"So we'll test out what you learned, but it's too hard to try to make light at noon" Taramo waved a hand and the early afternoon light blinked out like a snuffed candle. Martin and Simon, the youngest of those there to learn, shouted for a second though their sister immediately lit an orb and scolded them, quieting them quickly. She snuffed the light after walking out of the room.

  It took the others a longer time to 'get' it, though Alice was there only because her brothers wanted to learn. She was beyond the skill of these simple exercises, though she refused his offer of tutoring.

  It took three minutes for Carina and Arno to make light and both of them left to the kitchen to help the newcomers. Since they had grown to become "proper mages", or at least apprentices, they would stick their head into the kitchen to help the three new kitchen staff.

  The others took ten minutes before they had any progress. Martin and Simon were younger and had some experience with magic, but lacked focus most often. The other 6 people were young adults who were the Silver Chain's recent 'recruits' who had much less training of any kind. Most of them were captured and Ariwyn had kept them prisoner in the building she'd claimed and due to their less than willing acquisition into the group they were more than willing to forsake it. There were fifty of them and thirty of those with families were readying to return to Newport next week. The trails they took were a bit cold and Niki had needed to make some healing potions for lost toes.

  A wiry orphan named Raman was the first among the remainder to make a bit of light. His hands were shaking and he was sweating more than the little heat would suggest. Taramo gradually reintroduced the light and found everyone in a similar state.

  "That was a good effort." He began, "The effort put here will provide benefits for years to come when

  "What if we don't?" one of the students called out.

  "The exercise you did with what I provided was like writing blindfolded with your wrong hand. If I thought that any of you couldn't succeed I would have discussed it with you" Two of their number had left after those talks. One of them had relied on Adras' System and thought he was quite skilled. He had decided to return to Newport after working outside the range of a priest who connected them to the benefits that they had.

  Raman raised a hesitant hand "Sir, I can't write."

  "That can be fixed easily enough."

  He dismissed the class and handled a few inane questions about magic. Inane in that most of them had been asked and answered several times. Teaching through writing a book had looked good to him for a reason, though hopefully he'd find someone else to do the teaching soon enough. He had large projects that would take up as much time as he could give to them, recalling and recording his spell repetoire being not the least of them.

  The boys followed him down to the main floor of the building. The vines intertwined into the structure were more prominent on the lower floors since the vines only had a limited speed of growth.

  Ariwyn's builting in the Pitarav village was surrounded by a collection of gardens that were growing plenty of vegetables and wildflowers when they had run out of seeds. People hadn't wanted to live near the 'sacred building of the goddess' though that technically wasn't trye. Everyone wanted to live there and in order to avoid fights for proximity it had been decided to remove the adjacent buildings and turn it into a garden. People who wanted the closeness could work in weeding or relax on the benches that ringed the growing space. The goddess of growth living among a garden was also better in the mind of the people.

  Alice and her brothers stopped at one of the benches while the rest of the students went to their own quarters, one of the apartment blocks that was emptied of vermin and feral spiders. It held most of the newcomers who hadn't yet secured a home, though every few days some would move out into a new safe building.

  Taramo sat down with his back against the building wall.

  News that Tarnox was free from occupation meant that many people from the Pitarav Empire wanted to go to this new opportunity, though only one village had abandoned the land and migrated here entirely. The tubers that they survived on had grown blight so they needed to be abandoned. They were most of the gardeners at the moment and their matriarch, Marina of the Aulatarav who had sworn obedience while they lived under the Pitarav roof, was among them working.

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  Others were kept back by fears of retaliation and their existing obligations, If they'd sworn themselves to another family it would be bad form to break that oath and flee because their word would be untrustworthy and that's the only thing most migrants could take with them.

  All those planned to be brought by the Patriarch Talarof piecemeal were brought togetherso the space where two hundred lived was supplemented by a thousand others. With the three hundred from the Aulatarav there were nearly two thousand which stretched the food stocks to the near breaking.

