Dawn came soft as breath over Novaterra. If this world had a sun, it preferred to pretend—light simply arrived, shading the grass from pewter to green, painting the fresh frames of houses in a pale gold that made rough timber look almost noble. Hammers started up in cautious rhythm, then steadied into the heartbeat of a village learning its name.
Aiden walked the grid he'd drawn with thought the day before. Founders' Way ran true beneath him, a dirt ribbon between rising ribs of wood. The first pump squeaked and splashed; someone whooped; someone else shushed them, then laughed, and gave up shushing. Downwind, Mara's trench crews were already at it, arguing cheerfully about which way the breeze would really blow when the seasons turned. 🙂
The [System] greeted him with a polite bell.
[Morning Brief — Novaterra] • Shelter: 20 Wooden Houses (framing) — on schedule • Waterworks: Operational • Logistics: Ration Ledger active (waste ≤ 1%) • Queued: Granary, Storehouse, Blacksmith, Barracks, Watchtower • Morale: Steady 🙂 • Coins: 88,800
He breathed out. A night without disaster felt like a gift.
But today wasn't for gifts. Today was for an edge. The map still remembered the eastern shimmer where Duvall's Dominion had declared itself with a gambler's grin, the south's hammer-blow of Ironvale, the west's soft prayer that called itself Silverbrook. They were eighty, ninety, a hundred kilometers away—far, but not far enough to forget. Ten years of quiet, the voice had promised. Ten years for ambition to grow teeth.
Aiden opened the Special tab. The icon there glowed as if it had been waiting for him all night.
Altar of Heroes — Summon and bond with one Hero Unit. 10,000 GC. ✨
He hovered for a heartbeat. The number in the corner ticked in his peripheral vision; coins were a spine, not a toy. But the truth sat heavy: he could draw grids and assign ledgers until his eyes went square, and still, when a crisis came, he'd need someone to carry orders through fear and smoke. Not just any someone—a unit that made frightened people stand straighter.
"Purchase," he said.
[Purchase Confirmed] • Altar of Heroes — 10,000 GC • Assign workers? 20 Peasants recommended • Site? (Select) Coins: 88,800 → 78,800
He dragged a faint blue circle to the north edge of the rising square, where the future Barracks would anchor a training yard. The System staked light into the earth: not quite spears, not quite pillars, but something that suggested both.
"Ansel," Aiden called.
The carpenter turned, mallet resting on one shoulder. "Lord?"
"Twenty to the new site," Aiden said. "Careful hands. It's… different."
Ansel squinted toward the humming circle, then gave a low whistle. "Looks like a church married a forge and had a strange baby." He grinned. "We'll mind it."
Within minutes the nothing-space filled with activity. Peasants traced the blue perimeter without touching it; they could touch things, but the circle's hum unnerved them. Aiden watched timber arrive in neat stacks, stone rollers trundled into place. The System translated ordinary labor into extraordinary precision; where a ritual diagram might have been chalked and smudged by mortal fingers, lines of pale silver inlaid themselves into the stone bed like frost growing under glass.
Mara arrived with a cluster of the curious. "Summoning, then?" she asked, voice pitched low as if speaking in a temple.
"Hero Unit," Aiden said. It steadied him to say it aloud. "A champion. Someone to do what I can't."
Mara nodded, eyes kind. "We'll give them a proper welcome."
A prompt nudged the corner of his vision.
[Altar Preference Survey] Your initial choices influence the Hero who answers. Weigh your values (distribute 10): • Honor • Mercy • Ambition • Prudence • Adaptability • Discipline
Aiden blinked. The System never explained its why, but he had a sense of a hand held out, palm up. A chance to choose the shape of the future, if only a little.
He dragged points without overthinking:
Honor — 2 (He didn't want a liar.)
Mercy — 1 (Mercy mattered; it could not rule.)
Ambition — 2 (He would not be small.)
Prudence — 2 (Time and planning were his spine.)
