All of Liam’s civil projects had come about because of one true desire, the quest to return to Nyota, selfish, but he’d saved the world once. A happy wife was the least this world could offer. Owen’s magi never knew his thoughts, only performing the tasks ordered of them by their Lightning Lord, who’d provided sufficient excuses until today, when they stood upon the Sintran palisades, a wooden fortification with decks built between watchtowers and the occasional staircase. All made of wood. Excellent material that was beyond plentiful in GreenWOOD, providing the dual purpose of utilizing the excess trimmings and giving the mercenary companies first hand experience in building a siege wall. It also allowed the Sintran hierarchy to cut the trees back on mercenary dime. Often ‘training’ them with a constant cycle of maintenance on old woodworks.
Portals were not training. The portal plague was an unmitigated disaster that required real fortifications. Walls that would make the Argos look like a sandcat-stle. Monuments to dwarf the five Crystal Palaces gifted to Calypso, for those trinkets had always been a test. Designed to suit another gorgon and modified to adorn Calypso’s prismatic nature.
“Owen, noble paladins of Kheresh, we have journeyed across the continent to preserve this land. You have seen Khereshetal’s defeat, witnessed the siege of Talocandel, seen what the monsters can do in Beit Sarim, and what desperation looks like in Tarquima where the dead walk once more. Sintra was Liam’s third conquest, but that is what made it so precious. For it was his first victory, the first moment where he gained ground rather than lost it. We will commemorate that in stone. Build this wall with his victory in your minds and hearts. I have shown you the pattern of watchtower in Calypso’s crystal fortresses, with ramps and stairs, murderholes, arrowslits, and crenelations. Build this wall as if it were made of watchtowers, and make the watchtowers as if they were the inner sanctum of our Crystal Palace. We shall make the name of Portress Sintra known around the world as the beacon of Taloc’s return! Now build!” Shouted Liam.
His impromptu speech was met by a hundred cheers, even the gorgons were joining in. Then the paladins got to work. Battlemages all, they began, first laying a foundation of quartz that sank thirty feet into the ground, before rising ninety feet into the air. Each segment of wall was built freestanding, with one end capped by an even greater watchtower. But the wall was more than a fortification, it was a fortress unto its own, with internal bastions and inward facing defenses, allowing a perpetual war where each segment could fight independently of the others. With blast doors of foot thick quartz to cut off each section internally.
Such a feat was, by all colloquial knowledge –past and present–, beyond mortal engineering. But Liam was a man of two worlds and three lives, able to imagine the modern and work in the ancient, mashing the two worlds to create something neither had ever seen before. All done with human tools forged from the dust of a dying city.
It took the paladins an unbearable week to encircle Sintra in glass. Which was an eternity of hell for Liam’s heart. His wife was waiting a short flight away, he could probably fly there in a day, less if he built another teardrop. But the people of Sintra required healing. The wall required building, and the present magi could not do it alone.
Upon the seventh day he could bear it no longer.
“Jenkins, we are going to Greenhaven. Now!” Called Liam,
“Well, thanks for stopping by. You really left us with the nicest pair of pants I’ve ever owned!”
“Pants? Jenkins, we’ve heard tale of your gib all the way down in the desolate wastes of Kheresh!”
A smile slid onto the Watch Captain’s face.
“Well, it gets easier to keep my ears clean when I’ve got a little bugger on the way. Gods, what if its a girl? Can’t be twirling my cock around then! She’ll have enough of them to worry about being my daughter. Gotta give her a fighting chance.”
“And, if it’s a boy?” Asked Liam.
“My boy won’t have any trouble finding his own cock. I can promise you that!”
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Ah, I really should have seen that coming. Thought Liam, laughing at his old friend.
“Oh, I’m borrowing six of your earth magi, don’t worry, I’ll give em back. New and improved.”
“Borrowing six of my rock blockers! Only got nine presently. Aren’t you a thirsty lass.” Jenkins shook his head, “Any other man besides Liam I would’a splashed some water on his pants, but after you went and made Sintra harder than ever, I’ll have to trust you.”
They shook hands, a farewell that just wasn’t enough. Liam pulled his old friend into a hug, surprising Jenkins. Only to be equally surprised when the Watch Captain reciprocated, wrapping his arms around the much taller elf.
