Mottraye and Punnet begin the Garden Kingdom

Chanting and raising his hand, a massive section of grounds ahead of Mottraye began to shift and move, shifting to and fro, like the water in a container after an object was dropped in. Mottraye’s expression changed, teeth clenching and tendrils bunching into coils- this wasn’t right. The soil seemed to bubble all the more violently, despite Mottraye’s wishes. A noise not unlike an annoyed growl issued from deep within Mottraye’s flower body, almost inaudible with the sound of the earth pumping a short distance away. He lowered his hand and to end the spell; the churning earth ceased its activity before settling evenly across the forest clearing.

The massive treant, Punnet, betrayed his concern with his face, despite it being made of gnarled bark. “Majesty, what is wrong? Why did it not work?” he asked, his rumbling voice quavering more than usual. “Is there something wrong with your powers?”

“It’s different,” replied Mottraye. “Back in Yggdrasil, when I cast [Move Earth], I’d have an interface appear which would determine what shape the soil would take. I’d just manipulate the interface by messing with the vectors, and then when I confirmed the shape, it'd just happen.” He shook a hand at the area he was manipulating in frustration. “Now, I have to do something different. But I’m not sure what.”

Punnet looked bemused. “I do not understand this talk of interfaces. But surely you merely just impose your will on the soil? As you would with any magic?”

Mottraye continued looking at the soil, reflecting intently. “I definitely… felt something. I could feel my MP deplete as I cast the spell. And I could feel… feel the soil?” He turned to Punnet. “It’s like nothing I ever felt before. I don’t know how to describe it. And I don’t know quite how to control it.”

 The leaves in Punnet’s branches shifted to and fro, as Punnet seemed to shake in fear for his master. “Majesty, did you… did you lose your powers?”

Mottraye raised his staff. “I don’t know, but I guess we should find out.” He turned back to the now churned soil and cast a different spell, taking care to picture the result he desired in his mind:

[Summon Elemental X]

To everyone’s relief, a group of creatures took form before Mottraye, seeming to appear virtually out of thing air. These creatures seemed cast from stone, earth and moss. They had rough approximations of what could be arms and legs, but otherwise were featureless. Each was far greater in size than Mottraye, and they matched Punnet in height. There were four of the creatures in all.

Punnet stopped shaking, and Mottraye smiled happily. “OK, lets test something,” He said. He pointed at one of the Earth elementals. “You. Raise you right arm.”

The elemental did as bid, raising its arm. Curiously, it raised its left arm, or the arm on Mottrayes right, but neither of them cared to notice. “Wonderful!” Mottraye said. “This will be more straight forward.” He pointed at the earth that he had tried to shape earlier. “Level that area.”

Without acknowledgement or response, the elementals turned, and then without having moved, the earth in the area shifted again. This time, however, the dirt almost immediately stopped, with a pile of excess dirt placed to the side of now perfectly smooth terrain.

Mottraye bobbed up and down, clapping in excitement. “Great work, great work! This is the kind of power I want!” He ran over to the dirt to inspect it. “This is faster than any tool back in my world!”

Punnet, as always, was confused by his master’s talk of such things, but he nodded in contentment anyway- as long as his queen was happy, he was happy. The elementals remained perfectly stoic.

“OK, so here’s what we’re gonna do next,” Mottraye said, as he spread his tendrils out to become lower to the ground. He gripped his staff and began to draw in the soil with it. “I’m going to need you guys to help me build some stuff…”

…

A few hours later, Mottraye and Punnet stood between a group of new erected stone buildings. Each building seemingly had multiple rooves, each at different heights, as well as a shallow depression in them. It looked like each building was stacked with different configurations of bowls, or perhaps shelves. Mottraye planned to fill all of these with soil, and then plants, so that each building was itself a garden. Some of the buildings had great gaps in the roof, allowing the sunlight to flow in. There were sixteen of these buildings in total, in groups of four. A pathway went between each group, each lined up perfectly to a cardinal direction.

The entire clearing had been raised a good ten feet above the ground with steep drops off the end, making it naturally fortified against would be intruders, while trees had been overgrown around the area to make it more difficult to spy. A manipulated canopy also gave cover from above, although it was sparse enough to still let in some light. A single path was the main access point, which was watched by a treant sentinel that Mottraye had awakened earlier today. Meanwhile, Thorn patrolled the general area.

Punnet was relaxed. The longest part of the creation process was merely instructing the elementals, who otherise seemed to do the work near instantly. The elementals only lasted a limited time, but the work they managed during that period was great.After they vanished, Mottraye resumed their work; in the process, he seemed to master [Move Earth], as well as a few other spells, and was quickly able to contribute to the construction directly. While Mottraye’s initial failure had shaken Punnet to his core, he was relieved that his master's temporary weakness was past.

“What now, Majesty?” Punnet asked, as he looked upon what his master had created. “There is still work to be done.”

Mottraye stretched luxuriantly before giving an exaggerated yawn. “Eh, it’s good enough for now. I can feel that my mana is starting to get a little low, so now might be a good time to take a break.” He beamed. “Plus, it seems like we could want. I say we finish tomorrow.”

Punnet clapped his fist to his chest with a mighty thud. “As you wish, Majesty!”

…

And with that, Mottraye retired for the day, his knight Punnet standing guard. They would go on to finish their garden the next day. This hillock commune would be but the first part of Mottraye’s Garden Kingdom.