Day Four-Hundred-Three: The worship cube

I had roughly no part in making the pub. I followed Libby's instructions and moved stuff around, sure, and occasionally when I wasn’t thinking of them as weapons I used hammers, but the architecture of it? The design and planning and shit? NO part. At all. Same goes for all the other houses in Pubton.

Consequently, I had no idea what to expect when I agreed to make a church alongside Pubton's newly-arrived Weekendists.

We decided to set up the church in the northern part of town, a nice, flat area on a bit of a rise that hadn't been stolen for housing or farming. While some of the Weekendist acolytes set to work clearing the snow away from our intended build site - difficult, considering it's been snowing all day - a few of the upper echelons and myself got together to draw up some rough plans.

The Weekendists are all over the world. Imperium to Indies, orcs to goblins to snake men, lush paradises to daunting deserts, there is no place to which they will not travel to spread their non-word. I personally think it's kinda dumb that they even need a place to worship gods for which they have absolutely NO identities, a place they'll typically never use since everyone's asleep on the day's of worship, but the Weekendists insist. If there's a community, there has to be a church.

If nothing else, they assured me that it could be used for any number of things. I could live there, if I wanted. Would make sense, me being the mayor: the seat of government in the stone building. I'll admit to finding that rather an interesting thought - assuming we ever get the damned thing built.

Because Weekendists move around a lot, they're required to understand at least a smattering of building construction. A group like this could put together a small stone building with little fuss. Putting one together in the dead of winter that's supposed to be the size THEY want, though? Slightly more difficult.

"200 feet," they said.

"200 feet what?" I replied.

"200 feet. That's how wide we want to make it. The length has to start with the number two."

I peered at the acolytes struggling to clear away the snow. They were, indeed, getting rid of a lot of the stuff over a rather huge area. "Why?"

The head Weekendist, the one I've known the longest, sniffed. "The number two is holy to us. Two days to a weekend. Therefore, the proportions of the house dedicated to the weekend must include a two."

"Oh." I scratched my head. "Couldn't you reverse it and make it, like, 102 feet wide? Or 52?"

"No. The two is more important. It goes first."

"Okay… how about just twenty feet?"

He shook his head. "You said you wanted to include a library. Twenty feet is far too small for a library."

"Ah." This spurred a memory, or lack thereof. "You know, I don't remember a church back in the old castle."

The Weekendist paused. "There was one. It was… two feet long. That was the most space Jeffrey ever granted us."

"Yeah, that sounds like him." I thought it over. "Okay, so tall does it have to be?"

"200 feet."

"You gotta be kidding me."

"No. The proportions must be equal."

"Come on! Do you have any idea how big that would be?"

The Weekendist shrugged.

"Well neither do I, but I'm pretty sure it's huge. Wait here a sec."

I ran to the end of the cleared ground and planted a foot in the snow. "Let's imagine that a foot is the length of my foot. That make sense?"

"Yes," they yelled back.

"Then it would take…" Counting my steps, I walked approximately two hundred feet. I fell over a few times and may have severely fudged my math when I got tired of counting. "That many. That's how wide it would be."

They nodded.

"That's also how TALL it would be."

They nodded.

"Can't we just make it, like, forty feet wide and forty feet high?"

"No," they called back.

"But that's twenty feet plus twenty feet," I argued. "You've got two twentys. That's THREE twos right there."

"Blasphemy! Three is not a holy number!"

"Dammit! Why not?"

"Because it's not two."

This whole argument only got worse when I learned that buildings come in more dimensions than two, and it would also have to be two hundred feet long. A big 'ol cube towering over tiny little Pubton. On the plus side, there's no time limit to building it, so I might be able to postpone completing the full thing and get away with a half-finished, serviceable building with a great deal less effort.

Stupid religion. I'd complain to the gods if I knew who they were. Who comes up with these silly rules?

Grateful for my help, the Weekendists agreed to begin with a library. They're big on reading, and the guy I knew was fond of Robert. We took their accumulated stones, which they'd been gathering for several days in long, laborious shifts, and began to create the first wall.

Predictably, it fell over.

One of the acolytes mentioned mortar. We'd forgotten mortar. The other Weekendists agreed, we needed mortar. I asked how to get mortar. One of them said you have to make it. I asked how; they didn't know. I asked who would, and they agreed that a mason would be the best person to ask. We don't have any masons right now, so that put a kibosh on the whole project.

… until a mason showed up in town later that evening. We live in a weird, endlessly-convenient world.

We discussed our plans with him, and he agreed to stay in Pubton and help us work - though he said we shouldn't start until Spring. The Weekendists were fine with that. I was not, having hoped to get Robert out of June's hands by the end of the week at latest. The mason urged me not to rush things, and the Weekendists backed him up, saying they didn't care if they got their nave in one day or one millennium, so long that it happened eventually. I asked why they would want a knave, they said "No, there's no k in it," and I wondered what it mattered to a bad person if they had a k in their title or not. Eventually I was corrected and I left in a huff.

I need a library, dammit.

I need one this week. As soon as possible.

Sincerely,

Dragomir the Non-Mason