A warm spring wind rustled the leaves, the full moon’s light throwing shadows everywhere. The forest was not still though, a cacophony of sounds echoed through the dense foliage. The howling of wolves, hooting of owls, and chittering of a myriad of other small critters.
The noise of nature easily overshadowed the movement of the two hooded figures stalking through the underbrush.
They tried to keep quiet as they approached an invisible line and the taller of them both put his hand on the other man’s shoulder causing them both to take cover behind a tall bush.
Peering around it they could see a group of soldiers with torches crossing maybe a dozen meters in front of them. The tabard with the two crossed swords on a black field identified them as House Grim soldiers.
“Why are we here, Sev,” the smaller man whispered to his taller companion.
“Don’t you feel it? I thought you were attuned to the mana of the world,” Sev replied with a crooked smile.
The other man frowned and turned back to the patrol. “There are no augmenters here,” he said after a few moments, but it sounded more like a question than a statement.
“They have become weak,” Sev grinned even more. “And we will exploit their weakness to take our revenge.”
As the two men conversed a presence lingered, not quite there but still present, completely unnoticed by the scheming men.
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Michael
Michael awoke shortly after sunrise. With a big yawn, he stretched and turned his head through his room toward the window from which the first sun rays were falling in. His room had become even more bleak lately, when before at least his small table was filled with paperwork now it was empty as he only returned here to sleep.
He forced himself up and over to a bowl of water in front of the window to freshen up a little bit. The sight he now had had changed a lot lately. It has been a little over two years now since his family had been murdered and he had taken over the reins of the counties of Reen and Emall, but many said that they weren’t recognizable anymore.
The town of Reen for example had grown considerably, more than doubling in inhabitants. This was because of the freeing of Michael’s serfs in connection with the increasing need for workers in the town.
Grur Parak had moved most of his mercantile operations to Reen which meant a lot of hauler and guard jobs, and he wasn’t the only merchant expanding into the south either. To the south-east of the town, a large construction side was claiming the land calling for hundreds of workers and also for smiths and other laborers for the already operational parts.
Wide roads lead in all directions away from the town, which was much more of a city by now, and all of them were used a lot by work crews, patrols, travelers, and merchants.
Michael frowned when he gazed down at the layout. While the fringes of the city looked rather organized, due to his insistence on planning for the city’s rapid expansion, the center was still a mess due to the organic way it grew and the resistance of the inhabitants to rebuild and organize their homes.
The now thirteen-year-old count finally dragged himself away from the view and quickly got dressed. He pushed a little bit more mana into his body to stave off his lingering exhaustion. Michael had gotten used to only four to six hours of sleep in the last year even if no one seemed to agree with his sleep schedule.
With his insetting puberty, his mana well had exploded in size, and he had already overcome both Sola and Kiran, which meant that between his reserves and their regeneration, he was able to constantly burn it on a low flame to focus his mind and body without scratching it much.
After putting on some clothes he grabbed his father’s longsword from its place next to his bed and fastened it to his back. He had started wearing it only a few months ago but since then he never went anywhere without it because it gave him the feeling of having his father’s strength at his side.
It was a little bit of a hassle to carry a sword that was more than two-thirds of his actual height but with his mana-infused strength and having it on his back, he managed it quite easily. He was still looking forward to being able to wear it properly on his hip as all the knights did.
After checking his overall appearance, he opened the door to be met by Silas and Erhen waiting in front of his door.
“Good morning, milord,” Silas greeted him and smashed his fist to his chest, the salute mirrored by the younger knight.
“Good morning,” Michael replied with a smile and quickly went on his way with the knights following close behind.
It wasn’t just the city that had changed, the castle was undergoing a similar development. Before it was a proper castle, simple designs, filled with nobles and knights with a certain calm to it that only places of privilege could have.
Now the castle was in constant motion, messengers running through the hallways with stacks of paper, signs of construction everywhere as quarters were turned into open-space scribe and planning halls and nobles were rarely seen in these parts of the castle.
That is not to say that the castle was cramped, the contrary was the case, Michael had started reorganizing the whole structure which simply meant that the administrative and governing parts were separated from the noble quarters. For him, it was an efficiency reason but at the same time, it had signaled that the nobility wasn’t connected to the administration on the highest level anymore.
No one stopped for him as he walked to the hallways, it had taken a lot of time and a firm stance to get it into their heads that they didn’t need to stop and fall to their knees every time they met him.
They didn’t give up so easily though, so a new tradition had quickly taken over, the non-military personnel placed an open hand on their heart and bowed their head while the military personnel slammed their fist on their chest without lowering their gaze. Michael had accepted it because it didn’t take much time and they were able to salute like this without stopping what they were doing most of the time and he didn’t want them to unlearn to show respect to their superiors in station.
Michael nodded back whenever he noticed someone saluting him and made his way straight to his office. In front of the doors were two guards placed and Michael’s gaze fell on their new heraldic.
