After spending just a few minutes alone with Pestle in the meeting room, the fairies politely bid Sofia farewell without raising a fuss and departed toward the east, having found no foul play with Pestle’s genuine wish to follow Sofia.

“Pesle is name Hateful One, they said,” Pestle announced to Sofia, Bookie and Erredis, who were watching the Fairies leave.

“The name of the previous you, you mean?” Sofia asked.

“That is certainly fitting. From the little we have seen of her before she went and ended her days,” Erredis commented.

“Maybe fitting? Not very like. Pesle is Pesle.”

“That’s right!” Bookie proudly said with crossed arms, “Pestle is not Hateful! I don’t like it!”

“Pestle One?” Erredis idly added.

“Cake One!” Pestle enthusiastically suggested in tow.

“Little one, I believe Cake One is already taken,” Erredis informed Pestle.

“Ack! Pesle again too slow…”

“Do you really need a second name?” Sofia asked, “I guess if they insist on calling you One, anything other than Hateful would be better… Oh! Smiling One?”

“Hmmm? Sofia… Pesle not face, is not very smile,” the fairy answered, touching the corners extremities of her lower jaw.

“You think so? I can always hear the smile in your voice, isn’t that enough?” Sofia asked, leaning forward a bit toward Pestle.

“Agh!” Pestle reacted, hiding her face with her bony hand, “Why is Sofia embarrass Pesle!” the fairy complained, fly to hide behind Bookie’s back.

“Nevermind then, maybe we should do Embarrassed One instead. Shy One? Blushing One?” Sofia teased, chasing Pestle around Bookie.

“Eugeuhk! Pesle am die…” Pestle cried out, letting herself fall to the floor and playing dead, on the ground she raised a shaky arm, “Pesle… Is has leg in next life.”

Even Erredis let out a snort at the unexpected performance. “Perhaps Actor One would fit this one better.”

Having observed the interaction from afar, the last guest of the day came closer, and offered a suggestion of her own. “How about Exuberant One? For a skeleton she sure seems full of life.”

“Ah, you’re here. Didn’t make you wait too long?” Erredis asked, looking up at the crowned Vampire who had walked up to her.

“What’s a few hours at our age, right, my friend?” the queen answered with narrowed eyes, giving Erredis a ‘playful’ tap on the shoulder that made the bone foundations of the city sink a few centimeters deeper into the soil.

“What’s a few years hiding Moon’s Oracle from me, right, ‘friend’?” Erredis answered right back, putting a hand on the queen’s shoulder of her own.

Ahh… More work… Sofia internally sighed, seeing the foundations of the city start to crack.

Seeing that the conversation was no longer about her, Pestle discreetly got back up, climbing up Bookie’s clothes and hugging his skull from behind like a weird helmet, lightly nibbling on his bones.

As the cracks widened, Sofia felt obligated to try to stop the covert contest of strength however she could, “Nice to finally meet you, your Majesty, thank you for your hospitality until now,” she greeted with a respectful bow.

Marina let her hand slide off of Erredis’ shoulder, her eyes throwing daggers at the Dragon, “It’s been my pleasure, Sofia. Thank you for taking care of my cousins. You can call me Marina.”

Sofia nodded in acknowledgement, “Speaking of which, did Astelia leave while I was busy?” she asked, looking around, surprised that she could not see her anywhere.

“Ahahah!” the queen erupted in crystalline laughter, “She practically dragged me here by herself, could she possibly leave first? No, no. She will notice I left her with an illusion any second now. I just wanted to see you up close first.”

“I-Is there an issue?” Sofia asked, feeling the heavy weight of the queen’s judging gaze.

“No!” the queen answered with a raised chin, “I’ve checked what I needed to.” She reached inside of her cleavage and pulled out a thinly rolled parchment paper. She handed it to Sofia without a word, winked as soon as Sofia hesitantly grabbed it, and teleported away just in time for a handle-less blade coming from above to stab at the ground where she had been standing instead of on top of her head. She reappeared further back and in the air, next to a much shorter levitating Vampire. “Missed again! Mwah!” she gleefully mocked, forcefully planting an over-the-top smooch on Astelia’s cheek, leaving clear lipstick marks on her face before disappearing for good.

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“Marina Glacier…” Erredis said as if remembering exhausting memories.

Wiping the lipstick off of her face with her sleeve, looking just as exasperated as Erredis, Astelia, teleported right up to the group, retrieving her sword from the ground.

“Sorry about the hole.”

“You’ve grown up again while I wasn’t looking,” Sofia said, slightly opening her arms.

Astelia floated up to hug her for just a second. “Glad you made it back safely, Sof. And don’t joke like that, I think that’s it for me, I’m an adult now, one condemned to forever be two heads shorter than you.”

“Nothing that a bit of charisma can’t fix.”

