Ignite the Sun

Calen and Elira continued to discuss the generally poor state of monarchy in the Sun Kingdom and various possible reasons for it, all the while waiting for the book to complete.

Contrary to Calen's prediction, the process lasted only around half an hour – an exceptionally short time for a sophisticated magical device like that.

"I'm almost tempted to open this thing up to see what's the power source."

"Would you be able to put it back together?"

"Probably not."

"Then don't."

Elira picked up the tome titled History of the Fortress of Giants and its Lords, the words looking exactly like she wrote them on the pulpit.

"It's big enough for us to read together, but try to keep up." She sat next to him and flipped the book open.

"I'll try to." He chuckled.

Since the information inside was sourced from many books the style of writing wasn't necessarily consistent, but thanks to the fact that Elira used the word 'history' all the information was presented chronologically.

And it started from the very beginning:

The construction of the castle was first proposed by one of the advisors of Augustus the Joyous, the king before and father to Titus the Molten. His reign was considered to be the golden age of the kingdom, and the ministers insisted they should build something grand to show off the night of the kingdom.

Augustus wasn't particularly convinced, after all the Kingdom didn't have any enemies of note – who would they even be showing off to? Potential rebels? There wasn't a proper rebellion in centuries.

Ultimately the king agreed to build a grand fortress, under one condition: he was going to pick a place for it, and they couldn't dispute his choice.

Just the fact that normally they would be able to refute him showed what kind of king he was. In the Sun Kingdom the monarchy was absolute, the King had no obligation to listen to his advisors – Augustus did it because he knew he couldn't be the best at everything.

Probably part of the reason why his reign was so successful.

His advisors cautiously agreed to the deal – after all the castle was supposed to be built for symbolic purposes, not any tactical ones. They were just hoping he would pick one of the land borders, and not a shore.

Unfortunately the King had an even more devious idea: instead of putting the castle on one of the borders, he decided to build it in the middle of nowhere near Emberwall, quite possibly the most secure location in the entire kingdom.

The advisors could only sigh in disappointment, but they did not argue – after all the castle wasn't actually important, and they could afford to waste money on it thanks to the great state of the Kingdom's economy.

They just had to hope the Northern Tribes and the Eastern Nomads would remain as docile as before.

"Do you think the nomads or the tribesmen survived the invasion?" Elira asked.

"It's possible, the tribesmen were always much more resilient than the citizens of the kingdom, and as for nomads... there simply aren't many living things in the sand plains that could be corrupted and kill them."

"Well, were about as far from both groups as we can be so it's doubtful we'll meet either of them any time soon."

"I bet the Fool knew what happened to them, too bad we didn't get him to write down everything he knew."

"Judging by how chaotic are the books with things he wanted to pass on, I doubt something like that would be even remotely readable."

"Fair point."

The book in front of them went on to describe the construction process of the castle, and various challenges the architects and builders faced while making something this size, but the information about that was useless to them.

Some time later they finally reached the end of the construction, and the inauguration of the fortress.

Unsurprisingly the King decided that the castle wasn't going to be a part of the regular military, but rather a separate entity which answered to the King directly.

He appointed a minor noble as the lord of the castle, one so insignificant that his name wasn't recorded in any of the sources in the knowledge reservoir, and told him he had month to come up with a purpose for the fortress or he would lose not only the job, but the title as well.

Predictably the noble failed to think of a suitable thing to do with a structure this big, and just like the King said he was relieved of his job at the end of the month – but he managed to retain his title, because Augustus made up that part to motivate him more.

After that the castle stood empty for an entire month, only to be given to another no-name lord with the same directive.

The next lord also failed the task, so the cycle repeated once more.

And again...

And again.

The fifth lord was the one to final resolve the problem – a young Baron by the name Henry suggested to use the castle to act out a siege training for the army. After all nothing forbade the soilders from using the fortress just because the castle wasn't a part of the military, Henry could just 'lend' the castle to the army for the training.

This solution quite upset the nobles who couldn't come up with a way to use the castle themselves, but the King accepted it despite their protests.

Augustus wasn't looking for a genius who would think of something no one has done before, just someone who can create a relatively sensible use for the castle – and he never mentioned any restrictions, the first four nobles simply made them up.

As a reward for resolving the issue of the castle the King rewarded Henry with a bottle capable of containing an entire lake.

Anyone capable of operating such a large castle must have an equally large thirst – from this point onward may all future kings gift a bottomless canteen to all the future lords of this castle.

Those were the words of Augustus, or at least what the chroniclers recorded.

"why the hell did he do all of that? It doesn't make any sense." Elira frowned

"I think that's the point – he considered the castle to be pointless, so he decided to make everything about it pointless and nonsensical."

It seemed like there wasn't any larger conspiracy related to the castle, but then again they were just starting it's story.