Chapter 21 - A Bit More Reasonable

I managed to survive the wagon ride without losing my cool or my cover.
I’d take that as a win, all things considered. I didn’t even make myself look that foolish when we pulled up outside of the cabin only to come to the realization that I didn’t actually have a place to house Quiet. It actually gave me the perfect excuse for suddenly needing to not be around the rest of them.
After unloading everyone’s supplies, not trying to make it seem like I was staring just to make sure Gwendoline followed the villagers into the main hamlet, I decided that the best way to survive the… however long she was going to be a shadow lingering over my life, was by throwing myself wholly into the project that was my land.
Willow had done a great job by finding workers for us, even if I hadn’t been in the right mind to appreciate it when she first told me, and I intended to get them started the moment they arrived.
Assuming Bram and the others came back tonight or in the morning, and no one cared about me borrowing him for a few days with the road completed, we’d be able to get foundations for several structures put down and into place.
Though… the accumulated stone I had listed under the resource section in my interface was starting to get low enough that I’d either have to purchase and ship some in from Gold’s Lodge, or cut back on the projects I wanted to immediately tackle. Maybe I’d been just a bit too generous with how much I’d let the villagers use… but then again the completed road meant bringing resources in was no longer as difficult.
Short term pain for long term gain… just like dealing with Gwendoline. That’s what I had to focus on.
The weather was relatively okay, so I was weighing whether I could just hitch Quiet up outside for a single night without it being an issue and I swear it felt as if the horse knew what I was thinking, because she snorted and bucked her head as I rubbed my chin.
“I’m kinda wondering where exactly you’re going to have Quiet stay? Maybe I should have asked that before you bought the wagon…”
“That would have been helpful,” I agreed without looking over at Willow. I’d hoped she would follow the others but had somehow known she wouldn’t. “I was considering a small lean to on that side of the cabin there, but most people coming into town will probably start using horses… it might be smart if we have a stable attached to the inn.”
“Already added one, you should really take a look at what I’ve been working on… I uh… might have went overboard, but I think you have enough resources for it…” she said, a bit nervously. I looked over at her, then opened the blueprint.
“That’s… You do realize Danwood’s not that big right…”
“It’s called planning for the future, Corbin,” she said, crossing her arms as her nose scrunched. “But… I guess we could lose a few rooms… and the third floor…”
My original “few room” inn had, under Willow’s tweaking and my distraction, turned into a massive design. There were, as Willow said, three floors, with the top two each holding eight rooms. The main floor wasn’t much better, with separating dining halls that just weren’t at all what I was planning or aiming for and the terrace had its own bar with a door that directly connected it into an interior serving area. Wait, actually… that last one was a good idea.
“I appreciate the ambition, but yes, let’s maybe go a bit more reasonable,” I said, scanning the blueprints as I waved away a few of the details. “Though… we should expand this underground area… and if we put it here, when I’m ready for my brewery I could add a connecting line right into it.”
“Oh yes, because an underground tunnel and a brewery without a single crop planted is totally reasonable,” Willow said and I saw the blueprints start to shift as she cleaned up some of the more ambitious aspects of it.
“It’s called planning for the future, Willow,” I said and saw her roll her eyes.
“Well someone’s in a better mood,” she said, turning to look toward the plot I’d set aside for the inn. The blueprints appeared in a light outline and I could see as the angle and design of the roof shifted with each wave of her hand.
“I forgot how little I liked being in a cramped wagon,” I said, tweaking the inn a bit more, reducing the rooms to just eight since the footprint needed wasn’t that bad. A bit oversized still… but it gave the main floor below the rooms plenty of space between the main hall, the kitchen, and the terrace. If this place ever got busy enough that more than that was needed… well it threatened to give me a headache just thinking about it.
“We were on the front bench. Honestly, you probably should have let one of the kids sit between us. It might have made it slightly less cramped for the rest of them,” she replied. She looked back over the adjustments I made, then made a content sound after a tiled roof set into place on the visualized blueprint. “There, how’s that?”
“Still a lot… but it’ll do,” I said with a nod.
I scrolled and made sure that we had all of the building materials, happy to see that the stone and lumber requirements were covered. There were several things on the list that we didn’t have, even when I accounted for my bag, but it was surprisingly less than I expected. All the same, looking over just how much we were trying to cover with the initial build, I had a hard time not wondering if Willow wasn’t the only one being a bit ambitious. I decided to scan over the project one last time before I hit the final approval button.
[Project Management] Project Name: Untitled Inn/Tavern Business* Sub-Projects: Inn with Kitchen and Tavern, Community Playground, Stable Required Materials: See Individual Sub-Projects Estimated Completion: See Individual Sub-Projects. Times listed assumes total labor applied. Assigned Labor: 0/7 Available Labor: 0/7** Note: Please submit business to local Steward. Note: Currently hired labor is more than five kilometers away.
[Inn with Kitchen and Tavern]

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. [Required Materials] Structural: Lumber, Stone, Mortar, Roofing (Clay Tile), Nails Interior: Cut Flooring, Doors, Furniture, Lanterns Kitchen: Cooking Equipment, Food Preparation, Storage, Dishware Tavern: Tables, Chairs, Bar, Shelving, Drink Storage Guest Rooms: Bed Frames, Mattresses, Bedding, Wash Basins, Wardrobes Estimated Completion: 9 Days
[Stable***] [Required Materials] Structural: Lumber, Stone, Mortar, Roofing (Hardwood), Nails Additional: Feed Storage, Water Troughs, Tack Hooks Estimated Completion: 4 Days
[Community Playground] Required Materials: Playground Equipment, Benches, Lumber, Nails Estimated Completion: 2 Days
***Note: Please lay foundations and excavate any required land to begin these projects.
“I can start trenching the area for the basement out, that way we can get foundations and supports placed when the crew gets here. We’re going to need to hire Bram for a few days to cut stone and get the foundation placed, assuming Daniel can spare him,” I said, rubbing my chin as I organized the project parts into the most efficient order I could. “What time will the crew be here anyway?”
