The stone pillar stood fifteen feet tall towering over everyone present. At its crown an orb of white light about the size of a large beach ball glowed, humming slightly and pulsing slowly with power. The orb bathed the faces of all those present, illuminating the looks of awe and wonder plastered on everyone including myself. I was so distracted by the pillar I hadn't really paid much attention to the system messages.

  I took the time to look them over. The first One said that we had successfully created the pillar and it was village level whatever that meant. The next one let me know that I was the leader, and the last said that I had gained a title.

  That's when I noticed that I now had two new tabs that were blinking on my status screen. One read 'Titles' and the other said 'Unnamed pillar'. I opened my titles tab first.

  A percentage multiplier for my stats? That's huge. I'll definitely have to ask Frey about Titles next time I see her. For now though, let's check out this pillar menu.

  So, it looks like I can appoint someone to help me run the place that's gonna be useful, but what I'm really looking for is this construction interface. We need shelter.

  I mentally selected 'Construction Interface'. Only for Nothing happened. I frowned slightly and tried it again, still nothing. For a moment I thought maybe it was broken, or locked behind some hidden requirement. I glanced at the glowing orb atop the Pillar, its slow pulse almost mocking me.

  “Of course it wouldn’t be that easy,” I muttered.

  I walked over and circled the pillar looking for any kind of interface. Nothing. The stone was smooth and featureless aside from the vines that snaked along its surface here and there. It wasn’t until I finally reached out and touched the Pillar’s base that something changed. The stone warmed under my touch and a hum deep in its core thrummed.

  Light spilled from a seam under my hand I hadn’t noticed before, climbing upward until a line of while light traced it's way upward from my hand to the crown of the pillar. I felt compelled to move my hand free, so I took a step back. The line of light stretched down from the top stopping where my hand was a moment ago.

  Then a small tether of light no bigger than a shoestring snaked it's way out from the wall where the line ended. It snaked and wiggled like a long worm stretching about a foot and a half away from the wall untill it started bulging at the end. It grew until there was a basketball size orb of light floating in midair tethered to the pillar. Almost instinctively I knew I was supposed to grab it. I stepped forward mystified by the beautiful white glow. Looking within I could see milky white clouds moving within a transparent silver liquid that was only evident because of how close I was.

  "It's beautiful" I whispered, feeling a sense of calm and peace fill my chest

  I hesitated only a moment before firmly grasping it on both sides.

  The world fell away.

  My vision surged upward as though it were taking off in a rocket, until I hung high above the pillar. The land spread out beneath me like a map with faint transparent grid lines crossing it's surface in all directions. I could see a shimmering circle with a radius of about 10 kilometers centered over the pillar.

  I realized I had a new HUD. There was a compass in the top right of my vision and in the top left was the word resourses with and triangle pointing down next to it. I selected it and the word resourses was replaced with

  Mana:

  4580 / 4580

  Regeneration: 500 mana / Day

  And now the triangle pointed up. 4580? That's kind of a random number. At least it seams pretty high. I wonder if the 500 mana a day is continuous or all at one time. I suppose I'll see here in a minute.

  Continuing to inspect my new HUD I saw that at the bottom of my vision there were multiple tabs. These were labeled Defenses, Housing, commerce, governance, Infrastructure, Training, and Recreation. Glancing through the tabs I found many different options in each. I decided to take a closer look at defence.

  One of the first things I noticed was that the system showed me what options would be available in the future. Almost like it was encouraging growth to the next stage. While looking at what I might get access to in the future was interesting, I knew that my people needed immediate protection.

  I decided I would put up a palisade wall with four simple gates, one in each of the cardinal directions. I went to select the wall and realized that my point of view was still far above the pillar. With just a slight flex of my willpower I was able to move my point of view however I wanted. But The shift hit me like falling in a dream. No body, no weight, yet my perspective lurched and drifted as if the ground itself had slipped. For a dizzying second I almost lost my sense of up and down before the movement steadied, responding to thought alone.