It had been an easy decision to not keep the twin sword heraldic, as it celebrated the bond between his father and uncle and after all that happened, he didn’t feel that it was right to keep it. None of his subjects had complained about this change but Duke Wallsten had not been happy, and Michael guessed that his uncle wasn’t glad either.
The new sigil on his guards was a metallic mountain with a black wyvern overhead on a red field. It kept the red and black of the family and added the mountains which symbolized the future for Michael together with the strength of the flying beasts.
His office had also expanded, Michael had finally started seeing it as his own space and so he had changed it to his liking which meant a lot of expanding. There were multiple rooms in his office now for him and the multiple aids that had joined Parcival in his duties of maximizing the efficiency of Michael’s time.
It was Parcival as well who greeted him the moment that he entered with his palm to his heart and his head bowed. “Good morning, milord. I hope you had a good night’s rest.”
“Greetings, I slept well enough, thank you,” Michael smiled at the man without stopping on his way to his office.
Parcival fluently fell into step with him, and Michael just kept talking, “What is on the schedule today?”
“You have an appointment with Mister Farel and Waren in the smithy in two hours, magic training at the magic academy, martial training followed by a council meeting, and then lessons with Mister Solon,” Parcival quickly listed the work for today without even looking at the small book he was carrying around. “All in all, a quiet day, milord.”
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They stepped into the office, it had, of course, changed as well, he had kept the desk and chair his father had used but the large table that was normally filled with maps was gone and the walls were covered in shelves filled with scrolls and books, they weren’t nearly filled yet, but Michael was sure he would get there. The room was smaller because they needed space for the other rooms of the office, but it looked more inviting in Michael’s opinion.
“A lot of time to work on some projects then,” Michael replied and sat down behind the desk that was still a little bit too large for him, he had still refused to get rid of it even just temporarily. There was so much that was changing so he clung to everything that he could keep the same.
Parcival came to a halt next to him and handed him a scroll with a small yellow dot on the end of it.
“There have been problems in Emall again, three wagons of tools have gone missing on their way to the road construction,” Parcival said with an unhappy tone.
Michael sighed and rubbed his eyes, “Send some trackers, they will turn up in a couple of days anyway.”
It was always the same over there. The faction opposing his reforms was stronger in Emall with the distance and Viscount Telp’s absence, so there were many of these small delays. Wagons going missing for a couple of days, materials arriving at the wrong place, laborers finding better jobs.
The nobles were paying them off just to be annoying, but he couldn’t prove it most of the time, even if they were just small infractions as they always stopped shy of anything truly illegal.
“And once they turn up have them interrogated. If they took bribes to delay then have them flogged publicly, that will at least drive up the bribes the nobles will have to pay them,” Michael added with a sour expression. It was good for him that the nobles were still just trying to be a covert hindrance and not actively aggressive but that didn’t mean Michael was happy about their antics.
He continued with his paperwork until it was finally time to leave for his first appointment in the growing smithing complex of the city.
The city was much more alive than Michael had ever seen it, especially since the market was completely overrun, they had to expand it already and now that Michael rode past it he felt like they would have to expand it again.
Maybe we should have a separate market on the fringes of the city for external trade, Michael pondered while steering his horse down the road toward the eastern gate.
Eydis and the rest of the guard had joined him in his venture out of the castle, but Michael didn’t pay them much attention. It was nice not to have to pay much attention to his surroundings sometimes, but he hadn’t really needed them for the last few years. All in all, it had been surprisingly peaceful especially when looking back on the months after his ascension.
The thoughts quickly faded away as they made their way through the gate and toward the great smithy. It was an expansive project; Michael had given the dwarves free reign and they had opted to make sure that the place was large enough to handle the throughput of the mountain's riches for decades to come.
Michael was rather sure that right now Reen wouldn’t even have enough inhabitants to work the finished project and still be functional, but it would take years for it to be completed and until then the predicted growth of the city would easily manage.
He was always in awe when he visited the great forge, huge crucibles, great stores of material, and hundreds of workstations were planned and that was the mundane part of the forge. He found the brother dwarfs in the artificer part of the forge where a huge opening separated it from the rest. Soon a winged door was going to be settled here, covered in runes that prevented ambient mana from leaking in. Artificing was an extremely accurate form of mana manipulation and even the smallest discrepancies could diminish the power of an artifact according to Farel.
As Michael entered, he could see Farel standing with a group of eight humans of differing ages, he was currently hammering on a piece of Blacksteel while explaining what he was doing. Michael could feel the mana flow through his hammer which felt like the slow ripple of earth mana while he worked on the magical ore from the distance and admired the skill of the dwarf for a while.
It wasn’t only the hammer that caught his attention, but the anvil was also an artifact. It was covered in lines that glowed in the soft silver hue of pure mana and the lines were woven in intricate patterns until flowing into four recesses in the corners of the anvil. A monster core was resting in each of the recesses, powering the whole process and being gradually drained of power.
Behind him burned a silvery flame in his furnace which was also powered by some low-level monster cores. The color didn’t seem to be consistent though and increased or decreased in intensity.
Waren was a little bit to the right of his brother, standing at a table with another dwarf and three humans while looking over schematics and plans. He noticed Michael first and waved him closer.
