Grandmaster Lancel was well aware of how much of a disruption his actions were to the army’s ability to function. However, he knew it needed to be done. For too long he’d allowed things to get out of hand. With the war with the kobalds and the threat of the density shift, he could no longer turn a blind eye. Politics and personal interest had infested his beloved order, and he would no longer stand for it.

  Waving away the hologram displaying the investigators' most recent efforts to audit the army’s command staff, he said, “I agree. Have the commanders, captains, and sergeants in question brought in? If any of them hesitate to cooperate with you, immediately put them on administrative leave and contact the Tower of Law. I’ve arranged for a force of guards to aid you in bringing them in quickly.”

  One of the investigators asked somewhat nervously, “Grandmaster, are you sure it’s necessary to involve the guard? The army should be able to handle this internally.”

  Snorting in annoyance, the grandmaster’s gigantic frame turned to address the investigator. “That’s the point. We can no longer treat ourselves as something outside the city’s control. Our thoughts that we are somehow better than those we protect have led us to where we are, and we need to address that failure in logic. And we need to do it as soon as possible. Too many threats are outside our walls for us to continue with this type of foolishness.”

  The investigators all bowed in understanding before hurrying away to complete his orders. If there was one thing he knew, it was how to leverage his size and reputation for his desired effect. He was a living legend to these young people, many of them barely out of their first century. While every one of them may be considered a talent and had a long life ahead of them, he very rarely was able to take them seriously.

  Turning away from his desk, the grandmaster walked over to the window and stared out over the city that he’d dedicated his life to protecting. When he’d first taken up the position of grandmaster, he’d known it would be difficult to act as the figurehead and moral compass of the local order. Only in the rarest of circumstances would the law allow him to act directly. His level and personal power were just too disproportionate when compared to the average citizen. In truth, his purpose was not to fight, but to build a force that could protect the citizenry. It was a noble and thankless task, but one he had been willing to give his all to.

  But, over time, he’d retreated too far into that mindset of distance. Just because he couldn’t raise his sword against Dorchester’s enemies didn’t mean that he couldn’t contribute. He could do more than train the recruits and oversee the nominations. When he first built up the order here, he’d been involved. Now, he couldn’t help but look back and wonder why he’d ever stopped paying close attention to the military juggernaut he’d built with his own two hands.

  Shaking away the guilt and shame of having failed in his duty, he returned to his desk to continue his work. Reopening the holograms, he skillfully went through the various updates and evaluations he’d ordered to be done. He could tell that the army’s efficiency was currently abysmal, and he needed to personally take a hand in fixing what his reforms had broken.

  Sending out orders for transfers, he did what he could to alleviate the pressure Commander Dahl was currently facing. While he couldn’t stop the nobles from contacting the man, he could put up barriers between them. More sub-commanders and aides to handle the logistics behind the scenes, and skilled resource managers to facilitate supply purchases.

  Receiving an alert from his link, he noticed that it was almost time for the meeting between House Walker, the dwarves, and the command staff. It was a meeting he fully intended to oversee as both the situation with the dwarves and the kingdom’s newest unique, Lord Walker, were matters he was deeply interested in.

  Lord Walker in particular was a young man whom he found most interesting. Barely awakened, and already stirring up the hearts and minds of the city. He’d watched the young man’s battles through memory engrams of soldiers who’d been nearby, and he could tell that he was something special. While not especially skilled in either magic or swordsmanship, he was incredibly effective.

  It had been amusing to watch the young lord spectacularly fail to join a simple shielding spell while later being able to heal and resuscitate soldiers as though his center were endless. His skills were nothing short of a contradiction that defied accepted logic. It was no wonder that evaluators had been dispatched by the Royal Academy to watch over him. And that spell Lord Walker used to decimate the kobalds at the end of the battle, he’d never in his long life seen anything like it. Especially not from someone so young and so inexperienced. The effect, while not as widespread as what the Populators had accomplished, reminded him of the fighting during the rebellion.

