It was January 27th, 1693. The living accommodations were very nice, Maryanne had done an excellent job decorating. She knew my tastes as well. And then Maryanne found me. She was not happy as I could see it in her eyes. She had a second baby with her, Wyllie, who was born December 18th, 1692. I tried to alleviate her anger by detailing my adventures. She had diner brought and we ate while I played with Wyllie. Leo and Luke had been doing a good job. But we were far from being able to run the games. The committees had been blasting her for the 6+ months I had been gone. Maryanne had also been holding off Amelia, Collette and Riona who had each visited twice, looking for me. Ugh. I immediately thought about retiring to Tahiti. Ok what did I have to do. Maryanne pulled out a packet. I needed to build 17 large transport ships to get the athletes from abroad here. She slid me a schematic for a 249’ long passenger steam ship. Each one had 252 passenger cabins. I guessed each one would take me a week to build… Next she said we needed the equestrian venue finished so our Avalon teams could start practicing. I looked at it…3 large stables, covered stands, 19 small pastures, two storage buildings, one food dining hall, two separate hay and grain buildings, two small security buildings. I guessed maybe a month of work to finish….Maryanne had written 35 days down…she was good. Ok I would do that. As I was shoving more cheeseburger pizza in my mouth Leo and Luke showed up and helped themselves to food. They looked tired and started gripping how everyone wanted their magic, they were sick of making rails and coins and making road repairs. I understood. Maryanne had varied their work at the village but still most of their day was coins and rails. I slid over the plans for the equestrian buildings. They had done some of the work already and I knew the men liked horses. Maryanne pursed her lips. I was interfering with her grand plan. She then grinned and slid me the plans for the hotels and said we had another soccer and lacrosse world exhibition in 1695. We had 13 soccer teams and 7 lacrosse teams coming for men. For women we had 2 soccer teams. We were expecting 56,000 spectators. I choked on the pizza. Most were Avalonians. Only about 6,000 international expected. So the new plans had two additional hotels…since more spectators were expected for 1700. Damn I should have just built the united nations…this was getting to be a headache.

I had been working on the hotel for just two days when Amelia showed up. She had a bunch of problems that I advised her on. The only problem I solved for her was the prison island. I set up a new portal in Avalon to the American Samoa island I was attacked on. Lifers would be sent there with gear to survive on their own. That solved her 211 prisoners she wanted to build a prison for. Real life survivor. This was possible because for my upgrade at level 5 I was able to double the base weight allowing a mage to send 240 lbs through. We found a mage didn’t actually need to travel, they could just send gear. Choosing the double mass was a difficult choice. There were some really good options for the evolution. Blood Contract allowed only those whose blood was infused at the creation of the teleports, update allowed the creator mage to upgrade a teleporter without having to recreate it, this only worked on the one platform so you would have to cast it on both, forecast gave you a picture of the 10 yards around the destination, and the last one I wanted was reducing the activation cost from 50 to 40. Of course rumors spread about people being incinerated.

Riona wanted dozens of teleporters. I was good with what we had. She did say Liam had 11 mistresses and 18 children in France more as a kind of warning. Well as long as Liam relayed the coming attack to his mages I was fine with it. Collette had two dozen problems and wanted me to handle the solutions. I passed on helping as nothing was world ending right now but learned we now controlled the Caribbean securely but pirate raiders were showing up. I realized had forgotten about Hawaii for teleporters as I read some reports. The colony there was isolated, they only got one visit every year. But the colony was sitting at 2200 Avalonians after a number of locals had joined.

Well the hotel started to go up and by June 3rd I was done with the first hotel. They had enough furniture and linens for two hotels so it was quickly made functional after the interior was done. Water pressure was an issue as was hot water tanks keeping up with demand. I made a second hot water tank for the VIP suites which should help, hell no one even knew what a shower was…a true shower. June 14th I started on the next hotel but stopped on June 30th and took a month off to go to Tahiti. I timed my visit poorly as the babies were being born. So I only spent a week drinking and suntanning. I ended up making a teleport pairing, a large tile and a small tile. The large tile was embedded with the others while I went eagle and flew west with the small coin sized mate.

