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This Used to be About Dungeons, ch 152, First Steps
🕑 Added 2022-11-30 17:34:01 +0000 UTCApologies for the lack of promptness for chapters lately, I've been a little fried, mostly because of sickness repeatedly hitting our household. I'm hoping that going into December I'll have a more regular pattern to my life, and have more energy overall.
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Two weeks passed.
Marsh had welcomed Hannah back like she was his long-lost love, reunited after turbulent and uncertain times. Her instinct had been to be exasperated with him, but she’d reined that in and allowed herself to enjoy being fawned over.
“I love you,” he said to her for the tenth time.
“I love you too,” she said. He was warm and heavy, and smelled like sage. He hadn’t known exactly when they would come home, so he’d apparently been fretting, and part of how he’d been fretting was learning how to bake, mostly because it reminded him of her. He’d spent some time looking after the house — he was the one taking care of Tabbins while they were gone — and had gotten into the herb garden, which he’d apologized for. No one had actually cared, but it was nice of him to think of apologizing, Hannah thought.
“I missed you,” he said for the nineteenth time.
“I missed you too,” said Hannah with a sigh. And she had missed him, deeply, and worried that somehow her being gone would break the spell between them. She had a keener understanding of relationships than he did though, and she wasn’t quite old enough to have counseled dozens of couples through the early days of a relationship, but she had training, which was something. She could see the heady way that he made her feel for what it was, and it tempered her ardor quite a bit.
But of course, ‘temper’ meant both to act as a neutralizing force, and to strengthen and harden, and of the two definitions, she felt that the latter might have been more true of her situation. When Hannah’s mind instinctively said ‘no, this is just how people feel at the start, when they find someone who’s compatible, it fades with time’, she was left thinking about Marsh from a more logical, less emotional standpoint — and she found that there was much to love. He was quite open, unbothered by seeming goofy or over-enthusiastic, and he was strong in many ways, though restrained in how he used that strength. He had no doubts about his ability to make his way through the world, and that showed in how he talked and acted, which might have come across as apathy if it came from someone less kind. He had ambitions to run some kind of a business with the entads their party had gathered, but was still hoping to find something that he found more compelling. He talked about his family in a way that made her feel good.
It was supposed to be a fling, and it had only happened because both of them had thought that it was going to be an undone day. Hannah wondered how many people ended up getting together that way, but she didn’t suppose most of them stayed together.
Mizuki had been teasing Hannah about the whole thing for quite some time.
“You were talking so much about casual relationships, how it’s the right time of your life to sow your oats,” said Mizuki with a little laugh. “And now it’s looking like Marsh is going to go the distance.”
“Well, ay,” said Hannah. “And I do stand by that, I am of the right age and temperament to go out and do whatever I please, with whomever I please. But knowin’ theory from practice is one of the most important things a person can know, and if Marsh does go the distance, I don’t think I’ll feel too much regret about adventures not had.”
“Ha,” said Mizuki, pointing at Hannah. “You like your boyfriend.”
Hannah grinned and rolled her eyes. “You know, there are certain proverbs about throwin’ stones that you might want to keep in mind.”
“I don’t have a boyfriend,” said Mizuki.
“Which proverb?” asked Isra, who was on the couch with them. Alfric was in his makeshift woodworking shop, trying to get the house ready, while Verity was upstairs practicing the lute in preparation for a trip to Dondrian to ‘record’ some music. “The one about killing two birds with one stone?”
“Yeah, I’m actually confused,” said Mizuki. “You’re saying … leave no stone unturned?”
Hannah sighed. “I was sayin’ that if you’re in a position of weakness, you shouldn’t be takin’ potshots at people, as much in jest as they might be.”
“I mean, I think it’s lovely for you,” said Mizuki. “It’s just also hilarious.”
“I don’t find it quite so funny as you do,” said Hannah. “But there’s some element of … comeuppance, I suppose.”
When it was two weeks from when they’d returned from the demiplane, all the preparations had been completed, and the day before temple day, when Mizuki didn’t have school, they made a last pass through the house, making sure that everything was, as Alfric kept saying, ‘ship shape’. The windows were secured in place so they wouldn’t open, many of the doors had new latches to them to keep them closed, and most of the furniture that hadn’t already been anchored in place had been nailed down or otherwise had some kind of ‘stowed’ position where it could be strapped in place.
