Jonas Bayrun stood within a large, open courtyard, smiling as he watched the phantoms of his community hard at work. After the Metong researcher managed to help draw the affected science team members back to their own bodies, the two of them had departed from the ship. While he did not necessarily know the Metong’s reasons for wanting to leave quickly, he knew that he still had very important business to take care of.
Within his community was a large population of expert craftsmen. Whether it were masons, carpenters, blacksmiths, or even electricians, Jonas had many people in every field. Furthermore, his community would grow larger every time he made his way into a city or helped someone with their problems. Even this most recent trip to the demon spaceship had earned him divine phantoms of both the science team and the medical team from the Eternity.
From a pragmatic standpoint, it was a wonderful thing to constantly expand his community with the people whose lives he influenced. However, Jonas himself had long since started to grow troubled by it. Instead of simply expanding his community, he wanted to offer somewhere that they could live outside of his own divine body.
That was when he was inspired to create his own divine relic, the City of Bayrun. For years, he had been spending a great amount of his power while mobilizing the various experts of his community in order to build a city that would be able to house a large population. And now, everything was reaching its climax. All that was left was the final inspection, and then inserting the core of the city to activate it.
Over these last few years, the most difficult thing was not building the city itself, but keeping people out of it. Although he built the city in a fairly remote area, there were still wanderers that passed by on their own adventurers. When they discovered that the first mortal god was building a city, many of them had the desire to move in immediately. Who wouldn’t want to live in a city designed and governed by an actual god? Deckan had proved that much already.
After the first few groups were chased off, Jonas decided to change his tactics. He erected a magical ward around the city that would block the perception of prying eyes. Ever since then, there had been far fewer interruptions to his work.
“Sir, the outer walls are up to code!” One phantom, an ursa soldier by the looks of him, walked over and reported.
“The Residential District has been cleared, as well!” Another voice called out, a halfling woman in her late forties running over with a clipboard in her hand. “We just got done checking the houses, and even the schools are all fine. Nothing out of place with the design, sir.”
“The Agricultural District looks ready for work.” A human walked over, wearing a thick straw hat and wielding a heavy shovel over one shoulder.
One by one, the representatives of each district came to report to Jonas, and he checked them off of his list. Each time he was able to mark off a district, his budding excitement grew greater and greater. Once there was only one item left to check off, Jonas put away his list and began making his way towards the palace.
Upon his arrival, he found a kitsune woman standing in front of the palace, looking deep in thought. If Udona were here, she would surely recognize the former queen, and one of her closest friends. “How is everything over here, Bria?” Jonas asked with a courteous tone.
“Something just feels… off.” Bria muttered, shaking her head. “The foundation is good. The building itself is fine. It just feels… wrong, for some reason.” Bria’s eyes scanned over the exterior of the palace, seeing how it resembled the style of her own castle in many ways. However, there were also traces of elven architecture, and even those from the humans and dwarves.
“Did I end up focusing on diversity too much?” Jonas asked, musing aloud as he looked at the palace.
“No, I don’t think that’s it.” Bria sank into thought, before her eyes lit up. “Aha! I think I have it. The mark of the ruler.”
“You want your family crest on the palace?” Jonas blinked when he heard that, finding such a request hard to believe from Bria.
“No, of course not. I’m not the only ruler that you would have in your community, right? This palace isn’t just for one person like myself. Although, I think it would be really sweet of you to do that. This is your city, Jonas! You are the true ruler here. And yet, there is not one image of you throughout the town. Not a painting, a statue, even a billboard advertisement. Aside from your name on the city, there is nothing to truly mark it as yours.”
Jonas hesitated when he heard that. In truth, her words made sense, and he couldn’t really deny them. He had in fact purposely made it that way. His concern was that anyone who saw his statue in such a setting as this may be inadvertently drawn into his community. Jonas had always preferred to give people a choice in the matter, not wishing to simply pull them in against their wishes.
After all, while the original body may not even realize something had happened, the phantom that stayed with him afterwards would always remain. There had been times that he had accidentally acquired such a phantom, only for the phantom itself to believe it had been kidnapped. It treated Jonas as an abductor, wanting to fight free of his control for many days before he was able to calm it down.
“Not a statue.” Jonas shook his head. “Same with the painting. It should be fine if we place my family seal on the castle, I believe?” Such a seal would be far less well-known and harder to recognize than a direct image of his person. As such, it should minimize the ‘accidental acquisitions’.
Bria pouted her lips faintly, but did give a faint nod. “The seal should work. Once that is in place, I believe that the palace will be ready. I’ve already checked the interior, and there does not appear to be anything wrong.”
