System Change

“Bring him up!” Derek finished instructing.

“Right away, sir!” Bones bowed and quickly dismissed himself, the door to the dining room swinging closed soon after.

Derek was almost shaking in excitement. He looked over at Marrick, and the old man looked to be almost in the same state as himself. The difference was, the old elf didn’t know what to expect, but Derek did. His bottom had been accompanied by many cushioned reclining chairs back on Earth—it had gotten opportunities to experience the best from all the biggest names back then.

However, recently, it was able to experience a combination of many of the best qualities of the brands combined in the form of the chair that Dave had allowed him to sit in. Unfortunately, at that time, Derek wasn’t able to properly enjoy the chair, as he had much more pressing and concerning matters to tend to—like finding out who Dave was and why he was doing what he was doing. He… didn’t really find out either of those things, and by the time Dave took his chair away, he had more questions than he did answers.

But now, with the blueprints that Brandi helped him design, and Geoffrey handling all the logistics, he would at least have the chance to rectify his failure to really enjoy the chair Dave had.

“He’s the guy who built the store?” Brandi asked, but more in the form of a statement.

“He is,” Derek said, a little surprised that the girl even remembered any of that. She had definitely heard of him before, and maybe even met him, but he figured since he didn’t have anything to do with her crafting… well, I guess he did technically build her crafting lair for her and got her most of her equipment. It makes sense that she remembers him, now that I think about it.

“Is he coming to build more things for us?” she asked with a sparkle in her eyes.

“I take it you have some adjustments you want to make to your crafting area?” Derek asked.

“I do!” Brandi nodded hardily. “I have some ideas to make it more efficient since I’ve given up…” she paused and looked over at Marrick. Though they had spoken a lot, Brandi only spoke about her blacksmithing with the old man—she never once slipped and spoke of any other craft that she could do other than that and the runesmithing to go along with it. But it was natural for a blacksmith to also have some runesmithing skills later on, so the old elf hadn’t questioned it.

“You can trust him,” Derek said. “He’s good at keeping secrets, and he’s a trusted friend of mine. I’ve even told him some things about myself.”

“In that case,” Brandi said as Marrick raised an eyebrow at her. “Since I’ve given up many of my other crafts to specialize in the ones with more relation to blacksmithing, I can get rid of that equipment and open the area up for more equipment for smithing. With what I’m thinking, we may have to adjust the height… or depth of the basement, and we will definitely have to add more utility runes.”

“Once we’re finished here,” Derek began. “You should go draw a blueprint of what you want your basement to be, and Malorie can add it to the list of things we need from him.”

“I’ll go do it now!” Brandi hopped up from her chair and began a mad dash toward the door.

“Woah!” Derek said as he caught the girl as she ran by him, then he pointed back at her vacated chair. “Go have a seat,” he said. “There is no hurry. Whether you make a blueprint now or tomorrow doesn’t matter—it will take the same amount of time either way. So, before you do that, I at least want you to see something else. Geoffrey isn’t only here to talk about building, after all.”

Brandi stood still in front of Derek for a few seconds—longingly staring at the door. Finally, she nodded and walked back to her seat at a glacial pace compared to how fast she had left it. “What is it?” she finally asked.

“You should already know,” Derek said. “You’re the one who helped make the blueprints for them.”

“The recliners!?” she asked excitedly. Brandi was eager to help Derek when he asked her to make the blueprints for the chairs, but she had not bothered to ask what he was planning to do with them or how long it would take for him to do something with them. She had probably known that Geoffrey also had most of the furniture in the shop built, along with much of the stuff in the basement, but her mind never lingered on that stuff because it didn’t have anything to do with her own crafting. It was not important—at least, that’s what Silvi would say.

“Yup,” Derek said. “The chairs.”

“Ohhh!” Brandi smiled wide. “Why didn’t you say so?”

“I just did,” Derek answered, amused. “I figured you would want to see the end results of your drawings.”

Brandi just nodded quickly multiple times. Malorie rolled her eyes and shook her head, but the smile never left her face.

