"Good to hear." Jimmy says following Gwen out and closing the door.
"If they try anything down there let me worry about it." he replies to her.
"If he makes it to the door of the orphanage with a decree to take it down and I see him, he'll be dead and buried before you count to three. And I'll do it with a clean conscience." Gwenhwyfar replies with a glare that would freeze a fire elemental.
"Since when are you so violent?" Jimmy says slightly shocked, "Anyway, maybe we should find out who is in charge of Underbridge."
"How can you stay so cool in the face of such ignorance?" Gwenhwyfar inquires.
"And we have slain creatures for less than threatening our orphanage." she wipes Jimmy's objection off the table.
"You forget that I watched my father deal with bureaucrats and merchants for years. You can't afford to get exasperated. Once you are exasperated you miss the little holes in the rules that allow you to get what you want." Jimmy replies, "These people are doing a job. They are part of a system. They do what the system says or they get replaced. Our problem should not be with the person who puts the notice up, but with the system that demands it be put up..." Jimmy continues, "My threat was not against the man, but against the system. The system would collapse if the entirety of underbridge wanted it to. He knows that, I do too. He also knows we have favor with the people. He knows that if he did something to the orphanage we could use that to turn Underbridge against his system."
"If you like this kind of warfare, be my guest. As long as it keeps guys like him away from the orphanage..." Gwenhwyfar replies.
"I don't like it. Its just something you learn to deal with..." Jimmy says with a smile
"Now how are we getting a home now, that no bureaucrat will tear down again?" Gwenhwyfar inquires.
"We are. We need to make a plan to get ours demolished as well." Jimmy says
"I need no plan for that. Tell our building troup who work on the new housings in Underbridge. They'll take it down in no time and maybe they can even reuse the stone." Gwenhwyfar replies.
"But where you plan to put our new house they can't get. Even you can't without help and it might even be dangerous."
"If we are going to build on one of the pylons we can build our own little pier, with a boat, and stairs up to the house."
"We'd need Abomentolor for this again. or it would take forever and I don't even know if it is possible to build something like that. At least if it's made from stone." Gwenhwyfar comments.
"There must be something else we can try, instead of asking Abomentollor for help..." Jimmy says, thinking, "Come to think of it I think I know just who to ask." and with that it is off to Lini.
It is somewhat of a ways from the center of bureaucracy to Lini's shop and Gwen does not manage to stay silent for a moment. She is practically jumping as her mind races with ideas.
Jimmy knocks as they arrive, "Anyone home?"
...
"Yes. Me." Lini replies, between generating blinding flashes of light with her newest acquisition, a welding device.
"How have you been Lini?" Jimmy asks stepping into the crowded shop
"Great. I invented a new machine, that allows me to put metal parts together. I already created a twin of Artoo. The life is missing - but one step after another." she tells, showing off her creation.
"What will this ones name be?"
"Beetoo" Lini replies.
"So you have things to build magic men... Do you have anything to build buildings?" Jimmy asks
"Lumber and bricks you get at the docks." Lini replies with a smile. "But what do you really want?"
"We have to take down our house Abomentolor started to build for us on the Irespan. And now we want to build a new one at a location where these stinky bureaucrats have no say. And Abomentolor is busy elsewhere." Gwenhwyfar pours out her frustration.
"You are the crazy people who built on top of the bridge? I should have known. You'd fit perfectly in a gnome society. If you ever want to change the scenery, I know some people..." Lini chuckles.
"But to your problem at hand. I have a lot of stuff for this and that. But to create a house out of thin air, I have nothing. The closest thing I have is this... wait a moment..." Lini puts down her tools and searches some boxes in the shelves.
Pullig out a lyre she tells "A bard once brought this in as pawn for a loan. He never came back. It was identified as a lyre of building. I forgot the details. Maybe this helps?"
"How does a lyre help us?"
Gwenhwyfar waves her hand over the Lyre and reads it's magic properties. "The magic of the lyre substitutes the workforce normally needed to build something. But to use it for longer than an hour you need to play it well, or it won't work anymore unit a week has passed."
"Do you know anyone who can play a lyre decently?" Jimmy asks the two ladies
"Where did Niamh go?" Gwenhwyfar asks.
With her transverse flute sticking out of her backpack and her fiddle case swinging in her hand, talking to the black dog next to her who's back is at least as high as the halfling herself, Niamh pushes open the door to Lini's job. "...I don't think you should have pushed that little child into the puddle. It's rather rude. Although, admittedly, it was a little funny. Oh, hi Gwenwhyfar. And Jimmy. And Lini." She gives a small wave with her free hand, and a grin.
