Michael
Michael sat on the end of the table in the council chambers with his arms crossed and a badly veiled scowl on his face while Solon read the royal order out loud for the council to hear.
“His Majesty, King Zenial the First, King of Telios, Silver Lion, and Protector of the Realm, has decreed that the Ereic Mountain range is to be placed into the direct administrations of the crown. The land and resources are hereby property of the royal family of House Merland. Entering and exploitation of the region will be viewed as trespassing and theft of the crown's resources and punished to the full extent of the law.”
“Count Michael Rowan, is hereby ordered to come before the king to discuss the arrangements for the management of the new royal fief.” Solon carefully put the letter down and took his seat. The chamber was silent while the members absorbed what they had just heard. The council wasn’t fully present with Viscount Telp still residing in Emall to finish up the Ereic Mountain operation.
“This is bad,” Lord Oligan was the first to break the silence with a simple expression.
“We have invested a lot in this operation, will we be able to manage without the mines,” Geron followed it up.
“It will be rough, the trade with Garekha and the beastmen is only slowly picking up but if it gets going in earnest then we might be able to recuperate our losses in a couple of years,” the steward replied with a sour expression. “We will have to raise the taxes to not go bankrupt though.”
“I don't know if that is a good idea, the people of these lands are not exactly well off and if we raise the taxes then that will be a blow that they might never recover from,” Sola interjected.
“We don't have a choice, we need to pay back the loans,” Lord Oligan shook his head.
“Stop,” Michael said and tapped his finger on the table until all turned toward him. “We are not going to do any of that. The king can't just take the mountains from us so easily and definitely not without compensation.”
“We haven't claimed the mountains regarding the rest of the kingdom. It is not against tradition or the laws for the king to claim them,” Solon noted.
Michael pulled an annoyed face at the mention of his oversight. He hadn't even considered that anyone could be foolish enough to claim the mountains. For everyone but the king it would be equal to a declaration of war, but Zen could push it through if he actually wanted to, something that Michael doubted greatly.
“I will not stand for this,” he finally said, “I am going to go to the capital and convince the king of the senselessness of the idea. While I do that, you will continue with our work but do not under any circumstances sell any of the produce.”
“We would be going against the king's orders,” Lord Oligan objected.
“As long as we don't sell it, we can just hand it over if I fail and someone raises the issue. We can't afford to just stop working for weeks, as you said Lord Oligan, we need the money to pay back our loans and every moment that we do not work is a moment where interests accumulate.”
“Do we know what prompted the king to make such a move against us,” Geron asked.
Michael shook his head while answering, “I have heard little from the capital in the last weeks. I can only imagine that someone has planted the idea into his head.
They discussed the possible reasons and repercussions that this development could have further until Michael grew tired of the discussion.
He looked at each of his council members and rose from his chair causing everyone to fall silent. “Good, I will depart immediately to Praanen. I will need Duke Wallsten's help to rectify this, send him a messenger with a copy of the order and the information that I am coming to him. Continue your work in my absence and call back Viscount Telp to Reen to take care of matters in my absence.”
He left the chamber and marched toward his quarters to gather a few things before his departure, but Solon followed him closely.
“Michael,” he said with the serious tone that was so uncharacteristic for the old dwarf.
Michael stopped and turned to his mentor, even in his anger he knew better than to ignore when Solon had something important to say.
“We will need to talk about how you should approach the negotiations. This is a tense situation and your way of diplomacy ... how to say it, might be a little aggressive for dealing with your liege in this situation.” Solon tried to look stern, but he couldn't hide the glint of amusement from his eyes.
“What do you mean aggressive,” Michael answered with a raised eyebrow.
“Think back to your last diplomatic missions,” the dwarf replied. “In Garekha you yelled at them and made a light explosion to get their attention.”
Michael scratched his head; they were being rude and didn't listen to me so what was I supposed to do?
“You more or less threatened the Vargr-Släkt into a non-aggression and trade agreement after exposing their weakness and beating up the daughter of the chieftain,” Solon continued after seeing Michael's unconvinced expression.
“That is taken wildly out of context,” Michael protested.
“You threatened you know what in the mountains with annihilation from what you have told me.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Michael stopped for a moment and thought about all these instances with realization washing over him. “That is fair, it is honestly a miracle that no one has murdered me yet.”
“You seem to have a talent for being rude but getting away with it in negotiations but that is nothing you should bank on. Don't get me wrong, this kind of approach has its place in diplomacy, but it will get harder to get away without consequences once you get older, so you are gonna need to develop a more dignified way of talking to people if needed.”
Michael gets red as he is scolded for his seeming lack of manners. He hoped that Sola hadn’t gotten wind of this as she was never present in his negotiations. She would give him a serious earful upon learning that he was lacking manners in other lands.
“We will develop a strategy for the meeting on our way to Praanen and then refine it with Duke Wallsten on our way to the capital.”
Michael looked at the dwarf with surprise, “You are coming with me to the capital?”
Solon smiled back at him with his characteristic smile. “Yes, I am. Now get moving, there is much to prepare before we head out. I will talk with Geron to organize a proper escort and then we will meet in the courtyard.”
