Axium

CHAPTER 19

Fifteen of her new citizens huddled together in the middle of the courtyard working on a golden antenna a little taller than her.

As XRenia and Verin approached they all stopped working and bowed slightly to her. XRenia smiled at them and motioned for them to continue.

As they did so one of the men broke from the group and addressed her. "The array is almost finished but we stripped most of our furniture of the gold-tinted iron plating to make it. I hope you don't mind."

"That's fine. I'm planning on replacing the furniture anyway when we have more resources. I prefer light and airy style furnishings not the bulking heavy style that came with my palace."

The man nodded and rejoined the others in reshaping the last link of melted metal. As they were she couldn't help but notice that all of them were physically strong and gifted mages.

"That's what working in the labor camps does to you. But when Neo first help them escape they were all malnourished, since then though God has provided them with plenty of food." Verin told her.

"I think we need to seriously talk about this God thing sometime."

She felt Verin smile. "Believe it or not I very much like that."

The unnerving queasiness she had experienced before while he was talking about God return. "Looking forward to it." She lied. "But it looks like they just finished so it will have to wait to later."

The tall man with a bushy beard she recognized as Peter experimentally raised his hand and push energy through their array. The tiled courtyard directly beneath the antenna dissolved into dust then reformed into dirt leaving the pyrite coating floating in the middle of the array. "It works." He declared with a giant smile on his face.

XRenia frowned pulled out the tablet blueprint from her dimensional inventory and quickly fixed the blemish on her courtyard.

"All the spells are interlaced and integrated exactly as I showed you?" Zach asked from behind her and Verin as he walked over.

The man she recognized thanks to Verin's still open mind as Herman nodded. "Yes. I checked them myself. Though you should probably check it for yourself just to make sure."

Zach strode over to it and placed his hand on the array. "It's good. What should we do with it first?" He asked her and Verin.

She put away the tablet and shrugged. "Anything as long as it doesn't Intel tearing up portions of my palace."

There was a barely perceptible laugh among group. They had all seen her whip out the blueprint and instantly fix the courtyard.

"I think it be nice to have an herb garden right outside the kitchens side exit," Verin offered.

"Sounds good," she said waving her hand at the array floating it off the ground and walking towards the left side of the Palace.

Verin along with the others followed her out past the protective bubble the Emundans created and into the inky broken Ley line's magic.

"I think here will be good," Verin said, when they were right across from the servants entrance leading into the kitchen. "Though it's too bad that the claw's anti-icky magic shield doesn't expand out this far. Gardening in this stuff will be a pain."

XRenia maneuvered the array so it was pointed at the ground. "I'm guessing we just feed energy into it and it does the rest?"

"If all goes well, yes." Zach answered as he motioned for the others to step back.

"All right. Verin?"

Verin nodded and together they pushed some of their magic into the array.

The antenna glowed slightly then the ground it was aimed at shifted becoming like water. Ripples ran through the dirt as if someone had dropped a heavy rock into a watery mud puddle. Tiny particles of resources floated up to the middle the array then the ground became completely flat and settled back down as if nothing happened.

XRenia reached out and pushed a small deposit of random resources into her dimensional inventory then knelt down and touched the newly terraformed earth.

She didn't know anything about farming or gardening but the dirt look perfect to her for growing.

"It's not bad. But it's not very nutrient or mineral rich." Verin said out loud.

"That is true," Zach agreed. "However the array is fully equipped with spells to allow adding of compost and other various fertilizers to the terraforming process which I'm sure we will have plenty of in time."

"Look!" One of the servants behind XRenia exclaimed.

She glanced back in the direction of the voice to see the shield projected by the Emundans slowly expanding.

It swelled right over top of them burning away the sappy residue of distorted magic that collected on them and continue to grow until it completely covered the newly terraforming swath of land.

"Wow, now that's nice." Verin said.

"You can say that again." She looked at the ground. "Do you think it will keep expanding if we keep fixing the ground?"

He shrugged. "I don't know but it can't hurt to try."

XRenia quickly maneuvered the array to a new plot of ground and her and Verin channeled energy into it.

As soon as it finished terraforming the ground the protective shield slowly expanded over it as well.

"Now we are getting somewhere!" Verin exclaimed excitedly.

"Let's do it again."

They did it four more times and each time the shield expanded.

"With this will be able to expand our borders and even build houses and shops and things to begin your kingdom in earnest," Verin said wiping sweat from his brow.

"Our kingdom." She corrected.

He smiled at her.

A thought popped into her head and she said, "We may be even able to expand to the closest broken Ley line and use this setup to fix it."

"Ya."

"That would not be advisable," Zach interrupted.

XRenia raised an eyebrow at him.

"Shan has already tried twice to use the spells in the array to fix a broken Ley line and both times it ended in disaster. The second time nearly destroying the city itself."

"Oh," Verin said. "I guess we still need one of his rings before we even start to think about messing with the Ley lines."

Zach sighed. "That may turn out to be a difficult theft to achieve."

XRenia smiled teasingly at Verin. "You could always challenge him to that duel he wanted and rip his head off."

She felt his mind pull away in revulsion as he frowned at her.

She reached down and grabbed a handful of dirt then tossed it at him.