I was looking for New Zealand. If I got tired I could just teleport back and give up. Flying high I was able to find small islands to rest. It took 6 days but I found New Zealand. I spent two days building a stone house in the high mountains and then embedded the teleport coin in the roof. I decided not to connect with any locals. I ported back to Tahiti and finished my vacation there. I did find one mage had a remarkable spell. She could transform trees into a soft foam. It was kind of like memory foam. She had been trying to make wood lighter to make boats more buoyant. She thought she had a miserable failure but after testing the material I found it made a great mattress like modern day memory foam. It even had a scent of caramelized butter. I helped her get it perfect, at least for me, in terms of firmness. She could make about 7 mattresses a day that were 7’ x 7’ and 12” thick. They weighed 140 lbs. I told her I would buy everything she could produce at 50 Avalon per mattress. A typical knight-magi earned 240 Avalon a month so it was a good deal. I could only transport one at a time and that cost me 100 magic. I decided to set up a secret teleport to the Olympic village. I went to my tower in Avalon first, bringing 4 mattresses there, then I brought 14 mattresses to the Rockies retreat, then I brought 5 to the Olympic village and finally I put one in the furniture store in Avalon. I wanted a mattress pad, sheets and blankets made up for this size bed…as well as bed frames. I ordered 30 beds for my tower in Avalon and 30 for my living space at the Olympic village. I went to the furniture factory directly as it was 30 miles away. They had a huge mill just off the train line and massive kilns for drying wood. The mill was run by three steam engines. I quickly made them six massive circular blades for cutting out of hardened stone. They would never need sharpening and should increase production. Next I made two large planers and joiners out of stone. They were still using hand planes to smooth boards. They would half to hook up the steam engines themselves. The workshop was a massive three story building. These men were actually contracted to me which I didn’t realize. They were focused on the furniture for the Olympic village. A worker had to build 42 hours a week for their salary but could work more hours to make items to sell after they bought wood at cost. I spent two days at the factory. The first day was making sure my oversized beds got into the queue and making dozens of hardened stone tools for the workers. The next day was building a massive stone warehouse for my order and adding other furniture to my order while the foremen gave me a tour of the three floors of workers. When I found a particularly skilled craftsman I would pay him to build my request on his own time. I paid twice what the crafter would have normally earned. I also built the factory two warehouse to store goods and a separate building for finishing the furniture that had much better ventilation as I almost passed out from fumes of the finishing area. The buildings also got a hundred light stones embedded in stone pillars. The light was much improved now. Ok it was time to get back to work.

October 1st, 1693 I returned to working on the second hotel. I made a trip to get a mattress every morning to Atlantis. The reason why I was burning 100 magic in the morning was to level up my teleport spell. I also stared bringing back 12 pillows made of the same material with the one mattress. Leo and Luke loved the mattresses and pillows and Maryanne wanted to put them into the hotel. So I went and got the magi from Avalon, her name was Fryia, and she had failed out after 4 years at the magi academy. Fryia took one of the open bedrooms in the suite and began churning out mattresses and pillows. She made half sized mattresses to start, making 14 a day that Maryanne sent to the athlete living complexes to upgrade them. The material was water repellent and cut like tough leather so they would last decades. Fryia could also make them in three different firmnesses now. Maryanne had a special building made for the Avalon athletes so they could make a change if they wanted… not that we had mattresses to spare right now.

November 11th, 1693 and Leo and Luke had finished the equestrian venue. They were set to make some upgrades to the practice fields next and then move onto the swimming and diving venue. December 22nd and I was still working on the second hotel but my entourage went to Avalon for the New Year ceremonies.

I avoided Amelia, Riona and Collette. I watched the 29 people demonstrate their magic to get into the magi academy and then watched the applicants to the knight academy do the three obstacle courses. There were 249, 37 were women. In the end 42 men were selected and 7 women. One of the women who didn’t make it was a 6’ tall blonde girl. I got her paperwork and looked at her scores, 14 years old, child of two Danish immigrants, she had slightly above average intelligence assessments, good body control, scored low on strength and high on agility. She failed to pass the truth assessment. One of Maya’s assistant magi did the testing and I called the mage over and asked about the girl. She said this was her third attempt to get into the school and her score sums were borderline. But she wasn’t trying to join because of loyalty to Avalon, she just wanted the high pay that came with being a knight. Before she left I got the girl and brought her to Maryanne and told Maryanne this girl was Anya and she was now her assistant. Anya didn’t have magic but my magic resonated with her. There was something special about her that I couldn’t place yet but decided to bring her to my inner circle. I had 50 knights at the Olympic village and I told Anya they would train her, she wouldn’t be a knight but would get their pay and learn their skills. She seemed to be happy after being rejected by the academy. We all returned to the Olympic village with the exception of Leo and Luke who were taking two months off.

