Melody of Mana

Before we even made it through the gate Ulanion was giving me a look along the lines of 'Can't you go anywhere there aren't problems?' It wasn't like I was looking for them, just really, abysmally unlucky. I didn't know what could be going on, but we'd have to see.

Once the gates were open I was at least pleasantly surprised by what I found there. Most cities were crowded disasters with shouting and dirty streets. Normally there'd be a mass of folk near the gate, with inns and stables catering towards travelers.

Not so here in Silversprings though. The gate opened into something vastly different. Near the gate was a small gatehouse and paddock for horses, but beyond that stretched something like a garden or field. You could see all the way to the noble's district, where another wall stood. From our point atop the horses we could also see all around where poorer parts of the city would normally be, most of those were non-existent.

A guard mounted one of the horses here and began to lead us in.

"This is... certainly an interesting arrangement," I said as I looked around.

"Yeah, visitors always say that. Do you know the history of our fair city?" The man asked.

"Generally."

"Well, after the mines failed people started to leave. Rich folks mostly at first, but then more and more people. Villages that had been outside the walls started to fail as there wasn't anyone to sell produce to, not that it was ever good farming here. We also ended up with the city becoming a ghost town, and for awhile it looked like we might just... fade away," he said, looking at his home.

"What happened?" Ulanion inquired.

"Well, after most of the nobles left one of their administrators got permission to do as he wanted. He began getting people into the upper city districts, while the old homes and businesses were broken down for materials and farmland. Figured that if we couldn't get much from outside we could cannibalize the unused stuff, and wood has always been hard to get in this area."

"Reclaiming all the stone to repair walls, all the wood for... well lots of things. You'd even get the nails and like back. Lots of hard work but I can see it keeping your city afloat for awhile," I observed.

"Yup, and stabilized it enough. Not having to move things so far helped a lot. A few people still get dregs of silver where they can for taxes, and the rest of us farm or maintain the city, it's not a bad life," the guard seemed happy with his home.

I continued to look at the farms. They were all far more compact than they'd be in a normal village, but you could see where the grazing animals were taken out the gate in the mornings, and how with their limited people they were working hard.

"I thought the mines had failed though?" Ulanion asked.

"Places like that never really run completely out of ore, just enough that it's not viable to run a large business from it. There's enough that the kids can help the old folks sort for anything useful, and a few men working can still pull some of the stuff up. We've got all the carts and tools, enough that if they're taken care of they barely need any new ones. They were smart enough to pack up a lot of things in oil when the mines started to fail, hoping a new vein would be found, and so we open a new barrel of tools every now and then to replace what we've been using."

I was a bit amazed, it sounded like there'd actually been competent people running the place for the last couple of centuries, at least at the beginning. That wasn't what concerned me though.

"So, mind telling me what the problem is that the mayor is worried about?" I asked. I tried to plaster on my kindest smile, but I really wanted to know what was waiting for me.

"I'm not truly sure," he said, and at my raised eyebrow continued. "The man's just been running around like mad since we received word you'd be coming, trying to make sure everything was perfect."

That was unhelpful. It hardly mattered though, as our ride had brought us to the upper district. The second gate was currently open, and it looked like this was normally the case. The delineation that normally existed between nobles and commoners lived was this line, and while not all cities had an actual wall for it, this one did.

It was wild, truly wild, to see what had become of the mansions. Homes that would have belonged to either very wealthy merchants or lower nobility a few centuries ago were now estates for extended families. There were small gardens blooming on the large lawns and children in simple clothes playing on the streets that would have been held under the tightest of security.

There were of course some things that didn't match, while the buildings were well maintained they were not being done up in the same way. There was nobody to pay for the expensive art, so what remained of the old pieces was not replaced, instead the areas were covered with simpler things or very basic pieces. The glass windows were mostly replaced with wooden shutters, and I was sure that the insides of the houses had changed radically.

These buildings and places were designed to last though. A noble estate would normally go through periodic upgrades here and there, but the structure itself was built and reinforced such that the family home would not fail for many, many generations. It was some sort of pride that your home had been somewhere for untold time, watching over your 'lessers' or some such nonsense.

It looked like the extended families lived more communally here than in most places, but with the size of the buildings that wasn't odd, and with the size of the area we soon found ourselves outside of a much more nicely made manse. It even had a separate wall around it and was much more well maintained.

"The mayor's home? how's he affording all of this?" I asked, doing that wouldn't be cheap.

The guard looked a bit concerned about my question. "Oh... the mayor used to be a servant o the ruling noble, before Emperor Durin took over of course, and this house was kept for when the lord visited."

I raised an eyebrow. "How often did that happen?"

"Well, um, not in some time..."

There were a few people already here waiting for us as we approached, someone must have seen us coming and sent word. I counted two maids, dressed in older, but still fairly normal outfits for the position, and one man who looked to be the butler. Why there were this many servants for the house of a mayor in a town this size I didn't know, but I suspected there might be something odd going on.

