After spending just a few minutes alone with Pestle in the eting room, the fairies politely bid Sofia farewell without raising a fuss and departed toward the east, having found no foul play with Pestle’s genuine wish to follow Sofia.
“Pesle is na Hateful One, they said,” Pestle announced to Sofia, Bookie and Erredis, who were watching the Fairies leave.
“The na of the previous you, you an?” Sofia asked.
“That is certainly fitting. From the little we have seen of her before she went and ended her days,” Erredis comnted.
“Maybe fitting? Not very like. Pesle is Pesle.”
“That’s right!” Bookie proudly said with crossed arms, “Pestle is not Hateful! I don’t like it!”
“Pestle One?” Erredis idly added.
“Cake One!” Pestle enthusiastically suggested in tow.
“Little one, I believe Cake One is already taken,” Erredis inford Pestle.
“Ack! Pesle again too slow…”
“Do you really need a second na?” Sofia asked, “I guess if they insist on calling you One, anything other than Hateful would be better… Oh! Smiling One?”
“Hmmm? Sofia… Pesle not face, is not very smile,” the fairy answered, touching the corners extremities of her lower jaw.
“You think so? I can always hear the smile in your voice, isn’t that enough?” Sofia asked, leaning forward a bit toward Pestle.
“Agh!” Pestle reacted, hiding her face with her bony hand, “Why is Sofia embarrass Pesle!” the fairy complained, fly to hide behind Bookie’s back.
“Nevermind then, maybe we should do Embarrassed One instead. Shy One? Blushing One?” Sofia teased, chasing Pestle around Bookie.
“Eugeuhk! Pesle am die…” Pestle cried out, letting herself fall to the floor and playing dead, on the ground she raised a shaky arm, “Pesle… Is has leg in next life.”
Even Erredis let out a snort at the unexpected performance. “Perhaps Actor One would fit this one better.”
Having observed the interaction from afar, the last guest of the day ca closer, and offered a suggestion of her own. “How about Exuberant One? For a skeleton she sure seems full of life.”
“Ah, you’re here. Didn’t make you wait too long?” Erredis asked, looking up at the crowned Vampire who had walked up to her.
“What’s a few hours at our age, right, my friend?” the queen answered with narrowed eyes, giving Erredis a ‘playful’ tap on the shoulder that made the bone foundations of the city sink a few centiters deeper into the soil.
“What’s a few years hiding Moon’s Oracle from , right, ‘friend’?” Erredis answered right back, putting a hand on the queen’s shoulder of her own.
Ahh… More work… Sofia internally sighed, seeing the foundations of the city start to crack.
Seeing that the conversation was no longer about her, Pestle discreetly got back up, climbing up Bookie’s clothes and hugging his skull from behind like a weird helt, lightly nibbling on his bones.
As the cracks widened, Sofia felt obligated to try to stop the covert contest of strength however she could, “Nice to finally et you, your Majesty, thank you for your hospitality until now,” she greeted with a respectful bow.
Marina let her hand slide off of Erredis’ shoulder, her eyes throwing daggers at the Dragon, “It’s been my pleasure, Sofia. Thank you for taking care of my cousins. You can call Marina.”
Sofia nodded in acknowledgent, “Speaking of which, did Astelia leave while I was busy?” she asked, looking around, surprised that she could not see her anywhere.
“Ahahah!” the queen erupted in crystalline laughter, “She practically dragged here by herself, could she possibly leave first? No, no. She will notice I left her with an illusion any second now. I just wanted to see you up close first.”
“I-Is there an issue?” Sofia asked, feeling the heavy weight of the queen’s judging gaze.
“No!” the queen answered with a raised chin, “I’ve checked what I needed to.” She reached inside of her cleavage and pulled out a thinly rolled parchnt paper. She handed it to Sofia without a word, winked as soon as Sofia hesitantly grabbed it, and teleported away just in ti for a handle-less blade coming from above to stab at the ground where she had been standing instead of on top of her head. She reappeared further back and in the air, next to a much shorter levitating Vampire. “Missed again! Mwah!” she gleefully mocked, forcefully planting an over-the-top smooch on Astelia’s cheek, leaving clear lipstick marks on her face before disappearing for good.
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“Marina Glacier…” Erredis said as if rembering exhausting mories.
Wiping the lipstick off of her face with her sleeve, looking just as exasperated as Erredis, Astelia, teleported right up to the group, retrieving her sword from the ground.
“Sorry about the hole.”
“You’ve grown up again while I wasn’t looking,” Sofia said, slightly opening her arms.
Astelia floated up to hug her for just a second. “Glad you made it back safely, Sof. And don’t joke like that, I think that’s it for , I’m an adult now, one condemned to forever be two heads shorter than you.”
“Nothing that a bit of charisma can’t fix.”
