Chapter 115: 98: Homecoming

Auratic

>System reboot complete.

>Administrator access level updated; Maximum clearance.

She came to herself, a rather effeminate voice welcomed her. True enough, as God had mentioned, not a moment had during their audience.

‘Alma sounds… quite feminine now… Has it always been like that?’

>Psychological profiling indicates: Administrator exhibits increased responsiveness to higher frequency transmissions in a state of ease.

‘Huh. Does that mean I respond better if there’s a manly man yelling at me from inside my head when I’m stressed?’

>Negative. Under cognitive stress, Administrator exhibits increased responsiveness to overlapping transmissions.

‘Oh so it's a lot of people yelling at me… wait a minute does that mean I'm more influenceable to peer-pressure?’

>Evidence inconclusive.

‘That’s good, I think… Anyway, I need to wrap up the mess here and head back.’

She had learned many new things, some concerning and others elucidating. It would take time to grasp everything, and doing so in the aftermath of a major conflict was not ideal.

To Alpha, her mistress was a tireless worker that rarely took time for herself. This sudden request and her change in mannerisms were odd for that matter, but it was not something she completely disliked.

For a little while, she was enveloped in the blackness of the Void, but she soon found herself back in the middle of her room in Velauhart.

‘Yeesh I should tidy up a little every time before leaving. I don’t think this will be the last time I’ll be using Trespass to return. The clutter will become a problem when I return in a hurry.’

The return of her presence was not missed by her other half.

The hidden limitations set on Alma that were now gone intrigued Alicia's curiosity and she was eager to figure out the new things that she could make Alma do that supposedly she would like.

>Genetic tailoring functions now available.

>Ascendancy protocols available.

>Secondary supportive protocols active.

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>Tertiary supportive protocols active.

>Assessment correct. Function intended to enhance existing expressions, implement beneficial adaptation and eliminate vulnerabilities.

>Fatal vulnerability present in cervical vertebrae structure. Suggested action: Foreshorten vertebrae segments, simplify structure, improve resilience.

>Prospective opportunity: able to assimilate scale structure present in reptilian lifeforms. Will allow genealogy to develop subcutaneous plates. Additional protection from external trauma without compromising flexibility and cosmetic values. Hinders loss of vital fluids.

There still remains another problem. An object symbolic of God, a statue. That was a can of worms she wanted nothing to do with. Temple design was not her forte, not to mention sculpting was outside her expertise.

‘Materials… Has to be marble huh, Gamma should have a good stock of those. Then location, should it be someplace accessible…? Well it’s only for me so that part doesn’t really matter, I can always use trespass to get there fast. Since I need to… well focus and meditate… I think? It should be somewhere far from the hubbubs of life. Mountains then. Hm… that cave where the crystal outcrops grow already has some altar feel to it. I could probably recondition it to become a temple. If so, it’ll save a lot of time from building the structure itself, instead we could just have the insides be presentable.’

Before she knew it, she had already gravitated towards the seat behind her desk, pushing away notes and half-done designs and models aside, her hand had already picked up the quill scribbling down notes for herself. It was quite the learning curve for her to move from convenience and reliability of pen and pencil to inkwells and quills and rough brushes occasionally. Her current proficiency came at the expense of precious parchment paper being blotched and poked through, with as many quills with broken tips and bottles and bottles of ink being wasted. Though as a result of the painstaking - and expensive - practice, she was perhaps the swiftest scribe there was on the continent, no longer needing to visually look at what she was writing. Though since it was for herself, the legibility had suffered quite a bit.

‘Lighting… is a problem. Although the main chamber has some sunlight, the rest of the cave needs artificial lighting. Have to figure that out. Second, Ventilation, besides the main entrance, there are few crevices where air exchange can occur, it would be better to have more points to know where the air is coming from, and control the volume of it, should be able to make some air shafts for that purpose.

The structure of what she wanted had already started forming in her mind’s eye. Pulling out a fresh paper, white and without imperfections, she had started sketching out its parts.

