Rise of the Living Forge-Chapter 412: Yes, there are.

It didn’t take Arwin long to make a magical bracelet. Between himself, Caldera, and the Infernal Armory, creating such a thing was relatively simple. It wasn’t even a weak bracelet by any stretch of the imagination. The amount of power Arwin poured into it would have made a fairly decent magical item.

Realistically, there probably wasn’t much reason to create something very powerful for a normal meal. But the Infernal Armory would settle for nothing less. The building refused to allow itself to be used to create subpar equipment.

And, in the end, more practice was always for the best.

Arwin ate the bracet as soon as he’d finished it, absorbing the power and letting the pain burning in his stomach finally abide. He had another three or four days before it would kick back up again — but it was already a bit too late in the night for him to make more backlog. Lillia was probably waiting for him. And, tonight of all nights, Arwin had no plans of being late.

He bid the armory farewell and headed back to the tavern to take a much needed bath. While the Secret Eye had provided him and Reya with beds in their room, they had not been kind enough to include a bath in their offerings. That must have been reserved for the much better rooms.

Arwin didn’t let himself soak in the bath for too long, but he certainly enjoyed every moment of it. Lillia had improved the tubs in the washroom to put out warm water. He had no idea how she’d done it, but it probably had something to do with the Dungeon Heart within Devil’s Den.

Ah. I’ve missed it here. The next time the Secret Eye shows up, they better have a hell of an offer to pull me out. I don’t want to head out again anytime soon. Between work and the rest of the Menagerie being here, I’ve got a hell of a lot of reasons to stay.

Arwin dried himself off and pulled a fresh set of clothes on before making a beeline through the tavern toward Lillia’s room. He remembered the way well even though it had been a few days since he’d last been here, and the darkness proved little impediment to his journey.

“Took you long enough,” Lillia’s voice greeted him as he entered the pitch black space of the bedroom. There was a note of amusement in her voice that made it clear she wasn’t serious. “It hasn’t been the same these past few nights.”

Arwin’s lips pulled into a smile. He followed the sound of her voice until his hand found hers, and she guided him to sit down to sit on the bed at her side. Lillia’s shoulder pressed against his side and she let her head rest on his shoulder.

“Tell me about it,” Arwin said. “I can’t remember the last time I was so stressed over something I wasn’t even participating in. I missed you. Well, all of the menagerie. But you in particular.”

Lillia let out a soft laugh. “I missed you too. I just busied myself by focusing on keeping everything running as best as I could. It sounds like the tournament was pretty damn eventful as well. Is there anything…”

“I need to say? Hell of a lot,” Arwin said with a nod. “Though we covered the vast majority of it as a group.”

“Then I’ll go first.” Lillia suddenly pushed him down. Arwin let out a surprised grunt as his back hit the soft bed and she swung a leg over him, wrapping one of her arms around his body in the same motion and letting her weight rest on his chest. Her tail coiled around one of his legs like a snake. “Rodrick gave me some updates that he wanted to pass along, but he figured you’d be busy tonight.”

“That was a smart guess,” Arwin said. “But Rodrick’s name is the last one I want to hear when you’re lying on top of me. A small, irrational part of my brain is scared that you’re going to rip a mask of and reveal that it’s actually him.”

Lillia let out a surprised snort of laughter. “That’s ridiculous. What do you think the chances are that he’s actually done something like…”

She trailed off.

They were both quiet for a moment.

Then Arwin cleared his throat. “Maybe we should move on.”

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“Agreed,” Lillia said. She walked two fingers up the side of Arwin’s chest. “Updates. The street is a little too busy. We need somewhere to funnel everyone. Between Anna’s free healing sessions and the Devil’s Den, there are too many people just sitting around and doing nothing while they wait. You showing back up will probably just compound the issue. There isn’t enough stock in the Infernal Armory to sell random items, so people will just show up to commission you and not to spend money at other things.”

Arwin blinked. Given the position they were currently in, he was finding it slightly difficult to focus on work topics. Something told him Lillia was definitely getting her fair share of amusement from that.

Is this because I came back late?

It’s definitely because I came back late.