February 23rd 1694 had me finish the second hotel. My goal was to build two hotels this year. The final plans had 30 of these monstrous 12 story hotels in them, up from the initial 24. I could build 3 a year if that was all I did…well I could do 8 if I skipped the plumbing and installing the light stones. Ok that is what I should do then. So this year I just focused on building the hotel shells. It became a game to me to see if I could do it. One hotel every 5 weeks was my goal. The first took just under 6 weeks and just before starting the next all magi were called to Camelot to stamp out a flu outbreak. So I did that and was surprised to find Ava living in my warehouse apartment with her husband. There was plenty of room and she had made nice improvements to the property inside the walls and the décor inside. I told her she could live here but I ported in 7 mattresses for the beds and picked one large bedroom that I reserved for just me. It took 9 mages and myself 5 days to get the out break under control. 260 people had died but we saved thousands. The other mages were tasked with going around and putting out hot spots and I was able to return.

The break had snapped me from my focused building. Fryia said she was also sick of making mattresses and had made a fortune and improved her spell. She could churn out 16 king sized mattresses or 32 of the twin sized mattresses in a day with 40 pillows to go with them. So together we gripped about the repetitiveness. I learned another mage had been able to turn bamboo into cloth in Atlantis. Together we went to Atlantis on a vacation. The mage had a small magic pool and could only make 40 square yards a day. Not a lot in the scheme of things and she needed bamboo for the spell to convert.

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The mage in question was Lana and she had two children by me. After talking to her for a bit I got her to create rolls of cloth 10’ by 40’. We could use these for making sheets. I also paid two other mages to grow bamboo farms and I had to make a deal with Naid to get milk cows to Atlantis. My teleport spell was almost level 8 so I could transport 270 lbs soon. Which should be big enough to transport calves that were down weening. Well I later learned that weened calves were 400 lbs or more, ugh. Fryia was happy to be back and she decided to stay for a while. I returned and set up a textile factory in Avalon to make sheets and mattress pads. Each role that was 10 x 40 would make one complete set as the pad was two sheets sewn with a layer of fill between. Textiles were still extremely expensive in this world so it was a good investment and the bamboo cloth was thick, soft, durable and Lana could make it white, baby blue or a medium green. I was excited as I was about to complete a modern bed.

So I started teleporting to Atlantis twice a week to transfer the cloth. I brought the community lots of goods and preserved foods to maximize my effort, but burning 400 magic a week for the port to Avalon, then Atlantis, then Avalon then back to the Olympic village twice cut into my construction efforts.

June 17th had me finish the 2nd husk hotel but my teleport spell hit level 9. I was close to getting another evolution. July 29th and the 3rd husk hotel was done. I also had my new furniture delivered to Avalon and the Olympic village. The Avalon was just getting a few beds…the rest was destined for the Rockies retreat. September 12th and the 4th hotel husk was done. Leo and Luke had finished the swimming and diving venue and were moving onto completing the hotels I had built the structure for. All the basements for every building were outlined and the ground had been leveled up covering the utility and water drainage. This had been a massive project – roughly 3 square miles had been raised between 12 and 15 feet. We still had a lot of buildings and venues to build but landscaping was now going in earnest, sculptures were coming into plazas and making sculptures for the water fountains. I had to spend three weeks making plazas and the laying down wide walking paths above the rain water drains. It was looking pretty good and at the logistic meetings for housing and feeding 200,000 athletes and spectators were positive. Security was going to be 240 rangers, 500 police, 120 magi, 500 knights and 20 golems…the golems were my children’s not mine. An issue was how much to charge for food and tickets. All tickets in lower seating were 1 Avalon, close seating was 10 Avalon, box seating was between 1000 to 5000 Avalon depending on the venue and how many seats were in the box. I wasn’t looking to make profit from this but possibly could. This was the first step to uniting the planet in my mind.

