Morning came sooner than expected for Rocko and Phil. The transfer to living in the castle came as a major adjustment to everyone, but no one was enjoying it more than these two. They both stood to gain the most, seeing as they had the most pathetic shack of a house in Heroca to begin with.

Their house in Heroca never burned. Maybe it was from pity, or maybe it was from the fact it hardly looked any more than a toolshed to begin with, but the fire elemental who raided the town never bothered wasting his embers on their humble abode.

Phil and Rocko hardly had any possessions of their own, and like Marin had ordered, they spent most of the time yesterday assisting others in moving items. The only valuables they had in their house that needed moved up was Nocturne’s own furniture.

Since everyone used horse drawn carts to haul everything up, they had it all loaded into a cart in one go. It sure beat using a small sled to perform several trips.

The two slept in a room furthest down the hallway. When they heard the voices and stirring of the villagers down the hall, they walked out.

“What will we do today?” Phil asked quietly to Rocko.

“I don’t know. Let’s go see Loid.”

As they walked down the hallway, Rocko brushed his beard into a more orderly state as he did every morning. He fixed a winter cap that was crooked on his head.

Phil had sandy blonde hair that appeared to be cut within ten seconds by a rusty sword. It was in terrible shape as it was most mornings from sleeping on it wrong.

Most villagers they passed would hardly acknowledge them if it was not for Rocko’s bulky build. He stuck out as a bone-skinny Phil narrowly followed behind him. Following the hall towards the grand foyer, Rocko poked his head into the first room.

Loid was tying his shoes on an aged oak dining room chair.

“Good to see you boys up,” he mentioned without breaking eye contact with his shoe. “How did you both sleep?”

Phil had a bad dream but other than that, there was nothing out of the ordinary. Loid finished and with both shoes on the ground, approached them and put a hand on the both their outside shoulders.

“Are you excited to be here?” He asked with fatherly concern.

They both nodded.

“I’ll mostly have you two cleaning up today. You’ll go room to room, removing debris and hauling anything broken out into the grand foyer for inspection. Let’s have some breakfast and we will get started soon.”

Breakfast would not be anything impressive, seeing as the kitchen was in no shape yet to be preparing anything. That would change by the end of the day, seeing as Loid was about to let loose a cleaning-happy elderly woman into the scullery like a wolf unchained to devour a rabbit.

In the grand foyer, Loid worked with a few other villagers to start handing out bread that was a few days old, along with salted bacon. Snow from outside was melted into drinking water. Everyone stood while eating, conversing about how they slept and what today would bring.

A moment or two later, the dark-blue robed king made his appearance from a staircase directly below the tarnished golden cross on the wall. Marin descended down the staircase with a thick bundle of wrinkled papers.

A few other villagers’ heads turned, some waved, but most made no action towards his approach.

“Should we get someone to announce your arrival? Maybe set some proper etiquette for when you enter a room?” Loid asked after Marin joined him. The King’s citizens didn’t make much of an effort to hail the king.

“Heavens, no. This isn’t Fairgoth. I’m not that type of King. I’m more than happy to be in the background. And I don’t think it would bode well for my ego. The way it is now keeps me humble.”

“And you’re not one for formalities,” Loid reminded himself.

“Indeed. King or Marin, or King Marin. Let’s keep it simple.”

Loid lowered his head. “Right, right. Well then perhaps I should-”

“No. Please continue to call me Sullivan. I would feel quite lonely without that exception made for you.”

Loid was humbled. “Well, that can stay between you and me.” He took a bite of his bread as he looked onto the citizens in the foyer also eating.

“What have you got there?” Loid finally asked, referring to the papers in Marin’s hand.

“These…” Marin leafed through the twenty-some papers. “Are all the tasks I want accomplished. Stuff that you can handle. I have a few things here I’m giving to Helva.” The king peeled the last few pages off, and handed the rest to Loid.

Loid took one more bite of dried bacon, and started skimming through the paper work.

“Oh wow,” he reacted at some of the requests. He flipped through several pages.

“I’ll remind you that more funds can always be withdrawn.”

“This is going to be a huge under taking,” Loid stated.

“I’m just as excited to see the results.” Marin looked over the citizens as Loid had, and watched them eat food that he could never eat again.

“Until this castle is in proper working order, everyone here is tasked to those papers,” he added. “You are in charge of them all. You will also have to hire outside workers to perform some of the requests. We need wood carvers, artists, masons… Other skilled laborers.

Pay them generously. Give them a good tip for outstanding work.”

“Understood.”

“Run all orders and payments through Harrel. I’ve set up an office for him and his wife on the upper floor.”

