Even when it became dark, the enclosed glass lamps outside the bathhouse doors glowed. They revealed a wood-paneled hall similar to many others in the manor, though this one had no windows. It was deep in the interior, with another set of double doors a way’s down that connected to the main hall through which he’d entered.
Drake was unsurprised to find Emily waiting, hands tucked behind her back, as he emerged from the bathhouse. She had done exactly as he asked, waiting by the bathhouse doors, and despite her intrusion during his bath, he had more reason to be grateful to her than he’d expected. He hadn’t ordered her to look for his old clothes.
“Thanks for the towels... and my stuff. I didn’t expect you to dig up my old clothes. I appreciate the initiative.”
She beamed with obvious pleasure. “I hoped it would please you, lord. Still, I hope you will only wear them to bed? You should wear silverweave on manor business.”
“I will. You’ve done a great job. But you can now, okay? Go do maid things.”
She visibly pouted. “I understand your orders, Lord Gloomwood, but please, could you revise them? Lydia ordered me to stand watch over you until she returned, and she’s always been very good at knowing when I should stand watch.”
“I’m fine, Emily. Seriously. Who’s going to get me way in here?”
“Assassins, lord.” She grinned suddenly. “But... I don’t have to listen to you, do I? Even if you don’t change your orders, I don’t have to do anything you say!”
He couldn’t help but chuckle at her genuine enthusiasm. “I’m not asking you to leave me entirely unguarded. I’m just asking you to give me some space. You don’t always have to be standing five feet from me at all times to keep me safe.”
“I don’t know about that, lord. I wasn’t five feet from Lord Dickcheese, and he died!”
Drake considered her a moment. “Are you sad he’s dead?”
“Not at all! He was the worst, and you, lord, are so much better. That’s why I don’t want you to get stabbed. If I listen to you instead of Lydia, and you get stabbed, she’ll be disappointed in me. And I won’t be able to go drink in Shadowfort whenever I want!”
Emily certainly had interesting priorities. “Who would even stab me in here?”
“An assassin could grab your heart with magic and make it explode. Or someone could shock you until your eyes melted. I know you’re not from this world, so you should know, there are a lot of ways you could die here. Very painful ways.”
Drake accepted his fate. He had, after all, made it exceedingly clear to Emily that she was now free to make her own decisions. If she wanted to hover over him like a mother hen, he’d simply have to put up with that until Lydia got back and... hovered less.
“It’s your call,” he admitted.
“I love that! And while we’re waiting, I do have one question about how the manor is going to work now. Now that no one has to do what you say.”
“Sure,” Drake said. “What is it?”
“How can I make people do what I say?
“Are you worried people won’t listen to you, Emily?”
“Yes, lord. The zarovians, in particular, are resistant to taking orders from your battle maids, but as your battle maids, we must command them in battle. If you aren’t going to punish them for ignoring my orders, they may not listen to me. Or Lydia or Olivia.”
“Olivia actually commands battle parties?” Drake remembered how visibly she’d trembled when he took the pile of silverweave clothes she’d brought him.
“She hasn’t commanded a battle party yet, lord. She’s relatively new to the manor. But she could, someday, or if I and the other maids get killed in battle.”
“So these zarovians are all misogynists?” That would be a massive headache to deal with, but he couldn’t exactly keep the zarovians slaves and free everyone else.
“What does that word mean, lord?”
“Guys who think they’re better than women because they’re guys.”
“Oh no, that would not describe the zarovians! Zarovian females lead the war parties and villages, and freely choose a number of virile males to service them. Males are warriors and laborers, but only females may hold power in their society.”
If that was the case, the makeup of his army seemed odd. Every single zarovian he’d encountered so far had been male. “Then why isn’t Cresh a female?”
“Lord Dickcheese only took male zarovians to serve as his manor guardians, lord. He gathered Cresh and all his zarovians from tribes across the land and had them join the blood pact, but he never gathered any females.”
“Are male zarovians better in battle?”
“No. They are equally matched.”
“Then what was the old fart thinking?”
Emily smiled. “I can only speculate as to his reasons, lord. Is that permissible?”
“Speculate away.”
“Zarovian males respect human males even less than human females.”
