Many hammers strike away, their ringing bouncing around the house together with the buzzing of just as many moving saws. Teams of carpenters are at work, running around and inspecting every joist, joint and jutting beam of the house, replacing those that are misaligned or wrong.

“Over there,” says Sockel, pointing up at the rafters above the restaurant area, towards the horizontal beam that had sagged back when Obscura sat on it, during the frogs’ attack. “That one up there needs to be looked at.”

“You got it,” replies the now familiar head-carpenter, waving his apprentice over to climb up and to take a look in his stead.

Hineni turns his gaze, looking at the glassworker, who is not replacing any windows today, but he is sealing the gaps and cracks between the panes of glass and the building. It’s important to find a balance between keeping the house sealed and at the same time ‘letting it breathe’, as the expression goes. Too much air in and out, the heat goes with it. But if you seal it off entirely, moisture can get trapped inside of the building. Especially in a room like this, which is meant to be full of people. The last thing that they need is mold.

Mold seems like something that frogs would like. Hineni narrows his eyes as he continues his walk through the house.

Next, he goes to the forge. A stone-mason and her team are in here, inspecting the potential water-damage that Rhine might have caused during the night of the attack. Hineni had read about porous rocks in the library and became paranoid. If any of the rocks down by the foundation of the tower got soaked with water and were exposed to intense heat, they might crack, breaking the floor. It’s just a theory and he doesn’t even know if any of that kind of stone is even here, but they have the money and Hineni is checking off every box. They can’t afford any risks now. “How’s it looking?” he asks the head stoneworker.

“Looks good so far. But we’ll keep digging to be sure,” replies the orcish woman who runs the operation.

He nods to her, trusting in her statement as he continues his route, now heading to the bath. The usually beyond steamy room is currently as dry as a bone. The water-workers have turned the system off, in order to run their inspection.

Rhine is in here too, watching the water-workers carefully. “Rhine,” says Hineni, staring at the two workers, a dwarf and a dark-elf, working through some small holes which had been beneath the now dug out tiling. “Are you handling it?”

Rhine smiles a smug smile. He’s leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and his boot back against it. “Rhine! The river-wizard can handle a child’s task like delegation!”

Hineni raises an eyebrow. Rhine had heard that word, ‘delegation’, from Sockel and seems to have taken a liking to it. Hineni shrugs. Young boys are easily influenced, he supposes. Plus he seems to like Sockel. The man nods to Rhine, who nods back.

He heads upstairs, grabbing the door handle to enter into the long corridor.

Something presses against it from the other side. The door flies open, slamming against the wall, as the handle slips out of his hand. A draft of wind presses against him, almost pushing him back and knocking him down the staircase.

The gust dies down a second later and Hineni peeks out into the hallway, staring at the giant owl, who is blocking the entire right-hand side of it, standing in front of their bedroom door. The group of inspectors from the city, who are here today, are all knocked down onto the floor from the wind, looking very nervously her way. Obscura had apparently taken offense to them trying to get into their bedroom.

Hineni runs over and defuses the situation. The entire building needs to be inspected and approved before they’re allowed to open for the general public. Hineni was afraid that this would be a big hurdle, but thankfully, as he greeted everybody who came inside today, he noted that not one person smelled like a frog.

It seems that luck is on their side right now. Perhaps though, a little of that luck is also Avarice’s influence at play. He can’t be sure, but he has a sneaking suspicion that the god is moving some things in the background, in order to get their operation started smoothly. Not that he minds.

“Sorry about that,” apologizes Hineni, waving to the inspectors as the strangers go into their room to check out that the building is up to code. Pressed against the front of his chest is a small owl, struggling and flapping her wings in anger.

“Intruders!” She clicks her beak, snapping her head around in a full turn to look at Hineni. “They disturb our nest!” she protests. Hineni turns, walking down the hallway towards the door to the attic space.

“They’re from the city. We talked about this,” says Hineni. She hoots angrily, apparently not impressed. To keep her out of the way, he decides to head upstairs to the attic with her, setting her down once the door is closed behind them.