“I — right. Did you happen to have something specific you were thinking of? We already know we probably want to recruit some more people, but I don’t want to move too fast. We don’t want to bring someone into the guild that doesn’t fit it.”

“I agree,” Lillia said. She let her chin rest against Arwin’s chest. “Which is why I think we should look to invest inwardly before we go external. There are members of the Menagerie who might be able to start on something.”

Arwin blinked in surprise. He hadn’t really considered that. Reya kind of already had her role in helping funnel people into the Devil’s Den and the smithy. Esmerelda was, well, Esmerelda. Rodrick had his hands busy and Anna was already running her healing stand. He couldn’t think of anyone who was sitting on an unused crafting talent.

“Who?” Arwin asked.

“Madiv,” Lillia replied. “I was thinking. He’s a merchant, but we kind of already have several of those. Between Raen and Melissa, there’s no shortage of people that can get and sell us goods.”

“Right,” Arwin said slowly. “So what are you thinking?”

“It’s a bit far in the future,” Lillia admitted. “But you know how an auction house was on the list of buildings we were thinking about using the dungeon heart for, right?”

“Yeah, I recall.”

“What if we just started one without using the heart? There’s no reason to rush ahead, and having an auction house could be huge. It would get people come from all over with rare items and equipment. Milten doesn’t currently have one, so everyone would come to ours. We’d have a good income stream from taking a percentage of sales, and we could also have first chance to purchase rare materials.”

“And you want Madiv to run it?”

“I do. We could start small, but Madiv certainly has the presence for it. He’d fit the role perfectly.”

“He does,” Arwin admitted. “That seems like a good idea, and it’ll save us from constantly having to be in dungeons looking for rare materials. If people are bringing them to us of their own volition… that would be pretty damn useful.”

Arwin could tell Lillia was smiling without even being able to see her. “Exactly. There’s just one problem.”

“You can’t fund it, can you?” Arwin asked with a wry grin. “The Devil’s Den needs all the funds you’ve earned.”

“Yeah,” Lillia grumbled. She let her head fall back against his chest. Her breath tickled his neck as she let out a small huff of annoyance. “The latest expansion is going to be big. I’m hoping to not need another one for a while, but it’s using up thousands of gold. I was wondering if you had any extra. Riker might give us a discount on starting the auction house if we do it soon.”

“I’ve got a bunch of gold sitting around that I’m not using. Feel free to apply it,” Arwin said. He didn’t see any reason to say no. The Menagerie had already decided an auction house was a good idea. There was no reason to wait to use the Dungeon Heart on it when they could just start making it now. “I’ll probably have more than enough from all the people coming to hire me in the near future anyway.”

“Yeah. Madiv can help Reya stem that for the time being. I think you’ve got a list of orders people are waiting on as well.”

Arwin grimaced. “Yeah. I’ll bang those out tomorrow.” frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓

“Good,” Lillia said, a smile on her breath. “Just don’t work too late. I get the feeling you’ll be doing a lot of that soon enough, so I’m going to claw every scrap of time I can away from you until that happens. Also, don’t forget to save some money to pay the land tax for constructing a new building. Jake won’t be happy if you do.”

Arwin had, in fact, forgotten. He cleared his throat. “Right. I won’t.”

“Right,” Lillia repeated dryly. “Good. There were a few more things that Rodrick wanted me to go over, but he can do those himself. They’re not as pressing. Just updates about his network and the people heading to Milten right now.”

“Wait, that kind of seems fairly important—”

One of Lillia’s fingers fell against Arwin’s lips, silencing him.

“We’ve got a few days until they arrive. There are other things that I’d much rather spend the very few hours a day we get alone doing.” Her tail tightened around his leg. “Unless you’d prefer to talk business.”

Arwin cleared his throat. Lillia’s lips were only a few inches away from his. He could almost taste the scent of strawberries and freshly baked bread that hung around her from her time in the kitchen. “As a matter of fact, not in the slightest.”

“Good.” Lillia pressed her lips to his, then pulled back just enough to whisper one last phrase. “Then I’ll talk to you tomorrow morning.”

They didn’t need any more words that night.

There were far more effective ways to make up for lost time.