  Lord Walker truly was an interesting young man. That was not even considering his natural ability to bolster morale and inspire confidence among the troops. Despite being busy, the grandmaster had made sure to free up some time to experience the memories of the young man’s multiple speeches to his followers, trying to understand Lord Walker’s mind. But, just like the young lord’s contradictory skill levels, and surprising successes, it was difficult for him to figure out what kind of man the young lord truly was.

  From what the grandmaster could tell, the young lord was both selfish and compassionate in equal measure. He disdained authority but demanded respect. He called himself an adventurer and invited people to follow him along his path, all the while emphasizing that they should primarily look out for themselves. The underlying theme of working together to survive and flourish was never explicitly stated but wove itself into everything he said. It reminded him of the foundations of the kingdom… working together for personal benefit.

  He had to admit, he was looking forward to seeing what the young man was capable of in the coming war. At the very least, it should prove to be exciting to watch.

  After taking a moment to make sure his armor and gear were in place, he strode toward the door to make his way to the command center. It was rare for him to be this excited for a meeting.

  —--

  After summarily deciding not to think about Ms. Davis, his upcoming brow-beating by Cathleen and Vera, and everything else that should be emotionally weighing him down, Nero stretched his arms out wide and released the tension his body had accumulated from his hours of sitting. Turning away from the door, he walked further into his massive bedroom, once again marveling at how the former owner had chosen to decorate it. There were too many couches and cushy seats, too many coffee and end tables, and too many ‘little’ areas for groups of people to gather and relax. That’s not even considering the ridiculously large bed raised up in the center of the room on a pedestal.

  ‘There is absolutely no reason for a bed to require stairs,’ he thought to himself with a smile, shaking his head at the absurdity of the situation he found himself in.

  Walking toward the closest couch cluster to his bed, he pulled the strap of his ever-present magic satchel off his shoulder, tossing it carelessly onto the couch he’d chosen to use as his clothes hamper. He then began stripping off his armor to get ready for bed. While doing so, he mentally congratulated himself for his maturity in going to bed early.

  While he shouldn’t have been surprised that Vera or Nick had alerted his staff to his preference for sleeping more than the culturally accepted 4 to 6 hours, he did find Ms. Davis’ lack of questioning the habit endearing. She really was some sort of ‘super-nanny’.

  Besides, he shouldn’t feel bad about his desire for a good night's sleep. It was them who the ones who were crazy. What kind of society limits their sleep to only the bare minimum? They have 30-hour days, and they prefer to take advantage of the extra time by getting more work done. It was insane.

  As far as he was concerned, no amount of stars or essence infusions could make up for that kind of loss of sleep. Despite the superhuman nature of their bodies, they were still human, and humans required sleep. Good, healthy, thoroughly enjoyable sleep. And he was a genius for recognizing that.

  Hitting his bathroom before bed, he decided to take advantage of the amenities and enjoy a shower in the ‘rain-room’. While continuing to think about how successful he was at ‘adulting’, he luxuriated in the clean feeling of being under the warm water. He even took the time to utilize all the little soaps, shampoos, conditioners, and oils that were arranged along the little nooks on the walls. None of them were labeled, so he had to do some experimenting, but eventually he figured it out.

  By the time he was done his fingers were all ‘pruney’, but he smelled wonderfully… like sandalwood and musk… probably. He wasn’t exactly sure what sandalwood or musk actually smelled like, but he was sure that the scents were manly. Whoever had stocked the place definitely took his gender into account and made sure that none of the toiletries smelled like flowers. Their professionalism earned Nero’s seal of approval, demonstrated by double finger guns and a grin at the soap-filled shelf.

  When he was finished handling all of his business in the bathroom, he returned to the bedroom with a towel wrapped around his waist and another over his shoulders. Glancing down at the couch he’d filled with his discarded armor, he bent down and picked his link back up.

  Looking curiously at the device, he muttered, “Might not be a bad idea to see what the news has to say about the dwarves and stuff.”

