The parade through the city and that is what the General and his legionnaires made of his escort, was mundane, except for one small bit of theft on my part, and small being relative. I was a Knocker steeped in the power to control metal. My control was absolute by this point, supported by levels and Rank.

That affinity was an intricate part of my Domain, metal and my magic was intimately linked. The temptation to pilfer was too great for me to resist, to walk past buildings and roads constructed of gold, the metal's siren call begging to be collected, was too much for me to ignore. And the Olympians made it so easy for me to funnel the gold I collected into a spatial device.

My theft wasn't obvious, I simply extended my Domain, breaking the bonds that held the molecules together. I created disorder out of order, and once I was satisfied, I used the magnetic properties inherent in all metal for transport, ordering the metal that came within my reach to form a constant stream.

The gold began flowing. I was careful not to make my theft obvious, taking a percentage each time, my magic pulsed, storing what I collected in the torc I wore around my throat. The torc had been a gift from King Teigh. It was the most impressive storage device I had even examined. Storage capacity was close to infinite. How he had gotten his hands on something this powerful, he refused to say. But it meant that there wasn't an effective limit on the amount of gold I could steal.

That torc was made more impressive because it was a growth type piece of equipment. Growth items were almost exclusively limited to weapons and armor. Each time I had leveled up my abilities and increased the power of my Domain, I had invested materials to advance the torc, making it stronger, the functionality more responsive.

I had enchanted metal and jewelry to work as spatial devices, feeding each piece to the torc. This steady diet of materials enhanced the piece of jewelry and opened a new feature that transformed the way it stored metal and gems.

The gold that I was casually stealing and funneling towards the torc never entered the spatial rift that it contained. Instead, all of that gold, nearly a hundred tons by the time we reached the palace, became part of the torc's structure. The metal I was collecting was bound with the torc. It would have been impossible when I was first gifted with such a unique item. Once I had upgraded the torc using Silinium, it had adapted. The weight and integrity of the torc remained constant, but all metals and gems became part of the matrix and structure that defined the torc.

Silinium's unique ability to remain fluid, to become charged with magic, and to allow inscription on the molecular level were well known and was the reason the metal was in such high demand. But it also had another unique feature. Its ability to blend, to create composites and alloys with other metals had been thoroughly tested. What was not widely disseminated was the ability to form covalent bonds with all metals, irrespective of electron configuration. The binding ignored the electron outer shell completely, forming a partnership using magic as the attracting force.

One molecule of Silinium could link with and establish an infinite amount of bonds. All that gold I was appropriating the hundreds of tons, each molecule was linked with a Silinium molecule, creating a cluster that ignored mass. That one electron shell shuttling the weight and properties of a multitude of gold into stasis, waiting for me to break those bonds and release the metal I had pilfered.

The torc had embraced that ability, incorporated changes to structural integrity during a growth phase. And it would take the unique abilities of a Knocker to recognize what was happening. It meant that no matter how I was searched, no one would be able to find any of the material I was collecting, and that afternoon theft of gold between the Portal Authority and Caesar's Palace could never be traced to me.

"The road of gold has existed, unchanging since the first Caesar established this city on Rome," General Ilyse informed me playing tour guide. "The entire city is warded, the gold monitored, and any changes in weight or purity are immediately transmitted to the Guard. It is impossible to steal, the gold enchanted to maintain form and function.

"There have been a host of attempts to steal it, but every thief has learned that what is Caesar's remains Caesar's. No one has ever succeeded," he informed me. "Each succeeding Caesar has found a way to add to the multitude of buildings without changing the direction the first Caesar established for aesthetics."

"It certainly is shiny," I said unable to think of a better word to be judicious with my opinion, and a bit guilty that he broached the topic as I was leeching the metal as easily as breathing.

"Shiny?" General Ilyse asked in disbelief.

"Would monotonous and vulgar work better?" I responded watching in amusement as his face turned red, his effort not to explode in anger or defend the beauty of the city highly entertaining.

"Vulgar?" He finally managed to spit out between gritted teeth. "Ephesus is one of the crown jewels of any Olympian world. Poets have written odes to its beauty, scholars have written papers extolling the virtues, even the Goddess Minerva, the Goddess of Art and Creativity, has praised the beauty and wonders of the city.

"And you find it vulgar?" He sneered.

"My words were not meant as an insult," I replied truthfully, I had spoken to antagonize. "Something you should note, perhaps even inform those that you are having waste time observing my group, that Sidhe are intimately linked to nature. We are tied to it so deeply, that for us, beauty and perfection build on the natural world around us.

"The sights of golden perfection that you and your people have produced here. The wealth that you have flaunted during this walk down roads of gold, a journey that would have taken much less time if vehicles had been provided, was a waste of your time and mine.

"The Sidhe work with nature, we attempt to mold the bounty that Danu has gifted us, to shape, not destroy. And although we do create buildings, even stark military fortifications, for the most part, we maintain that ideal. We bend to necessity when required, but even then, we work to incorporate the world Danu has created for us," I explained.

"All of this gold, these rigid buildings, and intricate statues are well done," I conceded, "but where is the life? The green spaces and water features? The dappling of light, as branches and leaves break up the harsh glare of the Sun's might?

"Gold can mimic life if the artist is creative and talented enough, but it is a pale imitation no matter how talented one is. A tree of gold has no movement. It doesn't bear the scars and imperfections of years of growth that give it character and identity. These buildings are like that tree of gold. There is a sameness that suggests a rigidity for your people that the Sidhe would find abhorrent," I finished.

"All of you feel the same?" The General asked looking to my party for a dissenting opinion.

"It's obscene," Piers, the Abhac Blacksmith answered for the group. "A boorish and crude waste of resources. How many mines were plundered? How many Dungeons were raided to collect this much gold, simply to proclaim to visitors and the Universe that Rome is a planet of wealth?"

"I wonder at the Sidhe aesthetic," he rebutted, "I will make a study of your city's architecture, I'm sure I will find them informative, as impressive as the Sidhe people."

"Why wait?" I said pretending to not understand his sarcasm.

Closing my eyes, I envisioned Saor o Shlabhraidhean as I had first seen it. The moment of creation when King Teigh and the Sithern had joined forces and created a Named City. A landscape that enhanced the features of both valley and coast. Green spaces that were prolific, linking communities, and serving as buildings.

An explosion of colors, shapes, and smells as flowers burst into bloom and Volar-fey took flight. A bounty of nectar and honey, shades of colors so vivid that they had yet to be named. And towering above it all, the shrine to the Tuatha de Danaan that King Teigh had created. The Divine infused and held locked within the structure of Silinium, metal that was shaped to give life to the face of God.

Once I had that memory firmly in place, I released [Illusion], creating a [Glamour] that spread in a growing tide of waves so that everything, as far as the eye could see was transformed into the beauty that was Saor, Capital of the Tuatha de Danaan.