That explained why Cresh had seemed so dismissive of him. That, and the fact that the lizardman was twelve feet tall. “Then why didn’t Dickcheese just take a zarovian female and put her under his blood pact, and have her command the males for him? Wouldn’t that be easier?”
“I don’t know, lord.” Emily thoughtfully tapped her lips. “That does seem like it would work. Perhaps there is some limitation of the blood pact that I am unaware of?”
There might be, and no one knew what that limitation was. Fortunately for Drake, he wasn’t depending on the blood pact to keep him safe. So this wasn’t a worry... yet.
“I’m not sure how to solve the zarovian problem. If they really won’t follow your orders, I’ll think about a way to fix that and get back to you. Lydia may already have some ideas.” She had mentioned there were all sorts of logistics to be ironed out with the “free everyone” plan.
“Thank you, lord! I’m sure you two will figure something out. In the meantime, I’ll just chop whoever comes to kill you myself.”
“So... is that it for questions?”
“If I think of any more, I’ll ask!”
As Emily strode off, however, Drake remembered something. “Hey! I actually have a question for you.”
She stopped and spun to face him, smiling brilliantly. “Yes, lord?”
“What’s your rarity?”
“I can chop souls, lord.”
Drake had to consciously suppress his surprise. “Can you tell me how that works?”
“All living beings have a soul. I can see souls close to me even when I cannot see the person. For example, I see two souls on the other side of this wall. Lydia posted zarovians.”
So Emily could see people—or rather, their souls—right through solid walls. “If there are zarovians outside that door, why did Lydia post you inside here?”
“Assassins can slip into the manor at any time, lord. Zarovians are excellent at defeating physical threats, but there are many more stealthy who could slip right past them.”
“And you can see these other threats. No matter where they’re hiding or how they’re concealed. Even though a solid wall or floor, you can see their souls.”
“That is correct, lord! And I can chop them too.” Emily held out one arm as if she was planning to grab something, and a literal glowing axe appeared in her hand. It looked almost solid, bright silver, and it was huge.
“The fuck is that?” Drake whispered.
“This is Chopper, lord!”
He stared wide-eyed. “You can conjure a mystical, soul-rending battle axe out of nothing, and you named it Chopper?
“Because he chops souls.” Emily gripped the axe in both hands and whirled it around like an Olympic-level baton twirler, which was a terror to behold.
“And to be absolutely clear here,” Drake asked quietly, “that axe can literally cut souls?”
“I don’t know how it works, lord. I only know I see souls inside people, and when I cut those souls with Chopper, the person owning the soul dies, usually while screaming. It’s why the others let me handle any armored opponents.
So Emily could just... chop through... people’s souls. A fact she was apparently thrilled about, which suggested something was wrong with her on some deep mental level. Or maybe people in this world were just more used to death and murder than where he came from.
He breathed. “You and Lydia really are trying to keep me alive, aren’t you?”
She nodded fervently, which caused her short red hair to bounce. “Protecting you is our focus right now, especially when you are still so new to this role.” Her spectral axe disappeared.
Her words were welcome, especially since this world’s gods wouldn’t let her lie, but he was curious about why she seemed so eager to protect him. Lydia knew he could lie and thought that was awesome, so she had reason to want him as a manor lord. Emily seemed more focused on who would ensure she was able to go get drunk whenever she wanted.
“So why do you want to protect me?”
“So far, I like how you’ve treated me and Lydia and everyone else. I like how you’ve decided to reorganize the manor so we won’t have to do stuff we don’t want to do. And I like that you defer to Lydia when you don’t know something. Our former lord never did that.
The bar he had to clear to impress Emily remained absurdly low, but it was more evidence he wouldn’t have to use creepy blood slavery as a crutch to succeed as a manor lord. People would follow him by choice. “Dickcheese really did think he knew everything.”
“He certainly presented himself as if he did, lord.”
Dickcheese had been overconfident and full of himself. Another reason he’d let himself get taken down by some punk with a knife. Drake was still rather pleased with himself for figuring out how to defang the blood pact, but he couldn’t get overconfident. The trust Lydia and even Emily had already placed in him firmed up his determination to crush this job.
“So to sum up, you’ve decided you’d prefer me to some other lord?”
