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  Box four: The Green Spire

  While this was mostly Feylynn’s project, it would be in his lands and so all the attention it would draw would bring scrutiny on his lands and his people. For the most part this was good. He trusted Feylynn as he did few others in this world. She wouldn’t let it get out of hand if she could help it, but, and here he couldn’t help but chuckle, our children have proven it isn’t always under her control. He would offer the Brotherhood of the Well space for a small chapterhouse nearby. It would provide additional security in the event of surprises and also provide unemployment relief for young men who would have been doing the job that the machines will now be doing.

  Box five: Transportation System

  If his family were going to be spread all over his world, and if his Dutchy would become the production heart of the Kingdom, then he would have to improve the transportation and communication system. Comparing the NoVasian method of sending a message with the admittedly limited service options of the postal service in the Ohio Valley was shameful for his Kingdom. This might be something to discuss with Harder on his visit. What Harder won’t be too keen for is the expense of expanding the canal systems to include Hamarrheim and Lillen Tell. Still if they were going to move out of the backwater. Not being on the river had always limited the Dutch’s importance in the political and economic landscape of the Kingdom. It was always and only the prestige born of the martial prowess of the Duke’s personal household that had made them a force never to be ignored. He wanted more than that for Galan and his heirs.

  Box Six: Natural Sciences Academy

  Evan put quotes around the phrase as he wrote it in English. This was a concept purely foreign to his world as far as he knew. Still the gathering and employment of sages, for the express purpose of methodic study of the natural world. He had seen with his own eyes the improvements to daily life that such study would bring. It would take time to make his people aware of what this even was much less get them to trust it or understand its limits. Most would likely see it as another place for Tzadi to train, and while tzadi would likely benefit from study there, it is really for helping everyone to improve their skills and knowledge of this world we live in.

  Box Seven: Extreme long-term goals

  The Brotherhood of the Well have from ancient times defended the borders to the wilds, as they seem to steadily shrink each generation. They are not enough. There has to be an economic driver to get people to be willing to risk the very real possibility of ending their days as orc shat.

  Evan put the boxes on a shelf and returned to his desk. There he started a long letter to Echal. Sha would be able to deliver it for him soon. His son was soon to be a father, he really should hear from his father before that happens.

  Elven Elegance and Human Ingenuity

  Soph was excited. Feylynn loved her idea of a living wall hedge and even helped with some ideas that Sophia didn’t even know were possible. Feylynn had told her that it was similar to how they constructed Koloss. It was a little disappointing to have all the work she had done on the interior just swept away, but she had to admit, the new design was bordering on the magical. Canals that doubled as irrigation ditches, laid out as protective runes scarred into the very earth itself. Important buildings at each of the main compass points and tents used as seasonal gathering areas and classrooms. The barrier between the student and the subject being studied just a thin fabric. The spaces between buildings laid out in terraced food forests. The grandeur boggled the two young farm hands, and they were exuberant in their willingness to be a part of the project.

  They were talking about their grandsons seeing the final project and how they envied them that, but the pride they would have knowing their family was a part of it, when Feylynn interrupted them.

  “Not at all. While with just myself, Esta, and you two providing the power for this, it will indeed take a couple of years, I expect to be ready to take students before Rolf here can grow a real beard.” She winked at him and tugged at the fine fuzz just starting to appear at his chin.

  Rolf’s face went red all the way to his ears. He was not accustomed to a Dutchess speaking to him, much less so casually and with such familiarity. He looked down and couldn’t meet her eyes but the grin on his face showed the degree to which he was enjoying the extra attention.

  “Your Grace, how? We know the trees will take a generation to grow in.” Rolf said with a stuttering hesitation in his voice.

  Soph was so happy to hear Feylynn’s light laughter, it was good to see so much of the stress of the trip having seemed to fall away. “Magic my boy. You knew that we are making a school for magic, much like the White Spire, didn’t you?” Feylynn was having fun teasing the young man, but she understood his frame of reference. When he looked up at her with doubt as if he were afraid she was just teasing him, she laughed again. “You’re here to learn to be Saeti. While not powerful enough to become full Tzadi, you will be learning to do magic, my boys. Coaxing a tree to grow the way it already wants to grow, will be no feat too great for the likes of you in just a very few weeks.” She was grinning as she left them to contemplate what she had said.

  Soph could swear she was humming as she left.

  Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

  Shadrea was torn this morning. Domestic life in the Dutchy was chaffing on her, and she wanted to get back on the road. She was going to miss her mother in ways she never would have imagined. Leaving Galan and Esta would be hard as well. In this short time they had truly become little siblings, annoying habits and petty squabbling and all. She grinned realizing how much she was missing Echal for much the same reason.

  Ah but to have her and Pavel out from under everyone’s watchful judging eyes. Just to be herself again, not a daughter, or arch tzadi, or doorway to the duke, would be amazing. Since Sara was back from her school now and ready to join them, the recruits from the Dutchy had been integrated with those from Voivoed’s Rest and even a cavalry escort had been arranged, there was nothing to hold them here. Nothing except the old duke asking for just another day. He really was charming. She could see how he could win her mother over so thoroughly. She and Pavel had spent yesterday evening with him visiting places from his childhood there in the Dutchy. At one point he had turned to them.