  Draping his wet towels over the edge of the coffee table to dry, he pulled out some sleepwear he’d ‘appropriated’ from his time at the Center. While he preferred sleeping in the nude, the last thing he wanted to deal with in the morning was a repeat of Ms. Davis seeing him getting out of bed in the buff. Once he was dressed and ready for bed, he climbed up the stairs and wiggled his way onto his disturbingly large mattress.

  Successfully ensconced under the covers, he sighed heavily and reached out to the link he’d placed under his pillow. Choosing to bypass the estate’s Thought Hub, he connected with the city’s. Like before, it was filled with a plethora of information in text form. He sent his mind deeper into the connection, letting his desire for information guide his search.

  He arbitrarily picked a few posts to watch that seemed interesting, learning about how the press releases for the dwarves arrival were being handled and how the common Joe on the street seemed to feel about their new guests. He was happy to see that there wasn’t any sign of racism or outrage, if anything there was some polite interest and hope for collaboration. There were numerous educational videos developed by people who wanted to explore the differences between humans and dwarves, along with historical programs describing the two species' interactions over the millennia. Nero found tons of interesting things to explore and enjoyed his time on the Thought Hub immensely.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  He found himself wondering more and more about how they measured time here and subsequently found himself watching some educational programs about how they estimated the date. To him, he found it eerily similar to what he was used to, but also completely different. They reset the starting date of their calendar whenever a new king came to power, and everything beforehand became less-than-firm in the records. So, by today’s date, he could tell that the current King had been in power for 643 years. With a little more searching, he found the king was 853 years old, and obviously most likely pretty powerful.

  He found the way they labeled their dates rather straightforward. First came the day, then the month, and then the year. After which, they’ll add another ‘.’ then how many years back they want to describe. For example, today’s date is 6.4.643 and is the current measure of the ‘now’. Every year before 643 is described by adding another ‘.’ then how many years back the person describing that point of time wants to portray. So, two thousand years ago would be 6.4.643.2000. Even the scholarly types never got more accurate than that.

  He’d already had the concept of their wonky time measurements sort of explained to him, so he wasn’t all that surprised to see their system being so lax on the details. He did however end up watching a rather intense lecture on temporal estimation and change by some uptight woman from the local center research department. She sounded like she knew what she was talking about, so he ended up taking most of what she said as the truth. While he couldn’t wholly accept the idea that what happened in the past was not exactly set in stone, he could sort of understand how it could happen with all of reality being made up of essence, which he knew was pretty malleable.

  After some time floating through the information superhighway, he felt his thoughts getting fuzzy. The sensation had him thinking about getting some Mountain Dew from the fridge.

  Suddenly ripping his mind away from the video on ‘archaeological sites that don’t correspond to accepted history’, he sat up in bed with a shocked look on his face. ‘What the hell! Did I just waste half of my night doomscrolling the local internet? Son of a bitch!’ he mentally chided himself.

  Checking the mental world clock in his head, he realized if he went to sleep right now, he’d only be getting 5 hours of sleep. Rubbing his hands over his tired eyes, he mumbled, “I can NOT fall back into the habit of playing with my phone before bed.”

  Pulling his link out from under his pillow, he tossed it in the general direction of his clothes couch. He’d deal with it in the morning.

  Angrily punching his pillow a few times to fluff it up, he curled up in a ball and forced himself to go to sleep. His mind still felt a little tired from all the time he’d spent on his link, and he couldn’t stop thinking about how he seemed to be able to be on his much longer than someone his level should. ‘Just another way in which I’m awesome, and probably another subject Jennings will end up using to rip apart my understanding of reality,’ he thought to himself, before huffing in annoyance and trying to clear his mind.

  Eventually, he did get to sleep and luckily didn’t suffer any of the weird delving dreams he’d been having lately. Either his mind had been too tired to send itself out on an exploratory mission of the ether, or he’d just been lucky.

  Regardless, morning came, and with it came Ms. Davis.

