"I know the name gives it away." Erick says after we all get off on the third floor. "But, it's still somewhat startling to experience firsthand."

"Well, the doors are normally closed during use." I reply with a smile. "But, I thought you'd all enjoy a little look behind the scenes."

"Quite." He nods. "I hope you won't mind if I send my architect over to look the place over. I can already see some ideas that I want to steal for the manor house."

"Of course." I nod with a smile, just glad that he didn't ask me to work on his place too. "And, I'll give you a working model and diagram of the lift too, once it's finished that is. The lifting mechanism works fine, but none of the safeties or controls are installed yet."

"I know a couple of apartment owners that might kill to get their hands on that." Holt interjects with a laugh.

"Mhm." His dad nods sagely. "I've seen similar conveyances in the capital, but they're all magical in nature and not all that popular."

"Well, this is just a simple pulley system." I shrug. "The real trick is in making sure that it won't just plummet if something goes wrong. A trick that I likely would have solved by now if my machinist hadn't run off on me when I mentioned an idea that came to me about a gift for the Queen. A small clock worn on the wrist and powered by the same enchantment in the music player." I add when he raises an eyebrow.

"Are you still moaning about Sinclair running off?" Amelia teases when we join her and everyone else in the common area. "Nice trick with the speaker, by the way, she jumped nearly to the ceiling." Apricot glares at us when we laugh at her.

"Oh, don't pout, Sweetie." I dart in to steal a kiss. "I made plenty of extra just for you."

"You'd better have." She nods sharply in warning. "Mhm, another guest. Rozelle just showed up."

"Would it be rude to just shout down to her from the window?" I say with a sigh and head for the elevator again, before stopping in my tracks as an idea strikes.

Pulling out a sheet of paper, I fold it into a paper airplane and launch it towards the nearest window. The window opens itself, allowing the plane to drift out and down to the enchanter.

"Daddy, look, it flew." Rebecca cries and runs to the window to watch it.

"Hello, Master, Jared." The wings of the plane vibrate when it reaches her. "I'd greet you personally, but I'm afraid that dessert might disappear if I left it alone again." I have to dodge a swipe from Apricot at that. "So, please follow this inside."

Rozelle just shakes her head at my message, so the plane zooms to the front door which opens itself. The folded sheet of paper does a loop-de-loop before flying inside and circling in front of the open lift. Ro and her son follow it in and it does figure-eights over their heads for the trip up, much to her annoyance and her son's amusement.

"It came back!" Rebecca cheers when the plane flies back into the room and straight to her.

"What kind of lazy apprentice doesn't even greet their master at the door?" Rozelle asks teasingly. "You're lucky that smells heavenly. And, you're even luckier to have such an amazing master; I solved your remote activation problem."

"Really?" I was not expecting to hear that. "Was it light or electricity."

"Neither, not directly, at least." She answers and brings out a copy of my telegraph from earlier, only the clacker is set to hit another rune. "See your demonstration reminded me of this old touch activation rune. It's seldom used because everyone can just send a pulse of mana into the normal activation rune."

"Oh, this is genius." I activate it making a small light appear above the device, another pulse turns it off. "Just for this, I'm giving you Apricot's share of dessert. Hahaha. Ow!"

"Guildmaster." Delainey greets his fellow guild leader. "You certainly picked an interesting apprentice."

"That's one word for him." She exhales through her nose. "Hello again, Baron." She nods to the man as he watches his grand-daughter chase the paper airplane around.

"I see you've been busy." He smiles at her new invention. "That looks like it could be quite useful."

"Extremely." She agrees with a nod. "Enchanters have been looking for a reliable way to remotely activate runes for a while now, and this seems to be it. I've already thought up dozens of applications for it, and it looks like sorrel has a few ideas himself." She adds with a laugh.

"It means I can make the elevator work at least." I nod while scribbling ideas down on paper. "Might even get rid of the need for an operator; that might take a while though. But, just knowing this rune exists means that I can track the elevator in the shaft and simplify the controls for them."

"Of course." Rozelle nods while looking over my notes. "The stop pulse can originate from wherever you want it to, so all you need is for the carriage to trigger one when it reaches the next floor."

"Yeah, for now the operator can just pull a lever that will move a rod back and forth, triggering different stops on different floors." I explain. "But, it -hopefully- shouldn't be too hard to develop a logic system that will let me automate the whole thing. But, that's a plan for another day, the sun will be going down soon, and I still have a bunch of lights to enchant." I sigh and get back to working on those.

"You don't already?" Erick asks somewhat perplexed since the whole building is lit by fiber-optics right now.

"Glass threads that transmit light." I pull a leftover spool from storage and shine a colored light in one end of the cable. "They're run from the roof to light fixtures all over the building. I'll use magic to light the common areas tonight, but I thought my new tenants would enjoy being able to darken their rooms tonight."

"So this is why you asked if Rozelle if she solved the problem with light or electricity." He says while waving the free end of the cable about.

"Hmm, where was that color-changing formation?" I flip through my enchanting primer and do some quick math to get a rotating rainbow of colors. The enchantment gets inscribed into a cone of polished aluminum with a touch activation on one side, just because I can. "Now, we just need to cut these down and... there we go. The nightlight I had as a kid."

