Probably those bricks are on the list too. No, she won't go look just yet. Wait for instruction rather than immediately assuming. Maybe they already have a door that will be here shortly and she's just installing it, in which case looking at a model to build a replacement is a waste of time. She waits for Ross to return.

The guard stifles a yawn. The sun slowly climbs in the sky. A beam of sunlight filters through the broken bricks near the top of the arch, but soon vanishes in the shadow of the arch above.

Ross comes back, pulling a big two-wheeled cart behind him by a pair of long handles that stick straight forward so he can hold them easily at his sides. The cart is stacked with planks, and there's a slight jingle from within whenever the wheels bounce, indicating the presence of metal.

"This'll be our new door," he says, starting to lay out the planks on the flat space right next to the wall. "Measure, cut, put it together. I've built a dozen of these, I'll tell you how." Once the planks are in place he puts up a pair of sawhorses next to them, and gets a measuring string and a stick of charcoal to demonstrate how you first measure the doorway, then mark the planks for the rough cut, using the measuring string to place a nail in the middle of the central board and then using that nail as an anchor to tie a string to the piece of charcoal and swing it across the planks to mark what will be the top of the door. It's all pretty straightforward; the style and details might be different from what the mysterious powers installed in their head, but the basic underlying principles are still familiar.

She follows along deftly, intuiting next steps at points once it becomes clear that the style they're going for here is this simple and straightforward. planks get measured, cut, joined, and swiftly attached to hinges to mount in the threshold. Carpentry is peaceful.

Ross is quiet the whole morning, and mindful of her personal space; at that size he probably has a lot of reason to develop the skill of not bumping into people, lest he accidentally knock them flat. He makes sure to step in when something really heavy needs lifting, or when it's just more convenient for him to casually haul a big plank around, but he's perfectly happy to let Hailey handle dragging the planks up onto the sawhorses to be cut and back down to be assembled if she wants. He makes sure that at every step of the process she's engaged and following along, and lets her handle each subtask by herself at least once wherever possible.

Once all the planks are joined and reinforced, the hinges measured and placed and attached, Ross does the heavy lifting to get the door into position but lets Hailey take care of matching hinge to hinge and dropping in the hinge-pins once they're lined up. It's just after noon by this point, the sun high in the sky overhead.

"Last part's the handle," he says. "If you want out now, you've got twenty gems for the morning's work and you can come back anytime, just let City Hall know the day before. Otherwise, we take a few minutes for lunch, then you stay till sundown and get fifty gems for the day. Lunch is in the cart if you're staying."

"I'm good for the whole day. Let's do this." If it's lunchtime, then she'll step over to the cart and see what there is to see.

A couple of round loaves of green-flecked herby bread, and a soft hunk of butter to go with it, in a little stoneware crock with a little round-edged spreading knife that looks charmingly ridiculous in Ross's massive hand. He takes one loaf for himself, gestures invitingly to the other, then rips his in half and spreads butter on the soft interior.

The crust is tough enough that Hailey might need a little help getting to the inside of her loaf, but it looks like it'll be pleasantly chewy once it's gotten started. She might also want to save some of that bread for later, because in addition to making a fine lunch, the offered loaf could probably also cover dinner for two without much trouble.

Yeah, she'll save some of this to share with Torok later. She spreads butter on maybe a third of the loaf and eats it, saving the rest to split later. It's pretty great. "Thanks for this. Is lunch usually included like this?"

"Yep," says Ross, with a fond grin. "M'husband makes it. Different bread every day."

He's getting through his bread about as fast as Hailey's getting through hers, mainly by virtue of taking much bigger bites.

She smiles warmly. "Well, he bakes some damned good bread."

Ross laughs and nods.

When he's done eating, he carefully wraps the butter crock and spreading knife in the sack they once shared with the loaves and tucks them into a well-protected front corner of the cart, then dusts crumbs off his hands and gets back to work. First there's the handle to put on that door, plus a pair of brackets on the inside to hold a sturdy cross-bar, and then they've got to take a couple of lanterns into the tower itself and check over the stone-and-wood interior for damage, wear, and other issues.

As they explore inside, Hailey spots and calls out quite a few little bits of damage. There's a chip in this spot on the wall, and that step is getting a bit weak and will need to be replaced, and so on. It's plenty enough to keep them busy until the sun starts to set.

Most of the repair work is minor enough that Ross's cart has everything they need, but for the weak step and a couple of other things, Ross marks down the damage on a little notepad and says he'll look into getting the right materials for the fix.

As promised, he lets her go at sundown with a short, thick crystal spar in a purple just a few shades bluer than her hair. "There's your fifty gems. The same tomorrow if you come back. Will you?"

She nods and smiles. "Definitely. See you as soon as I've got breakfast in me."

She tucks the gem securely in their satchel.

"City Hall, same time tomorrow," he confirms with a brief nod.

She nods, smiles, waves, and heads down Main Street toward Market Square and Torok.

Torok is waiting by the centaur's dumpling stall! He's found an out-of-the-way corner, equidistant from a handful of stalls so he's not taking up anybody's space in particular.

Hailey smiles when she sees him and hurries over. She'll squeeze his hand briefly in greeting, accompanied by a sharp exhale, and then look up at him with a grin. "Got fifty for the day. Going back tomorrow."

His eyebrows lift slightly in surprise when she reaches for his hand; he squeezes back just as briefly, holding lightly so he can let go just as soon as she does.

"Great!" he says, smiling. "The guard won't let me in because I told them I killed somebody."

She huffs a fond sigh. "Figures. Well, not gonna ask you to lie to 'em."

She shakes her head, laughs, and grins. "Investigating other inns can be your job, then."

"I've been spending the day getting lost on purpose; I think I'm doing pretty good at figuring out how to navigate the city. I can investigate other inns tomorrow, maybe. D'you want dumplings for dinner again or should we try something else?"

"Glad learning the city is going so well. Good job on that. The dumplings were lovely, but if we get another night at the same inn it's worth checking to see if we're in time to catch the included dinner."

"Sure, let's try it."

He starts walking, headed across the square toward Crooked Street.

She smiles and follows him back to the inn.

This time they are in time for dinner! The price is the same as it was last night. Torok digs in his pocket for anorther thirty gems, and glances around the busy room trying to find somewhere to sit that they can make it to without bumping into anyone who's already sat.