The cheer rolled away in ripples—"Novaterra! Novaterra!"—until it thinned into work-noise: the murmur of voices, the shuffle of feet, the nervous coughs people make when they're waiting for orders and trying not to look scared. The wind combed the grass and carried the smell of earth. For the first time since the void, Aiden's breath came without hitching.
He wasn't alone. A thousand people weren't alone. And the blue window that hung before him very much wanted his attention.
He steadied himself. "Let's get organized," he said—not loudly, but the System seemed to catch intention more than volume. "We need shelter, water, a plan."
A chime: bright, ready.
[Guided Setup Available] Choose up to three Early Directives: • SHELTER — prioritize housing • WATER — prioritize wells & sanitation • FOOD — prioritize storage & rationing • SECURITY — prioritize watch posts & drills • ADMIN — prioritize logistics & ledgers
The choices stacked up like the first stones of a wall. Aiden didn't hesitate. "Shelter. Water. Admin."
The pane pulsed approval.
[Directives Applied] — SHELTER: Wooden House schematics boosted, build speed +10% — WATER: Basic Waterworks & Latrine plans unlocked — ADMIN: Ledger & Work-Rotation tools enabled
"Okay," he breathed. "Okay."
He touched Shelter with his eyes—funny how natural that already felt—and a clean list unfurled.
Wooden House — Shelter for 5. 50 GC.
Communal Longhouse — Shelter for 20 (morale –). 180 GC.
Stone House — Shelter for 10 (morale +, fire-safe). 200 GC.
He skimmed tooltips: materials, ETAs, recommended crew sizes. The numbers weren't just numbers; he could see how they translated into movement—frames rising, walls clacking into place, roofs that didn't leak when rain finally remembered this sky.
Aiden turned toward the nearest knot of people. "We're going to start with standard houses. Smaller but warmer. Families first." He pointed—uselessly, since he couldn't touch—but the System caught the intent and a faint ribbon of blue traced toward a patch of level ground east of the resource stacks, marking plots.
A man in his thirties with a carpenter's patience in his eyes stepped forward, thumb hooked through a loop of cord that might as well have been a badge. "Name's Ansel, lord," he said, voice cautious but firm. "I can head a frame crew. Used to… build things."
"Perfect." Relief loosened Aiden's shoulders. "Ansel, you're foreman of Shelter. Two hundred volunteers to you, in teams of ten. Rotations: eight hours on, four off."
The System carried it outward like a tide.
[Assigned: Shelter] • Foreman: Ansel • 200 Peasants — Construction • Queue: Wooden House x20 (ETA: 3 days to first occupancy)
Aiden toggled to Water. There was more than one way to die before the Portals ever opened. He'd rather not discover the "cholera speedrun" of kingdom building.
Basic Waterworks — Hand pumps, cisterns. 300 GC.
Latrines (Trench) — Disease risk –. Free (labor only).
Well (Shallow) — Reliable water if water table present. 250 GC.
"Waterworks and latrines first," he said. "Forty for water, thirty for latrines. We… we'll want them downwind." 😬
The old woman from before—the one who'd asked if they were safe—nodded briskly as if he'd passed a test and began shepherding people toward the marked ground. "Name's Mara," she tossed over her shoulder. "I'll see that no one digs a toilet where they mean to sleep."
"Gods bless you, Mara."
"Let's hope they do." She winked. 🙂
Aiden opened the third directive: Admin. It was less glamorous—a ledger icon, tidy grids—but the sight of it soothed something in him. Systems. Lists. Structure.
Ration Ledger — Assigns, tracks, and forecasts food distribution.
Work-Rotation Board — Schedules and fatigue alerts.
Material Staging — Maps build sites to materials stacks, reduces walking loss.
He activated all three. "One hundred to Logistics," he added. "Inventory, rationing. Rotate so nobody drops."
Blue text rippled:
[Assigned: Logistics] • 100 Peasants — Rations, Stores, Staging • Lead: Venn (bookkeeper)
A thin man with ink-stained fingers (how did he already have ink?) bobbed his head at Aiden and set about turning chaos into neat piles and neater lists. The effect was immediate. Panic bled into motion. People with tasks behaved like people with spines again.
