Eli POV

Sitting at the large, circular wooden table in the meeting room, I went over a few papers in my hands as the mana lamps dotted along the stone walls bathed all the pages and my smiling metal mask in a golden glow along. Scrawled on the sheets of paper were outlines and measurements for an outpost in the snail dominated lands. After a few minutes of looking over the designs, I settled on three that had the most stable base. Seeing as this was more Salamede’s project than mine, it would fall to her to make the final decisions.

Stretching, I folded the three ordained pages and went back into my room. It took only a moment, as the clothes I selected were woven plant fibers of white for the top and long woven leaves for pants. Walking back to the meeting room, I took a right and walked into the workshop. The place was busier than ever, with five long central tables being totally taken up. Even the expansion on the right was full, with several of the standard tables in the middle and shelves of wooden blocks and papers around the workers. Walking among them was the burly form of Beaton. His blue coat slung on the table he with a few of his former crew around him. In front of them were various enchantments and sheets of paper, each holding their own designs for a vessel travelling the seas.

Pushing further ahead, I came into the hangar. After waiting for the boys to get comfortably settled in for two days, I decided to come back and start setting up the next phase of our operations near the capital. Looking at the sharp hull of the Intrepid on the left and the ladders on the sides with workers moving up stores of food and blocks of enchanted wood, I took in the sounds of feet shuffling over the smooth stone floor, clanging of metal, and shouting that slightly reverberated on the high ceiling above. Along that roof with a crease in the middle where it opened, were mana lamps spaced out in intervals to shine golden rays on the workers below and the objects of their labor.

Off to the right was the Intrepid’s twin. Without a name and only half a hull to its sides, it wasn’t much to look at, but it was coming along nicely. Having the pain and agony from the first ship made here fresh in their minds, the Kelton’s helped guide the Orc and human workers away from a lot of their previous mistakes. Combined with Durka overseeing things, I was confident that we would have a new ship in a week or two. Which was good, because with one needed to ferry or spy in the south and one for watching the skies here, our ability to respond to any other situations was gone until the mass of wood was made proper. Moving forward, I came into a congestion between the two ships as their operations brushed up against each other. Something that sent one member almost colliding with me.

“My lord!” One of the Kelton’s we had recently picked up yelped to my right. The young lad with curling brown horns that matched his fur did a light bow as he scrambled out of the way, almost dropping his plank of wood as his did so. The chuckle that came out of my mouth made him bite his lip.

“As you were.” I idly offered as I moved forward.

The rest made some space for me, though it seemed that most did it out of respect rather than fear. Kelton clan heads and their wives were apparently quite harsh in handing out punishments for the slightest offense and the tight spaces meant banishment was the preferred method of correction. Most Kelton’s recently taken from the wastes were still not totally adjusted to the more relaxed discipline here but like most things, culture shock was best remedied with time.

Finally getting to my ship, I waited for a gap in the workers on the ladder before shimmying up to the deck myself. It was a flat thing, with only the black tube of iron sticking out of the middle to blow heat into the canopy of cloth suspended on a steel frame above, a steering wheel behind it sticking out, and the wooden half-shield turrets providing any obstructions on the deck. The slight blocking of the pilot’s vision had been unnoticeable in most situations and adding more weight on the back end for a raised platform or half level wasn’t an issue I had the time to fix for now. Taking the papers out of my pants and testing the strength of the pants leaves as I did so, I looked over the designs again.

The first was a large shell, like a snails’, on a long stone base. The second was a pyramid structure with a wooden top. As the last, the final design was the most complicated paired with the greatest promise in my eyes. It would be a wide dome with six turrets spaced around its edge. Combined with a wall a fair distance from it with buildings along the inner defense, it seemed to be the best fit for our requirements.

While I was perusing the three papers, I heard footsteps approaching me among the other noise. Coming from my right, I saw Gula walking to me with a slight wave in her bowl cut of black hair. Her vertical cut along her left eye and horizontal cut along her nose were the same as ever, but as she casually scratched her side through her own white shirt and brown pants, she seemed far more relaxed than usual. Most importantly, she had a slight wobble in her step that forced a small smile on my face beneath the mask and no doubt showed up in my eyes.

Her green lips puckered as she came up to me. My impudence went unpunished, however, as she hugged me. Putting my hands on her hips, I shifted her lower half to fully press against me. The Orc responded by lightly moaning like a cat as her hands gripped my shoulders. A strength that was out of proportion to her frame backed up her grip, but I countered with dexterity by lowering my mask and stealing her lips.

As a spicy, vinegar flavor with smoky undercurrents assaulted my tongue, I nearly sighed in relief. Drawn from my observations and discussions, I found a lot of women were very particular about space and being touched even when married, especially when in view of other women in public. Gula had been one such specimen of the female gender, but it seems she was finally letting those barriers down and allowing me a bit more affection outside of the bedroom. Pulling my lips away, I put my smiling metal mask back up.

“I was thinking I need to get in as much as I can before going to the local capital.” I declared.

She bit her green lower lip at that, looking down at my groin with trepidation.

“Salamede is going to have something to say about that.” She warned with a raised eyebrow and slight frown, making it clear she wasn’t thrilled at the prospect either.

I knew the young were quite attached to their bodies and willingly removing parts from it was considered taboo or the realm of the unstable. But once you’ve gone through the process of getting old and restarting in a teen vessel a few hundred times, the flesh you use to get about starts being another tool. And tools are only as useful as the function they provided.

“I’m doing all of…this,” I exclaimed with a wide sweep of my arms to everything around me “Because no child of mine will ever know a lack of fatherly love. It kind of defeats the point of it all if I go and stud out as a plant mage.”

Gula looked me in the eye with a continued bite of her lip before she shrugged.

“I’m sure Salamede will be very understanding.” Was all she said as she took in the work going on around us.

It took a few more minutes before the sacks of food, mana crystals, and steel were loaded up. As the younger lad who served as Durka’s apprentice took the steering wheel and heat blew into the balloon frame above, the workers below started waving goodbye as the rays of faint sun above broke through the creaking ceiling. The typical chocking salt in the air gave way to a semi-fresh morning breeze as the ship took into the sky. Its mist enchantments engaged and turned the world into a cloud all around us even as the momentum on our bodies gave us a general notion of movement.

The trip was several hours and since all the work I wanted to do would have unbalanced the ship, I spent my time cuddling with my wife by the railing. She may have fussed in times past at such open affection, but from her pushing her against me and leaning into the occasional kiss, I could tell she needed the comfort herself. Normally, I’d have been ecstatic but there was a bit of worry in her eyes.

“What’s the problem?” I asked as I had her pinned against the guard rail with all the workers below deck. She looked down for a moment before turning to me with a conflicted expression.

“Your vision for my people is a great one. But I can’t help but wonder if we’re doing the right thing. What with them already having willing men.”

That was an odd bit of psychology. The peasant men hadn’t really talked about their lives pre-Orc laying, and I had been far too busy to get into the particulars of such lives. Still, I knew enough about their current situation to assuage her worries.

“All well and good. Unless you like seeing the sun or breathing fresh air. Or mind living in constant fear that you and your daughters’ throats will be slit because the husband’s a spy or the local governor finds your hiding hole. Aside from all that, I suppose it’s paradise.”

The Orc nodded, putting a hand to her forehead.

“I understand. It’s just… you don’t know, Eli. Seeing little green girls running up to a human yelling ‘papa’ and getting a hug from the man instead of a blade in the throat… I can’t help but worry that us being here might destroy all of that. If you’re discovered, they’ll kill every Orc in this region cost be dammned. It may even go beyond that. From what a lot of the women say, the governments have a flare up of trying to purge the Orc’s from their lands every few years or decade but give up because it quickly becomes a lost cause. Having you among us might be the impetus they need to see the job through.”

Her free hand was gripping the railing now. Leaning forward, I pulled her into my embrace. When I had the green woman snuggly up against my chest and thighs, I finally gave my opinion.

“Having all the answers isn’t my area of expertise, especially when it comes to a messy subject like people. But that last bit, to me, only reaffirms the need to bring science here. Living by the dictates of some bureaucrat who may not have the political resources to see you as dead as they would like is no way to live. We may be putting them at greater risk for now, but things change Gula and not always for the better. In a few hundred or thousand years, they’ll almost certainly find that impetus in one form or another. And they may be more cooperative with their neighbors when they make that decision.”

She looked at me, disbelief, fear, and doubt swirled in those golden pools before she bit her lip and nodded with a wobble in her sharp chin. After another second of contemplation, Gula put her head against my shoulder.

“A thousand years of joy doesn’t seem bad.”

I may have been worried about her resolve if not for the joking tone in her voice. We took in each other’s company, sitting on the deck and rubbing each other’s various parts for a while, a minute or hour longer, I couldn’t tell.

“We’ve arrived.” The pilot announced, taking us out of our mutual bliss.

Getting off the floor, we moved towards one of the ladders near the back when a soft crunch surrounded the ship. With a satisfied nod, the pilot pulled a lever and the ball of mist that made up the world lingered for a moment before quickly disappearing in the faint sunlight peeking out of the clouds above. The world beyond the deck was now mostly fields of rocks with snails moving about on the right side.

Far removed from their milder brothers, the shells on their backs had sharp edges around the sides or bloomed like a coral reef with a dazzling display of teals, yellows, reds, and pinks. Sporting sizes from anywhere to a dog to a horse, their need for food in the morning made them very aggressive with using spells against whatever or whoever would fit in their mouths, including younger members of their own species. Even with the afternoon feeding frenzy gone, it was easy to see why the Keltons and humans had left this place to its natural custodians.

Aside from one attempt on the left.

A wide tower of smooth stone colored red with grey flecks and dotted with a ring of windows was on the other side of the ship, though our vessel was still on the wide stone slab supporting both. A vain attempt of Salamede’s ancestors to put these lands under their thumb that was spotted on one of our scouting trips. It was a small curio in the scouting reports, but seeing it firsthand made the attempt all the more impressive considering they had no air ships to aid them. They may have succeeded if not for the treachery of their neighbors. Or perhaps the snails would have sent them all packing in time. However their venture would have turned out, it bore needed fruit for us and perhaps a home for their glorious return.

Nearly the size of a mansion, its stone was badly worn with chips, cracks, and a deep fissure on the right side, and the empty hole where the gate of the main entrance used to be was a distant memory of security. Combined with the back end being almost totally caved in, it was a lost ruin. But as well as I did on the last dilapidated tower I holed up in, it was the base that had been the deciding factor when compared to a few rocky outcroppings that we had considered. A square slab that I wanted to say was around the size of a large town provided the foundation for the tower and told of a grand ambition left unrealized.

