After the connection was made, the Sithern expanded the model I had created until it was filling the Valley completely.
[Saor Sithern is attempting to expand beyond Underhill. Allow this change?]
[Yes/No]
Selecting yes, a new System menu became active allowing me to adjust for city construction. I selected the option to give permissions for the Sithern, allowing it to create the cityscape I had built using glamour. I did restrict access to the Valley, for now, only allowing Vassals, servants, and members of House Teigh entrance. I would expand permissions once my people had arrived.
I had no choice, the restrictions on population could not be maintained, I needed a bustling city that was brimming with people, people contributing to the economy. I would have to open permissions soon to allow for swift migration. Hopefully, I would have some talented and Ranked individuals that would be interested and capable of filling the twelve House council seats.
I would have liked to have a guard force in place, at the very least a minimal guard detail, that could police the city. The numbers would have to be expanded as more Sidhe joined the Tuatha de Danaan and agreed to settle locally. I would use Basil and Brianna to create an orderly system to purchase business locations, homes, and bureaucratic support, but none of that mattered if I could establish basic protections.
I gave the Sithern permission to adapt homes and business, to tailor those buildings to the needs of those that would purchase them, with a few caveats. No business could be more than three stories high; they could build as deeply as they wanted, but I did not want to destroy the skyline, and green space had to be respected. I wanted an industrious community, but I wanted to maintain the idyllic environment the Sithern offered.
The harbor took the most time to create. The docks would begin within the Sithern's area of influence but would extend past the Sitherns limits. The dimensional transition that would need to take place was more involved than simply entering the rift in space to Underhill that was the normal process. A barrier existed that defined the limits of the Sithern, but it had to be more permeable, the movement between in and out and in and back had to occur as if the difference between the two realms did not exist. An osmotic balance that achieved equilibrium.
This was made even more difficult because the area Underhill would still be limited and passage to that area would need to occur through a secondary rift in space. This created a layering of dimensions that had to be managed seamlessly, and for a newly born Sithern, the workings would require some adjustments until we had stabilized the effect I was after.
That process couldn't be completed until I was able to test the effectiveness of what I had created. There was nothing to base my ideas on. I was forging ahead based on intuition, with an occasional prompt from System.
Finally, I thought I was done, and System seemed to agree.
[System Notice: Accept Sithern Restrictions?]
[Yes/No]
The changes began as soon as I clicked yes and accepted the settings. The glamour that I had created, the ideas I had formed of what I wanted the city to look like began to expand. It had already enlarged until it was a life-size holo-projection of the small-scale model I had made, but now it began to manifest. Once the Sithern was satisfied that placement and size were correct it began making real what had been only an illusion.
A ground tremor was the first hint that reality was being warped, the trembling increasing until actual earthquakes began the process of molding and forming the land into the patterns and districts I'd envisioned. Once the placement of buildings was complete, a plethora of trees, plants, and flowers exploded to fill the green scape. A heady perfume of freshly tilled soil and the scent of flowers filled the air, as perfumed blossoms exploded releasing pollens to ride the air currents. Heady scents that were released and allowed to escape from the valley across the Sithern boundaries at the water's edge and the entrance through the hills.
The perfume seemed to be the signal the Volar-fey were waiting for as they migrated from Underhill. Great swarms of Volar-fey, so abundant that they blotted out the Sun. Millions of Volar-fey, so many millions that I wondered if the Sithern was creating them at that moment. They swarmed like bees following a young queen when a hive had grown too crowded. The insects flocking to protect the young queen as she left the original hive to strike out and form her own kingdom.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
And like those Queens, the Volar-fey began leaving the safety of the Sithern in droves. Swarm after swarm escaping, looking for new lands to populate, new flowers and plants to propagate, and new homes to protect. As the swarms thinned, one final cluster of Volar-fey, still numbering in the tens of thousands found purchase within the flowers, shrubs, and trees that had mushroomed to fill the Valley, their own small kingdom and place to call home.
And as they landed, they began to work. Creating trellises, confining and directing creeping vines and ivy, fashioning order, and taming the haphazard planting that Sithern had allowed to root. Their final touch was to encourage branches and ivy to grow into the infrastructure that joined tree to tree. The walkway that would allow the citizens to use these byways for mobility instead of trampling and spoiling the more delicate flowers that littered the ground.
