Arson wasn’t aware of Almarine’s special treatment of him as a baby. Many grew to dislike the baby boy they all now saw consistently being carried around the orphanage by the Orphan Mother. The woman’s never ending instruction annoyed many, but Arson loved every moment of her ramblings.
He was walked around the heavily forested orphanage grounds and shown many things. Almarine loved nature unlike many modern cultivators, which was why she’d decided to build the home for children without homes in the slums of Maelstrom.
Wealth could be found in the dense areas of society. Villages, supported 100k or fewer citizens. While a town held ten times that, and a city held ten times a town. Then followed a city, Metropolis, Nation, CityNation, and finally an Empire..
The final size exceeded tens of billions of citizens, and even though they were real, they were still seen as fabled locations where the impossible was made possible.
These locations were filled with fusions of science and magic that often dazzled any who looked upon them. The closer one came to their cores, the more an empire would reveal to whomever explored their depths.
The Orphan Mother no longer sought after what she felt to be a never-ending climb of power and popularity. Just peace, and a place to help those without help begin their life’s journey in a potentially safe environment.
So Almarine became a Keeper. Landowners within the realm were offered certain abilities once they’d reached the age of maturity, and were able to meet specific power thresholds, the system gave the cultivator access to things normal cultivators could only dream of.
Almarine sacrificed her entire cultivation core to create the orphanage. The area similar to a dungeon in that it had a core, but that was the only similarity between a Dungeon Core, and a Habitat Core.
Every building on the grounds, and even the perimeter wall and available utilities was a direct result of Almarine’s choice. Instead of buying a core to use, once she’d bought the land, she used an option very few people ever chose.
This made it so that she could no longer cultivate. Though she was immortal, she didn’t have access to the realm shattering potential she once did, something she felt was more a blessing than anything else. Far more rewarded by what she was now, then what she had been.
Her core now provided children with electricity, for nightlights abroad and many other essentials. Water to clean themselves and their home. Mana once used for slaughter, was now used to sustain life and to offer so much more to the realm the Orphan Mother lived within.
The realm Arson now lived within. The woman walked him through the crops that many of the older orphans maintained. Almarine described how aspects of her creation mana was pulled from the orphanage’s core to help crops grow far larger than they would normally. As well as described any plant, bug, or animal they came across.
Arson loved to point at things that interested him, knowing that without fail Almarine spoke in great detail about whatever caught his focus no matter how random, or improperly timed.
She would never skip any part of an explanation, nor forget the lengthy list of things Arson silently asked about.
The orphanage grounds were designed in a giant circle. Most architecture was framed and laid out this way in respect to the celestial bodies in the skies above all life within the Sunspire realms.
So no matter how small or large a living area was, it was normally built around a centralized location. Almarine’s own orphanage could house 100 thousand people, between all its buildings and facilities, but instead only supported the ten thousand she was comfortable with roaming about inside her small halo of paradise.
There were a few villages between the orphanage and the edge of the CityNation of Maelstrom, all of which had their own orphanages, but none came close in scale to Almarine’s.
Many people only even ventured this far out from Maelstrom to visit her orphanage, as the only thing beyond it was more wilderness and the realm’s largest Junkyard Dump.
The once great civilization known as Ikarus had a kingdom larger than even the largest currently known empire held within the realm, that was now nothing more than ruins completely covered in trash not only from this realm, but many others within the SunSpire realms.
Arson was often put to sleep with stories that came from the time in which the kingdom thrived, before it was lost to time.
Almarine's many walks on top of the perimeter wall resulted in descriptions of the cultures, history and even lost magics offered by the Ikarus cultivators, as the Junkyard Dump could be seen in the distance.
Their elevated position from the walkways of the high walls gave them a view of the former kingdom’s edge, and the road that trailed from the Dump and connected both it and the orphanage to the nearest villages.
“Momma Almarine,” yelled a young silver haired boy while he ran up the steps of the wall to find the Orphan Mother.
“Ahh, hello Khalif, what are you doing here?” asked Almarine. The young man frowned at the woman as he approached for two reasons.
The first was that there was a baby on the walkway that crawled toward Almarine, and the second was that each time the baby got close enough to reach out and touch Almarine’s foot, she took a step back.
The woman could see the questions write themselves across his face, and felt obligated to speak up. She was a rather strict woman with her children, but she couldn’t have any rumors in regards to infant abuse to be started.
“He’d climb out of his crib at night and end up taking a tumble downstairs or something if I didn’t tire him out,” stated Almarine unprompted. Khalif’s face of confusion made her pick up Arson who simply giggled having had enjoyed the chase. An odd shame filled her mind at being judged for her actions, even though she believed they would make Arson strong both in mind and body, due to the supposed archaic nature of the practices.
“Are you training a baby, momma Almarine?”
