A day, even one spent with the lovable distraction that was Miyo, was a long time to figure out the details of his next Hexagon.

  First was the question of the location. Rykard had no specific design for his realm in mind, and so the slot north of Aulone was the logical choice. It would allow the two areas to interact promptly. A vital decision, considering the mercantile culture he had encouraged, and the nature of the second Hexagon he wished to summon.

  “Fertile meadows, with rivers connected to main body of water,” Rykard spoke out loud. He desired a nd that could be worked to grow food to sustain his rising realm.

  Too bad the phrase was met with rejection. A number of red lights trembled angrily in the air around Rykard. The young king rubbed his chin. “No artful skipping of bridge words, I suppose,” he hummed to himself. Seemed like the gods wanted their 10 word phrase limitation to be acknowledged.

  Rykard reworded the sentence in his head for a little bit. Knowing that as little as a skipped ‘a’ could lead the system of world shaping to reject his request was valuable.

  “Fertile meadows, rivers connecting to a main body of water,” he presented his reworked phrase.

  The angry red lights went from fading to fring in a myriad of colours. As it had before, the void within the empty slot of the grid was filled with a sequence of magical runes so thick and complicated, it truly was beyond the realm of mortals. Barely, his gaze managed to pierce through the outer yers. Chunks of rock appeared. Sediment settled between the cracks. Segment for segment, the Hexagon filled out from the bottom up.

  The construction of the Hexagon finished, for the most part, at the height of the bck stone frame. The ndscape was incredibly ft, the hills so gentle that they barely qualified as such. It all rose, ever so softly, towards the centre of the Hexagon, where a singur mountain rose up into the sky. Its snow-tipped peaks, one easily hundreds of metres taller than the other, were perhaps the origin of the extensive network of kes and rivers that drifted down the gentle slope of the Hexagon.

  ‘I really can look one and a half days far from here,’ Rykard thought, fascinated by the sheer ftness of the ndscape. The water may have flowed downstream, but the difference in elevation was so minimal that the drift would never be enough to deplete that central ke. ‘Although I can’t see the vilges or the towers… must be the curvature of the world.’

  Rykard took a testing step onto the grass and was met with the pleasant yield of untrampled ground. The green his soles were pnted on was of the fundamentally same kind as the one he was used to. Little trickles, too thin to be represented on the map, here and there turned the ground soft. They were infrequent and easily avoided.

  In the distance, the oceans of flowers competed with the backdrop of lively green. Dots of blue and purple, interspersed with red and yellow, so numerous that they turned into a near solid surface of colour. It did not take long for Rykard to come across the first of such flowers, the spawn of seeds carried by winds far away from where most of its kin strived.

  “Huh,” he let out an interested sound when he stood before the tulip. Its densely cuddled petals reached the height of his colrbone. The opening of its chalice was as wide as two of his hands put next to each other. The green stalk swayed softly under a divinely inspired breeze, holding the weighty head up without issue.

  Rykard explored the outer area of the Hexagon for a little more, finding more examples of such megafauna. Flowers, primarily, all of them either as rge as the tulip he had come across or in the process of growing as rge. Grass, simirly, grew almost two metres tall in certain patches.

  Whether the shorter grass that dominated was the product of a diversified strain or of herbivores cutting most of it down, Rykard wasn’t sure. That the local fauna had grown, at least in part, in accordance with the flora was evident by a bumblebee the size of a hawk zily buzzing through the air. Its fuzzy body was of a deep blue colour, like the night sky, covered in silver stripes.

  ‘How very interesting,’ Rykard thought, while the bumblebee did as bumblebees do - flying from one flower to the next, drinking nectar, and gradually covering itself in sticky, brightly coloured pollen. If the livestock in this realm was simirly transformed…

  Best to pick a target and find out.

  Rykard had a second look at the map. There were actual vilges on the map this time around. Conveniently, most of them were located near the southwestern corner of the Hexagon, where he was currently standing. Several good first targets offered themselves as the target of his exploration.

