Cozy house outfit for now. She can come back and change before going outside to look at the trees, if that's appropriate.

Paril will get cloth slippers and a sort of long-sleeved cotton nightgown in dark red.

The house is big! And old. Unlike other places, where the main house only houses the drones and the Keeper, this house is big enough to house even the laborer drones. [This wasn't really intended, though. Many of the drones are hobby rooms or guest rooms which have been repurposed to be drone barracks, and also, Paril has fewer drones than his ancestors who previously lived here – only four dozen. The previous drone barracks nearby has sat unused and has kind of become a warehouse for various items.]

The architecture and building style will be very reminiscent of castles, and there will be three floors plus a basement cellar and icebox. There's the main bedroom, four guest rooms, with bathrooms, the main living room, and also about a dozen ancillary rooms whose purpose is kind of undefined but have various assorted items in them. Aside from that, there's the kitchen and related structures, the warehouse and pantry, the actual intended drone barracks, the old rooms repurposed to be drone barracks, drone bathrooms, a laundry area...so on and so forth. It will have all of the expected domestic facilities a baron would expect. [Plus electric lighting! It's daytime now, so it's kind of irrelevant, but if you flick this lever here... light comes out from the glass pear on the ceiling.]

Is there any particular part which she wants to focus on? Drones greet him when he passes them. Alternatively, he can return to the bedroom to change into outdoor clothes. Honestly, he could go out with just that, but it might be a bit too chilly.

Her instinct is that this weather does not qualify as chilly but she should adjust that instinct to the fact that this body is much less fluffy than the one she's used to. She'll wander the house looking out windows and inspecting architectural details and getting a feel for the place, and then get into some warmer clothes and go outside to stroll through the trees.

It is indeed much less fluffy, since remna don't have hair at all!

It will look very reminiscent of a medieval castle, with stone and brick, except the brick has been dyed black. It even has crenellations and such. It kind of seems like it was meant to be defensible? [Old-Paril says that this house is very very old, back during the days of the early Imperium, and so was constructed with defensibility in mind. This house has been passed down through many generations.]

Looking out windows indicates that the geography is relatively flat, and also subtropical. There are forests too, but they're not part of the land Paril owns, which has fencing to indicate it.

The interior design is similar to the bedroom, with painted walls and wooden furniture. It will look simultaneously ominous and cozy. There's not a lot of ornamentation, [which is considered a little weird by Zmavlipre standards.]

The trees are all tall and old! You might even describe some of them as 'majestic'. None of them are deciduous, which is why they all have their leaves even though it's early spring.

Fels has been following along this whole time – including when Paril changes, [this is normal, usually you have your drones help you dress] – and will continue to follow him unless he dismisses him or tells him to go away.

Her crown manages to successfully distract itself from ✨drones✨ by enjoying the architecture. Though, in her crown's opinion, the place could do with more crown-shaped and perhaps Lamb-shaped decor. When they move outside, her crown keeps its eye out for good places to put a Temple or Shrine—not necessarily right away, of course, just thinking ahead. Daydreaming. Daydreaming is okay, right?

The Lamb will allow daydreaming. Personally she's really enjoying these trees. These trees look like they've been here a while and are happy with their lives. And unlike really old trees in the world she's used to, they don't feel faintly ominous!

Both of them are happy about the defensibility, especially as they start seeing the house from the outside and getting a feel for it that way. The crown thinks this would make such a good place of power. In fact, once the Lamb has had her fill of wandering between the trees, the crown prompts her to go inside and—just as a thought, just a plan, just a daydream—see if there is anywhere indoors big enough to hold a full-size stone circle. Since everyone who lives here is so enormous, it shouldn't be too terribly hard to find. A cellar or something, some room whose floor is embedded directly in the ground, with room to hold a circle that's more than two but less than three enormous-alien-lengths across. Is there a room meeting that description anywhere?

Many rooms, actually!

