Year 15, Day 1
Caer Veldris – The Great Assembly Field
Fifty thousand people filled the field.
Citizens from the original ten villages.
Citizens from New Circle and Westgate.
Even a carefully counted fifty foreign merchants allowed inside the walls for this single day.
They stood in perfect rows, divided by village banners, Wooden Circles gleaming at every throat.
At the center rose a new platform of polished oak and red brick:
three steps high, wide enough for a hundred to stand.
Harlan Calder, now fifty-six, climbed the steps slowly.
His limp from an old quarry accident was more pronounced, but no one dared offer help.
Behind him walked Elyse (twenty-five, First Scholar of Valdria) carrying a cedar staff topped with the Empty Circle in bronze.
The pressure came.
Harlan's voice rang out, stronger than his body had any right to be.
"Thus commands the Faceless One, Lord of the Empty Circle, Architect of the Long Tomorrow.
On this day, the fifteenth year, the people of Valdria cease to be villages joined by roads.
We become a commonwealth with one heart, one law, and one future.
Hear the Decree of Form and Function.
1. The settlement known as Calder's Ford is no more.
From this sunrise it is Caer Veldris, the Eternal Capital of Valdria.
Its walls will rise to seven man-heights.
Its streets will be paved with stone.
Its great hall will seat one thousand.
2. Government is hereby formed:
- The First Speaker remains the mouth of the Faceless One.
- Beneath him, the Council of Twelve: one elected citizen from each of the twelve villages, serving five years.
- Beneath them, the Assembly of One Hundred: citizens chosen by lot every year to speak on taxes, roads, and justice.
- Beneath them, every citizen with a Wooden Circle may speak and vote in their village moot.
3. In Caer Veldris, upon the Hill of Memory, construction begins immediately on the House of Continuing Knowledge.
It will have three wings:
- The Wing of Numbers and Measures
- The Wing of Earth and Bronze
- The Wing of Healing and Growth
Every citizen with skill beyond the common may apply to become a Continuing Scholar.
Their only duty: to learn, to teach, and to discover.
4. The Great Roads will be widened to three wagons abreast and paved with crushed stone and gravel.
Way-stations will rise every ten miles with wells, stables, and guarded storehouses.
The trade route north to the Amber River and south to the Sapphire Coast will be completed within five years.
5. The surplus bronze, grain, and cloth will now flow outward under the seal of the Empty Circle.
Every caravan will carry scholars and teachers.
Every contract signed will include the right for Veldrian children to establish a teaching house in foreign lands.
6. Finally: every citizen who reaches twenty-five winters and has served the commonwealth—whether in field, forge, classroom, or quarry—will receive a second mark upon their Wooden Circle: a bronze ring set into the oak.
This is the Ring of Service.
It cannot be bought.
It cannot be taken.
It is the highest honor beneath the Faceless One himself.
The Faceless One has spoken.
Rise, citizens of Valdria.
The world is watching."
Harlan finished.
For one heartbeat, silence.
Then the roar came.
Fifty thousand voices shouting the same word, over and over, until it became thunder.
"VALDRIA!
VALDRIA!
VALDRIA!"
Elyse planted the cedar staff in the platform.
The bronze Empty Circle caught the noon sun and blazed like a star.
Construction began before the echo died.
On the Hill of Memory, foundations for the House of Continuing Knowledge were marked before sunset.
The first scholars—forty-seven men and women from every village—were chosen by lot and acclamation before the week was out.
The Great Roads grew like stone rivers.
And in the new mint beneath Caer Veldris, the first bronze rings were forged—thin, perfect circles to be set into waiting Wooden Circles.
Global voice chat was stunned into near-silence.
#044 (Thane Ironvein):
"He just invented a functioning government in Turn 5.
I still rule by screaming at my leader."
#008 (KaiserDrache):
"Population 127k.
Literacy 9 %.
I hate this timeline."
#023:
"He's building a research institute before iron.
Before currency standardization.
Before a professional army.
I am legitimately scared."
#189 (island guy, soft):
"My eleven citizens just received the decree by boat.
They cried when they heard about the Ring of Service.
We're building a tiny House of Continuing Knowledge out of coral and driftwood.
Population now 14."
High above, Hyun-woo watched the counters explode in the best possible way.
Government Stability: 100 %
Research Capacity: +400 % (projected)
Trade Route Efficiency: +280 %
Citizen Pride: unmeasurable
A single private notification appeared.
[First Constitutional Civilization Founded
You are no longer playing a nation.
You are playing history.]
He closed the window.
Turn 5 locked.
Five more years began to race past:
stone rising on the Hill of Memory,
roads reaching toward horizons no one had seen,
children growing up who had never known a world without the Empty Circle.
And somewhere in the new Wing of Numbers and Measures, a quiet boy with a bronze-ringed Wooden Circle began drawing perfect circles on fresh parchment—
circles that would, in time, change everything.