"Ooh!" Rebecca runs over to coo at the color-changing light fountain. "Pretty." She looks up at her grandpa with wide eyes until he hands it over with a sigh.

"Just don't bend them too much or they'll snap." I warn, but she's already entranced by the colored lights, so I don't think she heard me.

"I don't suppose I could get a spool or two of that stuff?" Rozelle asks, obviously seeing the potential for some quick coin. "Jared and I can help you with the rest of the lights in exchange."

"Deal." I bring out all the extra spools I had saved to play with later.

"I don't suppose you can talk while working on those?" Erick ventures. "Hollen and I were hoping you could tell us more about the code you used with the telegraph, was it? The guard has a few codes that might be adapted, but they're fairly simplistic. So, anything more that you could remember would help."

"Oh, it's just a simple alphabet cipher." I say without looking up from my work. "The one I used to demonstrate was just the first letters of 'save our ship'" *taptaptap tap tap tap taptaptap* I tap it out with a vine.

"See, even that much helps." Hollen says. "Most of our codes are based around keywords. Using an alphabet might take longer, but works a lot better than trying to make a code to encompass the entire dictionary."

"True. And, if I remember correctly, the letters were arranged by how common they were, with the more common ones taking fewer taps." I add while plumbing my brain for everything I can remember from those few days when I was really into Morse after getting my first walkie-talkie. "Other than that, all I can recall are the numbers. One short and four long for one, two and three for two, and so on. Until six which is one long and four short, then two and three for seven, until zero is just..." *tap tap tap tap tap*

"That's perfect." Both Erick and Hollen grin widely. "We can reuse the numbers; and, while I doubt a list of most used letters exists, it shouldn't be hard to compile one from a selection of popular books."

"I'll put the more literate soldiers on it tomorrow." Hollen agrees. "Thank you, Sorrel; this saved us quite a lot of work."

"Well, now I just bad for your poor guards." I chuckle. "Here's a book! Count every letter in it."

"Point." He adds his own laugh. "Maybe stick with just the trouble makers for this assignment."

"Make it open to volunteers." The baron orders. "I'll authorize hazard pay, but anyone found to be making up numbers gets punishment detail for a month."

"That should work nicely." The Colonel nods.

"Alright, Gran." Erick turns to his chef. "Thank you for waiting so patiently; you can ask him about the food now." This earns a small round of laughter from those who know about his rivalry with me.

"Mhm. The pork should be done any time now." I say after finishing my latest light. "And, this should be enough lamps for the night." Rozelle, and even her son, far outpaced my production.

"But, not enough to make up for the glass you gave me." Rozelle counters. "Jared can keep working on them, while I follow you to the kitchen. I don't think I've had your cooking before, and it certainly smells nice."

"Here you go, Jared." I set a brownie before him. "An early treat for all your hard work." He tries to hide the smile that fills his face after taking a bite, but it shows through anyway.

"No fair." Apricot whines when she sees someone else getting chocolate before her.

"Fine." I roll my eyes and give her one too. "But, just the one, for now, we're going to eat soon and you can have your fill at dessert. You can wait for dessert too." I add when I spy Granville staring at the snack.

Another small round of laughter for the face he pulls after getting caught fills the air as I lead a small group into the kitchens.

"Oh, yes, this is good." I took the lids off the pans a while ago when the pork first started getting tender. Now it's easily able to be shredded with a fork and the drippings have reduced down nicely. "Just need to let these rest while I get the sauce ready." I remove the meat, deglaze the pans, and combine all the drippings so I can make the barbecue sauce.

"Beer roasted pork, very tender." Gran prods for more information.

"Meant to be pulled apart, coated in sauce, and eaten on a roll. Usually with coleslaw." I explain. "Though you don't need the roll or coleslaw if you don't want. It's more Southern food like the fried chicken from the other day. This style is good for feeding large crowds without too much work. Hey, I don't suppose you have any tamarind in storage?"

"I might have one or two." He admits while carefully examining the barbecue sauce I'm putting together.

"Oh, no." Amelia laughs. "He's going to make that crazy sauce whose name I won't even try to pronounce."

"*Worcestershire* sauce." I provide to the curious crowd. "And, not right now, no; it's too complex to get right on short notice. But, I'd be willing to trade the recipe for a viable pod or two. It's used in a lot of my recipes, and makes a good steak sauce all on its own."

"Here." The chef hands over a couple of brown pods. "And, you weren't kidding about this being complex." He eyes the long list of ingredients.

"Only one company makes the real stuff." I explain. "And, they guard their recipe tightly, so that list may not be entirely accurate. But it should be close, and with my nature magic I should be able to quickly test out different variations until I get it right."

"I would like to help with that." He offers. "You may be the only one who knows what it tastes like, but I should be able to help with fine-tuning the recipe."

"I'd be glad for the help." I say immediately. "I'd say we could get started after dinner, but I still need to grow a few tamarind trees and buy the fish."

"Mhm." He nods, visibly upset that we cant get started on it right away. "I don't have any salted anchovies on me either. I can bring them over tomorrow and we can work on it then if that's alright."

"Perfect." I agree. "It'll be a nice distraction from all the work I still have to do to get this place up to where I want it. Now, this sauce looks good, so it's time to shred the pork and serve everything." I break out a couple pairs of forks and use all four arms to do just that.

***