The cellar meets this description, but is also full of various food items, so it would be extremely inconvenient to move all that out to make space for the stone circle. There are drones though, and they could probably move it? A few of the rooms upstairs can be converted into pantries.

The ground floor has many such rooms too, including the main living room, which could probably fit four stone circles of that description if you remove the furniture. It does have stone tiling, but you could replace it or remove it.

So that's the stone circle squared away, so to speak.

How about hidden courtyards open to the sky but concealed from external view, any of those? (The crown is thinking ahead to some period of time wherein they will have Converted their drones but won't have gone public yet and should put their Shrine somewhere where it will not be immediately obvious to visitors and passersby that there's a big glowy statue around, bleeding eldritch ichor from its eyes and radiating the light of Devotion. The Lamb is appreciating her crown's foresight in this matter.)

Sadly not – the entire castle is one whole building and has no inner courtyards. The closest thing you could have in short notice would be to remove the roof of one of the ancillary buildings or sheds.

The other option is buying construction materials to build a wall, in which you could place the stone circle. Paril's drones are trained in basic construction – the ancillary structures were all built by them – and buying construction materials would not be considered suspicious or noteworthy in any way, for a rural farmer. Construction will take a while, though. A dozen days or so to transport materials, and a few dozen more to actually build it. More if Paril wants something more elaborate than 'simple stone wall'. The drones are trained in construction but only some of them are, and they don't specialize in it.

In that case, they take a stroll around the castle together looking for good places to put such a walled courtyard, either attached to the main building or separate from it. If attached to the main building, it should have its own door, and possibly no external door, to make it accessible only from within the castle... of course, defensible buildings are generally not built with a ton of outside doors in the first place, so that might limit their options considerably unless they're willing to knock holes in the wall, and they shouldn't be, not yet. Or, on the other hand, perhaps one of the castle's interior rooms has a skylight, or, if not, could be given one? The most important aspect of the Shrine's placement is that it must be open to the sky; having it connected to the ground is a nice aesthetic bonus, but not at all necessary, and if they're planning on hiding all their eldritch magical nonsense they'd better let go of unnecessary constraints.

There are flower gardens near the castle, but the back of it doesn't. The wall could potentially placed there.

No skylights in the interior rooms, sadly, but there are two 3/4-circle towers on the front side of the castle with conical roofs. You could potentially remove the roof from one of them, and place the circle in it, although it will look lopsided and Aesthetically Dissonant if the other roof isn't removed too. Sadly, that would mean that the stone circle isn't in contact with the ground, which seems to be an Important Element.

How exposed does the stone circle need to be? The middle of the castle only has two floors, rather than three, and the central room there – the event hall – has a high ceiling. You could potentially cut a large hole or skylight there, but not remove the ceiling entirely, since it might compromise the structural integrity of the building. It is also a big room, around the same size as the living room (the living room is intended to be more cozy and casual).

While they prowl the grounds and the Red Crown ponders placement constraints, the Lamb digs around in Paril's memories for a sense of just how drastically they could renovate and redecorate this place without it seeming odd to an outside observer. She's getting the sense that Going Places With Your Aesthetic is pretty locally normal, is that right?

[Paril lives in a rural area and not a city, so he doesn't have to follow city-aesthetic-coherence ordinances. People who visit and know him personally might comment on him changing his aesthetic, but a random stranger would not.

It is normal! Zmavlipre care deeply about aesthetics being coherent, but not about following any one specific aesthetic – for example, different cities have different aesthetic norms. So long as the whole of Paril's property gives ominous brooding vibes, people will not negatively comment on or be suspicious of, say, the stone circle, and will simply consider it Fancy Matching Decor.]

In that case...

Magically speaking, their constraints are as follows:

In order to build anything else, they need a big elaborate stone circle connected directly to the earth. It's possible they'll have to build it mundanely, using the drones; they'd need to give very precise and somewhat bizarre instructions, and might want to have the drones Converted first for mystic resonance reasons, but on the other hand it'll be much easier to Convert people once they have a stone circle, so... tradeoffs. The living room seems like the likeliest spot for it, but depending on other factors, they might choose to use a smaller more out-of-the-way room instead. The tradition is to place the large stone circle at the entrance to one's inner sanctum, but this is by no means necessary, and they should probably not prioritize it.