Adaptability — 1 (The world would refuse to be tidy.)
Discipline — 2 (You don't stand ten years without it.)
The numbers settled with a soft click.
"Lord?" Venn the bookkeeper sidled up, eyes bright with the particular excitement of a man who liked lists meeting a mystery. "Should I log this as religious expenditure, military, or… public works?"
Aiden huffed a laugh. "Call it Foundations. We'll invent a category."
"Foundations," Venn whispered, as if tasting a new word. "Very good." He scribbled. 🖊️
The altar rose.
It wasn't dramatic—not at first. Stone kissed stone with the soft mouse-squeak sound that made builders smile. Wood slotted, braced, and vanished as something not-wood took its place: a dais so dark it swallowed light and returned it as a quiet sheen, edged in that fine silver that looked like frost under moonlight. At the dais's heart lay a shallow bowl that wasn't a bowl, a depression that felt like it wanted to hold the entire sky.
When the last brace was set, the air changed.
Hair lifted on arms and necks. The day went very slightly quiet.
Aiden stepped closer, and the System asked one more question:
[Summoning Intent] Speak your charge to the one who comes. (Your words will bind the spirit of the pact.)
He hadn't prepared a speech. He hadn't slept much. But something rose anyway, something that tasted like truth and grit.
He lifted his chin, conscious of a thousand eyes that were pretending not to watch, the way a crowd pretends to be just passing by when a miracle might happen.
"I am Aiden of Novaterra," he said. His voice came out steady, thank the quiet gods. "I cannot lift a sword here. I cannot hammer a nail. I can only command—and I will do so to build a home that survives the storm. If you come, you will be my hand and my eyes. You will defend the weak. You will train the willing. You will tell me when I am wrong." A breath. "Walk with me, and I swear by whatever counts for sky in this place that I will not waste your strength. We have ten years. Help me make them count." 💪
The bowl took his words. Light gathered as if poured.
No—light didn't gather. Something underneath light rose in a column, a pale-blue radiance that hummed in Aiden's teeth. Symbols chased themselves around the bowl's rim, not letters but the memory of letters—marks that made his bones ache with the sense that they meant vow.
A shape formed within the light, first slender as smoke, then heavier. Metal gleamed dull like old moons. A sword-tip touched the dais, the sound. tink, small and very real.
The glow thinned.
She knelt.
A young woman wearing battered silver plate rested one gauntleted hand on the sword planted before her. Her hair—dark, caught back in a simple tie—escaped in a few ridiculous curls that refused to obey. A torn half-cape hung from one shoulder. Dents stippled her pauldrons. A faint scar crossed her left cheek, not disfiguring, merely a line that said I was there and I lived.
She bowed her head. When she looked up, her eyes were not soft, nor cold, but alive—alert, assessing, a spark banked behind them.
"Hero Elara," she said, voice hoarse from a lot of battles or a very long sleep. "Once of the Silver Order." She inclined her head properly to the dais, then to him. "I answer your call, my Lord."
The peasants had tried to be casual. They failed. The gasp that rippled across the site wasn't fear—it was relief. Awe. The kind of sound people make when the story says a hero will arrive, and then, absurdly, one does. 😮
Aiden's heart did a weird thing, a double beat that felt like equal parts yes and don't mess this up. He took a step without thinking, hand half-lifting before he remembered—he couldn't help her rise even if he wanted to.
She noticed the micro-flinch when he stopped, because of course she did. Her mouth tipped in a small, wry acknowledgment that didn't quite become a smile.
She rose without help. The battered silver flashed; the movement was efficient without being showy. She slid the sword into a simple scabbard at her hip, and only then did she take him in properly—boots to brow, the way a commander catalogues a recruit's posture and eyes.
"You spoke of ten years," she said. "You spoke of training the willing and being corrected when wrong." A beat. "That is not how tyrants speak." A beat more. "Good."