"Hey!" he laughed jumping out of the way.

"Let's keep going," she suggested before he got any ideas about retaliation.

*

They worked late into the day until the effect of the Emundans covered a square-mile around their palace coming right up to the beach line and both Verin and XRenia were utterly exhausted.

As they finished the last swath and her and Verin collapsed in the dirt beside each other Zach said, "With this much land freed from the vile magic that saturates this place you will soon be having people who wish to move into the protective shadow of your palace. I believe it's imperative you come up with some type of laws and Constitution to govern your new citizens."

XRenia shrugged. "I was just going to use Terra's laws."

"That might not be a good idea."

"Why not, it works good there it should work good here."

Zach didn't seem to please with her offhand attitude. "For one this is an entirely different climate and a lot of your grandfather's building ordinances will not work here. His immigration laws won't either. You also do not have the infrastructure to carry out the punishments he has in place for breaking the laws. Not only that you don't have the authority yet to reign as he does. Plus to avoid war it would be wise to make as many differences as you can between your kingdom and your parents."

"Fine, I don't know then ask Verin."

"Me," Verin squeaked.

"It's your kingdom as well as mine."

"I guess. Can't we just use the ten Commandments?"

Zach shook his head. "We can integrate them like most nations do without realizing but you need more than just them"

XRenia sat up and interrupted them. "The ten what now?"

"You know the laws God gave man thousands of years ago," Verin told her.

XRenia scrunched her eyebrows together in confusion.

Verin smiled up at her and sent them to her from his memory interpreting each as he went.

One: You shall have no other gods before Me.

Meaning that God should be the most important thing in your life.

Two: You shall make no idols.

People used to carve statues out of gold and worship them and weird stuff like that. Thankfully people don't do that anymore. But they do set other people on pedestals and kind of worship them. I personally believe this means you shouldn't do that either.

Three: You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

I kind of take this to mean not to use foul language or cuss or anything like that and especially not to do so with God's name intertwined with it.

Four: Keep the Sabbath day holy.

In the past man added a lot of laws to this one but I think it truly means that you should have one day of rest were you lay back and reflect on what happened throughout the week like God did after he worked six days

Five: Honor your father and your mother.

This is kind of self-explanatory. Though I don't have any parent so I do my best to respect people that are older than me.

Six: You shall not murder.

He smiled at her. No kill Lord Shan in cold blood.

She rolled her eyes.

Seven: You shall not commit a******y.

Don't cheat on your wife and don't have you know.. outside of marriage.

Eight: You shall not steal.

Um, don't steal.

"Wait, if you believe this then how come you are okay with me trying to steal the ring?"

"I'm not but, it's better than you killing him."

"Oh."

Nine: You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

This means not to accuse someone for something you know they didn't do. I also believe it means just not to lie at all so I try not to.

Ten: You shall not covet.

Don't look at other people's stuff and want it. If you disobey this one you usually end up stealing or murder someone. He mentally said to her as he winked at her.

XRenia shrugged. "Except for the weird funky bits about God and idols at the beginning it doesn't sound too bad. I guess you'd be a okay decent person if you try to live by that."

Verin took her hand wrapping his fingers between her fingers. "Glad you think so, though that's not all I try to live by."

She could feel he was out the talk more about God so she quickly said, "However that doesn't mean I'm going to stop trying to get that ring. I also think you should be the one to come up with our kingdom's laws."

"What?"

"You sound like you have a pretty good grip on what's right and wrong to me." She teased.

"Yeah but I don't know anything about politics or any the other stuff that Neo was mentioning."

"Well have him help you than," she said as she untangled her hand from his and stood up.

Zach did not look pleased with this suggestion. "That's not what I signed up for."

"Okay. How about this you two draw up something. I'll look it over and send it to my grandfather and he'll look it over and tell us what he thinks."

"That may be the best course of action. But are you sure you can just volunteer your grandfather for such a laborious venture?"

She paused. "Well. No. But I'm sure he'll at least look at it and if he doesn't my father will. He's more into talk, treaties and that type of stuff so I'm sure he'd find it fascinating to help us develop our laws and regulations." She waved her hand at the dormant array lifting it off the ground and started walking back towards her palace.

"You will also need to think of an official name for your kingdom," Zach said as she walked past him.

"I already have. I'm going to name it after Verin just like my grandfather named Terra after my grandmother Tara."

Verin jumped to his feet. "No you're not!"

"Oh yes I am. The name of our kingdom is Varinheim."

"But that's not my name."

*

XRenia woke the next morning with a start. Someone was entering her territory. She flew out of bed and shot towards the door without touching the floor, her clothes rising up to put themselves on her as she flew.

She threw open the door unbalancing one of her new servants who was about to knock. She caught the lady with her magic and steadied her.

"Your Highness I was just about to.."

"Someone's coming?"

"Yes three unknown mages are flying this way."

She nodded and reached out with her magic. Verin was still asleep. She hauled back and shoved at him. She could feel him come fully awake as her shove pushed him out of bed and to the floor.

"Hey," he moaned at her through their connection. "What was that for?"

"Someone's coming, someone we didn't invite," she told him as she flew down the hallway towards the courtyard.