11 – Do build your house on this empty plot, no problem

The warm sunlight of the morning slowly filtered through the dense leaves of the treehouse. Small crescents of light danced on the floor, the tiny pinpricks of light coming in from far above. Jacob looked at them in puzzlement for a moment.

“Why are they like this?”

He was alone in his room, which he learned was actually Lumia’s room. He had to decide what to do now that he was healed, keeping in mind that there was a dangerous monster in the forest. His musings came to a temporary stop when he realized why the shadows had a crescent shape where the light of the sun filtered down.

“An eclipse!”

He rushed down and into the small plaza made of little smooth stone bricks just below the rich foliage of the tree. His chin lifted into the air, and a look of wonder crossed his eyes for a moment. The large moon of this planet was crossing its orbital path with the sun, casting a light shadow as it passed.

“Do the moons not do that where you’re from?”

He turned around, and saw Lumia there.

“Very rarely. I’ve seen an eclipse only once before.”

“How many moons does your Earth have?”

“Just the one. How many are there here, though? I thought I only saw one.”

“Two. One during the day and one at night.”

He looked at the sky. “I didn’t notice this one before. Must have been too distracted.”

She didn’t reply. After a while, however, a look of worry flashed on her face.

“What will you do now?”

Jacob sighed. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

There were a few elves roaming around the plaza, mostly women going to and fro between various buildings nearby.

“If you are alone, then why don’t you stay at our village?”

“I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

“It’s better than roaming the forest all alone, with the monster and all. And you could help, you know, earn your place among us.”

He smiled. “That would be nice, yeah. Okay, you’ve convinced me. I’ll live here for now. Tell me where I can build my house, a place where I’m not in the way.”

She smiled at him, and took his hand. She led him to a flat space quite close to her tree, still under its massive canopy. The village, he noticed, was quite small and mostly composed of treehouses and wooden huts built in-between trees. There was no fence around it, and no roads apart from a couple dirt paths leaving the village. The only place that looked even remotely similar to an actual village was the stone plaza, with a large pond in the middle dotted with lily pads. Everywhere else, it felt more like a refugee shelter mixed with a few treehouses.

“Rimeria is a small place, everybody knows each other here.”

“Yeah, I see that.” Jacob said, seeing a couple women wave at them.

“You can build your hut here. Call me if you need anything.”

She left, returning to her home up in the tree. Jacob exhaled, and looked around. Several elves, all women, were working outside of their homes and occasionally turned a curious eye towards him. There were no males that he could see, although he remembered some from last night. Maybe there were out hunting.

He looked at his plot of land. It was a big area of flat earth, the soil hard and dry, devoid of vegetation. It would not be suitable for building a small orchard like the elves had in their gardens, but it would be perfect for his purposes.

He placed his two different crafting stations, and next to them his furnace. The coals lit up immediately after he placed some cobblestone in it, the fire cooking the rough stones into smooth and uniform blocks of grey stone. The process made no sense, of course, but that was what was most intriguing about his ability. Seeing the pebbles of the cobblestone fuse together and smoothen at a quick pace was almost entrancing.

When they were done smelting, he put them in his crafting table and mad bricks out of them. Then, with his shovel, he cleared the ground below his stations and made a square hole of 15x15. Both the workbenches and his furnace floated in the air while he removed the dirt underneath, and he could see the women were now staring at him intently.

He placed down the bricks, filling in the empty space.

Now came the hard part. He had never been a creative builder before, much rather going for warehouse-like buildings where to build all of his strange mechanisms inside. This time, however, he felt a moral obligation to maintain at least the general feel of the place. No concrete monstrosities that would inevitably ruin the bucolic feel of the village.

In the end, he decided to go with something much better looking. This would be an experiment, but one he hoped would be nice to look at. And he could always tear it down in case he didn’t like it.

He started placing down the blocks, whistling to himself as he worked. This truly felt like playing Minecraft, except he was really there and could feel the texture and even smell of the wood as he placed it.

As he was done, he looked at the small mansion that he had built. It was a two-story cabin that perfectly blended with the feel of the woods nearby. The ground floor still had the grey bricks on the floor, to give it a certain feel, together with the central fireplace, of coziness. It had large windows and a central winding staircase leading upstairs.

The second floor was entirely made out of wood, with large windows as well, and a small balcony. Leaves and branches ran all along the walls and the roof, swaying in the wind and shining a vibrant green under the sunlight.

He stepped onto the balcony, a grin on his face, quite satisfied with his own work. Looking down, he saw that a small crowd had gathered next to his front door, and they were examining his house from outside. The small grassy garden was filled with curious elves, who occasionally planted a flower or fixed the plants as they walked all around the house to explore.

As Jacob emerged, Lumia was there to greet him.

“What a lovely house you built.”

“Thank you.” He said, a feeling of proudness at his creation.

“How did you manage to build it so fast? Was it your ability?”

“Yeah.”

Hearing this, many of the elves in the crowd perked up their heads. They looked at Jacob with interest.

“Why are there only women?” He whispered to Lumia.

“The others are out hunting.” She said, voice even lower than his.

“As I thought.”

One of the women of the crowd mustered her courage, and approached Jacob.