The long, long dungeon that Alfric had done his modified Overguard Maneuver through had given them, among other things, long, thick metal tubes that had taken an incredible amount of work to package away. Alfric still had his long-standing arrangement with Filera, and she’d identified the tubes, which he’d really been hoping were something they could use.
It had taken the better part of four days to attach the entads to the house, and then more time than that to make sure that the house was ready.
“Are we sure this isn’t going to destroy the house?” asked Mizuki.
“No,” said Alfric. “Filera couldn’t make any guarantees. Qymmos is very good for understanding basic facts about the world, but what’s going to happen is really more of an engineering question. What you’d really need is an engineer who’s a cleric of Qymmos, which isn’t uncommon, but we don’t have one readily available.”
“I’m going to be very upset if this house gets destroyed,” said Mizuki. “Very.”
“I don’t think it’s likely,” said Alfric. “We’ll do it slowly, mostly to check whether or not we’ve forgotten anything. There are latches on almost everything now.”
Hannah had brought some chairs out to watch, and sat with Marsh, who’d come to visit and make an event of it. A table sat in the backyard with refreshments, including some of Marsh’s herbal-spiced lemonade, apparently one of his signatures. The rest of Vertex had come too, apparently being invited by Mizuki, and that included their newest team member, a girl who seemed like she was having a tough time fitting in.
More than an hour after it was supposed to have happened according to Alfric’s schedule, he gave the metal tubes their command, and the house lurched upward, supported by the entads that had been attached to it.
They were legs, and Hannah had accepted that when Alfric had reported it, but still didn’t really believe it. The house, for its part, had only risen up six inches, which was a bit of a disappointment.
“It’s by design,” said Alfric. “I’m not going to have the house thrust up into the air first thing, I’m going to lift it six inches, go inside to check where the stress is, if it’s not just been solved with the magic of the legs, check whether everything is still sturdy and stable, and then I’m going to life it another five feet.”
“This is going to take ages,” said Grig.
“That’s why we’re making a thing of it,” said Mizuki. “Otherwise there’s a risk that we might die of boredom. Unfortunately, Alfric won’t let anyone use the sink or bathroom while this is going on.”
“I can let you into Lutopia Two,” said Hannah. “There’s a bathroom there.”
“I don’t need to go,” said Mizuki. “I’m just complaining.”
“Ay, well, if you do,” said Hannah.
“Or just go in the woods,” said Isra.
“I don’t need to go,” Mizuki repeated. “And no, I’m not going to pee in the woods, that’s where the bears pee.”
“You do look a bit like a bear,” said Grig. “In the right light.”
It took Alfric some time to do his tour of the house, which he had a bit of company for. Hannah wondered how much Alfric actually wanted his old teammates to come with him, but Josen had insisted, and once Josen was coming, Mardin was too. They both had applicable skills — if you wanted to look for where a house would fracture, there was no better cleric than one of Oeyr. Hannah suspected that they would keep their conversation to matters of fact, cold and distant in the way that men sometimes did even if they were friends.
“Has Marsh told you we’re coming with you?” Grig asked Hannah.
“If he hadn’t, you’d have just ruined quite the surprise,” said Hannah. “But ay, he’s told me.”
“We haven’t mined out the area, but with a new member of the team, it’ll be good to get a fresh start,” said Grig. He looked at the girl, Tilde, who was having a quiet conversation with Verity. “I do think she’s going to work out.”
“To be clear, this is the one who insulted you durin’ the interview?” asked Hannah. “That tried to, in your words, extort you?”
She looked at the girl. She was tall, and had a sword at her hip, blonde hair and large eyes. She was so tall that it was hard to focus on anything else about her, but she was well-muscled and comely, with the kind of brutish strength that Hannah so-liked in a girl. She felt a wave of jealousy pass through as she thought about Marsh spending time with a girl like that, and she let the wave pass like water crashing against stone. It was a sign of how things with Marsh were going that Hannah would look at a tall, muscular girl, that nice blend of feminine and masculine, and then have some instinct toward getting jealous of all things.
“I don’t think I’ve ever said ‘extort’,” said Grig. “But yes, she knew we were in a rough spot, and tried to get a good deal from us. But then she came back and offered us equal terms, so — Marsh, were you the one to say that she was trying to extort us?”
