Regina couldn’t wait for the day her new capital was finished, or at least finished enough, and they could all move there. Unfortunately, it would take a while, still. And in the meantime, she was splitting her time between Cera and the base at Forest’s Haunt. In recent weeks, she’d spent more time in the latter place than before, but it was closer to the mountains and ensured quicker communication with the southern expedition, if nothing else.

  That was part of the reason she was receiving visitors from the south here instead of in Cera.

  Once more, Regina was waiting to welcome a powerful magic user with uncertain intentions whom her people in the south had seen before. This time, she was avoiding the full throne room rigmarole. She didn’t think an attempt at intimidation was likely to impress this visitor, and there was no reason to be hostile, anyway. They were still in a formal-ish receiving room, and Regina was wearing a simple gold crown, while Janis had put on a silver version, although Regina had to remind her of it. They were sitting together along with Mia and Ina in the most fancy chairs and talking about less important things at the moment, but her attention wasn’t on the conversation.

  She paid enough attention that Regina wasn’t surprised when the door opened and Max entered along with their visitor. Politely, she stood up as the old elf stepped forward, followed by the others, looking at her curiously.

  They hadn’t had much warning. The priestess — if that was even the right term — had made her own way north. Tim had probably sent word, but communication with the south took a while and it hadn’t reached them yet. Regina had been alerted by sensing the woman’s mind approaching, instead. Up close, it was clear Alturiel had probably been more obvious than she needed to be; her mind was tightly disciplined with not a stray thought leaking out, locked behind smooth and impassible defenses. Regina only had a very vague sense of her mood that might as well have been pure intuition.

  She listened with one ear as Max introduced her and the others, smiling faintly and carefully prodding her visitor’s mind just a little, to reassure herself of its defenses. It had no give and showed no indication her probe had been noticed.

  “Welcome to Forest’s Haunt and the Central European Empire,” she said. “Iseis Alturiel, I believe.”

  “Yes, Your Imperial Majesty, and thank you for the welcome.” The elf bowed in greeting. She was pretty spry for her age. “I am honored to meet you, and your children as well.”

  “It is my honor,” Regina inclined her head.

  “And ours, and indeed our distinct pleasure,” Janis added, nodding at her as well. “I confess I have been curious to meet you. One does not hear much of a priesthood of Leian.”

  “That would be because there is not much of a priesthood, Princess Janis,” she replied, smiling faintly. “I am, of course, a devoted follower of my lady, personally, but I only claim the title of priestess because it is most convenient. For the most part, I do not act as one would expect of it, or in a typical capacity of clergy.”

  “That’s not surprising,” Regina commented, transitioning to speaking a bit more informally. “Your goddess is hardly worshiped widely and needs it even less. Although, if you follow certain lines of thought, at least gods that do not demand worship would seem more worthy of it.”

  “Is that why you have built a temple for this goddess, of all the gods, Empress Regina?” the elf asked lightly, but there was a bit of a glint in her eye.

  Regina smiled, taking the question in good humor instead of pretending to be offended. “Not quite, although I doubt you expected me to actually be some eager worshiper.”

  “I confess I would have been almost disappointed if you had been.”

  “Not disappointed enough to make up for the benefit it would bring?” Mia asked.

  “Perhaps not,” Alturiel replied with another smile.

  "Either way, you’re welcome here,” Regina told her. “I’d like the opportunity to talk to you at some length. I am sure you have interesting stories to tell, and sound advice to offer.”

  “I did come here to offer the latter,” she agreed. “In hopes it may be useful from time to time. And, of course, to see the Empire and what you have been building.”

  That prompted a conversation about the history of the Empire, short as it might have been, and questions about Alturiel herself and her own stories. Regina spoke less, letting the others get some words in.

  She wasn’t particularly worried about Alturiel seeking political influence. For one thing, it was hard to see some kind of harmful plot here. Whatever she might feel about her past or other things, Regina didn’t really doubt that Leian wanted her to succeed. And she also didn’t doubt that Leian wouldn’t be undermined by anyone calling themselves her follower, even if they weren’t a traditional devotee; maybe even more so than Alianais, who at least had a much larger priesthood to keep an eye on. Besides, if the old elf had wanted political power she clearly could have already had much more of it.