  Before I returned close enough to put up the defenses I took a good look around. From my vantage looking down I could see that the south side of the perimeter ring barely engulfed a foothill of the mountain. To the west was the forest where the goblins had come from. To the north was where the field became filled with hills. And to the east the field stretched several kilometers, a line of torn up dirt and rocks marking the path our plane had taken on landing. The forest surrounded the entire field and went far into the distance to the north. To the south it slowly thinned untill there was only rocky mountain jutting upward.

  I could see a lake maybe 30 kilometers away to the east, and that's when I realized something had been bothering me for a while. Taking a moment to look at the horizon it hit me, I could see incredibly far. From airline altitude I knew about where the horizon should be. But this... This wasn't earth anymore. The curve never came the land stretching endlessly far beyond what should have been possible. I took a moment to marvel at the grandeur of it before forcing myself back on task.

  I moved my point of few to where I was only a hundred meters or so above the ground. Then selected the palisade and indicated where I wanted it to be placed. A blue ghostly transparent rendition of the palisade wall popped into being where I had been looking. I could see that the sharpened stakes that were mentioned in the description were actually large logs over 3 feet thick that were sharpened to a point and stood side by side over 20 feet tall. As long as I kept it right side up I could position it however I liked, increasing and decreasing the length of the wall,and turning it 360 degrees.

  As I was experimenting with the wall I noticed a couple other oddities. One of which was I could look down and see myself standing Infront of the pillar. I finally understood what those people who claimed to astral project must have been talking about. It was kind of unsettling and eerie. Looking for a beat longer I realized that time was stopped. Well not stopped but slowed considerably. When I looked at people's faces I was able to see their mouths moving like they were talking but it was at maybe a quarter of the normal speed. The world felt muffled and distant.

  Deciding to worry about that later I went back to placing the palisade and simple gates. I made the wall wrap around us in a square shape with a simple gate in the middle of each wall, each one facing a cardinal direction and leaving the plane just outside to the south. The walls were about 500 feet long on each side with the gate taking up a 50 foot section in the middle. The walls remained ghostly but set in place when I was done. Looking at my mana it read,

  Mana 4580 (1460) /4580

  Instinctively I could tell that I hadn't actually used any mana yet, but I could tell how much I would have left after making what I already laid out. I decided the wall was enough defences for now, and we would need some shelter so I opened the housing tab.

  It looked like my best bang for my buck was going to be the long houses. At just over 1400 mana available I was able to place 7 long houses. It wasn't going to be a holiday vacation but it would get us out of the elements. I put them all near the southern wall where the plane lay outside. The description said 15-20 people but the army taught me that you can always fit some more people into a small space. It'll have to do until the mana replenishes and I can expand the village. With only 60 mana left I willed the changes to take effect.

  My vision was abruptly pulled back to my body disorienting me momentarily. I looked around and nothing had changed. But then the pillar started humming low and soft ,at first, then building louder. The orb on top started glowing brighter untill it was almost to bright to look at.

  Then tiny wisps of while light started spreading out in all directions from the orb. They floated weightlessly on the air like fireflies untill reaching their new homes. The tiny flecks of light coalescing into buildings and walls, materializing from the ground up where I had placed them. Then as it came to a finish the lights faded and the humming stopped.

  I took a moment to look around at all the dumbstruck faces marveling at the sudden appearance of shelter.

  Mike walked up from behind me and laid a hand on my shoulder. "That was amazing Dean. You just made all this stuff appear out of nowhere!"

  I turned to face him speaking up so the others could hear. "I didn't do it alone. We all helped found this pillar and we all contributed our mana. Just now, we became a community. No longer are we just passengers and crew. For better or worse, we're all we have right now. And together we'll not only survive this. We're going to come out stronger on the other side."

  Then there came a distant knock from the south gate. Making us all look that way. I walked over to the gate and slid open a view port to see one of the other passengers who had stayed with the plane. I removed the latch and swung the door open. A handful of them stood there.

  The one who knocked glanced off to one side sheepishly and scratched the back of his head. "So, uh... Can we come in?"