Althana’s New Place and Plans

For the better part of a week, Althana had been directing the construction of her atelier. She had finally decided on a design, it took some time, but she was able to come to a decision after Yuri had described a few things to her. Althana had never considered a domed roof before, and neither had the church, going on what the high priestess had to say when she sat in on the planning phase, but having a domed roof actually appealed to Althana on some level. The real issue was digging things out to get to where she wanted to place the basement and subbasements; she decided to have five subbasements to act as storage and the more reinforced lab areas. The whole thing wasn’t completed yet, but the main floor and upper level were completed enough for her to at least move in and make use of it for business purposes.

During this phase of development, Selvina had her pups; there were quite a few congratulations for the mother and fawning over the babies. Per Yuri’s suggestion, Selvinva made adjustments to her home and workplace to make things noticeably safer for the infants. Childproofing discussions were of interest to Althana, for multiple reasons, and she actually incorporated those sorts of protections into her integrated security measures. Althana decided to make the dome composed of copper primarily because of how Yuri had described the coppered look and made sure to make the supports for the dome were composed of a type of building stone that would handle being heated up and help to cool the dome. The fully rounded walls of the atelier were complimented by the domed roof. At a fifty-foot circumference, it made sense the Atelier was as far out from the town as it was.

Althana arranged for the basement and subbasements to be arranged in a way that would make things easier for her; she also arranged for all of the doors to be able to handle large loads, which coincidentally also made it accommodating for the larger races. The main floor was designed as the workstation; the upper floor was designed as Althana’s bedroom and personal space. The bed and dresser still needed to be ordered, along with other home furnishings.

Althana could only be found at the atelier almost as soon as the roof was up, she didn’t want to inconvenience anyone further, and she felt guilty about the arrangement involving the inn; she was also used to sleeping at odd angles and the like, but was still trying to figure out a plan of action for minimizing that as well after Yuri had warned about such sleeping habits being unhealthy, and potentially hazardous for her in the region of her back. Regardless, Althana wanted to be near the atelier during its construction phases. The primary foundation was down; magic was used to turn what was the primary foundation from dirt, soil, and rubble into a singular solid piece of stone after Yuri had mentioned that it had been found in his world that buildings usually tended to be more stable when on stone or stone-like material. The mention of this “concrete” had piqued Althana’s interest, and she was eager to try working out the chemical and logistical issues of producing such a material; Yuri had mentioned that there was a historic way it was made by an empire that lasted quite some time, but he was a bit fuzzy on the details of all that, other than it involving some materials that were a bit more difficult to procure in the current region they were all in.

Yuri had also mentioned that same nation had its name attached to a simple kind of soap, one that was made with only three ingredients. Althan hadn’t considered how animal fat, ashes, and water mixed together could produce what was basically a luxury item; such a simple recipe meant a more affordable, and very useful, commodity could be produced. She was working with Lithira on the production of the material; they were going go hunting for different animals and monsters to procure samples to help them gauge which fats were most preferable for soap production. And with the main floor of her atelier mostly completed, they would have a safe space for brewing up larger batches than before the visit to the kunoichi rabbit village had happened.

Usagi even gave her thanks that Althana and Lithira were doing this soap production testing, mostly because the products used by Usagi and her village had to meet certain requirements before being used a bit more extensively, and chances were Usagi would also be sharing the formula once the most preferable testing batch was produced. Althana wasn’t worried too much about one remote village knowing how to make a highly specific version of a product; she may not be all that keen of a merchant, but she at least had enough business sense to know what could help and hurt profits. Althana was always on the lookout for ways to make income to provide her with a means to acquire more resources for her projects. And Selvina had mentioned how the town needed some sort of business other than adventurer missions to drum up business; this simple soap thing could potentially be the start of something more extensive.

The bottom line, it would still be some time before Althana had a fully operational atelier, but she was perfectly okay with having a functionally operational atelier for the time being. The real issue was getting all the resources she needed for the facility. Thankfully, being functionally operational allowed her avenues to procure funds a bit more extensively.