World Sphere - 72 - From Dungeon To Diner

Chapter 72: From Dungeon To Diner

An alarm spell woke me, and I checked the image the spell sent into my mind. Isla was in my room. I needed to get the locks installed on the doors. In the future, I would also use my arcane lock on the room door. I dropped my privacy bubble, and Isla jumped as she was staring right at my privacy screen.

“I am sorry, Storme, I didn’t know you were in here. I was checking what furniture had been delivered up here,” she said while blushing. I extended my arms over my head, locked my fingers, and stretched.

“No problem, I got a few hours of sleep. Are the cooks here?” I asked.

“Yes, they are downstairs, and I think they are unpacking things and confused about why they had to get so much heavy cream and chocolate,” she stated, but she also sounded curious.

“Very good. Can you see if the glass for my windows is coming soon?”  I asked while walking past her to the door.

Isla pulled out some paper. “Each of your bedrooms has three panels of glass, and they are ready for pickup in the capital. I was waiting to hire a transport, but Loriel offered…”

“No. Your only job today is to get those window panels installed and set up my bedroom. I am staying here the rest of the week, and I don’t want to sleep on a couch—even if it is very comfortable. Nice choice with those,” I said, complimenting her. The glass panels were special in that they had aether dust embedded in the glass, so I could enchant them and make them one-way viewable glass. 

“If you had told me you were planning to stay here, I would have had the room ready for you. You can have Loriel’s room. It is fully furnished with windows,” she said guiltily at her failure.

I sighed, not used to everyone wanting to please me. “I am not annoyed. Just make sure it is ready tonight. If not, then get me a decent room at an inn,” I nodded and smiled to quell her angst at the minor oversight.

She left the room with purpose in her step. I went down to the kitchens to see what was happening with the cooks. I found the group milling about and waiting, “Ok, today’s first lesson is how to make ice cream!” 

It took less than an hour to teach them to make the vanilla and chocolate ice cream. Then I sent some cooks out for containers to store the ice cream in and also to store the honey in. The other cooks were making batches of sauce and fries to practice. My baker had samples of the three types of buns, and the pretzel and brioche styles were acceptable. The sesame bun needed work, the bread was too dense, and the seeds didn’t taste right.

I sent my one baker on a mission to find a pastry chef in the city. A pastry chef was more of a dessert specialist than a baker, and I had to explain that to him three times before he understood what I wanted.

I found the stone mage working on the third floor, and I explained that I wanted to make the walk-in freezer walls hollow so I could fill them with beeswax to insulate the room. After some back and forth, he agreed to do the walls and ceiling. After I filled them from above with melted beeswax, he would seal the access points. Magic made life so much easier. 

I took a break as it was lunchtime, and I wanted to go and pick up my scabbard. I grabbed a bowl, filled it with fries and BBQ sauce, and left. As I walked and ate the fries, I got weird stares at the novel food. I thought that I could make paper boats and use the beeswax to coat them…we could sell portable lunches. The first shop I entered that sold paper killed my dreams of a takeout empire. The paper cost too much. I slipped the ceramic bowl into my storage space after finishing the fries.

The leather shop was next. My scabbard was ready, and it was elegant and functional. I would only use it when I needed to carry the sword on my person. Most times, I would leave the blade in my dimensional space and remove it when needed. I walked around the shop and selected some very simple leather armor for myself. It was a soft leather set except for the hardened chest piece.

I knew why I was purchasing it. I planned to go back into the dungeon with my team. Delving was a great workout and it was fun. And it was productive for spell advancement. In addition to my neutralize poison spell leveling, my lesser restoration spell had reached level 4, and my cleanliness spell reached level 18. 

I stored the leather armor in my dimensional closet and returned to the warehouse. The kitchen was abuzz as my delving team, now well-rested, was sampling the four varieties of fries and the myriad of sauces. My baker had a pastry chef candidate and two bakers interested in joining the staff. I just hired all three of them after finding them competent after a short interview.