  That didn’t mean Regina was going to listen to her blindly, but she wouldn’t send her away.

  Although, as the conversation progressed, she was starting to doubt how much time she would actually spend here. Judging by her stories, Alturiel wasn’t one to stay anywhere for long, but especially not involved in royal courts, and she’d already expressed interest in the temple. Beyond that, she only offered a little information about herself. Apparently, she was indeed born after the Cataclysm. She also dodged the question of how she’d come to know Leian, although Regina didn’t push.

  After a while, Regina excused herself to attend her next meeting, with Janis and a few of the others also leaving. She left the elf talking with Max and Mia, and checked that they’d prepared a place to stay for her.

  Over the next few days, most of the expectations that Regina had were fulfilled, but what she hadn’t considered were other topics they could discuss. Namely, magic. Regina didn’t let her into her psychic training sessions, but Alturiel expressed an interest in attending their training with other magic, and Regina was eager enough to learn from her that she didn’t hesitate.

  Galatea still hadn’t returned, which was a shame, but Janis and June were good partners and were both motivated to keep up their magical studies along with Regina. Madris even dropped in and offered a few pointers of her own. While she might primarily be a psychic, the dark elf was also a high-level magic user with a few centuries of experience, so she was pretty good. Regina suspected she also wanted to evaluate Alturiel, but she didn’t mind.

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  Her specialty, the old elf explained, was teleportation. No one was surprised to hear that. Regina was glad to learn that it included actual magical spells instead of just the kind of ‘divine magic’ sponsored by the System. Apart from Leian herself, and to an extent Galatea, Alturiel was clearly the best expert on teleportation she’d ever had the chance to meet. Considering how rare and complicated a field of study it was — probably more so than Conjuration, especially now that it wasn’t quite as rare in the Empire anymore — that was quite a distinction.

  “You need to have a good understanding of physics, fine magical senses and a good sense of space, but more importantly, a strong will and a big mana pool,” Alturiel explained. “Twisting the fabric of space enough to move something takes a lot of raw power. It is why it is such a rare skill. It is also very finicky and you need to be very exact, of course. And the required spell constructs are hard to learn.”

  Regina had noticed that in theory, she should be well-suited to learning it. At least she definitely had the high amounts of mana required. In practice, she soon found, she might simply not have the time for even learning the basics. Just looking at the first diagram Alturiel drew out gave her a headache, and that was supposed to be a simplified version! From what she gathered, there was a reason both Galatea and Alturiel herself were both really old and proficient at it. (Leian must have learned it more quickly, but maybe the Aishan had simply had better ways of teaching or maybe she was just a prodigy, but either way, it didn’t help her now).

  Regina still tried and got a few lessons from the priestess. She even felt she might be making a bit of progress. At least until Alturiel departed for the north. She’d been dropping hints the previous day and then simply stated she was off to the temple. Regina didn’t try to stop her. She just made sure she had a proper escort.

  In the meantime, Regina was pretty distracted by other matters. She kept delegating more and more of the actual rule of the Empire, but she still had a lot on her plate. Ben and Max had effectively taken over the restructuring of the military — which was finally coming to an end — and the associated issues, but now that Janis was back, she was involved heavily as well, and Regina had to make a few final decisions and sign off on some things. Most notably, they were setting up a network of new military bases, training grounds, and barracks. A standing military needed all sorts of support infrastructure. That didn’t even count all the technological improvements for weapons and gear they were planning for, like motorized vehicles.

  Electrical motors would clearly be the best — they could still Conjure rare metals, although in the long term, they’d need to mine or import them from somewhere — but the question of energy sources remained. Wind turbines were relatively easy to build and Mia had already started setting them up across the Empire, but it probably wouldn’t be enough for a proper power supply for an actual electrical grid. They were starting to experiment with solar panels as well, but getting those right was much trickier, and probably impossible without magic at their current level of technology.

  While she would have preferred to avoid using them entirely, for both environmental reasons and because of the inherently limited supply, Regina had already come to accept that she’d have to rely on fossil fuels at least in the medium term. Preliminary efforts to find oil or gas deposits were underway, though she wasn’t expecting much in that regard. Coal might be easier, if the existing deposits hadn’t already been mostly harvested. Charcoal was always an option, at least as long as they only needed to power a few trains or something. Biogas might be a better solution, but they still needed to build plants for that and the material needs were in direct competition with not just local farmland to feed the population but the hive as well. She already needed more and more acres to feed the increasing number of Swarm Drones.

