The Progress of Five Years Part 1

Another year later.

The morning sun rose over Helmarte much as it always had.

Golden rays stretched across rooftops, church spires, and the distant hills surrounding the capital, gradually washing the city in warm light as shopkeepers opened their doors and the first carriages began moving through the streets.

Yet the city those rays illuminated was no longer the Helmarte of five years ago.

The capital had been reborn.

Wide granite boulevards radiated outward from the Royal Palace like the spokes of an enormous wheel, replacing the narrow, uneven streets that had served generations before. Mature rows of maple and oak trees shaded broad pedestrian walkways where merchants arranged storefront displays before the first customers arrived, while neatly maintained flowerbeds added color to intersections that had once been little more than muddy crossroads.