We have lived in peace for the last 250 years with nothing more than minor duels in the streets, and even crime is sparse in the kingdom. Luckily our king, Remorus Balzen, the thirds grandfather push the tribes of the northern continent away and sealed them into a glacier. The U'talic were a nomadic people that live in the reaches of the north of our continent.
When I was a boy, my mother used to scare me with stories of the U'talic. She would threaten them coming to freezing me solidly in my bed if I didn't go to sleep. It's too bad that they weren't just a scary story meant to frighten children.
The U'talic enjoyed the cold more than anyone else. Though they could not leave the icy northern reaches for they had been born in the cold. Their bodies evolved to be able to withstand the frigid temperature with barely any clothing on. There is a problem with this because they have only ever been in a cold climate. When they entered our warm and humid land, they start to die. Since they are immune to the cold, their bodies only know how to stay warm.
When they come south, they would literally boil from the inside out. No amount of water could keep the U'talic hydrated, or any amount of shade could keep them cold. U'talic elders cried out to their spirits and accused us of doing this thing to them on purpose. They riled the people up, and they collected all their adept magic shapers and set about to cause that which the history books call the Great Storm.
Over 30 years, war raged between both sides as the U'talic tried to force an incredible storm to encompass the southern half of the continent. The Valkirans pushed tirelessly to hold the battery back from our mighty capital, but with the storms came the hordes of U'talic who came with steel and will. Our king at the time, Remorus Balzen, sent legion after legion into the battle to hold them off, but the war was not going well.
The storm was encroaching on the edges of the city. In a last ditched effort, the king called in the five of the most vital shapers in the kingdom. These were called The High Five-Mages. They drew their wills together to form vast walls of fire that drove the U'talic back to the northern. With the U'talic on the run, the king and the mages walled them off. It was 1/2 mile thick and over 500 feet tall wall of pure ice stretching across the continent know today as the great divide.
Since then, we have had peace with the lower continent and outstretching island continents. The wall is guarded small legion outposts on the top spread across the border. The barrier has been silent for 250 years now and shows no sign of changing.
As my brothers still squirmed on the ground, Stell had already begun to put the shed together. It was amazing just to watch the big man move his hands slowly through the air gently as if leading a symphony. The sections of the wall slowly slid into each other. The boards flexed and began to braid themselves together at the corners and seams as if they were blades of grass.
As the walls finished, the bracing for the roof tiles began weaving like roots. They moved in an intricate pattern across the roof in a spherical shape. This was followed by rows of tiles with holes in them spreading across the dome. As the tile floated into place, the vines from the crown looped itself into the tile to hold them in place.
Within ten minutes, Stell had completed the job. The boys had spent the better part of the day trying to complete the project. Mom kicked them out of the house this morning when they started arguing over who's top spun more perpendicular than the others.
"If you two don't stop fighting, Mother is going to have to send you to Zambar," I said with a blank expression.
Both boys cringed; Zambar was the local butcher. As punishment, some parents hired out their children to Zambar to clean the slaughter pits. This was where they bled and gutted the animals before chopping them up.
Now, you don't get sent there always on the day you get into trouble. No, Zambar doesn't mind cleaning the pit when the temperature is fair or a bit chilly. The particular job is only completed in the hottest and most humid of days. At this point, the boys had gone snow white.
"I am not always going to be here to keep you two from getting yourselves in trouble," I stated coldly. "And mother doesn't have the time to deal with you two getting into trouble in school and fighting about the most irrational and pointless things." Hamak was about to say something, but I cut him off.
"Oh, I know that you think it's not pointless and quite rational, but when you next decide to argue, remember that smell that isn't poring into your nostrils of rotting flesh as a reminder," I said with a flat look.
As I finished my rant, I relaxed the force I held them with and then took in a deep breath of air. The shed did look good. Stell was by no means less of a shaper than me. You cant let his profound slow speech fool you into thinking he's some half-wit.
Stell has always been my only real friend, even in the classes in the temple. Everyone else would just play around, but Stell was the only one that took to the studies of fundamental shapers applications and theory seriously with me. While the other kids played and chatted in class, Stell and I practiced the theory and basics until we knew them from memory. We knew that to truly shape the magic that was so thick in the air, you needed to understand. You need to know precisely how to control the flows and ebbs on the streams of magic.