266, 2/2

Erick started building and he only stopped building to check on his overseers and the House, to make sure things were running well.

Things ran well enough, considering there were a whole lot of people living in stone shacks. It would be temporary, but it was still rough. Some of the former slaves were absolutely joyful, though.

Lanzoil, the Overseer of Governance, rapidly adjusted to his new responsibilities over millions of people. He had done this before when he had been a grand administrator for Paradise Rises, which was sort of like an emperor, but more ‘voted for’ instead of ‘by right of power’. Maybe more like a ‘super president’.

Lanzoil focused on the people, and on mapping out the future. Erick had saved roughly 39 million people, and while Erick was providing bandaids for the problem of that many displaced people, Lanzoil was working on long term solutions and the groundwork to implement those long term solutions.

At the low estimate, maybe 18 million of those 39 million people would remain in Tir Geal, once the people were allowed to leave the Quarantine and venture out into their own worlds. And yet, the high estimate had all 39 million people remaining, and more coming in besides. Most of these people had nothing to return to back wherever they came from, because Slaver’s Den captured whole villages, and those who had been here for a while, as slaves, had nothing of their own to return to anyway, since their previous lives were way too far in the past to ever be called ‘home’. Still, some would leave, if only to find out if their worlds still survived, or for any of a thousand other reasons.

Querkooda, the Overseer of Enforcement, had his hands overfull, dealing with the same sort of issues that Lanzoil was dealing with but from a different angle. 39 million homeless people meant a whole lot of people sleeping wherever they could, eating whatever they could, and taking what they needed from others who had more than them. When the most anyone had was the bread and other things that Erick copied here and there, there wasn’t a whole lot to go around. There were a lot of small fights, and some very big ones. Erick did everything in his power to make sure that resources, like food and water and shelter, were in abundance, but simply setting out copiers and telling people to go at it had produced a problem similar to when he set out copiers at Da’luwe. Still though, Erick set out copiers and Querkooda set warriors on them to oversee the dissemination of resources.

Surprisingly, but not that surprising actually, Ta’Kamoil, the Overseer of Magic, had laid down a bunch of groundwork, just like the other two, in preparation to accept a grand number of new people into the House. Mostly through prognostication efforts. Thanks to him, Lanzoil and Querkooda had an easy time finding people who would be good fits for governance. Ta’Kamoil also found a whole bunch of people who were being dangerous with their new magics before they killed themselves, or others. People were experimenting with their valkyrie-given blueprints for magic, and doing a lot of Valkyrie Fire stuff.

That name was catching on; ‘Valkyrie Fire’.

Erick didn’t get to spend much time with the people playing with fire, both because those people didn’t need him to learn their own ways, and he was building. A lot. Previously he had used [Cityshape] to make temporary structures, but now he was making something more permanent. He did not use [Cityshape] this time, because this wasn’t Veird, where the Script supported [Cityshape]. This was Margleknot, where the very air was filled with competing powers and intents that nudged other magics out of alignment.

The valkyries seemed to be doing fine sustaining themselves, though, because of course they were. [Renew]-based magic was a part of their basic structure, part of their Siphon magic, ensuring that they didn’t break down at all. Erick would have ended that spell after the war, but as soon as he ended that spell, the Quarantine would drop, and who knew what would happen when that happened. And so, Erick kept the valkyries around, and left Querkooda in charge of them.

They were pretty good copier-guards.

They also helped to clear out people from where Erick was building, which was pretty far away from the main refugee camps. And so, to build properly this time, Erick went with a dense, yet nice, Parisian-sort of building plan, and then he repeated that plan a lot, over and over again. Paris only held about 2 million people, last Erick checked, but that was the entire city. Erick focused on making the center part, around the Arc de Triomphe, but big.

He started with 10-kilometer wide central parks, each with a Benevolence tower made of eternal stonewood at the center, and a whole bunch of magics making that tower a good source of mana for the surrounding lands. From there, Erick made roads that led in a variety of directions, each of those roads either leading off into the wasteland so that people could build more in those directions, or off to other central parks where other Benevolence towers held strong. Roads made of speedy directional magics held on those roads connecting towers to towers, making sure people could move around fast and safe, if they wanted.

In the areas between the central parks and the roads, Erick made apartment buildings that were like slightly shaped-to-fit blocks, each holding 5 stories of apartments on top of business spaces, each building with a variation of footprint, from 50 meters by 50 meters, to a whole lot larger. Each of those buildings had large open courtyards in the center, nice tile in every room, railings on balconies made with art in mind, brilliant white outer walls, big windows and nice living spaces, and pastel roofs of many different colors.

