Edgewood didn't know what he expected when he envisioned Basalith. Perhaps he envisioned some kind of Lord-of-the-Rings-esque city nested inside of an enormous tree. In reality, he thought that Basalith looked like a modern city with all of its skyscrapers and beautiful wood architecture.
The entire process of being let into the city as one of its residents was simple and quick. Before Edgewood even knew what was happening, the Church and company had brought him into the main processing hall, apparently called The Anima, and essentially forced him to become a resident.
He protested at first, but his heart wasn't really in it. Sure, he'd been kidnapped and brought against his will to this bizarre post-metal city, but that didn't mean he wasn't curious about the city itself. Or the powers granted to its new additions...
He was especially eager to find out what made the Church and Knight so strong. More than strength, they also had balance and finesse to leap atop planes and accurately throw tanks. He had no idea how any of that was possible, and figured going with the flow and entering Basalith was a good way to get in on the enhancements.
Moreover, and perhaps most importantly, the Church looked at him like he was an enigma. Edgewood wanted to find out why that was. She'd mentioned something about him having resistance...but to what? Her charisma?
Edgewood was currently fiddling with his new living quarters: a single bedroom apartment on the 23rd floor of one of the many new dragonleaf highrises. Left on the wall when he first entered was the following note:
"Customizable floor plans, moldings, and color schemes coming soon. Furniture, clothing, and necessities will be available starting tomorrow at the Central Market. Signs will be placed outside to indicate the Market's location."
Edgewood figured that "tomorrow" was actually today considering that it was the crack of dawn.
He was rather pleased with the apartment, having come in with no expectations. It had three windows, or rather, holes that he could cover with large, drape-like leaves. The floors were seamless hardwood, he assumed freshly grown, and the walls had a sturdy, leafy texture. He found that objects placed on the walls could be pressed into place and would stick. He noted a series of naturally luminescent leaves that covered the ceiling and augmented the natural light now starting to shine through. Even so, Edgewood reckoned that true lights would be a welcome addition. Appliances, too, were missing, and he figured that he might be able to find some, at the very least a microwave, at the Central Market.
Edgewood inspected the bedroom, finding it to have a dresser and bed, both built into the floor. The bed appeared to be lined with dragonleaf. Edgewood shuddered and decided that buying actual bed linens was a priority.
He wondered if he would be able to buy a computer here; after all, his belongings were still back at the base. All he had were the pajamas he came in.
Sighing, he decided that all he could do now was explore.
---
"So you saw everything?" Lisa asked, a wide smile filling her face.
Bath grinned back. "The base isn't very far, and my eyesight is good for miles." He'd actually needed to create an enormous eye, a foot or so in diameter, to obtain the sufficient resolution to see what happened.
"So what did you think?"
"You know I love art," he smirked. "The plan was wonderful. Thanks, Lisa. It was much better than me going in and rampaging."
Dean stood awkwardly off to the side while Bath talked to the Church. He still didn't know where Bath factored into COTD, but clearly he was a big shot if the Church herself was asking for his opinion.
"Bath, what's your position in COTD?" Dean asked softly.
Bath's head swiveled around. His face looked stoic, then suddenly became animated with a beguiling grin. "Would you believe me if I said that I'm the dragon?"
---
Lepochim was frantically trying to get this Central Marketplace idea in order. He had most of the kursi on resident processing in The Anima since peacekeepers weren't in high demand during sleeping hours. They still had around two thousand more to admit; moreover, Lepochim bet that more people would continue to show up as time went on. He'd have to talk with Bath about enforcing a permanent perimeter around Basalith that they could open one per day to let people in. If they didn't, Lepochim had no idea how they'd ever start using The Anima as the grand temple.
"You need to envision the chair in wood," Lepochim growled at one of the twenty kursi he put on furniture duty. Bath had instructed him to use kursi to communicate with the dragonleaf and produce furniture, but Lepochim was certain that Bath hadn't actually tested whether or not making dragonleaf furniture was feasible. Most kursi kept producing the right shapes, but created extremely flimsy, leafy furniture rather than anything suited for human use.