“Don’t be ridiculous child, I haven’t trained a cultivator in millennia!” Khalif jerked backward, and Almarine sighed.
“No, child, I am simply making sure that the child rests at night,” repeated Almarine, more to convince herself than the boy in front of her. She could hear the whispers each time she was seen holding Arson, and knew jealousy was an inevitability of being the mother of so many, with so little time. With so little daylight.
She may not be limited by sleep like most immortals, but her children were. Tensions were already high within the orphanage normally, but her new solitary guidance of Arson made things that much worse.
“Did you have something to tell me,” asked Almarine, snapping Khalif out of the staring match he held with the baby in her arms. The baby boy reaching toward Khalif’s silver hair across the distance, as if he wanted to be held by Khalif.
“Oh yeah,” started Khalif who smiled at Arson before he looked back up at Almarine.
“Xani set the science lab on fire, the entire lab sealed itself because of some sort of chemical, and the sprinklers are on,” said Khalif. Almarine cursed, handed Arson to Khalif, and jumped from the top of the wall, able to dash off before Khalif could even realize he’d just been handed a baby.
By the time Khalif found Almarine, she had already started to hack at the exterior wall to the lab with a random timber axe the orphans used to retrieve firewood. Almarine occasionally enjoyed the most natural of things, and a wood burning fire was often at the top of that list.
Khalif was shocked by the damage the woman had already achieved on the 3 foot thick stone wall, and didn’t have to wait long to see the wall crumble and the nearly filled room begin to expel liquid like a broken dam.
A body was spat out of the hole along with everything else within the room that wasn’t heavy or weighed down. Almarine caught the girl by the neck, and lifted her free of the geyser, and started to shake the preteen girl with long white hair vigorously and slap her back at the same time.
The girl gasped after she spat free lungs full of water, and flailed as if brought back to life by electricity. A wild look in her eyes when she looked around at the mess around her.
Arson started to clap and giggle in excitement. Two baby arms reached out toward Xani, and the young girl calmed and blinked down from her dangled position.
“Aww, he’s cute, can I hold him?” Strangely enough Almarine ignored the damage she’d just been forced to cause, and nodded at the girl after she rolled her eyes and sighed.
“Khalif, go get Seven for me, and tell him to bring the clean up crew on duty today,” said Almarine. The boy took off without another word, and Almarine sighed again.
“Just another day in paradise…”
“Sorry, Momma Almarine, i just didn’t want to—“
“How many times have I told you not to experiment in unsecured locations, Xani?” stated Almarine in a tone that sent more of a message than even the question she asked.
“I’m sorry Momma Almarine, it won’t happen again, I promise,” said Xani. The girl could have died, and most likely would have if it weren’t for the older teens that patrolled the orphanage’s facilities, for this exact reason.
The orphanage had large expanses of open space, abandoned or empty buildings, and more than a few secret passages and bunker-like spaces. So Almarine didn’t allow use of many of the areas without restriction or supervision from elder teens, or hired staff. Not that many kept jobs working at the orphanage for more than a few days due to how stressful thousands of children at once could be.
“I know it won’t, as you are going to serve in the nursery until I can no longer remember how much time and how many credits it takes to fix this little incident of yours,” declared Almarine. Xani didn’t even try and argue, knowing that there was nothing she could do to escape her punishment. The Orphan Mother’s word was law, and none argued, not that any had the power to.
Nor did any try. Almarine wasn’t the type to abuse her influence over the children. She was respected both for her love of the orphans, and the power she was known to once have.
“What am I going to do there? There is nothing but babies in there,” asked Xani frustrated by the situation.
“You're going to play with Arson, and maybe even show him that device you are building that you have hidden underneath your bed,” said Almarine to Xani’s shock. Xani was an avid tinkerer, and had been forced to learn by dismantling equipment she either found abandoned or stole from her peers.
Almarine only stopped conflict between the orphans when the interactions became… deadly. Otherwise, she let the young handle themselves, unless they asked for help, or had an obvious need.
Xani had never been caught, and now her skills with technology and electronics could help Almarine give focus to a mind that needed a challenge.
“Yes ma’am…”
So began Arson’s first lessons in architecture and building. That same evening, Xani showed up to where Almarine directed her, and almost got lost on her way to a secondary nursery the Orphan Mother renovated during the baby boy’s short periods of sleep.
The second nursery was closer to the woman’s own bedroom and Xani was shocked to see the lengths the normally reserved woman went through to accommodate Arson.
Xani entered the room to see Arson at the center of the room, set beside a treasure chest. The box seemed simple at a distance, but the more Xani looked at the surface of the wood, the more the dazzling runic design became obvious.
The box had drawn the girl’s eyes immediately in a way that caused her to barely pay attention to Arson as she approached, and miss Almarine entirely.