“Um, I organized all of it with a few guys, but a man named Yurick offered to make sure everyone was on time. He said he’d make sure the crew was on the way before dawn broke, so they should be here by mid-morning,” Willow explained and I perked up slightly at the name. She didn’t give me time to comment on it, nor did she seem to notice my interest as she continued to stare at the blueprints. “Can’t say for sure about Bram though. If Thomas lets them stay the night out there, which is a big if since I know he doesn’t want to leave Darla alone, he might not get back till later in the day. Either way, I can talk with Danny and convince him he doesn’t need Bram for a bit once they’re back. They’ve already got their foundation laid… Although… I guess I haven’t told him you hired me for this just yet…”
“If you’re going to see him, maybe I can just have you submit the business proposition. I doubt he’d make his little sister pay the registration fee…” I said, considering it for a moment. “Though we need a business name in order to submit it.”
“Please… he might make me pay double,” Willow said, rolling her eyes before she seemed to drift off for a second. “You could always just call it the Danwood Inn… nothing wrong with straightforward.”
My nose scrunched at the idea.
“Village Rest?” she offered and I frowned harder.
“Absolutely not. I will not abide a dumb name,” I said, and she laughed.
“Got it, simple equals dumb to you. How about The Sleeping Stoneboar?”
“And have to be reminded about that thing every day? Pass.”
“Okay Mister Creative, what would you call it?”
“If I had a good idea, do you think I would have left the field blank for this long?”
“Probably not. You didn’t let Quiet sit around without a name,” she said. Though Quiet was still hitched to the wagon at the bottom of the hill from my cabin, I could hear when she whinnied. Logically I knew the horse was just a horse, but if someone told me she was paying attention to us, I’d almost have to believe them. “Hmmm… How about naming it for her? Especially if her home’s gonna be attached to it.”
“That… That’s not a bad idea,” I said, considering it.
“Quiet’s Hearth?” Willow offered.
“There would be a lot of jokes from customers about “not being quiet,” but that’s not a bad thing…” I looked at the project interface again, sitting with the name before looking over at Willow who was staring back. “Yeah… I think that’s the one.”
Once the name was added in, the window updated and listed the business as [Ready to Submit]. Willow clapped her hands together, smiling as I closed the interface out. I looked at her, then over toward the other homes up the street.
“Yes yes, I’ll go submit the plans to Danny and convince him to let us have Bram for a bit… Maybe later you can tell me why you were so bothered by Sister Gwendoline since you’re clearly trying to avoid her…” she said, following my gaze and guessing what I was going to ask. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, especially since she’d brought Gwendoline back up. “At first I thought she was the one you were avoiding, but she didn’t seem to recognize you… And it’d be really strange if you’d been trying to hide from someone who wouldn’t know who you were.”
Stars… why wouldn’t she leave it alone.
“Then again, I’ve met some mean Sisters… Probably not my business,” she said with a shrug. “Though, Sister Gwendoline does seem nice enough.”
“She’s… not the worst Sister I’ve met.”
Willow looked at me for just a moment, snickered, then shook her head.
“Okay, anyway I’ll come by tomorrow when the guys should be getting here. Even if I don’t need to watch over the whole process, I can’t help but want to see it happen…” she said, thinking about it for a moment before she perked up. “Oh, and I know you said that you didn’t have space in your cabin for them, but I told them they could set up camp in the field just a bit behind where you marked the inn’s spot until we get that built.”
“How much uh… how much did you offer them anyway? I kinda forgot to ask what we ended up hiring them for,” I said, already going to pull open the interface. While most of the details would be included in my interface, there were some things, like lodging, that were more of a… verbal agreement sort of thing.
“I used the standard offer in the interface. Twenty-five silver per day, though I did agree to let them stay in the inn once it was built until the initial projects you wanted to hire them for were completed,” she explained. I felt myself blink at the price she’d said.
Not just at the fact that it was so… so much lower than the two gold I’d offered each person when I’d first gotten here–which, in hindsight really explained a lot about why the crew and Daniel had reacted the way they had at my initial offer–I also hadn’t realized that there was a “Standard Offer” section in the interface in the first place.
To be fair, in most of my lives, I’d never been concerned with hiring people through normal means, and the few people I did have to bribe into my service often required such exorbitant amounts that I’d never have seen them in the interface in the first place. Still… for as much as I believed I knew about the system, it seemed to be the most mundane things that I’d missed.
“Okay, that’s good,” I finally said, knowing I’d probably let a few odd seconds of silence pass. “Thanks for the help with all of this. I may have dithered on this for days if you hadn’t stepped in.”
“And you wouldn’t have a wagon either,” Willow teased, giving me a smug look. “We can discuss what you’ll actually be paying me once the Quiet’s Hearth is up and running. I mean, I’m worth a little more than the standard offer… don’t yah think?”
“I gave you basically unrestricted control over the place and I’m relatively sure you’re already treating my wagon like it’s yours too… What more could you want?” I asked, though I did pull open the interface to see what I’d offered when I just assigned her as the manager.
“Oh plenty more,” she smiled, slowly starting to walk down toward the road. She stopped and looked over her shoulder at me. “But that’s why I said we can discuss it later. Now I’d recommend you find a nice place to hitch Quiet to for the night. She’ll be fine for a few days until the stable’s ready.”