Derek then looked over at Marrick, who he was sure had already pieced together a lot of what Brandi had said about her crafts. Derek had been watching him, and to the old man’s credit, he had only raised a single eyebrow in contemplation before lowering it and seemingly accepting what he heard. He’d not bothered with asking any questions about it, and he still seemed much more excited about the possibility of having one of the world’s most comfortable chairs that any particulars about Brandi’s crafting class.

The group sat in silence for a short while longer before another knock came from the dining-room door. This time, Bons didn’t wait for the okay to enter. After two knocks, he opened the door and stepped inside—Geoffrey was right behind him.

“Mr. Geoffrey Tate,” Bones introduced the guest, then, after receiving a nod from Derek, backed away and left the room once again, closing the door behind himself.

“Geoffrey!” Derek called out happily. “Please, have a seat.”

“Thank you,” the suited man with slicked back hair said before walking around the table to an open chair and sitting in it.

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“So,” Derek said once the man got settled. “What have you got for us today?”

“Well, I have brought multiple items,” Geoffrey answered. “I do think you’re going to like what I’ve brought. In the last two days, I had my people working long and hard on the two prototypes you commissioned. I do believe that they turned out better than expected—at least, better than I expected.”

“Oh?” Derek’s brows raised. “Well, I’m waiting on pins and needles. How about you show us?”

“Of course.” Geoffrey took a storage ring out of his pocket and slid it across the table to Derek.

Derek snatched the ring up and began going through it. To his surprise, there were more than the four prototype chairs that he expected. When Geoffrey saw the surprised expression on his face, he continued speaking.

“It took the longest to have the levers that raise the footrests to function properly, but after a small bit of adjusting, we made it work. Honestly, we were surprised at how precise the blueprints were,” Geoffrey said.

As he was speaking, Derek saw a small, smug smile appear on Brandi’s face. They had put the blueprints together, but they hadn’t done any testing at all—that is why Derek could only hope that the chairs didn’t take longer than Geoffrey thought they would. Luckily, it seemed that he and Brandi—mostly Brandi—had gotten everything correct, or at least close enough.

“After the small adjustments, it was only a matter of time—and not much time, may I add—before we were finished with the order. I was actually finished with what you ordered around midway through yesterday, but I decided to do some extra experimenting myself. So, on top of four chairs you ordered, there are four more—each differing in the quality and type of material used. I only focused on the reclining chair and not the sofa chair, as the former was more original than the latter. I do hope that is okay,” Geoffrey explained.

“This is more than fine,” Derek said. “You went above and beyond. With these, we’re going to need a proper sitting area to laze around in.”

Geoffrey looked around and paused in thought for a moment. “We can certainly discuss that.”

Derek continued to look through the ring, but before he inserted mana and brought out one of the chairs, he noticed something else inside—something small. With a thought, the small object appeared on the center of the dining table.

“Is this…” Derek was speechless. Before him sat a very small version of the rest of the reclining chairs.

“Ah… yes,” Geoffrey said with a blush. “I do believe that your small companion may be even more popular than you are these days. Stories have been popping up about how she—as a small horned rabbit—saved a prince, decimated an army… twice, and even created a delicious feast for a royal wedding. I thought it was only proper that she receives a chair as well.”

Derek reached out and ran his palm over the small purple chair. The fabric used to create the upholstery was soft and smooth, and it was stuffed with material that didn’t seem too soft or too hard. Derek was impressed.

‘Silvi,’ Derek sent to the bunny via their link. He didn’t actually know where his companion had gone off after breakfast earlier in the day. However, she was still close enough to speak through their telepathic link.

‘What?’ she answered back bluntly.

‘We’re in the dining room of the shop,’ he began. ‘Geoffrey has brought my prototype chairs, but he has also brought you a gift, as well.’

The young bunny didn’t even answer back. Instead, Derek felt the telltale feeling that Void Travel always produces coming from the bunny’s kitchen. Malorie and Brandi had felt the dreadful feeling many times before, so they were able to be this close to it without making much of a fuss, and it didn’t have any effect on Marrick. Geoffrey, on the other hand, had already begun shaking and sweating bullets.

