Chapter 24 - Heart of the Kingdom

“Come on! Don’t you want to see how your Citadel looks?” Camille laughed as she skipped ahead of our little group, heading towards the break in the woods ahead of us.

I’d actually forgotten to check on the Citadel’s process over the last week and a half. After taking everyone that wanted to pledge vassalage out there, I’d been too busy to go back. With the maids assisting both the harvesting and construction crews, we made far more progress than anyone expected. Not only did we finish the storage warehouses within a week, but we’d already made some significant progress on clearing a road between the village and the valley. 

Based on our current estimates it would only take another week to complete, providing not just a way to quickly travel between the two locations, but a significant number of logs which could be used in future building projects.

If my system hadn’t pinged, letting me know that the Citadel construction had completed, I probably wouldn’t have realized it was done for another couple days.

As soon as Camille burst into the clearing around the Citadel she came to a dead stop and let out a low whistle. 

“Okay, I admit it, I’m impressed,” she whispered.

Selena and I exchanged a quick glance, then accelerated our pace. As I stepped out from beneath the forest canopy I was nearly blinded by the light, so I raised a hand to shelter my eyes. It didn’t really help, and I needed to wait a couple seconds for my eyes to adjust to understand why.

The Citadel was breathtaking. Made of the same white stone that the labyrinth had been made of, it appeared to glisten in the sunlight. The tower was gone, replaced by a squat, squarish keep that barely poked above the outer walls; We’d have to get inside to see more. 

The fact that we couldn’t really couldn’t see the keep from here only seemed to draw more attention to the strange shape of the outer walls. Instead of having the standard square, or slightly rounded walls, the Citadel’s walls were star shaped. Long walls that ended in sharp corners. 

It was a little off putting, for some reason the longer I looked at it, the more I liked it.

Surrounding the Citadel on both the north and east was a lake, which I’m pretty sure hadn’t been there before. There had been a small river far to the north; it must have been caught in the Citadel’s terraforming effort. Whether that was intentional or not, I didn’t know. 

To the southeast of the citadel was a vast flattened plain. The massive dirt area was slightly raised over the surrounding area, and completely empty. Since it had been leveled it must have been considered part of the Citadel, but I didn’t have a clue of its purpose.

Camille, finally done admiring the scene, frowned. “What’s with that shape?”

“That’s what you’re going to focus on?” Selena asked. “Not the fact that it completely leveled the area, created a lake, or is created out of some sort of mystical stone?” 

“I’ve seen a mystical stone castle before,” Camille snapped. “The Iskel royal castle is made of a single piece of stone.” 

Selena’s head snapped up. “It is? In Skyla the royal castle is just made of granite.”

“Maybe it’s not where Skyla’s stone is, or maybe something happened and they couldn’t rebuild it,” I suggested.

“I have no idea,” Selena muttered. “I do know that the Butchers are created inside. I used to live nearby, and those creepy bastards always seemed to come wandering out of there at all hours.”

“Butchers…?” 

“That’s what we called the Skylian constructs,” Selena explained. “What else would you call a construct who has knives for fingers, and whose only purpose is to slay their enemies?”

“Creepy bastards,” Camille muttered.

My fingers twitched as I resisted the urge to run over to the Citadel and inspect every room, every corner of the stronghold. As much as I wanted to explore my new home, I had something far more important to do first. 

“System,” I whispered.

When the window appeared I flipped over to the Domain tab.

Magic Available (80/100) [See current drains] [Hide on other panels]

Citadel Upgrades [See Options]

Magical Constructions [See Options]

Magical Boons [See Options]

Resource Boosts [See Options]

Personal Boons [See Options]

Constructs [See Options]

“The Citadel has stopped draining magic, now that construction is complete,” I told my companions. “So we finally have enough to start constructing the gateway.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to do some exploring first?” Camille pouted. “Just a little?”

“I’d love nothing more to see what the Citadel has to offer, but it’s far more important to get the gateway up and running. There are a lot of people relying on us to get it done,” I said.

“Not even a little? Just an hour?” Camille pleaded.

“We’ll come back right after we’re done,” I promised. “I want to explore just as much as you do.”

“Can you start the construction from here?” Selena asked. “It would save us a trip over there.”

Prompted by my two friends, and my own curiosity, I tapped the Magical Constructs button, then Construct Gateway. A sub window appeared.

You cannot construct a gateway or fortress within one kilometer of a Citadel. Would you like to construct the gateway at a remote location? [Yes/No]

As I touched Yes the window swapped over to my map. When I tapped on the map experimentally, a symbol appeared under my finger and [Accept/Reject] appeared under the mark.

“Neat!” Camille exclaimed. 

“Efficient,” Salena mumbled.

As I quickly refocused the map on the meadow, and tapped on the location I’d planned to build the gate, Selena reached out and pointed at another section of my map. “Look, the map has already been updated with both the buildings we’ve been building, and the area which has been cleared for the road.” 

“I always thought the map was static, and had to be manually refreshed by someone,” Camille muttered, enthralled by the discovery. “If the stone is capable of monitoring changes within the kingdom as they happen, do you think it’s capable of monitoring individual people?”

“Probably,” I muttered. “It would explain why the Stone opened up to us, and not to the Skylians or the elf bloods. I can’t be sure though, I still haven’t dedicated any time to go through the reference tab.”

“It’s not really that important right now,” Camille replied, waving her hand dismissively. “I was just wondering out loud.” 

I made a couple minor adjustments to the emblem on my map, centering it in the dip where I’d decided to set it up, before finally clicking accept. The symbol locked in place, and turned from white to grey, and a timer appeared above it. 

“Seven days to construct, that’s a lot faster than the Citadel,” Selena muttered.

“Well, the stone doesn’t need to level the entire area,” Camille said. “Just assemble the structure. Probably.”

“Even if it did want to level the area, it would only need to do the immediate area around the gate,” I agreed.

I was about to reach up and close the window, when I noticed that Selena’s eyes were still glued to my map.

“You notice something?” I asked her.

“No, just looking…” she idly replied.

“You know, the Citadel is complete, and that was the requirement for full system rollout,” I said. “Which means you should have access to your own window now. You want to give it a try?”

Selena stepped back, blinking in surprise. “Can I?” 

“I don’t see why not,” I said. “I need someone to try it, so I know whether it’s working for non-vassals.”

Selena nodded, reached out with a hand and hesitantly called out “System.”

The warm orange colored window I’d seen her using during the tests. She clapped excitedly. “It works!” 

“Good, hopefully that means everyone now has access,” I said, “and we can start using the message system to communicate.”

“More important than that…” Camille exclaimed. “Now that you’ve started the gate construction remotely, we can explore the Citadel!”

“You really have a one track mind, don’t you,” Selena grumbled as she closed her system begrudgingly.

“Yup! Let’s go!” Camille yelled before skipping towards the fortress.

Selena glanced at me exacerbated, before slowly wandering after the girl. 

I just chuckled. “Alright, let’s go.”