This feat was more impressive because they created walkways even though there were a dearth of trees planted and allowed to grow within the city. I had aimed for gardens of flowers and shrubs; trees were not a mainstay; I hadn't wanted to recreate Kel Fief. Those trees that did exist, were planted more for shade and aesthetics than infrastructure, until the Volar-fey acted.
My bond with the Sithern allowed me to experience the growth and changes as they occurred, the city formed, pulsing with the life energies of the Sithern. The only exception had been the creation and release of the swarms of Volar-fey. The Sithern had discharged them from hibernation and allowed them to swarm and migrate without my input.
That had come as a surprise. I wondered if Danu had something to do with it, a trigger she had planted when she offered them a chance to change. Some type of imperative she'd planted for those that had refused the evolution she'd offered. That the creatures were being re-introduced to Talahm may create as much of a seismic shift to the world at large as the creation of the Tuatha de Danaan faction was bound too.
Reality intruded, interrupting my thoughts as the city seemed to snap into place. Construction finished the Volar-fey and built the last bridge. The Sithern had timed its part of the construction to coincide with completing the last dwelling, the docks, and the wharf at the same time.
The Sithern had built the city, but it wasn't finished expanding. It should have been, at least based on my vision and scaled model, but that wasn't the case. The Sithern was sentient; it had bonded with me but was geared toward helping the Sidhe as a race, an empathetic understanding that allowed it to change and grow to meet the needs of those that entered its sphere of influence.
As a final gift, it expanded and added one final improvement, something I hadn't considered, but would make an enormous difference in the prosperity of my Kingdom.
The hills that enclosed the valley were more than the bedrock through which the ley-lines flowed and converged; they were also rich in resources. Unfortunately, those resources were so deeply distributed underground they were functionally out of reach. The Sidhe practice of not disrupting the Earth to get to them should have meant they would never be exploited, but the Sithern made adaptations to the hills themselves.
First, each of the hills was seeded with plants that formed deep roots, roots that could slowly leach the rich mineral deposits from the ground and allow those minerals to be harvested. It was an adaption on the Sidhe plant system that had been engineered to grow ore fruit, one that bore greater harvests since the minerals were extracted from the soil.
The other gift the Sithern provided was a new passage into the side of the Hill. Placed where I'd originally planned as the site for the Sithern Underhill entrance. It opened as mine shafts, burrowing down so that it just reached the Nexus that I had discovered in that area. It was here, where the magic was most concentrated that the Sithern planted seeds of Silinium. Seeds that it had appropriated when I scattered them within ley-lines to propagate on Earth.
I thought it rather amusing to find out that my Sithern was a thief and wasn't above appropriating items that it thought useful. I'd have to be careful of the safeguards I placed on the treasury and bank. It wouldn't do for the Sithern to decide it had a better use for harvested resources than what I and my council had planned for them.
Finally, the small changes, the subtle nuances of adjustments were finished, and the Sithern was satisfied that it had managed to re-create the illusion I had modeled. Once satisfied the Celtic Knot that had been braided into the triumphant of power was also satisfied and tied the loop, re-establishing the point that Aspen and Pine had identified as the epicenter for the Valley and the Sithern.
Saor o Shlabhraidhean was complete, actualized, and ready for residents. I looked out over the newly created city. The plans that I had made, the plans that the Sithern had manifested, created homes to house over fifty million people. With the ability to add levels deep into the bedrock, the City could grow to house billions.
I had no idea how many of the billions that already resided in Aingeal Geamhraidh would change factions and remain, but it was best to be prepared.
System responded.
World Quest: The Capital, Saor o Shlabhraidhean has been completed. King Teigh Mac de Beleros y Cyronax is accepting those interested in establishing business, homes, and trade. All Sidhe, irrespective of faction are welcome to apply.
*Note* 5% increase in experience gains for new residents.
*Warning* Residency requirements exist, applicants must become members of the Tuatha de Danaan faction.
I smiled in delight when I read that announcement. That was going to put a wrench in the plans of the Seelie and Unseelie Monarchy.