In order to gather the energy of Devotion and use it to impress building-templates into the world, which is necessary to build a Temple, they need a Shrine open to the sky. It can be enclosed by walls, and even partly sheltered by tree branches or perhaps some kind of shade or lattice, but you must be able to look up from the top of the Shrine and see stars under appropriate star-seeing conditions. It doesn't have to be rooted to the ground, though they're often built that way because it's aesthetically pleasing. It should be somewhere that's easily accessible to their converted Followers for long-term practical purposes, but it's also the most blatantly visibly eldritch of all the necessary constructions, so probably the best place to put it is either a tower room with the roof removed/remodeled, a walled courtyard added to the main building at a side entrance if any are appropriate, or a remodeled outbuilding.

In order to tend to their Cult in the long term, they will need a Temple containing an Altar. The Temple's roof should be open to the sky; the Altar should be rooted to the ground. At home—well, all right, the Lamb has mixed feelings about calling that place home—in their former place of residence, the Temple was a small shed-like building. But (and they're not entirely sure which one of them first conceived of the spark of this idea, but the more they think about it, the more both of them like it) assuming there's a suitable position in the event hall for a rooted block of elaborately carved stone, converting the entire event hall into a Temple might work pretty well. It could be the centerpiece of a revised aesthetic for the whole castle, in a way that would seem completely normal to visitors, as long as those visitors did not come by while the Temple was in active use.

This is all planning for the future, of course. They haven't even sat down to properly think over the question of when and whether to Convert their drones into Followers, and before they do that, the rest is just daydreams. But they're nice daydreams, and practical ones, and it feels good to share in a sense of purpose together.

In fact, it feels so good to share in this sense of purpose that the Lamb searches Paril's memory for any sign of floor plans to this castle, and memories of previous redecorations. How is such a thing usually done? How strange would it be for she and her crown to lock themselves in her bedroom together and draw up plans for potential renovations?

[There are entrances on all four sides, but only the front is the main one. Each door also has a portcullis.

If the Shrine is just weird-looking, then it's fine to put in an aesthetically appropriate place. But if the Shrine has weird glowy or tentacly bits that defy the laws of physics, it should definitely be put somewhere out of the way – violations of the laws of physics will most assuredly attract suspicion.

The event hall would be very suitable as a temple, since it already has a raised dais, and you could put a statue in front of it – having oddly-shaped statues or decorations is totally normal in Zmavlimu'e, again, so long as it's Aesthetically Coherent.

The castle doesn't have any written down floor plans, because it was constructed so long ago. Paril's memories say that it hasn't been redecorated in any significant way, at least in the time he's owned it. He also remembers that it hasn't really been redecorated significantly in the years past, but he's less sure of that. He's been content to have it maintain the same aesthetic. 

Unless your drones are competent enough to do aesthetically pleasing and coherent redecorations, you'll usually hire a building and design company, preferably one that specializes in your desired aesthetic, if available.

It would not be strange at all! There is no one here save for Paril's drones, which makes him 'alone'. Drones are property and not people, after all. It would be like being concerned about being observed because your teddy bear's eyes are pointing at you.]

It would probably be possible to pass the Shrine off as obeying the laws of physics to someone who didn't get a good look at it, but they should not be counting on that.

If there are no preexisting floor plans then they're going to have to do a proper survey. The Red Crown is mildly offended at the prospect of hiring an external designer, even though its design and construction abilities are currently badly impaired by lack of worshippers; it would much prefer to work things out with its bearer, no outside forces involved. Also, given that the aesthetic they're going for is literally from another planet, there probably isn't a design company that specializes in it anyway.