Luckily for him, Silvi was quick with it, and the feeling disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. Before Geoffrey was able to ask any questions about what he just felt, the door to the kitchen swung open and Silvi flew through the air with her cloak and chef’s hat before landing in the center of the table beside her new piece of furniture.

“This it?” her voice chimed out from the communication crystal on her collar.

“That’s it,” Derek said, and he watched as his companion slowly hopped around the chair—inspecting every inch of it. Finally, she hopped up into the chair and scooched around in it until she seemed to find a comfortable position.

“This will do,” she said.

“Try the lever on the side,” Derek replied.

The next instant, a small, almost transparent, Mage Hand appear beside Silvi and the chair, and it reached down and pulled the lever. With it, the back of the chair leaned back a small amount, and the footrest popped out from the front. Silvi leaned back a bit with the backrest, then she tried to kick her feet out to reach the footrest.

“Legs too short,” she said. “Can’t reach.”

Derek almost burst out laughing at the picture of his companion sprawled out in the chair like some lazy dogs back on Earth. Her little legs kicking in the air to try to reach the footrest didn’t do anything to help the situation, either. Brandi was already sitting at the side of the table in a fit of silent laughter, and even Malorie and Marrick had a small grin on their faces that they couldn’t hide.

Eventually, the Mage Hand pulled the lever back up and the footrest disappeared back under the chair. “Good!” Silvi’s voice chimed out once again. “Very comfortable. I like. Can be comfortable while waiting for things to bake.”

“I… am glad you like it,” Geoffrey answered. He was the only one who wasn’t laughing when she was unable to properly use the chair. It seemed to have slipped his—or the crafter’s—mind that she was a bunny and didn’t have the same anatomy as a human.

Derek had thought about asking the man to make a nice soft cushion for her to lay on, but he felt that the ones he was thinking of would make her resemble a pet too closely. She already had a collar, but her cloak did a good job meshing with it, so it didn’t look like a pet collar—it was more like a utility collar. And since it had storage rings and communication crystals implanted in it, nobody questioned it. But he really didn’t want to get her what would pretty much be a dog bed.

This chair had solved his little dilemma. I’ll have to give Geoffrey something extra for his initiative, he thought.

“Our turn,” Marrick said from the side once Silvi got back to her most comfortable position on her chair.

“Sure,” Derek replied, then all eight of the full size chairs appeared between the wall and the dining table.

For the next ten minutes, Derek, Marrick, and Brandi hopped in the chairs and tested them out. Eventually, even Malorie stood and made her way to one of them. She seemed to enjoy it.

“Geoffrey,” Derek said from a chair that he found most to his liking—a recliner that matched Silvi’s own and seemed to be created with the same materials. “You have outdone yourself.”

“Thank you,” Geoffrey said with a bow of his head.

“Have you found the ones you like yet?” Derek asked Marrick.

“I like them all,” Marrick replied. “But I think I like this one the best. It’s a shame about the color, though.”

The chair Marrick was sitting in was one that Derek didn’t really care for. It was a forest green color and was the softest of all chairs in the room. When he had sat in it, he sunk so deep that without the system and the stats it had given him, he would have had a difficult time getting up.

“Take what you want,” Geoffrey said from the side. “That sofa chair is yours, too. I only created the two of them—one for each of you.”

With ease, the old man hopped up and walked over to a sand-colored chair and stored it into his storage ring. It was obvious that Geoffrey had made the initial prototypes for Derek and Marrick a color closely related to them. Derek also hopped up, stored his recliner, then went over to store his purple sofa chair. Instead of storing his recliner, Marrick went back over and sat in it again.

“What are you doing with the other chairs?” Derek asked.

“They are yours. Do as you wish,” Geoffrey replied. “I have more of the being created for sale as we speak. I imagine they are going to be a very popular item.”

“That’s good,” Derek said.

Finally, Geoffrey looked over to Malorie, who had taken her place back at the table. “Ms. Fields, shall we focus on business?”

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