Recent visitations by the polymorphed dragons in the growing city of Resurrection had created quite a bit of tension in Maelonbourg. Two of these dragons were maroon-colored “deep dragons” who were definitely the outsiders in the city and deeply uncomfortable around surface dwellers. Another two were gold dragons, the exact opposite on the sliding scale of good versus evil, and while they were more at ease than their potential enemies the deep dragons in this setting, they were still not entirely comfortable. And the last of these shape-shifting reptiles was a silver dragon who had the worst sense of personal boundaries imaginable. The silver dragon was named Ella and she wasted no time in getting to know as many people as she could as quickly as she could.

Unfortunately, Ella was as devoid of tact as she was oblivious to cultural cues on propriety. Once she discovered the true alignment of somebody and realized it wasn’t oriented towards good, Ella would take to gleefully threatening them with death. This became something of a constant for a week or more during which time Ella spent the bulk of her time in the company of Archduchess Lersha and a mysterious woman who not long ago was identified as an illithid-created clone of Lersha who went by the name of Lucinda. As fate would have it these three women were inevitably bonded as Lersha and Lucinda tried their best to keep Ella from drinking all of the beer in town and/or polymorphing back into her dragon form and actually carrying through on her threats of death and mayhem.

Now it is well known that Lersha is smarter than she is usually given credit for being, and she has found ways in the past of occupying others with fun little tasks in order to instruct or distract them. Lucinda it would seem had a similar talent and together they set out a way to keep Ella focused on something else. Anything else. Grendel, the mute orcish whelp who was the adopted son and heir of the Archduke, had a plan in mind and had told his “mama” that he would be gone for a while to put it together. Lersha and Lucinda would have to occupy Ella for about a week. Ella was so enamored with life among people that she would yammer on for hours about other places she had heard about. And this had given Lersha an idea.

And so, it came about that Lersha and Lucinda would take Ella just out of town to a hill that overlooked Resurrection and pitched an idea to the silver dragon with the short attention span. The construction of a proper capitol for the archduchy where the lord could hold court, entertain ambassadors, house prisoners, and there could be actual magistrates to administer justice. They would even build a treasury to secure the collected taxes for use by the realm. As they roamed about the hilltop Lersha would suggest even more things that a capitol ought to have, and Ella would take the ideas and run with them. The orphans of Resurrection were prone to following Lersha about regardless of what she was doing in and around the city, and this exercise was no different. Children were racing about placing stakes in the ground with tiny colored cloth on them to mark where towers would be built, walls placed, and the footprints of buildings laid out.

That is what happens when you get women together. What might start out as harmless fun or a way to avoid one of them stabbing a stranger with a soup spoon in a tavern can develop into a vitally important public infrastructure project. That is certainly how it goes in Maelonbourg. And this is when the archduchess approaches her husband with a request that he allow her to do a little building on the hilltop overlooking Resurrection. Lersha is hopeful that her husband doesn’t ask too many questions prior to giving her permission to proceed.