The work began quietly, the way foundational things always did.
Talia descended below the finished floors with a clear objective etched into her mind and stone waiting patiently to move beneath her hands. Storage wasn't glamorous. It didn't inspire awe the way waterfalls or ramps did.
But it mattered more than almost anything else, foundations of the foundations. What you stored determined what survived.
She followed the mapped plan exactly.
The layout was dense but elegant. Small districts interlocked like puzzle pieces, linked by wide, navigable walkways that allowed carts to pass without congestion. It was a city of quiet preparedness.
Hours blurred into days. Her movements were efficient, almost meditative, hands guiding stone as if it were remembering where it wanted to be. Because of the scale, she moved farther from the known area than usual, pushing into older, deeper rock that hadn't felt human presence in a very long time.
She built, ate, rested and repeated. The stone kept moving where guided to and progress pulled her forward, one completed segment leading naturally to the next.
The days following stuck to the regular schedule, reinforced by Maris.
Who at one point dragged a disobedient Lord to her mother for skipping her rest schedule and sneaking off to go play with stone. That got Talia a grounding for the rest of the day, and Maris got an obedient, grudge-holding Lord.
While shifting stone between two planned micro-districts—one for house supplies and the other craft overflow—the wall simply… gave.
Not collapsed. Not fractured.
Opened.
Talia stepped back instinctively as the stone peeled away to reveal a natural cavern beyond—vast, clean, and astonishingly stable. The ceiling arched high, ancient rock formations forming ridges. It was wide enough to replace two full storage districts without compromise.
She stared.
Then she laughed.
The sound echoed, raw and unguarded, startling in its own right. It had been days since she'd made a noise that wasn't breath or effort.
"Well," she said to the stone, grinning. "This saves my time."
She adapted instantly.
Edges were reshaped, not forced. Ceiling ribs reinforced just enough to integrate with her grid. Load paths adjusted. Access corridors widened. The cavern slid into the design as if it had always been meant to be there.
Days of labour, gone.
The stone felt… cooperative, she noted that, absently.
And kept working.
Later, much later, her hand brushed a surface that felt wrong.
Smooth. Too smooth.
She slowed, drawing her palm along the wall. The tunnel revealed itself gradually: narrow, gently curved, worn down not by collapse or pressure but by passage. No debris. No claw marks. No tracks.
Just absence, it wasn't a fault line, it wasn't natural erosion.
It was old.
Too even, too intentional. Talia did not investigate.
She thickened the walls immediately, doubling and then tripling their density. Load paths were rerouted. The tunnel was isolated, sealed behind layers of reinforced stone until it ceased to exist in any meaningful way.
She marked it privately, deep in her mental map, and reminded herself to let Dav know, for military records.
The mountain stopped feeling kind and generous after that.
When she reached sealed-material storage—hazardous overflow meant to sit far from everything else—the wall glinted.
Again.
Star-flecked ore, catching the light like a trapped night sky.
Same composition as before, so it wasn't rare. That confirmation steadied her.
With practiced care, she stabilised the vein, detached it cleanly, and relocated it upward, merging it with the existing mine on the first floor.
The stone was being catalogued now. A reminder about the merge later was enough. She called for Maris who was always close by within hearing distance, or she would have told Talia she was stepping out. Talia told Maris about the extra vein of ore being added to the first and asked her to relay the message to the researchers, so that they didn't think it magically replicated itself.
Continuing her twenty day long mission, she made one last discovery, and it was this one that made her pause.
The stone parted into a small cavern, warm and heavy with moisture, the air carrying a sweetness that felt almost edible. Not sharp, not floral—round and slow, the kind that lingered on the back of the tongue. Each breath felt thicker, richer, leaving Talia oddly aware of her own heartbeat.
At the centre lay a shallow pool. Not water. Something denser. Its surface didn't ripple with the faint drafts of the cavern but held steady, faintly luminous, light sinking into it instead of bouncing away. The glow came from within, soft and patient, like embers banked under ash. It didn't demand attention. It waited for it.
Around the pool grew clusters of velvety purple flowers. Their leaves were broad and dark, edges rounded and unscarred, veins pulsing faintly in slow, deliberate rhythms—as if the plants were breathing alongside her.
Talia didn't move. She watched.
One blossom trembled. At its tip, a single droplet formed—clear at first, then deepening in colour as it swelled, thickening as though gathering substance from the air. It slid along the curve of the leaf, reluctant to fall, stretching thin before gravity finally claimed it.
The droplet slipped free.
The pool answered.
Lazy ripples spread outward, thick and smooth, and the cavern brightened—not sharply, not suddenly, but as though something had been quietly satisfied. Fed. The plants responded too, their veins glowing a shade brighter, the air warming by a fraction.
Talia backed away, heart thudding.
This was rare. Not dangerous—yet—but undeniably alive in a way that went beyond growth or instinct. This wasn't just a plant ecosystem. It felt… aware.
Decision followed instinct, fast and absolute.
She couldn't leave it buried. She couldn't place it in the food district—not yet, not without understanding what she was looking at. So she chose the space behind the central ramp and did the impossible.
Not piece by piece. The whole.
Stone folded and flowed as she moved the cavern intact, the sensation like swimming upstream through bedrock. The mountain parted for her, accommodating, almost gentle, until the cavern settled behind the ramp wall. She shaped a concealed door, hidden within the farm storage room wall.
Then she went looking for Mum and found Grandpa Fin instead.
He took one look at her face and stopped walking.
"What did you do?" he asked softly.
"Same difference, found something interesting, it needs special research." Talia said, shrugging weakly.
She showed him the door and opened it just enough.
The light spilled out.
Grandpa Fin froze. Truly froze. His breath caught, hands lowering slowly to his sides. He stared for a long moment, eyes reflecting that patient glow, something old and careful waking behind them.
"…That's not meant to be harvested," he said finally, voice rough. Not fear. Certainty.
"I know," Talia whispered.
He nodded once. Then again, steadier this time. "You did the right thing to move it. This is important research. I'll notify the botanist team."
He closed the door himself.
That was enough.
Talia returned to the underground districts where Maris was standing, waiting.
Furious.
"Where have you been?" Maris demanded, voice sharp enough to cut. "And how did you get there?"
Talia explained. The cavern, the flower, why it was moved and how she moved it.
Maris listened.
Her anger drained into something quieter. Distant.
"This isn't genius," she murmured. "It's… an elf of stone. The stone parts like trees for her."
She shook herself, visibly recovering.
"No more," she ordered. "You stop, now. Go rest."
She turned away with a slight stagger.
Talia watched her go, unease settling in her chest.
She might be the one who needed rest.