As it turned out, traveling did wear her out. Althea was asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow, her hunger forgotten. A sure way to wake up to the headache she currently had. Steward Ven was of course already awake, talking to a member of the Emperor's guard. Althea found her attention diverted by a particular plate of cookies.
A plate of some type of noodle stood behind it, but the cookies were in her mouth before she could even react.
"What happened?" she asked, belatedly realizing that her voice was muffled by eating. "What time is it?"
"A bit over two hours, your grace." the Emperor's guard replied. "The robbers have been caught and await judgment. Steward Ven and I were just discussing what to do with them."
A bit over two? The hunger must have woken her up.
"What are you planning to do?" she asked.
"I think an example needs to be made." the Steward said.
"An execution?"
"Or a life sentence in one of the jails, your grace." the Emperor's guard said.
"Is that not too harsh?" Althea said, thinking back to the punishments on Earth. The thieves had taken care to not kill anybody…or at least not kill her.
"Did anyone die?" she asked.
"No, the thieves seemed to have focused on pulling off the heist silently while taking advantage of us retiring early. The thieves would have been able to exit the city if you did not detect that one, your grace." the Emperor's guard said.
"I see. So it was luck. How powerful are they? The Shadow element is quite rare." Althea asked.
"Yes, your grace. The assassins were simply Apprentice ranked with a single Journeyman, but their elements are rare across the board. The city lord was kind enough to give us information on them, they appear to be newcomers to the city." the Emperor's guard said.
Even the inexperienced Althea could pick up on what he was saying.
"So this was planned." she stated. “A new group that had information on how to get into the palace without being detected?
"On the contrary, I think this was bad luck on our part. In the absence of communication orbs, I cannot track their movements very well, but they appear to be outlaws from the Elara kingdom on the way to the Zun Empire." he said.
Althea nodded. The large desert of the Zun Empire was a popular place to disappear in. The Solerian Empire was a less popular escape route, but it was certainly possible. How they planned to cross the mountains she did not know, but considering what they were doing, a bribe might be involved.
"How were they planning to cross the mountains? The Zun spies?" she asked.
A flicker of surprise passed across the guard's face as he replied. "Yes, your grace. Antonio is interrogating them, I expect we will have names before we leave."
"The matter of their punishment still stands." Steward Ven said. "What do you suggest, Countess? The decision is mine now, but the trial will be delayed. The final decision will be taken in your coronation court. The thieves' sentencing may end up being your first judicial decision.
Althea paused. The first decision wasn't supposed to have any importance, but people would judge how she ruled based on it. If she was heavy-handed, they would presume she was strict. If she gave them a shorter sentence, they might take her to be soft instead.
"The thieves, are their cultivation methods known in the Empire?" she asked. The movies she has watched had a lot of one part of the judicial process. The deal.
"No, but I highly doubt they remember enough to be useful. The likelihood of one of them carrying a cultivation manual is even lower." the Steward said.
"And there will be consequences if people find out you can get away with crimes if you offer gold." the guard said.
The complaints were…reasonable. A straight-up deal would cause problems. But Althea hadn’t planned on letting them go.
"What is the usual punishment for theft?" she asked.
"The punishment for petty theft is the loss of a limb. A heist like this usually ends up with the thieves dead before they face trial. In the rare cases they do, the thieves have to serve labor." Steward Ven said.
"I see." Althea remarked.
"Twenty five years of labor then.'' The punishment sounded right. "The Bern march makes their prisoners mine coal. The Diery county can have them farm."
"The farmers may have an issue with criminals taking up their profession." the Steward noted.
"The farmers get to make a profit from their produce. The criminals work for free. Do you really see that being an issue?" she asked.
"The farmers may be hard to convince, but making a spectacle of it may work." The guard said, earning a glare from the Steward. Althea noticed that the guards seemed to be skilled in many things other than just guarding. As expected of the Empire's elite.
"Tell the thieves that they can either keep quiet about the spies, or hand over the information and their cultivation methods." she said.
The guard's eyebrows rose into his hair." I will see to it that the information is conveyed and appropriately stressed."
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The guard left in a hurry, leaving her alone with the Steward. "A noble is supposed to surrender a cultivation manual to the Emperor."
"And I fully intend to do that. After I request a copy." she said, giving the Steward a huge smile. "There are no laws against that, are there?"
Althea already knew there weren't. The chance to acquire a new cultivation method was rare. A mage would not give their method up unless they had a choice, and they would be chased by their organization to death if they did.
Althea was betting on the fact that these outlaws had not only run away with their manuals, but also didn't care about their organization's ire. But frankly, the chance they had escaped with the manuals was low. The Emperor would personally get involved and call an international manhunt if something like that happened in the Solerian Empire.
A manual could not simply be copied onto another page, special magic was needed to encode them. The magic was needed to get one started on the magic path, it was far too risky to try without it. Althea remembered reading somewhere that the chance of succeeding was a hundred to one, even if you met the conditions. Or was it a thousand to one?
The manuals were also unsuitable to be army manuals. The rare elements made it, so she could at most make a squad of them, certainly not outfit an entire army.
But that was for later. Althea had already eaten half of her spaghetti, but her stomach was already wanting for more. And she still had to deal with the cooks.