December 3rd and I was done with the plazas, wide paths and fountains. I was eating chicken parm and ziti with the crew and Leo and Luke were a bit frustrated…plumbing sucked…pipes, showers, tubs, toilets sinks, valves… they were sick of it. I told them I would take them to Atlantis when they finished the current hotel and the next one. That would give us 4 hotels for the world soccer and lacrosse championships in September. I put up a small complete 4 story hotel on the plans in two weeks before heading to Avalon for the New Year celebration. I went to my office in the magi academy. The place was clean and I had stacks of books on a table. Advancements in magic and magic thesis’. I paged through the titles and then put a note to box everything and bring it to my tower. I would transport it to my Rockies Retreat when I had a chance. My desk had the notes from the magi council meetings with items and votes. I just flipped through it and left it on the desk. I had a bedroom suite here as well and noted I needed the new mattresses and sheets. I found my small kitchen was well stocked. I probably had an assistant who cleaned and stocked the kitchen in case I showed up. I portaled to my tower and went to my underhill warehouse. It was very dusty inside. The museum had taken everything of cultural value they wanted. I summoned two golems. I had an awful lot of alcohol here and I had a few hundred bottles in my tower basement as well, mostly gifts from visiting dignitaries. I had a few tons of silver bars and coins. A few tons of gold coins and bars. The golems showed up as I was going through things. I made some stone poker chip trays that nested inside each other. When the golems arrived I had the golems load up the trays with gold coins and bring them to my tower so I could teleport them to the Rockies. I started having them bring twenty cases of alcohol as well. Before the festivities started I moved 160,000 gold coins, the 20 cases of alcohol, and all the alcohol in the basement of the tower, about 750 bottles. I also leveled up my teleport spell to level 10. I doubled the base weight again so I could now hit 490 lbs in cargo. I had seven calves brought to my tower that were under 490 lbs and transported them to Atlantis. Then I shipped two bull calves under 490 as well. I checked that promise off my list. I also triggered my dimensional storage which I had been working on before I went to bed for months!

* Dimensional Pocket, Level 1 (Stone Magic [Cost 10]) – you have a 4 cubic yard dimensional space, it takes 15 seconds to put or retrieve items, leveling reduces transition time

It was four times the size for twice the expected cost. I immediately used it to accelerate my moving. When I was done moving I added clothes to the space. I hated being naked when I transformed back from a beast form. The holiday was great as most of the family was there and two of my long forgotten indian children returned. Each had a massive wolf as a companion. The magi were “Quick Feet” and “Leaps without Thinking”. They had come to learn the brand of magic taught in the tower. Their wolves were intelligent and had magic that gave them speed, strength and shielding. Very scary when they could look you at eye level. I wasn’t sure if they were my offspring or second generation. I was too embarrassed to ask. As was normal in the festivities I upgraded knights with physical enhancements, made a golem for one of my children who came into her magic and sat in on the magic assembly meeting. After the festivities I moved 160,000 silver coins, 1 ton of raw emeralds, 1 ton of raw sapphires, 1 ton of raw rubies, 2 tons of gold bars and 4 tons of silver bars to the Rockies. It didn’t really dent the warehouse but I now had a legacy in the tower. The golems moved all the loot to the bottom floor and the alcohol to shelves I made on the 3rd floor. I also moved the furniture I had made. January 3rd I returned to the work in the Olympic village.

We had a mage arrive who had learned a cold stone spell. Her enchantment lasted about 10 years and kept a stone at freezing. The hotel rooms had vents that could pull air from the basement. This was suppose to be hooked up to a large air conditioner unit when we invented the units. But with this spell we could make large honey comb boxes in the basement to draw the air through to cool. It also allowed the hotels to make ice! The air condition units needed to be cleaned of ice frequently. We also were able to add walkin freezers for the kitchens. Once she could extend the time of the enchantment I might get some for Atlantis or the Rockies retreat. I started working on the stadiums for soccer and lacrosse. The practice fields were completed by the game stadiums were not done. The large central ceremony stadium would only host the gold medal games for those sports. Looking at plans I had two soccer stadiums with 20,000 seats, one with 5,000 seats and three lacrosse stadiums with 18,000 seats. Huge stacks of stones surrounded the future game fields. I started with making one side of the first stadium, under the stands were 6 locker rooms, press rooms, storage, referee rooms, and many other things I followed on the plans. The stands were just bench seating with a plate sized indentation. The indentation would receive an actual finished wooden seat…or stone seat if they couldn’t make them all. It took just two months to build the first 20,000 seat stadium as there was not much detail in the plan. I did put some texture and color around the place but overall this was very plain compared to the main stadium. A nature mage came in to grow the grass. The next stadium was the 5,000 seat stadium and that took 5 weeks to complete. They were installing seats on the first stadium and I asked how many seats they had, just over 12,000 made so far in the warehouse, about 500 arriving daily on the train. My next project was the first lacrosse stadium which took 10 weeks. I was working on the second lacrosse stadium when teams started to arrive. We had 1500 staff in the Olympic village to care for athletes and visitors and things went mostly smooth. It was almost my first time seeing the Avalon men’s and women’s soccer teams. No magi were allowed to participate in the games and no knights as well but I did recognize two knights on the men’s team…well knights that were removed for failing to graduate. I wondered if I could remove the enhancements I had given them. it was kind of cheating to have the enhancements and I went to the players and no I couldn’t remove the enhancements, it was permanent. I told the coach that in the future no enhanced players in the national team. I was getting excited to see the international competition.