Coming out of the left side of the ruin, Salamede power walked towards us with a leather top over a white shirt and metal greaves covering her brown pants. It would have lent her a military look if not for the skip in her step. Running up to us, I only had enough time to get a hand on her side before she took me in a hug. Following it up with a kiss sending a sweetness across my tongue, I put a hand up to her grey neck fur. Her long ivory horns shifted with her head before she pulled back to take Gula in a similarly enthusiastic hug.

With no kiss in the greeting, the two quickly pulled back while workers walked by with loads of goods being offloaded. The Orc was as enthused as Salamede as they both turned to take in the ruin. Walking forward, I looked over the landscape to take in the various bits of sun reflecting off a pool or shiny shell amidst the clouds of gold mana flecks playing over the land.

“How’s it going? Was the basement a total loss?” Gula asked.

“Nope,” Salamede said with a bit of pride. “The snails haven’t given us any trouble since Eli covered the whole area in flame and I was able to give it a thorough look over. I think it can be saved but the rest isn’t fit for vagabonds.”

“You went below?” I asked, quickly turning my head to raise an eyebrow at my Kelton wife. Her nonchalant shrug was unrepentant.

“Only the first few rooms near the entrance.”

I took in a long breath between my teeth as I fixed her with my most withering frown.

“Just because I reinforced the tower walls doesn’t mean going below is safe. As I said. Many times.”

The Kelton woman had the shame to look away. Though an apology or promise to not do it again was conspicuously absent. She fumbled in one of her leather pockets on her right side until her hand pulled out a mana crystal and placed it in my hands. The long disk had horns twirling along the outside as the ridges spun inward. Hefting what would be a great treasure to most mages, I looked up towards Salamede as our trek took us near the tower.

“We thought them all lost,” Salamede said, her low tone still showing excited energy. “I’ve heard they used these to help deal with our tempers. A mage seeking to duel with a rival party had to get two of these, one for the opponent and one for the chief. They were expensive enough that it kept the Kelton mages from killing each other over small slights.”

“But not worth one of my people, much less my wife.” I countered while the side of the tower cast a small shadow over us. Moving further along, we walked behind the ruin as the campsite came into view. I had moved a lot of the stone to mimic a fallen side of the tower that conveniently blocked the view of the camp from the rocky plains and made it harder for any of the snails to come up to our hidden corner. A large central canvas surrounded the inner expanse while bedsheets and small tents were scattered around a few feet from either side of the pile of misshaped stone that was far sturdier than it looked.

Salamede rubbed my side in appreciation while Gula snorted.

“Quite the charmer, this one,” The Orc scoffed.

The people going back and forth around the camp were several guards, a select few elders along with Kantor, and some of the Frojan being led by Baloo. Whatever musings or conversation was going on stopped as I approached the center of the camp and sat on a boulder.

“Any word of travelers or enterprising scavengers since we last came?” I asked the group with a particular look to the older, black and grey furred Kelton man, Kantor, on my left. His steel armor plating was looking like a second skin these days, so smooth were his movements that when he bowed to me his curled brown horns didn’t hinder his rise back up.

“None. These lands were long considered the sole domain of the snails. That our kind managed to get so far into their territory is a feat that would be sung of in song if the bards knew of it. Though, I am curious as to why you requested the elders for this mission.”

Baloo stepped forward with his long staff tapping on the stone floor, his long blue robe now accompanied by a thick white shirt and pants. Clothing that also adorned the two large brown frogmen behind him.

“We were wondering what we were doing here as well.” He asked, his amber eyes looking up and down as his deep voice reverberated around the camp.

Nodding to the group, I looked them all over. Despite being so far away from civilization, the healing crafts Salamede had fashioned for the older Keltons seemed to have undone some of the nastier sides of aging in this world. The lack of shivering in the Frojan also belayed any concerns about them being able to stay here.

“While you all know why we’re this far down south, I’ve waited until now to tell you the true scope of our problems,” I announced as Gula went to the Frojan on the right while Salamede stood with the Keltons on the left. “The Mist pirates are making a play for these lands, causing the Kispin haulers to look at our new home as a potential site for their harbor to escape the carnage. This, you all know. But the brothers have brought back new dimensions to this headache.

The Rodring kingdom's flotilla has been decimated and they are now relying on the house of healer’s navy to contend with the invaders. That fleet is accompanying the main armada on the sea floor.”

Bit lips and sharp intakes of breath took over for a moment before I continued.

“The Rodring kingdom is swinging a sword they don’t know is made of paper. Even with that, the haulers are still considering a move north due to concerns over food and supply shortages accompanied by riots. Our task here is to solve their known and unknown problems. As monumental an undertaking as that is, I feel there is a third problem that will spawn from solving those two.

If we turn the tide, fortifying the Rodring position and filling their stores all the while them being none the wiser to our direct involvement, the rest of the kingdom is still too weak and the pirates too invested for the bandits to just shrug and go home. Even if they miss the chance to pull the haulers under their thumb this year, there’s no reason they won’t try to make it happen for next year’s harvest. Since their main base is further south, I think it is rather likely they’ll try to make a foothold in the Kelton lands. Being farther north, that would give them a good position to harass future harvests and fully encircle the local capital.

Hell, they’d probably do it so they don’t have to share the bounty. Most importantly, I can’t do much to supply the Rodring kingdom the troops to do offensive operations so far north. If the Mist pirates make such a move, the Kelton lands must have the strength to resist them, or the pirates will have free reign to sally onto the shipping lanes from both the north and south. That would likely force the haulers to cut a deal. I can’t say what that deal would exactly entail, but the haulers would probably have to find an area away from the capital and murderous Kelton’s to run their business. As they are doing now.”

Wide white eyes and flared snouts stole over the Kelton’s faces. The group started turning to their companions with scowls, each getting more and more irritated as what had to be spirit connection conversations got hotter with each passing second. One brown-furred man even started shaking his fists in the air before Salamede turned to him. Her ivory horns twirled as she drew back her head. Even being a bit shorter than him, she still managed to stagger him with a headbutt that sent a solid smack flying through the air.

“Enough!” My wife finally yelled over the group, “My husband didn’t come here to deliver a speech and then fly away. Let him finish before we let our tempers ruin whatever plans he has.”

She nodded to me as the commotion died down. Though some still fiddled with their swords or twirled their fur nervously, the Keltons were settled enough to let me continue.

“With that in mind, I want to set up a system and narrative that we can expand as needed to meet these challenges. I doubt they’ll expend any real effort in such ventures while the main capital is seemingly ripe for the taking. But the pace of coming events demands we lay the groundwork now. At first, I want this to be a place for smugglers,” I did a wave towards Gula and her Frojan. “We’ll start by weaving a network of contacts that we can sell food to the Keltons, Orcs, and possibly humans through if my efforts alone cannot meet the demand. This will be a base of operations where they store their ‘ill-gotten goods’.

If the Keltons can’t keep the pirates off their lands, it will have to be upgraded to the site of Salamede’s tribe rising from the grave. While I’m working in Crasden, you will be laying the foundation for a return of the Kelton mage clan with the smuggling being a scheme to prepare their lands for their glorious return.”

Wide eyes greeted such a ridiculous announcement, but no objection to its plausibility came forward. Taking that as permission to continue, I expounded on my vision.

“Since it would be a big problem if the people on the council of this fabricated land were recognized by some of the visitors, I’ve brought you Kelton’s here because anyone who knew you from your old life has died but you still know enough about the other clans. Salamede will be giving you magical lessons while we start making a new foundation for this grand deception. The first order of business is, of course, making Kelton mages. When I arrive in Crasden, Cell will get with me before he starts hunting out in the wilds and bringing you back magical resources to consume.

Our story needs to be flexible. If we don’t get enough mages in time, we can say the blood of the clan is in decline and that’s why they are coming back onto the scene now. Or perhaps you will be newcomers who took up the mantle of a dead people. But we’ll work out those details if we decide to go down this route. Right now, I want a fully functional oasis of civilization before potentially selling this fabrication to the rest of the world.”

Turning towards Gula, the Orc and Frojan were clearly wondering what their portion of all this work was.

“The single biggest protection against compromise is making sure that nothing we ride or carry can be traced back to the main base. Any ships, food, weapons, metal, or cloth put into our smuggling venture needs to be first sourced from the initial cargo or if the need is great enough, the mysterious benefactor in the snail plains. This means we need to get the forges, harbor, and buildings in place with the appropriate sign of aging and grand decor. We are lying an entire civilization into existence and the details are everything.”

No great cheer went up, even from the excited Keltons. They all stood still with a heavy air and looked around. I could only nod in approval. I was asking them to reanimate a long dead people and the energy was appropriate for such a heavy task. Baloo stepped forward; his rough right hand rubbing his green backside.

“I see the why of them being here. But our water element isn’t going to be much use and we aren’t very good for hard labor.”

Moving my hand to the left, I waved over the rocky landscape past the stone slab.

“Sailors who can’t work a ship would raise questions. You’ll be practicing with Beaton in the basics of sea-bound travel when Cell is back here and he’s gotten the enchanted tools he needs to make a sea-faring ship. After you’re trained, your troop and Gula will be traveling towards Baker’s port. From there, you’ll quickly get information about the local happenings, trade food smuggled from the ‘Coalition’, and get the connection you need to immediately come back to work in Crasden.”

One of the older, brown Frojan on Baloo’s left huffed.

“So, we’re the brothers, only poor and dodging murderous cutthroats.”

A pitying smile stole over my face as I did a light nod to them.

“A necessity of the moment. Though, I’d imagine your stock will reap good profit. Enough to start hiring more workers.”

That got them all back on track as both groups stood rigid in anticipation.

“I had hoped the Orc people and their husbands would fill out the bulk of our workers and soldiers directly, but we need a screen for those who are determined to see Garren’s vision made manifest. When we have the story here ready to sell, Gula’s group can start bringing in people from the outside followed by Salamede if need be.”

Salamede nodded in agreement while Gula’s golden eyes practically shined in anticipation.

“With all that, are there any questions?” I asked the group.

A few rubbed their chins but most idled around until Kantor spoke up.

“I think we need a few moments to ponder, chief.”

Nodding in agreement, I dismissed them all with a wave of my hand. Which then began the hard part of my day. While the rest went about their chores or rested by a wooden heater, I moved back towards the center of the ruined tower. The sunlight that managed to get past the clouds shined out of the row of windows on top of the rim of the tower. In the middle of the empty space was a double-doored hatch of wood wide enough to allow a carriage through.

Along the sides of the walls were bits of worn paint. Long faded reds and pinks told of a painter's work that had either peeled away or barely clung to its canvas. Even with the artistic merits of what looked to be swords or snails half-finished on the walls, it was far from an artist’s peaceful abode. Horned skeletons scattered about the various corners suggested some of the reds may not be derived from oils or a brush.

Opening the hatch, I started using an earth spell to carefully lift the floor above the first level. Looking over the six rooms and the hallway between them leading to a staircase going a level lower, I used my magic to reinforce the chipped stone floor and firmly graft it into the wall of smooth rock. After a few minutes of planting down a few stone blocks and not having the floor give out, I felt the underlying structure of the first floor was sound.