“I might have been,” said Marsh. He tugged at his beard for a bit. “I don’t think I meant anything by it.”
“Well, no more of that talk,” said Grig. “She’s with us now, the terms are equitable, we’re going to plow on ahead. The first two dungeons have gone extremely well.”
“We got almost nothing,” said Marsh.
“Yes, but we were functioning smoothly,” said Grig. “That’s got to count for something.”
“Initial check is good,” said Alfric, who’d emerged from the house. “Let’s raise it another few inches.”
“That had better be a joke,” said Mizuki, who was in the midst of eating one of the pastries Hannah had baked that morning. “Raise it to the sky!”
“What happened to being patient?” asked Alfric.
“I’m a wizard-in-training,” said Mizuki. “Patience is what I do all day, petting rocks and trying not to go crazy. If you’re going to make me be patient while we’re having a party, I don’t know what I’m going to do. Pick a fight, probably.”
“Fine, fine,” said Alfric. “I’ll be cool and dramatic, just this once.” He turned around and raised his hands into the air. “House, rise!”
The house got to its feet, claws extending from the bottom of the hinged tubes, the embellishment of scales on the metal becoming more pronounced. There were six legs in total, which was an auspicious number, but the house was built around fours — four rooms to a floor, four sides — and the mismatch nagged at Hannah a bit.
Compared to the house, the legs seemed far too thin. Each was as thick as a tree trunk, but the house dwarfed them. With the house only ten feet up off the ground, it gave the impression of a scuttling crab more than anything else, or a shiny beetle, at least with the windows gleaming in the sunlight. It was an impressive house though, even when it wasn’t walking, and the legs themselves were of fine craftsmanship of the sort that often came from a dungeon. As Hannah watched, the legs were in the process of growing, fitting in a little bit more than they had before, and from what Alfric had said, they’d be even more in theme by the end of the week, bulking up a bit.
There was a brief round of applause for the house, and then another when it took its first step at Alfric’s direction. Any of them could control the house with the word of power that Filera had told Alfric, and Hannah was just counting down the minutes until Mizuki wanted to take her turn with the new toy. They were doing this for her, and she’d expressed a few too many times how grateful she was, but there was little hope that Mizuki would be able to resist for long.
“Wait!” said Mizuki. She was pointing, not at the house, but the ground below it. “Why is there grass?”
Hannah looked, and immediately wondered how she hadn’t noticed right away. It seemed quite natural for the house to rise up and for there to be grass beneath it, as though it was a creature that had been taking a nap in a meadow, but it didn’t really make sense.
“Where’s the basement?” asked Mizuki. “I had a basement.”
“I guess we can go investigate,” said Alfric, but he had a smile on his face.
“You kept something from me, you sly dog,” said Mizuki, but she was beaming. She took the helmet — ‘her’ helmet — from in her bag and leapt up to the door of the house, which was ten feet off the ground. It took her a moment to fiddle with the latches, but then she was inside.
“So what is it?” asked Grig.
“Just extradimensional space,” said Alfric. “The bottom of the house is rounded now, I’m not sure you can see from here, but any doors that go to a lower level are still accessible, just through magic. I asked Filera, of course, but I thought that Mizuki would enjoy it more to experience it on her own. For her, that’s half the fun.”
“You’re a good friend,” said Grig.
“We should build a second basement!” Mizuki called out the open door, having returned from a hurried exploration.
“I’m not sure that would work,” said Alfric. “I don’t know how much basement space we’d be able to carry around.”
“Well, figure it out,” said Mizuki. She leaped from the door and landed on the ground in a pose with her arms spread out.
“I actually was wondering whether we could actually travel with you,” said Grig. “You said that it would take you a month to get all the way to Plenarch, that’s a fast pace if we want to hit all the dungeons in a straight line. Not that we’d live with you, but if you had a spare room that we could use, it would be better than following along. And obviously we’re hoping for more coordination.”
“It’s up to the party,” said Alfric. He folded his arms across his chest. “I do want to honor the ongoing deal, but the house really isn’t big enough for ten people. If you had extradimensional space you could park in one of the rooms … but you’d have to stay in there, which I don’t think you want to do.”
“Surely they could be in the living room while we travel, right?” asked Mizuki.
