’t want the odd lighting shining on his papers when he was writing up a contract. It was too distracting.

The room was about a quarter of the size as the shop. In the middle of the room, facing the door to outside, was a long counter that split the room. Part of the counter raised so one could walk to the other side if needed.

To both the left and right of the outside door were sitting places. There were two small couches and two chairs on each side for waiting customers.

There was another door behind the counter, and Geoffrey led Derek through it. The room was a basic office for Rudy. It was a simple design with a desk and some chairs.

Next, Geoffrey led Derek down to the basement. There wasn’t much to see there, either. Other than the corner where they had installed Brandi’s forge and smithing equipment, the rest of the basement was bare.

The Runesmith pointed to the ceiling above the forge. “These runes take in all the smoke and polluted air and release them through another rune at the top of the building.” He pointed to another rune close to the center of the basement. “This rune pulls in clean air from the outside and releases it inside.”

He went to a rune right beside the stairs. “This room controls the temperature of the air released inside, and the one beside it controls the lights. You can make the room as dim or as bright as you need.” To demonstrate this, Geoffrey placed his hand on the rune and the dim basement lit up enough that it made Derek squint. Then the light dimmed back down and Geoffrey moved his hand.

“These are the most basic of runes. I can’t think of much else to add. Some forges use runes to control the temperature, but the best blacksmiths avoid things like that. They would rather feel the forge with their own mana and manually control everything… at least I did when I was working on becoming a Runesmith.” He explained.

Derek nodded. “This is fine.”

“The same light runes are installed on each floor in each separate room.” Geoffrey explained. “If you think of any other runes you need, let me know.”

After that, the two went upstairs to the living quarters. The stairs led up to a long hallway with nine doors on one side and four doors on the other.

“It was a tight fit, but we were able to make nine bedrooms work.” He opened the door to the first bedroom. Inside was a small desk and chair, and a full size bed. “We can’t fit much else than what we did unless we wanted to make the kitchen and dining area smaller. If you need a bigger bed, then you will have to remove the desk.”

Derek was surprised, he didn’t expect to see a full size bed. He was expecting a small twin size at most. “This will do just fine. It’s better than what I expected.”

Geoffrey nodded. “That’s good. The light rune is beside the door, there.” He pointed at the rune. “And we made sure to cover each room in an Oak layer as requested.”

The two backed out of the room and closed the door.

“Are all the bedrooms the same?” Derek asked.

Geoffrey nodded. “Exact same.” He replied. “Down to the same chair and rune placement.”

Next, Geoffrey led Derek to the end of the hall, to a room opposite a bedroom.

“This is your bathroom. The one on the other end is the same as this one.” Geoffrey opened the door and walked in.

The room had an oversized tub, sink, and toilet that the hotel had. The width of the room was the same as one of the bedrooms, but the length was longer. The sink and toilet were next to the walls, opposite one another, and the tub was at the end of the room, running along the three walls.

“We made the tub oversized and fitted it to the walls, like you asked. You can still use it in the same way.” Geoffrey said as they walked closer to the bathtub. “I also installed a rune on the floor to dry up any water outside the tub.”

“That’s great!” Derek could see his plans for a shower coming to fruition.

“I’m still not sure why you needs such a big tub.” Geoffrey said.

“You can think of it as more of a walk-in shower. Once you learn what a shower is.” Derek explained.

He then went on to describe his plan for a shower using runes. He wanted to fit a tank with a water, pressure, and temperature rune on the wall. Then, he explained the concept of a shower head coming off the tank and using the pressure built up by the rune to shoot the water out. Thus resulting in a shower.

Geoffrey scratched his chin and hummed. “We don’t need such a big tank, or the pressure rune.” He explained. “I could just put an advanced water rune that fills a small tank up fast enough to create all the pressure you need.” He looked up in thought. “That would make it easily portable as well… adventurer’s could attach it to a tree in the wilderness, and it would be less of a hassle than taking a bath.”

Derek watched as all the possibilities raced through the man’s head.

“I think I have a workable design in my head. I’ll have to experiment with this ‘shower head’ to get it to properly spray, but I could have a prototype ready tomorrow.” Geoffrey said. He shook his head. “Such a simple concept.”

Derek nodded. “It’s also easier to think in a shower. At least to me. A bath is more relaxing, but I prefer showers.”

“We’ll do that, then.” Geoffrey said. “This will be our product. If you wish. We can sign a contract. I’m not sure if people will think of it as a novelty item, so I don’t know how sells will be. What do you think about a 65/35 split. You get 35% of the sales since I will provide the item itself.”

“Fine by me.” Derek didn’t think there would be too much profit in the item.

“Yes, we can make multiple types. Portable ones, permanent ones, higher pressure ones…” Geoffrey mumbled to himself as he led them out of the bathroom and to the dining room.

The dining room was a basic open room with a dining table able to fit 12 people. Even more could fit if they moved the chairs closer to each other.

The dining room was connected to the kitchen. The kitchen was basic, but huge. There was a big kitchen island in the middle of the room. It had two sinks in it. There were two stoves and two ovens. Well, oven-like appliances. They were basically big boxes with temperature control runes. The kitchen was outfitted with the same runes as the basement.

“They will love this.” Derek said.

He had kept Mal and Silvi away from the kitchen while it was being built. It ended up being the final room to be finished. He felt kind of bad since he told Silvi it would be one of the first ones he focused on, but she would forgive him once she saw it. It was as good, if not better, than the kitchen at the Crown Restaurant in Torith. Only a bit smaller.

Silvi was going to be able to chop as many onions as her heart desired soon.

“This is it.” Geoffrey said. “If you need anything else, please contact me.”

Derek nodded. “Will do.” They exchanged communication crystal runes days ago when Derek spent what gold he had left on blue crystals.

“It would also be for the best if you thought of a name for your shop sooner rather than later.”

“We’ll figure something out.” Derek replied.

“I’ll take my leave now.” Geoffrey shook Derek’s hand and disappeared.

With this done, I need to make some money and hit up a couple of those dungeons. But first, I need to show everyone around and wait for Rayna and Jacks to get back. I hope they’re doing well.

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