After the castle denizens finished their breakfast meal, they circled around Marin and Loid who stood in the center. Marin addressed them all, and shared plans for the day and for the next few weeks. He explained that all work would be centered around restoring Nocturne before specific long term occupations are given out.

He reminded them all that in addition to the new rooms, furnishings, and free meals that would be provided, they would also receive weekly payment for being employed in the castle.

Rocko and Phil found this quite to their liking. Never before had they been given so much.

Marin described the castle to a tee to the villagers, letting them know what was on each floor. He explained where Helva’s office would be. Marin informed them that Loid knew where items for the castle would be stored, and stated that the papers in the former innkeeper’s hands had instructions for it all.

When the meeting was finished, Marin waved Phil and Rocko over.

“How are things for the both of you?”

“Good, excellent, my king,” Rocko stated.

“I never thought I’d be living here one day,” Phil mentioned. “All those times we stol-” Rocko stepped on Phil’s foot before he could say anything stupid. This came at incredible pain to Phil, seeing as Rocko was quite the big man.

“Well, we’re past those times, aren’t we Phil?” Marin asked, who still caught on to what Phil was saying before Rocko tried shutting him down.

Phil nodded rapidly, as he hung his foot in the air.

“Just do as Loid says and I’ll make sure you both see some coin. Enough so you won’t have to take from anyone else again. Does that sound favorable?”

“You are very kind, King Marin,” Rocko exclaimed.

“Very kind!” Phil struggled.

At that moment, a new cart entered the foyer from the large entrance. It was Bob Galrus and his family. The cart was swollen with goods. Bob piped out some commands to his horses and they stopped.

“King Marin!” He greeted.

Marin approached with Loid walking up behind him.

“Bob! How did your trip go?” The King asked.

One of Bob’s children undid the rope over the cart. When the rope was untied, it released a tarp that fell to the side, exposing large amounts of food and supplies. A few other citizens gathered around at the sight.

“I had enough money from you to buy more than what was needed. We have enough food here to cook for nearly a month. I also bought various tools and wares that we may need.”

Erma Galrus was commanding her children to unload the cart. Plump fruits, vegetables, and fat haunches of meat were being handed off. In the cart was also clothes, towels, cooking utensils, blankets and pillows, and a slew of other quality of life items.

“You did well, Galrus,” Marin declared.

“Ah… well…” Bob tipped his hat a bit and shuffled his feet. “Just getting’ what I thought would be important.”

“Loid will be in charge of divvying this up. If you have any questions about it, let him know. I’ve placed him in charge of restoring the castle.”

“Yes, my King,” Bob responded.

Marin turned to Loid.

“I’m heading up to the offices with Harrel and Helva,” he mentioned. “We have paperwork to complete. I’ll leave you to it.”

Loid gave a nod, and Marin walked off.

“What did you end up doing?” Loid asked Bob.

“Well, we took off down the mountain. Spent the whole day purchasing everything from Whitewood’s bulk stores. Speaking of which, that bag he gave me was all gold coins. Did you know that? It was a tremendous amount of money.”

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Loid thought to the huge bag of gold in his room, making the pouch Bob was given comparably minuscule.

“He was not bluffing when he said he had the finances covered,” Loid responded.

“I guess! Anyways when we were loaded up, we headed back up the mountain. It was really late by the time we got to Heroca, so we decided to stay there. We ran into Fern Coronga who was staying there for the night too.”

Loid nodded. “Is Fern doing well?”

“Yeah. Big plans for a new path up to the castle, he said. Early in the morning I wished him luck as my family made the last of the trip up here.”

Loid looked over the notes Marin assigned him with, then back at Bob.

“You mind doing a few more trips?” Loid tried.

Bob gave a look of no issue. “I run imports, its what I do. You got a new list for me?”

Loid discussed several items on the papers and asked him about the best way to acquire the materials. He discussed several orders with him and told Bob to commission some artisans in Whitewood City who could work on the castle.

They hovered over the papers, both reading what Marin had written to be done. Finances had to be sorted. They both guessed a rough estimate of how much money they would need.

There are three materials of coin made. Copper coins, silver coins, and gold coins. There are one hundred copper coins to one silver coin, and likewise silver to gold.

“The best of their craft easily charge 75 silver an hour for their work,” Bob explained. “Some, even up to a whole gold piece. We are talking a small army of them, combined with hundreds of hours of work. Combined with the materials needed…”

Bob took a breath. “These requests will cost several thousand gold.”

“We have it,” Loid said with little effort.

“You have it?!” Bob spat out.

“Go through with it all. Hire all the men we need,” Loid stated without looking up from the papers.

From there, Loid and Bob traveled to the offices where they wrote up what kind of workers they would hire and how many of them. They also wrote requests for materials needed.