“Yes, lord. And more than anything, I trust Lydia. She told me keeping you safe was good for us, and she’s my second favorite person in the manor. So if she believes I should protect you, I am absolutely going to keep you from getting murdered.”
Emily couldn’t lie. None of these people seemed like bad people, even if they’d served a demon-summoning serial killer. None of them had served Dickcheese by choice. And since all of them already seemed to trust Lydia... having her trust would help him, just as he’d hoped.
“Thank you, Emily.”
“For what, lord?”
“For offering to protect me, especially since you don’t have to. In my world, that’s actually a rare thing. It’s not something we just take for granted.”
“It’s fine, lord! I’d be sad if I never had a reason to chop anyone.”
“So... that’ll be all for now. You only need to bother me if it’s really important.”
“How important, lord?”
“Like someone’s coming to kill me, or the manor is about to burn down.”
“Of course, lord. I will be just over there, by the doors to the manor proper.”
As she strode off, Drake walked back to the bench outside the bathhouse doors and sat. He flipped open Zuri’s roster. Lydia would get him when everyone was ready to go, and he had no time to screw around if he wanted to survive. He needed to use his time efficiently.
Emily’s rarity was even more terrifying than Lydia’s... though it did require her to physically run up and chop your soul with her magical battle axe, as opposed to Lydia, who could bamf half a hallway and stab you in the back.
He paged to the roster Zuri kept and began scanning names and rarities. There was no way he could memorize all this today or ever, but he was pleased to finally get an accounting of just how many people in this manor were going to work for him.
Assuming they didn’t leave. Which they could do. That was how it was now.
The roster informed him he had seventy-six names under his command, through twenty-five of those were all zarovians, who seemed to make up the entirety of his army. All the rest of his people had titles like cook, scullery staff, groundskeeper, and the like.
He’d expected to have more soldiers, but perhaps the zarovians were his primary army. He assumed everyone else worked inside the manor. Also, given he had some truly impressive battle maids, his cooking and cleaning staff also kicking ass in battle remained a possibility.
He imagined a battle chef with a fire rarity and a huge cleaver could do some damage.
Even when it became dark, the enclosed glass lamps outside the bathhouse doors glowed. They revealed a wood-paneled hall similar to many others in the manor, though this one had no windows. It was deep in the interior, with another set of double doors a way’s down that connected to the main hall through which he’d entered.
Drake was unsurprised to find Emily waiting, hands tucked behind her back, as he emerged from the bathhouse. She had done exactly as he asked, waiting by the bathhouse doors, and despite her intrusion during his bath, he had more reason to be grateful to her than he’d expected. He hadn’t ordered her to look for his old clothes.
“Thanks for the towels... and my stuff. I didn’t expect you to dig up my old clothes. I appreciate the initiative.”
She beamed with obvious pleasure. “I hoped it would please you, lord. Still, I hope you will only wear them to bed? You should wear silverweave on manor business.”
“I will. You’ve done a great job. But you can now, okay? Go do maid things.”
She visibly pouted. “I understand your orders, Lord Gloomwood, but please, could you revise them? Lydia ordered me to stand watch over you until she returned, and she’s always been very good at knowing when I should stand watch.”
“I’m fine, Emily. Seriously. Who’s going to get me way in here?”
“Assassins, lord.” She grinned suddenly. “But... I don’t have to listen to you, do I? Even if you don’t change your orders, I don’t have to do anything you say!”
He couldn’t help but chuckle at her genuine enthusiasm. “I’m not asking you to leave me entirely unguarded. I’m just asking you to give me some space. You don’t always have to be standing five feet from me at all times to keep me safe.”
“I don’t know about that, lord. I wasn’t five feet from Lord Dickcheese, and he died!”
Drake considered her a moment. “Are you sad he’s dead?”
“Not at all! He was the worst, and you, lord, are so much better. That’s why I don’t want you to get stabbed. If I listen to you instead of Lydia, and you get stabbed, she’ll be disappointed in me. And I won’t be able to go drink in Shadowfort whenever I want!”
Emily certainly had interesting priorities. “Who would even stab me in here?”
“An assassin could grab your heart with magic and make it explode. Or someone could shock you until your eyes melted. I know you’re not from this world, so you should know, there are a lot of ways you could die here. Very painful ways.”
