Part 1 of the Foundations series

Part of the arc: The Houses that UG Built

The crematorium had needed depth from the beginning, which UG had known perfectly well at the time and mentioned to nobody, on the grounds that nobody had asked. A furnace burning coffin wood at the rate his had needed somewhere for the ash and the heat to go that wasn’t directly into his own kitchen, and the simplest answer, back then, had been to sink the whole thing down a level and vent it properly rather than solve the same problem twice. He’d dug just far enough to make that work, and stopped, because stopping the moment a problem was solved was the only kind of restraint UG reliably practised.

“Just far enough” and “properly finished,” it turned out, were not the same hole. The crematorium’s shaft ran close enough to Lichmyface’s own room that UG had started noticing, on quiet evenings, exactly how little separated one from the other — a wall’s thickness of packed earth and not much else. If he was going to have a hole in the ground at all, he reasoned, he might as well finish the job: proper stairs, a proper cellar, something that actually connected what was already down there instead of leaving it all hanging off a service shaft nobody but Lichmyface had ever used.

Fixing that meant blasting through solid stone and sinking the whole structure down far enough to link up properly with what was already under there — Lichmyface’s room, and, somewhere past that, the church that wasn’t supposed to exist in the space it occupied, tucked into whatever fold of the world had let it in in the first place. None of that came cheap. Stone didn’t move itself, and the goblins who did this kind of work charged accordingly, with the confidence of tradesmen who knew exactly how badly a man wanted a job finished once he’d already knocked one wall down.

UG wrote to Nobbybanks that evening.

Nobbybanks,

Exciting update from the home front — we’re going properly underground. Turns out the crematorium’s been sitting on borrowed structural time for a while now, and rather than patch it I’ve decided to finish the job this time: full cellar, proper stairs, the works. This adds real value to the place, no argument.

While I’ve got you — there’s also been a bit of a smell coming up through where the old shaft meets the kitchen. I’m calling it a plumbing issue for now, and I’d rather we both left it at that until I’ve had a proper look myself. Same goes for a noise down there I’ve decided to blame on a pipe.

None of this should affect the timeline. Gold as discussed, usual account.

— UG

Nobbybanks’s reply came back the same evening, shorter than UG’s, and considerably less enthusiastic about the smell.

UG,

A smell that gets stronger the closer you dig toward a crematorium sitting on top of a graveyard is not, in my professional opinion, compost. I don’t say that to alarm you. I say it because at some point one of us has to.

The gold’s coming. I’d like it on record that I asked.

— Nobbybanks

Lichmyface, still a few days out at Dazar’alor, got his letter the same night.

Lichmyface,

Notice of works: the crematorium shaft is being extended into a full cellar, connecting through to your room and, I’m told, whatever’s further down past that. There’ll be blasting, so expect some noise and a bit of dust for a while. Try not to let it get to you.

You may notice the smell’s picked up. This is expected, and I’m assured it’s temporary. If it isn’t, we’ll deal with that when we get there.

While the crew’s got the wall open, seemed sensible to finish the job — proper stairs, and I want to run some old Lordaeron ironwork along the new stairwell. Good stuff, the kind that’s still standing outside half the ruined houses in the kingdom. I know you’ve got a contact in Undercity for that sort of thing. If you could pick up a run of it on your way home, that’d save us both a job.

Rent’s unaffected, obviously, seeing as there isn’t any. Appreciate your patience during this exciting period of improvement.

— UG

Lichmyface added the errand to the end of an already long list without comment, the way he added most things UG asked of him, and kept walking.

---

More in the Foundations series

Next: II. Delusions of Grandeur →