The cities of Tir Geal would be white and full of pastels, with white-and-black reserved for government buildings and other public spaces.

Every mansion was almost like a block, but they were a lot nicer than just ‘a block’. They were more like mansions wrapped in squarish shapes. Or L-shapes. Or U-shapes. They were nice, and they were made of normal stone that was simply magically reinforced, because Erick fully expected people to customize them at their leisure, and no one had shown the ability to manipulate eternal stonewood yet. Construction people could work magically-reinforced stone just fine, though, and since normal people couldn’t work stone that delineation was a good one, in Erick’s mind.

Erick made a few really nice designs of those buildings, from 25-family structures to 250-family structures, which were truly giant buildings. Those buildings then formed the basic building blocks for the entire rest of each city. Once he had an initial design, Erick wrapped his aura around whichever one he wanted to copy and [Duplicate]d it, gaining an entire new building, already magically strengthened with his own Benevolence aura.

From there, it was a game of Tetris to put everything together. Once the blocks were in place, people from Ta’Kamoil’s mage division came in behind Erick and started hooking up sewers and water mains, and then enacting magics to add trees and greenery to the cities.

It took Erick a full 9 days before he was done with housing and laying down basic sewer systems, main lines only. Erick moved on to business spaces next, but only farms and warehouses for farms, because he had put people into housing and that was enough, and he had needed to add a bunch more utilities to the area, anyway. After a trip by Lanzoil to hear of new developments, Erick heard that the engineers wanted electricity, and Erick had no idea how to do exactly what they wanted, so instead, Erick went to the engineers to have a talk.

In the new ‘Engineer’s School’ of House Benevolence, Erick stood before some self-appointed teachers and a few students, and also Tris from the actual House, and conjured some metal from the air. One bit of metal was only the size of an ingot. The other was three meters long and cylindrical. Both were bright copper colored.

Erick floated the rods in his aura, saying, “This small one is steel inside and copper outside. The larger one is the same. I don’t know how to give you the electricity that you want, so instead I will give you this.” Erick tapped both of the metals. The smaller one sparked some, conducting in the air where Erick allowed it to conduct. The larger one became the home of a lightning bolt that struggled valiantly —but futilely— to escape, white lightning lashing within Erick’s containment fields, making the whole thing look like a lightning-egg. “I have enchanted [Small Spark] onto the small ingot. The base spell lasts about 10 minutes, but it will last forever when properly contained and fed mana from the node network I’ve installed all over the place. The larger one is [Battery], which is a lightning bolt. That one also lasts 10 minutes. These particular items are also temporarily enchanted to be superconducting. That spell also lasts 10 minutes. The more you use them, the more power they draw from the node network, to keep those temporary magics running. And so…” Erick asked, “What can you do with this?”

The entire class was completely silent. Dumbfounded. Surprised beyond words, and also not surprised at all.

Tris said, “Of course. Why not? Sure. The magic I’ve been trying to make out of my new aura has already been made. Of course.”

And then someone started to giggle, either from nerves or from complete joy, and maybe it was a combination of both. Another person giggled. Someone laughed, completely happily. And then the questions started. No, Erick did not actually know the power output of any of these spells. Yes, you can learn this stuff if you want, at the arcanaeum. Yes, they’re rather easy to learn, but you’ll injure yourself a lot trying to learn this stuff. So why not learn this other spell, [Insulate], first?

Erick demonstrated [Insulate].

Oh sure, they understood everything Erick was doing and a whole lot more besides, but they couldn’t replicate his magic at all.

Erick ended up building them a testing center for the [Battery] rod, which was probably going to become a power station as soon as the Quarantine ended and they could go out and buy real supplies and remake their lives here, at Tir Geal. The general consensus with [Small Spark] was that it was nice for small-scale projects, but [Battery] was the big draw. Still, [Small Spark] was made to be learned by everyone, so [Small Spark] would see a lot of use, as soon as people learned how to make that magic and have it be a uniform output.

“When this is over, you can take a trip to Veird and learn that magic rather easily,” Erick said to Engineer Tris, as they stood outside of the power station and watched engineers all try to figure out what Erick’s magics actually did. “I imagine that there will be a lot of Skill and Magic tourism to Veird.”