Even so, testing the lower levels would require Cell to go below and stress test floors and pillars. Since he wasn’t here, I filled in the stone walkway leading to the depths of the basement. Looking over the now exposed floor from above, there were a few more stacks of those mana coins near the front while the back had a mixture of cloth sacks and boxes of bright pink or yellow cloth. With husks of grains and bones of dead rats scattered around some of the bags, the only remaining vestige of the lost people were the surprisingly bright cloths that my bare eyes said largely missed the touch of time.

As I was perusing the lost history, Salamede and Gula approached me from the open side of the tower. The Kelton woman on the right was vibrating with energy while Gula had a light skip in her step. When they got close, they both rushed me in a hug with some unshed tears in their eyes.

“You haven’t given up on us.” Gula choked out while Salamede vibrated with joy against my chest.

Rubbing both their backs, I kissed their foreheads as they likewise removed my mask.

“Never did nor ever will. The situation has only forced me to help our people a bit quicker than planned.”

They returned the affection twice over, taking my lips and cheeks in a whirlwind of kisses for a few seconds before settling their heads against my chest in a way that pressed their bodies fully against mine. As they rubbed the tears out of their eyes, I took the moment to have the other discussion I flew here to have.

“All that I do, I do for this family. Even if that means taking precautions some might consider extreme.”

Gula looked at Salamede with a bit lip as I took a deep breath.

“Salamede…I-”

A grey-skinned finger came up to my lips.

“Eli, are you talking about doing some precautionary cutting down there? Like you did during your final visit to the Diamond academy?” She asked with a rub of her snout across my neck.

Thankfully, my hands were too busy rubbing their backs to slap my forehead.

“Yes, I suppose you had enough personal time with it to see the difference. Though, you didn’t comment on it at all, so I thought the lighting was too dim for you to notice.”

Salamede stiffened her chin before putting a hand on my chest.

“Eli, it is very big and delightfully impressive.”

I closed my eyes as I pivoted my head upward. For a few glorious seconds, I was the king of the world and I suppose I should be grateful for that. Turning back to them, Salamede was nodding to me while Gula wore a small smile. The Kelton woman turned to the Orc with a look of a teacher giving instruction.

“Whenever talking with a man about this, make sure to lead with compliments about his member. Thinking there is any deficiency down there can destroy their confidence.”

Gula took the advice to heart, nodding before looking me in the eyes with a hard stare.

“And you’re incredible with how you use it.” The green woman purred with a small smile.

An eye roll and puckering of my lips was my only response. Waiting for a minute and enjoying the light atmosphere, we stood together before Salamede got a bit more serious.

“I understand,” She said in a voice whose roughness did nothing to hide her hesitance. “But I have something else I want to discuss that involves you. In the days leading up to birthing Cell, you said there was some pain.”

I raised an eyebrow at the question while my mind groped through the memories of that distant time.

“Yes,” I answered, “It was a pain that came and went in my chest.”

Her white eyes widened a bit as her lips puckered with a question.

“Wait,” Gula asked with a raised black eyebrow “Cell came into the world like…”

She waved at my gut.

“No,” I said, furrowing my eyebrows at the insinuation. “Salamede saw how it happened, but it wasn’t a womanly birth if that’s what you’re thinking.”

The grey-furred Kelton bit her lip as she looked around the room.

“I can’t say what kind of birth it was, Eli. The vine suit was obstructing the proceedings.”

Taking a moment to notice the small smirk on her lips, I made a mental note to exact revenge in the future before continuing the subject.

“It was a while ago. What brought this on?” I finished.

Salamede bit her lip, her gaze still taking in the surrounding stonework and the padded paintings.

“I think I’m a scion.”

I nodded but Gula was far more animated in her glee as she took her sister-wife in a hug. The Orc woman’s strong arms wrapped around the Kelton woman’s leather tunic and white shirt with both patting each other. Looking her over, her new status didn’t seem to bring her any joy.

“It might be that,” Salamede said, taking Gula in her right arm. The position put her in the center of our three-way hug. A change I embraced by taking her open arm and rubbing her neck with my right hand. “But all I have to go on is some pain in my sides, back, and shoulders. At first, I thought it was just me pushing too hard, but it comes and goes, and it doesn’t matter how much I’ve worked.

There are no scions among our people. The ones who were all held up in the rubble of our former home and now their bones adorn the ocean floor. I’m not sure how such a position is supposed to behave. There are a few mages among the Kelton clans but they’ll no doubt expect me to be this great figure if we bring my people back to the world.”

She stopped perusing the walls, turning to me with a bit lip.

“More than that, there’s the issue of promoting the magical bloodlines among my people. I can say I’m infertile when the clan heads come sniffing around. But some of them will no doubt still try to see if they can bring me into their marriage through progeny.”

The hair on my neck stood up. After my experience at the Diamond academy, I had already considered such an angle, but it didn’t make the thought any less egregious. At that moment, I decided her guard would have to have a few extra bits of attention. Gula seemed equally concerned as she patted the Kelton’s left shoulder.

“I suppose there isn’t any way we could pass you off as a man.” She offered with a look down to the generous slopes of Salamede’s leather tunic.

“Gula,” I said with a serious face, drawing the attention of both women. “Your breasts are some of the most delightful and supple mom bags to ever grace the female form.”

My display of linguistic mastery, like most great art, went unappreciated as my green wife’s left hand swatted my belly. A few light chuckles bounced around the stone walls as we relaxed in each other’s presence. As the three main pillars of our group, we didn’t have much time to just be together. And we weren’t going to have any in the weeks to come. We spent a few minutes discussing Salamede’s time here and the gonging’s on at the main base, but as we sat in a small circle the main point of discussion was what base design to go with. The future queen of this possible domain was studying and comparing the pages with an excitement that wasn’t so different from her perusing the options for our first home.

“The snail shells are a no in my opinion.” Gula chimed with a lazy perusing of the painted walls. “Too much work for no real benefit. Can’t put archers on the top or any siege equipment.”

“It was the more decorative one.” I conceded with a shrug.

“First impressions mean a lot.” Salamede countered. She had the pyramid paper in her left hand and the dome in her right. Her lips were pursed in concentration as she looked between the two. “Eli, how much is this decision going to influence how we build the rest of the city?”

“A lot. Are we going to pack out the refugees into slums? That seems to be the preferred method here.”

Her head shot up with a swing of her ivory horns. That white stripe from her snout to her forehead scrunched with irritation.

“No. We are most definitely not. There’s more than enough of that in the holds.”

“Not without reason,” I said, keeping my tone a light argument. “Being cramped in a shabby wooden house is better than being inside a monster’s spacious gut.”

She bit her lips as she silently nodded. The task before her was not an easy one, but she was the only one with the history, fur, and magical ability to see this task to its end. Even so, I would provide her with as much relief as I could.

“Then we should probably go with the domed bazaar with towers. It would show off enough craftsmanship that we could justify putting in a little city for all the starving widows and orphans. But-”

The Kelton looked up at me with a raised eyebrow.

“I was serious about bringing nothing from our main home when the time comes. Take as many enchanted items as you need. We can always say the mages who made them died long ago if none of those elements show up in our upcoming crop of mages. But once that first load of newcomers arrives, the only thing coming out of our main base will be scouting reports.”

The Kelton woman nodded before Gula coughed for our attention.

“Whatever you think you need, triple it. If I learned anything in my campaigns, enough food and cloth is almost half of what you’ll need.”

“You’ll need some metal crafts as well.” I chimed in. “Stick to general manipulators and simple brick forges. I’ll start making a canal around the stone edge and fill out a stone harbor to make as much of the day as I can.”

And I did precisely that for a few hours. The snails weren’t eager to go near the place so many of their fellows perished in flames earlier and when I used spells to rip the stone out of the way, none tried to swim over the growing pool for a meal. A few skittered across the surface of the water, seemingly testing the open area with a few spells, but from what I saw of their habits the exposed waves in the sea didn’t suit them and the smaller version here was likewise avoided.

My original intention was to dig down to the base of the stone block upon which our false kingdom could one day fully occupy and fortify it against erosion. After plunging several dozen feet below water and finding no bottom or trace of wear on the massive, square body of rock, I decided to confirm a suspicion. Using an earth spell to lift the surface of the stone floor, the bit of rock was quickly replaced with the same red and grey flecked stone. Seeing the mana get sucked in by some layer of wood or mana crystal holding a summoning enchantment beneath, I could only nod my head in approval at the long-dead people’s devotion to good craftsmanship.

I stuck with a simple wooden walkway supported by stone pillars of smooth grey stone. We were probably going to have to remake it with new decoration to match the as-of-yet unmade city, so I kept it to the bare bones with no artistry to speak of. When that was finished, I made two paths in the snail-riddled rocks of clear water leading towards the unseen ocean. Marking the intake section with a wide arch of stone that would later spew molten stone on attackers, the sun finally faded as I put in the last stone brick. But the night's task was not yet finished.

Using a flame spell for light, I crafted a wooden enchantment on a long board and attached it to the side of the pier. It would slowly grow and mold a simple ship from the mass of wooden pieces I put in front of it with any failing ship edges being a project for the morning. Thinking I was going to get a night’s sleep among the main camp, I walked up to the stone outcropping near the tower when I was stopped by a pair of the steel-plated Kelton’s.

“The lady has instructed you to sleep in the tower.” He gave a light bow that shifted his brown hair as he gave the command.

I raised an eyebrow but followed my wife’s second-hand instructions. Coming into the tower through the open back, the first thing I noticed was the pitched tent over one of the exposed rooms. The golden glow of an inner mana lamp made it hard to miss. After looking it over, I looked to the right and saw the glow reflecting a bit off Gula’s form. A naughty smile covered her face as I approached.

“I thought you were a bit worn out from last nigh-“

Her hands did a rough pull down on my mask before she stole my lips with a vinegar heat covering my tongue. I was content to enjoy the sensation for a second before she broke the kiss.

“Good luck,” Was all she said as she re-adjusted my mask. The Orc then gave me a swat on the bum before walking past my left towards the main camp.

My curiosity now thoroughly peaked, I took the appropriate moment to linger on my Orc wife’s body shining under the moonlight above before turning down the open hole where the hatch had been. Taking the stone steps down, I looked down the rows of open doorways save for the one directly on my left, the entrance of which was covered by a white cloth with the golden glow playing behind it. As my head went through the fabric obstruction, the first thing that hit me was the smell. A sharp slap of cinnamon being cooked with flowers assaulted my senses.

A smell that quickly faded from my mind.