The crown is now itching to measure the building from top to bottom, but the Lamb reminds it that this is all theoretical at this point. Plans for surveying the place are going to have to come after they decide whether they're Converting the drones, since the Lamb still firmly maintains that she's not going to do anything blatantly magical in front of them until they're Converted, which means no having her crown turn into a roll of tailor's tape and start snuggling every surface in sight. In fact, it might be a good idea to procure those measurements from the drones, who she presumes can get it done competently and who definitely won't need magic to do it, and sure they'll be slower but the Lamb and her crown can talk through their thoughts on Conversion in the meantime, yeah? (Her crown reluctantly assents.)

Also, they've now been wandering and inspecting for long enough that Paril's stomach is informing them it's lunchtime. Will the drones have anticipated this outcome, or will they need to explicitly request food in order for food to appear? She's guessing the first one.

Paril can order the drones to conduct a survey of the house, if he wants to. It's probably going to take several hours. Does Paril also want the ancillary structures measured, or only the main house? What about the furniture and items? If he orders those, it will take a few days.

Yes! Paril preferred to have the drones prepare meals and menus in advance. There will be beef stew and bread, and a sweet pureed yam soup with glutinous rice balls and tapioca pears for dessert. [This is considered relatively simple as far as lunches go. Some people like their drones to prepare buffets or banquets for them even if they're just one person, and for them to have the drones simply eat the leftovers – Old-Paril disliked this and preferred that the drones only cook just enough for him, or perhaps a little more, and reserve large banquets for when he actually has guests. Which is not often.]

The drones will put the food wherever Paril wants to eat, since there's only two things.

"Paril" will pause to eat in the nearest reasonably eating-oriented space - how about this picnic-table-like arrangement in one of the flower gardens? Cool, sounds good.

After taking the time to think about it over the meal, she orders the drones to do a comprehensive survey of the house's structural dimensions (walls, floors, ceilings) but not furniture or other moveable parts, and to extend the survey to the exterior but in doing so measure only the outer dimensions (width, length, height) of the outbuildings, locations of trees in the orchard (with specifics only where they are near the house and outbuildings; generalities are fine for the farther ones), and so on up to the property line. In other words, a detailed and accurate map of all the parts of this property that would require significant tearing-down in order to be moved or replaced. Once she has that, she can go over it with her crown and they can see about planning in more detail.

The drones will accommodate Paril's request to eat in the flower gardens. [That isn't really a thing Old-Paril did, but they have done it nonzero times.]

The drones will do that! They say it will take a while though, probably days, because of how much he wants to get measured. Not that they're complaining about that – it is simply a statement of fact.

She rummages in her borrowed brain for something Paril might say to that, and comes up with, "Not urgent. Circumstantial delays are acceptable."

The current drone attending personally to Paril, Selt, is relieved by Fels. [Old-Paril was fine with having that be done on a set schedule rather than being managed personally, unless he specifically requested specific drones be available in advance.]

"Are you planning on doing renovations, Controller?" Fels asks. 

"Yes. Not sure of plans yet. Will be thinking about it." She finds the words coming through a little distantly in Paril's voice, as her mind flits back and forth between the topic of renovations and the topic of - Paril. Hmm. Maybe instead of thinking about renovations, she should be thinking about how to impersonate Paril more effectively on the upcoming social occasion. Crown, can you please remind me to focus if I get distracted by architecture again?

Her crown kind of also prefers thinking about architecture, but assents to her request anyway.

"Yes, Controller."

[Damin visited Old-Paril about a dozen times per year, usually staying the night or staying for a few days, but not any longer than that. Old-Paril was friendly but preferred to keep his distance. Old-Paril visited Damin in his own place very rarely, maybe once every few years. Generally, Damin liked talking about how the orchard was doing, the harvests, and food – usually food products relating to dairy or fruits, which were Damin and Old-Paril's products respectively.]

She finishes eating lunch, and gets up and starts walking again. Paril isn't usually this restless but she doesn't think it's unheard-of, and she feels very restless indeed.

