AXIUM

CHAPTER 19

Fifteen of her new citizens huddled together in the middle of the courtyard working on a golden antenna a little taller than her.

As XRenia and Verin approached they all stopped working and bowed slightly to her. XRenia smiled at them and motioned for them to continue.

As they did so one of the men broke from the group and addressed her. "The array is almost finished but we stripped most of our furniture of the gold tinted iron plating to make it. I hope you don't mind."

"That's fine. I'm planning on replacing the furniture anyway when we have more resources. I prefer light and airy style furnishings not the bulking heavy style that came with my palace."

The man nodded and rejoined the others in reshaping the last link of melted metal. As they were she couldn't help but notice that all of them were physically strong and gifted mages.

"That's what working in the labor camps does to you. But when Neo first help them escape they were all malnourished, since then though God has provided them with plenty of food." Verin told her.

"I think we need to seriously talk about this God thing sometime."

She felt Verin smile. "Believe it or not I very much like that."

The unnerving queasiness she had experienced before while he was talking about God return. "Looking forward to it." She lied. "But it looks like they just finished so it will have to wait to later."

The tall man with a bushy beard she recognized as Peter experimentally raised his hand and push energy through their array. The tiled courtyard directly beneath the antenna dissolved into dust then reformed into dirt leaving the pyrite coating floating in the middle of the array. "It works." He declared with a giant smile on his face.

XRenia frowned pulled out the tablet blueprint from her dimensional inventory and quickly fixed the blemish on her courtyard.

"All the spells are interlaced and integrated exactly as I showed you?" Zach asked from behind her and Verin as he walked over.

The man she recognized thanks to Verin's still open mind as Herman nodded. "Yes. I checked them myself. Though you should probably check it for yourself just to make sure."

Zach strode over to it and placed his hand on the array. "It's good. What should we do with it first?" He asked her and Verin.

She put away the tablet and shrugged. "Anything as long as it doesn't Intel tearing up portions of my palace."

There was a barely perceptible laugh among group. They had all seen her whip out the blueprint and instantly fix the courtyard.

"I think it be nice to have an herb garden right outside the kitchens side exit," Verin offered.

"Sounds good," she said waving her hand at the array floating it off the ground and walking towards the left side of the Palace.

Verin along with the others followed her out past the protective bubble the Emundans created and into the inky broken Ley line's magic.

"I think here will be good," Verin said, when they were right across from the servants entrance leading into the kitchen. "Though it's too bad that the claw's anti-icky magic shield doesn't expand out this far. Gardening in this stuff will be a pain."

XRenia maneuvered the array so it was pointed at the ground. "I'm guessing we just feed energy into it and it does the rest?"

"If all goes well, yes." Zach answered as he motioned for the others to step back.