Jenny and her shop worked fast, and four days ter, I was driving the caravan up to Redwater Pace to show it off to Duchess Melody and Lady Emily.

  "So, this is what you've built?" Melody asked, looking over the enameled sheet steel exterior of the van- as Uncle Frederic called it, because he loved making up new words. "I suppose it must be an ented caravan, but... It looks so unlike any caravan I've ever seen. Why is the front of it sloped like that?"

  "So that it's less affected by air resistance," I said. "When you get going fast enough, air resistance bees much more noticeable- if you've ever ridden a horse, or some other fast, un-covered transportation, you'll notice that the wind blows your hair back away from the dire of travel. Now imagihat, instead of just blowing back your hair, the air is blowing back a sail the size of the front of your caravan."

  "I see..."

  "Also, I happen to think it looks his way, but the funality is key, here," I added. "Anyhow! While the exterior is something I worked hard on, I'm here to show you the interior, so that you, Lady Emily, give me your feedba the yout."

  Emily nodded wordlessly, standing just a touch behind her mother.

  "Anyhow. Where's Duke Redwater?" I asked.

  "Sebastian is currently away on business," Melody expined. "He often speaks of how, in his words, 'the luxuries of this station are effeminating,' and if he were here, he would regard every measure you took to be siderate of his daughter's fort to be an insult to her stitution and ability to withstand hardship."

  "...Alright then," I said diplomatically. Sure, I could just say he sounded like a tremendous dickhead, and if Melody and I were alone she might even agree with me- women who liked their husbands generally did not cheat on them with an elf- but Emily was also here, and I had no idea how receptive she would be to me badmouthing her father. "Well, with the uanding that I intend no insult with my passion and sideratio us begiour."

  I grabbed a metal tch just below the back doors of the van, and pulled on it, extending out a thiurdy ramp idly-cated sheet steel. The step up into the back wasn't that bad, but I figured I might as well make it easier on people who weren't as nimble as an elven mage-knight. With the ramp deployed, I then pulled open the back doors, revealing the spatially-expanded interior of my van.

  "Oh, my," Melody murmured. "Now that really is something..."

  "It turns out that portable houses, usually but not always in the form of ented caravans, are very ong adventurers," I said. "This one in particur is unusual only in that it is made of metal rather than wood. And, as it so happens, the Uy of Mount Fate's orientation packet eveions that there are extensive aodations for students who choose to live out of a portable house rather than the dormitories."

  "Fasating," Melody said, nodding as she followed me inside, Emily trailing after her.

  "Anyhow, most of the downstairs is a mostly-open on area," I tinued. "Kit, dining table, some couches and armchairs around a low table for socializing or eaining guests, et cetera. In the back is a pact mae shop where I fabricate rept parts as needed, in the event of a breakdown in the field. However, the bedrooms are where things get particurly iing- if you'll follow me upstairs?"

  Without waiting for an answer, I made my the spiral staircase to the sed floor, being followed up by the Redwater women I was going to be stuck with for the foreseeable future.

  "Now, there's four of us going to Mount Fate, and thus four bedrooms," I said, taking a few steps down the hallway. "Everyoheir own personal, private space, even if that space isn't quite as spacious as I'd like. The bedrooms are all more-or-less identical, differing only ihe doors are, so we'll use this one for demonstration purposes, shall we?" The bedroom doors opened inward, to avoid anyone walking into an uedly opening door first thing in the m. I stepped ihe bedroom, and immediately headed to the far er because, as I was realizing, a bedroom that was on the small side of fortable for one person was not going to do well with three people, two of whom were quite voluptuous and one of whom was broad-shouldered.

  "It looks rather austere," Melody remarked. "I suppose Sebastian would be happy you aren't letting Emily go soft."

  I very carefully did not make a ent about Emily's plush figure, not only because Melody would probably try to kill me, but also because I barely knew Emily and that's just not the sort of joke you made about someone you didn't already know would be okay with you saying that they had s.

  "Oh?" I prompted, gesturing for her to eborate.

  "It looks empty," Melody tinued, looking around the room that currently did not have any of its fold-up furniture deployed, aside from a wood-and-brass travel trunk perched on legs made of steel pipe, which could be made to retrato the trunk itself (which also had wheels on one of the bottom edges) for moving it somewhere else and re-deploying it.

