III

~Foundations~

Honestly, domain-wise I had ended up with a ragtag group of deities. Thankfully, mortals had the ability to see patterns where there were not any, so there was some kind of “order” to our mess.

For now, here was the pantheon: First of course, there is me: Ejen, God of weather, nature and knowledge. Now, the first two were overgeneralizations from my power to control storms and plants and the third one was a lie meant to increase my ability to reason as I got more powerful. Avori, who I wanted to turn into my new high priestess, would soon spread those teachings among the Algal gradually turning my lies into truths. Now, for the sake of enhancing my illusions and my craftiness I also needed to have one of my domains be trickery, but nobody would introduce themselves as a God of trickery, especially to a recently converted cynic. Considering that everyone already identified my giant owl as my avatar, a few harmless pranks here and there with the drone should easily allow me to obtain the title I needed.

Second, there was who would be my Goddess of the Moon, the one with the avatar of a bat, the one I decided to name Morcy. Her natural domain was metals and minerals and there were also already a few things the Algal associated with her, namely fertility, strategy (and tactics) as well as war (hence raiders being called the Moon Chosen and being selectively bred). There was of course, a major intersection problem with my reindeer god, but honestly, I was preparing an assault on a god that had probably managed to kill my father, an extra warrior wouldn’t do me any harm at all. Also looking at her domains a thing that had made a lot of sense to me was also making her the goddess of crafting. I couldn’t ignore her natural affinities after all.

Then of course there was who I had described to Avori as the twin brother of Mory (because of them sharing a domain of course), Alastar, the Sun God with the avatar of a reindeer. His natural domain being temperature, associating him with the sun vaguely made sense. As science would progress it was quite likely for his role to change and honestly, I just loved the possibility of having a god of energy as a fellow brother-in-arms. I asked Avori to guess what the rest of her domains were, and she guessed seasons, strength and the mind. The first two were obvious but the third one? Asking her why she answered this “A warrior must have a mind of steel and never falter while at the same time having the ability to instil fear in his enemies and confidence in his companions.” That line had inspired me, Avori and her husband were well matched in eloquence.

Finally, there was the god with the avatar of a fox, Aval, balanced deity of order, chaos and justice. All very vague stuff. Honestly, I didn’t want to neglect the domains of Aval, but I had needed a deity to balance everything. I would be associated with the planet, Mory with the Moon and Alastar with the Sun, we were a celestial pantheon, having some kind of void deity would make sense to mortals. Also, I was curious, what powers would one obtain with such domains?

The pantheon had been completed, but my young siblings wouldn’t be ready to enter into action for a few months. They were new-borns after all.

~*~

Andrau, the warriors and the builders had made it to the New Celestial Gardens quite fast. It only took them one and a half to make it from the location of their old village. I could have very easily let them build whatever they wanted, but now that they were under my responsibility, I wasn’t gonna let them suffer this winter by being cold. Their old houses had merely been small round huts made of wattle and daub. Even the house of the chief hadn’t been that spectacular, it had just been longer. I wanted to awe the traders that would come here in the future, but I couldn’t really do it with the materials of the houses just yet, winter was soon going to be here and so I couldn’t really have them go far to collect many materials. I would help them sophisticate their building style though.

I made one of my owls descend to greet them and then I gave them all several visions.

First, I made sure that they understood that the 6 giants mounds made of roots would be able to house half the population and as such they wouldn’t have rush the building process. I then indicated that the owl was merely an avatar and that if they wanted to worship, they should worship the tallest tree around (it wasn’t my “brain”, merely a large tree that was part of my system). Lastly, I showed them a town plan and the blueprints of their new houses. The old village had been incredibly chaotic, they only had one road, there was mud everywhere and there were also many fire hazards around. All things that needed to change for the sake of efficiency, sanity and defence. The new town would have my grove of “steel” trees (protected by a drystone wall) as western boundary, the river as eastern boundary, the mountain and the falls as northern boundary and a drystone wall as southern boundary. Expansion would be possible on the other side of the river with the help of a bridge. My meadow had survived on the eastern riverbank and as such expanding there would be quite easy. I planned for the west side to be the future site of the most important facilities of the city. Temples, administrative buildings as well as a fortress would eventually be here. On the other side of the bridge there would crafting workshops, stores and a market farther away you would have residences and barracks and farther away farms. All of that was absent of the current town plan though. For now, it only showed rows of houses on the eastern side of the river. Housing was going to be organized into blocks of two houses wide and 6 houses tall creating a gridded street pattern. I was going to let a large space unoccupied in front of the mounds, it would the location of the new firepit. The Algal already used the firepit as rally point, my plan was to turn the location in a rally point as well.