  Feeling his shoulder gently shaken, Nero woke up to see her standing over the edge of his bed with that polite and motherly smile she always wore.

  “Good morning, my lord. Ms. Averett, Lord and Lady Verena, and Knight Angleton are awaiting your presence in parlor 12,” she said professionally.

  Blinking away the last of his sleep, Nero tried to mentally catch up with what she was saying. ‘Why did they label everything with numbers? It was like a society suffering from Asperger’s syndrome,’ he thought to himself in annoyance.

  Muttering with a gruff and scratchy voice, he said, “Alright, I’ll be ready in a minute.”

  Forcing himself out of bed, he stumbled past her to the bathroom. He needed coffee… badly.

  After taking care of his business, he returned to the bedroom to find Ms. Davis standing still standing there with her hands folded in front of her and with that same smile on her face. His armor had been neatly laid out on the table nearby and the towels were nowhere to be found. Also on the table were his satchel and his link, everything laid out as if it were on display.

  Realizing that he hadn’t thought through having to get changed, he looked up at her and said, “Um… you can just wait outside. I’ll be right there.”

  After giving him a quick bow, she left the room without a word.

  Quickly getting dressed, Nero took the time to cast a cleaning spell over his armor and clothing. He wasn’t sure if most people rotated the clothes they wore under their armor, but he didn’t have enough spare clothes to worry about it at the moment.

  Rushing toward the door, he took one last look at his ridiculous bedroom and shook his head at the fact that he was now living here.

  Seeing Ms. Davis patiently waiting for him, he gestured for her to lead the way.

  As they walked, she didn’t offer any conversation, seemingly happy to let him wake up at his own pace. Nero was grateful for the consideration, and once again mentally confirmed her status as his super-nanny.

  In no time at all, he found himself sitting at a large breakfast table with the people Ms. Davis had told him were waiting for him. Pouring himself a cup of gloriously hot coffee, he muttered, “Good morning everybody. I hear we have a meeting with brass to decide where we’ll be deploying. Isn’t Ms. Keening supposed to be coming with us?”

  Vera immediately took control of the conversation. “She’ll be there at the meeting. Right now we need to discuss the repercussions of you brusquely dismissing the nobility from your halls after the ceremony. Many houses are expressing their dissatisfaction with your unwarranted hostility.”

  Seeing the rest of the table nodding along with her, Nero frowned in annoyance. “So what? The point was to get the dwarves off our back and onto theirs. Mission accomplished.”

  Cathleen set down her cup of juice and said, “It’s not that simple. While House Walker is outside of the local political structure, you do have ties here. Your actions and how you interact with the nobility may spell doom for House Verena and your local assets. If the houses choose to, they can economically crush us, and after the restrictions on noble wars are lifted they could wipe us out… well, House Verena that is.”

  Raising his eyebrows in surprise, he replied, “I thought the whole thing with me being a unique meant that I wasn’t in danger of any of that?”

  Nick chimed in, “YOU are not. Your house is not. However, whatever local powerbase you build IS. If you continue to act at odds with the local nobility, you’ll find that House Walker’s power here will be extremely limited. And on a personal note, I hope you consider what that will mean for Vera and me, along with all the people here in Dorchester who have chosen to follow you.”

  Now completely awake, Nero snatched up a Danish from the table and demanded with a scowl, “OK. So what now? Should I make some sort of public apology or something? Is there a way to build up my political connections to make our position stronger?”

  Before anyone could respond, he threw the Danish onto the plate in front of him and dramatically sighed. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t know it would be that big of a deal. I didn’t mean to make trouble for any of you. You’re all my closest allies and friends here. If you need anything, you just have to ask. If you want me to meet with every noble in Dorchester and beg them to forgive me, I will. You guys know what needs to be done, and I’m more than willing to follow whatever you recommend.”

