The light of the white and yellow suns lit the morning fully by the time we were done. Now, I wanted to test the fireplace. I headed to the first level and to the cooktop. The open box would act as the main fireplace. I bought a thick pain of heat-treated glass for the front, the side facing the living room. Fusing it in place, all along the outer edge to the stone, one side was now sealed.

  For the side facing the kitchen, I cut from one of the pieces of stone we had lying around a door. With the lip on the door and edge cut into the front of the stove box, the door would seal. I placed three steel hinges on the left of the stove, allowing the door to swing to the left into the kitchen.

  For a handle, I cut a hole in the door, running a bolt through it, then fused a round piece of metal shaped like an L to that. It stuck out four inches from the door and was five inches long. I took the heavy gauge wire I had and spiraled it around the handle, so it would not become too hot.

  To the right of the door, in line with the handle, I fused a two-inch tab of metal, with notches cut out, making a latch. Now when you turn the handle counterclockwise, it would lift the locking tab; this let the door lock in place fully closed or open to allow more airflow for the fire.

  The stovetop was 2-foot by 4-foot, and the edge was 1-inch-deep. If I just bought a metal top, it would cost 32,000 credits and was honestly not needed. I got the section of stone I had cut away for the top opening of the stone and fused it back in place. I cut out four 6-inch-diameter holes, two on the left and two on the right. In the center, I made a 12-inch-diameter hole. Removing the stone circles that I had cut out, I cut a lip out from each and fused the lip back onto the block.

  Now each of the 6-inch burners only cost 800 credits, and the center cost 3100 credits. I bought the round plates, set the 1-inch-thick pieces into place, and fused them all except the back left corner. I would run a chimney pipe from that spot out of the kitchen in summer if I had to, in order to keep the house from being too warm.

  I got a cord of soft pine firewood, adjusting the moisture to ten percent, to help it burn faster and hotter. I set up the fire in the stove but used my heat spell first. Using 300 mana, I raised the temperature in the stove to 300 degrees, or close to it, starting the drafting process. The smoke had a lot of chimneys to get through, and once the process was started, the airflow would be fine, but until it was, the air pressure from the cold could force the smoke back out of the stove.

  Lighting the fire, I closed the door latching it on the furthest notch. Flames began to dance, and a small amount of smoke began coming up from the front of the door. “Allynna, stay here; I’m going to go heat the chimney upstairs. Let me know if the smoke keeps coming out.”

  “Alright…” I headed up to the second floor and to the two rooms that were in the center of the house on the east side of the building. I uncorked one of the chimney pipes and focused my heating spell inside the chimney; after thirty seconds, the air was close to 600 degrees inside the top portion of the chimney, drawing up and out of the roof.

  After capping the chimney pipe, Allynna called out, “less is starting to come out of the front.”

  I headed back to the stove, “good, hopefully, that will get it going.” We watched as less and less smoke made its way out the front.

  We went outside and stared up at the top of the chimney, still no smoke coming out. “How’s it going?” Diana asked, walking up with Sanako.

  “Just seeing if the chimney works before we put the roof on,” I answered as the two women stood next to me.

  We waited nearly ten minutes more, and I was about to go back inside when the first wisps of smoke began lazing out of the central chimney. “Right, now let’s check for smoke and then get to work on the roof.”

  The stove was drawing air strongly, and I threw in a bunch more wood. We checked the heating wall finding no leeks, and by the time we were done, the oven and stovetop were heating up while white smoke poured from the chimney. The wall was still cold, though. It would take a day or more to heat up and needed the other fireplaces feeding it to properly work.

  The roof and sides were done by 12pm, with Diana, Sanako, and Allynna passing me up 1-inch by 12-inch by 10-foot-long boards. They handed them up, and I fused them to the rafters and each other from the ladder.

  As long as I was touching an object, I could use the spell fuse anywhere on it. With the roof done, the inside was now dark, the only light coming in from the two-door cutout and the sticky light spell I used. Having to use the light spell so much leveled it into the apprentice ranks easily.

