The Crucible Campaign

18: The Dragon's Den

.^^ Baby Dragon/Pseudodragon ^^

— Caroline —

Watching my children go off on a Hunt was interesting. I usually went with them, and hunting down a dragon was something I would have enjoyed, but I also knew what they were doing. Less people on the hunt=bigger cuts, which would equal less debts.

We had paid for most of our things outright, but we still owed Renata for many things, such as letting us have her spare room until our home was finished. Paying for the building we were making would also be nice, as that would mean our money could begin making money, instead of our interest going to Hilde for five years.

I glanced at the building, and grinned at the nearly-finished hollow tower. It would eventually ring for the clock, every hour. I made it very clear that it wasn't to be an annoying, clanging sound, but a more natural, bamboo-wind chime sound.

The interior first floor, where the training grounds were located, had the highest ceiling of about four stories, and also held the actual buildings, (forges and libraries) in a crescent around the track/training courtyard.

Once Teagan had gotten started, he hadn't been able to stop, designing a full academy, not just a blacksmithing school, on the bottom floor, completely cut off so it could be both open and full of light, (as all schools should be,) while also being entirely impenetrable.

An Immovable, Impregnable Fortress, with more security than was perhaps warranted, but Teagan had been given artistic license to go full nerd, and therefore wanted the Wizard's Tower to be a fucking Wizard's Tower, which apparently included it being said immovable and impregnable fortress.

The 'second floor' started at around 100ft in the air, seeing as the academy housed three floors and a little bit of sky space, and also had a double-high ceiling, like every floor. The doors from the stairs and elevator opened up into an Officer's Club, (a fancy bar,) nothing too complicated.

On the third floor, he'd continued the Officer's Clubhouse a bit, and every available formally recognizable gambling setting was in, as well as several games from Midgard, such as blackjack and poker and the like, all the Table games, spread out comfortably for the richer people to spend all their money on.

That floor had a very small 'balcony', wrapped around and sealed in with the same glass without breaking the sleek lines of the exterior walls. The windows were perfectly, nauseatingly clear, literally invisible from the inside, and a soft, sweet-smelling breeze had been magically generated, which also swept away the faint scent of smoke, from the smoking lounge areas on the four corners.

On that balcony, there were four separate restaurant portions, each serving different styles of food from wherever we'd been, while the chefs were tasked with creating nice foods from different parts of the Silver Ridge.

The food that came from Midgard, we had fudged a bit, and called it 'Golden Coast Cuisine', piggybacking on Tommy's lie that we were all from another continent, far away. She had justified it to me because the Golden Coast was a name for Texas, so it wasn't a lie, and Texas was the same size as Europe, so it could be counted as one, if one was generous enough.

The fourth floor, which had just finished construction, was a full Roman bath, spanning nearly the entire floor, with banks of personal showers and changing rooms on either side of the entry, but gendered, unlike the open baths. The walls around the bath and showers were made of one-way glass, just like the entire exterior of the tower, giving you a splendid view of the city, from 140 feet in the air.