"Ulrik's undies." Delimira used a human swear because every elven one was too high brow for this situation. "And I thought Altenweil was bad, this is another level of barbarism."
Looking around the city of Galcrana, where I would be setting up shop, or holding court as it was called in the dark ages, I couldn't help but agree with Delimira. The 'city' was heavily damaged by the recent invasion, and rebuilding efforts were clearly not making much headway. Population wise, this place would've barely qualified as a bustling town in the 21st century, plus it was barely bustling.
"Papa, why does everyone smell so scared?" Gerde looked around at the people going about their business. You didn't need a beastkin sense of smell to tell that everyone was on edge, casting frequent nervous glances at the fortress castle at the center of town, watching for the alert of impending attack.
"Don't worry about it, Gerde." Bekhi said, gripping her ax. "Your papa is going to make sure that everyone stays safe, that's his job now after all."
"How in the ancestor's name am I supposed to do that?" I grumbled to myself. On the journey to the north, I had come up with the rough beginnings of a plan, but that plan presupposed that the northern territories, now renamed the Province of Vulcania, had the same technology and population as the capital city. Glancing around though, these baronies most certainly did not have even half of what was needed so I'd need to start my planning session from scratch, again.
"You'll think of something." Bekhi said with a grin. "My dad always did, especially when there wasn't anyone he could ditch his work on."
"Your dad just had a town to deal with, I have to protect an entire province." If it were only a simple town I could get it up and running with a hodgepodge of dwarven, elven, and modern technology within a year, with a whole province it could take years, if not decades to kick off the industrial revolution.
After a bit more grumbling, and a few wrong turns, we eventually made our way to the central castle. Landgrave Egmont Josten had been informed of our coming, and was going to be hosting us until we could decide on a capital city for the province. Although no city in the province was volunteering to have me set up a base, so most likely I'd have to build a city from the bottom up.
"Landgrave Egmont." I gave the Imperial salute as we were shown into the office of a man in his late fifties with long gray hair and an elegant mustache. "May the light of the Emperor's justice shine on you this day."
"And also on you, Viscount Kvalinn." The Landgrave returned the salute and at a gesture we all sat down in the seats provided. "How was your journey here? I trust it was easy enough for one who survived the campaign against the goblins."
To tell the truth, it had been a pretty straightforward journey, but we had been accosted multiple times by bandits, hooligans, and a surprising amount of mercenaries who had been hired by the imperial nobility to kill me for sullying the position of the Imperial Noble with my demihuman blood. It had been simple to defeat all of them though, just a few spells and letting Bekhi kill their leader had sent them running every time. Fortunately for Landgrave Egmont, he hadn't sent any of those mercenaries.
"Oh, we had some fun with those who stayed behind to pillage after the recent invasion, but I'd like to work with you to get rid of them as soon as possible.
"If you can manage it then then every merchant in the guild will thank you." The landgrave said with a dour expression. "Unfortunately, more than one of the barons have relationships with the brigands and my men can only patrol the area immediately surrounding Galcrana. Hopefully you can bring the other barons together in rooting out the marauders and pushing back the invaders who linger."
"That's my plan." I replied. "I was able to get some valuable information from a few captured mercenaries, and I'm owed a few favors by the Adventurer's Guild, so I should be able to get things moving in the right direction."
"Excellent. I have already forwarded your letters to the barons requesting that they assemble here to receive their orders, but only warnings of the Emperor's displeasure forced them to move. Most of them are in the castle, with a few staying in local inns. I'll arrange to have a meeting room prepared for the meeting tomorrow."
"Thank you, Landgrave. In the meantime, do you have maps of the surrounding lands and a space I can work in? As you may have noticed, none of the barons are anxious for me to set up a court in their cities, so I'll have to design and build my own capital."
"Of course. Scribes, lead the viscount and his party to a vacant office, and bring out the most recent maps of the province."
Once we were all set up with parchment and maps on a rickety old desk. We got to work on designing our city.
"Are we going to make this an elven city, Master Kvalinn?" Delimira asked. "Some white marble towers with magic attraction spires would probably help the land thrive."
"No, we'll make it a dwarven city." Bekhi objected. "With lots of stone buildings and log cabin houses. Just like Vesturhildrun."
"Let's make it Japanese!" Miyata jumped through the door, and rushed to the map. "We'll call it New Tokyo. And there'll be sushi, oyakodon, tonkatsu, and lots of other delicious foods!"
"Miyata, how did you get here?" I asked with an annoyed sigh. She had asked multiple times to accompany us, and had been refused each and every time. Right about now she was supposed to be taking the entrance exams for the Imperial Academy.
"Oh, I just followed your wagon." Miyata nonchalantly answered. "Something interesting looked to be happening, so I decided now was a good time to reveal myself. Anyway, I'm thinking the food can go here- wait, you haven't even decided where the city's gonna go. Com'n, Gerde. Let's go look around the city."
"Go on, Gerde." I waved Gerde off to accompany Miyata. "Keep her out of trouble. Maybe you should take her to get registered with the Adventurer's Guild, she'll probably get a kick out of it. Here, buy some cookies while you're out."
"Yay! Cookies!" Gerde happily took the coppers I handed to her, and then took Miyata out of the room with a joyfully wagging tail.
Returning back to the map, I drew the attention of everyone left in the room back to the work at hand. "We won't be making this a purely dwarven or elven city." I said with hopefully some degree of gravitas. "We'll be making this city something entirely new. A Vulcanian city."