  ‘Might as well cut straight to the heart of things,’ Rykard decided. When there was an ominous looking tower near the centre of a map, why not check it out? Especially when it was so easy to get there.

  The dark-haired mage made his way to the nearest of the navigable rivers. Standing on the grassy shore, he let his mana flow. Within a second, he had the stream narrowed to a thread. Bound to the needle of his will, the magic penetrated the veil and reached for the vagueness of the conjuring dimension. Floating concepts and constructs were sifted through by his presence. Soon, he found what he was looking for and began the work of stitching the ephemeral potential into the fabric of his dimension.

  A blue shimmer was the only warning anyone looking would have gotten, before a river boat dropped one meter down. The wooden vessel was of proper size for one person and of good make. Two oars id atop the pnks that served as seats.

  ‘Not the vessel of a king, but it will do.’ Rykard stepped into his conjured vessel and pushed it off-shore, before beginning the process of rowing. He was working upstream, but the speed of the water was so slow it barely even registered.

  It took barely half an hour for him to come across the first people. They seemed to be just regur humans, farmers that tended to the nd. Fields, growing crops, were a rarity. What Rykard saw were huge, zily munching mountains of meat and fur. Cows more than quadruple the size of even the biggest bovines that he knew from his home, devouring the expansive offering of mega-flora.

  Rykard did not stop to converse, simply continuing his rowing. On his journey, he did not stumble across a single predator. The meadow was dominated by domesticated livestock and humongous bumblebees. Whatever else had existed, Rykard theorized, had been hunted to extinction by the ancestors of the farmers that now had to do nothing besides making sure the cattle they kept breeding were of the docile sort.

  It was a veritable paradise, at least on the face of it.

  ‘Now that’s unusual,’ Rykard thought, when he noticed how much the sun had dimmed. Two particurities were cshing in the sky. The newborn daystar’s golden radiance sat in the middle of the sky, insisting on noon, but a different magical effect seemed intent on blotting it out and turning the day into a much accelerated night. ‘Lots of oddities about this Hexagon. I wonder if and how they are connected?’

  No answer would be given. The effect of this particur Hexagon eventually won out, filtering the sun into a silvery moonlight instead. Basked in twilight, the Hexagon continued its operations without a care. No sudden surge of werewolves or other unexpected surprises.

  After several hours, Rykard rowed past the rge gathering of houses and onto the central ke. Another hour ter, he made it to the shore of the isnd.

  The boat disintegrated into magical particles, shortly after he stepped off it. Paying that no mind, Rykard crossed the grassy pin between shore and tower. Without the curvature of the horizon, he could finally get a good look at it.

  It was a rge, grey construct, square at the base and narrowing somewhat towards the top. The corners were marked by darker stone, the walls almost entirely without windows or decorations. A single, ebony door served as the entrance.

  ‘I am being anticipated,’ Rykard thought, noting a figure standing atop the tower. Details were difficult to make out, impossible even, but he was certain he was being watched. Once he was within a hundred metres of the tower, the figure disappeared from the roof.

  Rykard stopped in front of the door. A quick test revealed that it was open. Entering an (almost) windowless building uninvited was typically a bad idea, but he was no typical man. Alternatively, he could just wait until whoever had watched him deemed it fit to greet him.

  Opting for the second option, Rykard put his hands into his pockets and simply waited. He inspected the stone of the tower a little closer, noting its cyclopean make. Any gaps in the surface only went a few centimeters deep, making them more decorative than anything else.

  “A patient one, aren’t you?” A female voice accompanied the smooth opening of the door. No one waited for Rykard behind it. “Please, come inside. I think we have much to discuss.”

  “Perhaps,” the king responded, as he entered. He knew as little who he was talking to as she did, but they both could make an educated guess. Well-dressed strangers after a dimensional travel were no coincidence and nor were magically boosted voices known to belong to unimportant people - especially not women living in ominous towers at the heart of such an odd ndscape. No reason to leave such ambiguity. “I am Rykard, king of New Eden, the contestant who summoned this Hexagon.”