Aiden risked a smile. "Good."
He flipped the Shop open next. The wealth of options had been terrifying moments ago; now it felt like a table he had earned the right to sit at. He scanned Buildings again, lingering on the icons that felt like the bones of a city.
Granary — Reduces spoilage, prevents pests. 500 GC.
Storehouse — General storage. 200 GC.
Barracks — Train Peasants → Militia/Guard. 5,000 GC.
Blacksmith — Forge tools & arms. 4,000 GC.
His thumb (that he couldn't use) twitched. He could see the future bottlenecks like rocks in a stream. Weapons needed iron; iron without a smith was just, well, rocks with delusions. Training without a barracks was drilling in mud.
"Granary now," he said. "Storehouse after. Then…" He took a breath, felt how the next words would turn the camp into something with teeth. "Queue Blacksmith and Barracks."
Coins ticked down in the corner of his vision: 100,000 → 90,300. The numbers hurt in a pleasant way, like stretching a muscle that had gone tight.
[Queued] • Granary (500 GC) — 30 Peasants — ETA 2 days • Storehouse (200 GC) — 20 Peasants — ETA 1 day • Blacksmith (4,000 GC) — 40 Peasants — ETA 4 days • Barracks (5,000 GC) — 50 Peasants — ETA 5 days
The air shifted as assignments rooted. Aiden watched his people—his people—stream toward stakes, toward chalked rectangles that hadn't existed a heartbeat ago. Hammers began to count time. Someone started humming, badly. The sound made his throat tighten.
He turned, half on impulse, toward one of the resource stacks: neat, square-cut stone. He reached for it, knowing even as he did that his fingers would pass through.
They did. The cold non-feel of it sent a shiver up his wrist.
"You may not act by your own hands."
He withdrew, flexing his hand until the sensation faded. Not pain. A reminder. He wouldn't be the one laying the bricks. He'd be the one deciding where the bricks went, why, to what end. It was a different kind of weight.
"Lord?" Ansel called from a rising frame. "Where do you want the first street to run?"
Aiden blinked. Streets. Of course. He glanced at the ground and the System obliged, overlaying a faint grid: paths like veins, widening into plazas and narrowing into lanes. He dragged (with thought) a main road east-west along the shallowest slope, then another north-south that would one day meet a gate. A gate implied a wall; the memory of the void's warning (ten years) throbbed behind his eyes.
"Here," he said, tracing the cross. "Room between for gardens and alleys. No dead ends." He didn't want places where fear could pool.
Ansel saluted with a raised mallet. "Aye."
The map tab blinked in his peripheral vision. He opened it.
[TERRITORY MAP — LOCAL] • Capital Site (Novaterra): You are here • North: River (10 km) • West: Forest (Dense) • South: Rolling Plain • East: Distant Hills
"River," Aiden murmured, and the map zoomed, showing a blue ribbon meandering through low banks. The thought of water that moved—boats, fish, mills—made possibility spark. "We'll need a village there. Not yet," he added quickly, feeling the impulse to overreach. "Soon."
Another chime, different—almost like a doorbell.
[Regional Handshake Complete] Nearby Lords detected. Display? (Y/N)
He hesitated. Curiosity won.
The world tilted—no, the System tilted his view, lifting him like a kite and sweeping his sight outward across a painted plain. For a breath he was a hawk: the grasslands thinning into scrub, shadows pooling where the land folded. Three faint pillars of white flashed, far enough to be safe, close enough to be real.
Labels resolved, crisp as knife-edges:
Duvall's Dominion — 80 km east.
Ironvale — 92 km south.
Silverbrook — 105 km west.
As he looked, the System gifted him a courtesy glimpse—neighbors on a stage.
In the east: a tall man with an aristocrat's poise and a gambler's smile, flipping a silver coin across his knuckles as if the world were just another wager. Lucien Duvall. Even from a ghost's distance, charisma rolled off him like heat. Beside him lounged a rogue with fox-bright eyes and twin daggers, smirk welded in place.
