It was a long run from his father's study to his room, the castle was huge and he had been relegated to a wing of it out of the way. Still, despite having to dodge a few tray carrying maids or patrolling guards he reached his little piece of the estate, almost out of breath but filled with a brand new energy.
The suite he occupied, complete with a bedroom, bathroom, living room, work office and adjoining servant quarters was larger than his small studio on earth. Nobles of this world had really a different concept of what being shunned meant. Speaking of servants, he was greeted at the door by his butler Jenkins. The austere man in his forties, tall, thin, black haired with a always wearing a spotless black suit had been assigned to him when Daniel had turned 12 years old. He dealt with most interactions his master would have with the rest of the castle's staff and the outside world.
"Young Master, did your training end early?" he said as Daniel entered his suite. He could hear the hint of reproach under the obsequious tone. Despite his efforts to submit to the spartan training regimen it would not have been the first time that he would have tried to cut it short due to exhaustion, pain tolerance or sheer boredom. His father's summon had cut his training 2 hours short and Daniel would not complain about that.
"Unforeseen events are upon us Jenkins. Send Sergeant Maxwell my apologies, there won't be any physical training for the next 4 days. I will meet him tomorrow at the barracks, make sure he has the house guards and Knights roster with him, with whatever evaluation he has on them."
"I shall relay your instructions. Does your father…"
"It has to do with orders coming directly from him. I'm not skipping training. Time will be too precious in the next days to waste half of my days sweating and being beaten raw. Have Master Pulcini wait for me in the library in half an hour, we'll need anything he has on the continent of Streitland, Otraxian recent involvement in the Hassmeer, Allavrian colony on the continent and… well that will be a good start. I won't attend lunch, have Miss Gladys send us some snacks in 3 hours. That would be all, I'll give you more details this afternoon, I'm in a hurry."
While giving his instructions Daniel had started to strip off his sweaty training clothes. He would probably spend the best part of his his day either in the library or meeting people, he couldn't do it wet and stinky. Before entering the bathroom in his underwear he took care to set his left bracers on a dresser. It was one of his most prized possessions for multiple reasons. First it was a magic item, second he had designed it himself and last but not least it contained his other most precious stuff. He had imagined to find tons of magic items and artefacts when he realized what kind of place this new world of Eris was, only to be rather disappointed. The magic system was rather complex and it also applied to enchantments. Temporary ones cast on mundane items that would fade with use or time were pretty common, truth be told many young mages of meddling talent earned a living going around and casting such spells for a few coins.
But the real stuff, the real enchanted items were another matter and such quite literally. Creating a magic item necessitated to engrave or somehow draw the Engram of the spell it would bear. This magical matrix grew larger and more complex faster than the effects sought after. Not all materials could handle the energy of such a spell, so magic items had to be made of rare and expensive materials or have the Engram filled with copper, silver, gold or other exotic metals that were magically conductive. Then there was the mana stones, Arcanite, mined in a few places these crystals worth many times their weight in gold were the material of choice to act as mana batteries. It worked so well that it was even possible to crush them and use them as powder, infused in the metal of the Engram for items where a set gem wasn't practical. The crystal cores found in some magical creatures had similar effects but with a lesser potency except for rare and powerful monsters like dragons.
Using the wrong materials, adding too much or too little mana stone, trying to add multiple Engrams on an items without proper adjustments, all were recipes for disaster. From simple failures that would prevent to try enchanting the same item again, to unpredictable magical reactions or even the base item being destroyed by conflicting magical forces; creating such items was a delicate and risky business. Being unable to cast spells didn't mean that Daniel was clueless about magic, quite the opposite actually. He had a natural talent for the runes and an excellent memory. He quickly discovered that most of the magic as it was practiced was in fact a crutch for the kind of mages that couldn't manifest the Engrams directly. Mages borrowed essence from components, used incantations whose few words of powers helped form the runes in the matrix, hand movement to help channel and gather the energy… All of this wasn't actually necessary, if one has enough mana and could keep the Engram perfectly in mind so that it would manifest, the spell could be cast without chants or gestures.