The butler moved to help me down, but was soundly beaten to the punch by Ulanion, who sent him a light glare warning him off.

"Be nice," I said. The desire to help me down was welcome, but there was no reason for him to go and scare the poor people here.

"Welcome," the butler said as he bowed. "To Lady Jenna and her guard."

"You can drop the lady part and just call me miss Jenna," I said.

"O-of course, my apologies. We've prepared rooms for your stay of course, and reports on the city's state," he explained.

"Thank you, first I should speak to the mayor though. Could you please take me to him?" Whatever was going on it would be best to get to the bottom of it first.

"Ah, that would be me miss," the man said.

I was a bit taken aback at that, particularly with the uniform and all. I looked beyond him to the maids and squinted a bit. These two were definitely related, mother and daughter maybe? Definitely not too far off, though it could be hard to tell with some small towns like this being very interrelated, the younger one also had eyes that would match the mayor if I were any judge.

"I see, why are you dressed as a butler?" Sometimes it was just better to ask.

"Well miss Jenna, our family has served the ruling noble family of this region for years, and now that the emperor has seen fit to send you to take over we'll be happy to serve you as well," he explained.

Things started to click into place.

"I'm not here to take over. There are no more nobles as such, you realize that right?" Someone had done a piss poor job of bringing this town into the empire, and some things would need to be explained. It wouldn't take too long to get things going right, I hoped, but it needed to be done. "I'm mostly here to look over the books and make sure that everything is in order, little more."

"I see... so you're not here to rule over us then?" He asked.

"No, you seem to be doing an acceptable job of that. None of the children I saw seemed to be starving and the infrastructure is in good order, those are the main concerns for now, but I need to know of any problems facing the area to see if we can't address them. Monsters, failing crops and the like. As I said, I'm also here to look over the books."

"Of course, I'll get them for you with haste. In the meantime would you like to move to the offices then?" He asked.

"Let us," I replied.

The younger maid was sent off to prepare refreshments while we made our way into the mansion. Most of the things here were out of date by a decade or two, but if there was any wealth in the town, it was most definitely concentrated in this home. Everything was clean, but didn't feel lived in, like the covers were just taken off every now and then to maintain it, but nobody really cared about the place. It was still stuffed with art and the like though.

There was an office, presumably belonging to the former master of this estate, and a large enough table therein. The mayor grabbed one of the larger tomes and brought it over, standing to the side as I opened it up and found a seat.

"Please join me," I said when he didn't sit.

The poor man was so used to being a servant that he looked quite uncomfortable. That needed to change, and as the tea was brought in it began to. I ran through the town taxes, expenses and incomes with him, and what I found was quite bothersome. More than half of the town budget was being directed to keeping this mansion in shape. There were even lists of all the expensive goods that were being bought periodically just in case someone important showed up. The tea, the wine, the bleeding fancy salts and sugars that were being bled in, and basically given away to the people when they started to go bad.

I even took a few minutes to check, and it wasn't just random embezzlement. The mayor, whose name I learned was Mallowsweet, had kept meticulous records, and the goods were all dated, both from their acquisition and the date they were to be thrown out. When they were he claimed that they were distributed evenly throughout the populace, which I believed, but would be checking. It wasn't like there was a significant amount, just small quantities that made good gifts to the families in town about once a year.

By the end of it I was tired. "Sir, your taxes are..." I had to check my notes. "At least thirty percent higher than standard for the empire, and the wasted money on maintaining this house has to stop. We'll have to do some math, but there are no more nobles, and the..." I just sighed.

The poor man looked like he'd gone through half of the different forms of fear and despair throughout the day, and now was almost broken. "This is... I was so worried you'd be furious at what we were able to prepare in time for your coming, and..." he chuckled once. "I'll be glad to save the money, but the children will be so disappointed, during the harvest festival we always used the old sugar to make them sweets."

"Get beehives and use honey instead, as for the other indulgences the citizens will have to do with new, but slightly lower quality goods. Which won't be a problem for them to afford when we're done, good grief." I shook my head.

"Beehives?" He asked.

"I'll make note that you need a few craftsmen for some of the newer technologies in the empire, but yes, you can farm bees, and with your local gardens and I'm assuming wildflowers in the spring it should be easy. Maybe even a good new source of income for you." The idea of replacing silver with liquid gold nearly made me laugh.

I soon had dinner, which was a ludicrous feast, but I ate, and even asked the mayor and his family to join me. The room they'd prepared was almost like my parents' room back home, if not nicer, and while it was dumb I'd take it for now. I needed to get to testing tomorrow now that the act had been fulfilled, though in the evenings I'd take some time to sort the town out and make notes on the specialists they needed, both for the act and because it would actually help these people.