The houses I had planned for them weren’t very complicated, instead of round they would be square have timber frames and have roofs made of a single slope made of slate. The slope would be placed so it would face the other house. I was going to have the Algal dig very shallow channels both between the houses and in front of them to allow water to run off and not muddy up everything. For now, the water was going to end back in the river.

After giving them visions all the men kneeled and went to the grove to pray. I quickly obtained enough energy to build one more mound.

Well that had been easy.

~*~

With the help of my owls that had been tasked with collecting materials and with everyone, young and old, participating in the building effort by the eve of the winter solstice everyone had permanent housing and the eastern and southern sides of the city had been properly walled. Most of the mounds had been dismantled but one of the mounds had been transformed into a storage room while the two central ones that faced the forum had been united to form a new a massive building that was to be used as housing by the family of the chief as well as be the new seat of government. Andrau’s family had been most useful to me and as such, rewarding them had only been natural. The house wasn’t going to be everything though.

In the past month I had become familiar enough with the Algal language to finally be able to use it with other people than my unofficial High Priestess, I had called Andrau’s family into the grove to properly lay the foundations of my religion and their nation.

“I am glad you could all make it.”

Andrau, Avori, Katro as well as the youngest Kemari were all kneeling in front of me.

“I have delayed the first snowfall long enough, tomorrow the snows will come, heavily restricting everyone movements.”

I had been moving the clouds in different directions probably causing heavy precipitations everywhere but around the village. They were really restricted, I wasn’t kidding.

They nodded and I continued.

“You probably all have your winter habits, but I am gonna have them change for this new year. First of I will impart you with some of knowledge.”

Different symbols appeared in their minds.

“What I showed you was something called an alphabet. Every symbol should represent a different sound and should be arranged to represent the different words of your language. While I know that the blessing of Mory allows you to share information, the act is not always perfect. You can omit things and as such it’s not impartial. I would like for you four to codify your language using the alphabet and then I want you to teach it to others.”

Honestly, I was already busy teaching my pantheon everything I knew, personally teaching mortals how to read wasn’t a task I wanted to do as well. There was also the fact that as native speakers they would probably be the best to fully capture the subtilities of their language.

I gave them all another vision.

“That was the process for making paper, when you are done codifying everything you will be able to preserve your thoughts with charcoal on those. Now, I have different tasks for all of you. Andrau, with the help of the knowledge of your ancestors and with the help of the other elders of the village I want you to compile and discuss all the different rules of the village with one exception, the ones mattering succession and governance.”

I could feel annoyance on Andrau’s face and fear on Katro’s. It seemed like neither of them liked that idea very much. I had to be honest though, while I liked Andrau’s family very much, Katro while a decent military man was a drunkard. Very little of his time in the new village had bee spent sober. He simply wouldn’t help me to form an effective meritocratic society. Meritocracy would allow my civilization to spread wide and far, it simply wasn’t optional and Katro was far from being the most competent person around. I had a general idea on how I wanted everything to work, I was gonna have Andrau write an elective process to select the effective head of government as well as representatives. Direct democracy would have been fine if it hadn’t been for its lack of scalability with this level of technology as well as for the large amount of work a lot of people needed to do. Legislature always took forever in the spirit realm I couldn’t imagine it being very different in the mortal one. Despite having an elected leader, I also needed a representant for me and the rest of the pantheon, it would be impossible for us to learn all the cultural aspects of the different people that would worship us in the future. As such it would be quite possible that our words and our actions could be misconstrued, steering our growth in places we really wouldn’t want to go. Intermediaries would be useful to make sure our ideas would probably get across. Andrau’s family had already proved themselves to be quite good as intermediaries so giving them the role in perpetuity (or at least as long as I found them suitable) was a reward I was willing to give. They would be the founders of a new state and a new church; it was quite appropriate. Having our representants on Earth clearly chosen would also prevent people from lying on our wishes and our intentions. A family was easier to control than a whole nation.

I continued with my orders.