  Some goats, sheep, and chickens were brought and were kept in the apple plaza, which had been turned into a large pasture. Their value as food would be better suited if they propogated more, so the stocks that were brought and maintained were highly valued. The test farmlands were fully active with a small village of one hundred working and expanding it as they could. Peas were grown from window planter boxes and in time they would provide a large amount of food. In time.

  The princeling Gerolf was leading a hunting party to help supplement the dry food supplies and had since the lands on either side of the pass were uninhabited there was game to be hunted. The village would survive in the ruins of the Tarnox, to eventually become it.

  A vine had slumped over his head, lightly caressing a shoulder. Ariwyn had been harmed greatly, but managed to survive. Having a body meant that she'd invested a large amount of her power into it. That power was lost with the destruction, though it wouldn't take too long to recover. Her attention was focused on recovery and the new main body she'd started to grow in the greenhouse. It would be a matter of years to properly grow without the vitality draught to speed up the process. He prodded the vine with his mana and felt the warmth of contentment on the other side.

  Managing the expansion of her mind over the entirity of her vines throughout the city took most of her attention available so she didn't bother communicating in words. There wasn't anything dangerous or time sensitive she needed to communicate either. She'd return to her previous strength in a few years, and the reputation of Him should be enough to get that time.

  "Uncle! We're ready to go!" Simon and Martin approached him while Alice waited at the bench. A wagon with mechanical components to drive itself was waiting beside her. Taramo stood and walked with his innumerable great-grandchildren and got in the wagon which started going once prompted.

  Ariwyn's building had become less of a home and more a great temple with many empty rooms, so Taramo had taken over a florist's shop that was beside a small manorhouse. It was a ten minute carriage ride away and located beside the burn't out streets. His project at the moment was to clear those spaces away and get them ready for a larger farmland, though it wouldn't be the only thing there.

  There was a large cistern connected to the sewer system which only needed a few blockages to be sealed and a bit of the land on top removed to become a small lake. The fact that the land had already had the magical infrastructure cleared out was a bonus.

  Merlin was currently working to clear away the debris with the help of Spot, whose amorphous form and strength made him helpful in removing debris and making sure that it wouldn't shift under him. Golems were moving the 'safe' debris to large piles depending on materials. Wood would be fully burnt and returned to the soil and rock was always useful in building.

  The young alchemist waved at Taramo and the others as they passed by. He had a room in Taramo's manor while he worked on the debris removal and probably later than that. He'd wanted to make his own academy and the idealistic hope of finding an academy building already prepared was dashed with the existing buildings. The wardings that were set had decayed some, but would need to be properly removed before it could become safe to live in. A haunted house was a better descriptor for those ancient academies, and they didn't even have any good secret vaults with ancient spells written in code, Taramo had checked to be sure.

  They arrived at the manor house and disembarked. The manor was three stories, though they only used the first floor at the moment. It had a living pear tree which was one of the larger reasons to choose this space to live in. The florist's shop had a large greenhouse which was most of the building, probably had been a lord or ladies' personal venture given the reinforced glass.

  They ate a relatively simple supper of bread, sausages, and some apple preserves in the kitchen. Niki ate with them, though she had a glum countenance. She'd taken over a nearby manor that was a bit bigger and had moved her whole workshop to the interior with space to spare, though she spent a lot more time in his house. She didn't explain her worries, though Taramo was ready for when she decided to.

  In the approaching evening they retired to their rooms with Taramo having a bedroom meant for the head servant. It had a nice window but not much space, though there was enough for a table and a little pot that still had a hand in it. The bed was new but a bit lumpy, though the silk wrapped wool was better than what he'd worked with before. He gave the vine that was poking out of the window a little pat before he went to sleep, waking clearly in the middle of the night with a prod to his mind from Ariwyn.

  "Someone arrived in the city. They were flying." That wasn't a good sign.