Daniel had worked hard to design the enchantment for a few items, even if he had to hire a real mage to actually infuse it with energy at the end. The bracer was a storage item, the armored plate on it could unclasp and open. Inside was a square opened with sides the length of his forearm that led to a storage subspace the size of a large chest. It was far from the infinite size bags of holding from DnD or the storage rings that some nobles owned and that allowed them to literally materialize items, but the first were fictional here too and the later were rare artefacts from an ancient magical empire. Most really complex or powerful items were relics of that Era too. The other two items he had created were a book and a stylus. The book had a gem on its cover and the interior of the back cover was a plate of crystal, he could draw and edit on the plate like it was a modern graphic tablet and the gem allowed the book to contain more than the number of physical pages it had. Using mana he could pick between one hundred instances of the same book that he could fill with different content. The stylus could write without ink on nearly any surface and could be used for engraving by burning mana stone fragments or powder that were stored in its shaft.
The bathroom was a real luxury that only the nobles or the very rich could afford. It had a shower and a bathtub. The castle had real plumbing, connected to a magical water heater and filled with pure drinkable water.
"Ahh feels just like home!" The warm water of the shower was one of the few things that truly reminded him of his previous life on earth. There was some serenity in this simple gesture of taking a shower, if he closed his eyes he could almost imagine being back in his apartment. Of course shampoo or body wash technology were not as advanced, solid soap for the skin and the very rich could afford some special alchemical liquid as shampoo, but for everyone else the gods would provide. It was one of these magic cantrips that were a gift of the gods and that anyone could practice because they footed the bill. The [Cleanse] ritual was offered by the Goddess of Purity Ivendrelle, divine magic was the image of simplicity, the Engrams for such spells were so small, smooth, simple and even then the gods made sure that they were forever memorized by any mortal. The words that accompany them were more prayers or thanks than actual incantations. He focused on the spell, mumbling the words of thanks for one of the rare spells he could freely cast a few times a day and all the grime, sweat and dirt on his body started to separate, quickly washed away by the stream of warm water. This spell didn't make people clean, it just removed the bond of anything stuck to the caster's body to make it easier to scrub away. Such an easy way to get rather clean with just a bit of water or a cloth to wipe away the waste was a true blessing that had spared Daniel a lot of the putrid smell of unwashed people he had expected from a world without modern technology.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
"Let me dry you, Master!" said a familiar voice just as he exited the shower, now clean and refreshed. Gladys was waiting for him arms wide, holding a large and fluffy towel. The matronly maid, now past her fifties was the second and last member of the staff devoted to him. She was portly, her light brown hair was starting to grey, but she had this warm smile on her face that had been one of the few positive notes on the young Daniel's life before he was replaced by his otherworldly counterpart. She had been a maid to his mother before her death in childbirth and had basically raised him, even breastfeeding him in his first years. Even with the memories he inherited from this body it had been a shock for Daniel to discover how little modesty or privacy meant in this world when servants were involved. Having servants of either gender helping noble bathe or get dressed was common place here, it was almost as if they were not to be considered enough as people to be worth being embarrassed about.
"Thank you, Miss Gladys. I can handle it." He let himself be wrapped in the towel but decided to dry himself. Be it a servant or someone he saw as a motherly figure it was still embarrassing for him to have someone dry him or dress him like he was a kid. Of course things could be very different. Many of the maids of the castle were attractive young girls and from what Daniel gathered it was far from uncommon for them to offer other kinds of services to the nobles they served. Nobles of this empire had some weird polygamous marriages, one wife was the main wife most often the one of the highest noble rank, two to three other women would also be considered to be wives, bearing childrens with a right to inherit some titles, but they also took concubines, women of lower extraction, lesser nobles or even commoners, whose life would improve but whose children wouldn't be considered for succession. Maids getting frisky with their masters did so expecting gifts, influence, a better position or even to be picked as one of their concubines, freeing them from base labors. Sadly, Daniel's status was well known and everyone knew that there was no possible gain in attracting his favors, as such he had never benefited from these perks.
"I've laid your clothes on the bed. I know you want to dress yourself now. Mister Jenkins told me about the snacks, they'll be ready on time, but you have to have a really dinner tonight. You're a young boy still growing into a nice young man, you can't survive on snacks and radul tea."
"I'll eat a real dinner then. On more important news we will be leaving Westmere in a few days. Start to prepare a list of what you will need and make arrangements for a stock of spices and tea to be set aside."
"Are we going back to the capital?"
"No, the place we go to is only on the barest technicality part of the Empire and it is far from most trade lanes. Resupply will be few and far between, prioritize what we can't get in a remote place and a few sets of quality utensils. Don't forget to start packing what you would need for yourself."
"I'll get to it right away." While all servants of the castle acted with deference towards him due to his name, it was easy to see that only Jenkins and Gladys were truly loyal to him and in a sense loved him. The maid had been almost a surrogate mother for him in a way and the butler acted like some sort of wise but strict uncle, imparting to the young noble both some wisdom and common sense, never failing to follow protocol.