  “You know that you don’t have to go? This is your home if you want it. You will always have a place here.” He looked as if wanted to beg them not to go but wasn’t willing to hold them back from their destinies just for his own desire to keep them.

  She had almost cried as she hugged him, “You’ve been a good father to us for the time we’ve been here and you and your kindness are with us where ever we make our home. Echal needs me. Your first grandchild needs me. If you ever need us, you have only to send for us.”

  So it was time to go, and after seeing everyone off, she pulled her mother aside for a lingering good by.

  “Seems I need to return sooner than planned.” Sha said with a smirk.

  “Hopefully, I haven’t told him yet. If all goes well some time late next spring, though with humans in the mix it is harder to be certain.” she just smiled. “You just take care and don’t worry about us. We’ll see you when the time is right.”

  The Adventure Begins Again

  Lessons Learned

  Something was wrong at the very heart of the world. Corruption of the White Spire, corruption of the elves, and entropy was on the march. Feylynn knew in her bones that the millstone of time was grinding away at the fabric of the world. One only had to look at the ruins of past ages to see that much understanding was lost. Harder had said that civilization had cycles. He said he had found out that there were multiple cycles over the history of the world, when he came for his visit. Evan had brooded for two days after his departure. Evan didn’t understand this in the same way Feylynn did. Evan was a warrior and a protector, and she loved that about him. It was his calling in life. He viewed his industrialization project as a way to protect his people. Feylynn saw it as a
way to grow. To grow faster than time could wear down.

  Man can’t protect himself from time. Time will always have its way in the end. The secret is a new life. To constantly be renewing so that time could never completely wear away the last of you. This was the only way to balance the mill stone of time. It was the corrosive force of corruption that tilted the balance toward time. Corruption ate away from within, while time ground from without. Corruption weakened civilization and caused wars. She wasn’t against war; she knew that the opposite of war was usually not peace but rather slavery or death. She just mourned its cost. War didn’t just cost in the hear and now. Every resource lost to the war was a resource that couldn’t be used to rebuild the ravages of time. Everyman killed loses not just him, but the generations he would have produced, and theirs. Life was more powerful than time, but corruption weakened it.

  Corruption weakened it just by its own nature, but also by the resources it used up to fight corruption. The vast tribes of goblin kin that roamed the vast wilds were the perfect example. Time had ground all civilization out of them. Fighting them would weaken the civilized lands too much in their current downward spiral. Not fighting them would allow the corruption to spread. There would be more wilderness outposts over run. More incursions of monsters into the civilized lands. If Harder was right and there were multiple cycles of destruction, recovery, and destruction, then each cycle must have weakened. As each cycle wound down, there would be fewer and fewer resources to begin building again. Elves of her grandparents' generation would have understood this instinctually, and those of her parents' generation would have learned it from birth. Somehow, an understanding of the fragility of civilized society was lost now. They had forgotten. Just like a spinning top loses momentum over time and must crash down, so to will societies and cultures. What happens when there is no hand to set it spinning again? Will elves, and men, dwarves, and even the fae themselves, all find themselves scratching in the muck among the goblin kin? With no one to show them the way back out and no resources to pull themselves out.

  Not on her watch. Fortunately, she was not alone. She had an elven Arch Tzadi she could count on, and the Master of the Red Spire, not to mention a millennia old tzadi litch king, and one day she would need to visit Eber again.

  She was making these plans for assembling her allies when Evan walked in to their bedroom. She could see him limping slightly, favoring an old wound from his youth before she had come into her full healing abilities. He looked worn to her eyes. She knew exactly how to bring the spring back to his step. She put aside the greater problems; they didn’t happen over the course of a year and they wouldn’t be fixed that soon either. She would be tied here for the next twenty years anyway, nurturing her family and building her resources. This fight was too important to lose.

  She joined Evan on the large bed that they shared, at least until he went to sleep. As she curled up next to him, she kissed him gently on the forehead. “I’ve waited to be certain before I got your hopes up.” She started. Gently taking his large calloused hand in hers, she lay it on her stomach. “M’love I’ve touched her mind. Our youngest daughter is very excited to meet you.”

  Evan blinked, and his brain sorted out what was said for a second, and he let out a joyous war whoop. “Oh, I’m so old to be doing toddlers again!” he laughed.

  She laughed and kissed him. “Suppose you should have thought of that before welcoming me home like you did.”

  He chuckled again. “Oh, I am so very excited to meet her too.” he had both hands on her stomach that was still not showing.

  She sighed, “Well I’m glad you’re pleased. You know what the one good thing about being in my condition is?” She took his hands in hers.

  He looked at her unsure of where she was going with this. “I’m certain you will tell me.”

  She smiled. “We don’t have to worry about me getting pregnant.” and she pulled his arms up and around her.

  The Story Continues:

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