I spent a few minutes with the pastry chef before giving him a few coins to get supplies. The bakers were set to work on the three types of rolls for now. 

I was having flashbacks of my past life in a restaurant kitchen buzzing with electricity during a busy service. I stepped out with Remy and brought him up to his room. At least his room had windows and a bed already, I noted sourly. “So, Remy, you don’t seem to like dungeoneering overly much,” I started to say.

“Storme, I will do whatever you need of me. I am grateful for you securing my contract. I have not said no to anything and have done whatever you asked. Please don’t…”  He rambled nervously. 

I held up my hands, smiling reassuringly. “I am not firing you. I just need you to use your skills elsewhere.” He looked relieved. “I need an accountant in charge of paying everyone and someone to track expenses and sales. I want that person to be you.” His jaw didn’t work.

Finally, he muttered, “Everyone?”  It seemed the scope was kind of too much for him. He had been in charge of just himself for so long, and now he would be responsible for dozens of people working for me.

“Yes. You can talk with Isla. She has the information on the restaurant staff. The delve team…well, I have not really been tracking that too well. You will have to ask everyone what I have paid them and when they were hired, and set up regular payments. I think it will be easier as everyone should be living here by the end of the week. We have running water in the kitchens and a few of the apartments,” I explained to him. “This is your room, by the way.”

His head was suddenly on a swivel, looking around. Its decor was nice but nothing special. It was his own space. “I will let you get settled in. After you are comfortable, you can go and buy some accounting books. Keep four books, one for the restaurant, one for the bakery, one for the dungeon team, and one for employees outside of the first three. That will include nine guards and Mia. Mia is in charge of building security, and she will also have nine other guards I am paying to attend the guard academy in Aegis city.”

The more I talked, the more ridiculous everything sounded. I was responsible for over fifty people! “Remy, is this new role acceptable to you?” I asked the shell-shocked boy.

He nodded vigorously. “I won’t have to delve into a dungeon ever again?” His voice sounded hopeful. 

“Your skills will be needed to heal during training sessions, but I think we can keep you out of the dungeons,” I confirmed. The first level of the dungeon was so easy that I didn’t think his healing would be needed. I did note to add a healing potion belt with some cheap healing and cure poison potions in it for everyone. Being over-prepared is never bad, and Gareth already had one such belt. I assigned the task to an overwhelmed Remy.

I went back to the kitchen and brought the cooks together. It was time to make burgers. I showed them how to select the steaks for the grinder. Too lean was bad, and too fatty was bad. You needed a middle ground and wanted to cut off tendons and gristle. We made the ground beef, and I got the artificed griddle heated. I showed them how to form a patty and season it.

I cooked twenty-one patties at once. I had three types of cheese available, and cut seven slices of each. In batches of seven, I topped and added the hamburgers to the freshly baked buns. I cut the burgers into quarters and called everyone in to sample them.

It was a feeding frenzy, and I think Gareth had two burgers by himself and someone complained when he tried to grab a third one. With round one done, I told the cooks to practice. As they practiced, they could give samples out on the streets.

I left my notes on the 23 different burger combinations I had planned. Five of those were crispy chicken sandwiches, but that could be addressed later. One cook volunteered to go and get the missing toppings for some of the menu items. I promoted him to my other head cook for his initiative, but he probably just wanted to try the complete combinations.

I told everyone the plan was to open on the 6th day this week. Today was 1st day, so they had a few days to practice. I was exhausted but also excited as I made my way up to my third-floor room. Gaeth followed me with a massive plate of fresh French fries smothered in cheese with a bowl of spicy sauce on the side. He followed me into my room and sat on my couch as he ate. “Your couches are a lot nicer than the two in my room.” He settled into the stuffed leather padding. “So Stormy, when is our next delve?  And how much did we make?”

I sat on the second couch and watched Gareth drip some sweet Thai chili sauce onto his shirt from a fry on the way to his mouth. I thought about our harvest. “I think I lost about 20 gold.”

Gareth’s jaw dropped in disbelief. “What? But we must have brought back hundreds of pounds of that honeycomb!” Gareth leaned forward and put the plate on the polished stone floor.