“Don’t you dare go dying on us again. It would break her heart.” He whispered.
“Ha, don’t you know, elves last forever. Uhm, I mean, we’re immoral– IMMORTAL.” Said Liam, correcting himself, suddenly finding it rather difficult to speak.
“Safe travels.” Grunted Jenkins, a twinge sounding in his throat.
“Lord Alhussam, tell me thisss, whosse heartsstone do you carry?” Asked Phaedra.
“Oh, ahem. I’m an idiot.” Said Liam, glancing around them.
They were standing inside an in, saying their goodbyes privately before departure. Owen and Velena were already outside the northward gate, One instructing the newest magi on road construction while the other was patrolling the area from hydra-back. At some point she’d collected a wing of hellhound cavalry, with felinid men following behind a vaguely familiar eclipsiarch. One who was blossoming into the peaks of womanhood.
Liam retrieved the heartscale, double checking they were alone before elaborating on its origin. “When Khereshetal was being destroyed by Calypso I was able to broker a peace deal. As a reward for giving her a colony, Medusa named me as Hecate, and granted me her heartscale. Though I always thought Hecate was a female goddess.”
Gorgon claws reached for the heartscale, she paused. Usure if this was information she truly wanted to know. Then ran one finger over the scale–
–Recoiling as if it bit her. Her gorgon eyes flicked open, and for the first time in Liam’s life, he met the gorgon’s gaze. A full powered beam of petrifying power, and saw only a woman’s eyes, vertical pupils, so similar to Nyota’s own, yet a brilliant speckled jade iris that encompassed the entire eye. Liam glanced to Jenkins, then back to Phaedra.
“Medusa said that might happen, but I never wanted to test it.”
Her eyes snapped shut.
“Ssorry, you ssurprissed me. Tiss truly our mother’ss heartsscale, if you were any other man, I would sssay that you hold an open propossal from the matriarch of our race. Heartsscales take centuries to grow, and contain a portion of our power within them. That iss a great relic.”
Liam glanced down at the scale, running his fingers along its surface. It appeared rough, but that was due to a fine speckling of multiple colors. Under his fingers the scale was smooth as glass, warm, and entirely enigmatic. No matter how he pushed or pulled, the scale never responded to him, simply remaining as a sort of warm lump in his pants. Awkward and generally welcome.
“Don’t start calling me grandpa, I have enough familial issues! Besides, I think this is just a grand gesture, a gift to symbolize our pact. Uhm, yeah. Anywho, stay alive till I can come back and finish Portress Sintra’s remodeling.”
“We’ll do more than that.” Answered Phaedra, her hand resting on Jenkins shoulder.
Liam laughed as he left the inn, jumping onto the wagons and signaling their departure, though he was equally disturbed and curious about gorgon procreation. Their lower halves were quite large, thirty or forty feet at least, and men were only five or six feet tall, closer to office in this age of unstable food production. So the geometry was a bit off axis. A hellhound interrupted his thoughts, by licking his face.
“Ah! What! Bleh!” Gasped Liam, wiping his face as the palest hellhound he’d ever seen tried to lick him again.
Only to be stopped by its rider.
“Fluffy! Give him a break. Can’t you see he’s thinking big thoughts.” Said an eclipsiarch. “Sorry about that, he’s a bit too friendly sometimes.” She said, pulling alongside the wagon and jumping onto his lap, then stepped across him to squish between Owen and Liam. Wiggling her tail and butt to clear the bench.
“Hi, I’m Nora Green.”
“You named a hellhound… Fluffy?”
“Of course, cause when he likes you all his flames feel like a really floofy friend! He’s very comfortable. You should try and ride him while Old-one teaches me earth magicks!” Said Nora.
“Old-one! My name is Owen you– did you say your last name was Green?”
“She did indeed Old-one!” Said Liam, settling in for the show.
“Oh, erm. Ahem. I didn’t realize Lady Green had a grown daughter. My apologies ma’am.” Said Owen, trying not to flush red at a Lightning Lord’s heiress. A sight that kept Liam laughing all the way to Greenhaven.