Melody of Mana

The next morning I met up with Ulanion; he'd been put in the room beside my own since he was a guard, but he joined me for a very quick breakfast. After that I began to move out into the town, taking with me some of my supplies, and notably the gates I needed to test. My hope was to do a quick walk around town to keep up appearances, and then head to the lakes for some testing, today would be the lightest if we got to it, and would also serve as a scouting day for locations.

The mayor met us as we made our way to the front door of the house. Someone must have given him a heads up on our movements since he was chipper as he stood by the door. I wasn't sure that I loved the implications of that, if we were followed later in the day it might really cause problems. I'd have to warn someone off if we saw them, and if they persisted it would be bad. Our true mission was after all still quite secret.

"Good morning miss Jenna, mister Sean, did you have something you needed? I'd be quite happy to help." The man did look that, bouncing on his feet as he spoke.

I was glad to see he'd dropped the 'lady' part, and though his dress was still that of a servant, it was no longer the butler uniform, wholly unsuited to so many forms of work. "Unfortunately I must decline. We need a good idea of the area and what is going on, and I'd be worried people would feel intimidated by having the mayor there with us."

"Ah... I mean no disrespect, but I'm afraid that as strangers and with an armed guard they may feel intimidated regardless," he said, truly looking nervous. It saddened me to see we hadn't quite got past that little worry.

"Perhaps, but I shall not change my decision on this," I said with finality.

The man visibly paled, as if he'd stepped on a landmine. I could see the gears ticking, thinking that he might have offended me and what I might do. I couldn't let him do what he wanted, but as well I needed to keep from looking too scary.

"Forgive me..."

"There is nothing to forgive mayor Mallowsweet, simply that I must do things properly, and I cannot have you following me as I do so." As I spoke I smiled slightly, trying to put him at ease.

"Of course, if you do need anything at all, please let me know." He quickly moved from the way, letting us pass without another word.

"He was afraid," Ulanion said once we were well outside of hearing range.

"He's used to serving nobles. It used to be really bad, particularly for non-magic users. He doesn't know us, who we are, or how much power we could bring to bear. For all he knows I could order you to cut off his head and nobody would care," I explained.

"You could, and they probably wouldn't."

"Perhaps," I agreed. "But I wouldn't, and at any rate I doubt the emperor would look kindly on me killing the man without a good reason. He might not do anything about it immediately, but such an act would stain my reputation for good and that of the empire as a whole. I think I'd soon find all future opportunities in any position with even a bit of power drying up should word get back to him about something like that."

I could see him frowning. "You make it sound like a logical choice, shouldn't it be a moral one?"

"Both work out the same," I said. "While I wouldn't want to hurt him because it would be wrong, it would also be the wrong thing to do even if it weren't. That's one of the things I do like about the new regime, they try to make doing the right thing the easiest, it gets rid of the temptation."

"Are you tempted by power?" He asked.

"Everyone is, even if they want to do the right thing. Especially if you want to do the right thing. If someone is in your way it's just so easy to justify crushing them, to make yourself think they deserve it. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't, but the longer you go down that path, the easier it is to always convince yourself they do."

"You sound like him," Ulanion said, very quietly.

"He learned a hard lesson, one I don't aim to repeat. I don't know what happened, but I think he was right, and I think he meant what he said. I also lived in a little village like this, and I know what it's like to have someone abuse your people because they can. Though if I'm honest I never got it as bad as a lot of people did," I answered.

"It was that bad here in the human lands then? I knew it was bad, but most people don't like to talk of it."

"It was like the village we all saved. Except that rather than some magical beast stalking us it was starvation. It was everywhere, slowly withering people away, and it was horrible. There wasn't any escape," I whispered.

"That's something I admire about you." At my raised eyebrow he continued. "You don't give up, and I've never seen you be cruel, even when many people would be. If it's right or easy doesn't matter, how many people do you think have seen the things you have? I've spoken to your brother you know, and to Dras. They've told me some of the stories of your adventures."

"Did they now? Ah, at any rate," as I finished speaking I pointed to the little shop we were approaching.

