In Camelot we loaded the carts again. This load would get me all the valuable items and just furniture would be left. A ship was spotted offshore just as I was leaving and I held back while the golems brought the carts away. I went and watched the ship. It was headed slowly down the coast. I decided to check it out. It was an English ship, a big one with lots of gun ports. I gathered a bag of stones on shore an hour later returned to the ship with the bag of rocks in my mouth. At night I threw the thermal stones across the deck. I swam away quickly as screams started right away. There were a lot of soldiers on the deck sleeping. It took 7 minutes before the fires started to get out of control.

I returned to shore as the ship tried to make it to the beach as well. On the beach I found my clothes and watched the flaming ship sink about ½ mile from shore to the south. I went to the beach and met the sailors and soldiers as they got to shore and asked them what happened. One soldier said hell fell from the sky. After 3 hours there were 47 men on the beach and no captain. The highest ranking soldier said there were 150 sailors and 300 soldiers on board. I asked what their mission was and he said the Spanish burned ships and forts in the north and they were going to exact revenge. That kind of made since I had burned moving up the coast. The ship that just sunk was the flagship of the Americas fleet. I left the men alive figuring my soul was darkened enough. They would make their way north to Camelot and I would tell the town to give them food to continue marching north.

I returned to Camelot and told them to supply and send the soldiers on their way and then took my caravan west. It took 4 days because we had to stop 3 times for some repairs to carts. Arriving in Avalon I got all the paintings and most of the books into an airtight storage. Renee and Ella were looking at all the sales slips identifying the goods and were very excited. They couldn’t decide if the Museum or the Theater was more important. I had figured I would leave 4 golems to guard the museum when it was built so I wasn’t looking forward to completing it.

Ella gave birth to a boy on July 17th and named him Liam. Renee had a daughter, Ava, on August 5th, 1667. We had two nurses to help with the 5 babies in the tower. The rest of the warehouse contents got delivered and the girls started redoing the tower with the fancy furniture. The first floor was our living space with kitchen and dining room. The second floor was the sleeping area with 6 bedrooms. The third floor was the map room. The fourth floor was my working office, my bedroom and treasury. Somehow they used all the imported furniture in the tower.

I started a formal militia in July and called them the Knight Rangers. They were 43 of the best fighting men in town and they got paid to drill two days a week. Each man was issued two rifles and they were drilled in hit and run tactics. The command structure was called a platoon and had 1 captain, 2 lieutenants, 4 sergeants, 6 corporals, and 30 scouts. Each corporal commanded 6 scouts and those 7 man units were how they operated. The sergeants served mostly logistical roles. The lieutenants passed on orders from the captain. Eventually I would get them mounted. I didn’t want to have a standing army yet and my sheriff currently had 4 deputies.

The biggest hiccup was getting everyone fluent in English. We were making progress though. By October 1st the Theater was starting to go up and it was very impressive in size and we had included space for electricity and sewer infrastructure in the future. We also started seeing trade from Camelot in terms of sand, salt, salted fish and limestone blocks. It caused another reason to increase my coins. October 18th saw 68 new settlers from Italy and Greece delivered by my ships. I traveled to Camelot to meet with my captains and was happy to see Pendragon had attracted more settlers. I told the captains to winter at the Spanish port to the south and gave them each a large bag of gems for trade goods. They wanted to know what to do with the profits since they were not going to England now to deposit them. I told them to get it in gold and I would take it. The also had my permission to buy art in France and Spain and I described my tastes. I learned there were rumors of a Spanish – English war was on the horizon. With all the soldiers and ships I had destroyed England had to be under extreme stress in this timeline. I told them I would be coming on their second voyage next year and we would try to trade in Constantinople.

The winter months I split my time between the dam, making large road paving stones and building the theater. The road was looking great with stones that were a square yard and 18 inches thick. By casting harden stone twice I could extend the life of the stones to a few centuries. The quality paving stones was just through town and the side streets. I tried to make some stone rails for trains but gave up on it because of the time and magic investment. In January I was getting cagey and decided to deliver letters to Renee and Ella’s parents.