Tris asked, “What about [Battery]?”

“You’ll have to reach level 50 and get Particle Mage for a Class,” Erick said, “I imagine that won’t be too difficult for many of you.”

Tris hummed in thought—

Lightning sparked and someone almost died, but Erick was there to prevent that, rapidly healing up the guy who had gotten too enthusiastically close to the [Battery] with his testing equipment. After adjusting the [Insulate] areas of the ‘power station’, Erick said to them all, “Don’t die. A lot of people are dying in a lot of preventable accidents out there right now, and I have yet to set up the full structure of House Benevolence, so hospitals and healing are kinda rare right now.”

Tris spoke up, “Lanzoil set up the Waiting Room already. We’re all tied with the Waiting Room under House Benevolence.”

Erick raised an eyebrow. And then he smiled. “Oh! Good! I thought that was coming down the line today or tomorrow.”

Tris said, “Everyone here is Waited, but we’ve been told that coming back to the House is impossible while we’re under quarantine.”

“What’s the Waiting time like? Did he tell you?”

Tris shrugged. “A year? That was the warning Lanzoil sent out; to discourage people from taking stupid risks. The problem is that a lot of people just don’t realize that the Waiting Room is horrible. They hear ‘Waiting Room’ and they think it’s just a boring room, and not a brutal soul-fucking—ah… Language, Sorry.”

The guy who had almost died had the decency to look ashamed.

Erick decided, “I’m ending the Quarantine in three days, and I’ve got too much shit to do. Good luck with the lightning.”

Erick left in a flicker of Benevolence.

He reappeared by Lanzoil, in a meeting with a bunch of newly-appointed governors. He was laying down the laws of the land in a casual tone, but he stopped when Erick appeared. Several of the 27 people in the meeting instantly got out of their chairs and bowed. A few people kowtowed.

Erick said to them all, “Don’t mind me. Just telling you all that I’m dropping the valkyrie spell in 3 days, thus ending the Quarantine.”

Lanzoil said, “That’s a fine time. Thanks for letting us know.”

Erick nodded, and then went to Querkooda. The man was with some of the big red valkyries, and with some non-valk-valkyries. Around .1% of people who got turned into a valkyrie got turned into a mindful valkyrie, able to control the power grafted onto them. Of those people, maybe 1 in 20 wanted to remain valkyries afterward. All of those people found order and power as valkyries under Querkooda’s wings, and they wanted to keep that power. Erick wasn’t allowing valkyries to just walk around fully powered all the time, but people who were valks were allowed to be valks at the moment, and Erick had promised that if he were to ever use the spell again that the people in the valkyrie squadron would be the ones he called on to be the captains of those armies.

As such, Querkooda was training a whole bunch of people in the arts of war, most of whom had only ever seen war from the perspective of an unstoppable killing machine. To say that these people had an incorrect idea of war and force was perhaps a Grand Understatement.

Almost all of them were trying to close that gap, though.

When Erick had appeared, Querkooda and some maybe-captains were speaking of war and plans to defend the land when the Quarantine fell.

Querkooda stopped talking as Erick appeared, to ask him, “Ah! Speak and he shall appear.”

The valkyries all turned toward Erick, like reverent priests meeting their god. It was, perhaps, an uncomfortable situation, but it was what it was. He said to them first, “Hello. You can relax around me.”

The valkyries all went, “No can do, sir!”

Erick moved along, “So what was being said? Something about ending the Quarantine?”

“They were asking when the valkyrie spell would end.”

Erick smiled, saying, “I came here to tell you that, actually. 3 days. I’m getting the word out now. Next to tell is Ta’Kamoil.”

Querkooda told his valkyries, “Then there you have it. 3 days.”

The valkyries bowed, and spoke as one, “Sir!”

The two actual-valkyries looked sad about that, but the two elves looked secure.

Erick departed.

Erick reappeared next to Ta’Kamoil, who was sitting in a lotus position on a nice purple pillow, in a quiet room. His eyes were closed, lightning flickering on his eyelids, as his hand and pointed finger hovered over a rapidly rolling list of names on a screen. He was doing some prognostication magic to figure out a person for a job, and probably some sort of sewermaster, based on the various diagrams around the room.

Erick wrote the man a note and set it on the ground next to him.

The next visit was to Shadow.