“Avori you will compile the lessons and stories surrounding me and my siblings into a Holy Scripture, to be shared with anyone that wishes to learn. You will also organize a system to train other priests to share the Holy Word. As for you Kemari and Katro, for now, I will have each of you lead a part of the warriors of the village. Katro you will lead the Moon Chosen and you Kemari the Defence Force. You shall both right now go separate your warriors in squads of 8 people, with one of them being elected as a squad leader. Every leader will have the responsibility to make sure that the rest follow orders your orders by having a little bit of power over them. It will be all for now, but tomorrow I will have you come here at noon again.”

Gradually, I was planning on standardizing their organisation, their equipment, their training and their tactics. I was hoping that by the end of the winter their tribal warrior would become true soldiers. It would take a lot of effort, so I wanted to take my time with both of them.

~*~

Avori

As much as I trusted Lord Ejen, I kept wondering how he lacked so much essential knowledge into our people. The questions about the Algal and their enemies never stopped. Clearly the deities had only started observing us recently but, If the deities had ignored us until now why was that? Did something happen to have the deities descend and if so, where we in danger? Did it have something to do with the Tempest. I had often been tempted to ask that question, but I felt that if he hadn’t addressed it, perhaps it wasn’t something that was very important.

I mean we were simply living in wonderous times. The new village was a wonder compared to where we had lived before and Lord Ejen kept implying that it would be more beautiful in the future. I had trouble believing it, how far would he push us? I couldn’t even imagine what would lie ahead and so I was very excited for the future. Well, mostly. Kat hadn’t improved… His winesickness had been getting worse and worse. He was still functional and a competent leader, but I was afraid that that wouldn’t much longer, his men had started talking behind his back and I doubted that many people would approve of him as a leader, if he was to succeed Andrau.

The Lord had us perform the traditional solstice ceremonies in front of the place he had called the forum. As the chant of the moon ended it started snowing. Among the snowflakes were mixed blue and white lights that were impossible to touch.

The owl avatar of our Lord appeared from beyond the mountains to land in front of our long house. Shortly afterwards from the south came who could have only been our Moon Mother, a gigantic white bat with blue eyes. From the forest a gigantic fiery black reindeer left a trail of fire as it joined the rest of the deities. That could have only been the avatar of Alastar. I thought it was going to be all, but a small golden fox appeared out of nowhere. The whole pantheon had come to greet us with their presence. The wonderful spectacle had put many people into tears.

I had expected Lord Ejen to be the one to address us, but instead it had been the Sky Mother.

“Children, as the 154^th year after the Tempest ends, we have decided to show ourselves before you to mark the beginning of a new Era. The Algal were perhaps seen as mighty and powerful before but that was nothing but pretention, in the coming years, decades, centuries, the Algal will become mightier than any of you can even imagine.”

Lord Ejen started talking. “Chief Andrau and his family have ruled the tribe very wellfor centuries, but coming spring it will be time for many of you to participate into rulership of the tribe. A new system of laws and government will be instituted, Chief Andrau himself will explain you that later. For now, I just want for the chief’s family to assemble.”

We all proceeded to do as we were told, I noticed that Kat wasn’t moving and acting very normally though. He was quite stiff which was very unlike him. As I kept thinking about that, the Lord talked again.

Lord Ejen addressed me first.

“From now on, until the moment of your death, you shall be known as the High Priestess of the Celestial Church. You will spread the holy word from the pantheon wide and far and you will ensure that our words are not twisted.”

“High Priestess Avori, rise.”

I did as I was told.

Lord Ejen continued.

“From now on, you and your descendants shall be known as the Everfall Dynasty, representants of the Pantheon in the mortal realm, your authority shall only be challenged by the Gods, the Church and the council that your citizens will form to rule the nation. Also, from now on, this settlement shall be known as Stormoon, seat of the Holy Empire you will hopefully one day rule.”

“Chief Arnau Everfall, Prince Katro Everfall and Princess Kemari Everfall rise.”

“Your duties will be many and so will be your rewards as long as you truly serve the people and the Pantheon.”

Lord Ejen then addressed everyone.

“The future will be one where each and all of you shall have the ability to truly show your worth! One where as long as you work hard you will have the ability to reach untold heights. Remember the year 155 after the Tempest for it will be the beginning of something great.”

The owl of our Lord wrapped the rest of the pantheon in a blinding light and then proceeded to disappear.

~*~