Instead of going up the coast I just ran straight north in wolf form during the day and panther at night. I was looking for rock and mineral deposits. Other than some nice rock deposits I didn’t locate anything interesting. I got shot at three times! The trip took 15 days. I met with the lord and presented the letters and took their hospitality for 4 days. I had just a harness that fit snuggly around my next in animal form so I only had a handful of gems. I bought a few pieces of silver and gold jewelry for the women. The parents wanted to visit in the spring to see their grandkids. I said they could come anytime and suggested sailing to Camelot and taking the road. I told the lord about the English losses and he said the King of England was becoming strained. King Charles was at war with the Dutch, Spanish and was facing challenges to his rule. I wasn’t sure if this was the same as in my timeline. The trip back took 12 days and at least I didn’t get shot at.

The women in the tower divided up the jewelry. Riona had improved her magic sense and light spell. She could now detect magic at range and could throw golf ball sized fireballs. She was happy and I was proud of her. I got updates and Amelia gave me a list of 23 things I needed to do with my magic. I sighed and went to sleep after a few shots of whisky. Carina joined me and I found I missed her and her body.

I spent three days on the aqueduct from the dam and making coins. The next five days were spent creating stone for roads and the theater which was looking great. I also made 120 light stones at night. The next two weeks were spent working on the road west which we started paving to the mountains and improved the pass over the mountains. Amelia was following my plans which included founding a town on the other side of the Appalachian mountains. It was boring work and I was already getting itchy to travel. Only Carina had visited my bed since I had come back. When I asked at dinner it came out Amelia was actually seeing the cooper’s son. I said I supported her and if she wanted to marry him I would build a mayor’s house for them to live together. Ella and Renee were not sure if they were supposed to keep having children since they had completed the contract and had a boy between them. I was confused and it took a while to get their point of view. The letters they had received from their father and mother said they must have a son and work for me. I asked them if they enjoyed their teaching job and what did they want, return to their parents, France? Ella said she loved the school and teaching and blushed as she said she loved me too. I told her she could continue living in the tower and share my bed whenever she felt like it. Renee said she loved everything too but she could see the passion between me and Carina and didn’t want to force herself between us. I looked at all four of them and said we were in the frontier but would create a civilization here. Already the town looked like a city in Europe. I said to all of them life was about family and they were part of mine. I wanted them to have a fulfilling life and that meant children with me or someone else. Ella joined me in bed that night and the sex was the best we had had so far. I saw Renee the next night.

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I checked my status a few nights later.

Magic Pool: 172, Magic Regen: 13.2 per hour

Spell Design Points: 5

* Ageless, Level 3 (Stone Magic Ability) – like all stone you are ageless, your body ages 1/12th as fast greatly increasing your life expectancy, each level increase slightly slows aging even further

* Shapeshift, Level 4 (Nature Magic Ability) – you can shape change into one beast form healing injuries, each level increase adds another beast form, forms: Black Panther, White Wolf, Bottlenose Dolphin

* Stalwart Immunity, Level 3 (Stone Magic Ability) – you have resistance to disease and infections, each level improves the speed at which you heal from injuries and poisons

* Magic Sense, Level 2 (Divination Magic Ability) – you can sense magic and estimate its power, each level improves the range

* Stone Golem, Level 9 (98/100) (Stone Spell – tier 9) – create a golem from 1 cubic yard of stone, each level increase adds density, strength and durability, COST: 7.7 Magic Pool, Evolutions: Reduced Golem Cost

* Soften Stone, Level 8 (83/100) (Stone Spell – tier 3) – turns 1 cubic yard of stone to clay, each level increases affected volume, COST: .8 Magic per minute, Evolution: Purify Stone