“The plan is six hours a day on the road,” said Alfric. “The legs will handle most of it, but if the Vertex is going to be in the living room for six hours a day, that’s basically like them living with us.”
“Maybe we’ll go ahead,” said Marsh. “We can scout a place for your house to sit for the night, then at night, share resources? Just a bit?”
“We’ll work something out,” said Alfric. “We’re not moving today, just testing, making sure we know how this thing works. We might be as much as a week away from actually taking the house down the road.”
“Sorry,” said Mardin. “Maybe I’m missing something obvious, but … how? The house is wider than any road. You’re not going to be able to get it down the path without cutting down a dozen trees.”
“The legs have that handled,” said Alfric. He clapped his hands once.
The legs extended, and the house shot up into the air, twenty feet, then thirty. The legs looked even more spindly as it rose higher, and it swayed slightly in the wind, though down at ground level it was a calm day. Alfric brought the house back down, having made his point.
“And so what, you just do a tightrope walk down the roads, stepping around or past the trees?” asked Mardin. “I don’t really see it.”
“We’re going to figure it out,” said Alfric. “The entad’s value is in mobility, and I think leaving the property is going to be the most difficult bit. Once we’re on main roads, we won’t have to deal with overhead trees or tunnels or anything like that. There are well-trod paths between the hexes, usually, once you’re not in the middle of nowhere.”
Hannah was a bit skeptical that any of this was actually going to work, but Alfric was enamored with the idea, and Isra seemed strangely excited too, even though they’d mostly be going through the province of Plenarch and leaving the garden behind right as a few of the plants they’d been growing would be coming into season. The actual distance wasn’t all that much for Isra though, not with her ability to travel, so perhaps that didn’t matter — or perhaps she was simply ready to leave it all behind. The plan was to make regular trips back to the plot, but Hannah was skeptical about that. When she’d been young, she’d been charged with cat-sitting for a family friend who was away, and by the third time she’d walked two miles to the neighbor’s house, she was well and truly ready to be done with the whole thing.
“Well, I wish you luck, and not just because we’re supposed to be running dungeons together,” said Mardin.
“We’ll be fine,” said Alfric. He was looking up at the house, and Hannah could see the gears turning. She had no idea what direction they were turning, but she knew the look that Alfric got from time to time when he was trying to work something out.
The new girl, Tilde, was standing awkwardly to one side during this whole affair, not speaking to anyone, and Hannah’s clerical instincts took over. She went up and introduced herself, formally rather than just being pointed out, which was a good way to reiterate names. Those could get overwhelming for a new person, especially one that wasn’t as steady on their feet.
“You’re new to the party, but not to dungeons, ay?” asked Hannah.
“I am,” said Tilde. “I was what I’d consider seasoned, fifty dungeons under my belt.” She seemed more confident speaking about that, rather than the awkwardness of the introduction. “I’m a front-line fighter.”
“With your own flesh and blood?” asked Hannah. “Or with augmentation?”
“Augmentation?” asked Tilde.
“Marsh fights on the front lines sometimes,” said Hannah. “But he’s got flame and locks to back him up, along with the entads.” Marsh’s current weapon was a spear that left sharp lines of magic in the air.
“I’m taking over for Marsh,” said Tilde. “The team had too many half-fighters. Someone needs to be in the way of the monsters, as much as possible.”
“Right,” said Mizuki, who’d come to join them. “But that doesn’t always work out, does it? Like with a swarm.”
“True,” nodded Tilde. “But having someone in their face works most of the time.”
“I didn’t get a yes or no,” said Hannah. “Whether you fight as natural, just yourself, or not.”
“I have entads passed down to me from my father,” said Tilde. “That’s it.”
Hannah nodded. She figured that Marsh would have said something if the girl had some special ability. He had been distracted lately though, and it wouldn’t have entirely surprised Hannah if something had slipped his mind.
“Can I see?” asked Mizuki. “I love entads.”
Tilde snorted. “Who doesn’t?” She seemed to second-guess her dismissive answer though, and pulled her sword from her sheathe. She held it out, at arm’s length, and with a burst of fur it merged with her arm, the tip of the sword splitting in three to become terrifyingly long claws. The fur went up her arm to where it disappeared beneath her sleeve. Once the transformation was complete, she held the claws up and wiggled them for Mizuki’s benefit.