She continues to click angrily with her beak, transforming into her half-human form. “Hineni has brought Ob~ scu~ ra~ to his secret tree?” she hoots curiously, walking towards him and pressing a taloned finger against his chest. “Many people, yes? They all want my Hineni,” she protests, looking down back towards the staircase with paranoid eyes. “They disturb.”

He shakes his head. “You know that we need to get all of this going,” he says. “It’s only going to get even busier, once the guild is running,” explains Hineni, grabbing the hand that is pressed against his chest and holding onto it. “There are going to be people running in and out of here all day. Hundreds of them, maybe. If we’re lucky.” She tilts her head, clearly not happy about this either. In a way, he understands. In a way, he feels the same way.

The two of them have been living a short, but quiet, new life together. It’s been, relatively speaking, peaceful and nice. Sure, sometimes Rhine was around or sometimes Sockel later on, but for a long time, it’s just been the two of them. Just the man and the owl and the odd, synchronized sensation that the conjunction of their heartbeats makes. He can feel it in his hands when he holds hers.

“But you want to get stronger, right?” he asks. “We need to do this. Or we won’t be able to keep up with the frogs.” Obscura looks around the room in the attic curiously. Following her gaze, Hineni looks around too. “We used to live up here. My folks and I,” he explains. “For a while, I was wondering if we should use this room as ours, but…” his eyes fall to the dusty furniture.

Sure, the room is just as salvageable as any other part of the house. It’s cozy and warm. It’s a good room. But…

“We can not,” says Obscura. “One must never return to an old nest,” she says, nuzzling her head against his chest. “Old nests are places bad things have found,” she says. “They wait for us to return.”

Hineni continues to look around the room.

He just doesn’t want to sleep with his wife in his dead parent’s room. It just seems weird? Yeah, it seems weird.

“I got the feathers!” exclaims Rhine proudly.

It’s the next day, work continues on the house. But the forge has been deemed as safe. It cost a few hundred Obols, but Hineni is glad to have the peace of mind that came with that payment.

“Great job, Rhine,” says Hineni. “The river?” he guesses.

“The river,” affirms Rhine, lifting a little bag. “They must have fallen off of a boat or something, see?” he says, opening the wax-sealed bag and showing him the hundreds of perfectly dry, strong feathers inside. Honestly, Hineni doesn’t really know what to say about the whole ‘river’ thing, if anything, so he just gives the boy a nod and a hand on his shoulder, praising his continued usefulness. River-magic, huh? It’s a wild world.

The two of them set to work, finishing the arrow project that they had started the other day. After a few tries, their first arrow is done and then, for the rest of the afternoon, several dozen more follow.

- [Iron Arrow]{Talon of the owl-god} -

- Quality -

Normal

- Composition -

[Iron Arrowhead](Normal)

[Spry-Wood Shaft](Low)

[Anqa Feather](Low) x 4

- Quality Effects -

“Chosen of the owl-god”

Adds additional attributes to the attached weapon - Title Effect - “Talon of the owl-god” +3 OBSCURANTISM +3 WIND DMG +3 LIGHTNING DMG 3 PHYSICAL DMG A custom-made, iron-headed arrow with sharp anqa feathers. It has a forward balance. ‘Made by weaponsmith Hineni - Chosen of the Owl God’ Weight: 0.63kg Durability: 5/5 Value: 63 Obols

“Wow, that’s a lot of damage for an arrow and… huh…” says Rhine. “Isn’t that one different?” he asks, pointing at the title effect.

Hineni stares at it for a moment. “Yeah, actually,” he says. His eyes wander down towards the arrow in his hands. It’s a beautiful thing. He thinks so, at least. Sure, it’s made out of wood, so it’s not as beautiful as it could be. But still, a lot of work went into this. Maybe they should make arrows out of metal though…? No… too heavy. Well, maybe…

He shakes his head. That’s a problem for another day. First, they need to get this batch done. They need to keep their money flow moving.

He sets it down, setting to the task together with Rhine. The new kiln is up and operational, standing in the back corner of the forge now. It’s a larger construction. It looks a lot like a big oven with two doors. The bottom is loaded up with fuel and the top layer is filled up with wood that will be turned into charcoal. They’re already starting a charcoal pile over on the side. He’s excited to try out the forge with real charcoal, instead of just old forest wood.