* Strengthen Stone, Level 8 (9/100) (Stone Spell – tier 3) – improves 1 cubic yard stones resistance to damage, each level improves the volume and the stones strength, COST: 1.1 Magic, Evolution: lighten stone by 20%

* Stone Bullet, Level 8 (77/100) (Stone Spell – tier 0) – temporarily creates a small stone and fires it at a target, each level improves the density and speed of the stone, COST: 0.1 Magic, Evolutions: Control the shape of bullet

* Nature’s Growth, Level 10 (11/100) (Nature Spell – tier 5) – complete 1 year of growth on a single plant in 60 minutes, each level increases the plant’s growth, COST: 1 Magic, Evolutions: Rejuvenate the soil around the roots of the plant, infuse magic to supply the plant for 1 year adds 12 magic cast

* Plant Snare, Level 2 (85/100) (Nature Spell – tier 0) – activate a square yard of plants to entangle an animal within 50 yards, each level increases the area and range, COST: 0.3

* Thermal Stone, Level 8 (20/100) (Stone Spell – tier 3) – raises the temperature of 1 cubic yard of stone 100 degrees for 66 minutes, each level increases the temperature and volume, COST: 0.9 per 106 degrees, Evolutions: Can stack the spell to extend the time of the enchantment

* Light Stone, Level 5 (81/100) (Stone Spell – tier 2) – creates a bright light source (2000 lumens) on 8.1 ounces of stone burning the stone over time 52 years, each level increases affected mass and time, COST: 10, Evolutions: the light can be white, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo or violet

The light stone upgrade had been a hard choice between the variant colors, increasing the brightness or increasing the enchantment time by 50%. Nature’s growth was another hard choice between an area affect, added a magic seed to grow the plant over a year or a revive spell that gave life to a dead plant. I didn’t regret my choices. I was happy to see my golem spell was so close to getting to level 10. More importantly I had 5 spell points and needed just one more to form the cure disease spell. I was also curious if my abilities would have evolutions when they reached tier 5. I hadn’t chosen a new animal form yet. Once I decided it usually took an hour or so to be able to change into the form. I came out of meditation and decided I would add three golems today. They would be welcomed in town as they did the work of 10 men and never tired.

I spent 2 days making the golems and when they were done I compared them to my earlier work. They would be lifelike it they had hair and a skin tone. Golems could be programed like a computer. Once they did a task they could repeat the task. I had to be close so they could draw off my mind in what needed to be done. I named these three Atlas, Hercules and Perseus. They would be joining my other 3 golems that patrolled the eastern road and wilderness. I brought them down the road and showed them how to maintain and expand the road. I wasn’t sure when trains would be introduced but I was already planning for it.

I sat with Amelia and my banker to go over Avalon coins. I looked at the chart of coins created so far.

Count

Face

Total

42000

1

42,000

32000

5

160,000

20000

25

500,000

15000

100

1,500,000

3000

500

1,500,000

3000

1000

3,000,000

6,702,000

I had made 3000 white coins recently at the value of 1000 each from white marble. The bank currently had 75% of the total value of coins created and 12% in deposit accounts. Meaning 13% were in circulation but we were still having trouble with lower denominations. Since I owned everything and paid people the economy was circular but trade with outsiders was draining coinage slowly. A person made somewhere between 100 and 250 a month. They wanted me to create 100,000 coins every year. It was a tedious process for me and I asked what other options as a normal night yielded about 500 coins so 100k was 200 nights of work. They said we could mint metal coins but that was not a good option as my coins were more secure since they were unique. Ok I would try to find time to make coins, ugh. I checked my pit of gemstones and it was getting low. I started having a few golems harvest more stones at night and purifying them in my spare time. I needed to bring a large cache to Constantinople.

My golem spell finally hit level 10 and I had a new upgrade option. I narrowed it to basic intelligence, increased mass by 50% or speech. Speech would allow me to send messages while I was away but I decided on basic intelligence so the golems could learn.