On top of a spread of blue and white pillows was Salamede sitting upright with her legs crossed. She was as bare as the day she was born and if that wasn’t distracting enough, she had lathered her motherly body in oil. It was clear liquid with flecks of red that covered every inch of her grey skin and doused the fur above her shoulders and those pubes doing nothing to disguise the presentation of her womanhood. The mana lamp she placed behind her added to the appeal as the rays of light shined off her edges, the most enticing of which were droplets of the thick liquid trickling down the tips of her brown nipples.

“I would have run here to restore this place with nothing but my hands and feet if I knew you’d like it this much.” I casually teased, my clothes of crafted leaves and plant fibers suddenly feeling rather stuffy.

She shook her head, getting off the floor from her goddess-like pose.

“No,” She said in a spirit connection I was too distracted to realize she had made. Her firm tone dripped with confidence that extended to her stride forward. An attitude I found almost as intoxicating as everything else I was seeing. ‘This is a special oil that I had the older women whip up as thanks for saving so many of my kind and as a going away present.’

Salamede pressed her body right up against me, taking special care to squeeze her chest against mine. I could only smile as her sparkling right arm moved past me to press a wooden block on the wall. A loud whoosh fell over the room. The Kelton woman followed the movement up with a reach into my shirt, rubbing my chest and that slick, red flecked oil over my pecks.

‘Saving the whole of the Kelton lands?’ The Kelton woman asked with a languorous lick of her lips below her flaring snout. Something I found particularly appealing as she removed my smiling metal mask with graceful movements until she had it down and around my lower neck. ‘A thousand pleasant nights wouldn’t be enough.’

‘Well-‘

An oiled finger shot up to my lips, flooding my nostrils with the rich cinnamon and floral scent.

“No more words.” Her rough voice did nothing to make her less mesmerizing. “They would only make me moan of my debt to you. Those are not the sounds I want filling my tent this night. Come, let’s see just how much endurance two scions can display in this arena of battle.” She commanded, unclasping my mask and throwing it to the floor with a loud clang of metal. Salamede wasted no time in pulling me by my pants towards the stacks of pillows and pointedly not turning the lamp off as we landed on the pile.

Following her lead, the night quickly faded in a lot of whooping, kissing, and a thorough dousing in that scented oil.

Meat. That ancient signal was coming clear through my nose as I returned to the land of the living. Opening my eyes to see a landscape of white cloth, I stretched as I felt the brush of pillows against my bare flesh. Looking down, two logs giving off heat from their enchantments were by the door, totally unnoticed from last night’s play. The lamp above me was off as a faint light filtered through the tent ceiling. Stretching again with a low moan, the sound of the tent flaps moving made me grab a pillow to cover my loins.

“Eli.”

The ivory horns of Salamede touched the stone wall as her head peaked out between the sheets that served as a door.

“Breakfast will be done soon.” She chimed with a little smile playing across her lips.

I nodded as my body demanded a third stretch. The Kelton woman eyed me up and down with a long glance towards my covered goods, finally looking up to have her white orbs meet my eyes.

“Very impressive.” She said seriously with a deep nod.

Taking the pillow closest to my right hand, I threw it at her with a chuckle. We both laughed as she pulled back and walked off down the hallway, her footsteps saying the noise-deadening craft was turned off or out of mana. Finally giving in to the need to get up, I pulled myself up and collected my clothes along with my mask before heading up the steps and to the abandoned side of the camp. There, I made myself decent and saw to my morning duties.

Dressed for the day and making my way back through the tower, I saw the faintest sunrays pushing away the early morning clouds above. Which was a real shame, as dreary billows and miserable rain were far more fitting for the day I was going to have. Off to the right of the tower’s ruined entrance sat Salamede in the green, frilly dress.

“Eli,” She called and motioned me forward with a wave to her.

Gula likewise approached from the main camp wearing the typical white shirt and green dress, her eyes looking a little sad, yet eager energy still clung to her.

“Gula and I wanted to work on changing your features.” My Kelton wife explained as she patted the stretch of boulder supporting her.

“Face by committee?” I teased with a smile as I sat down. When I tried to undo the mask, Gula’s powerful hands stopped me.

“We’re not changing your face. Especially since you’ve covered your face in public with only a few seeing what lay beneath.” The Orc stated with a firm lip. “But your hair and eyes have to have some work done to them.”

She finished by sitting on my lap. Salamede took my head in her hands, perusing my features with the same intensity as she had the bazaar plans. After a minute of contemplation, the Kelton finally nodded to my laps occupant.

“All right. Do you want the eyes or hair?”

Gula puckered her lips in concentration, her golden irises shifting in her black orbs over my face.

“I don’t know. His hair wouldn’t make a good black.”

“But a homeless plant scion wouldn’t have access to a healing mage to change his eyes gold. I know he’s bringing one healing enchantment, but it’s a general use one.” Salamede pointed out.

“Green.” I offered. “Make my eyes her green.”

The Orc drew back like she had been stung, but she didn’t seem hurt or offended at the suggestion.

“Are…you sure?” She asked, looking over her green arms with a face that was clearly forced into being passive.

“Yes.” I reaffirmed with a loving rub across the black hairs and skin on her arm. “They’ll be the most beautiful eyes in the kingdom. I’ll get stopped every minute with compliments from the ladies.”

Her sharp chin wobbled for a moment before she nodded with a wipe across her right eye.

“If only they knew the source.” She agreed, rubbing my shoulders and pressing herself further against my chest.

“PFF!” Salamede scoffed. “I guess I didn’t do a good job last night if you can be romantic so soon after.”

Taking her hand moving across my face, I squeezed her palm with a tender vice.

“I love you.”

The Kelton puckered her lips briefly, doing nothing to resist my capture of her hand. We savored the feeling for a second before she pulled back her arm.

“I’m too old to be this easily flattered.” She grumbled before she started rummaging through my hair, pulling back a bit to kiss my left cheek, something Gula quickly followed up on my right. When they finished, Salamede sighed as she looked me up and down.

“Fine.” Salamede declared. “Green eyes and grey hair, coming right up.”

With the decision made, I quickly felt a warmth touch my eyes. It took a bit as Salamede brought a golden series of squares, circles, and triangles up to my face a few times, only to stop to look over Gula’s skin. The changing of my hair went a bit more smoothly, with only one pause to comb through my hair for silver strands hiding among what my peripheral vision said with now grey hair. After she did the same for the hair over the rest of my body, her spells went over my skin. When she was finished, I rubbed my hands over the spots where she had stretched the skin to make me look older, feeling previously smooth skin stained with one or two wrinkles. Finished with their main task, the two left me to eat while they saw to one task or another.

Getting out of the tower, I joined a line of Frojan and Keltons waiting for a meal from a man-sized pot in the center of the camp. In a minute I was served a bowl of creamy soup with bits of meat that I wanted to say belonged to a member of the avian family. It hadn’t occurred to me check if that they would keep hunting after the brothers were set for their deception, but as long as they kept to the same protocols for keeping hidden, I was too busy wolfing down my breakfast on the way to my new ship to give it much thought.

Coming up to the new harbor, I looked over the new ship I left the enchantments to work on overnight. It had the typical long bow of a large river boat, but the top was covered in a flat floor of wood with a domed center that had slits for the pilot to see where he was going. Looking over the sides and edges, I could find no deficiency or hole that blemished the wooden structure. Putting down my bowl and lifting the ship in the air, I dropped it into the water beside one of the fresh piers. As the boat bobbed and dipped in the soft waves, a horrible realization hit me.

It was perfect.

Looking inside the empty interior, no water seeped in. Pushing it back and forth failed to produce so much as a creak of protest. Desperate for some sort of flaw, I put in the air and water enchantments around the back and near the cockpit. But my heart’s desire abandoned me. It handled on the water like a fish and the water-repelling enchantments kept a solid bubble of air around the dome when the waves pushed over the ship or even when briefly submerged.

Putting in a wooden seat with grown plant fibers for padding, I tried to find some need to adjust the design of the ship. Sitting in the cushioned chair merged into the body of the ship and fiddling with two keyboards enchanted with spirit magic squares designed to adjust course and speed, I found my craft to be a seamless creation. As I sat in the boat looking for some kind of failure, my two wives came up to the pier. Salamede was on the left in the green dress and holding a leather sack while Gula walked with her on the right.

I fancied spending a half hour or so with them, going over the construction and working out some problem with the boat. But now I was ready to go just a few minutes into the morning. It was the most efficient, supremely logical, and absolute last situation I had wanted. The worry on their faces said the feeling was shared. Left with no recourse, I got onto the pier with gratitude that the metal mask was hiding some of my discontent. Walking up to them, they both took me in a group hug.

Their hands groped my body while their lips danced on my neck. My wives were so skilled in loving me that they both worked the clasps around my mask in perfect unison. When the obstruction was taken away and held between the two of them, I sat down and let them get to work.

“I love you.” Gula finally said with a tremble.

“Me too,” Salamede said. Being the older woman, she had a slightly better handle on her emotions, but she couldn’t hide them completely. For a few seconds or minutes, we filled our space with kissing and ‘I love you’. When the time finally came, I pulled back with my mask in their hands and the sack Salamede brought in my own. Feeling the wet air across my bare jaw, I nodded one final time before turning back to the ship. Going into my seat, looked back one last time at my two wives, committing as much of their faces and bodies to memory as I could.

Had I made a similar farewell to my last family?

The thought blended my heart into a fine puree as I pulled the dome over me. Working the colored squares on the two boards, the ship zoomed forward as I numbed myself to the pain and doubts. Using the sun as a guide, I made a large earth spell to push the random rocks ahead out of the way and replace them with a lowered array of jagged rocks behind me. It took a few seconds before I realized that I wasn’t breathing.

Sucking in the air, I pushed the horrible thoughts away and absorbed the solitude. At least, for a minute.

‘You ready to lose a second family while you fly away on another ship to avoid them?’ My guilt asked me as I came onto the ocean and took a right towards Crasden. I faintly registered some movements out on the ocean as I stuck to the shore.

“I don’t know if that’s what happened. It’s the reason I’m trying to fix these chips.” I said to the empty wood and the rays of sunlight that shifted up and down on it.

‘You don’t know shit about what happened. You had a fucking family and you forgot about them. Monster.’ Guilt countered with particular venom in the last word.

“The human mind has around 2.5 petabytes of information capacity. AI chips only have-

‘A dozen, a hundred, or a thousand petabytes. They still got the same amount in the end.’

“Many bytes. All put in the chips so I would never forget them.”

‘Yet you still did.’

“I would have died if I didn’t. My corpse flying through deep space along with thousands of others wouldn’t have helped them.” I refuted, rubbing my sweaty palms on my pants as I had to remind myself to keep breathing for the second time.

‘Help? They haven’t needed your help for thousands of years. And now they never will. Where’s the great husband or father you ‘know’ yourself to be?’

“I did what I could! Goddammit!” I spat out, pressing the wooden console squares with such force that veins started bulging in my hands.