  Vera, surprised to see Nero acting so reasonably, replied, “Well, an apology at this point is not necessary. You did agree to cooperate with the council of leadership over the issue of the mountain’s providence. As long as we handle the information releases well, I think on that front we’ll be fine. The important thing is that going forward you treat the nobility with the respect they deserve. As a new lord, you’re expected to have some difficulty adjusting, so your actions may be accepted as a matter of your youth and ignorance.”

  Knight Angleton added, “Considering that they won’t be able to act against House Verena directly until the density shift passes, we have some time to prepare.”

  Vera focused on Nero with an intense look and said, “I’ll be decreasing how much support House Verena is giving to House Walker. Raising our local forces will be our focus. You’ll have to make do with what I’m able to provide.”

  Nero, not having any idea of his current finances, simply asked, “Is House Walker in any danger of not having enough money to pay our current bills?”

  Cathleen replied, “No, we’ll still be running at a slight profit. But any further growth will have to wait for now.”

  Nero shrugged, perfectly fine with that. The house had already grown far more than he was comfortable with. “So, just to be clear. I don’t have to make a public apology for kicking those assholes out or anything? You guys are handling it?”

  Vera bit back a slight snort of amusement. “Yes, my lord. We’re handling it. We’ll let you know if you need to do anything.”

  Nero nodded, happy to have cleverly dodged a haranguing by pretending to take responsibility for his actions and proactively admitting his mistakes. It was always a good idea to profess shame and metaphorically show his belly to women who were pissed… arguing would lead to nothing but delaying the inevitable apology. And it didn’t just work on women, it worked on anyone in authority. He’d learned the valuable technique as a child, and it had served him very well in all manner of confrontations.

  Picking his Danish back up and taking a bite, he asked with his mouth full, “So, now that the political shenanigans are handled, let’s talk about our upcoming fight with the kobalds. We’re meeting with army command to determine where we’re going to be fighting, right? So, how many troops do we have now, and when can we head into the mountain?”

  Cathleen replied first, sounding just as eager to get back to the fighting as he was. “We first have to determine what kind of support we’ll be getting from the army now that the general has been removed from his position. Our meeting will be with Commander Dahl and his staff. He’s been leading the fight against the kobalds from the start, and he’ll be the one we’ll be working with.”

  Vera added in a serious tone, “Not just him. I’ve been alerted to the fact that the dwarves have requested to join our meeting. While I don’t know why, I do know that dwarves are known to revel in war. They’ll likely be providing their own forces for the upcoming assault on the mountain city.”

  Nero waved a hand dismissively. “The more the merrier. But what happened to the general? You said he was removed from his position?”

  Knight Angleton replied with a grim smile, “Yes. The grandmaster of the Knights of Oglivarch personally charged him with several counts of dereliction of duty among other things. His friends in the nobility have already abandoned him, and he’ll be lucky to keep his head.”

  Nero shrugged and replied, “Huh. Well, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. Maybe in his next life, he won’t be such an asshole.”

  Nick leaned over the table and said in annoyance, “Nero, that’s not how it works. After a person dies their mind is sent-”

  Nero interrupted him with a thrown Danish, hitting him squarely in the face with the pastry. “Nick! What have I told you about lectures before I’ve finished my breakfast!?!”

  Nick, calmly wiping the crumbs from his face and placing the squashed Danish off to the side replied with a smirk, “No lectures that can ruin your concept of reality until you’ve finished your morning coffee.”

  Nero nodded happily, shooting Nick a finger gun. “That’s right. Besides, it’s just a saying. Nobody expects the guy to actually learn anything from his mistakes. That would be just crazy. Now, tell me what I need to know about the meeting we’re going to. As a contracted mercenary leader, I don’t want to look like an idiot in front of my new boss.”

  Vera, sitting there with a slight smile on her face began, “Well, Commander Dahl has been with the army for over 130 years. He got his start serving…”

  As she went on and on about the who’s who in the army and what they’d likely be discussing during the meeting, Nero enjoyed his breakfast while listening closely. He’d soon be back in the thick of things, and he didn’t want to leave a political mess for Vera and whoever was staying topside to clean up… at least not another one.