Five days in and our construction was well under way. Both Chien and I were walking heavy equipment, and so excavating a foundation had been easy as pie. With the unbelievable amount of ash we'd started with our turnout of concrete was also quite astounding. People were now even bringing it to us themselves and selling it wholesale for the pretty little stones I was making. Poor quality diamonds and other precious stones were flying off the shelves and ash was replacing it at speed.

We got weird looks of course, particularly as we ran through the process of making ash concrete, first into blocks, then in a big batch to blind the foundation together. It would be poor, but I didn't care, we weren't building tall and I wasn't sticking around.

On the second day Isha revealed that she'd worked out a spell that made the stuff cure faster. I was dubious, since that should have had some problems with it, but her magic was so different that it just worked. In hours rather than days the liquid stone hardened, seeming to take on full strength with little effort from her. Some days I really wanted to kiss her, and of course I could and did just that.

Now, when we left I would be telling people that this wouldn't last forever, I didn't want it disappointing or even harming someone, and I fully expected this construction to, much like another famous series of castles, sink into the swamp. However I had no huge tracts of land upon which to build, nor any decent land, but that was someone else's problem.

This morning some people had come by to complain about us devaluing gems, and I just shrugged. Before I made my getaway they might well be as valuable as the ash we wanted, and in fact some of them were made from that too, just for funsies. As I waved away the most recent irritated merchant I returned to Chien.

“How are things progressing?” I asked.

“Isha's amazing,” he answered.

“Oh I know, but how are we doing?”

He grabbed the edges of his vest, which he'd gotten from someone in trade, and tutted. He looked exactly like a proper construction worker, minus the hard hat, needed to get him a hard hat.

“So far ahead of schedule it's embarrassing. If we'd been doing this well in Atal the whole city would have a wall thicker than you are tall. The interlinking blocks idea is working well too.”

I'd suggested an almost lego-like solution to connection. Each block was molded to fit the one below it, then they stacked, slightly offset for added stability, one set upon another. We'd laid out a small tower already, something we'd be taking to two stories if we had to. Already it was as high as my shoulder.

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“Excellent, then we continue onwards.” Magic really did bring a smile to my face.

Isha arrived shortly thereafter to have me come and sing the stone solid with her. I had no clue how it worked, but apparently having people sing with her helped, and watching her work was always weird. Her magic was so different from mine or Chien's. It was something I didn't get, magic that bent physics in ways I couldn't parse. That alone made the work more interesting to observe.

By sundown I was setting the entrance into place, beautiful arches for double-doors, a smooth floor, and plenty of space. We'd been attracting more and more attention as the days passed, and tomorrow morning I'd try to up that a bit more.

Another three days passed and while they did we put in a second floor, still all stone, still building at a breakneck pace. I could only begin to imagine what would be possible with a properly trained crew of mages constructing buildings. In the future it might even be feasible for a few skilled magic users to throw up small towns in the span of days, with plumbing, windows and complex designed pre-planned to make things easy.

The floors had to be made of wood, but that was easy enough to acquire. People were constantly gathering such things from the surrounding landscape, often accompanied by guards so as to avoid the enemy's troops. That said it wasn't like it was a normal building material for houses here for some reason or another, probably the lack of more advanced woodworking techniques or metal connectors. To really get properly tight joints for buildings metal tools and good measurement devices were almost a necessity.

I'd told Nora's people I'd see her in a few days, but for elves that was sort of an open time. Many of our older people were slow, very slow in how they did their normal business, doing things when they got around to them. There was no hurry, no need to rush, at least most of the time. So spending a week or two putting a small fortress on her front lawn wouldn't be seen as dragging my feet to visit her at all.

However the fact that I was putting a fortress on her front lawn would attract her attention, and I was hoping spur her to stop being a bratty child and freaking see me. Since a number of curious craftsmen were lining up to watch us finish our work I'd given it good odds.

People had asked, and been told they weren't getting, the recipe for the concrete we were using. Sure, it was clear that there was ash, and water, and aggregate, but they didn't know the ratios, the method, or any other specifics. It'd be figured out eventually, but eventually was way down the line, and knowing that they had to first cook the ash and slake it wasn't something they'd likely stumble upon with ease. Others were interested in the way we were working the wood, and they'd likely have far more success. Metal tools would be much better, but if they paid attention they'd be able to see some of the basics of what we were doing with the softer material.

The roof was a pretty rough thing, but as I finished and came back down to the ground I was approached by a face I wasn't truly expecting.

“Excuse me, Justin,” asked the same assistant who'd left me sitting bored in the waiting room for days and days.

“Ah, what a surprise to see you here. Is all well?” I asked innocently.

She gave me a slightly unamused look. “Elder Nora would like to see you promptly.”

“How good to hear,” I said with a smile.

She led me back up the hill, back to the complex the older elf had laid claim to, from which she now ruled this settlement. Rather than be taken to a empty room to be left alone though I was led deeper in. There were guards, they looked displeased, and plenty of aides as well, who also looked like I was a pain in their collective neck.

Nora's throne room was less ostentatious than the others I'd seen, smaller, almost homey. The room was some kind of stone, smoothed with magic clearly, and she naturally occupied a small chair on a wooden dais. However there were tables all around, surrounded by elves deep in work. Nora herself of course was upon her little stone seat as I entered.

The woman herself frowned as I was brought forward, tapping the arm of her seat. We spent some time looking at one another. Normally she'd be the one to speak first, but she seemed content to glare at me. After about a minute of that I decided to speak, she could crush me if she wanted, but we both knew that she probably wouldn't.

“Atal and Cino are dead,” I informed her.