‘I’m sure your wife did the best she could with the kids to raise all on her own. No help or-’

A tap above stopped my conversation with the control panel in its tracks.

Looking around, I saw a stone wall and wet wooden pillars through the slits. Most of all, my nose was registering a distinctly foul smell. Pushing the upper hatch open, a clear blue sky above shined sun over me and the guards looking down at me from the pier I had autopiloted into. One man with a spear coughed, his steel chest plate painted red with black edges reflecting the sunlight above. His lips curled with his brown beard and mustache as sweat dripped down his thin nose and cheeks, all displaying the sprint he took over here.

“Um… We heard a yell. Is there…” The confused man tried to ask, his brown eyes having trouble deciding whether to look at me, the odd clothes, or the even weirder ship.

Getting off my seat, I looked around to see I was on the right side of a crescent harbor. The tide was low, with the remaining water having an oily sheen of purple with yellow or blue spots. Around the docks were smaller boats and a few big ones, most of which had poor-looking workers taking time to stop gathering the oily water in buckets to stare at me. Most looked quite irritated at me sailing into the harbor at full speed and shifting their boats. Though the magical nature of my ship quelled any complaints. Now fully aware of where I was and how, I turned back to the men on the pier.

“I bumped my head against the side.” I offered nonchalantly.

Growing a handle into the side of the ship, I looked up with a wave towards one younger lad on the left with a rope in hand. The tanned kid in nothing but blue shorts looked at the guard for permission. He got the nod he needed and promptly tossed the rope down. After tying my boat to the wooden pier, I fashioned handholds into the beams and made my way up.

When I was on the dock, the surrounding guards looked on with suspicion but my status as a mage kept them respectful.

“I need to see your chief,” I said with a look over the men.

Confusion replaced mistrust as they all looked between each other.

“Whoever I need to speak with to bring my vengeance against the wave riders.”

The closest person I could be talking about was their king or queen, or perhaps mayor, but they wisely didn’t seem eager to bring a plant-wearing madman straight into the heart of the local government. Left with no recourse, he turned to one of the leather-bound guards.

“Get the harbor master.” He commanded.

I waited for a few minutes, the seconds wasting away as my feet dangled over the edge of the pier. All the workers around the dock quickly got their fill of the new oddity and went back to their daily labor. When the harbor master came, the tan-skinned woman walked up with a no-nonsense face. She scratched her wide ears and wiped down the light blue dress that contrasted with the metal and leather armor of the two dangerous-looking guards behind her.

“Hello, mage.” She offered with a light bow. Despite the clear irritation in her brown eyes, she kept her face passive. “What is it that you want that is so much more important than following docking procedures?”

Looking up at her, I raised an eyebrow in feigned ignorance.

“Why do the wall-bound need procedures to come on land? You either let them in or kill the intruder on the spot.”

She raised a bushy eyebrow to me with a bite of her thick lips.

“Wall-bound?”

“Those who hide from the grass and trees inside their stone hideaways.”

They seemed to reach the conclusion I wanted them to. Her two guards tried to interpose themselves between us along with the others who were gripping their swords in worry. For her part, the only reaction I merited was rolled eyes.

“You know how to make a lady feel special, lads.” She said to the crowd before elbowing her way to the front in a quite unrefined fashion. “But if he lives in the wild, he’s almost certainly a scion.”

The ‘and there’s nothing we could do to stop him’ part went unsaid by both parties. Keeping to my role, I nodded uncertainly.

“I believe that’s what you call it. My partner passed into the next cycle long ago, but my magic has not yet left my body.” I announced as I got up and walked to the end of the pier. They all still regarded me suspiciously, but only the woman reacted as I summoned a large construct of blue mana. When the spell went off, it unleashed a force that pushed back the already receded ocean a dozen feet or so.

Most regarded this with an unimpressed face until I used another spell to start molding the freshly exposed rock beneath the sand. In a few minutes, I had molded a small island of seamless stone just outside the half circle of the harbor’s grey stone.

“Is that going to fuck up our ship flow?” One of the harbor attendees asked in a very unprofessional manner.

“No, any captain who couldn’t navigate around that deserves to lose their ship.” The harbor master answered, coming forward with a serious look. “We could fit a smaller harbor around it. Call it the ‘eye’.”

“I was thinking of a weapon.” I put in, watching the ocean push back as my water spell failed. The rushing tide quickly enveloped the sides of the near hundred-foot spot of land now pocking out of the water.

“Ah yes,” The harbor master said with a turn to me. “I was told of some feud with the ‘wave-riders’ as you called them.”

I nodded, keeping my eyes on my handiwork.

“I’ve traveled through these cold lands all my life. Talked with a few survivors and lead a few back to their safe holes.” I waved around towards the city. “More than one gave me books to read, my favorite being those on architecture principles. But the tangle of their lives was never my concern. Until one small girl, too weak to survive on her own and left to feed the wilds found her way to me. I’ve lacked the equipment to bring my own young into the world and lived out such paternal impulses through…her.”

I made sure to harden my eyes at the last word.

“In the natural course of things, she grew strong and wanted to find a worthy man to give her child. She eventually settled into one of your stone mounds. Mole hill.”

The harbor master took in a deep breath at the name. Turning towards her, I made sure to imbue my face with simmering anger.

“I suppose I don’t need to tell you of her fate. My life has always been a simple one and my purpose here is equally straightforward. Tell me what you need so that I may exact my blood debt on those who took what was so precious to me.”

I wanted to slap myself. The plan was to perform the surgery on the seas, but my mind had other plans for the trip and now, I had to wait until I was alone again. Fortunately, she accepted with a nod, motioning me back towards the main area of the dock.

“Your services will be greatly appreciated.”

The steel-plated guard stepped forward.

“Harbormaster. That is up to princess Palta to decide.”

Her teeth clenched as she regarded him with a strained smile. My stomach responded to the name whispered among the sailors and their green wives with a flip. What was the princess who spent all her free time killing Orcs doing here? My goals were rather against such a person’s aims and regicide had a nasty tendency to draw attention.

“She can decide after he’s at least helped us restore our ship-building enchantments.” She said with thin patience. The guards let loose a deep breath before nodding.

“I’ll let one apprentice come over to give him something to do. But you’re already giving him a seat at our table before the master of the house has decided to let him in.”

The harbormaster shrugged, quite unconcerned at the seeming breach in protocol.

“We’ll see. I’ve got to find out what we can do with our new expansion. Thank you, for that mister-“

“Tilvor Laperict.” I answered.

She puckered her lips at the name, taking only a moment before doing a light bow.

“May we meet again, Tilvor.”

With our brief meeting concluded, she walked through the small crowd of red-leather-painted guards along with the two who followed her. Following the guard leader, I gave small nods to the poor souls collecting the colorful sludge. Their crop hadn’t been too affected by the pushing of the ocean water, the shifting mass instead mostly stuck to the bottom of the water rather than be a part of it. Still, courtesy and all that.

The panicked faces and quick looks downward were a bit more than I expected but paid it no mind as we left the wooden part of the piers. I looked away from the water to start taking in the city proper. Which is when something so absurd assaulted my eyes that my feet stopped moving completely.

The buildings were the same grey stone, but the fronts were glass and along the sides were patchworks of steel beams. Something even the warehouses to the left shared, though the shops were the most well put together with their steel having a light shine.

“Quite impressive, isn’t it?” My guide asked with a proud smile.

I turned away from him and looked over the rooftops. In the distance on the left was a tower of steel frames and glass panels. The thing was large enough to be a castle tower and had no doubt buffed out the architects’ credentials, but all my mind could do was think of what it looked like compared to the real thing back in my universe. A birth defect-riddled runt of the litter was the most appropriate description I could ascribe to the thing.

Taking it all in, my builder’s mind rebelled against the sight as the specks I saw on the ship above now presented themselves in full. The glass was a poor insulator, and the steel would no doubt rust from the sea air without constant replacement or spell work. Wracking my brains for some kind of sense to the madness, a vision came to my mind’s eye. Rodring, a man from my universe, no doubt covered up to his eyes in women and slurping wine from a gold chalice, describing a proper cityscape and skyscrapers. The adoring listeners staring with ignorant bliss as they absorbed the otherworldly knowledge with plans to implement such a grand vision in their cities. Children, playing with ideas and concepts based on the few words they could understand, stripped of all context and wider purpose.

“It is…very imaginative.” I offered before turning towards him. “I find myself in need of some privacy. My girl told me that you lot relieved yourselves in dedicated shacks.”

He shook his head.

“We do a bit better than shacks.” His hand directed me to one of the alleys between the shops. Near the end of the lane was a small shack snugly fit between the two buildings. Unlike the backwoods outhouses, this one had a measure of pride in its frame and construction. Without any loose boards and a brown paint job, I quickly accepted the thing and forward to see to my business. It had a good-looking stone seat with a hole that a stream of water flowed beneath.

However, my true business involved a sharp blade of water and a numbing healing spell. When the job was finished, I made sure to burn the leftovers into ash and scatter the black dust into the stream of foul-smelling water. Taking a moment for the residual pain to pass, I came out of the stall. The steel-plated guard was patiently standing at the end of the alley, not irritated but eager to get on with the trip.

Following him through the crowd, most of whom briefly stopped to look at the odd man in plant clothes before going about their day, I briefly looked over the stores hawking clothes, overpriced food, and the occasional high-class restaurant. Moving past them and a mansion with two levels and a brown tiled roof with two yellow boxes on poles to each side, we came up to a space with various boat hulls stuck in various stages of completion. Walking up to one younger-looking lad in a frilly white top and blue pants, my guide cleared his throat before speaking.

“Fates have favored you today.” He explained with a nod. “A plant mage wants to bloody the pirates’ noses and is offering his services, paid for in the bodies of our enemies. Provide him with whatever he requires. I’ll have Palta’s expectations for completing the ships by the end of the day.”

The lad’s blue eyes went wide as his blonde hair shifted with an over-eager nod to both of us. He ran towards the back of the harbor towards one of the larger shacks. My helper quickly came back with wide papers showing the outlines of various boards, hinges, cloth, and ropes and how they all came together. Each came with a special board designed and marked out for the placements of the enchantments.

“How long will we have your services, great one?” The kid asked with careful placement of the sacred texts.

“As long as needed.” I idly replied, looking over the designs. Several flaws sprung out to me, but I had already explained how I knew to make buildings. Having great ability in sea craft beyond rafts would be a bit too much for a homeless nomad to know. Content with their designs, I started placing spirit-magic triangles, circles, and squares into their places marked with black paint. While my work progressed, other ship-building apprentices came along to give me more work or gather piles of wood for the manipulators.

When I handed off the first enchanted tool, the kid took the smooth square board like a holy relic. The pace of work kept up until what felt like an hour past midday. I didn’t take any breaks or stop for even a morsel of food, pushing my hunger aside to get this vital project off the ground as soon as possible. As I was putting the finishing touches on my third sail-making longboard a courier came forward.

