50th Glade, 124
Stardew Valley
At last.
Frost had relinquished its death grip. Glade had come pouring back into the valley, into the world. It had rushed in as though it had been struggling against the powers that held it at bay for seasons upon seasons. Now there was green to be seen in every direction where shades of grey had held sway for so long many had given up on ever seeing the longed-for change.
Many were still wary of the hope the change in the weather brought but the young lord of Stardew Valley had spoken to a goddess, had sought confirmation from a mage deeply connected to the earth, and had spread the news to his people. There would be four seasons again, the world was correcting itself. Carefully, with help from all his friends who had set up the protections to begin with, the wards were toned down so that the natural rhythm of the seasons could once again take hold in the valley.
It felt like a dream for Torin sometimes, seeing what had lived in only in his imagination for almost two years coming to life before him. The village was filling up as word spread of a safe place ruled by a gentle Lord. The population had more than doubled since he'd invited the first few pioneer families to begin cultivating the wild land and there were the half-formed shapes of new houses and outbuildings going up here and there wherever he looked from the vantage point of the hill where the foundation of his own eventual home had gone in with the help of his Elementalism while the ground had yet remained frozen.
The stones for it he had pulled from the Earth himself, coaxing and convincing them to move up at his call. When there had been enough to cover the size that the masons and architects Kala had recommended had marked out he had been one of the workers to place them. Sweating alongside his people had helped him learn the new names and faces and let them know that he was as willing as any of them to get his hands dirty building their new lives together.
When they had all been placed he had asked that no mortar be applied to hold them together, which had confused the masons but they hadn't argued with him after an initial flurry of explaining the need for a solid foundation. The smith had carefully explained that he understood and promised that he wouldn't be wasting their time on an unstable building project. Once they had left him alone, with only a few confused backward glances, he had taken to sitting alone on the stones for hours every day. There were too many things that demanded his time for him to spare more, but over the course of a week he let his mind connect to Earth and the stones nestling in it. He had spent the month before he had hired the architects studying both building and the properties and melting temperatures of a variety of types of rock. When he felt he had a true grasp of the process and the desires of Earth in the spot he opened himself to his second rune and began to connect the stones together. A fully solid foundation would crack and become unstable over long years, but without any connection, the stones would eventually settle too deeply. Neither thing would happen for as many years as Torin had to his name, but he didn't want to have to worry, even then. The connections he formed between the stones were part physical and part aetheric, convincing them that they were of the same body. A body that could adjust itself to the slow movements of the ground and water around it. It had taken as long to get the whole thing together as it had to study his books on how to do so, but a month's worth of daily effort had completed a foundation that would remain stable so long as the hill continued to exist, and even after if it were worn away slowly enough.
He had used Fire and Earth mainly in the connections but had found that Water and even a little Air were required to complete the binding. It had been an effort that had left him mentally and aetherically exhausted but it was the first time he had made something with Elementalism that felt right inside him in the same way that his best Runeforged projects did. The project was, in its own way, as pleased with the change as the creator was. A collection of fully non-conscious stones connected by threads of the elements and raw aether could not be said to feel or think anything and yet...
For the first time, the prospect of living inside the manor house was something that Torin actually wanted. It would feel connected to him and connected to the valley in a way that he had been in dread that it wouldn't. Plopping a mansion down in the center of a still mostly wild place had felt fundamentally incorrect. The designs he had worked out with the masons and architects had helped some, but creating the foundation had done a great deal more. The final product would be the combination of a small stone keep that would be used to house his people should there ever be a need, and a glorified forest cabin. The artistry and embellishments he had left to the artists once they had a good grasp on what he liked. It had been vaguely embarrassing to realize in the beginning that he hadn't had any idea what he liked in terms of building aesthetics but they had been patient and gentle with him, showing him many different design types and letting him mix and match his answers.
The result, or at least how he imagined the drawings would end up looking, was something he could live with. More, they were something he could live in. What he would do with all the room, he didn't know, but hopefully, it would fill up with his friends and those he cared for often enough that it wouldn't feel empty.
He stood on the foundation, then, looking down over the valley. It was mid-morning and the farms were in full flurry of work. The two teams of oxen could both be seen laboring through separate fields and five of the eight golems were doing the same work elsewhere. The large mechanical beings did not need a farmhand or a traditional plow to turn dark earth over in preparation for planting the late season crops. Sivan, with some suggestions from the farmers, had designed arm attachments for them that enabled them to plow two furrows at once. They were not physically much faster than the oxen but the attachments meant they got through a field in half the time.
Elsewhere the other three golems worked among groups of villagers as they moved through the fields that had been planted earlier in the breaking of the season, carrying giant buckets of water to spread over the new sprouts. Later they would move through the rows, specifically made wider for their bulk, delicately pulling the weeds that stubbornly pushed up between the crops. The labor the golems saved the people was already significant without taking it all in a way that would have robbed them of their connection to the land and their place on it. A delicate balance of giving aid without rendering the ones who were aided redundant had been the goal and, so far, it seemed as though he and Sivan had achieved it.
A grin crossed the young Lord's face as he watched a child of about nine years clamber up onto one of the watering golems and settle himself on its shoulders as though it were a very tall, bulky parent. The fact that both the children and their elders felt comfortable enough around the large artificial helpers to allow such a thing warmed Torin's insides. A new normal was being established in this place, among its people, one that might last decades or longer. New traditions and ways of doing things were already appearing, a micro-culture coming to life. The main Starfall culture, mixed with the wider Kalzasern one, would always be a part of the Valley culture (so long as the portals remained open) but there would be things that only Valley folk did, or knew, or believed. It was something so much bigger than Torin himself, and not at all within his control but it was within his ability to influence. That such things should happen organically seemed important, so he didn't try to curtail his own additions any more than he did those of anyone else. The responsibility did not weigh on him so much as his duty to ensure the lives of his people and the well-being of his land, but he was aware of it.
They were laying the foundations of a society, small though it might be, and that felt solid, stable, and good.