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Lynx
Traitorous, scheming, greedy, incompetent. All those traits seemed to be abundant in the humans of the Kingdom of Telios.
A muffled scream pulled Lynx's attention to the messenger that he had caught. He was tied up and gagged but Lynx could see the fear in his eyes as he struggled against his restraints. In the dark, only illuminated by the campfire that the messenger had made, Lynx must look like a demon with his coat and mask.
The masked being turned his gaze back to the letters in his hand, they were exaggerated and often outright untrue accounts about the happenings in the counties ruled by the radiant soul. Lynx had to admit that if one believed what was written here then they would paint a truly dire picture of a crazy lord that was lusting for power even if he had to get into league with beasts and monsters.
Of course, he didn't believe them because he knew where this messenger was coming from and who had written these accounts.
The urge to follow his steps back to the estate from which he had tailed the messenger and enact bloody vengeance upon the traitors to his master was strong, but he knew how to follow orders. There would be a time when they would pay but that time was not now, now he would be patient.
Lynx would like to take these letters back to his master for him to use as proof of the treachery, but he knew that they would get suspicious if the messenger didn't arrive at his destination.
With that thought in mind, Lynx finished up his notes of the contents of the letters and began his work to return the letters to their former appearance. It was a trivial task for him, there were no magical safeguards on the paper, no mana in the wax that could be disturbed.
He longed for a challenge, of course, it was a blessing to be able to do his work without much effort or chance of detection, but the underdeveloped security of the humans made his work somewhat boring.
Lynx was a faceless, a magical being virtually made for espionage and assassinations. His body, mind, and abilities were all formed to give him every advantage possible in his line of work. All of it was a massive overkill to what the humans were able to put in his way even if the mana levels weren't high enough to use his abilities to their fullest.
After dealing with the letters, he crouched down next to the messenger and cocked his head to the side.
“I am going to ask you a few questions and if you answer me truthfully then you will walk out of here with all of yourself still attached.” He looked at the messenger who didn’t seem very cooperative.
Lynx pulled out a serrated dagger and held it into the messenger's sight, “Believe me when I say that I can inflict pain upon you such as you never have experienced. You will tell me what I want to know and only you control how painful it is going to be for you.”
The man’s eyes widen, and he nods profusely.
Lynx carefully took the gag out of the messenger’s mouth and asked, “Where are you bringing these letters?”
“To Lionsgate. I am supposed to meet someone there.”
“Interesting. Do they know what you look like?”
The man paused for a moment and Lynx could see his thoughts race. “Y-yes?!”
Lynx knew that he was lying. He cocked his head to the side and smiled internally, not that he could externally with no face, something that he very much longed for but could never achieve “I see. Tell me about this meeting.”
The man gave him everything he asked for and Lynx thought about just taking his place but then he would have to kill the man, coming right back to the problem that his employers would get suspicious if he didn’t return.
“You are in luck, human. I need you alive so you will go back to sleep and once you have awoken all of this will just have been a bad dream.”
The man looked at him with terrified eyes until Lynx blew a swath of mana-infused air in his face. The eyes of the man turned back and only a moment later he was asleep. He would wake up with only hazy memories of this interaction and assume that he had a bad dream. After a few hours on the road, this whole thing would be inevitably forgotten.
Lynx would have preferred to not wake him at all, but he needed to find out who the messenger was delivering the letters to and if it was worth spending his time following him to his destination.
It took a few more minutes to get the messenger and everything back to what it was before Lynx had attacked him, every detail counted to not make the man suspicious.
After that Lynx looked for a comfortable tree to wait out the night. Tomorrow he would travel to the capital of this kingdom. Oh, how he liked big cities, so many secrets and so many loose mouths.
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Geron
Geron looked down into the training yard, the first new recruits had arrived a few weeks prior together with Sir Godfrey. Around half of these had already dropped out from the rigorous training that the old knight put them through but that was to be expected.
Most of these recruits weren't of noble descent so they had next to no previous training and no pressure from their families if they still had one. Geron trusted the eye of the former commander when it came to telling if someone had the talent to become a knight but to see if they also had the drive to push through the grueling training was another question, one that was hard to answer beforehand.
The training of the knights of House Rowan had always been brutal with Lord Cedric's strict standards and Sir Godfrey's iron fist. Lord Michael had not eased up on these standards more of the opposite, he gave Sir Godfrey full authority to break the recruits down if he had to rebuild them from the ground.
There were still more recruits than Geron had ever seen at the same point in training. Recruiting from the masses obviously resulted in more potential squires even if they normally needed a little bit more work to get into shape than those of noble or warrior families.
Of course, these very families that put forth their own children to the knights of House Rowan were the first to protest vehemently against the recruits. Claims of watering down the quality and accusations of disgrace were flung left and right with some even stating their intent to not send any of their family to be trained here anymore.
It was foreseeable that this would happen but even though it was regrettable that these talented young men would not join the knighthood’s ranks there were many very talented peasant boys that jumped at the opportunity.
Geron turned away from the spectacle of two dozen teenagers running laps until collapse, under the threatening gaze of their instructor. He looked forward to the day these recruits would be joining their brotherhood, not only to show the worth of the lowborn but also because they had way too few knights right now and that made Geron nervous.