Loid also re-homed the large bag of gold to the office as well. Harrel and Bob gawked at it for a while, staring nearly in disbelief. Bob was sent off back down the mountain with orders in hand, while his family stayed behind to work in the castle.

Helva also gave Bob several letters that needed to be mailed out. Heroca’s courier had decided to not join the Nocturne Kingdom, so until a new one was assigned, Bob took on the mail as well.

“I need someone to show me where the kitchen is,” Sherry asked Loid as he conversed with other villagers.

Loid knew roughly where it was, but he was caught up in giving instructions. There were two other people, though, who knew the castle very well, and could help her.

“Rocko. Phil.”

They gave their attention to Loid.

“I know exactly what you’re going to do today. Take Sherry to the kitchen. Help her clean it.”

“The kitchen?” Phil asked.

“Yes. I’ve decided that’s what I’ll have you do for the time being. You both know the castle very well due to… spending time up here. So help her out.”

Rocko and Phil led Sherry down a hallway.

She was in her sixties, but had the endurance of one in their forties. She slowly hobbled as she moved. Despite this, Sherry could seemingly continue to work and never move slower. She was always in low gear. Slow moving, but reliable.

The two younger men had to slow their pace down as Sherry huffed to keep up with them.

“Now listen to me you two rascals,” she breathed out. “We’re going to look this kitchen over and see what we’re dealing with. Loid let me know the King was alright to let me prepare the kitchen as I see fit. So we’re going to do just that.”

As they approached the kitchen, Sherry tied her apron over her barrel body. The three of them stared at two wooden doors that were shut.

“Is this it?” She asked.

“Yeah. The doors weren’t shut before…” Rocko noticed.

“Well let’s go in,” she commanded.

Phil grabbed the handle and yanked on it with his bony arms. The door didn’t budge. It was as if Phil’s attempt was no more in strength than a kite tied to the door handle, hoping that the pull generated from it blowing in the wind would be enough to get the door open.

“Out of the way,” Rocko said as his meaty arm grabbed the door. It flew open with a single jerk.

They both walked in with Sherry following behind.

Her mouth gaped open as she studied the large, extended room. It was the largest kitchen she had ever been in. She might have been even more impressed if it wasn’t in such an abysmal state.

“Dirty… so dirty!” She exclaimed. “I mean, it’s huge. It’s the greatest kitchen I’ve ever seen. But its disgusting!”

A coat of dust covered everything. Pots and pans were scattered all over the floor. Cabinets were left swung open, old food shriveled to a dry husk.

Sherry noticed the chandeliers above that hung from the ceiling, which were able to hold a glass encased flame.

“Phil, go back and get some lamps. We are going to light this place up.”

Phil took off.

“Ugh, I can’t believe this place. I’ve never seen a kitchen in such a terrible state!” Her face showed a large amount of disgust as she picked up a pot. She forced her hands to grab it as they fought back from touching the black grime that it was covered in.

“Disgusting! Filthy! So… filth…” Her words trailed off as she studied the pot. Her hands did not seem so allergic to the cooking tool anymore. She flipped it over, and rubbed the grime away from the engraved seal at the bottom.

“This… this is stainless! This is steel! This here…!” She looked over the handles. She moved the pot up and down in her hands as if she was weighing it.

“This is here is thee highest quality you can get in a pot!” She flipped it over several more times, inspecting every inch.

“Rocko! Hand me that skillet over yonder!” She placed the pot down as Rocko grabbed a frying pan with a long handle.

Before he gave it to her, she saw a large spider web in the pan. Sherry cowardly waved her hands at it.

“Get that web out of there!” She commanded.

Rocko easily grabbed it all with his bare hand, as if it didn’t bother him an ounce. She took the skillet, and started inspecting it. She studied the handle, the bolts at the head of the pan, the material itself.

“Amazing. You couldn’t buy better kitchenware!” She got up and started lifting every pot and pan she could find. Every item she inspected brought a larger smile to her face.

After a few minutes, she turned to Rocko who was still standing there with no idea what she would ask for next.

“What are you standing there for?! Go and get me a dozen cleaning rags. Bring soap! Get mops and scrub brushes. We have a kitchen to clean!”

Rocko and Phil had never been in the back of the inn at Heroca where the kitchen was. They had never seen Sherry work before. Her slow hobble as she moved was quite deceiving, they were finding out. Once she put the gloves on and grabbed a pot with soap, she moved like a machine.

Phil had finished installing the lamps on the chandeliers. Rocko was doing all he could to keep up with her cleaning.

“Grab me this, grab me that!” Sherry barked out as the two moved to meet her demands.