  Spell:

  Sticky light orb: Apprentice, level 11. Use 50 points of mana to produce an orb of light that can be stuck to non-magical surfaces for 20 minutes at high brightness, 40 minutes at medium brightness, and 60 minutes at low brightness.

  By dimming the light further, I could get two hours out of the spell now. The stove fire was fed regularly, and the chimney heating wall was now not cold but far from warm. For the front door and back door, I bought four 3-inch-thick by 7-foot-long by 3-foot-wide solid pieces of hardwood. I fused a full-length hinge to one side and the other to the door frame.

  The handle was just a steel rod through the door that had a rectangle of metal on the inside, which flipped up and down into a stone latch. It was an extremely basic door latch, and I would add door crossbars so they could be locked at night. The five feet of stone wall acted as a mudroom to the outside for both the back and front door.

  There were ten smaller fireplaces I had to build for the rooms. Without magic, I don’t think I would have gotten them done for days. They were made from stone, a back piece, a firebox that vented up then down the side of the firebox and back-up to the top and to the steel pipe chimney. I cut the stone and fused them together, adding the doors as I went. I made three of the handles I had made for the kitchen stove and unlocked them from the shop, only needing to spend 10 credits on each.

  The fireplaces upstairs were raised a foot off the ground by four stone blocks that rested on a 6-inch plate of stone to keep it off the wood. When I finished one fireplace, I would light a fire in it, opening the flue, a very thin flat disk of metal that rotated in the chimney pipe to open or close the vent from the main heating wall. My master bedroom got a fireplace on either side of the heating wall, one for the bedroom side and one for the bathroom side.

  The walls from the rooms upstairs all got framed out with 6-inch-wide, 1-inch-thick, 8-foot-long boards. I attached one side of the walls as well but left one open, waiting to be insulated. The joists were still open to the attic, and for all the heat now being produced, most of it was just going up.

  The stairs to the second level got the outside stringer cut out and the inside stringer. Treads got added and the risers. On the inside of the front bedroom on the first floor, I closed off the open stairs. Now all I had left to do was put in toilets, showers, and maybe a bathtub upstairs, run the water pipes, which were going to be exposed, and then close off the stone for the sewer pipes.

  I went outside and made stone stairs going up to the front and back door. Smoke billowed from the chimney now, a great gray stream pouring into the sky. It was 3pm as I took a walk around the house, two doors, no windows. A little bleak but I would add windows later.

  I fitted the first toilet upstairs. The communal bathroom upstairs would have the toilets on the right, the east side of the building, and the showers on the left. Eight of the lavatories went upstairs, fitted and fused to their drainpipes, then I placed the two downstairs. When you walked into the bathrooms upstairs, the showers would be to the left along with the sinks, and through the second-floor heating-wall, would be the eight restrooms.

  For the showers upstairs, I made six shower plates from marble. The outside edges were 2-inches thick and tapered down to 1-inch to the drain hole in the center. I connected all the sewer pipes to the main sewer line and left the drain pipes for the sinks sticking out of the floor. Installing my master bathroom toilet last, I was now ready to run the water pipes.

  Allynna grabbed the hot and cold-water maker from the trailer, and I attached it to the heating wall in my bathroom. Stainless steel pipes would be for the cold water, and copper pipes would be for the hot water. I ran the pipes through the floor to the far end of the building next to the main sewer pipe, having the hot and cold-water pipes T-off to the kitchen and then into the two bedrooms at the end.

  The two bedrooms got a toilet, smaller shower, and sink. From my master bathroom, I ran the pipes up through the floor along the heating wall, connecting all the toilets to the steel pipe and running the set into each of the shower stalls. I had those old ball valve pearl white handle knobs in my garage supplies, so I was able to buy hot and cold-water handles. All told, there were 45 to buy, costing 100 credits, which was another 4,500 credits down.