(There's half a thought from her crown, at that, but when she wonders what's going on it doesn't explain; its mental presence feels distracted. She decides to leave it alone.)

So she wanders. Wanders, and thinks about Paril. Who he was as a person, what his life's ambitions were. It feels like... he wasn't all that different from her, in many respects? He didn't think in terms of wanting his drones to lead good lives, but the project he was pursuing was eminently compatible with that aim. He was just about as much of an introvert as she is, accounting for cultural differences - and even then, he sometimes took actual alone time, which apparently most people don't. He was a lot more laconic than she would be by default, but it's not a speaking style she's actively opposed to; it's pretty comfortable to maintain that verbal posture of brusque efficiency, if she puts herself in the right mindset.

It feels like maybe they could've gotten along.

She wishes she could've met him.

She wishes she knew whether he was still alive—and trapped powerless in her body in the world she came from? So probably not alive anymore, by now—or whether she... erased him, supplanted him, stamped herself into his brain leaving only fragments of who he used to be. It feels important to know that. She isn't sure she'll ever find out.

What would he have wanted her to do, given that she's taken over his life? What legacy would he want her to uphold? She thinks... she thinks he would've wanted her to carry on his work. Make this household a marvel of efficiency, plan for the longest term, become someone he would've been proud to be. She isn't exactly sure how to do that; she isn't exactly sure that she's right. She tries to sort through his memories to check, but she isn't even exactly sure what she's looking for.

The Lamb's memories and Old-Paril's memories are separate, but if she points her mind Old-Paril's direction, his memories will become apparent to her.

Old-Paril wasn't all that ambitious. He didn't want to change the world; he didn't want to make an impact on it. Not that he was opposed to that – he just wasn't pursuing it actively. Mostly, he just wanted to make things run on his estate smoothly, according to his conception of beauty. The closest things to 'virtues' in Zmavlimu'e are 'the five desirables': beauty, efficiency, power, coherence, and truth; as compared to ugliness, wastefulness, weakness, dissonance, and falsity. Of these, Old-Paril was attracted to efficiency the most – he considered it to be more related to beauty than others seem to. He was very interested in arranging his estate and managing his drones in the way which minimized waste: to do the most with the least, every little piece contributing to a greater whole.

Sadly, this mental motion doesn't reveal where Old-Paril went, nor whether he's still around, nor whether it's possible or impossible to recover him.

The Lamb has a thought about that, actually.

Hey, crown. That doctrine of resurrection...

Her crown apologetically responds that coming here has completely severed them from their former Cult, its Doctrines included. And without countless centuries of tradition to build on, if they want to forge new Doctrines here, they're going to have to put in some serious dev time. Counting from the point where they have Followers whose energies can be used for this purpose, it will probably be months before they can begin to feel out the space of possible directions such a Doctrine might take, and the crown really genuinely doesn't know where to find resurrection on that map, or whether it will even be possible. It should be? Eventually? Very, very eventually? But as for when... well, certainly not anytime soon. And there's no guarantee that Paril would be resurrectable.

(And, the Lamb silently adds, if they *did* resurrect him, at that point, probably centuries after taking all of his stuff and repurposing it to their own ends... well, then what?)

Then what indeed. They could Convert him! He would probably not be amenable to that. ...though maybe if they were really, really impressive with what they accomplished using his resources...

The Lamb resists the urge to pat herself on the head. No, she really doesn't think Paril would be up for getting Converted. And it's true that it would be incredibly awkward to resurrect him under those conditions, even if it were possible. But... she just doesn't feel like it being incredibly awkward is a good reason to plan to never do it.

They can cross that bridge when they come to it, though. In the meantime, she's... surprised to find that it seems Paril agrees with her crown about what she should do with her/their life. If she's going to inherit his legacy, then... the obvious way to build a maximally efficient and beautiful household is to Convert all the drones and make them into an efficient, beautiful Cult of efficient, beautiful Followers.

Now if only she could decide how she felt about that.