It turned out that while we had a dearth of trading partners interested in sharing rare materials, what we did have was an abundance of mages delighted by an official project to create our own.
I’d had Ari and Vednil put out notices to all our mages, hoping to get maybe a dozen who’d be interested. I’d even set up a modest meeting hall on the edge of the lake.
Instead of the dozens, we had thousands crowd into the streets of Tetherfall, all hoping to join our new affinity material sciences division.
Two days after the announcement, the official count had passed two-thousand registered Shapers. Which didn’t include non-registered ensouled and researchers. And we had word even more were on their way via ship.
One party had caused a commotion when they’d appeared in the center of Tetherfall, a couple members nearly tumbling into the depths. They’d been so excited to join the project they’d called in a favor with Thozgar.
All that to say, I was far from the only one interested in cracking open the world of low-tier materials.
Of course, having so many mages attending required a change of venue. It wasn’t like I intended to turn them away. Not at this point.
The weather was cooperating, so we were repurposing the clearing that’d been created in the vicinity of the Mistvale Waygate. By that point, the clearing stretched nearly to the lake.
I walked along it, clearing it further, removing the occasional stump. Most of the area had already been cleared as a byproduct of the early Untethered projectile practice. Turned out chucking large heavy mountains off the top of a mountain did a lot of damage. Making sure not to damage the nets running along the north side, I soon had a suitable space establish.
Just needed to materials.
Could’ve used wood, since it was in abundance. And I would, for the accents. Give it a nice living touch. But with the number of unexpected guests, it’d be simpler to work with earth and stone.
With the area cleared, I set to work excavating blocks the topsoil first. It turned out to be several meters deep, a veritible bounty. It was set to the side, where Alister arranged teams to collect it for use in the greenhouses. The deeper soil came out easily with generous applications of Crumble. Solidify then allowed me to create easily stackable blocks of stone. Once I’d extracted a sufficient depth along the side closest to the portal, I started converting the excavated soil directly into the foundation. Vetrov (who still went everywhere with the Staff of Earth I’d traded her) might’ve caught wind of what I was up to part way through and come out to ensure I started out right.
Then stuck around to get the rest right too.
With her at my side along with her entire crew of construction shapers, utilizing the bountiful mana of the lake and its aurora, the foundation came together. It was… not a small area. At least a mile long, and at least half as wide, we’d spent a full day setting it out. I’d spent more than four times as long planning it inside Memory Palace. Not even a year ago we were throwing up shelters using whatever material we had on hand, now we were building a veritable palace.
I shook my head, returning to the work.
Next were the walls. They were primarily for privacy, not defense, so they didn’t need to be that thick. Even so, the tops were wide enough to allow nice walking paths. The stone itself was a decorative black with green marbling on the outside. Technically, it was a facade, though one reinforced by all the rest of the block. It was a trick using Solidify one of Vetrov’s people had figured out.
There were a total of seven buildings. Three flanking guest residences to the north and three to the south of the plaza that ran throughout. The central building was the largest, with a path wide enough to drive several buses through side by side running through it from east to west. I left the math for the reinforcement to Vetrov, grateful we could build it with almost no enchantments. Not that we wouldn’t add those, but they’d come later, once we had more materials. Might even make it into a project for the teams who were chosen to do research in the complex.
The complex had two net pathways strung along it, even if most of the Untethered flew everywhere by that point. There were a few who stuck to the nets, but it was mostly for aesthetics and to offer them a place where they felt comfortable to hang out.
Other teams handled the surrounding palaces while Vetrov and I concentrated on the central tower. This was where we used the wood I’d been saving, setting it in long strips up the four corners. It provided a nice contrast for the black and green stone marbling.
We also added several balconies using a red, bordering on pink, marble which had been recovered from a deposit uncovered in the chasm the grave carver had left.
With shaper Vetrov’s assistance it didn’t take long to create the above ground compound.
Not long being roughly three full days, including the help of a full hundred of the shapers who intended to attend the new initiative.
Despite her expertise moving earth, Vetrov spent the majority of her time wrangling others into being productive.
When we were finished, the surrounding buildings were all three story compounds that could host several hundred mages a piece. And that was with the sorts of space most mages preferred.
The central tower was designed to catch the eye and serve as the main meeting point. The first and second floors were mostly reserved for food and services.