Jonas was relieved to hear that. Theoretically, it meant that he could create the core of the city now and be done with it. However, he wished to fulfill Bria’s request as well. If she thought that something was wrong with the palace, then surely there would be others that had similar concerns. What was the point in being the God of Community if he did not listen to the words of his people?
The elven god focused, tapping into his connection with the various bricks making up the front of the palace. As everything here was infused with his divine energy, he naturally had a deep connection to every building. Enough that he could change certain details about them through sheer force of will. Of course, he could have had the symbol created manually and then mounted on the wall, but he chose to use this method to engrave it himself.
Slowly, grooves began to appear on the smooth, brick wall. These grooves turned, moving along a guided path and passing from one brick to the next. Bria watched with a faint smile as she saw the image unfolding before her. It was the image of a tower overlooking the sea. “There, now it is done.”
Jonas simply gave a resigned chuckle, walking into the palace once his seal had been complete. With how the city itself had been designed, the palace was naturally placed at the very center. Therefore, it was only right for the core to be housed within it.
He made his way down into the dark basement, where three figures waited for him. Each of these figures could be regarded as a great mage of their time, specializing in the control of mana. Ever since entering his community, they had dedicated themselves to understanding the flow of divine energy.
“Is it time?” The woman on the right, an elderly felyn with greying hair, asked with a smile. When Jonas nodded, she let out a sigh. “Looks like we’ll finally get to see the fruits of our labor, boys.”
The other two mages chuckled as Jonas held out his hands, focusing his divinity on a pedestal within the room. This was where he would install the core, a condensed orb of divinity that fueled the city by gathering the channeling the hearts of its citizens. The more people that lived there and believed in Jonas, the more power it would be able to draw.
As he focused, strands of golden light emerged from his arms, leaping out above the pedestal. These strands came together to form a golden orb, pulsing with divine power. The three mages oversaw the event, excitement on their features.
“City of Bayrun… be born.” Jonas muttered, before the ground itself began to shake. He had been expecting this, so he did not have any trouble maintaining his balance. In fact, all throughout the city, men and women were grasping onto supporting structures, watching eagerly as the horizon sank beneath the edge of the city.
One hundred meters below the ground was the limit that Jonas had set. Along the perimeter of the city, the walls were made to go a hundred meters beneath the surface. And now, that was used as the barrier of the city, everything above that point rising up. Loose dirt fell from the wall as it rose into the sky, gradually revealing a golden luster.
The three phantoms standing before Jonas looked down at their bodies, seeing the translucent bodies that they had known for so long growing more solid. This was the first power of the City of Bayrun, to return his Community to their rightful forms for as long as they were within its walls.
The felyn woman let out a loud laugh as she saw her wrinkled hands, a palm soon covering her eyes. The other two men, both human, shared similar smiles as they enjoyed the return to their old appearances. Only Jonas seemed unsatisfied, as the second power of the city had yet to reveal itself.
He turned and left the basement room without a word, ascending the stairs and quickly leaving the palace itself. The first thing he saw was Bria waving her fists in the air, celebrating the return to a normal body. “Alright, everyone… it’s time to come out.”
There was a rush of power from Jonas as phantoms emerged from his body, moving in every direction. Tens, hundreds, thousands jumping out into the city in order to take their proper form. For the first time in far too long, he was releasing his entire community into the world. And in doing so, the second effect was triggered.
Five hundred houses was a great many for a normal city. However, it was a far cry from being able to house everyone that Jonas had influenced over his life. If he were to wait until he had made a city capable of such a feat, then his project would have taken far longer. Furthermore, he knew that he would eventually acquire more and more people, so the city could not simply remain at a static size.
Thus, the second power of the City of Bayrun was ‘Growth’. Using the layouts of established buildings, it would continue to expand outwards until it was large enough to support its entire population. This way, everyone that Jonas took in would be able to have a home, and they would be able to enjoy their new lives.
Of course, there were other functions of the city as well. Jonas had never forgotten the importance of having a relic suited for battle. Whether it were offensive or defensive features, Jonas felt that his new relic was not lacking. Otherwise, it would not have been worth the years that he spent meticulously crafting it with his community.
Once the last of his phantoms had emerged, Jonas felt an unprecedented state of weakness. It was no exaggeration to say that all of his divinity had left him at this moment. Although most of it would funnel back into the core of the city, some of it would return to him over time, allowing him to slowly return to his peak. Until then, though, it was costing a great deal of power for him to simply maintain his new relic and the many phantoms within.
“So… what do you think?” Jonas asked, turning his head to look at Bria.
The former queen of the kitsune pursed her lips in thought. “I think… Udona would be really happy if she saw this.”
