Spike was feeling extra bored; it was several weeks after the incident that had him and Daring having an unplanned trip to the Crystal Empire. Daring had gone back the week after to begin interviews with the prospective guards for the town. They had to make sure the guards had some idea of what they would be dealing with in town, chances were their training wouldn’t prepare them for the town’s aesthetic, so Daring decided to take Stellar Weave on up with the expressed statement she was to show to the meetings in her usual attire around town.

Seeing an attractive mare wander around town in only her underwear was definitely a surprise when Spike spotted her doing it the first time, a few days later the same practice was trending among several other residents in town. Daring regularly walked around town in the nude, a practice that only started gaining traction among other members of the village after they had seen Stellar Weave move about the town in lingerie.

It had taken some time for Eventide get used to the town’s aesthetic, probably accelerated by the attire of the town’s foals before she had decided to go with something a bit more stand out than anticipated. On her fifth day of work, Spike had spotted the school teacher moving about the town in a string bikini, one that was barely legal in most parts of Equestria proper. Of course shortly after Ms. Note’s choice of attire had changed several of the fillies she was instructing followed suit, much to the chagrin of some of the parents but not for the usual reasons.

It looked like the town had gotten used to the choices of attire, or lack thereof, thanks to Daring’s regular escapades around town with nothing on. Spike had partially embraced it with going around with only pants on. Of course, Daring was also trying to get him to be a bit more bold with his choice of public attire.

But now, Spike didn’t have anything to do; he needed something to keep himself occupied. He thought back to Daring’s offer to have his own shop tailored to his interests; he then had an idea moment. Spike rushed back to the temple complex. He passed several of the priestesses that were in training, some in the fetishwear inspired uniforms, on his way to the residential level he shared with Daring.

Once he was in the residential area he shared with Daring Spike made a rush to the drawing table, grabbing some drawing paper and drawing utensils as he did. He began drawing the layout for the interior of the complex in his head, a cafe mixed with a hobby shop. He had a section for comics, another for Role Playing Game materials, and even space for music, in addition to the restaurant section of the building.

He started thinking about what the internal and external aesthetics would look like, even chuckling to himself as to what would pass for a “work uniform” but then stopped cold when he realized he hadn’t given the place name, it needed to have something that would fit the area and the geek community. Somehow Spike thought “Dragon’s Den” would be a bit too cliche, so he started thinking of substitute expressions.

Not being able to come up with a good synonym for dragon, much to his annoyance, after several minutes of thought, Spike decided to focus on the second half of the name. As a bit of a joke, he settled on something he found amusing, thankfully only spending a much shorter time than he did for the first part. Choosing to call it the Dragon’s Sanctum. He chuckled to himself, remembering one of the meanings for the word sanctum being “a sacred or holy place” and for geeks nothing was more sacred than a place to spend time with like-minded individuals and just hang out with each other for fun. Spike then realized the RPG section would require more spaces for play tables. Instead of scrapping the whole design he just modified the section with the RPG materials to have an extra room attachment filled with the playing space and tables required, along with a variety of chairs both at the tables and in strategic points around the room even had extras in special compartments that were clearly labeled.

With the general layout of the interior finished, down to the placement of chairs and tables in the playrooms and dining area, Spike started thinking about the exterior aesthetic. He wrote some notes on his ideas for the exterior aesthetic, there were five or so, and decided to leave the final verdict the residents that had a better understanding of building design and structure aesthetics than him. With that all out of the way he grabbed a new sheet of paper and drew up a basic format for the facility’s uniform, which was pretty minimalistic. He drew a hat that looked like a cross between a detective’s hat, wide-brimmed wizard’s hat, and sports cap. The whole thing was so ridiculous looking that it caused Spike to chuckle and snicker for almost a half hour straight; after taking a moment to take out the sports cap component and replaced it with segments around the headwear that looked like a helmet, which somehow made the hat look more dignified, Spike put a big circle with the words “logo and name here” on the front, back, and sides of the hat where he thought it would be most appropriate. After the event with the hat was taken care of Spike drew up a slightly ornate apron design and put a big circle on the chest area that had the same wording as he had on the hat’s rings.

Spike sat and thought a while before drawing an image in margin of the page that displayed a young dragon, not unlike he was before he had moved to Ponyville with Twilight, wearing a cape and chest piece, with said chest piece having the image of a twenty-sided die positioned to the seventeen was what was being read, afterward he wrote “Logo?” just beneath it all in a show of being unsure if that was the best option. After drawing up the shop’s uniform, he set it with the building’s he had drawn up. Spike grabbed a third sheet and started writing up a menu with quirky names for most of the items along with descriptions of what those items actually entailed. Spike remembered discussions about the town having visitors, possibly even tourists; he felt it was probably for the best to have a structure like his little venture, at the very least it would show that there was at least one place for a particular demographic to congregate. Also, he would have place his old playing partners to enjoy a few games within an area that wouldn’t disrupt the rest of the town or be interrupted by the residents of the structure popping in unexpectedly.

A place like this diner and game store would mean that those sorts of interruptions would be far less likely, hopefully. Chances were most of the visitors for the first few months would be popping in out of curiosity alone. That’s the way with almost every new business; some would even call it an occupational hazard. But Daring had been right about one thing; he really did need something to occupy his time now and running his own little business seemed like a good idea, especially if it meant not getting in the way of what his wife was up to when she needed him to be elsewhere.

Author's Notes:

So yeah, this was fun. And hey, not a single line of dialogue to be found. Next chapter will be another Zelshirska centered one.

Remember, these just rough outlines Spike was working on, so everything is subject to change. All that said, feel free to give your own suggestions and thoughts on how this project of Spike’s should proceed. If you’re going to make it extra long, more than two paragraphs worth, then please PM the suggestions to me, if you want to keep things a total surprise to your fellow readers.