"This is no curse," Lucien declared, voice like velvet on steel. "It is opportunity. A game of fate! And in this game, we will write the rules." He snapped the coin, caught it. "I name this land Duvall's Dominion." 🎭
To the south: a hammer rose into view, then the man wielding it—broad-shouldered, bald, a scar bisecting one brow. He looked like a wall that had learned to walk.
"Strength rules!" he thundered. "This place is Ironvale—and we will forge a future that does not break." ⚒️
To the west: a softer light. A young woman—barely more than a girl—stood with fingers laced, breath making her chest flutter. A robed figure in blue stood beside her, staff aglow at the tip with a patient light.
"We will help each other," the young woman said. "We will be kind. This will be Silverbrook. May the river guide us." 🌊
The visions folded back into the plain.
Aiden exhaled. A lucky man with a fox at his side. A warlord who believed in hammers. A gentle neighbor standing on idealism like ice.
"Not too close," he murmured. "But not far." It was enough distance to grow before anyone got ideas… or to make sure those ideas had time to sharpen. His jaw set. He didn't dislike any of them. He didn't like them, either. They were context. The real opponent was time.
He reopened the Military tab.
Militia (Lv.3–5) — 200 GC.
Guard (Lv.6–10) — 500 GC.
Soldier (Lv.11–15) — 1,200 GC.
Elite Soldier (Lv.16–20) — 3,000 GC.
Squire (Lv.21–25) — 7,500 GC.
A branching tooltip showed promotion tracks, training times, and a line that snagged his eye:
Training Efficiency increases with Barracks level and Hero Unit leadership aura.
Hero Unit. The icon he'd been skirting hovered in the Special tab, glowing like a star.
Altar of Heroes — Summon and bond with one Hero Unit. 10,000 GC. ✨
Aiden could feel it—almost like a pressure front gathering, a future pressed up against a door. He wanted—needed—someone who could act with precision instead of his broad-stroke edicts. A champion. A voice to give orders to when orders had to be carried through brush and smoke and fear.
"Soon," he told the icon. "Foundation first."
He triggered one more purchase: Watchtower. Vision meant warning, and warning meant time. Time was king.
[Queued] • Watchtower (1,500 GC) — 15 Peasants — ETA 2 days Coins: 90,300 → 88,800
A shriek knifed the air—thin, not fear, exactly, but surprise. Aiden spun. At the edge of the site, a child had tripped near a stack of stone and sprawled, winded. The moment his gaze caught, a gentle blue ripple flowed: two adults broke off from staging, lifted the boy, dusted him, checked his elbows. He hiccuped, then grinned, biting his lip.
Aiden's breath left in a laugh he hadn't expected. "We're okay," he told himself, and the words didn't feel like a lie.
He opened Resources—not because he meant to buy anything yet, but because information felt like armor.
Wood bundles, stone pallets, iron ore ingots (purchaseable), coal.
A final icon pulsed faintly: Universal Mine (Rare)—with a note: Can be anchored over qualifying seam; yields iron, coal, stone, and rare chance at a Magic Crystal. Price tag steep enough to make his eyes water.
He filed it under Maybe. If a seam existed, and if the numbers penciled out… The thought of a steady trickle of iron, coal, and the occasional magical whatever-it-was sparked a greedy corner of his brain he hadn't known was there.
A smaller prompt nudged his attention:
[Sanitation Tip] Latrines downwind of living quarters. [Yes, I know] / [Thanks]
He snorted. "Thanks."
Mara's voice floated back from the trench line. "We were doing it that way anyway, you fussy blue ghost!"
Aiden smiled, then sobered. Systems and jokes were good—but fear didn't stay down just because you told it to. He opened the Ration Ledger. Numbers filled the pane: calories per crate, spoilage risk, recommended daily per head. He tapped a setting and the System proposed a plan: full rations for laborers and children, reduced for low-exertion tasks, weekly rest days staggered so the camp never fell still.
He approved it. A hum curled through him, a feeling like setting a bone and feeling it take.
"Lord Aiden!" Ansel called. "Do we have a street name for this one?" He pointed his mallet down the central line where the first frames formed a ragged backbone.
