24 – Worthy of a sky elf

He rushed to where the scream was coming. He ran with all his might, adrenaline coursing through his veins. After the first ring of houses, which were no more than rough outlines made of wood on the ground for now, he arrived at the second ring.

A small fence made of sticks enclosed a small patch of green. There, he saw a hole that went right through, one meter wide. A woman was on the ground next to the hole, in shock.

“Tell me what happened.” He asked, although he already had an idea about what it could be.

“She started to dig down a bit, to plant some seeds when… oh, oh.”

“It’s okay, breathe now. I understand the problem.”

He looked at the scene where a disaster almost happened. Quickly, he closed the hole with dirt, which rapidly bloomed into soft green grass. Noticing Lumia in the crowd, he called her to him. If she was going to cling to him, she better be useful.

“Lumia! Call everyone and have them all come to the central plaza immediately!”

After he commanded her that, he retreated towards the plaza, head filled with possible solutions to the problem.

“Alright, everyone, listen. I made a mistake when building this floating island. You see, I only made it one meter thick because I thought it would be enough. I failed to predict that when you interacted with blocks enough, they would revert back to normal physics and fall down.”

The crowd assumed looks of shock.

“Are we going to fall down?”

“So, we have to leave after all. Such a good help you were.” One of the hunters said.

“No, none of that.” Jacob said, looking at all the faces of the crowd. “I only need you to stay here for a moment while I fix this problem. If I make the island thicker, then you won’t interact with the bottom layer and it won’t come down. Also, I’m going to make it prettier now that I’m at it.”

“And how do we know it’s safe?” The hunter asked.

Jacob thought for a moment. “If you don’t trust me you’re welcome to just pack and leave.” He said in the end.

The hunter was surprised. His eyes widened and his breath quickened as the look of puzzlement in his face became rage.

“What? Aren’t you going to promise it won’t come down?”

“Pointless. I’m here with you, am I not. Do I look like someone who would choose to live on a floating island if I knew it was going to fall any moment?”

He shook his head.

“I’m not. And I guarantee that it won’t be a problem anymore, after I’m done.”

The hunter did not reply. The rest of the crowd seemed to have calmed down. Jacob, satisfied, began to sort through his inventory, searching for the right materials to use. He had heaps and heaps of cobblestone, but no stone. Using some of the cobblestone, he made several furnaces and began to smelt large amounts of stone, while at the same time dismantling the ring of dirt.

After he replaced all the dirt with stone, he kept piling it up in shape of an upside-down mountain, adding more and more layer of stone on top of the first. When he was halfway up, he then started to shrink down the rings once again this time like a real mountain. After a few levels, he checked that he had enough stone under his feet and proceeded to add several layers of dirt and, eventually, grass.

When he was done, he led the elves up to the new platform, and closed down the hole where the plaza was. Then, he made a few adjustments to the now huge but flat platform, adding a couple hills and a small peak. From the peak, water came down from a water source block, infinite and fresh, and it created a small river that split the grassy plain in two and then plunged down towards the forest.

The waterfall spread out, the tiny droplets becoming white mist as they were blown by the wind.

When Jacob was done, he noticed that all the elves were staring at him in silence. In fact, as he was building, they were skeptical at first. Yes, they had all seen him do spectacular feats, but they all thought that they had seen the limit of what his ability could do. Instead, he began to materialized enormous amounts of stone and rock, tens and tens of thousand of kilograms, from seemingly nowhere.

He was building something, like the shape of a mountain peak that pointed down towards the forest below, and they were on top of it. And he didn’t stop there. After he was done, he just looked at the gigantic flat plain, covered with grass, at the top and huffed. It was like he was not satisfied with his work, although he had already done more than anyone would have ever thought.

Then, he managed to surprise them again. He built features of hills and mountains, planted saplings that he promised would become trees in no times, created a river where it should have been impossible to have one, and its water just kept on flowing and then fell down to rain on the forest below. It was magnificent, to watch such power and might mingle with creativity and genius. They were all awed beyond belief.

“Now, I was thinking. What kind of sky elves build wooden huts? We need something grander, something that’s worthy of being used as a building material on this floating island. Marble, and glass.”

The crowd cheered. Lumia too found herself exalted by the idea of having a house made of marble and glass, worthy of a sky elf. Of course, neither she nor anyone else knew how to build such houses nor did they have any marble. But after seeing what Jacob just did, they all knew that it was not going to be a problem.