A few other kursi Lepochim had on the just-formed Silk Beds. Bath had taken a room in the Anima and repurposed it to house all kinds of modified insects from spiders to silk worms. The kursi there just had to touch the shells of the insects present and encourage them to produce silk. Having been modified by Bath, the insects all produced silk at breakneck speeds. The silkworms had been modified to simply spin empty cocoons to avoid the process of boiling worms for their silky cocoons.
What he was perhaps most in awe of were the giant networks of ants that processed the silk into usable forms. Bath had made three separate areas for ants. One of which was labeled as "cloth," another which was labeled as "clothing," and the last which was labeled as "Recycle." The kursi were currently using the first two. All they needed to do was have a few mind slaves feed the newly-generated silken spool into the cloth area. There, the ants worked in tandem to weave the spool into giant squares of cloth, which could be cut with scissors. Silk spool or finished cloth could both be fed to the clothing box where it would be woven into basic clothing, such as unisex t-shirts and sweatpants. The clothes were produced in random sizes from baby to XXL, though production was skewed so that the majority of produced clothing were in sizes adult small through adult large. Lepochim sorely hoped that Basalith would have a contingent of clothesmakers to take over. The clothes weren't unsightly, but they were all gray and evoked the image of a prison.
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Finally, after several hours of Lepochim's nonstop glowering, the thousands of pieces of furniture were done. As the kursi went along, production had continued to speed up, in particular as the furniture-makers better understood how to work with dragonleaf.
"It's all done?" Bath asked, his disembodied voice sounding off to Lepochim's left. Lepochim turned around, trying to see Bath's form.
"Yes, it's done," Lepochim said impatiently. "What now?"
"Hold on." Bath then stood before Lepochim. He created an illusion of the air having a black, void-like circle that he had stepped through to arrive, almost like it was a portal. As soon as his feet touched the ground, Bath rose his left arm and the portal closed behind him in a wink. Lepochim had to appreciate Bath's growing capacity for showmanship.
"What are you planning?"
"Just hold on," Bath repeated as he stretched out his arms behind his back. Then, he drew his arms forward and all the furniture and cloth moved and shifted in place. Bath simply walked toward the area designated as the Central Market and all the furniture and cloth followed behind him, bobbing gently on his streams of essence. He organized and deposited all the items, then turned and faced Lepochim and all the kursi who had followed behind him.
What he said next was simple, but caused each kursi's heart to jump. "Your hard work will be rewarded." As he spoke, none present dared question his power. His voice rumbled like thunder, his face was serene and still as untouched water. He radiated power as he regarded them; in turn, they all felt a natural sense of compulsion from their subconscious to bow their heads in exultation.
But, being incredibly prideful, the kursi were merely silent and statue-like in the face of Bath's words. They didn't say anything when Bath waved his hand, causing another black portal to appear that he promptly stepped through to exit the area.
Lepochim breathed easier after Bath left. He checked the time, finding that they still had about half an hour until 7 am and new residents started to rush in. He wondered idly what else Bath had planned for this day. He'd mentioned something about modified cattle and assigning people to different professions and positions, but hadn't given any of them, even Lisa, details.
---
Edgewood noticed immediately when a few arrows popped up on the grassy, stone-paved ground with the words, "Market Place" at their centers. Since then, about five minutes back, he'd been following them through Basalith and slowly finding other early risers who had woken up. There were a few hundred walking that Edgewood could see.
Suddenly, as they were walking, another arrow appeared pointing behind them with the words, "Dining Hall." A few people in their contingent broke off and headed in that direction instead, though most continued forward.
Finally, the group arrived at a large, open space filled with all kinds of furniture. He noted that all the furniture appeared to be made out of fresh dragonleaf wood, recognizing its distinct, dark-ashy hue from afar. As he pushed his way through the gathering crowd, he saw that there was also a corner filled with stacks of uniform, neatly folded clothes organized by size. Additionally, next to that were linens and towels.