I started watching the practices and we had 3 women’s teams coming, Denmark, France and Russian. I watched them practice and they were not good. I also noted 2 Russian and one French female player that had a sliver of magic. I invited the entire French women’s team to diner and talked with the magic girl. I told her she could apply to the magic academy if she wanted and she said she was already destined to be a concubine to Liam. So they already knew about her. The next night I dinned with the Russians and the two young women were more receptive. I brought in the Danish team next just so I wasn’t playing favorites. Our women’s team arrived next. They were not overly impressive but were definitely going to coast to an easy title.

The games drew 4,900 international spectators and lots of Avalonians. When the men’s Avalonian team played the 20,000 seat stadium was full with people standing. The women’s Avalon team drew about 7,000. For the championship match we used the big stadium, for the men it was Avalon vs Poland in the finals. The stadium was packed and we won 6-1. The women’s championship game Avalon beat Russia 4-0. There were a number of VIPs that included king’s and queens that were not afraid to accept the teleport offers. I didn’t meet with any of them, not my job. I did have a dinner with Liam, his wife and two of his young kids. He was very happy with his situation and all smiles. His wife was extremely pretty as well, a French noble.

The after action report for the championships was done and I sat in. The committee members wanted to scratch all women’s events. I said no. The first Olympics might not be great but eventually it would produce great athletes and I think possibly help bring in magic positive persons to Avalon. It was obvious the two Russian young women had minor magic abilities helping their play. The hotels were a massive success and they had just gotten the steam powered elevators installed. They were ironing out other problems like the AC but still every visiting person was super impressed with the bathrooms and beds. Many people wanted to buy mattresses and the sheets, some offered ridiculous prices but I told them supply was too strained right now. I found out 184 pillows were stolen as well all we could do was blacklist the internationals who stole them. We were getting close to needing national IDs for Avalonians. We needed to expand our laundry facilities and people to run them as they couldn’t keep up with demand. The chefs had some trouble keeping up as well. They needed practice. The food venders at the stadiums and plazas did a good job and could train the rest. So in the end they wanted to practice running more events. I told them do what they needed to. My next project was going to build the passenger ships to pick up the athletes but before I could head to Camelot, Luke and Leo said they had finished the 4th hotel! They were promised a trip to Atlantis. So all 3 of us spent 4 days working on the Olympic village making changes needed due to findings during the tournament and then I brought them both to Atlantis. Naid was happy to see us and I forgot to tell her not to cast her Viagra spell on Luke and Leo. There were 2300 people in Atlantis, about 2000 were natives and of those 2000, 1500 were female. So while I spent time with Naid, Leo and Luke were well takin care of. The southern island was being converted to farmland and livestock grazing land. Naid had a standing militia now on the sourthern island of 65 men and 24 women as they had been raided twice. She wanted three more calves... I got them for here in the time I was there. I also got some cold stones to make ice because fruity drinks are better cold. I brought in 36 bottles of rum as well to make it a proper vacation. After 3 weeks of R&R for me and stress relief for Leo and Luke I dragged them back. Naid also wanted to build a naval base on the northern island. She was sure that was where the attacks were coming from. She convinced she didn’t want an Empire but just to control the islands because she was worried about the kids. They wanted to explore the Rockies retreat but I told them not now. I needed to blood link my teleporters…it was definitely going to be my next upgrade. Not to stop Leo and Luke but who knows what 40 years would bring.

Leo and Luke returned to work with gusto and even invited their finances to the Olympic village to hold their weddings there. I started planning a military action for Naid. I figured 3 FAVs with crews of 100 and 300 settlers. I could teleport them two at a time but instead I got Maya and her team of truthsayers to get 600 people loyal to train for the event. She started working with the knights who would train 240 soldiers and 240 sailors for the FAVs. They had a long list of failed knights who couldn’t meet their standards and should be able to get 50/50 split for men and women. In addition Maya would get 220 farmers and skilled workers. She said they would be ready to leave Merlin in March of 1697, 16 months out. Maya knew how important Atlantis was too me and an important site for future magi developments. I told her the soldiers and sailors would get the reaction and speed upgrades before leaving as well.