‘Considering how dank it was last time I was around, there must be some sort of mountain condensation happening, need to plan around that, make some sort of drainage system before the water ruins everything. Before doing any digging… I need to ascertain the load bearing capacities of the cave walls. Have to go there again for that. As for where the water seems to be condensing… Llynbel might be able to help me with that. Otherwise I’ll either have to waterproof every part of it… or take time to figure out where it is happening…

What else… Accessibility is a joke… It’s already at a high elevation with thin oxygen, not to mention the couple of sheer walls one would have to scale to make it to the main atrium. I have spider appendages, I cheated to get up there… eh, might as well draw up something about it.’

Before she realized it, she was completely immersed in the task ahead of her, drawing up the design of what would become a temple in meticulous detail with loose dimensional notations. She was not attached to her current outline as she would later make alterations and revisions based on her surveying. Only when the gentle knocking on the door of someone broke her out of her engrossment. Looking up from her desk, the light of the sun had already gone out and the moon was high in its ascent. She was surprised by the dancing fire above her left index finger. At some point she had used magic to create illumination for herself, without knowing. She put it out by quickly shaking her hand in the air and picked up the lantern that she repaired one time after the merchant that brought it didn’t want it back.

‘Got carried away again… ahhh without my brain telling me to sleep it’s hard to keep track of time. Well not like I listened to it much anyways.’ Tapping gently on the faint amber crystal caused it to brighten to a searing orange, enough to light up a good portion of the expansive room on its own.

Alfred came in, holding a stack of documents. It was uneconomical to commit reports and problems into writing, especially when Alicia had more or less a global communication with every familiar under her, but that did not extend to those outside the connection granted by kindred. While things could be done just as quickly or done faster by Alicia going over herself, the act was intensive of micromanagement, something that she was not fond of doing. Especially when considering that some people performed worse under scrutiny, be it from distracting presence or simply the knowledge and pressure of their work being evaluated over their shoulders. Add to that, Alicia believed that writing about something comprehensively was easier than discussing it, especially when the occasion was unanticipated.

Skimming through, few things already stood out, though none of which was unexpected. They took in many refugees and rescued just as many people from the raids leading up to the conflict. Now with them came a number of problems. First was housing, the lodging houses intended for guests and merchants had already filled up to the brim, people had to sleep on the floor. The rest were in temporary shelters, makeshift tents and crude shelters. Furthermore there were a number of people that had voiced their desire to leave the forest, these were from people with relatives in nearby villages and towns. What was more troubling was those who expressed their wishes to stay and settle down, these were people who had lost almost everything. As she was the de facto lord around these parts, it was up to her to decide whether or not they could. For her though, it was a forgone decision to let them do whatever they wanted, which meant letting them stay. This in turn was a whole load of administrative nightmare. Next was the food strain. Though there was a decent stock thanks to the refrigeration, provided by the cold boxes Alicia made. Without more sources it could become a problem. ‘So I guess this is what Alice meant when the humans were noisy…’ With that came more and more problems to sort out, carpentry, furnishings, roads, public services such as bath-houses for sanitation, latrines or public toilets, creation of jobs, public spaces, parks and recreation, safety and on and on and on… While there was a great overlap between city urban and civil engineering, she was not a city planner. ‘Welp… no better time to learn to be one. This’ll be something to add to my CV.’

‘Why is nothing simple… I have to cut corners wherever I can, they want to live here, they’ll have to build their own dwellings… the singles will have to be put into apartment style buildings for density… can’t be too tall with the ground affordance so we’ll have to go wide… next… the couples they’ll get A-frame houses. Incorporate the trees themselves as support, lower the production costs and cut down the time. Lastly, the big families… ugh… They need something along the lines of villas or small mansions worth of space… I could make do with split level… easier to dig into the ground than it is to build a mansion. Alright, that sounds like a plan…’

One crucial mistake Alicia had made was that she based her size estimates and planning based on her modern standards. In reality, for the serf class farmers that mostly made up the current people, homes with clean floors that didn’t think of livestock manure was considered “Good”. In fact many of poorer souls had to live and sleep with their small livestock - such as goats and sheep - using the ground level of their homes as a barn usually with the second floor reserved for more ‘affluent’ families. Even in poverty, there was a class of difference. Compared to that, what Alicia was drafting up right now was something the middle class of gentry - wealthy merchants, clergy, craftsmen would lie, steal, fight and kill - necessarily in that order - to call it their own.

Auratic

With a stable income though I should be able to open a bank account that is capable of international transactions. Which means I can start taking donations and use my funds to actually commission an artist. Waow.

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