She was working with Holy Mother Caa and Witch Aragathara in a dark room filled with lights and diagrams that reminded Erick a lot of Lionshard’s universal-scry room, or the Benevolent Sky with its grand strings of white with black tangles. Lights and powers and diagrams floated here and there, but instead of on the scale of the universe, it was simply the scale of Margleknot.

Erick asked, “Deciding where to best put forth effort to ensure that Tir Geal’s return to Margleknot-space goes well?”

Caa turned slightly faster than Aragathara. Both of them had turned well before Erick finished his first word, and both of them had bowed fast.

Shadow continued to work on some lightning-stuck problem with what appeared to be… assassin lands? Also the Mortal Lands. Erick almost wanted to know what that was all about, but he saw enough, and Shadow spoke without turning, “We have three days to return, do we not? We will be prepared, Erick. Don’t worry about this stuff, unless you desire to worry about it. I’m taking care of it.”

Erick felt touched. He smiled softly. “Glad to hear it. I won’t worry.”

Shadow added, “When the bankers come to us demanding we pay off Slaver’s Den’s debts because we took their land, and paying debts on captured land is what they do around here in order to keep things civil and orderly…” She looked at Erick. “I’m going to politely tell them to fuck off, and then when they politely tell me that I am courting death, I am going to tell them that we’re going to out-banker them with your 9-1 reson conversion rate if they keep pressing the issue. Do I have your agreement in this stance?”

Erick chuckled. “That sounds like a fine plan. I don’t want to become a banker, though.”

Shadow nodded. “Think about it. Genuinely, too. You could make lots of money here. Or, you could at least make lots of influence through money here, which is much more important.”

Erick thought for a second. “I’ll… figure something out with regards to money. Lanzoil was talking about all of that stuff.”

“Aye. He was talking to me about all of that as well. If you don’t want to do any of that banking nonsense, then I’ll be taking that opportunity.”

Erick nodded, humming in thought, his mind going elsewhere… “Sure, Shadow. A separate bank, if you want. Keep it separate from the House.”

Shadow nodded. “Of course.”

And then he got back to work.

The red rust sky of Lord Dakka was gone, and had been gone for five days now, but the golden ‘QUARANTINE’ hexagons of Yggdrasil’s power still remained up there, completely blocking out everything beyond Tir Geal. If you didn’t look directly up, the land looked as though in a state of permanent sunset. Aside from the big, ominous letters, it was pretty.

Two days later, the housing was done.

People were in homes. Except for the architecture which was well done, everything else was quite plain right now, with almost everyone owning the same sort of bed and other furniture because Erick copied the same one over and over and over again. Everyone had the same sorts of foods in their kitchens, for much the same reason as the furniture. Every local grocery stocked the same stuff, and all of the houses had the same sort of cold box, kept enchanted and working due to Erick’s node networks.

Most people out there were elves, but there were a lot of other species, too, and so Erick had needed to do some special accommodations for centaurs and such.

The cities looked beautiful from the air, all white and rainbow, with each city with its own Benevolence tower in the center, and all of the different apartments and otherwise looking rather unique-yet-similar. The people were out and about, and communities were reforming, and life was moving on.

Mostly.

Money was an issue for some bizarre reason.

Like. Erick understood that it would be an issue later, when the Quarantine was gone and people could actually spend resons to make food from thin air, or, more realistically, to buy stuff from other places in Margleknot. But it was an issue now, because everyone wanted more money.

There was an economy even in a Quarantine, of course.

And so Erick installed some [Reson Gatherer]s in each of his 185 Benevolence towers for each of his 185 starter cities.

Those 200-story-tall dungeons, each a kilometer wide, were more coliseum-shaped than tower-shaped, and were absolutely filled with happy Benevolence slimes and trees and grasses and water plants and mushrooms and so, so much more, who were pumping out a lot of mana. [Terraforming]s spilled water out into rivers and into the sewers and all of that. Some of that mana was getting used by their respective cities in order to power those cities, but most of it was going unused. Erick funneled that excess into [Reson Gatherer]s at the top of each tower, to form the basis for those individual city budgets.

There was, at a rough estimate, maybe 1 slime per 10 square meters, and since a single slime made 1 mana every 3 days, Erick did some rough calculations at mana production and reson production, and came out with around 5.2 million mana made per day per tower, which meant about 570,000 resons per day, if all of that was converted to resons, which was not happening. The draw was actually pretty minimal right now, at only maybe 20,000 mana draw per day, but that would go up eventually, and fast.