“I’m fine, I wouldn’t want to leave Alith too far behind,” Astelia quipped, taking a step back and lightly bowing to Erredis.

“Still that formal, kid? I’m not Moon,” Erredis said with a smile, nodding back.

“Hey Asty. I can’t tell you much about the trial so… How have you been?” Sofia asked.

Astelia smiled widely enough to reveal her pointy teeth under the moonlight.

Erredis had somehow managed to commission someone to prepare a huge feast, with more than enough food for the thousands of people around to celebrate the ‘opening’ of the city. After taking this time to catch up with everyone, Sofia started to walk around the foundations with some of the dark-skinned humans who had come with Kalla. And with them, she started an accelerated city-planning operation throughout the night. The only payment the group would accept was to get to pick the emplacement of the Storm Archipelago’s embassy, so Sofia had to accept to give them that.

By morning, the layout for the inner city in the current foundations was already drawn on the ground. They had plans for a compact central palace, a main grand place in front of it, a merchant street, several rows of luxury housing, a temple district and an artisans’ court. Despite Sofia initially thinking she had seen large with how widely she had covered the swamp with bones, it was barely enough for the core of the city. The unexpected huge influx of people had forced her to accept that her initial plans were inadequate.

That done, she constructed some extra bone shelters posthaste in the outskirts of the camps for the less fortunate people who had come without tents, and returned to the planned artisans’ court with Erredis and Astelia.

“It’ll have to be all bone for now,” Sofia said, “I was thinking your workshop here should be at least twice as big as the one in Zephir’s sect, so from here to there was my plan,” she told Erredis, making the outline of the zone rise out ever so slightly from the ground.

Erredis raised an eyebrow, “That’s more like two and a half times the size, almost three.”

Summoning a small bone cube in her hand, Sofia quickly sculpted a miniature of what she envisioned. “We’re going to be using the architectural style from the Revinthius kingdom, since they used a lot of white stone and golden ornaments it’ll be perfect with regular and Lumian bones. They had houses like this with a half-floor overhang. I thought it’d be perfect, you can put the less destructive machines under there, and all the furnaces and such in the open courtyard right in front. The lower floor can be a shop or a place to expose your works and the upper floor just your vacation house.”

“Not bad. Not bad,” Erredis said, looking at the miniature, “I need a hole there, about three meters deep and wide, cylindrical,” she added, pointing at the center of the planned courtyard.

“Hmm… So around there…” Sofia said, taking a few steps, “Alright… Done. Is that good?”

Erredis jumped into the hole, “Perfect.”

“You specialization is ridiculous,” Astelia commented.

“Says you, Astelia ‘My first specialization could likely stop the sun for a bit if I had enough mana’ Glacier?”

“I don’t have the mana though!”

“But you’re not saying I’m wrong,” Sofia answered with a smirk. “I’m sure your next one is going to be just as ridiculous as mine.

“I hope so,” Astelia said, “So, we’re waiting for the architect now I imagine?”

“The architect? Not really no? I can build right away, it’s easy to modify after the fact anyway, as long as it’s all bone. Let’s get to it!”

Dumping tons of white bones out of the halls, Sofia started building without having to lift a finger. She arranged a framework of bone beams and pillars to support the house, quickly filled the walls and ceilings in between, and placed a slanted roof on top, all in under five minutes.

Astelia looked at the ugly house, bewildered, “This is truly… Something.”

“Hey hey, I’m just getting started. Let me punch a few holes for the windows and add some texture and you’ll see!”

A small crowd had started to gather around the building in construction while Sofia did the heavy work, and finished by giving it a bit of relief. She carved some surface groves in the bones to make it look like stone, and gave the roof a tiled pattern.

Just fifteen minutes into the construction, she took a step back to look at her creation.

“Looks about done… It’s still monochrome and ugly, but it looks like a house, no?”

“I cannot argue with that…” Astelia commented.

“It’s a good start for sure,” Erredis said, “the fact that a non-production class rose this out of the ground in so little time is quite unusual, but you don’t have much experience in making houses and it shows.”

“What should I do differently?”

Erredis shrugged, “Couldn’t tell you, sweetie. My thing is tools of war and enchanted doodads, took me forever to make my castle not look like an ugly block. So I can give castle advice, maybe. For a house, not so much. But there is definitely something wrong with it.”

“It being made entirely of bones, maybe?” Astelia tried.

“That’s probably part of it,” Erredis confirmed with a nod.

“We can get good timber from the spirit forest,” Sofia said, looking east, “but for more detailed work, I’ll have to come back with the architects I think. Not to mention I need them for the piping too. I plan to have proper sewers.”

“That is not going to be easy, Sof…”

“Yeah, I know. I want my city to be a genuinely good place to live, though. I can’t have smelly outhouses everywhere. I already sent Pareth to buy a first shipment of garbage slimes. I’ll make a public experience room with that too. No more humans under level twenty!”