“I’m fine, I wouldn’t want to leave Alith too far behind,” Astelia quipped, taking a step back and lightly bowing to Erredis.
“Still that formal, kid? I’m not Moon,” Erredis said with a smile, nodding back.
“Hey Asty. I can’t tell you much about the trial so… How have you been?” Sofia asked.
Astelia smiled widely enough to reveal her pointy teeth under the moonlight.
Erredis had sohow managed to commission soone to prepare a huge feast, with more than enough food for the thousands of people around to celebrate the ‘opening’ of the city. After taking this ti to catch up with everyone, Sofia started to walk around the foundations with so of the dark-skinned humans who had co with Kalla. And with them, she started an accelerated city-planning operation throughout the night. The only paynt the group would accept was to get to pick the emplacent of the Storm Archipelago’s embassy, so Sofia had to accept to give them that.
By morning, the layout for the inner city in the current foundations was already drawn on the ground. They had plans for a compact central palace, a main grand place in front of it, a rchant street, several rows of luxury housing, a temple district and an artisans’ court. Despite Sofia initially thinking she had seen large with how widely she had covered the swamp with bones, it was barely enough for the core of the city. The unexpected huge influx of people had forced her to accept that her initial plans were inadequate.
That done, she constructed so extra bone shelters posthaste in the outskirts of the camps for the less fortunate people who had co without tents, and returned to the planned artisans’ court with Erredis and Astelia.
“It’ll have to be all bone for now,” Sofia said, “I was thinking your workshop here should be at least twice as big as the one in Zephir’s sect, so from here to there was my plan,” she told Erredis, making the outline of the zone rise out ever so slightly from the ground.
Erredis raised an eyebrow, “That’s more like two and a half tis the size, almost three.”
Summoning a small bone cube in her hand, Sofia quickly sculpted a miniature of what she envisioned. “We’re going to be using the architectural style from the Revinthius kingdom, since they used a lot of white stone and golden ornants it’ll be perfect with regular and Lumian bones. They had houses like this with a half-floor overhang. I thought it’d be perfect, you can put the less destructive machines under there, and all the furnaces and such in the open courtyard right in front. The lower floor can be a shop or a place to expose your works and the upper floor just your vacation house.”
“Not bad. Not bad,” Erredis said, looking at the miniature, “I need a hole there, about three ters deep and wide, cylindrical,” she added, pointing at the center of the planned courtyard.
“Hmm… So around there…” Sofia said, taking a few steps, “Alright… Done. Is that good?”
Erredis jumped into the hole, “Perfect.”
“You specialization is ridiculous,” Astelia comnted.
“Says you, Astelia ‘My first specialization could likely stop the sun for a bit if I had enough mana’ Glacier?”
“I don’t have the mana though!”
“But you’re not saying I’m wrong,” Sofia answered with a smirk. “I’m sure your next one is going to be just as ridiculous as mine.
“I hope so,” Astelia said, “So, we’re waiting for the architect now I imagine?”
“The architect? Not really no? I can build right away, it’s easy to modify after the fact anyway, as long as it’s all bone. Let’s get to it!”
Dumping tons of white bones out of the halls, Sofia started building without having to lift a finger. She arranged a frawork of bone beams and pillars to support the house, quickly filled the walls and ceilings in between, and placed a slanted roof on top, all in under five minutes.
Astelia looked at the ugly house, bewildered, “This is truly… Sothing.”
“Hey hey, I’m just getting started. Let punch a few holes for the windows and add so texture and you’ll see!”
A small crowd had started to gather around the building in construction while Sofia did the heavy work, and finished by giving it a bit of relief. She carved so surface groves in the bones to make it look like stone, and gave the roof a tiled pattern.
Just fifteen minutes into the construction, she took a step back to look at her creation.
“Looks about done… It’s still monochro and ugly, but it looks like a house, no?”
“I cannot argue with that…” Astelia comnted.
“It’s a good start for sure,” Erredis said, “the fact that a non-production class rose this out of the ground in so little ti is quite unusual, but you don’t have much experience in making houses and it shows.”
“What should I do differently?”
Erredis shrugged, “Couldn’t tell you, sweetie. My thing is tools of war and enchanted doodads, took forever to make my castle not look like an ugly block. So I can give castle advice, maybe. For a house, not so much. But there is definitely sothing wrong with it.”
“It being made entirely of bones, maybe?” Astelia tried.
“That’s probably part of it,” Erredis confird with a nod.
“We can get good timber from the spirit forest,” Sofia said, looking east, “but for more detailed work, I’ll have to co back with the architects I think. Not to ntion I need them for the piping too. I plan to have proper sewers.”
“That is not going to be easy, Sof…”
“Yeah, I know. I want my city to be a genuinely good place to live, though. I can’t have slly outhouses everywhere. I already sent Pareth to buy a first shipnt of garbage slis. I’ll make a public experience room with that too. No more humans under level twenty!”
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