Haley and Nana's Best House (Haley and Nana 4)

A Girl, a Grandma, and a Home

Haley Landry, Questgiver, has been enjoying the system Armageddon: she's become an enchantress, helped her friends and neighbors, even set up a cool haunted house. But when her grandmother's class evolution requires her to turn their home into an inn, she balks. She's been visiting Nana at this house every summer for years... it's a point of comfort and stability that she's reluctant to surrender. She's always risen to the challenges imposed by the Trials before, but this one's going to be hard....

Join Haley, Nana, and the people of Refuge for another quick, cozy read, just right for the Thanksgiving season! Plus, a recipe for candied nuts (put them on your feast day yams or just eat them by the palmful while you read!)

Genre (setting): gamelit fantasy
Tags: cooking, baking, family, gaming, litrpg, religion, calligraphy, thanksgiving, feasts, home, letting go, changes
Rating: G

Excerpt from Haley and Nana's Best House

Haley Landry, Level 8 Questgiver, was plating the prettiest omelet she’d ever made when the floor started skidding out from under her socked feet. She grabbed the counter, and when that didn’t seem safe enough, hopped onto it next to her breakfast. With wide eyes she watched as the kitchen got bigger, and the ceiling higher, and then… shuddered to a stop.

As abruptly as it had begun growing, the kitchen shrank back to its normal size, leaving Haley on the counter, clutching her plate. “What the heck?”

[You have received a new meta quest: Bed and Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner!]

[Help Nana finalize the plan for Refuge’s first system inn.]

“What??”

* * *

When Haley peeked into the master bedroom, her grandmother was already awake, sitting up among her profusion of pillows with a startled look on her face. “Oh, my dear! I’m so glad you came! I was resting in bed—you know, the way I like to do—when I received a notification that I had enough experience to hit a new level. And then the aliens said because I had so many skills I had hit a milestone early and could pick a new path!”

So far, so good. Haley perched on the end of the bed. The cat trotted in and jumped past her to curl up next to Nana’s ankles. “What happened next?”

“It said I could make a choice between becoming a Cookiemonger or a Hearth Sage.”

Haley couldn’t help giggling. “Cookiemonger? Seriously?”

“Yes, I know. I laughed too.” Nana grinned. “But anyway, as I understood the choices, a cookiemonger is someone who makes food primarily to sell, which involves a store. Whereas a hearth sage makes food primarily to restore people….”

“And that meant an inn,” Haley said. “So it started turning your house… into an inn?”

“It started turning our house into an inn,” Nana said firmly. “Little comet, this is your home as much as mine. Until your parents figure out how to get here, anyway. And I wasn’t comfortable making a decision like this without your input. That’s why—”

“The transformation reversed. Because you asked it to.”

“Yes.”

“But does that mean you lost your chance at your milestone?”

“It says I can make the decision at any time.” Nana petted the cat, who obliged her by purring. “Either I create an entire separate inn and move in there, leaving you with this house—”

“Oh, no!”

“Or this house becomes the inn, and you can stay with me here, or move elsewhere.”

Haley didn’t love those options either. Especially the last one. “I’m not leaving. I’m here to take care of you… the alien Trials aren’t going to change that. And I don’t want you to get evicted from your own house! Could you make an inn and commute there?”

“I could, but who would watch over it while I’m gone? It can’t be empty, especially if there are boarders. Someone has to take care of them. And honestly, I don’t mind it being me, as long as there’s room. That would be the reason the house was growing when I made the selection, I imagine.”

“Yeah,” Haley said.

Nana eyed her. “You aren’t enthused, and I don’t blame you, my dear. If you hate the idea, I’ll tell the aliens I don’t want either path and I’m sure something new will come up.”

Would it? Haley tried prodding the sense in herself that led to the system, and in fact, it coughed up a response:

[Individual choice is the paramount consideration in customizing class paths.]

So if Nana doesn’t pick one or another, she’ll be given some other choice eventually?

[Classes are created by individual choices.]

Haley guessed that was a roundabout way of saying ‘yes’. Even so: “Do you want to run an inn, Nana?”

Her grandmother chuckled. “Would it surprise you to learn that it was a childhood dream of mine to have a bed and breakfast?”

The moment Nana said it, Haley could picture it: her grandmother as a young girl, imagining herself as the mistress of a snug two-story cottage, someplace pretty, with strangers eating her breakfasts and setting off to walk country lanes and see the leaves change. “Oh, no… it wouldn’t surprise me at all. Things are different now, though… more dangerous. Are you sure you still want to do it?”

“I don’t see how the world is any more dangerous than it was in the past,” Nana said. “That may change, but we might also become more capable of handling those challenges. Most of my concern, cometling, is that I’m not as spry as I used to be. But perhaps the aliens will spruce me up the way they did Mavis.”

Since Haley made a point of checking on the widow a couple of times a week, she’d seen for herself how ‘spruced up’ Mrs. Mavis was. In the weeks since the launch of the Haunted Manse, the 96-year-old Dungeon Operator was scaring people out of their wits as often as they were willing to run the gauntlet. So far no one had gotten past Lord Sinister but that didn’t stop Mavis Broussard from springing out of closets or from behind doors when they were trying to concentrate.

Nana brought Haley back to the present by taking her hand and squeezing it. “Think it over, won’t you? I want both of us to be happy. If you don’t want to live in an inn, I’ll pick a different path.”

The idea of denying Nana a chance at her childhood dream was so abhorrent, Haley exclaimed, “No, we’ll do it! We just have to figure out how.”

“If you’re sure….”

“We’ll make it work,” Haley said, patting her grandmother’s hand.