  In comparison to worrying about that issue, it was much more enjoyable to listen to Ben lay out their plans for new training camps for soldiers or argue with Janis about the eventual integration of the gnomish military and then sign off on new schedules and projections.

  They might be focusing too much on the military, but Regina was growing concerned about their potential enemies in the Esemen and Western Confederation. A little more concerned than she’d already been, at least. Their efforts to increase their intelligence network in those countries were proceeding slowly, but it was enough to get a clear picture of at least the attitude towards the Empire among their leadership, and it wasn’t pretty. Most of the nobles seemed almost personally offended at it, though the reasons varied. Some didn’t like women rulers, some were concerned about supposed Imperial expansionism, and smarter people even seemed to realize what the economic shift taking place would eventually mean for their own wealth and power. There was also a lot of propaganda floating around, naturally.

  Caught up in all of those considerations, it took a while until Regina actually checked in on Alturiel and the temple, and even longer until she did more than a cursory check. It was a tentative question from Ina that finally motivated her to pay a bit more attention.

  Apparently, the construction was progressing very well, and the temple did look a lot more complete now than it had before. They had also further expanded the little island it was built on, particularly in the direction of the shore, since the water was pretty shallow there, anyway.

  That was where Alturiel was currently standing, when Regina sent Ina to find her. “My Queen has questions about your … plans,” Ina told her.

  Alturiel turned to face her, smiling slightly. “And she can’t speak them to me directly?”

  “She can,” Ina replied, a bit annoyed. She opened her mind more deeply, letting Regina step in from the psychic link. “She is.”

  The priestess regarded her silently for a moment. “So you want to know what I’m doing here.”

  “I do,” Ina replied for her.

  “I was wondering how long it would take you to ask.” Alturiel gestured at the space in front of her, where she’d piled up and flattened some earth. “You remember the teleportation pad, I presume. I am preparing something similar here. Not a portable version this time, and one that has been built from the ground up to operate on different parameters, but otherwise compatible.”

  Regina cocked her head, with Ina mimicking the motion. “With such a teleportation circle as an anchor, would the other one in the south be able to be used beyond its normal range?”

  Alturiel smiled, visibly pleased. “I see some of my lessons stuck,” she praised. “Yes, indeed. That is the point of this endeavor. I have already made minor adjustments to the counterpart.”

  Regina took a moment to absorb this. “So, you would have two linked teleportation pads — allowing transportation from one to the other? A fast-travel corridor that completely bypasses the mountains or any other obstacles?”

  That would be huge, a big step, pun totally intended. It’s a potential vulnerability, I suppose, so we’ll need to guard the exits carefully, but it would help in securing the base in the south very much …

  “In essence, but it will not allow easy teleportation for anyone who so much as steps inside,” Alturiel warned her. “There will still need to be a powerful mage providing a large amount of mana. It will simply make teleportation from here to there, or the reverse, easier.”

  Regina nodded. “I understand,” she said. “I assume there’s a reason you had to build it here?”

  “The temple is here, I am drawing a little on the respective energies,” Alturiel said with a little shrug. “Besides, I assumed you did not want a teleportation point that could be a potential opening for invasion in your capital.”

  “True,” Regina admitted. She supposed this location was as good as any. Close enough to the center of the Empire to not be too inconvenient, in terms of travel times for moving people back and forth, but far enough away from any major settlements or other important locations to give them some time if it was ever seized by an enemy.

  Still, Regina grinned at the thought of what this meant, an expression Ina thankfully didn’t copy. She’d be able to bring Tim and the others home much more easily than she’d feared, and the base wouldn’t be as cut off from the Empire, so they could maintain a real garrison.

  “I am grateful for what you’re doing,” she told Alturiel. “I won’t forget it.”

  The priestess nodded and waved a hand dismissively. “Think nothing of it. This is too interesting not to do anything.” She paused. “And besides, I am not helping you for no reason or solely of my own account.”

  Regina nodded. She understood.