“Lady Palta is ready to see you.” The younger gentlemen said, clearly unused to being at the foul-smelling docks at this time of day as his fine red shirt and pants sporting embroidered gold stood him out among the travelers. Nodding to the apprentices now eagerly going over one enchanted piece or another, I left the area to follow my next chaperone. Moving past the mansion near the harbor, we maneuvered around one animal cart or another as we trod over the stone road. It was the main vein of traffic for the haulers, carriages, and walkers allowing the citizens to move between the major organs of their city. Accommodating seven lanes of commuter traffic, it was only when we were past the mage houses on the hill that the major source of my headache came into view.

From what the boys had been able to find out about the area, it was called the “Rains Drip”. Named so for the massive slopes downward towards outgoings rivers that split off in the middle of the place, working in conjunction with the lack of sunlight and stacking of the houses, that meant that any rainfall would drip onto roofs for hours as it worked its ways towards the river.

A pretty name for an ugly slum.

Back in the Coalition, the poorer houses shared a similar mixture of chipped stone foundation and shabby board construction. But those buildings at least had some breathing room in between them. Here, it was shoddy construction stacked on questionable work. I wasn’t claustrophobic, but I felt a tinge of that fear just looking at the place where even the roads looked more like alleyways.

The mass of wood and bodies stretched on for a small valley and even beyond. Poor souls massed around the vast hill past the river, and I presumed up to the wall in the distance. Finishing off the ensemble were the ragged clothes most of the denizens wore and the occasional cry of a beggar to round out the miserable vision.

Turning away and to my left, the mockery of a skyscraper stood out above the wall just a stone’s throw from the road. Leading me through the crowd, it occurred to me that the clouds of mana were now gone. I didn’t give it too much thought as we came up to the shining metal gate nearly twice the height of a man. An obstacle they quickly opened for us with a wave from the courier.

We walked over the dual road of smooth stone that had flecks of black in it. It all looked nice, with shrubbery and clean-cut grass on the lawn, but it was the lack of what my eyes were seeing that perturbed me. No great palisades dotted the open area and the lack of construction for ballistae or those magma cannons told me this was a place unprepared for war.

The stone base for the tower only had one flight of stairs up and at the double glass doors stood two men in almost white metal. Beyond the typical mass-produced attire, their armor had near the level of embroidery that I had put on my hawk-inspired suit. Only theirs was modeled after lions with fur etched into the chest and a lion maw for a helmet opening that would close with a pull on the helmet face plate. Coming closer, I could see that they were more decoration than tool. They sported long fine cloth weaved along their arms with gold accents that went up their arms and sides. It accentuated the color of a lion’s fur, but no serious fighter would risk getting tangled on such a thing.

When I was inside the first thing I noticed was the wide-open hall and a staircase that took up the left side of the room. I was given little time to take in the crowds or stone walls as the courier stood in front of me to usher me through a double door of wood on the immediate right. Coming into a rather small room of glass walls and wood flooring, the mana lamp above gave me enough lighting to look around before the tell-tale motion of elevator movement pulled down my body.

“Have you taken these before?” The courier asked behind me.

Turning towards his voice, I saw a metal key slotted into the wall with a dial below.

Ah. Trying to intimidate the savage, are we? He’d never do so without his liege’s permission, so I guess Palta was already probing me.

“Pff,” I scoffed as I casually slung my leather sack over my shoulder. “I’ve faced far worse surprises in my sleep. When the ground beneath your bed gives out and you find yourself laying on a skinner, you will know true fear.”

The lad gulped before nodding. After a few seconds, the elevator finally took us to the appropriate floor. Walking out, the first thing that stood out was the view on the left. It must be very impressive to the maids, workers, and officials who worked here, to see so many people like ants. Across from me was the top of the staircase, through which a few messenger boys were going up and down.

“If you please.” The courier asked, beckoning me to follow him to the right. I came into a hallway at the end of which stood more of the lion guards. The hallway had a decent number of messenger boys and officials in fine clothes, but my attendant must have had a special position because no one got in our way as we moved towards the steel double doors. When we arrived, the lion guard on the right put up a hand with his open palm towards my leather bag. Nodding, I handed off my load before he and his companion pushed open the door, letting me into the heart of the local government.

A wide grey stone table sat in the middle, its gold edge and white top showing a luxury that covered the rest of the room. Gold-plated steel was held in the glass walls and a smaller table on the left held a variety of snacks and pitchers of wine or water. All around were finely dressed messenger boys with one item or another, an official carrying a stack of documents, or a maid seeing to the refreshments. The midday sun provided all the light needed, though a few mana lamps on the sides showed the place could be run during the night. At the central table sat the focus of every attendant’s attention.

Sitting with her hands clasped, the black-haired woman had a thin nose and sharp jaw. Her clothes were brown and green leather with matching steel shoulder, shin, and arm guards. Her black hair had a long, flowing wave that matched the texture of the horse-sized otter’s fur lounging behind her. The large beast lounged on its back, munching on a large fish sending an occasional snap of bone through the air. On her right was a thin woman with shoulder-length brown hair while off towards the snack table was another black-haired woman with pigtails. The two were wearing the same armor as the woman I assumed to be Palta, whose green eyes looked me up and down like I was another tool.

“I assume you’re the newest mage in town. Time is of the essence, so I’ll skip going over the story you gave and get to the point. What would we need to get your services?”

A cough from the left of the brown-haired woman came from a man in gold embroidered dark-green robes with emeralds lining his hood.

“He’s already performed more than enough.” He put in, his short nose barely showing past his hood while he rubbed a tanned chin.

I raised an eyebrow at him.

“I still have a few enchantments for the ship parts.” I refuted.

He put a clenched fist on the table, the gold rings on his hand clanging against the white stone.

“Your lack of consideration certainly bolsters your story. But-“

“How did you survive, by the way?” The brown-haired woman said with puckered lips as her brown eyes looked me up and down. “Even as a scion, it must be rough out there by yourself.”

The man looked pissed as he turned toward her.

“Bella.” Palta corrected with a motherly tone and a sharp look in her green eyes.

The woman shrugged with an unapologetic face.

“But,” The man continued as he turned back to me “We have a certain way of doing things. Making sure mages are properly compensated for their work is an integral part of my association. We have all the plant mages worth anything in our ranks. Though I suppose we’ll have to add ‘known plant mages’ as a clause.”

“What are you saying?” I impatiently asked.

His black eyebrows furrowed as he closed his eyes. Strumming his fingers on the table, he opened his eyes with irritation clear in his brown irises.

“Your work ethic is commendable, but such plant magic workings are solely handled by my people.”

Well, at least I got the shipbuilders running again. Jeff thought there were no plant mages here and he certainly hadn’t brought up anything about labor contracts. I had a flash of irritation but suppressed it. There could be a hundred plant mages about, and it would have still counted for nothing if they were withholding their abilities to gouge the government.

“Fine. But I saw a lot of worried people at the food boxes in the harbor. Do you get all your food locally or is it shipped in?” I asked the group.

“The food situation is-“

The man took his turn to interrupt with another strike on the table.

“Are you seriously going to just let him roam around the city? No identity check or a bit of skepticism of his sudden arrival.”

Palta sighed, her sharp chin pulling with her puckered lips as she looked him up and down with thinning patience.

“Percy,” She explained like she was talking to a slow child. “We both know monitoring plant-based mages outside of our great houses is the Seed's responsibility, not ours. As has long been agreed between the kingdom and its associations.”

Percy nodded as his verbal opponent leaned back with a hand against her hair.

“The fact that he has evaded our monitoring for so long, as a scion no less, is-“

“A horrific failing.” Palta finished, twirling a blade of her long black hair between her thumb and index finger. “But one of your own making.”

The man clenched his teeth at the jab, but Palta merely turned back to me with an indifferent air.

“And if he was hostile, all he would have had to do is shake the harbor into ruin and take off back into the sea. On a more petty and personal level, know dealing with an unknown factor is infinitely preferable to dealing with your association.” She pronounced before looking at me. “Our food situation is bad. I’m sure I could put you to sleep with food store figures and inflow rates but it’s bad is a sufficient description.”

“I’ll start getting some farms up and go-“

Percy stood straight up from the table.

“Mister Tilvor.” He proclaimed with an accusing look in his eyes. “Are you suggesting we use magic to feed the dross?”

I raised an eyebrow at him, a growing feeling that it was going to be the default expression when dealing with this quarrelsome bug.

“Of course.”

His tan cheeks reddened as he curled his mouth like he bit into an unexpectedly sour candy.

“I can be patient, Laperict. But only to a point. Having a plant mage work FOR rubbish would undermine the pride of our kind everywhere.”

“When a wolf the size of a house has you in its jaws, stab it with your pride and see if that keeps you out of its stomach,” I replied with an indifferent tone. Percy got redder but the three women suppressed smiles. The attendants stood rock still, waiting for the gods to stop their fighting so they could get back to their earthly toils. “I came here to bleed the pirates and if I want their skin deathly white, I need you wall-bound. However, your men need to be busy using their swords, not thinking about how hungry they are.”

Palta nodded.

“Do you not have an agreement to use your enchantments to grow food in the mana dead zones?” She asked with a pointed look towards the green-clothed man.

Percy stuck out his chin in defiance.

“In order to make gathering the surrounding resources easier and bringing in food would take up valuable space in the ships or caravans. Making the extra food is just the price of the kingdom’s cooperation. And part of that cooperation is we deal with all plant-based magical tasks concerning food and wood growing. This helps assure our people only receive a fair wage for our work.”

The urge to decide the conversation with a water blade to his throat was growing more tempting. But I kept my anger in check, concentrating on making this as painless as possible.

“Even those with no relation to your organization?” I asked with waning patience.

Percy gave me a strained smile, folding his hands together.

“Those inside the kingdom’s bounds must adhere to the Growing Accord. Even those not in the Seeds caring embrace.” He intoned like a priest.

Here I was, offering a solution to everything on a silver platter and this ant droned on about pride and labor agreements.

“I suppose we wouldn’t want to solve our problems too quickly,” I said sarcastically. Percy puckered his lips again as the women bit their lips to hold in their laughter. Palta sipped wine from a mug as I looked at her.

“What about outside the wall? Have any of the other plant mages claimed any of the spaces beyond the safe zones?” I asked already knowing the answer.

She shook her head with a sad look.

“There aren’t enough here to do any work. They were sent south to help recover our fleet losses in the south.”

My eyes went to Percy, furrowed eyebrows showing my phony surprise at the news.

“What about you? What… If there are no plant mages here, then how are you keeping the work contract in order when you have no means of providing it?”

The Seed association representative straightened his back.

“My presence alone is enough to bring this city under our jurisdiction and to keep collecting our fee for services rendered. As for my labors, even the lowest-level job requires at least three people to perform.”