Drake accepted his fate. He had, after all, made it exceedingly clear to Emily that she was now free to make her own decisions. If she wanted to hover over him like a mother hen, he’d simply have to put up with that until Lydia got back and... hovered less.
“It’s your call,” he admitted.
“I love that! And while we’re waiting, I do have one question about how the manor is going to work now. Now that no one has to do what you say.”
“Sure,” Drake said. “What is it?”
“How can I make people do what I say?
“Are you worried people won’t listen to you, Emily?”
“Yes, lord. The zarovians, in particular, are resistant to taking orders from your battle maids, but as your battle maids, we must command them in battle. If you aren’t going to punish them for ignoring my orders, they may not listen to me. Or Lydia or Olivia.”
“Olivia actually commands battle parties?” Drake remembered how visibly she’d trembled when he took the pile of silverweave clothes she’d brought him.
“She hasn’t commanded a battle party yet, lord. She’s relatively new to the manor. But she could, someday, or if I and the other maids get killed in battle.”
“So these zarovians are all misogynists?” That would be a massive headache to deal with, but he couldn’t exactly keep the zarovians slaves and free everyone else.
“What does that word mean, lord?”
“Guys who think they’re better than women because they’re guys.”
“Oh no, that would not describe the zarovians! Zarovian females lead the war parties and villages, and freely choose a number of virile males to service them. Males are warriors and laborers, but only females may hold power in their society.”
If that was the case, the makeup of his army seemed odd. Every single zarovian he’d encountered so far had been male. “Then why isn’t Cresh a female?”
“Lord Dickcheese only took male zarovians to serve as his manor guardians, lord. He gathered Cresh and all his zarovians from tribes across the land and had them join the blood pact, but he never gathered any females.”
“Are male zarovians better in battle?”
“No. They are equally matched.”
“Then what was the old fart thinking?”
Emily smiled. “I can only speculate as to his reasons, lord. Is that permissible?”
“Speculate away.”
“Zarovian males respect human males even less than human females.”
That explained why Cresh had seemed so dismissive of him. That, and the fact that the lizardman was twelve feet tall. “Then why didn’t Dickcheese just take a zarovian female and put her under his blood pact, and have her command the males for him? Wouldn’t that be easier?”
“I don’t know, lord.” Emily thoughtfully tapped her lips. “That does seem like it would work. Perhaps there is some limitation of the blood pact that I am unaware of?”
There might be, and no one knew what that limitation was. Fortunately for Drake, he wasn’t depending on the blood pact to keep him safe. So this wasn’t a worry... yet.
“I’m not sure how to solve the zarovian problem. If they really won’t follow your orders, I’ll think about a way to fix that and get back to you. Lydia may already have some ideas.” She had mentioned there were all sorts of logistics to be ironed out with the “free everyone” plan.
“Thank you, lord! I’m sure you two will figure something out. In the meantime, I’ll just chop whoever comes to kill you myself.”
“So... is that it for questions?”
“If I think of any more, I’ll ask!”
As Emily strode off, however, Drake remembered something. “Hey! I actually have a question for you.”
She stopped and spun to face him, smiling brilliantly. “Yes, lord?”
“What’s your rarity?”
“I can chop souls, lord.”
Drake had to consciously suppress his surprise. “Can you tell me how that works?”
“All living beings have a soul. I can see souls close to me even when I cannot see the person. For example, I see two souls on the other side of this wall. Lydia posted zarovians.”
So Emily could see people—or rather, their souls—right through solid walls. “If there are zarovians outside that door, why did Lydia post you inside here?”
“Assassins can slip into the manor at any time, lord. Zarovians are excellent at defeating physical threats, but there are many more stealthy who could slip right past them.”
“And you can see these other threats. No matter where they’re hiding or how they’re concealed. Even though a solid wall or floor, you can see their souls.”
“That is correct, lord! And I can chop them too.” Emily held out one arm as if she was planning to grab something, and a literal glowing axe appeared in her hand. It looked almost solid, bright silver, and it was huge.
“The fuck is that?” Drake whispered.
“This is Chopper, lord!”
