After getting dressed, Regis headed downstairs only to find Tristan there, chatting with Euric.

“Good morning, milord!” The two said in unison.

“Morning,” he nodded. “I take it we have urgent matters to attend to before the hunt?”

“Yes, Tristan nodded as he stepped closer, handing over a sealed envelope. “Nina gave this to me yesterday evening after she returned from East Fork. She said that it was sent to Mayoress Tine from the Midlands.”

“I see. Should we have to the study?”

“That would be for the best.”

The two headed towards the door on the right side of the main hall that opened into the corridor that housed the workshop. Opening the first door revealed a four by five meter sized room with a large oaken desk that had a chair behind it with a large clear quartz window letting in the morning light. Regis sat down behind the desk and opened the letter. As he began to read it, the corner of his eyes twitched a bit.

“Is something the matter?” Tristan asked, worried by the strange reaction the letter incited.

“To the honourable Lord Regis Thorne. Although the newly re-established territory of Thorn Vale resides outside of the borders of the kingdom of Ecragurne, both its affiliations and interactions with its subjects warrant this letter. You are hereby invited to the Annual Lords’ Assembly in White-spire Keep of the Midlands region. The meeting is to be held on the tenth of the Azure Dragon. As a lord, you are entitled to bring along a knight commander, a mage advisor and your steward. The main topic of the Assembly will be the aftereffects of the war. Attendance is not mandatory, however, it is highly suggested that you attend as a free lord. Respectfully, Lord Andrew Merv.”

“An invitation to the Lords’ Assembly,” Tristan hummed. “It seems that the lords of Ecragurne have officially acknowledged you as a fellow landed noble. Likely a result of your growing reputation as a skilled arcane artisan.”

“So you’re saying that they’re only inviting me to get some good deals on enchanted equipment?”

“It is possible, but I believe it is more likely due to you being a second-tier spell weaver. Those seem to be in short supply after the war and a nobleman who managed to achieve something like that can not be ignored.”

“Good to know. Still, it’s quite the short notice. The tenth of the Dragon is barely two weeks away.”

“Indeed. You might have to ask one of the royal army’s mages to help you use the gateways for faster travel.”

“That’s the most obvious course to follow for now. But besides that, what do you know of this assembly?”

“The annual assembly is an event that happens in all of the kingdoms once or twice a year, depending on the matter’s importance. Since my father was the steward of Lord Jurian Kreuwell, he had attended to it several times. He often told me about it after his return. As the name suggests, it is a gathering of all the nobles from Ecragurne. That would mean you will have at least twenty to twenty-five fellow nobles there along with their attendants. Of course, some of the more known spellcasters’ guild leaders also attend the meeting. There is usually a main subject to discuss during the event, but it is often followed by two or more other matters. Things like, crop shortages or excess, taxation and bandit issues, official feud or marriage announcements.”

“The usual noble matters.” Regis grimaced with a slight disgust.

“That is one way to look at it my lord, but the last part of the letter makes it clear that they are expecting you to make an appearance as a ‘free’ lord. They do not use that term lightly.”

“Yes,” the spell weaver nodded. “I did notice it. What exactly does it mean?”

“A ‘free’ lord is a landed noble who did not bend the knee to the royal family. Given the devastation the war has caused, I believe that a lot of the nobles might have perished. It is quite likely that many of those vacant positions had been filled by people such as yourself.”

“And now they expect the new lords to bend the knee?”

“Most likely,” the steward nodded. “Except you. As the letters stated, Thorn Vale lies outside of Ecragurne’s border. That means they can not force you to pledge your loyalty to anyone unless they are willing to forcefully occupy your land and expand the kingdom’s territory. Which they can not do, because if news of it got out of the country, the surviving royals of the other two kingdoms will take it as an affront.”

“That’s somewhat reassuring, but there are plenty of other ways to make our lives hard. If they decide to create a border guard on the path toward Thorn Vale, then they could tax the hell out of us during regular transports. I also wouldn’t be surprised if they set up guards and the gateways to do the same if we try to use those to transport goods.”

