Twenty-Sixth Day of July, In the Year of the Empire 6777 Continued It was late afternoon before finishing the plans for the barony. Now it was time to test the ritual. There were only five more days after this prolonged day. Mr. Milbrey directed one of my guardian knights and myself to a hidden pasture behind the manor. I advised them that I only slept two hours each night, meaning that I would be out there quite late. So, I requested that the knight with me be relieved every four hours and that some lanterns provided as well. Walking to the middle of a hidden meadow, I quickly burnt off an area some ten meters in diameter. Once there was nothing but ashes, I used another spell to turn the ashes under and then press the ground flat and hard. The circle ended up being about four centimeters lower than where I had started, but that would not affect the ritual I was about to set up. I had brought a large jar of surprisingly bright green paint and several narrow brushes with me. With these and my notes, I began to draw out the runes and patterns for the ritual. At some point, I heard the voices of other men in the distance and a few axes hard at work. A knight was still there on duty, so I ignored those activities. Then by the time I had noticed it getting dark, six lanterns hung from long stakes driven into the ground around my circle of hard dirt. Near the edge of the meadow, a bonfire burned brightly with a couple of lads tending it while another knight kept watching for any problems. It was nearly time for me to get some rest when I completed my third check of the ritual. I certainly had never created such an extensive ritual before. I was not sure it would work as intended when activated. If the ritual fails, I fear two outcomes. First, it might not work at all, leaving me wondering what happened. The second, 'goes horribly wrong' result may be cursing the land forever. The latter would cause significant issues for me. "Best to avoid that," I told myself. The time was at hand. Wrestling with my courage for only one moment more, I started feeding the ritual my mana slowly into the collection runes. There were four external mana sources I was attempting to use. One I had already used successfully, the earth. The three extras I was reaching for were air, darkness during the night, and light during the day. With my mana spent, I moved back to stand beside the knight to watch wearily. Someone handed me a flask of cold water, which I drank from greedily. To the others nearby, nothing would seem to be happening, but I could see the mana pulling from the air and darkness. I could feel mana pulling from the ground beneath my feet. The mana was building. Soon it will start. And it did. From this distance, no one noticed the large slab of stone slowly taking shape under the ritual paint. The ten-meter by eight-meter rock floor was twenty centimeters thick in no time. Below the new floor, four walls formed on the perimeter, going two and one-half meters deep. Each wall was twenty centimeters thick. Then another slab began to grow under those four walls.

Twenty-Seventh Day of July, In the Year of the Empire 6777 After the basement slab was complete, I had awoken from where I had laid down on the ground two hours ago and had a simple breakfast that a woman brought to me. It was the morning of the third day, I noted. I would need to learn a lot of new names around here eventually. Someone had also brewed hot tea at the fire and offered me a cup. It was a simple herb tea, but it was enjoyable. "Look at that," someone behind me said. Looking up from the tea, I could see the walls were indeed growing upward now. The ritual had slowed significantly, as I knew it would. Thankfully, it was a small, eighty square meters, house. It was probably fifty-percent bigger than most of the farmers thatched huts around the area. The side walls had climbed to two and a half meters tall by sunset while the end walls were still going up another meter to form peeks for the roof. Even with me adding all the mana I had every hour or so, the process was still achingly slow and getting slower.

Twenty-Eighth Day of July, In the Year of the Empire 6777 Awaking at sunrise again on the fourth day, I noted that the roof would take the whole day and possibly well into the evening to finish. I could hear the whispers around me remarking on the structure, having no door and no windows. I could not help but to stay quiet and concentrate on pushing every bit of mana I had into the ritual all day long again. After the sun had gone down, the basic shape of the house was complete, and exciting things were happening inside. At the far end of the house, a cut appeared on the floor. The 'wound' started one meter from the sidewall and went all the way to the other sidewall, which was seven meters away. The cut was a full meter wide, opening a hole to the basement filled with dirt. Next, all the earth in the basement slowly disappeared into nothing. With a square meter area at both ends for landings, stairs began to grow out of the basement end wall, matching the one-meter hole above. It was time for me to sleep again when the stairs had finally finished growing, and a one-meter tall wall lined the side of the stairway, opening on the ground floor and along the interior edge of the stairs to the basement.

Twenty-Ninth Day of July, In the Year of the Empire 6777 By mid-morning of the fifth day, the roof at the near end had opened to the sky. A chimney had started growing up out of it. The top of the stack was a half-meter above the roof. From each corner of the chimney, twenty-centimeter cubes grew upward. Over the cubes, another twenty-centimeter thick slab grew over-extending chimney twenty centimeters on each side to help keep out any rain or snow. By mid-afternoon, two windows a half-meter wide and a full meter tall were cut into both sidewalls two meters from the ends of the house. Then by dusk, a one-meter square slab was extended outward from the floor in front of a one-meter wide by a two-meters tall doorway opening. Going forward to look at the completed stonework, my steward, two knights, and some other folks followed. I did not mind overly much. I was feeling good that the house was secure and would not collapse on any of us. With a few lanterns, we examined the inside of the house. A one meter wide by a half-meter deep fireplace was to the right of the doorway in the center of the end wall. The opening for it was half meter tall, and the sides of the chimney sloped inward to the half-meter square opening at the roof. The front was flat, and it gave a good clean look to the inside of the house. At the other end of the house was the stairway to the basement. No one had expected this, especially not a full-sized basement that was also two and one-half meters deep. It would make an excellent cellar and even have room for a workspace or two. I eventually shooed everyone out and told my steward to have a door and shutters attached. I also instructed him that no one was to move into the house as there were other things I wanted to test yet. I slept in the manor for the first time that night. And ring or not, I slept for more than two hours.