She had Phil scrub every inch of the kitchen while Rocko grabbed every piece of rotten trash he could find. Sherry dirtied rag after rag, which gave Phil a break from the scrubbing sometimes to replace the ones she had used.

Sherry began cranking out clean dishes. She started stacking them on a counter top that was now spotless.

“Do you two have any special meals you want made?” Sherry tried as she was bent over in a chair washing a pan.

“Hmm, fish. I love filleted fish. With wild rice! That would sound really good right about now,” Rocko said back, carrying a large stack of solid metal pots to a counter.

“This kitchen is so big, you could make anything you’d want in here,” Phil mentioned over the sound of a brush scrubbing under a counter.

“Its starting to look a lot better in here, isn’t it? You boys are some hard workers” Sherry proudly stated while stretching her back and looking around.

“Thank you, ma’am,” Rocko replied.

“It’s about lunch time. Let’s take a break and get something to eat in the foyer,” she declared, flipping a damp hand towel over her shoulder.

“That sounds good.”

Meanwhile, King Marin and Helva sat in an office together, discussing records that Marin had dredged up.

“This here says that Nocturne was declared a sovereign kingdom by RAM in 608. Is that correct?” Helva asked Marin.

The King lounged in a chair opposite from Helva’s desk.

“Yes, that is the right year. Is RAM still the world’s government? Has it remained unchallenged all this time?”

Helva’s lips tightened as she pondered the question. She had to keep reminding herself that Marin was from a different era now. He was nearly three hundred years old at this point, if you count the time he laid resting dead.

“Some time in the 780’s they nearly got overthrown, and had to restructure to become much more loose in their ruling,” Helva informed Marin to the best of her knowledge.

“Really?” Marin was taken back. “RAM was very freedom oriented. That’s what those letters stood for. Freedom. I find it hard to believe they progressed to a more draconian state over the course of that time.”

“You’d be surprised what some individuals can do to a ruling body over the course of a few centuries,” Harrel mentioned in another corner.

“Do you know much about it?” Marin asked Harrel.

“Some of my family works for RAM. Their parents were agents in RAM during the restructuring.” Harrel got up from his desk and walked over.

“You see, they started passing more and more laws. They took liberties away with the ruse that it was for safety. When both Neo and Arkana threatened retaliation, RAM had to step back and write up a whole new law book that was more akin to the way it was when they first took over.

Neo and Arkana have always been at odds, but when they were both discussing to work together to establish a new central order, RAM had no other choice but to back off.

No amount of soldiers the government could send could ever amount to the raw power that both Neo and Arkana’s strongest elementals provided.”

Marin nodded. “They had to appease the two real powers of the world.”

“Exactly.”

Helva shuffled through all the records that Marin provided her from his personal quarters. She took notes on fresh paper using fresh writing utensils that Bob Galrus had brought up.

“Well,” Helva stated behind her reading glasses. She pulled them off and put on a different pair of glasses. “The fact that we have records of Nocturne formerly being a kingdom will help us greatly. And since we’re dealing with the same government from before, they will likely have records as well.

I have mailed RAM requesting forms for reapplication. I also requested records for when Nocturne was declared no longer a kingdom, and information leading up to the event. I’m really hoping we can find some solid truth about what happened, King Marin,” she added.

“Time will tell. Thank you for working on this, Helva.”

Loid entered the office room.

“Marin, we may be able to cook from the kitchen tonight.” He stated.

“Really?” The King replied.

“Apparently you still had good quality cookware in the scullery. My wife, as well as Phil and Rocko have been hard at work preparing it. We may be able to move the food Bob brought up into the pantry and get a cooked meal late this evening.”

“That would be incredible.”

“And as you know, I have sent Bob on his way with papers requesting materials and the proper artisans for the finer work,” Loid added. “Also I’ve requested some people who will survey the castle and determine the numbers for how much furniture we will need.”

Marin was impressed. “You’ve done a great job, Loid. We’re really getting off the ground now. I can’t imagine how much we will have accomplished by the end of the week.”

Loid nodded. “Most of the citizens are taking a break right now and eating lunch. I’ll get back to it.” He left the room, leaving three of them in the office once again.

“Loid seems to really be enjoying this,” Helva stated.

“Do you think so?” Marin asked.

“I don’t think he felt completely fulfilled in running the inn when he retired to Heroca. I’m seeing a sparkle in his eye now I’ve never seen before,” she pointed out.

“Mm.” Marin turned to the doorway where Loid had just walked out moments before. He pondered it for a bit. “Perhaps this is more what he had in mind after the war. The… Harmon Wars.”

“Seeing as he was a captain at Neo, I’d say he’s good at management,” Helva mentioned from behind stacks of papers.

“I chose the right man for the job.”