“Alright, I like her, she’s cool,” said Mizuki.
“Anyone could have this entad though,” said Tilde.
“Nah,” said Mizuki. “Anyone could have it, but it takes someone special to get up close and personal with a weapon like that.” She smiled, then looked over at Alfric. “Most cowards just use a spear to be as far away from the monsters as possible.”
“I heard that,” said Alfric, who moved over to join them.
“I was joking,” said Mizuki. “Personally, I prefer to be as far away from the monsters as possible when they explode into pieces, having never had a chance to see me.”
“I was told your party doesn’t really do dungeons anymore?” asked Tilde, looking between them.
“Er, that’s not quite true,” said Alfric. “We’ve just been busy with other things until now. We’re hoping for a few dungeons on the road, though not as many as the streak that Vertex is planning.”
“And … you’re a chrononaut?” asked Tilde.
“Is that a problem?” asked Alfric.
“No,” said Tilde. “Not unless … you know something?”
“No,” said Alfric. “I tend to go away from others on my undone days.” He looked at Mizuki. “Sometimes with her.”
“Oh,” said Tilde. “Are you two … together?”
“Yup!” said Mizuki. “Peas in a pod.”
“That’s not what she’s asking,” said Alfric.
“They’re just close friends,” said Hannah. “Mizuki is incapable of giving a straight answer.”
“Mmm,” said Tilde. “I’ve never met a chrononaut before. You’re giving us insurance on our dungeon runs, so I suppose I should thank you.”
“It’s part of a trade we made,” said Alfric with a shrug. “I follow the rules of disclosure closely. If we have any interaction on an undone day, I’ll let you know about it.”
Maybe a few weeks ago, Alfric would have said ‘chrononauts follow the rules of disclosure’. It was a subtle change, but one that Hannah took note of. He hadn’t talked with the party all that much about his feelings on the matter, but he’d once viewed Lola as an exception to the rule, rather than a symptom of rot. There wasn’t much that anyone could say though.
Alfric spent most of the rest of the day running tests, and Hannah spent most of her time with Vertex, playing cleric in some respects, mostly in listening to them talk and offering advice when it seemed that advice might be wanted — and a few times when it seemed they needed advice. They’d taken a liking to Kell and were clearly wanting to leave the region behind as a way of leaving him behind, but little was actually said of the errant wizard. Hannah felt a keen desire to throw the subject out into the open, but Marsh had warned against it, and she did trust him.
Besides, it was supposed to be a special day when your house took its first steps.
When the sun began to set, Alfric lowered the house back down and tried to place it approximately where it had been before, but the legs had been slowly growing and changing, and it wasn’t quite so easy to lay it flat, since the house needed to squat down. There was now a two foot gap between the bottom of the house and the doorframe of the back door, and Alfric was scratching his head, trying to puzzle out some kind of unfolding staircase, as the rest of them scrambled up.
“I don’t technically own this house,” said Mizuki. “It’s mine so long as I live in it, but I’m not sure grandpa realized that I might go wandering and take the house with me. Legally, there’s probably some stuff that we should do.”
“That you should do,” said Verity. “I don’t think we can hire a barrister on your behalf.”
“Well, no,” said Mizuki. “I guess not. But I don’t know the first thing about the law, so …”
“I can look into it,” sighed Verity. “I don’t have all that much else to do, and won’t be of any help with Alfric’s projects.”
“You’re the best!” said Mizuki wrapping Verity in a hug. Verity pretended to be exasperated by the affection, but Hannah knew that Verity loved hugs.
Marsh stayed over, of course, though they were in Lutopia Two rather than Hannah’s actual bedroom within the house. In truth, the bedroom had become superfluous, since she had her own bed within the Lutopia. If they needed room for a sixth person — a seventh person really, because Marsh stayed with her more often than not — she’d have readily given up her room and simply treated the entad lute as though it was an extra room jutting off the living room. The lute was bound to her, and while she could invite others in, her privacy was pretty absolute.
When she left to get a midnight snack from the kitchen, Mizuki was there, eating from a crock of pickles.
“Hello,” said Mizuki. “Up late?”
“It’s not so late,” said Hannah, though she was in her pajamas.