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Anthony.
Anthony looked at his colleague with a frown. "Are you sure about this?"
"The Countess' orders are clear." Resic replied, that irritating grin still stuck on his face. "And I think it's a great idea."
"Yes, a bunch of outlaws have a cultivation manual with them." Anthony drawled, making his feelings clear. The chances of them having their Queen's jewels were greater. A lot greater.
Resic just shrugged and pointed to the thieves. Anthony looked at them, barely recovered from their encounter with him.
"Ok, listen up, you idiots." Anthony shouted. An insult worked well with prisoners, he had found.
"The Countess has decided she wants to be merciful. If you lot hand over your contact in Zun and your cultivation manuals, she will reduce your sentence to just twenty-five years of labor." A scowl appeared on his face. "Farming from the looks of it. A bit too good for your lot."
A pregnant silence filled the room as the thieves looked at him in shock.
"Twenty five years of farming." the woman finally broke the silence. The Steward had been surprised when she had survived, and even more when she had recovered. A dual wood-shadow element Journeyman that could survive an attack from the Steward of the Empire.
"If the Countess can ensure that our identities are not leaked, we can make that deal." the woman finished.
"Corrora, no!" one of the other thieves shouted. "The Shadow Count will kill us if we give a Solerian noble his cultivation manual."
"The Shadow Count already wants to kill us. And the manual is mine, I stole it." the woman, Corrora replied.
Anthony remembered the names. The Steward would be interested in hearing them.
"So, you do have a cultivation manual." Anthony asked, still not sure if they were telling the truth. The woman could just be lying to get the deal.
But the Countess would be pleased. And so would the Emperor. A new cultivation manual meant a new sect for the Empire. The Shadow Count person was a worry, but that was for the Emperor and the Countess to deal with. A little guard like him just passed along information.
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Althea
Althea looked at the scenery, wondering how Diery wasn't a tourist destination. The army had made quick time, leaving Marile by four. Mira was not happy about it. Althea was not happy either, but for a different reason.
The Steward had insisted that she ride in a carriage. The dress was not one you could wear riding, and she was supposed to wear it into the city. So apparently she had to stay in the carriage.
Pulsie was happy about it. Now he got to have Althea read him a book.
Althea had decided she was going to read him the cultivation manual she had gotten. The Steward was not happy about that one. But she just ignored him and continued on. The Steward couldn't do anything if she didn't activate it.
"Are you done thinking yet?" Pulsie asked, his leaves shifting angrily.
"Yes." Althea rolled her eyes, opening the manual. At least, the cooks had gotten fair pay, the thief hadn't been lying about that. Just exagerating how angry they were.
The manual's paper was delicate, self-healing, but delicate. The magic that sealed the manual could supposedly only be destroyed in a magical fire. So they would need a fire mage to cast a spell on it.
"The element of shadow represents not light or darkness. A person may say that it is a third element altogether, but that is also not true. A wise person would speculate that it is both together, but that is also not true." Althea took a deep breath. Ok, this was a bit…long-winded.
"The element is in fact a compilation, nay, merger of three. The elements of light, darkness, and shadow itself. But nay! That cannot be! An onlooker might say. How can shadow be a part of shadow? Well, follow me as I explain the intricacies of…" Althea put the book down and looked at Pulsie.
"What?" the plant asked.
"Yes, what indeed Pulsie. What indeed." Althea said, picking up the book again. The explanation couldn't be that long, right?
An hour later, she had to wonder if the author was sane. Two hours later, she was sure that they weren't. A sane person simply could not have written such a long-winded explanation that kept going into magic and element theory that was way beyond what a novice should - this was a trick, wasn't it.
Althea slammed the book onto the chair, growling at the air. The author wasn't mad, he was a genius. If he really did want to make the manual hard to read. A shadow manual with powerful concealment spells. How had she not thought of this being an elaborate ruse till now?
"Are you going to continue?" Pulsie asked.
"There is no point Pulsie, the author is dragging us around. The manual must have a cipher or something." she said.
"Oh. I know" her plant said. "I figured it out a hundred pages ago. I thought you had developed an interest in elemental theory."
Althea gave Pulsie a look that told him what she thought of elemental theory.
"The author wrote a cultivation manual." Pulsie stated.
"Yes?"
"Have you heard of anyone that wrote a cultivation manual?"
"Well…no." Althea replied. The authors were as mysterious as the manuals themselves. As far as she knew, a new manual hadn't appeared in the entire history of the Empire. And the Empire was over ten thousand years old. So was her family now that she thought about it.
The Diery family was one of the founding families of the Empire. The title had changed, dropping ranks as their power decreased, but they were one of the oldest families in the Empire. The royal family had changed surnames, but not her family.
"Althea. Diery to Althea. Countess, come back." Pulsie said, waving his leaves impatiently.
"Yes, yes, I am paying attention." she said.
"Well, could have fooled me." her plant said. "But just think about it. The book here contains a manual writer’s musings on his element. Are you not even a little interested?"
If Pulsie were a cat, he would be making puppy eyes at her right now. Sadly, his words were just as effective. Althea sighed and went back to reading the book. The author wasn't insane, but he was a sadist. Thankfully, she had hours to spare.