  "All of the furniture is pad foldable, to make the most of a small space," I expined. "The design and fabrication were done by a workshop in Greenwood Vilge run by a two hundred year old carpenter by the name of Jenny Jones, who is, ially, the current employer aor of one Robert Thorn."

  "You know Robert?" Emily asked, blinking.

  "Mhm," I said, nodding. "I met him while I was looking into the theft of my grandmother's funerary effigy, and did my best to help him out. He's got an apartment in Greenwood Vilge that has actual bedrooms now, and his mother Amelie is currently rec from surgery- we're reasonably fident the cer didn't metastasize, but she's going to want to e back to Greenwood to see Napoleon Iro once a month for the decade or so just to be sure."

  "I'm gd she's okay," Emily said quietly. "... Is she seeing visitors?"

  "Well, I did tell her that I'd made your acquaintance, and could bring you down to see her if she wanted, but she said she didn't want you to see her in that state, because it'd worry you a lot," I said. "I disagree with her assessment, because you're a Healer- if you aren't yet used to seeing people who are in poor health, you will be soon enough."

  "I'm a trauma surgeon," Emily said. "I... I deal with things like stab wounds or broken bones, not... Not cer."

  "...Point," I said. "Well, while Amelie does ain a lot of weight, and 't walk unassisted, we're fairly fident that, with the help of a good druid, she'll be back to full health soon enough. Anyhow, we're getting off-track- this was supposed to be a tour of your new bedroom. First and foremost, the bed."

  I grabbed what looked like the handle of a et, and upon pulling it, revealed it to actually be a bed that had been folded up against the wall. The mattress was fairly rge, and had been ented by yours truly for loy and fort- it was a more plex entment than I could've put together on my own, with a lot of different factors to sider, but that was the cool thing about having a mentor who was very, very good at this. This entment was the one I'd put on my own mattress several years ago, when I'd decided I wanted a bigger bed.

  "And why precisely have you given my daughter a bed big enough for two?" Melody asked archly.

  "All the rooms are identical, and I knew I wanted a rger bed because if I was sleeping in a smaller bed, my girlfriend would simply sleep on top of me," I said dryly. "There are many bes to a curvy girlfiend, but one of the downsides is that they are ly lightweight."

  Emily blushed, fully aware that she was also quite curvy and weighed more than a scarecrow.

  "Anyhow," I tinued, before folding the bed back up into the wall. "Also in ea is an ented trunk for st all sorts of belongings, including clothing, tools, books, et cetera, along with a folding table and a set of four folding chairs. And Emily, if you happen to already have an ented trunk that you like better than this one, you are of course free t it with you and repce this one; I'm sure I find a good home for it."

  "How much space is ihat one?" Melody asked.

  "Almost thirty times as much as there should be," I said. "The spatial expansion lit into nine separate, overpping pocket dimensions- you just pick whie you want when you're opening it, and that's the ohat appears uhe lid. Each pocket dimension is a bit bigger than the inside of the trunk should be, but only by about half again in each dimension- I wahis to be a useful ste chest, not a sed, less-ve bedroom. Still, it amounts to a factor-of-three e, so..."

  Now, as it so happened, I knew rather a lot about the market for pocket dimensions and spatially-expae. A trunk like this one retty high-end, with a low-end one being equivalent to just one of the nine separate partments in this. However, House Redwater was a Ducal House, and had absolutely obse amounts of money. For all I knew, Emily had a trunk whose interior was the size of a house.

  "Could... You could do that?" Emily asked.

  "Well... Probably?" I hazarded. "I am fairly good with pocket dimensions, but the issue at hand is thusly: that would be a serious uaking, and I don't have a practical use for that." I tapped my . "...Of course, now that it's occurred to me that I possibly do this, now I want to do this. Hrm. Well, I do that after we get you to Mount Fate. I'd like to leave early, because supposedly there are csses they run during the summer that aren't as demanding as those of the main academic year, and some of them caught my eye, but-"

  "Leaving soon works for me," Emily said, nodding. "When we leave?"

  "Hrm..." I chewed on this for a bit. "...Well, we o do some st-minute pag, make sure we aren't fetting anything, say oodbyes, et cetera... Let's say, a week from today. And tomorrow, I'll e by at noon to introduce you to the rest of the party. How's that sound?"

  "I, um... I'm not sure what t," Emily admitted.

  "...I will also offer structive criticism on your pag," I said dryly.

  "That all sounds agreeable to me," Melody said.

  "Then it's settled," I said. "See you two tomorrow."