Aiden had been prepared to say welcome and thank you and a dozen other ridiculous things. What came out was, "We started with shelter. Water. Ledgers. The barracks and blacksmith are queued. We have a watchtower going up." He swallowed, and the truth insisted on being noticed. "I don't know enough. I'm learning."
Something eased in her shoulders. Not deference. Not relief. More like: a puzzle piece discovering it might fit after all.
A blue pane unfurled of its own accord, impressed with a heraldic device Aiden didn't recognize—a silver circle on gray.
────────────── [HERO UNIT: ELARA] Class: Knight (Epic) Level: 12 Health: 92% (rested) Loyalty: 78 / 100 Bond: 1 / 10 Skills: • Steel Resolve — Troops within 20m gain Morale +10%. • Shield Wall — When defending in formation, incoming damage –15%. • Leadership Aura — Units led by Elara gain +5% experience. Traits: • Veteran of Lost Courts — +10% Tactics checks; +5% Negotiation with nobility. Hidden Trait: ??? (Locked) Equipment: • Arming Sword (Quality: Good) • Kite Shield (Quality: Good) • Plate & Mail (Condition: Worn, Serviceable) ──────────────
Loyalty seventy-eight. Bond one. Aiden felt the numbers slot into place alongside the far less tidy human impressions: wry mouth, watchful eyes, the kind of poise that belonged to someone who'd had to stand still while a lot of bad things happened and then move exactly at the right moment.
He bowed—not deep, not theatrical, just enough to say I see you.
"Welcome to Novaterra, Elara."
"It's young," she said, gaze taking in frames, trenches, the proto-tower. "Young is good. Young can be taught." She turned back to him. "May I speak plainly, my Lord?"
"Please."
"You have beginnings. You need teeth." She lifted a gauntleted finger, counting without looking away. "Barracks finished quickly. A drill yard with room for a shield wall and a spear-line. A lane for archery. A quartermaster who can count better than soldiers can lie." Her eyes angled toward the stacking ground as if she'd already selected the quartermaster from faces alone. "Blacksmith smoke in three days, not four."
Aiden snorted before he could help it. "I queued four."
"Then move heaven to make it three." A hint of a smile. "Or at least move Venn."
"Venn!"
The bookkeeper startled and tried not to look like he had. Elara gave him the sort of nod that conscripts turn into worship.
"We also need a formation," she continued. "You can pull any hundred and fifty from the line and slap sticks in their hands. If you do, they will die like wheat. Or you can call for volunteers and we will make soldiers from those who choose to stand." She lifted her chin, voice carrying. "Who among you will train? Who among you will sweat now so that your children can sleep later?"
Silence fell, the tight kind that lives at the edge of an answer. Then Mara stepped forward without making a show of it. "My back's too old to run with shields," she said, loud enough to be heard and practical enough to be true, "but my sons aren't." She jerked her chin, and two lean young men who had clearly been dying to volunteer but waiting for permission did. "Don't make me regret it," she told them, eyes fierce and wet at once. 😤🥺
The dam broke. Hands went up. Some with fear crumpled in the knuckles, some steady, some almost eager because fear feels better with a target. Elara didn't smile exactly, but something like approval warmed the angles of her face.
Aiden's throat tightened. "System," he said, voice steadier than his ribcage felt, "assign one hundred fifty volunteers to Training Cadre Alpha under Hero Elara. Rations elevated. Rotations set to avoid construction bottlenecks. Drill yard—" He looked to the open space west of the queued barracks. "—there."
Blue lines traced an oval. Aiden approved materials. Stakes went into earth. The ghost of a parade ground laid itself like a promise.
[Assigned] • Training Cadre Alpha — 150 Peasants (Recruits) • Drill Yard — Allocated (Wood/Stone) • Quartermaster: (Vacant) • Coins unaffected (using staged materials)
"Quartermaster," Elara murmured, scanning faces. She pointed. "You. The one arguing with yourself about whether a fourteen-cubit beam weighs 120 or 130 kilograms."