The rest of the day was spent going around the town and asking questions about the goings on. Over and over we got similar answers, that everything was in excellent order and that everyone was happy. I didn't really expect any open dissent after speaking to the mayor, and half suspected that he'd told everyone to be on their best long before I got here.

That said it wasn't useless, and I did learn a good few things. The town had issues getting lumber. Importing it wasn't really viable, and there weren't any trees normally growing around here. There was one older bard woman who lived in the town who kept a small patch, but she had to put those out sparingly, as even with her powers growing them was difficult.

Said bard and her son were the only magic users in the town. The young man was spoken of quite highly by several of the girls I met, and I had to remember the reputation most casters of my type garnered. More private conversations, where I pulled some people to the side away from Ulanion a bit confirmed that there weren't any major abuses in the town other than a few guards that sometimes got a little too proud of their 'authority' here. Most were quite pleased with the empire though.

I made a few notes. Someone might read these reports, as half-done as they were, and if they did this little town might get a few people to help. A note was also sent to the bard and her son, asking for a meeting sometime in the next few days. They could in fact tell me no, as casters they had that privilege, but I doubted they would.

By noon we were done in the town and moved to the nearby countryside. I dreaded having to ride again, but it would be too much to just walk around, so get our horses we did. The information I had indicated some potential spots I could use for my experiments, but like with so many things there was no way to know for sure their suitability until I got there and saw them for myself.

We passed out of the town and out into the savanna opposite of our entry, towards the lakes. It wasn't a far ride to get there, less than an hour if I had to guess, and it was interesting to see we weren't the only ones here. These little bodies of water weren't huge, but they were big enough, and this was also where the mines were located.

There were a few old people at one of the shores near a well worn path to said tunnels that greeted us. They were using the water to clean the little bits of rock and ore, expertly looking through them for the bits of silver this town used for its taxes.

"Greetings elders," I said as we approached. A few started to try and rise. "Please don't stand on my account. Does all go well?"

"Aye Lady, all goes quite well," their representative, a truly ancient man said.

"Please call me Jenna. The title ill suits me since I'm no noble, just someone sent to make sure the town was well after the regime change."

"I see, the mayor went on and on. So that means you're not staying?" He asked.

"No, though your town is lovely. Are there any issues you can think that might need solving?" I replied.

"Hmm, there are problems, always are miss. They aren't taking our boys to die in war anymore though, and the taxes have gone down since the emperor took over, long may he reign." The last part was accompanied by a bit of a salute, an old gesture some people use when talking about the previous king in public.

"Do you mean any issues miss?" One of the women asked, and at my smile and nod continued. "That boy caster Sloan is a menace. Chases anything with teats, including I think one of old Ralph's mares," there was a good round of chuckles at that one, and a few scandalized looks. "Several of my granddaughters will have trouble finding husbands if he puts babies in them you know." She shook an old crooked finger as she spoke.

I tried, and failed, not to laugh. "If he's not being forceful there's not too much I can do, but I am planning on meeting him soon and we'll see if we can't tell him to calm it down a bit."

"Better than his mother's done," the old woman grumbled, before several of her peers finally shushed her.

Our talk done we kept moving outwards. Very quickly we found ourselves far from anything the town was doing. There was nothing wrong with the land near the city, so no reason to go this far away from it. With the population they had these places were mostly abandoned anyway, just a few old crumbling ruins from the days when the area was used.

We passed several small lakes until finally coming to a larger one.

"We need some depth, don't suppose you'd be willing to check it for me?" I asked.

He shook his head, and began removing his armor. It would be heavy and rust at any rate, by the time he got to the lower layer of clothing he must have realized I was looking at him and met my eyes.

"Seriously? Did you plan all this out from the start?" He asked.

"No, just a happy accident," I replied with a smile.

Without hesitation he lost the shirt, and then his pants as well, crossing his arms and glaring as he stood there nude. I felt my face go beet red and covered my mouth. Keeping my eyes where they should be was not the easiest thing in the world as he spoke.

"It's rude to stare you know, but if I remember correctly you don't seem to mind nearly as much as your friends." With that he turned, giving me quite the view as he made his way into the lake before diving.

The horses looked at me like I'd lost my mind as I wheezed laughter.