Chapter: 483 – Tour and Plans

Tala opened a small portal into Kit—Irondale specifically—anchoring it to the side of their vehicle. It was barely bigger around than her thumb, but that was sufficient for her purposes.

With that in place, she looked to Master Limmestare. “Are you ready?”

“Unequivocally.”

She huffed a laugh and willed for the two of them to enter Irondale, coming into existence beside Lyn, Lupe, and Lisa.

Lisa seemed to have seen them coming, or at least he didn’t act surprised by their arrival.

Lyn was more than used to Tala popping into being beside her by this point, and simply smiled at her friend. Master Limmestare’s arrival might have surprised her, but if so, she didn’t show it too overtly.

Lupe stiffened slightly, causing her to whiten momentarily, even as her dress swayed around her.

The glass-woman gave a quick bow. “Mistress Tala. I did not expect you to be joining us. Master Limmestare, it is a pleasure.”

Tala gave a nod of acknowledgement. “It wasn’t the plan, but I was able to arrange things a bit differently to make it work.”

Master Limmestare bowed toward Lupe. “I am learning so much just being in your presence and observing your magics. Would you permit my joining of this tour for that purpose?”

Lupe smiled slightly. “I have no issue with that.”

Lisa nodded toward Tala in greeting. “It is good to see you again, Mistress.” He then nodded toward Master Limmestare. “You as well, Master Limmestare.”

“And you, good Lisa.” Master Limmestare gave an equivalent bob of his head.

Tala smiled and nodded in return.

Lyn seemed to feel no need to verbally greet Tala, but she did give a proper bow to Master Limmestare.

The three had been near the entrance to the garden which held the entrance to Lupe’s new home, and Tala took a moment to look around with her mundane sight even as Master Limmestare’s magical senses began to blanket the area, observing and cataloging everything occurring around Lupe.

They were—at that moment—only two blocks from the core of Irondale, the park being a mandated greenspace roughly the size of two blocks.

Eight such parks ringed the town center, each oriented longways, perpendicular to the radial roads running outward.

Irondale as a whole had an odd design due to Tala’s usual placement of the gate into and out of the city. The massive physical gates that would open when Irondale was anchored in place and allow for trade and egress were positioned on the side of the main square, and Tala did prefer to create the portal at that location. Thus, the roads to that central square were all designed as major thoroughfares.

Unlike any city Tala had ever seen, any and all comings and goings happened from that central point, rather than from the outer edges. Because of that, the defenses that had been incorporated—such as they were—were all centered there. The best way to conceive of the differences was that the city was effectively inverted from standard.

The streets that made up the circular gridwork of the city—looking much like a wheel from above, if with more circles regularly spaced outward along the spokes—were paved with unified, slightly textured stone courtesy of Tala’s control within Kit.

The homes and other buildings of Irondale were constructed in more traditional manners, even if Tala usually was involved in the creation of their foundation or basement, rendering that portion of the process trivial. Lyn had been working to help Tala strike a careful balance between helping the Irondale citizenry and allowing them to do for themselves, and the streets and buildings were a part of that balancing act.

The city center was constructed and designed to cater towards those who came in from whatever city that Irondale was currently anchored in, so that they could tour Irondale.

These ‘tourists’ were actually a huge source of revenue for the city, even though Irondale had only regularly been anchored in three cities so far. The fact that it wasn’t always there seemed to make the locals of Alefast, Waning; Bandfast; or Marliweather more eager to spend time and money within Irondale when they could.

Though, Alefast was decidedly the least prolific market for Irondale, partially because of the smaller population of that city, and partially because Irondale was there most often.

As a precaution and preventative measure, Tala had also begun to amplify the reality node attractions within the central square whenever she could, in the hopes of mitigating the damage done by the visiting gated.

Thankfully, even in the worst case, there were relatively few gated, and they spent relatively little time within Irondale. That—coupled with the soulbound nature of the space allowing it to naturally repair over time—meant that the level of damage that did occur was quite sustainable.

Doing so took away from her similar work on her artificial lung, but as that had been on the back burner for a while now, delaying a bit longer shouldn’t really be an issue. Irondale’s integrity took precedence for the moment, and had done so for a year or so by this point.

She’d also stopped trying to increase her body’s attraction to itself using the markers that Mistress Holly had helped her add, because even when it did work, the results were only marginally useful. If it had been simple, she would have done it, but she’d spent six months at one point just doing part of one foot.

