🌲Chapter 10: The Elves' Growing City
🌍 May 6th, 89 BCE — Mid Spring 🌸
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Elve Island Map:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZcPeBYgKMDun0CL8_XSajCtA_uIdGNjo/view?usp=drive_link
Too bad Webnovel doesn't let me embed pictures in here like other sites do. 😉
Bainbridge Island was chosen as the site for the elves' new coastal city. In the Bat Cave, Junjie and Claudia studied the island's topography under the laboratory lights while Nano projected a holographic map above the worktable, the terrain glowing in pale light. Valleys shimmered like veins of glass; rivers glinted silver as Nano magnified each feature in turn.
Nano shifted the image to reveal the aquifers deep beneath the island, tracing their hidden channels with lines of blue light. The faint network pulsed like living veins under the holographic terrain. From these depths, Nano marked the optimal well sites, explaining how the elves could tap the cleanest water without disturbing the natural balance.
Then Nano proposed adding two large lakes near the island's central ridge, explaining that the Ore Monster could excavate them and use its gravity plates to compress the basins until they sealed naturally. The reservoirs, Nano reasoned, would store rainfall and feed the streams that wound through the forests. Junjie agreed at once, marking the future lake sites on the projection. Claudia adjusted the well points and repositioned the nearby towers for balance and access to light.
When they were satisfied, Nano generated a parchment replica of the holographic design, complete with hand-drawn texture and ink shading. It looked entirely crafted by Junjie's own pen, an artifact of patient study rather than machine precision.
Days later, Junjie presented the map to the elven council. The elves studied it carefully, shifting a terrace here, preserving a grove there, until all parties agreed. The signed blueprint went north with the engineering crews.
⚒️ Foundations of the Island
The Ore Monster and its crew arrived first. Working from the approved plan, they moved in slow circuits around the island. The design called for a ring of sheer stone, not for beauty but for defense; a natural fortress wall to deter any approach from the sea. Gravity plates hummed, pressing the earth downward until the shore hardened into vertical cliffs about twenty meters high.
At the southern inlet, the Ore Monster cut a square harbor at the far west of the inlet, its walls rising straight from the sea like a stone courtyard. The basin extended inland at the inlet's center point, broad enough to hold two docks side by side. Once the excavation reached proper depth, the crew used the gravity plates to compress the floor and reinforce the corners until the stone sealed tight and smooth.
When the perimeter was complete, the Ore Monster turned inland to excavate two great lakes, one in the north and one in the south. Each basin was carved in deep spirals, the outer drills cutting through clay and gravel while the inner plates compressed the lakebeds layer by layer until the ground fused into a watertight seal. The operators inspected every depression and pressure seam before moving on, ensuring both basins would hold against the tide and the rains to come.
Not every stretch cooperated. In places where the rock shelf sloped too gently, the crew reinforced the rim with massive stone blocks extruded directly from the machine's foundry core. Each block was set by grav-crane, locked with fusion seams, and textured with short drill bursts to imitate natural fracture.
After several days of heat and thunder, the island's edge formed an unbroken ring of sheer stone that looked carved by the sea itself.
After several days of heat and thunder, the island's edge formed an unbroken ring of sheer stone that looked carved by the sea itself.
Once the perimeter was secure, the Sky Leviathan lifted from the mainland. Its keel opened to release two prefab shelters, bins of Roman-mix powder, tool crates, and fifty elves, the first colonists.
The shelters went up within hours: one dormitory, one kitchen, and a storeroom. The elves arranged their supplies neatly inside and along the shelter walls, labeling crates and clearing walkways as they worked. By evening, the plateau stood orderly and secure; its first small outpost complete. That night, warm light shone through the prefab windows, and the island glowed faintly between sea and sky.
The well-drilling crews arrived next, armed with snake-drillers and a copy of Junjie's map. Each drilling point was already marked, sparing them guesswork. The machines burrowed straight down, reinforcing their own tunnels with hardened walls until groundwater surged into waiting chambers. Above each shaft, a windmill pump lifted the flow into a high cistern feeding brass lines beneath the plateau. By evening, the first faucets in the prefab shelters hissed with clean water. The crews recorded their results, packed up, and departed on schedule.
When the wells were complete, the Ore Monster rolled back inland to produce the smaller building stock needed for the workshops and storerooms. From its rear chute came steady lines of shaped bricks and half-meter blocks, each dropping in rhythmic thuds onto the packed soil. The machine sorted the output automatically, stacking neat piles that the elves could move and set by hand. The massive foundation stones used for the harbor towers had already been laid earlier during the cliff work, leaving only these finer materials for the colony's first true buildings.