Heat crawled along my neck as I began weighing whether I should nullify his association's hold on the city by throwing him headfirst out the nearest window. More than his opportunistic laziness endangering lives, it was the fact his actions forced me away from my loved ones that made his neck look so well suited for my hands. After a few seconds of pulling in my emotions, I looked back toward Palta who was clearly the only worthwhile person in this conversation.

“Again, what about working outside the city walls?”

She leaned back into her chair, her finger running around the lip of the mug.

“We consider the rocky outcropping to be a part of our territory. However, a bit further south near the woods is officially wild territory. Normally, I’d say it was too far for you to try setting up there, but you seem capable. However, if the pirates come, I can’t guarantee we’ll ride out to save you.”

I nodded in satisfaction while Percy rolled his eyes.

“If the pirates come, the rescue won’t be for me.” Was all I said as I turned around to leave.

Scratching quills on paper quickly refilled the room as I went through the double doors and was handed back my bag. My guide took me down the elevator again and saw me off the premises with a courteous wave goodbye out of the wall gates. Back on the street with the sun somewhere between midday and afternoon, I steeled my will for the long journey ahead. Taking a right on the main road, I came back to the harbor area. Using a few silver coins in my bag, I purchased several days’ worth of bread, dried meat, and cheese along with the chest to carry them all. My time in the city was now at a close as I approached the pier with my ship. Nodding to the harbor attendant, I unfastened the rope from my vessel before opening the hatch and tossing my belongings into it.

Zooming forward and pulling a U-turn in the harbor’s now less smelly water, I went out past my newest addition to the landscape. I could see a few surveyors looking it over on a boat trying to see what could and couldn’t fit on it. When I was out of the proper harbor, I brought the boat up to a quick pace with water shooting out the back. It took a minute or two for the rocky field to give way to bark patches and grass. It was a gradual enough change that I could see it from the water and slowed down enough to take in the surrounding landscape. Despite the afternoon sun beating down, I could hear no birds chirping or insects buzzing as winter still had these lands firmly in its grasp. The seemingly dead lands stretched on for a while with only the occasional bush interrupting an otherwise flat plane.

Bringing my ship up to the rocky shore, I encased my vessel in stone before moving on land. The rocky plains were mostly chunks of stone between a pebble and a man. The sailors from the region said it was due to a mole pack moving through here that the plants had been beaten back and humanity had been able to set up a city with relatively little pain. But tendrils of grass were starting to grow between the stone to reclaim the land. Normally that would be a great obstacle for the earth mages who typically built the settlements, but my plant magic sucked the life out of the green beachheads with little fuss. After reducing a good four hundred and fifty or so feet of greenery to withered husks, I got down to the hard work.

While a more vertical construction is my preferred method, I had to account for changes in the political situation. If my abode was built to an exact amount of room with the idea it was solely going to be a farm and I suddenly had a few hundred or even a thousand people looking for refuge, I might have to turn them away. But I also had to make sure that the goods I was supplying could be stolen by the right people. When Gula showed up, we were going to have some of my food be ‘misplaced’ into her people’s stores. Something that was going to be a pain in the butt to do if all of our food was placed in plain sight where everyone could see.

Beaton said the Orcs lived underground here and tunneling was something almost all the green women here had mastered. Building an underground network under massive walls was a dangerous thing, even without loose stone above. With that in mind, I decided to make the wall three stories high with a wraparound that would feature a gate near the road leading towards Crasden. When I decided on that, the design I wanted finally came to me.

A smaller outer wall covering everything while the inner spaces would be higher walled mini-cities like Lilly pads on a lake. Enchanted boards on the bottom of the outer walls would suck dry any attempts by the flora to invade while inside the brick I would have more of the spider web thin water strands cutting anything trying to knock it down. Ballista would be mounted on the walls so each mini-city could provide support to each other in case anything big enough got in. Most importantly, the place could be easily expanded to meet any current or future needs. A bonus was that there would certainly be enough hidden corners to let the Orcs appropriate whatever goods they needed.

Molding the surrounding rock into a solid foundation took some time, but using existing rock was a lot less arduous than summoning it from the magical ether. Pulling on the chunks of stone to form the base eventually led me to the solid rock left untouched by the moles. Naturally, pulling three stories of stone out of the ground was going to leave a big dip in the land so I pulled from in front of the wall to make an almost as deep moat.

I added an imperceptible slope in the moat to make sure the water wouldn’t stagnate into a cesspool. Wrapping it all the way around the wall would make tunneling under it impossible, so I kept the moat going only until it covered everything but the direction towards Crasden. Instead, it would cut back through the wall under a grate and act as a sewage outlet. Something I had to make a separate channel for a mile southward to prevent contamination of the local water. Sea water wasn’t sparkling clean, but it was still easier to treat without human waste.

All of that took a few hours. The wall was crude, but it would keep the lightweights out. A small contingent of archers backed up by siege weapons could deal with mid-level threats like trolls. But my wife was going to be visiting here. If it couldn’t hold up against a dragon or skinner attack, then I would rather scrap the whole thing and start over. As I started putting in ramps for men to scale the walls, I began to realize why this place was unsettled by the humans even as space was at a premium.

The loose stones were heavy enough to be a pain to move, but not so large that you could easily mold them into a cohesive whole or the air pockets between them so small that it wouldn’t create problems. Molding them into a single piece meant whatever floor you put in to rest on the bedrock was going to be a dozen or so feet below sea level.

A terrible thing for a city right next to the ocean in a land with frequent rains.

Instead, the stone had to be taken from around whatever you wanted to build if you wanted it to come up to the proper height. As I was putting the third inner ramp in, I looked around what was increasingly a sinkhole the size of a town surrounded by a raised wall. Getting down, I took a few of the dead trees past my wall and molded them into boards. Putting them near the open side, they would gradually summon blocks of stone for me to fill out the missing material. Enchantments were slow, but they consumed less mana and required no effort beyond the initial setup.

It was at the day's dying hours when the orange glow of the sun was playing across the few clouds in the blue sky as night began its approach, that I got my first visitor as I was moving a dog-sized stone block away from the enchanted board. Surprisingly, it wasn’t some beast from the woods, rather a figure came from the direction of the city. A wind mage, if the elongated leaps, gusts of sea mist around them, and green mana constructs around their hands and feet were anything to go by. When they were close enough for me to see the black pigtails, green and brown leather armor, I dropped my burden into the sunken soil.

As she did her final leap to land in front of me, the green wind constructs faded as her blue eyes looked around with interest.

“I’ve got to say, this is a lot more impressive than I would have expected.”

I raised an eyebrow at the statement, content to stare at her for a long moment.

“Sorry, I…um.” She furrowed her eyebrows, her eyes looking over the ground as her face was contorted in thought for a few seconds.

“Palta!” She exclaimed, her right hand smacking her forehead. “She said to make the road to here now by going around the wall towards the warehouse side of the harbor. The Mountain Top association has the right to build walls and other major infrastructure in the city, including out on the rocky plains. Palta is holding them off for as long as she can but if you want a road between here and the city, you need to finish it now.”

“Shit!” Was all I said as I dropped the stone my spell was moving along and ran forward.

Using two massive earth spells, I spliced the stone into a webwork that served as a solid enough base for carriages to run over, while the second simpler one flattened the top. As I ran forward, the woman followed me with some interest. She looked at me with a pouty lip, though I was too busy to guess her emotions. It was an arduous thing, with the only saving grace being me spiderwebbing the stone into the surrounding chunks instead of doing it the proper way as I had with the wall. But the proper way took time, and I was racing against one of the greatest forces in existence: Bureaucracy.

My hands began shaking a bit past the halfway point. Already a bit exerted from my previous labors, I had to force myself forward as I kept up the pace with the road forming only a foot in front of me. As the cold breeze of winter and approaching night blew across my sweat-drenched face, it occurred to me that the timing was probably planned. After working all day on a mini city, the association probably thought I’d be too tired to do the job in the time Palta could give me. Fortunately, they didn’t seem to have a good gauge for a scion’s power or how far I would go to get this new source of food and housing to the desperate masses who needed them.

The fact that this would also determine whether I could bring my Orc wife to bed also helped quicken my pace.

Not that a serious or pious man like myself would ever admit to such a motive.

A sudden resistance in my step was brought about by a horse-sized boulder of some less pliant material colored black and silver, bringing me out of my lighter thoughts. It took a few seconds before the mass of stone was stretched into a proper road and I could start walking again, but it was seconds I couldn’t afford to spend as the obstruction finally cleared and I started moving again. The two earth spells sent a spiderweb of pain along my body even as the city walls came into view. Atop them, archers looked down with curiosity as the stone in front of me molded into a road covering the jagged mess. But the wall had no gate leading to the outside, forcing me to turn right towards the coast.

Coming along the wall, I had to stop as the stone field gave way to sharp, jagged rocks on the shore. The waves spewed out from the sea with thunderous slams against the land as the arduous work ahead presented itself. I could only growl under my breath as I had to start a new spell to mold the rock into a proper base. Pushing a small mountain of stone across the open air towards the side of the pier, my tired mind pushed forward the first thought outside of spell craft in what felt like hours.

“Won’t this create a hole in the defenses?” I asked the wind mage gliding alongside my right, my voice barely carrying over the loud waves of high tide crashing against the shore.

“Trust Palta,” Was all I got in response.

My feet screamed in protest as I molded the surrounding stone into a road that was now hugging the side of the wall. The open-air on the tower side facing towards the ocean was filled with a grey stone mound with a wide flat top for one carriage each way. Sweat dripped down my forehead and even the winter breeze couldn’t cool my limbs as my work came up to the lisp of the pier.

“Stop!” A female voice screamed out.

A brown mana construct stopped the molding stone just an arm’s length from the proper floor. Looking toward the source, I saw a pale-looking woman with muscular arms sticking out of a leather tunic that matched her fine brown jeans. All decked out in gold embroidered mountain peaks and a rainbow of jewels along her hands, sides, and torso, I could only pin her as being the Mountain Top representative.

“Thank you for your work, great plant mage.” Her square jaw stuck out with a smile that only had a thin veneer of friendliness. Those blue eyes told of the beating she would love to give me, which no strand of hair on her bald head obscured. “But there’s been a miscommunication.”

“Oh dear,” Palta called from the left as she and her guards came through the crowd of onlookers too curious to scurry away. “I meant to tell him to consult with your people before putting it in.”

The earth woman spat on the ground.

“If I wanted my ears soaked in shit, I’d swim in the sewer tunnel. This-“

Noise. Useless prattle that served no purpose. Every inch of my body had some pain or ache to report, the strain from my run and my spell use now taking its due, the latter in thin lines of pain. The fact I didn’t have to summon fresh stone from nothing was the only reason I wasn’t keeled over in agony. It was damn close though. Content to let them cry and fuss, I plopped my butt onto the road and looked out over the sea towards the faint orange glow in the distance. I was content to squat in place with only some small part of my mind tracking the conversation, only keeping tabs to see when I would be dragged into the conversation.