Daniel had used the towel more to cover than to dry himself during the short conversation with Gladys, now alone he used a small wind based cantrip to dry itself. It was a weak spell and of little usefulness but it was one of the few utility spells that had a mana capacity lower than his mana pool and that he could afford to cast.
He dressed quickly, putting on some fresh underwear, a pair of black leather pants, white silk shirt and a blue doublet embroidered in silver thread. He finished by putting on his boots and his magic bracer.
The trip to the castle library was less frantic, he had the outline of a plan now. He had taken his book and stylus from his storage space and was taking some notes of all the things he had to do before leaving. Rather than running around like he previously did or sneaking to avoid interactions he was now practicing his noble walk, walking with purpose and an air of importance that made anyone move away to avoid him rather than make him move or bump into him. The [Noble] class, that could decline itself according to rank had a lot of passive skills designed to instill respect and obedience in subjects. Such powers scaled with both the actual power already wielded and the number of subjects one had (and their opinions and attitudes towards their lieges).
Daniel had always loved libraries, in both of his lives. The smell of the vellum and leather covers was different from the paper of his world, but the spirit of the place was similar enough to trigger some fond memories. Vittorio Pulcini was an extravagant man, the old Lucrezian philosopher was always sporting garishly colored clothes from a seemingly inexhaustible supply. He was bald, his skull of a shine that one could almost use as a mirror, his long beard, probably white now at 87, was dyed in whatever color struck his fancy that day. The perfect set of teeth, the best skin that alchemical care products could maintain and a somewhat ridiculous application of make-up were truly distracting from his age.
"Young Master, all my congratulations for your new position. I hope that you will be able to put my lessons to good use. your father had some documents sent for you and I have gathered what I could find of what you asked in such short notice. I will be able to get more information by tomorrow, I sent a request to the admiralty." Master Pulcini had been recruited by the Duke as an advisor and tutor for his children, teaching them economics, politics and diplomacy. He had been exiled from the cutthroat Merchant Republic of Lucrezia after some very infamous scandal that had him found in the bed of the Verini family merchant princess… with her husband… on her wedding night… He already had a reputation for having bedded half of the republic's artists and a lot of courtiers, but faced with a rival family even the clout of the Pulcinis couldn't save him.
"I will need what you taught me more than ever. Let's see what you found."
They both sat down in front of the huge pile of books, scrolls and folders, discussing various details of Daniel's future holdings.
The Island (more of a small continent) of Streitland was a volcanic island with a large fuming peak at its center, various eruptions and earthquakes had formed long mountainous ridges that somehow split the island into large wedges. traveling from one to the next was more easily and safely accomplished by sea. The area that he was supposed to be ruling thankfully didn't contain any orcs from what the early expedition reported. It had three main settlements, The port city of Wrokdal with its castle, a small town around a military fort on the western edge of the territory and a town built up next to a quarry and logging camp on the eastern edge. a number of small villages, camps, farms or even individual houses were also scattered around. All of the imperial presence was along the coast in the prairies of tall green grass that separated the beaches and cliffs from the thick, lush forest that covered the rest of the island.
The forest was full of monsters and beastmen tribes, while it was technically part of his new territory he would have close to no control over it beyond the edges where he could venture.
There were good news on another point. The Otraxian Reich had reignited hostilities with the Qintian empire on the other side of its empire. There should be little involvement of their navy. It only left him with pirates and dark elf corsairs to deal with on the water, he rather not think about the sea monsters under the waters of the Hassmeer.
He'd have lumber, stone and whatever he could extract from the forest as available resources. The fertile plains and the fish from the sea made it unlikely that the population would be starving. The rumors of silver ore in the mountains were the account of a single explorer from a failed expedition, last survivor of it he had come out of the jungle, bloodied, feverish and half mad only to die a short while later.
To sum up the place was rather promising if he could survive it, which was the hardest part. The last official envoys sent to manage the place had all died from the various perils of the place, in such a quick succession that it had now been left almost abandoned for nearly twenty years. Some local commoner was looking out for imperial interests there but hadn't managed to keep much authority over the area as a whole.
With more information about the place, a lot of notes in his book, he now had a better idea of his plan for his new March. he thanked his old tutor and took his leave, taking with him some of the documents and the Imperial edict as proof of his new rank.
The light snacks had long since disappeared, the teapot was now empty of the energizing radul tea and the sun was setting. He had still a lot of people to meet before his departure and that meant new plans for his evening.