“Possible,” his steward nodded. “But highly unlikely. No matter which country we are talking about, the royals will always want access to enchanted goods. The fact that you have been accepting requests from the royal army during these past few weeks gives you some credit in their view. I doubt they would want to jeopardize their chance at their priority orders when it comes to enchantments over something like a small settlement’s taxation.”

“Even if said settlement is owned by a skilled enchanter who could earn a lot of money through his craft?”

“With all the respect, where did most of the money you earned go?”

“Back to the settlement’s economy.”

“Precisely. The amount of goods Thornfell transports can be considered quite low. It’s not hard to follow the trail of coin and anyone worth their gold could figure out that we are not exactly rich. Even if that is just an outside viewpoint.”

“You know,” Regis sighed. “I hate it when we have to talk about economics. It always reminds me how broke we are.”

“We are not ‘broke’ at the moment, sir. The town’s treasury has one hundred and fifty-eight gold, thirty-four silver and four hundred bronze coins deposited into it.”

“And how much will our next shopping spree cost us?”

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“About fifty gold, milord,” Tristan cleared his throat. “But we are expecting fifteen gold and forty-two silver from your current enchanting contract. The excess enchanted equipment, items, potions and spell scrolls are also estimated to be sold for around ten gold and twenty-nine silver.”

“Which still puts us in the red, right?”

“Right.” The stewards sighed, understanding Regis’ reason to be worried.

“Alright, that’s about enough with the depressing talk. We should get going and see if the hunting party is ready.”

“Yes.” Tristan agreed and the two left the study.

“Any important issues we need to have a look at while we’re at it?”

“Today was supposed to have three matters that required your attention. Miss Amanda asked that you’d help out with a material-related issue while Miss Mary asked for your presence at the inn.”

“Do you know what it's about?”

“I believe she mentioned something about your promise regarding kitchen wares.”

“Ah, yes. I did promise her some new pans and whatnot. What about the third agenda?”

“The last topic for today regarded the new raised garden you and Miss Letty wanted to implement at the farms.”

“Yeah,” Regis rolled his eyes. “That’s going to take some work. I guess we will have to leave all of these to after we return from the hunt.”

“I’ll remind you about them after your return then.”

“Thank you, Tristan.” The spell weaver nodded as the two left the manor.

As they made their way through Obelisk Square, the usual sight of the early morning rush greeted them. The people of Thornfell woke up early today as well, heading off to work. The door of the spellcasters’ guild was wide open with both young and old people entering through it.

“Morning there, lad!” He heard a familiar voice which made him smile for a moment.

“Good morning, Salvador.”

“Are you heading out to join the hunting party?”

“Yeah. What about you? Do you want to come along?”

“Sorry, lad. I have far too much on my hands right now. Of course, I wouldn’t say no to a bit of extra smoked meat in the pantry.”

“I’ll see what we can do about that.” Regis assured the recently appointed guild master before continuing toward the gate of the small town where they were supposed to gather.

“The new guild master seems awfully casual when it comes to talking with you.”

“I know Salvador from my time as a low-rank Shardwaker back in Hunor. He always treated me fairly and he’s a capable guild master. He knows when to be formal and when to be friendly, so don’t worry about him. And speaking about formal things; when will you ask Nina to marry you?” The dark elf teased his steward, making him choke on the air he just breathed in.

“I... I mean we are not yet...”

“I know, Tristan. I’m just messing with you. Anyway, it looks like Durnan did an excellent job with the selection process.” He nodded toward the gates where nearly two dozen people were waiting.

“Good morning, milord!” Everyone said in unison when Regis and Tristan arrived.

“Morning everyone. Are you ready for today?”

“Yes, sir!” The cheerful reply resounded.

