158: Position

It took longer than expected, but in the end I was left with a dark stone statue of Sylverith. Even Lily woke up and did a full lap around it, clearly inspecting it before going over and sitting in front of Crisplet, appearing to be in conversation with him.

“Milo, do you know how Crisplet could make them more permanent?” I asked curiously.

Milo shrugged. “It’s hard to tell without understanding how his abilities work. Normally, though, you need to condense the mana you’re building with to make it last longer. Or, in the case of this one, I just used mana to draw material from below and then compact it into shape, so it’s not actually your mana creating the mass.”

Crisplet seemed to stop his conversation with Lily to listen, giving a burst of sparks when Milo stopped.

“I’m happy to solidify any that you’d like in the meantime, until you figure it out,” Milo said to Crisplet, who again responded with a burst of sparks.

I was surprised when he started building a new one right away.

And when it started with what looked unmistakably like a paw, I had a strong suspicion that Lily was asking where her statue was.

“Lily, do you want your statue inside or outside in the garden?” I asked.

There was a slight pause while Lily looked at me, then at Crisplet.

A moment later, Crisplet was adding grass shards next to the paw he was building.

“Outside it is, then. I’ll put the Sylverith statue in the foyer,” I said.

I’d mostly forgotten Milo was even standing next to me until he interrupted my thoughts about where to put the statues.

“Well, you’re going to need to figure out how to move that, because it won’t fit through the door. It’s not food, so it won’t go in your pantry, and it certainly won’t fit into my storage ring. So I doubt it would fit into anyone else’s here,” Milo said, rubbing his chin.

“That’s a problem I didn’t consider…” I mumbled.

“We could break it and take it out in parts before putting it back together,” Milo offered.

I just shook my head. The idea of breaking it wasn’t something I was willing to do.

I looked around for a possible solution, my eyes landing on the wall that would soon lead into the new butchery room. An idea struck me.

“What if we make a hole in the wall there and take it out that way?” I asked.

Milo just looked at me, stunned for a moment. “I guess? I don’t know if, when I replace it, it will look as good, though,” he said.

“We’ll end up having doors through to the butchery room eventually anyway, right? So it won’t matter if, temporarily, there is a misfitting piece of stone there for the short term,” I said.

Milo nodded. “Okay, so that gets us outside, but this thing will weigh more than both of us combined do, so neither of us will be lifting it.”

I couldn’t help but grin. “Luckily, we have a very strong party member outside as we speak, who will have more than enough strength to carry it!”

With a sigh, Milo approached the wall, and I watched in awe as it crumbled away, taking the shape of a very large double door. Hari would still need to be careful going out—it would be a tight squeeze even now.

When it was done, I saw Milo reinforce the edges with reinforced stone, and several workers who had already started on the butchery room were staring at us.

“Don’t mind us, just moving something,” I called as I ran out the new doorway to try to find Hari.

Finding wasn’t the correct term. You couldn’t miss him. The booms coming from the training yard were incredibly loud. As it came into view, it looked like Hari was hitting a wooden pillar of sorts with a practice sword, but each strike sent a shockwave that kicked dust across the ground.

Darren and George were both standing off to the side and had stopped training when they saw me show up, but it seemed Hari didn’t notice at all.

“Hari!” I yelled.

Nothing.

When Milo showed up, he dropped a small stone onto Hari’s head, causing him to turn around. He had an almost manic look on his face that was somewhat terrifying.

“Didn’t see you! This buff is incredible. I need more!” Hari boomed, his hearing clearly affected by the noise.

“I’ll see what I can do, but, uh… Hari, could you carry something for me? It’s very heavy, and you might be the only one able to,” I asked.

Hari just nodded, storing his sword as he came over and followed us back towards the kitchen.

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“I don’t remember an entrance being this way?” Hari asked curiously.

“Yeah, about that. We made a new one,” Milo chuckled.

Hari’s confusion was soon answered as we entered the kitchen and the statue stood tall. A new statue was forming too—one that I noticed was appearing much larger than Lily usually was, but I had to assume there was some request there.

“We need to take this out the door here, and then all the way out front to bring it into the foyer through the massive entrance doors,” I explained.

Hari turned to look at me, then at Milo. “This is going into the foyer?”

“Yes. I want to preserve the statues that Crisplet makes, and this is the first one I’ve been able to. I want to put it on display, and the foyer seems best,” I said.

Hari pointed to the other one Crisplet was making. “And that one?”

“I assume it’s Lily, so it’ll be going into the front garden,” I said, getting a burst of sparks from Crisplet.

“You know it’s going to be viewed as a political statement, right?” Hari said, looking at me.

Milo just chuckled. “He hasn’t got a clue, but I think it’ll work out better that way.”

Hari just shrugged and went up to the statue, grasping it under the wings. With a bit of difficulty, he began to carry it.

“What did you make this out of? It’s heavier than expected,” Hari said as he walked.