But for now, with 185 cities, that meant over 100 million resons per day, for the entirety of Tir Geal. More, if Erick actually fixed up the towers for maximum production.

It was a lot.

It was way more than was necessary, too, because Erick still had his Benevolence Sun.

“If we can, I want to give more of that Sun mana to Yggdrasil, for universal problems,” Erick finished saying.

Shadow looked at the numbers with raised eyebrows. Then she looked to Lanzoil. “We could pay those banker debts. Or at least the ones we care to pay.”

Lanzoil hummed, looking down at the numbers.

Erick said, “These numbers are at max rate, though. Expect a tenth of this with the node network taking most of that mana to [Renew] appliance magics and such, once people learn those magics.” Erick added, “Though that sort of thinking is going off how it is at Veird. I don’t know if Margleknot would have the same numbers, or needs.”

Lanzoil said, “The Engineers think they can power all of Tir Geal with those [Battery] spells. Soon as the Quarantine ends, I want to go the electricity-route for basic household stuff. With these dungeons, with both options, that means we’ll be one of the richest lands in Margleknot. With this, I can hand out budgets to city leaders and ensure a good transition to great future wealth and prosperity.”

“… Huh,” Erick said, “Let’s do that, then.”

The mayors of those 185 individual cities were absolutely thrilled to be handed budgets of 100,000 resons per day. It was not as much as they could have been given, but Lanzoil said it was way more than enough.

Tir Geal was still poor, though. For now.

Despite all that Erick had done, this was such a bare-bones approach to life that many of the former slaves of Slaver’s Den were complaining about what they had lost, when Erick annihilated all the previous cities of the land. People talked like they could have stolen stuff from those mansions and otherwise and had a good start on a new life.

The thousandth time that Erick heard that sentiment, he put out a formal statement through Lanzoil, stating, ‘Some of you are unhappy that House Benevolence did not pillage the Den for their treasures. I say now, in no uncertain terms, that House Benevolence does not condone slavery, and is very much against slavery, and all the products of slavery. What was made by your hands can be made again, and this time you can benefit from all that labor yourself. So prepare for a new life and new financial freedom, because whatever you might have made for the slavers, this time you get to make for yourself, in houses that you own, and through walking wherever you want without anyone watching over your actions all the time. Slaver’s Den is gone, and it is never coming back.’

Most people were ecstatic that Erick had annihilated Slaver’s Den, so his message seemed well received, but only time would tell if that sentiment won out. It seemed like it would. Lanzoil was pushing that message well, even though there was pushback from some communities that were organizing themselves and calling themselves the ‘Valued Workers Collective’.

According to Shadow the Valued Workers Collective had a few former ‘good slave masters’ at its helm, but its intentions seemed ‘okay’, so Erick decided to leave them alone for now.

The night before Erick ended the valkyrie spell, and thus the Quarantine, Erick supplied millions of people with booze, made possible through ten thousand workers of House Benevolence who copied that booze within the copiers, for their local communities. It was a party. Everyone was invited.

There was absolutely nothing approaching true organization, but people had as good of a night as Erick could make for them.

Erick had 39 million people to look after, now.

Dawn rose on day 4 after Erick had told people that only 3 days were left on the Quarantine.

The last valkyrie turned out to be Shivraa, who turned out to be a very competent commander, and who would likely turn out to be Querkooda’s Third, behind Ruby. Shivraa walked through a reincarnator at dawn, and came out a young void flier elf, with gold-blue wings and pale violet skin. Her fellow valkyries lined up behind her, on the valkyrie training fields of the Valkyrie Command Center. There were 40,000 of them, and Erick would likely be taking 20,000 of them to Veird when he left Margleknot.

But right now, the time of the valkyries was over.

Their time would come again.

Erick gave a small speech about his further goals for Veird, and then dismissed the valkyries into Querkooda’s care.

And then Erick went to the map room. The last red weaver map held in front of Erick. There had been a roof, but Erick had removed the roof to expose the sky overhead. He was alone with the map, and the sky above was hexagonal gold.

With a twist of his hand, Erick crushed the phantom image in his hand, and simultaneously crushed the red [Spellsurge Weave]. The valkyrie magic ended, officially. The war was over. It took a minute, but the expected result happened soon enough.

The golden Quarantine sky began to fade. The letters went away first, and then the gold turned to mist, and what looked like roots pulled away, fading into Elsewhere, revealing…

The Margleknot Sky.

