The Legendary Monster Layer!

It was like pulling teeth; Ari’s Menagerie didn’t like providing their opinions on future plans. They figured Ari’s preference superseded theirs. It was hard not to be frustrated.

Ari went down the line. She’d pull teeth if she had to. “Renna. What do you think?”

Renna shifted, uncrossing her arms. She blinked at being singled out. “Uh,” she said. “Whatever’s fine.”

“Nuh uh,” Ari said. “You’ve gotta give a real answer.”

Renna looked around the expansive central room. “Well,” she finally said. “It makes sense to me, if we’re gonna be expanding, that getting a workshop set up is best. Silvana’ll need it. For that matter, she could probably use some extra hands.” She addressed the last part to Silvana.

Silvana was already shaking her head. “Honestly, no. Your class makes you stronger, but you can’t carve through rock. Not till you’re much higher. Another craftsman would be nice … but that’s not on the docket.” She glanced at Ari for confirmation.

“We need a mage next,” Ari said. “So that’s who our fifth will be. But definitely more crafters, when we can.”

“But workshop first?” Renna suggested to Silvana.

“Well,” Silvana replied. “Filling up our common room with building supplies and equipment would get irritating … and cluttered. So yeah. Workshop would be nice. Then a storage room.” Silvana hesitated. “But before either of those, honestly, a study? You said you’ll be bringing back textbooks, so a quiet place would be nice. Things can get loud in here.”

“What can you make, anyway?” Ari asked. “Weapons? Armor?”

Silvana considered it. “Honestly, I’m not sure. Maybe. I don’t think they’d be very good. My specialty is in labor … construction. Tools are on the table, so I could probably learn how to make simple weapons and armor, but nothing like a blacksmith might, or a leather worker. Not to mention, there’s a limit to what [Improvise] can get around. I’d need a forge, an anvil, a bellows … and so on. Those aren’t small projects.”

“That makes sense,” Ari said. “That’s not our goal, anyway. Seems like everyone’s doing fine gathering armor off monsters.” A glance to Lori, who nodded; they hadn’t been struggling on that front. It might not be the highest quality equipment, but it was serving their needs. “And we can buy stuff from the market. Construction material’s what we need.”

Though, the idea did intrigue her. That, somewhere down the line, Ari might have an actual blacksmith monstergirl, and a leather worker, fletcher, artificers of various sorts, the whole nine yards. How big would her Menagerie grow? How big would the burrow? Ari had joked about turning their underground base into a guild, but would that turn out literal?

Would Ari have a whole society of monstergirls, down here? Every class under the sun, varying squads of combat classes? An honest to god monstergirl society?

All for Ari to play with?

It was hard to imagine.

And would they each feed Ari experience, as her skill suggested?

From what Ari had seen, the experience siphon wasn’t significant. Ari had always leveled up after her own adventures, rather than randomly—which would happen if her friend’s progression were influencing hers to a significant degree. At a guess, while free experience was amazing in any capacity, it wasn’t an enormous amount. Probably less than half a level had been given to her—a guess pulled out of thin air.

But what about when she had a Menagerie twenty strong? Or more? If that ever happened. She suspected her capacity would grow, but she had no idea to what extent. But if it did become that large, then the trickle-feed of experience would grow more and more significant. It was fascinating to think about.

Ari shook her head, clearing it.

“Okay,” Ari said. “So. Study first, then workshop, then storage room … and finally bedrooms. We’ll go with that, tentatively.”

“So I shouldn’t keep improving the central room?” Silvana asked.

“Not in the sense of laying down tiles and flooring or whatever,” Ari said. “Us four will handle furnishing it, so it’ll improve in that aspect. But fine touches once we have the essentials.”

“Works with me,” Silvana said with a shrug.

Ari looked around; nobody had any protests. Maybe she ought to press each of them individually, but from a practical standpoint … a study and workshop needed to happen first. The study could act as a private place to relax, if Lori was feeling antsy—the bedrooms could come later. Plus, there was always the option of sleeping out in the forest, as Lori had made it clear she didn’t mind doing.

Ari wouldn’t necessarily be happy with that—she’d rather have her Menagerie under one roof, safe—but they were adults, and she’d be a hypocrite if she forced them into doing exactly as she wanted. Ari wanted to introduce them into civilized living, and not roughing it in the wild, but if they insisted, that was their prerogative.

“Okay. One last topic,” Ari said. “Finances. I want to work something concrete out. I’m thinking we’ll have a ‘Menagerie’ fund, a pooled resource, and with the left overs, we split equally as personal funds. Say, half of everything we make goes to the Menagerie, which’ll be used for building supplies, expansion, whatever else, and we can use our personal funds—ten percent cut each of the total, adjusting as we grow—for equipment upgrades, niceties, you know … whatever else.”

Her Menagerie stared blankly at her.

“Because I’m not taking everything everyone makes,” Ari pointed out, frustrated. She threw her hands in the air. “We’re a team! I’ll be the leader, but you aren’t my subordinates. And no, your personal funds will not go to the public pool. You will buy things you want. Clothes, food, whatever you see at the market that you want. Understand?”

More than any time in this conversation, Ari glared at each of her Menagerie in turn.

“We’re all diligent workers, here, and want to advance—but it can’t be all work and no play. Or, it can, it’s your money, your time, to do what you want with, but your personal funds goes to you. Not me, or the Menagerie as a whole. Beyond that … I won’t force any of you into anything.”

It was a difficult position to be in. Ari wanted them to make their own decisions, but unfortunately, it seemed their default decision was to let Ari order them to do everything, and to siphon all resources and earnings to her. So she had to order them to be … more selfish.

Ari sighed. “But yeah. We’ll start with that, see if fifty percent of our joint total is enough to keep Silvana supplied. Furnishing and construction can get expensive … but we also need a chunk of the earnings for equipment, potions, and so on.” Ari had wanted to make concrete decisions, but some weren’t possible; they had to remain loose in some regard. “We’ll figure it out as we go.”