Looking over my work, there was a lot not to love about it. It was a rough thing that was a good step or so too high from the dock floor, which meant getting a carriage moving directly from the warehouses was going to be difficult. Boxes of whatever food or cloth I made would have to be hoisted by hand or moved along a custom ramp. If the associations would let them make such a construction. My tired mind began formulating plans to massacre them all down to the last man and woman if the need arose when a soft, furry thing brushed against my arms.

Sitting next to me was a white, toddler-sized moth with green stripes. Though after a second look, I wanted to say its wings and body were more streamlined than its smaller cousins. It was putting one of its limbs against me, but the most noticeable thing was the electric sensation of a spirit connection I felt coming from it.

“Zigget!” The wind mage from earlier pouted on my right, her twin ponytails swaying with her nod towards what was now obviously her familiar. A feeling of indifference from the familiar made me smile while the wind scion puffed out her cheeks.

A laugh from Palta standing behind her drew everyone’s eyes.

“Yet you dare lecture me when Pipkin runs off.” The water scion prodded as she sat on my left. Her green eyes looked me up and down with something approaching praise. Behind her, the crowd and bald woman were gone with a few of those lion guards in their place. I wondered what she wanted until a spirit connection from her delivered the answer.

‘Thank you. For not being useless.’ Her womanly voice declared in my mind. Her sharp nose flared as her green eyes met mine.

‘Could you talk to the sun for a bit? I’m sure your flattering tongue would make it rise high enough to give me the time to finish my work.’ I replied with a straight face. ‘But putting aside my refreshed spirits, I’m not blind to the consequences of such disregard. Smacking the associations in the face like this won’t bode well for your political career.’

Palta puckered her lips in an expression that was distinctly trying to not be amused as she nodded.

‘A shame, especially since I only just arrived yesterday. But my reputation is better where it matters. My people and home are further out west near deserts where the waves are arid grass or shifting sands. We were brought in because the seas are almost totally blocked, and our kind are the only ones who can travel the wilds alone. Once we have this place secured, I’ll go back to where I belong.’

We sat in silence, her taking in the roiling sea and me petting the moth in silent relief at her coming exit from these lands. Even with her recent arrival, it was a bit soon to tell her that the entire defensive posture she was relying on had a body of wet paper considering I didn’t have any of the countermeasures up yet. Though as I pictured her squad traveling far over the land with a high flying familiar to scour the earth, an errant thought occurred to me. Something I had to be careful with when putting into a bit of misdirection.

‘How strong do you think the city is? Will we be expecting any aid from elsewhere?’

Her thin, pink lips puckered as she looked out further south past the rocky shoreline. It took only a second before she moved further down to look at me.

‘We are almost totally alone. Any ship small enough to slip past the pirates couldn’t bring enough of anything to make a difference. They’ve picked off as many settlements as they want and stopped the butchery a week ago, probably cutting the local stock down to size so they can manage these lands if they kick us off. But our helper is the Kraton house which is close enough to render us aid. Tell me, would you be willing to render your services to them?’

My raised eyebrows conveyed the appropriate confusion at the request.

‘If it gets the pirates killed, I’ll only ask for lodging in compensation. After I’ve gotten one of my towns finished. I’d like to say the day after tomorrow, but that depends on whether the local mana reserves fail me.’ I finished, relieved that an avenue to fix one of the biggest problems presented itself in such a tidy package.

‘Of course!’ She said a hair too eagerly. Palta realized what she did a moment too late and coughed into her hand before continuing. ‘Indeed, I’ll have Bella aid in finishing the… you said town.’

‘One of several. Think of a pen to keep out the smaller threats while raised sections scattered around the inside attack anything barging in. If it all works out and I don’t see why it wouldn’t, any trolls that try to barge in would have more ballista bolts in it than flesh.’

The water scion raised an eyebrow at that, her green eyes turning off towards the distance where the faintest sight of my wall barely showed over the curve of the world.

‘An interesting idea. Why not slap a huge wall down and call it a day?’

‘That’s great if humans ever become infertile. But if the population ever goes up, it’s a lot easier to expand a three-story wall than one with nine or ten. Details like how to retrieve the soldiers on the wall are thorny, but I hope that anything that gets inside will be too busy with the mini cities to scour for a free meal.’

Palta bit her lower lip, gears in her mind turning as her mind’s eye constructed my words.

‘An interesting idea. It would probably never work in the southern regions where anything less than five stories gets immediately run over, but here? It may yet come to pass.

But that is the future. The now has a falling sun and a long walk is ahead of you. We could hold you up in our finest accommodations. I know Nina is going to be very interested to see if we could help you overcome your infertility.’

I shook my head at the offer.

‘No and no, I’m afraid. I have a hard time sleeping in buildings I didn’t build. As for the otherwise pleasant proposition from this Nina, I’m afraid it’s more me lacking the equipment for such a venture than its function.’

Her green eyes struggled not to steal a look at the joining of my two legs but her professionality came through.

‘Even with a healing scion’s efforts? We could work some arrangements.’

I shook my head again, making sure to effect a small, sad smile to round out the performance.

‘You cannot restore what was never there. This, I know all too well.’

My growing ability to lie and put on false displays disturbed me as she nodded with a sad look and her green eyes went back to ponder the ocean waves. It was a skill I had only rarely used back in my universe’s lonely workshops or spaceports and the quickness with which I could deploy such schemes these days felt deeply at odds with my ‘here’s the truth and nothing but’ approach I typically lived by.

“Still,” Palta said audibly, her voice barely carrying over the waves. “You have much to give the world. Thank you, again. May you find your peace, in the slit throat of the Mist pirates Brood Mother or a rocking chair sipping good wine. Good day.”

With our exchange finished. Which is when the twin-tailed woman with blue eyes stood between me and Palta. She was a good foot shorter than me which made the white and green moth’s flutter onto her shoulder a bit easier.

“Your eyes.” She declared.

We both raised an eyebrow to her.

“They look… Familiar. But I can’t quite put a word to it.”

The water scion gazed into my eyes, the two faces now looking at me with curious expressions.

“Bah!” Palta scoffed after a second, rolling her green eyes as she turned to the city. “Come, Harrah. We have a lot to do.”

When the wind scion stood still, her lips puckered in concentration, Palta strode forward and put a gentle hand on the brown and green armor hanging around Harrah’s shoulders.

“Come. Or do you have so little work waiting for you back at the tower? I’m beginning to think I’ve not kept you busy enough. Mustn’t let my underlings get too bored, now, should I?”

That snapped the errant woman’s blue eyes to her superior. Straightening her back, Harrah briskly walked alongside Palta as the two left with the lion guard in tow. The ocean was reflecting the rays of the dying sun and as peaceful as it was, I needed to get back to my little abode as staying in the hotels that the upset associations could easily ‘visit’ didn’t seem like such a good idea. Reluctantly getting off my butt, every inch of my being protesting the movement as I did so, I began a slow walk back to my mini abode.

It was a fair bit faster as my feet now had an even surface to walk on. The flat top of my quick work had enough space for two carriages, but with the bottleneck near the dock the space would be mostly wasted. Unless…

Turning around towards the city wall, I could envision a pulley system lifting supplies into the city from the edge of the wall. It was a pleasant thought that a grey-skinned wolf off to my right with no fur made largely irrelevant. The beast was making a decent pace over the uneven rocks and took only a few seconds to get within a stone's throw of me. But before I could even consider using an earth spell to send one of the boulders on the side of the road through its skull, one head-sized rock shot up through its jaw taking the entire skull with it.

Looking around, it was only when I felt a spirit connection along with the image of a location nearby that I looked further to my left. Resting on a boulder was the slightly oval head of Cell.

‘Hey, Cell.’ I responded, more than a bit relieved to be back in my familiar’s company. ‘How are things?’

We both moved further ahead on the road, though he had to stay hidden among the rocks beside my clearer path. I was treated to a slide show and varying emotions coming accompanying them. Most were night images, owing to that being the only time he could safely travel. Hungry eyes and thin-cheeked children, of both human and Orc variety, flashed by in my mind like something out of a charity advertisement. I’d have thought the green women to be a distinctly underclass existence, but from what Cell had seen they were more or less in the same boat as the average human citizenry.

As average as one could be living underground and hiding like fugitives in the vast tunnel network beneath the poorer section of the city.

The guards were totally compromised, with only one or two sporting human wives. All the others were ‘bachelors’. Cell had seen an argument break out between the steel-plated guard I had first seen and a tan-skinned man in front of the guard station near the top of one of the hills. He didn’t get a good enough look to see anything beyond a few snippets, but I wanted to say the other man was foreign to these lands considering his lack of facial hair and fuller frame bereft of the typical hunger here.

‘What of the brothers?’ I asked as I turned around to look towards the city. Sure enough, a small gate was being formed around the new road by a few earth mages. Whatever bureaucratic trickery Palta used to force their hand; I was just glad that piece of this puzzle was put in place.

It was at that moment I was treated to the image of Andrew kissing some woman above the point of view of Cell. The fire scion had apparently come up with the scheme of holding a small swig of yook-root-laden tea in his mouth before kissing the girls. This allowed him to shag every woman in sight with reckless abandon. With the local Front representative supplying him with all he would need to see such purpose through.

A dutiful soul seeing to his burden as a mage.

I was surprised when the next image was Jeff, his hair a darker grey than my own now. It wasn’t so much his appearance that caught me off-guard but the fact that every image was him talking with that harbor master, a woman of no great looks. I would have said it was a part of his information-gathering duties, but the man was as honest as I wanted to be. His eyes told of his intent and the object of his affection was likewise receptive to his interests, though, unlike the expedient pace such dalliances typically took in this world, they had yet to share a bed. I thought it odd how the harbormaster wasn’t pushing the lad for a ticket to the easy life, but such concerns were beneath me at this point.

Walking up to the stone wall with the sun quickly fading, I came through the unfinished back end. Now almost totally out of sight of the city, Cell was able to help me build a quick house for the night. Coming up one of the finished ramps, we worked in tandem to bring the stone up and mold it into a solid box with air holes. Taking my leather sack and chest with food, cloth, and other smaller goods, we finished sealing it with a final brown mana construct before the flickering lights faded.

Left to look at the cold stone floor of my box with faint starlight peeping through the holes above, I could only think back to my previous night’s initiation. How sensual, exciting, fun, and… very much not this, it was. Grumbling to Cell hanging on my shoulder, I had him mold a decent curved bed into the floor before laying in it. It took a while to fall asleep despite my bed being quite comfortable with my clothes on and the place decently warm. Thoughts of my family, both here and back in my universe, the one remembered and the one forgotten, ran through my mind before exhaustion from the day's labor finally took me into the void.