  “Straightforward… how pleasant,” the female voice responded with a giggle.

  Rykard strut down a long corridor, lit by magical, silver crystals. They were embedded in the bck ceiling like little stars, surrounding the rare rge orbs that shone with the intensity of the moon. Old wooden furniture and brass decorations were scattered about. On the walls hung dusty paintings of pale faced people, their hair of white, red, or bck. Men and women alike were beautiful and they were all unified in having intense, red eyes.

  “I hope my ancestors do not intimidate you, Rykard,” the disembodied voice spoke.

  “In the world I come from, my ancestors personally struck down the st pureblooded vampires. They were a blight, according to history.” Rykard felt a mounting tenseness in the air. Rexedly, he rolled his neck. “According to me, it was a waste. Lesser vampires still inhabited the nds and they were no more a blight on any nd they inhabited than other incompetent nobles and no more a blessing than competent ones.”

  The air rexed. “An educated ambiguity,” the female voice responded evenly. “Approvable.”

  Rykard was near the end of the corridor. Another door swung open, letting him step into a rge chamber. At its heart stood a simple table for no more than three, maybe four people. The circur piece of wood was dwarfed by the dimensions of the room. A wine red carpet covered the majority of the stone floor. The walls were covered in the mounted remains of various beasts of immense proportions. Stags the size of trees, elephant tusks that went on for over four metres, an entire exoskeleton of a hornet as big as a person. Between the trophies hung various weapons, worn down to the point that no amount of repairs would have made them usable again.

  “Welcome to the once home of the VanRaab family,” the female voice greeted him. The person it belonged to slowly strut down the steps of a staircase that wound down from the ceiling, along the wall opposite where Rykard currently stood. Immediately, she had Rykard’s attention.

  Rykard had seen many things in his life. From the miracle of the Imperial Banner to the bloodsoaked fields of the vassal war, he had been treated to many more sights than people of his age typically were. This extended to the female form, from shortstacks to tall, toned beauties, he had seen everything.

  He had never seen a woman with tits this huge.

  Despite being set in a skintight, bck dress, the orbs bounced sinfully with every step. Their sheer size made the waist that followed seem almost impossibly thin. Wide hips followed, attempting and mostly succeeding in forcing a sense of bance to her overall figure.

  One side of the flowing skirt was cut open from the hips down, revealing the allure of her pale leg in its entirety and teasing much of the profile of her butt. Both thighs and ass jiggled softly, their size banced for her overall figure, leaving them with more than enough meat to fantasize about the shadows that fingers would cast when pressing into the colourless skin.

  The up and down of her tits drew Rykard’s eyes up again. Each step of the staircase was another pull into the irresistible field. No cleavage, and yet he could not help but stare and fantasize. She was easily twice as gifted as Miyo, herself a woman of notable size.

  When the woman stepped off the stairs, the mesmerizing jiggle was finally reduced to a state that Rykard could raise his gaze. Fwlessly white skin stretched over the elegant swing of her shoulders and colrbones. A smooth neck led up to a femininely rounded chin. Bck lips were spread into a knowing smile, a cute little button of a nose sitting between two sinister red eyes. In the dim light of the chamber, they glowed, casting a sanguine shadow around her long shes. White hair with the softest of golden tinges framed her noble features. A pair of pointy ears extended from the mildly wavy mane, their originally elven shape mutated mildly to resemble those of a bat.

  Hips swinging, the dy of the house came to a stop in front of the table. “I welcome you again, king Rykard of New Eden,” she said, her voice possessing that particur tone only trained noblewomen could have. It was an interpy of charismatic softness and casual superiority - the fully manifested belief that she could get anything she ever wanted if she just asked the right people with the right words. “Vyra VanRaab, Lady of Moydra estate and chosen guide for the Exile Hexagon. Truly, you came to the right pce. Shall we negotiate?” Vyra gestured towards the small table between them.