The spear of glitter crystal that was the Fae Enclave, like an icicle crossing the heavens. The cylinder of the Quantum Nexus Hub, piercing the center of the Fae Enclave. The Escher-esque layers of lands out there, all piled up on each other and facing the center, where several other lands floated like planets in the distance, orbiting unseen forces—

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

And over there, on the horizon known as upspireward, lay Yggdrasil. Erick’s son was as big as a world, with his flaming green canopy crowned in rainbows, and his trunk looking like it was made of white lightning. Erick felt his heart lift to see—

Yggdrasil, in his orcol guise, stepped to Erick’s side, smiling. “Welcome back to normal space.”

Erick smiled back, and then grabbed his son in a hug. “Glad to be back.”

Yggdrasil hugged Erick, and then let go, and turned a little serious, saying, “You’ve got another month, and then the time dilation has to go away. I’ve been too long helping you settle as is, and the complaints have gotten vicious after you killed Slaver’s Den. Now people are worried.”

Erick nodded. “Heard and understood. Thanks for the heads up. I’ll get my House in order as much as I can. I do want to ask you about putting up some Grand Unified Churches here, like the ones we have on Veird, though. Will that break Veird’s Quarantine? Will that call those gods here?”

Yggdrasil said, “They’re too far away for that to work and they’re under strict Quarantine, and that Quarantine I know works well, because that Quarantine is like a sieve. Small things like you can get out, but big things like gods and other larger-than-reality things can not.”

“… And that works?”

“Total security does not exist, so that Quarantine works well enough,” Yggdrasil said. “Nothanganathor is manually overseeing that particular Quarantine, too, so I doubt he would let Veird’s gods out anyway.”

“… Ah,” Erick said, “Right.”

… Erick could actually poke a hole in that Quarantine with [Infinite Imaging], though, if he really wanted to. Maybe the gods themselves could not get out, but Erick could certainly get their attention and maybe they could send avatars?

Shadow stepped into the meeting, saying, “Then we’re making those churches. When that Quarantine ends I will have those gods here where they can speak for themselves about what they saw in the Sundering and other events.”

Yggdrasil nodded. “As bountiful a path as any.” He said to Erick, “Father. Don’t break the Quarantine with an [Infinite Imaging].”

Erick scoffed. “Tell me exactly why I shouldn’t.”

“Because until Nothanganathor reveals himself in Court as something that must be eliminated, he still has a higher stance in this land than you.”

Erick was flabbergasted. “Really?”

“Yes, really, and I hate it.” Yggdrasil said, “He stole a piece of me, father. He was a friend, and he betrayed my trust. I’m furious at him and I’m already weighing in against him. You don’t need to add more fuel to the fire right now.” Yggdrasil took a moment. “Please. Just… build your lands. Make a space for the people you rescued. And prepare for Court.”

“… Fair enough.” Erick could see he had upset Yggdrasil, and that Yggdrasil was being pulled in a bunch of different directions right now, so Erick said, “I won’t poke holes.”

Yggdrasil stared for a moment, judging to see what Erick might be thinking, and then he nodded and stepped away.

Shadow said to Erick, “I’ll get started on those churches.”

Erick almost sighed, but then he put on a grin. “Sure.”

Shadow stepped away.

Erick spoke to the empty room, and a little bit to the sky, “So is that Good/Evil sun Balanced yet?”

The sky did not shift at his question.

The land was still in transition, it seemed, so Erick could not change the image of the sky overhead. Tir Geal was not fully House Benevolence’s and it wouldn’t be theirs for a year, due to rules and regulations. And probably Erick needed to establish his Authority somewhere. That’s what the manaminers were for, though.

Now that the Quarantine was over, they could actually get some of those manaminers. Erick went back to the main House and started getting things rolling on a whole bunch of projects, from talks with Powerminer Incorporated to the electrical grid, to more housing concerns. Mostly, he assigned people to tasks, though.

There was absolutely no way to be personally involved with a country of 39 million people, and so delegation was the order of the day.

– – – –

Four hectic days passed, with Erick running around like a never-ending bolt of lightning, passing from this side of the kingdom to that side of the kingdom.

The day found Erick hovering in the sky over city #104, fixing up the dungeon tower’s node network connections because someone had busted them and he was the only one who could fix them right now. And then the world shifted. He felt the shift before it actually happened. It was as though the foundations of the world had been shifting and something finally fell into place, and everything seemed more solid.