"What a coincidence." Lini comments. "Hello. How are you?" she asks and walks over to ruffle the dog's head.
"I'm great. Mostly." She glowers at the dog, who leans against Lini's hand to encourage her to scratch harder. "Brutus just thinks he's gonna starve if he doesn't follow every single food trail, and I've spent half of my time chasing him through the city." To soften her words, because she's not really all that angry at him, she softly pats his back. "So, you know, I thought you might have some collar for him with a tracking spell or something."
"Talk of the devil..." Jimmy chuckles
"Speak of the sun and it rises." Gwenhwyfar adds with a raised brow at Jimmy. "Hello Niamh, we just thought of you."
"I've been called a lot of things so far, but devil hasn't been one of them." Niamh replies, flashing another grin. "How've you been? And nice to know I occupy your thoughts." Then she casts a more suspicious glance Gwen's way and adds, "Why exactly were you thinking about me?"
"We need someone who can play a lyre." Gwenhwyfar replies.
Thinking about it, she comes to the conclusion that this explanation won't do she takes a deep breath and starts the long one. "We have a nice, almost finished house on the Irespan, that we need to take down again. Because of stupid bureaucrazy."
"And now we try to build a new one on a pillar of the Irespan out on the sea. But we can't get workers there, and Abomentolor is busy somewhere else, and Lini has this nice Lyre that magically shapes building material into whatever you want if you can play properly."
"Which we can't."
"That you are a good musician, and we could use the services of a good musician." Jimmy replies
Niamh lights up like a Christmas tree, giddy with excitement as soon as the word 'lyre' fell. "Absolutely! I'd love to. Ugh, this is so exciting!" Bouncing on her toes she pats Brutus' back again. "Did you hear that? We're gonna built a house! One question, though." She turns back to Gwenwhyfar, "do you have to actually picture the house in your mind while playing, or will the lyre just do its job no matter what? Should I study some architecture?" Her gaze wanders over to Lini, who is the owner of the Lyre and should know, after all.
"How many pillars are there in the sea?" Gwenwhyfar asks Jimmy.
"Not enough I fear." Jimmy replies with a grin
Niamh punches him in the shoulder. Hard. Or tries to. It ends up somewhere on his lower arm.
"HEY!" Jimmy shouts in mock pain
Gwenhwyfar chuckles but otherwise continues her talk with Niamh. "I would like to try it out first. But you only get one try per week. Maybe we should talk about how it's supposed to look like first." Gwenwhyfar suggests. "Basically I want a nice cozy home with a view of the sunset and also sunrise if possible."
"So, big windows to the East and West." She scrunches up her nose in thought. "You know, we could put the kitchen to the east, and... uh, do you like towers? You know, we could do a balcony in front, with towers the same size as the house to the left and right. Then you can make the towers mostly glass and put them in the east. And if you plant an indoor garden in there, it's almost like sitting outside. You said it's on a pillar, right? So we'll have to make it slim, right? So maybe two stories, or three?" By now Niamh is more mumbling to herself, already picturing her perfect dream house with additional windows to the east and west.
"Can we have the towers bigger than the house? And crenelations? More like a castle. And I don't think we need to go for slim. You know the pillar we raided to get those criminals out? Where Abomentolor puts his brewery in? That's four times the diameter of the shadow clock."
"How about hanging gardens?"
"Hanging gardens are fine." Niamh waves a dismissive hand and just continues, "So, a fairytale castle?" Niamh's now bouncing up and down on her toes. "In a nice cream colour with lots of gold on the outside? Do you want a ballroom, too? With a big stage for musicians and rose marble? And a big chandelier?" She pauses, awestruck. "You need a piano! Just imagine the effect!" With several claps of her hands, unable to contain her excitement any longer, she asks, "When do we start?"
"So much for a "nice cozy home"." Jimmy watches the ideas flying
"I guess we need some building material, or can we reshape the pillar into a castle?" Gwenhwyfar asks, as she is unsure. "But ballroom with stage sounds nice. Rose marble we had to buy first in any case."
"It can have some cozy rooms in it." she replies to Jimmy's comment.
"Well Jimmy. If you want cozy you can have the living room. With armchair's and wooden walls, and vintage curtains. And painted pictures." Niamh graciously says.
"This isn't what we had in mind at all, Gwen. We don't need all of that stuff. We just need somewhere for us. Somewhere we can be together and wake up to the sunrise each morning. That's all I want. Not some monstrosity of a caste."
"Party pooper!" Niamh pulls a face, then gives Gwen her pest puppy dog eyes. "Don't listen to him, Gwenwhyfar. Boys don't know anything about beautiful homes! They have poor taste."