That simply hadn’t been a profitable use of her time when she had so much else going on.

But she was examining Irondale at the moment.

Because Tala had complete control within the space and was able to devour things to bring them in, she and Kit had been able to bring in old-growth trees as well as other well-established vegetation, positioning them along boulevards, giving Irondale a feeling of established majesty.

They had been careful to not take too much from any one location. So, unless someone had made a habit of cataloging the exact location of trees in the wilds, she doubted that any would ever be missed.

It was actually a funny thought, imagining some Archon—or arcane—pulling their hair out trying to figure out where particular trees had gone, since Kit left no evidence that they’d ever been there.

Her imaginings aside, the process was far from easy. Placing and moving trees was an exercise in precision and splitting her focus, beyond almost any other task she’d worked on, save the iron-wrought copy of herself that she was still working to perfect.

Now, that was an exercise in minutiaee.

Even so, she and Kit were able to work together on the task of relocating plants or trees—whenever it was needed—and that made it possible.

But Tala was getting distracted.

Rust, she was getting distracted within her distracted musings. She was here to join the tour of Irondale.

Lupe, Lisa, and Lyn were about to tour Irondale in person, and she was excited to come with them. Master Limmestare was as well, even if his reasons had more to do with the glass woman than the growing town.

Lyn gestured out onto the quiet—but not empty—street. “Shall we begin?”

As the group began to walk, Lyn gestured to the trees that Tala was so proud of. “We have all the main thoroughfares lined and divided by trees so that traffic—both vehicle and pedestrian—can move in a uniform manner. It isn’t as necessary at times such as this, when Irondale is in transit, but when we are anchored, it makes the flurry of activity much less chaotic.”

Lupe was nodding. “When you are anchored within a human city?”

“Exactly, yes.”

Her eyes flicked to Tala. “And I will not be able to leave to explore these cities.”

Tala shrugged. “For now, no, but in the future, we might be able to work something out. The future holds a lot of time, and I won’t rule out the possibility.”

Master Limmestare grimaced slightly. “It would require a lot of advances in magic that I wouldn’t even know how to list out for research. Your kind are notoriously hard to contain or constrain in any way—and that’s the weaker, less advanced versions.”

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The woman nodded in understanding. “Whether or not it ever happens, I am grateful for this opportunity, for this wider view of Existence that you have already afforded me. It is more than I honestly ever expected to have again.”

Tala smiled. “Of course.”

They all oriented back on Lyn and the tour continued.

Irondalians waved or called a greeting when they passed, despite the odd nature of the tour group, and Lisa, Lyn, Master Limmestare, and Tala responded in kind.

After a few iterations, Lupe joined in with little waves or small, verbal greetings as appropriate.

After the tenth such encounter, Lupe glanced toward Lisa. “The humans don’t seem to find me strange, nor you for that matter. Are they that accepting here?”

Lisa gave a small, vulpine smile. “They are rather more accepting than I had been expecting before my immigration, yes, but I think some of that is the nature of this place.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. They are aware that this is an intensely magical town, and they encounter the truth of that every day. In that light, a few non-humans are a simple curiosity to most.”

“So, you’ve been accepted with relative ease?”

“Generally. Though, cordiality and lack of hostility are quite a ways from true friendship.”

Lyn smiled between the two, interjecting as she addressed Lisa directly, “Though, you have made good strides in that regard nonetheless, right?”

“Absolutely, Mistress Lyn.”

Lupe gave a slow nod, her neck whitening in the motion. “I see.”

From there, the group walked through the various sections of the growing town, Lyn talking about what various things were for, why they’d designed or laid them out in that way, how they were developing, and what they hoped for in the future.

The four ended the tour near the edge of the city where Lisa had placed the entrance to his home.

Lupe was intensely interested in the twisted door frame, taking special note of the depictions of Lisa himself in both fox-man and human form.

“You have a human form?” The glass woman seemed intensely interested in the answer.

“I do. It is one that I have perfected over long years. Partially because of that long effort—as well as my many years existing in such a form to most of the outside world—I wished for any who knew me by that shape to know I reside within this space as well.”

Tala raised an eyebrow in skepticism but decided not to comment. Lisa’s human form was so generic that even with her perfect memory she would find it hard to properly describe him. ‘A man’ was really the lion’s share of what could be said about him when he looked human.