He stared wide-eyed. “You can conjure a mystical, soul-rending battle axe out of nothing, and you named it Chopper?
“Because he chops souls.” Emily gripped the axe in both hands and whirled it around like an Olympic-level baton twirler, which was a terror to behold.
“And to be absolutely clear here,” Drake asked quietly, “that axe can literally cut souls?”
“I don’t know how it works, lord. I only know I see souls inside people, and when I cut those souls with Chopper, the person owning the soul dies, usually while screaming. It’s why the others let me handle any armored opponents.
So Emily could just... chop through... people’s souls. A fact she was apparently thrilled about, which suggested something was wrong with her on some deep mental level. Or maybe people in this world were just more used to death and murder than where he came from.
He breathed. “You and Lydia really are trying to keep me alive, aren’t you?”
She nodded fervently, which caused her short red hair to bounce. “Protecting you is our focus right now, especially when you are still so new to this role.” Her spectral axe disappeared.
Her words were welcome, especially since this world’s gods wouldn’t let her lie, but he was curious about why she seemed so eager to protect him. Lydia knew he could lie and thought that was awesome, so she had reason to want him as a manor lord. Emily seemed more focused on who would ensure she was able to go get drunk whenever she wanted.
“So why do you want to protect me?”
“So far, I like how you’ve treated me and Lydia and everyone else. I like how you’ve decided to reorganize the manor so we won’t have to do stuff we don’t want to do. And I like that you defer to Lydia when you don’t know something. Our former lord never did that.
The bar he had to clear to impress Emily remained absurdly low, but it was more evidence he wouldn’t have to use creepy blood slavery as a crutch to succeed as a manor lord. People would follow him by choice. “Dickcheese really did think he knew everything.”
“He certainly presented himself as if he did, lord.”
Dickcheese had been overconfident and full of himself. Another reason he’d let himself get taken down by some punk with a knife. Drake was still rather pleased with himself for figuring out how to defang the blood pact, but he couldn’t get overconfident. The trust Lydia and even Emily had already placed in him firmed up his determination to crush this job.
“So to sum up, you’ve decided you’d prefer me to some other lord?”
“Yes, lord. And more than anything, I trust Lydia. She told me keeping you safe was good for us, and she’s my second favorite person in the manor. So if she believes I should protect you, I am absolutely going to keep you from getting murdered.”
Emily couldn’t lie. None of these people seemed like bad people, even if they’d served a demon-summoning serial killer. None of them had served Dickcheese by choice. And since all of them already seemed to trust Lydia... having her trust would help him, just as he’d hoped.
“Thank you, Emily.”
“For what, lord?”
“For offering to protect me, especially since you don’t have to. In my world, that’s actually a rare thing. It’s not something we just take for granted.”
“It’s fine, lord! I’d be sad if I never had a reason to chop anyone.”
“So... that’ll be all for now. You only need to bother me if it’s really important.”
“How important, lord?”
“Like someone’s coming to kill me, or the manor is about to burn down.”
“Of course, lord. I will be just over there, by the doors to the manor proper.”
As she strode off, Drake walked back to the bench outside the bathhouse doors and sat. He flipped open Zuri’s roster. Lydia would get him when everyone was ready to go, and he had no time to screw around if he wanted to survive. He needed to use his time efficiently.
Emily’s rarity was even more terrifying than Lydia’s... though it did require her to physically run up and chop your soul with her magical battle axe, as opposed to Lydia, who could bamf half a hallway and stab you in the back.
He paged to the roster Zuri kept and began scanning names and rarities. There was no way he could memorize all this today or ever, but he was pleased to finally get an accounting of just how many people in this manor were going to work for him.
Assuming they didn’t leave. Which they could do. That was how it was now.
The roster informed him he had seventy-six names under his command, through twenty-five of those were all zarovians, who seemed to make up the entirety of his army. All the rest of his people had titles like cook, scullery staff, groundskeeper, and the like.
He’d expected to have more soldiers, but perhaps the zarovians were his primary army. He assumed everyone else worked inside the manor. Also, given he had some truly impressive battle maids, his cooking and cleaning staff also kicking ass in battle remained a possibility.
He imagined a battle chef with a fire rarity and a huge cleaver could do some damage.