“Welcome, Lord,” Waren greeted him as he stepped closer to the table, he was taller than the dwarves by now but still appreciated their smaller tables.
“Good to see you, Master Waren. It’s this time of the month again,” Michael replied with a genuine smile.
The dwarf scratched the back of his neck and nodded, “Then let’s get to it. The artificer’s workshop warding has been delayed again. Miss Rayakan seems to be very busy all the time. I am getting the feeling that I should just do it alone even if it will turn out worse.”
Michael pulled an annoyed face that that news, Rayakan had a double affinity with fire and pure mana and thus would be a great help at putting in place warding to drain atmospheric mana for the dwarven artificer who had no affinity.
“I talked to her, and she said she would make it a priority two weeks ago, but that seemingly didn’t happen,” Michael replied and Waren simply shrugged.
“I will talk to her again and make sure that she understands the urgency,” Michael sighed. He thought of it for a moment more and then added, “It might help if I promise her that you will build her a better null magic chamber for her academy.”
“Fine, whatever it takes to get these wards in place, everything we produce here is tainted and I really don’t want to go ahead with construction of the finer tools before we have this whole area warded and drained,” Waren agreed, looking as annoyed by the old mage as Michael felt.
“In other news, the construction of the water canal from the stream to the site has been successfully concluded and we are already fitting the first waterwheels to the bellows. I estimate that in two to three weeks we will be able to increase our ore throughput by at least sixty percent.”
They continued discussing the different advancements and challenges that had presented themselves in the last month of work. Michael had never insisted on such regular meetings, the dwarves had proven themselves as the most trustworthy and accurate project overseers that Michael had. Their cost estimates were always quite accurate except for unpredictable situations and delays were rare and never the fault of planning. It was quite nice to have these meetings nonetheless, not because Michael needed to do much but rather because he adored the project, and watching it grow always excited him.
The presentation didn’t take long because of the scale and timetable of the project, not much could happen in a mere month. Much more interesting was the produce of the foundry and forge complex, even if it was not nearly done it had already become a large portion of the county's income, not as much as trade tariffs and taxes but closing in quickly on the tariffs at least.
The silver excavated from the mines had taken them through the first year of construction but now weapon production was starting to take a similarly large part of the revenue. Magical artifacts would blow them both out of the water of course as soon as they could be produced in a higher quantity, and if Michael decided to sell them.
Farel was focusing on that part of the project, the smiths that were standing with him were just a couple of the smiths that had come to work in the forge, more specifically some of those that showed talent with artificing. There were also a whole lot of younger apprentices but teaching already trained smiths the basics was a quicker way to get some magical tools and weaponry even if they would be simple and not the best quality. There were few masters here but many more journeymen who wanted to escape their former masters so they would take more training.
“Greetings, lad,” Farel addressed Michael after dismissing his students to their workstations where they put into practice what they had learned. “You are still carrying this lump of metal around with you? I can make you something much better, you know? How about a sword that can go aflame? If I can get that hag Rayakan to help me.”
Michael chuckled while Waren gave his brother an angry stare. “Don’t worry, Master Farel, I fare quite well this lump of metal.” Michael didn’t take the dwarf’s words to heart; he knew that the man appreciated every form of artisanal craft even if he tended to have a nonchalant way of addressing them.
Waren grumbled something into his beard in dwarfish but didn’t comment further on his brother’s lack of manners.
“How are your students, Master Farel,” Michael asked with genuine interest.
“Two left hands and no idea what they are doing, but with their hearts in the right place. I think they will do fine,” Farel proudly exclaimed loudly but Michael wasn’t sure if his students appreciated his praise.
Farel was a smith who exceeded all those in his lands that much was true. “Why is it that Garekha even let you go, I wonder? I can’t imagine me wanting to let any skilled artificer go without a fight.”
Waren and Farel gave each other searching gazes, in the end, Waren explained. “You humans are not the only ones that have regressed and suffered since the cataclysm. Magical resources have become exceedingly rare and much weaker. This means that new artifacts are prohibitively expensive if they are any good because of the high material cost. Which meant that fewer people wanted them which meant that the profession had less work.”
Of course, low demand will lead to less supply, Michael realized.
“Artificer clans began to become poorer and poorer with many abandoning the craft. Most clans nowadays have only one or two skilled artificers in their service because there simply isn’t more material,” Waren continued. “Not only that but due to the low strength of artifacts that artificers can make, because of only the weakest magical resources still being active and the low mana levels, most clans just don’t care which led to a decline in skill as well. Me and my brother are nothing compared to the mana artisans of the older days.”
Michael played with the ring that Minister Valmick had gifted him and wondered how expensive that must have been with its intricate effect.
“But now things are different,” Farel interjected. “Magical resources are resurfacing and even the stronger kinds will be available in a couple of years if the old texts are to be believed. You hit quite the opportune moment, lad. Clan Grapper would have probably fought you for us in a couple more years.” The ginger dwarf laughed loudly at that, and Michael couldn’t help but smile at the happy man.