Soon, rough walls rose for the first workshops. The elves mixed the dry cement by hand, adding water from the wells, spreading the paste with wooden paddles. These early structures would house forges, glassworks, and storage. The Sky Leviathan followed with shipments of pre-cut lumber and drums of clean-coal pellets for later use in small steam engines. Everything unfolded exactly as the blueprint dictated.
According to the plan, the southern inlet became the island's harbor. Illuminati masons constructed four stone towers guarding its mouth. The cores were built from squared blocks bonded with Roman mix; over them, crews cemented flat natural-stone slabs, creating the illusion of towers born from the cliffs. Inside, spiral stairs climbed past mirrored lenses and water cisterns; the upper decks held signal mirrors for flashing messages across the Sound.
They also built eight towers around the perimeter of the island. Most rose from narrow peninsulas where the cliffs reached farthest into the sea, giving the elves a panoramic view of every horizon. When the work was finished, the crews stood back and admired the symmetry of stone, lake, and forest; a foundation ready for elven hands to shape into living art.
🌿 The Living City
At the plateau's center, the elves planted two-meter saplings, roots wrapped in coarse cloth and damp moss. These trees had been cultivated for years in valley nurseries, chosen for their strength and shape. A measured dose of Miracle-growth compound settled them quickly, encouraging a healthy, steady rise.
By the first month's end, the trunks stood three meters high. The elves tied soft ropes to guide their growth into arches and walkways for future homes. Between the rows, grapevines and fruit trees, enhanced long ago by Nano's hidden design, adapted easily to the northern air.
Stone workshops bordered the clearing, gravel paths connecting one to the next. Windmills turned steadily above the wells, whispering over the sea.
When the last tower stones were set and the water system confirmed stable, the Illuminati construction crews packed their equipment and returned to the mainland. The Sky Leviathan made one final delivery, greenhouse kits of nano-alloy frames and crystal glass, plus racks of modified vines ready for planting, then closed its hull and rose through the morning mist.
Silence followed. Only the wind and the waves touched the new cliffs.
Weeks became months. Windmills turned lazily in the sea breeze; vines climbed the terrace walls; saplings thickened and began to intertwine. Steam from the small greenhouses shimmered above the plateau at dusk. From the mainland, distant watchers saw the faint glimmer of crystal reflections among the trees and called the place the Forest of Light and Stone.
The elves knew better: it was the first proof that the plan worked, that patience and craft could grow a city without breaking the land beneath it.
🌸 City in Bloom
Before the final crews departed, the Sky Leviathan returned once more, hovering above the plateau with a low metallic hum. From its open keel came tidy stacks of materials, timbers for rafters, crates of fittings, bales of soft insulation, and pallets of roof tiles fresh from the Illuminati's automated yards. To the Illuminati, such supplies were nothing; to the elves, they were the last gifts needed to make their settlement whole.
The elves built through the week, setting beams, laying tiles, sealing each roof against the salt air. When the last load was stowed and the Leviathan rose back into the mist, the island lay quiet again, its new workshops finished, its water steady, its living trees beginning to shape themselves into homes.
Beyond the workshops stood the greenhouses, their nano-alloy ribs gleaming through panes of crystal glass. Inside, the air was warm and rich with soil. The elves tended vegetables for their tables through winter and raised seedlings for the coming orchards. Fruit saplings hardened behind the glass before being planted on the terraces, while grapevines curled along guide wires until their roots were strong enough for open air. Each evening, the glow from the greenhouses mingled with the sunset, and the plateau shimmered like a garden suspended between sea and sky.
The living homes grew steadily. Branches thickened, ropes were loosened, arches took their final bends toward the patterns marked months before. Between them, gravel paths widened into lanes, and the first wooden bridges joined one tree-house frame to another. Prefab shelters faded into storage; the forest itself was becoming their city.
By day, the workshops rang with craft, stone shaping, tile setting, glass cooling; by night, the elves sang softly among the trees, weaving light-moss into their doorframes so that each dwelling glowed pale green in the dark.
When the vines bore their first clusters and the fig trees leafed heavy with promise, the elders met beneath the central lattice to tally what remained. The wells were strong, the workshops complete, and the greenhouses full, yet the orchards and houses still had seasons of growth ahead. The council agreed the second migration would wait until the roots were sure and the harvest steady.
So the first colony kept its quiet watch, caretakers of a forest still finding its voice. From the mainland, lights could sometimes be seen across the Sound, steady, warm, and alive. To the distant watchers, it looked like a city already thriving. To the elves, it was simply home in waiting.