  When the bathrooms and showers had been installed, I placed the framing up for the walls, separating the toilets into stalls and the showers upstairs. The two first-floor rooms got their small bathrooms framed out at well. I connected the shower valves to a single pipe and shower head, both upstairs and downstairs. The sinks got made from marble, as I could change the shape of the blocks in the shop with cut, making square sinks. Then I fused the drainpipes to the sink basin and the basins to the walls. After connecting everything to the faucets upstairs and down, I went to my master bath. A large shower in the far-left corner, with four showerheads, a walled-off lavatory nook, a sink, and a big tub in the right-hand corner.

  All of it was done out of marble as it was quite easy to work within the shop, as long as everything was kept mostly square. After the downstairs was hooked up, I turned the water on and checked everything for leeks. The toilets filled and were flushed, showers turned on as well as the sinks. The main sewer drained into a large holding tank the girls had dug out and lined in stone, then buried again. The only thing you could see was the vent pipe sticking out of the ground. To empty it, all you had to do was touch the vent pipe and sell the contents to the shop. It would hold something like 8,000 gallons.

  As night fell, the bones of the building were done. Tomorrow I could seal the pipes in, finish the counters in the kitchen, put in the ceiling on the upstairs, and put in insulation. Then I could line my bathroom in marble. I could select the color of the stones I got from the shop as long as it did not change its properties significantly.

  Before going to bed, I filled all the fireplaces with as much wood as they would hold and closed all the doors. I wanted to see if the fires would stay hot all night.

  October 16 th , 04:55:00 am.

  Weather:

  16 th , high of 36 degrees, low of 30 degrees. Snow.

  17 th , high of 30 degrees, low of 19 degrees. Clear.

  18 th , high of 40 degrees, low of 36 degrees. Cloudy.

  The next morning the sky was full of gray clouds, and I worked on closing up all of the exposed pipes. The fires had stayed mostly hot through the night, burning about three-fourths of the wood they had within. I filled them once more and cracked their doors, and after an hour, the forty-degree inside turned into a balmy fifty-five degrees.

  After that, I made counters out of granite for the kitchen and an island that was 3-feet by 4-feet long in the center held up by four pillars. I walked through the house and sold all the extra bits of stone lying around and wood. Leaving just the 12-inch by 1-inch by 10-foot pieces for the upper ceiling and walls. In the bedrooms, I closed off the exposed walls 4-feet up from the ground and started putting the ceiling in.

  Allynna once again helped me, holding the boards up to the ceiling from a step ladder. When the second-floor ceiling was in, I felt the building was almost ready to be moved into.

  Insulation, I hated the stuff; itchy and scratchy, the pink fibers were a nightmare. They, however, were needed, especially for the cold. I found it odd that they were located in the raw material section of the shop, but I guess it was just spun glass, crushed limestone, and sand. For the attic, I would need 2800 square feet or three of the 10-foot cubed sections of insulation.

  I climbed into the attic through the opening I had left at the landing of the stairs on the second level, which would need a door soon also. I purchased the insulation, watching it form as a massive cube in front of me. I touched it and moved the mass into my inventory. It took up far too much space for weighing next to nothing. The mass of insulation was sort of loose, most of it collecting in little clumps; by focusing on summoning just a small portion of the cube from an area the size of my palm, I could direct a stream of insulation. I started in the north section of the attic, filling the rows between the ceiling joists with insulation.

  I only put down 12-inches, filling the space between the ceiling joists, back and forth I went until all the insulation in my inventory was gone. Then I bought another 10-foot cubed and repeat. It came out sort of fast, at a decent falling speed. I could not project the insulation, but it wasn’t slow either. Soon the attic was done after an hour of back and forth. I would wait to add more; I wanted to lay down some walkways after I finished with the walls downstairs.

  I went to the framed-out walls of the bedrooms and filled the pockets between the studs with insulation, adding a few boards across the entire length of the wall when the insulation reached the top of the boards I had placed down previously. The girls left me alone mostly, only occasionally coming in and asking if I needed anything. I was nervous about getting the whole thing done. What if I had messed up somewhere, and the first night we froze to death, or the whole building collapsed.