Venn gulped. "It's—er—about—"
"You'll do." She turned to Aiden. "May I?"
"By all means."
"Venn," Elara said, and somehow made the name a rank. "You count arrows, blades, and boots. No spear leaves the rack without two names attached to it and a rope around the waist of anyone who can't be persuaded to care for it."
"Rope?" Venn squeaked.
"Metaphorical." A beat. "Usually."
Aiden's laugh escaped sharper than intended and eased into something that felt dangerously like hope. 😅
They walked together along the line of frames. Elara's gauntlets trailed above posts she didn't touch, the same way Aiden's hands hovered when instinct forgot the rules; her eyes measured distances, slopes, the way wind fought corners. She requested the barracks be rotated thirty degrees to shield the drill yard from prevailing gusts; the System showed a breeze rose and he approved the adjustment with a thought. She asked for an archery lane with a high backstop; the System sketched it; Ansel swore happily at the chance to build something interesting.
At the base of the watchtower, a boy with a message-runner's legs—Jory, Aiden remembered; points for his own brain—saluted without irony. Elara taught him three horn calls on the spot: stranger approaching, fire, wolves. She made him repeat each until he could lift the horn without shaking.
"Wolves?" Aiden asked under his breath. The sky was clean, the grass close; it felt obscene to invite teeth into the morning.
"Where there is forest," Elara said. "Where there is meat." A tiny glance west, to the dark smudge of trees. "We train with noise before we train with blood."
Noise found them soon enough. A high, thin howl unrolled from the edge of the forest, so faint it might have been imagination. People stiffened. The watch crew looked at Jory; Jory looked at Elara; Elara looked at the horn. He set his jaw and didn't lift it. She nodded approval so small only Aiden saw, and the tension bled without breaking. 😬
They returned to the altar at midday. The silvered lines had dimmed, as if they preferred being used to sitting quiet. Elara rested a hand above the bowl, not quite touching. "I dislike pacts that take more than they give," she said. "This one feels fair."
"You've done this before?" Aiden asked, then cursed himself for the stupidity of it. Of course not. The Blue World hadn't had glowing bowls and System pacts.
But Elara didn't scoff. "Not like this." Her expression tilted inward for a heartbeat, shadow moving behind her eyes. "My order kept vows to crowns that forgot their own words. We stood anyway. We bled anyway. In the end, we… prepared for the war we wished to fight instead of the war we had." A muscle in her jaw ticked. "I would prefer not to do that again."
Aiden's mouth was dry. "Help me see the war we have."
"I will." She looked at him—not through him, at him—as if weighing the thread of his promise. "And when you err, I will tell you. If you do not listen, I will tell you louder." A flick of humor. "If you still do not listen, I will find Mara and she will tell you for me."
Mara, passing at that exact moment with a basket of tin cups, snorted. "Oh, I'll tell him."
"Thank you," Aiden said, trying very hard not to sound too grateful. It came out grateful anyway. 😅
Afternoon became a different color of gold. The Granary framing rose as if the camp itself had decided to sit up straighter. The Storehouse got a roof. The Blacksmith site acquired a stump and anvil-mark, and Ansel swore it wasn't him, which meant the System had a sense of humor.
Elara called Cadre Alpha to the oval.
"Today you will learn to hold a spear without hurting yourself," she announced. "Tomorrow you will learn to hold it without hurting your friends. The day after, we will consider you safe enough to scare wolves with it." Her gaze raked across raw faces. "Training is not punishment. It is a promise—to the person next to you. Keep it."
They squared their feet. They fumbled. They caught themselves, laughed, blushed, tried again. Elara's corrections were spare, precise, patient. She didn't bark unless someone used bravado to hide laziness; then her tone could have peeled bark. Even so, recruits drifted away from the oval straighter than they'd entered it, as if a string had been tied from the crown of each head to some higher point.