“I’m having trouble sleeping,” said Mizuki. “Temple day tomorrow, then back to school, and I feel like I need to make the most of my free time, especially since we’ll be moving the house, if Alfric can figure out a way to do that without trampling everything.”
“Natural to be anxious,” said Hannah with a nod. “Share a pickle?”
Mizuki hefted the crock and put it on the counter where they could both reach. They were Kiromon pickles, with a bit of soy, ginger, garlic, and a hint of lakeweed and fish. Hannah liked her own pickles better, which had different herbs and a bit more crispness, but Mizuki’s were nice.
“So that new dungeon girl they got thought me and Alfric were a couple, right?” asked Mizuki.
“Yes,” said Hannah, nodding. “‘Dungeon girl’ seems a bit, ah, not like what she’d like to be called.”
“I think it sounds daring,” said Mizuki. She spread out her hands, one of which was holding a half-eaten pickle. “‘Dungeon girl!’”
“In any case, yes, she thought that you’re with Alfric,” said Hannah. This was clearly what Mizuki wanted to talk about, and Hannah was happy to listen, even after a day that had more than the usual amount of listening. There was a part of her that missed that part of clerical work.
“I keep thinking that, I don’t know,” said Mizuki. She bit into her pickle, then kept talking with her mouth half-full. “I keep thinking that someday he’s going to say to me, ‘So I have to disclose to you that in the undone day we got a little tipsy and made out on the couch’. I think that’s what the dungeon girl was thinking, that something like that would have happened.”
“Do you think that would happen?” asked Hannah.
“No,” said Mizuki. “Alfric would never, and I would … probably not. I mean, if I’d had a lot of wine, but that usually gets me sleepy, not daring, and if I knew it was an undone day, then no. It’s the kind of thing he wouldn’t like.”
“So is this a worry, a thought, or more of a fantasy?” asked Hannah.
“A what?” asked Mizuki, drawing back a bit.
“I mean, when you think about this scenario, Alfric coming to you and saying ‘look, we were laying together on the couch and I kissed you on the neck’, does that make your heart flutter, or does it make your stomach sink?”
“Flutter, I guess,” said Mizuki.
“So it’s more somethin’ that you wish would happen,” said Hannah.
“I … I don’t know,” said Mizuki.
“It’s fine to not know,” said Hannah with a shrug. “Just so long as you’re not lettin’ it get in the way.”
“I’m not, I don’t think,” said Mizuki. “I’d know if I was, right?”
“Not necessarily, no,” said Hannah. “But we’ve got to think about what we want, and what we can have, and what we can’t. So long as you’re thinkin’, that’s as much as anyone can ask.”
“I’ve never felt like thinking is my strong suit,” said Mizuki.
“Well, you’re a wizard-in-training now,” said Hannah. “Maybe it’s time to change how you think of yourself. And maybe it’s also time to think about it like Alfric does.”
“Yeah,” said Mizuki. “Okay, I guess I will.”
Hannah finished her pickle and said a late goodnight, then went back to her room, and into Lutopia Two. She had little hope that Mizuki would simply sit down and figure things out, but stranger things had definitely happened.
Marsh was asleep, sprawled out in the bed, snoring very softly and gently. He looked very peaceful and content, and when she got into bed with him he wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close even in his sleep. She liked his warmth and protectiveness, the way he knew what he wanted, and the fact that what he wanted was her. They hadn’t been dating that long, in the scheme of things, even including the time where they were having more of a fling than being a proper boyfriend and girlfriend. He had no shyness about declaring his love for her.
She was worried that he was going to propose to her, just pull out a ring and say that he wanted to be with her forever, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized that her heart was fluttering at the scenario. It wasn’t a fear so much as a fantasy, the exact thing she’d been talking to Mizuki about. Once she realized that, she tried to revel in the fantasy, but her mind wouldn’t stop making all the usual objections, most of them about how they hadn’t met each others’ family yet, how they hadn’t been dating long enough, how they needed to have half a dozen serious talks on important things, and to experience each other in different circumstances. It blunted the fantasy somewhat, when she was trying to feel good about it.
Hannah dreamed of the house moving on its spindly legs, wandering around the countryside or to other villages, not wanting to settle in one place.
Yet somewhere out there was a place for the house to settle, a plot of land so perfect that there would never be a point in moving anywhere else.
