"Work on what? How many rings?"

"Building blueprints. I'm planning on doing some stuff differently, like they did on Earth. I did the math, but... Hundred twenty for a solid hour going over 'em and discussing?"

"You could make it a hundred forty-four."

"Oh, very well, this is important to get right. I'd prefer to do it inside my anti-scry."

"That's fine."

"Let's get to it then."

He has two - one for a warehouse-style workshop, one for a downtown building that will be a ground level store with four floors of apartments and then a big loft penthouse for himself on top. He took care to make it pretty, copying some themes from mainland architecture. He's going to use titanium-reinforced concrete and have defense magic done to key parts. He did a destructive test on some earlier, here are the numbers. He's leaving more space than usual for an elevator - he's going to use technology to make one automatic, which is still in the design phase for now but will have triple redundancy.

He'd like advice on accessible apartment design, whenever the structural and maintenance problems are exhausted, he's designing from a very human perspective.

"I'd have a working model of the elevator design you want before trying to use it in a building. And be careful mixing warded and unwarded building materials, it's a perfectly good way of doing things but it can go wrong in ways things usually don't go wrong otherwise. It's interesting to see your human perspective, it'll probably be good for attracting humans to Ira Sani. Have you seen any housing designed for other species yet? Housing for essi and ereli isn't exactly a solved problem but for agerah and beluli you should look at what's already been tried."

"Haven't seen any agerah or beluli housing yet. I'll make sure to look into it. I have an idea for essi and other small species, which needs a bit more work. And my workshop will be my first building, the tower with the elevator will come later."

He takes notes. He has more questions. Wants to get his hour's worth.

Ahgari has book recommendations on relevant topics.

"...but someone read it outside on a beach in Anavel Sani nine years ago so if you get a knowledge mage and an illusion mage who know how to do these things to project it somewhere you can read over their shoulder, it was about two months after the summer solstice in the morning. And then Principles of Stable Construction is available at the libraries in Mar Geru and Elit City, for sure, and probably Thelm Ret and..."

"I have reference books of my own saved on my little tablet but I'll make sure to check those out if I get a chance. It's a constant low-level annoyance that I can't do the local magic, but at least I have vampire speed to make up for it."

"You and the void mages. There are people here who have experience with construction, you can hire them. What's your plan for the illusions on these places?"

"Pretty much total on my workshop, small areas total-except-if-you're-in-there. The store won't have many. Maybe some art. The apartments, still deciding."

"That all sounds right. The standard practice for apartments is two layers, one covering the whole building but allowing anything for anyone inside, one on each apartment blocking pastwatching and keeping people from spying on their neighbors. And soundproofing that lets sound into the apartments but not out. But you should read Privacy in the City by Sasai, it goes into more detail than I can right now."

"I'm accumulating a shopping list. I'll have to go back to the mainland sooner or later anyway, I suppose, to sell computers."

"I heard about that. You're a successful inventor or something like that, it's a good set of skills to apply to real estate, if you haven't thrown every element in the air together and gotten yourself killed you're a little less likely to come up with any great ideas for making an apartment unlivable."

"I know just enough about chemistry to know what not to fuck around with, yes. I did have something explode on me, but I knew that might happen and it was behind a wall at the time, because I take precautions."

"Walls aren't always good enough. What would you have done if instead you'd heard it might make a toxic gas?"

"Not mess with it yet. I don't have the right stuff to make a good fume hood quite yet. And depending on the gas it might make, not tried it at all ever. I'm never touching Florine, for example."

Ahgari laughs. "That makes two of us."

"I'd have to without mages. Computer manufacturers on Earth used it to clean their equipment to within an inch of its life. But structure and maybe void magic will be able to take care of that for me. And you can make some great stuff with it if you're careful enough."

"I'm sure you can if you know what you're doing. ...Please don't get overconfident and die."

"Not planning on it. Either messing with Florine or dying. I suppose we're done here, then?"

"Yeah, we're done, read what I told you before you ask me more questions that you could've answered for yourself."

"Asking an expert who's not afraid to tell me where I'm wrong is a fast way to get an idea where your path lies compared to bumbling around for hours. It was worth the rings to me. Bye, then."

Meanwhile someone is looking for Kenneth.