After the elves began their work and dispersed around the place, I settled back to building homes for the people. But Kalla was right in saying that I should concentrate on the Hearth tree. So I began to send my mana to it and encouraged it in growing cabins out of its body. These first buildings would be near the trunk because of their weight, but later on when the tree was bigger and its branches were thick as a man was tall, I could create a veritable tree city like the Ewoks in Star Wars. Hey, I can remember Star Wars, high five. Perhaps there was a way to create Lightsabers with magic? That would be cool and i could have my own Jedis as city guards.

Concentration please! Can't be daydreaming here all the time. The tree was becoming quite tenacious when I tried to nudge it in the right direction and I had to use massive amounts of mana for it. The elves were more than pleased with giving it though because they saw the cabins growing.

I searched for a moment for Kalla and found her talking with some craftsmen about a shrine for Alvera.

„Sorry for disturbing but I have a wish. Would you be so able to create a shrine for Tiria also? It doesn't have to be very big, but I think she would be very pleased if she also had a place here.“

Kalla and the other elves stood silent for a moment, and then of the craftsmen, a young blond man with a lean build and cockles on his hands, said „I think, that could be a good idea, and later we could think about creating a temple for all the gods. I heard that you want to make this city a place for more than just us elves. So it would be better to have a central place instead of worshipppers having to travel far away.“

I was very pleased with his answer.

„Hey, what's your name?

A bit shy now he mumbled.

„The name is Dorien. I'm a carpenter and sculptor.“

Hm, this one was passionate when he talked about creating things and apart from that he seemed to be a shy one. I could work with him and perhaps tease him a bit.

„Nice to meet you, I am Marcus and pleased to work with you. I will observe your work in the future. By the way, I will observe all of you at working, as I want to learn some craft skills. It seems that I can't create things the same way other dungeon cores can by simple wishing them into existence with mana as the only ressource. That would be awesome, but as it stands, I will have to work with the ressources at hand. And as I am a kind of an immortal I think I can become one of the greatest craftsman ever.“

The men and women around us were excited about it. An immortal pupil could propel their craft to never imagined heights. Most of them offered right away to teach me their craft but as it stood, I had some other work to do for the time being. Mostly Dorien and some stonemason would be useful for me in the next weeks and perhaps even months. Their crafts could help me to build my city of dreams. Sure, sometime in the future I would also need to learn to forge, make potions or even spells. But now I only had to build a vertiable fortress to defend my people until they got their feet back on the ground. Then we could concentrate our forces to enlarge our city and its influence.

I excused myself and went back to my other projects. The wall with its vines was now are a solid piece of hardened earth and wood. Especially the vines were nearly indestructable with only axes and some fire magic at hand if you thought about what goblins and lizards had at their disposal in modern fantasy stories. I just hoped my efforts were not in vain.

I heard the elves laughing again and it was warming my imaginary heart that they had gotten their hope back. Two days ago they were a broken people without a home.

They brought fish back from the river, gathered wild growing berries and three archers even came back with a deer from their hunt.

I asked a young elven woman if she could give me one of the berries and without a thought she laid it on the ground for me. I took it into my inventory and inspected it closely.

A raspberry.

Hm, I always liked raspberry jam for breakfast and I think elves would like it also, but perhaps I could do more with it later. I mean, I was able to modify the vines and a magic tree, how hard could it be to make some upgrades to a simple food plant? Right?

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For a start I just wanted to plant it outside the wall as a small food supply. Therefore, I had to enlarge my influence again. So I channeled my passive regeneration into it. Now I got almost one meter per minute. As a side effect the elves that were working at the river, would also be inside my influence and therefore increasing my mana. I didn't know if fish would also give me mana but I would know in the evening when my range had connected with the river down the hill I was on.

In the afternoon more and more elves came back into the walls and began the preparations for the feast. I wished I could smell their cooking. Most men had to swallow their saliva when they smelled the wonderful odors coming from the cooking fires.

Dorien and some other craftsmen had created a crude figure of Alvera and were now working on another one when the young man called me suddenly.