  There was no helping it. It was time. I walked down the steps and made my way back over to the fire by the trailer. The snow had begun to fall, and there was an inch on the ground already.

  “So, are you done in there?” Stacy asked from by the fire, which was struggling to stay alight.

  “Yeap, time to get everyone over there,” I said, heading for the door. Back inside the trailer, the kids had all been dressed, and the women were getting ready. Most everything had been packed up already.

  “Tristan. We ready to head over?” Miyuki asked from a couch in the living room; Akane was sitting on her lap, the red of the little girl’s hair a fountain of lava pouring from under her cap.

  “Yeap, are we all ready to see our new house?” I asked in an excited voice for the kids.

  “Yeah!” Liza said, jumping up.

  “Awesome, let’s go,” Alice said, getting up as well.

  Soon Hanako, the set of twins, Ayaka and Emiko, Sumina and Renna, were all headed out the door. The moms shuffled out after them, Lola in Trisha’s arms and Akane being held by Sakura. The flakes of snow were large and clung to the coats and caps of the children and mothers.

  We all walked up the steps and into the dimly lit living room. The only light came from the glass on the backside of the main stove and the fireplace in the living room. I had cut out the center of the stone and sealed two panes of heat glass to it, allowing the light to fill the living room.

  “Alright, down the hall are two rooms in the back; to the left is my bedroom, and the kitchen is just ahead,” I said, showing the first floor off. It was surprisingly warm with the insulation in, maybe 60 degrees, and would only get warmer the longer the fires burned.

  “Do you know who’s going where?” Trisha asked, rocking Lola in her arms.

  “I figured I would let you all choose, but I thought you would take the downstairs room to the left; it should be the warmest for the baby. The two downstairs rooms have small on-suite bathrooms, but upstairs is communal.” I answered, following the kids up the stairs. They raced through the rooms and into the bathroom, exploring the whole of the house in quick succession.

  “So, we won’t get our own rooms?” Alice said, a little crestfallen.

  “No, sorry. But we might get to expand the house after a while.”

  “That’s okay, I guess. It just means we’ll have to share.” Liza added.

  “Yeap, the room at the top of the stairs could be for the twins, then there should be enough rooms if moms and daughters share. The downstairs room could be for Trisha and Lola, then the second for Allynna.”

  “That sounds good to us; this room is much bigger than the one we had at the clan house,” Miyuki added, a little shocked at the size of the rooms.

  Tora said, “it’s way too much. The six of us can share one room. We only rent a single room back in Iron Port.”

  “You would really give our girls their own room?” Eiko asked.

  “Yeah, there’s a small fireplace in there, and I figured they were old enough to use it,” I said, heading back downstairs.

  “That is, I don’t know what to say,” Eiko added, her eyes watering.

  “What about Blackberry and Marshmallow!” Alice said, almost panicked.

  “They’ll be too cold,” Renna said.

  “Can they stay in the living room?” Sumina asked.

  “Don’t be silly, Sumina; they wouldn’t fit,” Ayaka said.

  “It’s not silly; where are they going to stay then,” Sumina said with a little stomp of her foot.

  Heading off an argument, I said, “Well, while you all get settled in. I’m going to build them a shelter. You all have this handled?” I asked the mothers.

  “Yes, you can go see to Blackberry and Marshmallow,” Stacy said with a chuckle. The girls started unpacking and generally making the home come to life. Candles were pulled out and lit, pots and pans, and the bedding situation was discussed. I headed back out into the snow.

  I proceeded back over to the trailer. I took down the tarp covering the oxen and moved the trailer back into my inventory. Trudging over to the house, I used my guide stick to move Blackberry and Marshmallow. They seemed mostly content after I tossed down some hay for them to munch on.

  I took a lap around the house. My plan for the expansion was to build off the back of the house, the east side, a single-story set of rooms, eventually. While the south side would get a two-story expansion, running east to west, making the home shaped like a T. The north side was where the barn would be before the farming fields once I bought the land. The front of the house facing west would be a front yard and driveway leading to the road.

 

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