I explained to him. “The honey was the only true value Gareth. Maybe forty gallons. I am paying Gimble five gold per week, the others one gold, and I paid ten gold for the dungeon token. That is nineteen gold each week, not to mention the cost of boarding and feeding. The forty gallons of honey can be made into one hundred and sixty gallons of mead, only worth about sixteen gold.”

“Wait! You are paying everyone one gold for each delve?”  Gareth exclaimed in disbelief.

“Yes, one gold and 20% bonus if they exceed quotas,” I responded calmly. Seeing his disbelief, I understood his incredulity. “Your contract was just all the food you can eat,” I said, pointing at the empty plate and bowl on the floor.

He looked at the empty bowl like it was an enemy, then shrugged undaunted. “Well, we need to go deeper into the dungeon then…. And I want to renegotiate my contract, Stormy.” He said, his expression bouncing between seriousness and a smirk.

I shook my head slowly to indicate no, but eventually I cracked and laughed openly. “Fine. I was joking with you anyway. Everyone will be paid the same except the leader. Remy is paying out the coin, so you can see him. I don’t think going deeper is the answer. The honey could be the key. According to the text, we got almost twice the amount of a normal run because we took the entire honeycombs. If I can get the team to get that in four hours, reset the level, and do it again, I might make a weekly profit on honey alone. It comes down to Lana learning the dimensional closet spell.”

Gareth, who never really focused on the monetary aspects of dungeons, protested. “But the boars that wander the second level of the dungeon are easily worth a gold each, Stormy! And if you reach the second level, there is no time restriction on how long you can stay.”

I pulled out my reference book from my dimensional space and opened it to the chapter on the second level. Gareth moved over to my couch and looked on while I checked out his assertion.

The boars weighed around three hundred pounds and yielded about 150 pounds of viable meat at a large copper per pound. So, about 15 silver. The tusks went for about 5 silver each. The real value was the aether stone the boars had inside them. It was tier 1 but somewhat small, with about 25 units of red crystal. They should sell for around 25 silver each.

The frost goblins on the first level had aether crystals too, but they were only about five units and buried in the skull. They were difficult to harvest and usually ground into dust for artificing.

Gareth had done the math as well and figured his estimate was off. “Fifty silver per kill is nothing to sneeze at, Stormy! And you can use the meat in the restaurant,” he pleaded his case.

I thought bacon would be nice to make ourselves rather than source it. Five of the twenty-three menu items had bacon. There were different ways to cure bacon as well to add flavor. I slowly agreed. “We can check it out next delve.”

Gareth’s massive frame jumped up in excitement from the coach. “When is the next time?”

“Next, sixth, or seventh day. If we can get a slot,” I replied, enjoying my friend’s enthusiasm. I found myself looking forward to it as well.

“I will go and check right now!” Gareth was rushing out of the room, not waiting for a response.

I took a short nap and then started working on Gareth’s new blade. I was interrupted by the arrival of the window panels for the two bedrooms in my apartment. The stone mage came down and molded stone to set them.

They looked great and gave me a view up to the skyships coming and going. Isla entered just after they were installed. “Storme, your beds and linens are on the way up to your rooms.” She looked at the glass, relieved. “And they already installed your windows!”

“You did great, Isla. I need a writing desk and an enchanting workspace in the second bedroom,” I told her, and she turned and left in a hurry to get it done.

I moved to the aether-infused glass and pulled out my enchanting materials. I set up a privacy screen and got to work. This was going to be my first time connecting all these particular runes together and powering them with an aether crystal. I would connect all six panels with artificing wire so they draw from just one aether crystal battery.

I was inscribing three active runes. The first rune would make the glass viewable in only one direction. The second rune would strengthen the glass, and the final rune was a camouflage rune. If it worked as advertised, then the glass on the exterior should match the wall around it.

It was an incredibly ambitious project. The reason I was attempting it was a proof of concept. If this worked, then I was planning to try the same thing with my skyship bridge’s viewport.