The [System] hummed approval:
[Buff Gained: Heroic Presence] • Training Speed +10% while Elara supervises • Morale Decay –10% in vicinity
The [Daily Summary] timer pulsed. Aiden closed it. He didn't need numbers for this part. He needed to watch the faces take on edges.
Elara returned to him as the light softened. "You have a plan for a wall," she said, not a question.
"I do," Aiden said. "Two and a half kilometers each side. Gates at the points. Eight years with current manpower and resources." The [System] mirrored his words like a diligent scribe. "It will not be cheap."
"Nothing worth defending is." She studied the horizon. "Build your wall. But do not let it make you a coward. Walls protect farmers. They also trap fools."
"I'll try to be the first and not the second."
"Good," she said, and for the first time the smile reached her eyes properly, like a lamp being lit in a window at dusk. "Then we will get along."
They stood in a companionable quiet while Cadre Alpha muddled through the first drill and didn't disgrace themselves. The watchtower creaked as another brace found its home. The pump sighed. The wind tasted faintly of sap.
Aiden felt the urge to reach out and clap Elara on the shoulder the way two soldiers might after a day's work, and stopped himself on the edge of the old ache. He wasn't allowed to do that here. He wasn't a soldier.
He was a Lord.
"So," he said instead, "tomorrow we double drills in the morning, half-day in the afternoon. I want the blacksmith smoking in three days if Venn can bribe the laws of time. We'll need a quartermaster's ledger—"
"I started one," Venn said from nowhere, which was his natural state. He lifted a sheaf of neat grid-lines. "Columns for spearheads, arrow shafts, bowstrings, boots, belts, and lost items which will be deducted from rations if—"
"Mercy," Elara cut in, deadpan.
"—after two warnings," Venn amended.
"Progress," Aiden said, and meant it.
The [System] finally insisted on being seen:
[Evening Summary — Novaterra] • Altar of Heroes: Operational • Hero Unit: Elara (Knight, Epic) — Bond 1/10 • Training Cadre Alpha: 150 Recruits (Morale: High) • Blacksmith: 45% (ETA: 2 days) [Accelerated per directive] • Barracks: 30% (ETA: 3 days) • Watchtower: 60% (Horn signals set) • Coins: 78,800
He closed it with a small, satisfied hum. The numbers aligned with the thing behind the numbers: the sight of men and women who had been terrified yesterday moving with a purpose that looked suspiciously like dignity.
Elara glanced east one last time. "I felt a ripple," she said. "Your neighbor with the coin flipped something."
"Duvall?"
"He gambles," she said. It wasn't an insult. It was a weather report. "He will be lucky until he isn't. Do not measure yourself by his throws."
"I'll measure by roofs and rations and drills," Aiden said. "And maybe by songs, if we ever earn one."
"Songs are for the living." She set her helmet under her arm, eyes half-lidded with a fatigue that acknowledged itself without apology. "Permission to sleep four hours and then terrorize your recruits at dawn, my Lord?"
"Granted," Aiden said, grinning before he could stop himself. "Try not to terrorize them too much."
"I will show restraint." A beat. "Some."
She left with the quiet of someone who could have made noise and chose not to. Aiden watched her go and felt the shape of the next ten years tilt microscopically toward possible.
He turned in place, taking Novaterra in—frames and trenches and a humming altar whose silver lines dimmed as the day cooled. He thought of the void. Of a voice that had promised portals. Of a map with neighbors whose names tasted of risk, iron, and water. Of a knight who had said I will tell you louder if he refused to listen.
The wind moved through the grass like a low, approving whisper.
"Tomorrow," Aiden said softly to the not-quite-sunset, "Novaterra drills as if the storm has already started." ⏳⚔️
The watchtower horn stayed mercifully silent. The pump sighed its sleepy song. On Founders' Way, someone whistled off-key. And in the training oval, a hundred and fifty recruits stumbled through their last practice step and—finally—got it right.