—Two weeks earlier—
"And what are you going to do with it?" Janelle asked, sitting on the stool and taking another bite of mustard slathered pretzel.
"I'm going to sell it, of course," Nathan replied. He frowned at her. "Don't get mustard everywhere."
Janelle, unrepentant, stuck her tongue out at him before hopping off the stool. Then she slowly circled the piece in question. Slowly, because it was massive. Even Nathan agreed that it was massive.
"But who would want this?" Janelle asked.
Nathan was silent as she ran a fingertip across a delicately crenelated roof. It covered one of the spiraling towers of the building.
"No one is going to buy this," Janelle finally pronounced. "It's too small for any of the races I've seen so far. Not even the fairies could fit in there. They're still a few inches too big. You built for Joes when the world's populated by Barbs."
Nathan's frown grew more ferocious before he turned away. He started polishing his favorite chisel. It was just the right size to shape the growing wooden ivy he'd carved on one of the towers.
"And it doesn't open, so you can't market it as a dollhouse," Janelle continued. "So, while it's pretty, Nathan, it was a waste of time and materials." She sighed. "At least you have the rest of the guild to pay the bills on this place for you."
Nathan slotted the chisel into its slot on the tools rack hanging above the workbench. He took a moment to sweep his eyes over the workbench, looking for anything out of place. Finding nothing, he smiled contentedly.
"I told you. I'm selling it." Nathan turned and admired his creation.
It was a wide set of buildings, much like a miniature keep. There was a long wall surrounding the bailey with five towers, each with varying decorations and crenelated roofs. The main building was three stories tall with ample windows, though only a few of them could be considered wide. Looking through them, empty rooms could be seen with delicately done floors in wood, stone or tiny tile.
The bailey was an empty expanse, the ground just the rough wooden floor of Nathan's side workshop. There were only two official exits. One was a pair of wide double doors that opened into the main hall and a gate with both doors and a portcullis. There was even a tiny, ornamented bar for the doors.
"It's beautiful, but I still say that no one's going to buy something like this," Janelle said before shoving the last bit of pretzel into her mouth. She gingerly swiped traces of mustard from the corners of her mouth. "You should really eat. The flavors in the game are awesome!"
Nathan shook his head. Then he paused and squatted by one of the towers. With a gentle finger, he nudged a tiny window shut. The circular room behind it held bare walls painted a gentle blue with tiny clouds. Nathan smiled at the sight, remembering the flight of whimsy that led him to painting it instead of leaving it blank stone like the other four towers.
The entire complex took up most of the space in his workroom. If it wasn't for the existence of inventory, he wasn't sure just how he was going to move it. He'd used stone, wood, metal and concrete in the construction with a hefty dose of magic.
His guild didn't know about the magic. He'd been browsing in one of the old markets when one of the sellers had thrown it in with a load of crystals he'd bought to smelt into sword handles. If he'd noticed, Nathan admitted that he would have returned the book, but by the time he'd found it at the bottom of the crate of crystals, the seller was long gone.
He hadn't seen the man since. Nathan was sure that the book was something rare and expensive. Currently, he kept it hidden away in one of his workbenches. If it was one thing that Nathan had a lot of, it was workbenches.
He was the main craftsman of his guild. Usually, his workshops were filled with the detritus from making various forms of siege engines. They'd just sold his last one, a trebuchet that the customers had wanted decorated with ebony inlays and silver plating when he'd decided to go full bore with this project.
Nathan had been working on it off and on for weeks now. This side workshop had been empty since he'd sent off the last siege tower to some gnome town fighting against another gnome town.
That had been the inspiration. He had to admit, though, that he hadn't really been planning on making it to such a small scale. When he'd conceived of the idea, he'd been thinking more along the lines of a dollhouse of sorts.
His cousin wanted one for Christmas and had been driving his aunt and uncle crazy with the various ones she kept finding. Nathan was more than willing to offer to build it himself until common sense intervened.
If he built one, then his relatives wouldn't a.) pay him for his time, effort, and materials, and b.) expect him to do it again for free for anyone they offered his services to.
It wasn't that they were cheap, but it was just what their mindset was. Plus, he was supposed to be training, not building dollhouses.
"Do you ever think that maybe reality isn't as much fun as gaming," Nathan asked Janelle.
"That's because it never is," Janelle countered. She grinned, bits of pretzel stuck in her teeth. "However, gaming needs moolah to keep going, and you're not earning any with this pretty bauble."
"I could, though," Nathan argued. It sounded weak, even to his ears. The reality was that it was truly too big for a dollhouse and too small for actual living beings. "The exchange rate for gold is pretty good nowadays."
"Still can't believe people pay for gold or whoever it is," Janelle muttered.
She glanced towards the door to the main workshop.
"Is someone knocking?" Janelle asked as she drifted out of the small workshop, easily maneuvering around the scaled down castle keep.
Nathan sighed and stored the building into his inventory before following after her.