"Thank God," Edgewood thought to himself as he eyed what were clearly silken bed sheets. But as he looked over all the furniture, he wondered how anybody was supposed to carry it away.
As of yet, nobody had been allowed beyond a squat gate leading into the marketplace, so he had no idea if the plan was for people to collaborate and help each other or if this was going to be a mad, black-Friday-esque first-come-first-serve struggle.
'Well, at least I'm one of the first here,' he thought pragmatically to himself. 'I'll make sure I get one of those bed sheets.'
Minutes passed, and there was still no sign that the now swelling crowd would be let into the marketplace. Many people were grumbling that they should've gone to get breakfast first. Edgewood overheard people saying that breakfast was good, with eggs, bacon, and some kind of leafy, bread-like substance that tasted a bit worse than bagels.
Edgewood frowned. He hoped that the Dining Hall would have better vegetarian options than a weird, leafy, sub-par bagel.
---
Lepochim looked on at the growing crowd with increasing levels of distress.
'What are you waiting for!?' he thought angrily to himself. Bath had whispered in his ear with a disembodied mouth that he would be taking care of things regarding the marketplace in a "little while." He instructed Lepochim to stay in place and keep guard while he sent off the rest of the kursi to speed up resident processing and serve as peacekeepers. As a result, Lepochim alone had to watch the crowd before him continue to increase in size, now to several thousand.
'You better have some kind of plan in mind for dealing with all these people,' the grumbled to himself.
---
Bath looked up at the sun, realizing that he'd lost track of time while working on modifying tomatoes and spinach for the soon-to-be-revealed collective garden.
"Coming..." he murmured, disappearing and reappearing without any theatrics in the air above the Central Marketplace. He frowned as he looked down, realizing that letting the people loose to enter the Marketplace would result in a complete shitshow.
He wished he had Lisa with him to help think of a plan to organize the people, but she was currently back at The Anima welcoming new arrivals.
'Well, I suppose we can get this started now,' he thought, pushing up a plan he'd been saving for tomorrow. He looked down at the people before him, his tiny little subjects. He realized he rather liked being in control of so many people; it was a much different experience from staking out and defending a territory, or leading a pack.
He didn't bother to change his face as he began to address them. If any of the residents below started to take recordings or pictures, he felt fully confident in his ability to stop them. Since nobody would be leaving this city until Bath deemed them adequately prepared, he expected that even if he were to go to Alens or visit his parents, nobody would recognize him as the Dragon.
He quickly materialized the clothes that he had designed for himself. They matched Lisa's and looked similar to European military officer uniforms. His uniform was black to her white, with sunset accents and tasseled shoulder pads encrusted with scintillating clear crystals. He was barefoot and wore no jewelry. On his shoulder was a sunset-colored cape that fell to his calves.
It was time to make an appearance.
---
"You came all the way from St. Louis on a day's notice?" a woman named Nicolette asked, clearly impressed.
"Well, it's not every day a dragon starts a new religion and tells people that they'll get super powers if they come to his fortress." Now Greg was the one who spoke. Edgewood was trying to commit all their names to memory as they waited for the Central Marketplace to open.
"Well, when you put it that way..." Nicolette trailed off, meeting Edgewood's eyes. "You said you're from Georgia?"
"Yep." He didn't mention that he'd come to Basalith through perhaps the most unorthodox method possible.
"Sandal Edgewood, right?" a girl asked, some doll in her teens. Edgewood chided himself for forgetting her name.
"Just Edgewood is fine," he chuckled. "I think my parents were high when they gave me my first name."
"Hippies?" Greg asked.
"They don't talk about the past," Edgewood grinned. "They're ramrod-strict now. Go to church every Sunday, wake up at dawn, go to work, read, then sleep. Like clockwork."
Everyone in the little circle chuckled. Then, with a gasp, everyone heard a loud clap, like thunder, above.
"Is someone--"
"Attack--"
Edgewood heard all sorts of people start to make remarks, but he realized that the clap didn't sound like any weapon that he'd ever heard. All this happened in the second it took for him and others to raise their eyes to the sky and behold the figure before them.