“Do you know what this is?” Xani jumped and turned to face Almarine. Two hands raised toward her heart until recognition stripped the alarm from Xani’s face.
“Sparks, you scared me almost half to death, Momma Almarine,” said Xani before she returned her gaze to the chest next to Arson, and shook her head in answer to the woman’s question.
“Watch your language, young lady, and what you are looking at is an Architect’s puzzle kit, for you and Arson it will be set at the lowest difficulty, and I think your first location should be the CityNation of Maelstrom,” explained Almarine.
“First location?” Almarine nodded, and instructed Xani further. The girl had only just unlocked her own Overlay, and Core recently, but this alone gave her the ability to access the chests mechanisms and functions.
Xani touched the box timidly at first, until the screen popped up in her vision and asked her to search for a location. She promptly typed in CityNation of Maelstrom, and oddly enough multiple choices popped up, all with the same name.
Xani looked at Almarine in question, but the woman only smiled back at her. So Xani took a chance and tapped the first one.
The number next to it indicated a population size that far exceeded what Xani would assume her own home held, only to be exactly right.
An unimaginable illusion filled the entire floor around them. The room filled from corner to corner with a replicated city made of light that perfectly mirrored the place Xani had chosen. A place that was not her home.
There wasn’t a collection of canals that lined the streets. No buildings made of glass the more you came toward the core of the city. Not even the sandstone that her home was known for.
Instead of waterfalls that connected buildings from high to low, this place had a violent smog that stretched across the skies. Dark metals constructed what felt to Xani to be a large dungeon rather than a place to live.
Her eyes went wide, and Almarine laughed at her shock. The alternate place with the same name was recorded by the system, either how it was currently, or how it had been in its prime before being destroyed by countless circumstances. This was a Architect’s Puzzle Kit.
“What is this place,” yelled Xani in alarm. Almarine didn’t know what she found more amusing, Xani’s wide eyes, or Arson’s.
The baby boy looked as if he wanted to clap at the magic displayed by the box, but stopped himself after seeing what was recreated. Instead he looked between Xani and Almarine with a question, Xani had no clue about or how to answer herself.
“Don’t worry you two, Xani tap the building in the center of the city, yes that scary looking pillar of black metal and flame there,” said Almarine. The Orphan Mother rose to her feet from a chair that distorted the image of the city where she sat, and stroked her chin before she came over and picked up Arson.
“I think it should be the seventh from the top child,” said Almarine. The foreign place disintegrated before their very eyes and a much more familiar location filled the room when Xani reselected from the list.
The correct CityNation of Maelstrom could be seen now. A large intricate maze of sandstone and glass structures filled a landscape of luscious greens, interwoven by crystal clear water pathways.
The closer one got to the center of the CityNation, the less vegetation was prominent, with the exclusion of parks and rooftop gardens, and the more sandstone and glass were used to create large water fountains that supported waterfalls which connected one building to another.
The large fountains overflowed from high points within the skyscraper’s skyline, the excess of water pouring onto glass domes designed to water all nearby greenery, may it be for practical or aesthetic purposes.
The perforated glass caused subtle rain to drip down onto the lawns of Cultivator compounds, personal plantations, and even the public parks and gardens owned by the CityNation.
Even the enclosed bridges that connected Skyscrapers to one another and provided walkways for the cities inhabitants were there. The sight finally enough to make Arson clap excitedly.
After a while Xani even managed to find the orphanage, and the Dump off in the distance. She walked over to the miniaturized version of her home, and crouched to take in the image of the place she wondered if she’d ever see in the same light after being shown the magnificence not but a short trip by bus, train, or even a plane ride away from where she now stood.
“What do we do now, how does this thing work exactly?” asked Xani who poked the large orphanage’s main building. The name of what the building was flashed above the entire area and Xani blinked in astonishment.
“Once you select the location you want to reconstruct, random pieces will be formed out of hardened light with puzzle-like cutouts beneath their bases for you to connect one piece to another, believe it or not, the more advanced levels of this tool would even have you construct the buildings floor by floor, or even room by room,” said Almarine. Xani’s eyes bulged and Arson giggled, which made the young girl frown at him. The cute eyed baby reached out toward her and Almarine handed him over even as Xani rolled her eyes at him.
“So is there a start button or something?” Xani bobbed slightly with Arson in her arms, looking around, honestly as excited as the baby she held to begin.
Almarine smirked and double tapped the tallest building in all of Maelstrom projected at the center of the room, and everything disappeared.
The lid to the treasure chest opened, disappeared, then the topless box flattened itself as if it was lowered seamlessly into the floor below. All that was left was a simple portal like opening, that pushed out a building slowly as it was created from hardened light. The first random piece of many to come.
Xani and Arson shared a look, before Xani shrugged, and the two looked back at Almarine expectantly.
“Well, don’t look at me like that you two, start building!”