But one thing at a time.

The day has all but come to an end. They’re all sitting at Hineni’s favorite booth. It’s time for what is quickly becoming the highlight of his day; when they all sit down to have dinner together. He’s missed this. It’s hard to explain, but… This full table. It makes him feel good.

“So…” says Sockel somewhat awkwardly, looking around the table.

Rhine nods, sitting next to her. “So…” The boy seems to have taken a liking to the elf and she doesn’t seem too annoyed by him, most of the time. When he isn’t working or trailing Hineni, he seems to be spending a lot of time around her instead.

“So what?” asks Eilig’s sharp voice. The fairy from the basement is here now as well, having been invited to join them for dinner, if it felt like it. To Hineni’s surprise, it accepted.

“So what’s it like being a fairy?” asks Rhine.

“What’s it like not being frozen?” asks the fairy in a sharp voice.

Hineni clears his throat. “Let’s get along, everyone,” he says. “Eilig, I think what Rhine was trying to say, is that we’d like to hear more about you.”

“That’s what I said!” protests Rhine.

“Boy,” says Hineni. “Cut the bread.” Sockel has often told him how sensitive and aggressive fairies are. But perhaps it just needs a little time, until they all get one on page, communication-wise. He’d love to really pick the fairy’s brain about the past. Rhine sighs, setting to work on cutting the loaf of fresh bread that they have for tonight's dinner, along with an assortment of small fruits, oils, spreads and cuts of cured meats and cheeses.

“…I don’t know,” says Eilig. “I just kind of live in my cellar.”

“My cellar,” corrects Hineni.

“So what do you do all day?” asks Sockel, looking at the blob floating there.

“I do a lot of things!” yells the fairy.

Sockel blinks. “Uh… I never said you didn’t?” she sighs. “See?” she asks, looking back towards Hineni. “I told you fairies are hard to deal with.”

“What’s hard to deal with is how loud you people are all day!” argues Eilig. “All of my ice shakes every time you fat monstrosities wobble through the kitchen!”

“Wow. Rude,” says Sockel.

“Who~” says Obscura. “Little fairies are sensitive to disturbances in the nest, like pretty, crunchy spiders,” she hoots, holding out a talon towards the fairy.

Hineni clears his throat a second time, grabbing Obscura’s hand and lowering it back down. Out of the corner of his eye, he watches as Sockel’s hand slowly and secretly drifts over towards Rhine’s plate in an attempt to snatch some of his fruit while he’s distracted with the bread. “Okay, let’s all stop,” he says, grabbing a bottle from the center of the table and opening it.

It’s a non-alcoholic fruit wine that he bought for them. Rhine isn’t of drinking age yet and he honestly doesn’t know what to even think of the idea of trying to get Obscura drunk. Can bird-human god creatures even safely drink alcohol? He doesn’t know, so, best to take the cautious way -

Rhine catches Sockel stealing a second one of his berries. “Hey!” The elf quickly pulls away, snatching the fruit. The two of them get into a fight like a pair of rivaling siblings. As they bicker, Hineni watches as a long talon sneaks over towards Sockel’s plate, now that she is distracted.

- Besides, one always has to be on the lookout. You never know when the frogs might make a move… Best not to get drunk at all.

He narrows his eyes, the word hissing through his mind. Frogs…

“What’s with that gross look?” asks Eilig. “Did you see your reflection in the bottle or something?”

The table falls silent as Rhine and Sockel freeze, their hands pressing against each other's faces in an effort to push the other away.

Hineni’s eyes instinctively wander down towards the glass bottle in his hands, towards the vision of the burn-scarred man, who is staring back his way. But in the light of the room that bounces down through the glass, coming from the candles set around the space, he also sees the reflection of so much more than just himself.

Hineni smiles, clearing his throat a third time as he pops open the bottle. “I was just wondering if I could squish you into this bottle before I cork it back up.”

The fairy gasps. “You wouldn’t!”

This is perhaps true. He wouldn’t. But given the sideways glances that the other three are shooting towards the ill-mannered fairy, he gets the feeling that they all might, at the very least, each strongly consider it and the fact that they would do so and take offense for his sake means more to him than any harsh words ever could.