“Good. Before we head out, I want to make a few things clear. We will form into three-person groups. I don’t want anyone to steal the others’ target. You will move together and decide on who gets the kill before you attack. Hopefully, everyone will have at least one boar by noon. After that, we will head back here. Is everything thing clear?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Good. Double-check your equipment. We leave in five minutes.”

“I guess this is my queue to leave,” Tristan remarked as he stepped back. “I wish you good luck for your hunt.”

“Thanks. We’ll do our best.” Regis nodded.

Roughly five minutes after the steward left, the hunting party headed out toward the forest splitting into two groups, which in turn further split into smaller teams once inside the forest. Regis teamed up with Durnan and Beah, one of the recent additions to the guards.

Beah took point as the scout, moving soundlessly in the thick forest foliage. Durnan was a bit less subtle with his clunky crossbow while the spell weaver only carried his magic staff. Beah raised her hand at the first sign of movement, a small group of wild rabbits rushing by in the undergrowth in front of them.

“Wonder what spooked them so much.” She whispered, her question soon being answered as a thick and bristly furred wild board broke through the shrubbery.

It was quite a large beast, a glowing red sigil visible on its neck.

“Is that…”

“That’s most likely Druig’s mark.” The spell weaver confirmed.

“I’ll take care of this one.” Durnan said as he aimed his crossbow at the beast, the iron-tipped bolt bursting through the boar’s skull a moment later.

“Damn,” the dwarf cussed. “I still can’t get used to how deadly this thing became after you enchanted it.”

“That was kind of the point.” Regis hummed as he looked at the green runes on the arms of the crossbow.

“Just give me a minute to hang it up and we can continue forward.” The arbelist noted as he pulled out some rope from his knapsack, tying the boar's hind legs together before pulling it up on a nearby tree.

“I just hope we’ll find it on our way back.”

“You don’t have to worry about that, sir,” Beah reassured him. “I can easily lead us back on the same path we take inward to the forest.”

“Alright, let’s get going then.”

The trio headed out once more, trudging through the forest for nearly an hour before they came across a group of five boars, two of which had faintly glowing markings on their side.

“I’ll take out the one on the left,” Regis whispered to Beah. “You take care of the one on the right.”

“Understood, sir.”

“We attack on three. One. Two. Three.”

As the word resounded, both an arrow and the crystal bullet shot through the air toward their respective targets. The boars didn’t even have time to squeal before they dropped dead, spooking the rest of the small herd that scurried the way.

“Nice shot.” The dark elf complimented the scout as he walked over to gather what little Amaranth the boar would grant him.

Durnan quickly tied and pulled the boars up at the nearby tree, prompting them to move on. In the following hours, they managed to hunt down seven more such beasts, each one being harder to find than the one before.

“We should head back.” Beah said as she looked at the sun above the green canopy of the forest.

“I think we managed to get quite a few of them,” Durnan remarked. “But we’ll have to either come back for them or send someone over.”

“I can lead a few guards back here to gather the boars. I doubt the wolves could climb high enough to reach the carcasses.” Beah offered.

“You do that,” Regis nodded. “As for this one, we can tie it to a rod and bring it back.”

Saying that, they looked around to find a straight enough branch that could serve their need, cutting and cleaning it of leaves before tying the dead boar’s legs to it, Beah stood at the front, leading the group while Durnan pulled one end of the rod over his shoulder. Regis simply held the other end in an elbow lock to keep it somewhat in level. Their way back to the entrance of the forest was a slow one, the sun fully reaching the top of the sky by the time diminished to get clear of the last tree.

“Welcome back, milord!” Some of the other hunters greeted him cheerfully while standing beside their small piles of boar carcasses.

“Good job everyone. I see today’s culling was quite a successful one.”

“There had been a total of forty-three boars reported.” Tristan stated from the side, earning a slight nod from the spell weaver.

“Could you fellas go back into the forest with Beah to bring out the rest of our spoils? We had to leave quite a few of them behind. As for you, Tristan. Please add ten to the record.”