Everyone in Oppara knows that if you want to commission a building of unparalleled splendor, you talk to the Muzakas. Craftsmen of the highest order, skilled in stone, or brick, or wood, they can create anything from concert halls to galleries, from factories to pleasure palaces -- buildings that will stand for lifetimes.
Or at least they could, before they became nobles themselves. And they still have the knowledge and the contacts to bring everything together. They just no longer get their hands dirty themselves with the actual construction. That is what laborers are for.
But Tetradia was a throwback. Deeply interested in the family business, but unwilling to let others have all the fun of actual creation, she was always sneaking off to the construction sites her aunts and uncles were overseeing. Her parents laughed it off as a phase, then fretted upon what it would do for her prospects, and finally resigned themselves to its inevitability. At least it was traditional, honest work.
What surprised all of them was that it became a calling. The more Tetradia worked, the more she could feel the hand of Soralyon -- a god barely known to her or her family -- guiding her. Build it strong. Build it well. Build it bigger. Make a mark. But even more -- restore lost glory.