It was late evening, and I had only done the most straightforward steps of connecting all six panels when a knock at my door interrupted me. “Storme, it is Isla. I have the desks, workstations, and the rest of your furniture.”

Isla entered and looked haggard. I guessed she had been running around all day to accommodate me. I gave her some praise, “You are fantastic! You can bring everything in. You did great work today!” I patted her back, and she blushed slightly.

The scribe desk was large and had ample drawer storage. The enchanter’s desk was just a large bench with simple storage shelves underneath. With these two massive desks in the room, it got crowded with the full-sized bed. “Isla, can you have the laborers take this bed away and bring in a smaller bed? I think my only guest will be my sister anyway.”

She gave the orders to men and then collapsed on my leather couch as they rushed to obey. “There is a one-person bed in Loriel’s room for Bylura. They will bring that.” I shrugged.

The furniture and the smaller bed were set up while I worked. After they left, Isla came unpacked the linens and began to make up the beds. I dropped my privacy bubble to tell her she didn’t need to do that. “I can make my own bed.”

Isla looked indecisive for a minute but just collapsed on the small bed. “When do you think you will have time to make the rest of the copper pipe for the plumbing?”

I sat on the bed next to her, tired myself. “How much more do you need?” 

“There are notes by the copper bars on what is needed. They had a number of small leaks connecting the pipes that you can probably fix quickly as well,” she asked hopefully.

My enchanting work was draining me physically, so the chance to stretch my legs sounded good. I walked with Isla as we tackled the leaks. The installers had laid my pipes end to end and then wrapped them. I wasn’t sure what the material was, but it would never hold up under pressure.

Copper piping wasn’t something these builders had dealt with before. Finding the connections and making all the pipes fuse together was easy for me. I even had time to set the pipes to my bathroom to give me cold water. At least, all the shut-off valves seemed to work. I tore my shirt crawling in the tight space the pipes were laid in.

Back in my room, Isla started reviewing papers on the progress of the Shiny Platinum while I changed. She was detailing to me where all the gold was being spent. The blush on her face as I took off my shirt surprised me but it vanished when Gareth came barging in.

He paused to see Isla and then me without a shirt. He thought about turning around but instead started talking. “Stormy, sorry for the interruption. Isla, right?” He smiled with his Gareth grin. “Well, you might have to tackle him onto the bed to get anything out of him,” he chuckled at his joke. He then looked at me. “Stormy, I got us the afternoon delve on the 6thday. And you owe me twelve gold.” He winked at Isla, turned and left.

Isla looked like she might take Gareth’s advice. I gestured at the door. “You really need to install those locks on the doors soon.” The room was awkward for a bit. “Why don’t you go and get us some dinner, and we can continue to talk about progress on the building. In the meantime, I will be working on the windows.”

Isla nodded without saying anything and left after organizing her papers. I was working on the windows when a knock came. Expecting Isla, I opened the door while speaking. “You don’t need to knock.” Remy was on the other side with a mess of paper and five heavy books secured in his arms.

He walked in as if he were about to drop the heavy tomes. He entered the second bedroom and placed everything on my desk in relief. “I have talked to everyone, and Isla gave me all her accounting work, but I have a hundred questions….”

When Isla returned with a platter of food, she was sweaty and I guessed she might have had to cook it herself. She looked disappointed to find Remy here. Remy just smiled. “Isla, it is fortunate you are here. I have dozens of questions for you as well!” Isla and I helped sort out the accounting books for the next five hours. When we finished, Isla, already tired from the long day, went down to her room. At least Remy left satisfied as he had a firm grasp on his new job.

© Copyrighted 2024, 2025 by AlwaysRollsAOne

No permission is granted to translate, copy, or repost this original work of fiction. If you are reading this on a site other than my Patreon, it has been stolen without my permission and violates the DMCA. Remember, this work is the result of my creative effort and is protected by copyright law. Removing or altering this notification acknowledges that you are aware that you are violating the DMCA. No permission is granted for my original work to be used to train AI.