„Ehm, Marcus, would you be so kind and tell me how Tiria looks?“

I had watched them work all morning long with one of my subminds and had now the beginnings of an understanding of carpentry and sculpting.

„Just give me some of your tools and a block of wood and I will try to sculpt it myself.“

Dorien looked sceptically in the direction he thought I was talking from and answered.

„Ok, here they are, but be careful with them. Getting new ones could become a hazard around here.“

He laid them on the ground and I absorbed them easily. Then I recalled Tiria before me and began my work.

As I discovered, I could create a kind of room inside my mind where I had a body again and called the tools and the wood to me. I remembered the motions of the craftsmen and tried to imitate them myself. I had worked with wood only sparsely in my former life, so I didn't have much of an advatage there. At the start it was hard to move the right way and I had to be careful not to damage Dorien's tools, but it went better after some time.

I must have been really absorbed with my work because only after somebody knocked on my crystal body itself, did I look back to the outside world.

Kalla stood before me and watched my crystal with a wooried look.

„Marcus? Are you there?“

„Hm? Yeah, what is it? I'm working on a sculpture and it's somewhat hard to get it right.“

„Oh, I was worried because you didn't answer anything at all when people asked you something. They all became quite worried about you.“

If I was able to blush then I would have been a red crystal now.

„Sorry, I was totally absorbed in my work here. That has never happened to me before, so I apologize for any inconvenience i have caused. Please tell the other my apology, but I feel I have to get this right.“

Kalla smiled and I saw Dorien some steps behind her looking smug.

„It seems you got the crafter fever, eh? No problem here, happens all the time to me.“

„Thanks, Dorien. I think I will be done in an hour or so, then you can have your tools back.“

I went back to sculpting and worked on the details of Tiria's face when suddenly I got a new message.

You got the skill Sculptor!

Hey, that was fast. Thanks, my lovely goddess.

`I have to reward you, if you work on a shrine for me, little one`. I heard her voice in my mind.

So she was watching me. Now, that I thought about it, that made perfect sense, because I was something completely new and could improve her reputation with the other gods, perhaps even did so already. My figure was almost ready and I only had to do some finishing touches. That done I got a new message.

Figure of Tiara

Made by Marcus, the city dungeon, as his first work.

+5 for Cha, Int, Wis for 8h once a day for praying to the figure.

That was some serious advantage for only praying to my goddess once a day. I hoped she was pleased with my work. I went back to Dorien and gave him his tools and my work.

He examined it closely and offered some advice which I eagerly absorbed.

„For your first work this is quite good.. I look forward to working with you, Marcus. You show promise. Now, let's put the figure in the shrine and get back to the others. The feast will begin soon and I don't want to miss anything.“

He went to the hearth tree where most of the elves were gathered. Some had to watch the surroundings on the wall but they threw a look back to the centre every now and then.

The elves began to sing and dance around the tree, calling Alvera's name in mostly every sentence. It wasn't as if I could understand  anything they were saying, but the name of the goddess had a ring to it, I couldn't shake off.

After half an hour a light descended from the stars. Bright white light illuminated everyone and blinded us. When it disappeared, there stood a elven woman, 2 meters tall with a curvious body and a nice chest, I had to say.

„I thank you for your prayers and your hard work, my dear elves. I have heard them and have come to give your new Hearth tree my blessing and a name. It's a bit novel for a dungeon core to grow a hearth tree but I talked with my sister Tiria and after some discussion with her I was pleased about this new city dungeon of hers. You all have my blessing for living and working with him and building a new city for everyone who wants to live peacefully within its walls.“

I felt her look on me for a moment, but then she turned her gaze back to the tree.

„I will call you Gillian. Grow and be a home for the people that live in your shadow.“

She took two steps back and turned around to walk to me, stopping only a meter away.

„I want to thank you, Marcus, for sheltering my chosen people. Take these crystals to help you get even stronger. I have a message from Tiria for you as well. You should designate your first city guardian soon. Chose wisely, little one!“

When she said the last two words, she grinned. 

Tiria, you have failed me!