Enchanting the lifts was one of the most complicated parts of construction. I made sure we built in mechanical redundancies for in case the magic failed. It was a simple latching system that fell into place if mana stopped flowing or got too intense.
Since the tower stretched ten over-sized levels into the air, I figured it was better to be preparred.
Other than the lifts, none of the compound was yet enchanted. I stood atop the tower, turning slowly as I considered it. Ensouled were flitting about below, some walking, most flying. There were some bringing in plants to fill the many planters placed throughout the compound. Others were cleaning up spare material, loading up a six wheeled vehicle that’d been based on Fang’s many improvements.
I hadn’t gotten to craft so much as a single enchantment on the lumbering machine.
It occurred to me that we’d almost entirely done away with traditional manual labor.
The ease with which we were able to erect an entire fortified compound made me shake my head at Felith’s family who were still living in tents. Blind pride made for weird choices.
A phoenix overlaid atop a rising sun had been chosen to represent our new initiative. A bit of a bold statement, but I could appreciate it. Flags were being made, and already it’d been eblazoned over the entrances to each compound and the central tower.
I’d had to instruct them to add additional signage to help people find their way.
That had turned into a competition to make the designs as artistic as possible. Now we had ‘feathered’ pathways in different styles leading about the compound. If not for the color, I personally couldn’t see much difference between them, though I’d been assured an owl’s and raven’s feathers were quite distinct. Something about the owl’s been soft and the raven’s being stiffer.
And those were the differences between the only two I recognized. Neither eagle nor hawk were chosen for the others.
“It seems you’ve ignited their spirit,” Ari said from her spot atop the tower beside me as we looked out over the hundreds of shapers who mingled below us the next day. There were more mages below than there’d been citizens of Tetherfall when I first arrived. Possibly by an order of magnitude. “And you didn’t even have to arrange a competition.”
“Nope. Just had to say we’d be providing food, shelter and access to the valley. None of them are even getting paid, at least not directly,” I said, shaking my head. Even housing hundreds of mages each, the residential buildings were closer to the sort of resorts I’d only seen on TV back on Earth than apartments.
Combined with the public services in the central tower, we’d created an all-inclusive research resort institute. Someone had even decided to add pools.
Not heated though. At least, not yet. Pretty sure I saw someone working on the enchatments for one.
The downside to having so many volunteers was setting them to tasks in a way that was useful. And considering they were all mages, there were a lot of opinions on the right way to do things. Simply setting policy wasn’t going to cut it.
“Well, let’s get to salving egos, shall we,” I said, giving Ari a smile which she returned. We clasped hands, then split up.
Most of the day was spent shaking hands with numerous Pegasus-souled shapers. None of them were people I knew, though a lot of them liked to drop names. Specifically of the shapers who’d arrived before Cape Aeternia became the newest hot thing. If I were to trust their words, it would seem Xoth had at least twenty best friends. One even mentioned being friends with Kallum, the Shaper who’d tried to take over Mount Aeternia. No one dared make a similar claim of Vetrov, I noted.
It’d been tedious at first, before I started asking people for their specific ideas. Once we started talking about spell design or experiments, most of the mages attending tended to forget the politics and focused on the details. Pairing them up into groups on mutual interests was something Ari and I worked on together to a lot more success than I expected.
Getting everything set up ended up taking longer than building the compound in the first place. Even so, almost nothing went wrong, outside of a few minor incidents.
Things going smoothly had me more worried than when they were blowing up. Which meant it was something of a relief when Sidhe sent me a message as we were about to announce the official founding of the initiative.
Apparently our initiative had garnered the attention of Terra Vista’s re-established government. Specifically, the Fores’thalls. The people who’d had such a problem with us selling so much nature attuned material they’d sent assassins after us.
Now, instead of assassins, they were sending envoys. To talk. Backed by the Terra Vistan government. From what Sidhe’d been able to gather, they’d arranged for a pair of Djinn-souled as representatives. Djinn-souled, to address a materials initiative led by a Pegasus-souled Magus Protectus they’d tried to have killed…
They’d be arriving by airship roughly an hour after I’d been planning to host the official ceremony. A perfect time to steal my thunder.
There was nothing good that could come from their visit.
So, of course, we penciled them in.