Aiden looked along it, seeing in his mind the years to come: the stone that would replace timber, lamps that would swing and hum, market stalls, laughter, arguments, the sound of boots in the morning. He lifted his chin.
"Founders' Way," he said. "We'll remember how it started."
A scattered cheer answered him. Someone started hammering in rhythm to the chant—Founders' Way, Founders' Way—until it trailed off into chuckles. The air felt lighter.
The Barracks site staked itself on the north edge of the growing grid. Aiden watched stakes go down, lines pulled tight, corners squared. He imagined men and women standing there, shoulders straightening as they were taught to hold a spear so it didn't rattle in their hands. He imagined shouting—not the panic from the void, but the sharp cadences of training. He imagined a woman in battered silver armor, calm eyes, hand on a sword-hilt—
He cut that thought before it made a promise for him. "Soon," he told himself again. "Soon."
A new panel slid in, as if it had been waiting for the right mood.
[Optional Starter Offer: Lucky Blueprint Crate] Contents: 1–3 random building or war-engine blueprints (Uncommon→Legendary) Cost: 10,000 GC Duration: Limited (24h) Purchase? (Y/N)
Aiden's lips parted. He could almost taste the risk. Ten thousand was a lot. Ten thousand could buy houses and hammer-heads and a dozen other solid, boring things. Or it could buy a blueprint no coin could touch later.
He heard Lucien's phantom voice from the courtesy vision: opportunity… a game of fate. He heard Ironvale's hammer in his head. Strength. He heard the soft prayer from Silverbrook. Kindness.
He felt his own: Time.Preparation.Edges you hide under your cloak until you need them.
"Not yet," he whispered. "But I see you."
He closed the offer without rejecting it.
Afternoon (if this place had afternoons) slid across the sky. The first house-frames stood like ribs. Latrine trenches darkened earth downwind. A cluster of women and men tested the first pump; water spat, coughed, then flowed, and a cheer went up as if someone had slain a dragon. Aiden laughed with them, actual, unfiltered laughter that shocked his own ears. 😄
He paced the rising grid, not touching—never touching—but present, letting eyes catch his and find steadiness there. He asked names, forgot them, asked again. He listened to suggestions. He learned that Jory, the boy with the sack, liked to run messages; that Venn the bookkeeper had already invented three abbreviations Aiden didn't understand; that Ansel swore by measuring twice and cutting once even if the System could do the math for him.
At the edge of it all, the Watchtower began its thin climb. A single column of timber, braces like a spider's legs, a platform that would one day hold a bell.
Aiden turned his face to the east and let his gaze drift over the land where the map said Lucien Duvall's people moved. Eighty kilometers. Far enough that no one would stumble into anyone else by accident. Close enough that someday a dust plume on the horizon would mean visitors.
"Let's be ready before anyone knocks," he murmured.
The [System] answered with a soft, almost pleased ping, as if it liked that thought.
[Daily Summary — Novaterra] • Shelter: 20 Wooden Houses (framing) — on schedule • Waterworks: Pumps online, latrines dug • Logistics: Ration plan active; spoilage risk minimal • Queued: Granary, Storehouse, Blacksmith, Barracks, Watchtower • Morale: Cautious → Steady 🙂 • Coins: 88,800
He closed it and just stood for a long moment, listening to hammers, to laughter, to the whisper of grass like a congregation in prayer. He let his shoulders drop.
A tug brushed his attention—the Altar of Heroes icon again, patient and bright.
"All right," he said softly, more to himself than to the air. "Foundation first. Then… a champion."
He pictured it—the altar rising, light pooling, a figure kneeling, battered silver catching the sun. Not yet. Soon.
He looked around at Novaterra—bare bones and beating heart—and felt the shape of the next choice.
"Tomorrow," Aiden whispered. "Tomorrow we begin the work that lasts ten years." ⏳
He glanced East, South, West, thinking of Dominion, of Ironvale, of Silverbrook, and finally back to the frames of his first street.
"Founders' Way," he repeated, and smiled. "Let's make it worth the name."
The wind hissed, the tower creaked, the first pump sang, and Novaterra drew its second breath.
— End of Chapter 2 —