While the noble was busy with her self-study the house master was making arrangements for her new heir.
"You have arranged her new room in rear castle, right?" Lady Dyne was in her office shortly after her lesson. Facing her stood the two servants of Dyne, Octave and Apprentice. With them stood Lady Aurora of rear castle who had come by one of the sky rock bridges.
"I have several other maids converting one of the instructors' rooms into a private suite for the new young master." Head of the rear castle she was one of the few people who interacted with the Lady.
"Make sure its extra comfy, the preliminary file of her maltreatment as well as her status as my heir means she gets the best we can offer." Bowing the head maid of rear castle nodded her dark hair in a prime sock bun. Managing the entirety of rear castle meant that her time spent one on one with various servants or workers was limited. Her only interaction with the noble had been to gather the first breath of details as to what had occurred to the noble.
Her report was limited to what could reasonably confirmed however even what couldn't be confirmed did not paint a pretty picture.
"Aside from you and her prime instructor, she outranks the entire rear castle. I am counting on you to make sure that she doesn't run amok either." It was important to let the noble receive excellent treatment, but she was counting on her manager to keep that tempered.
"I have nothing more, please return to work." Dismissing the maid, the lady had already moved on to the next thing as Lady Aroura bowed to her lord.
"As you ask, milady." A few swishes later and the maid disappeared leaving the two servants to stand by.
"Apprentice, you will oversee her initial heir education. I and Sir Octave will be tapped with a special operation so please do your best to adjust to your new details. As a secondary, you will need to assist in overall organization management and anything the Bandersnatch needs."
Hitting a few buttons on her over the top chair the Lady waited for a moment. A small nozzle appeared that issued a blast of ice-cold water directly to the lord's face. As skilled servants, they did not laugh at the dripping lady despite their internal guffawing.
"Note to remove the anti-sleep system from the chair." Lady dyne noted flatly.
"Of course, my lady I will begin operation planning immediately." Sir Octave responded as the apprentice didn't have the skill to respond in his state.
"Device Operators will be deployed to find the former history teacher to Lady Oakenstaff and the human specialist department will perform a full fault assessment for the entirety of the House of Oakenstaff sans my new heir."
Sir Octave and the apprentice were both shocked but only the lead butler was able to completely school his tells. Such assessments were prelude movements to the unleashment of Lord Dynes power.
"I will do my upmost best, Lady Dyne. Is there anyone else that need be exempted?"
"Count Oakenstaff bears responsibility no matter the results. It's his house, so its negligence beyond the scope of a human being, or its intentional. Limit the collateral to the maximum extent possible. A house that is that messy probably has a slew of people who had no idea or any culpability. If they had a hand in harming my heir, they forfeited their right to remonstrance."
"Your will shall be done, let us go apprentice there is much work to do." Sir Dyne and the apprentice both bowed as one, taking their leave to carry out the ladies will.
Watching the pair leave by shadow walk the Lady Dyne didn't like this matter. While she had no concerns about ending the lives of individuals who clearly warranted such treatment, it wasn't that simple of an affair to wipe out a noble house over the crime of harming one child.
How much responsibility does the gate guard who never actually set foot into the estate bear? A servant who knew of the abuse but was under complete duress to never speak. It's simple to blame those who took the action but what about a doctor who treated her? If the count forced his silence than was, he at fault as one who took an oath to harm no one yet kept silent anyways?
If she didn't have to remember her actions, it would have been easy to raze the house to nothing as it stood; she held no good answers and only her own consciousness to guide her. What was a small consolation was that a corrupt house probably had more than enough hidden crimes to ease the guilt.
Tiffaney was unaware that the gears bearing the demise of her former noble house had begun to turn. Her journey back had been a long one. There were three bridges that connected the visible castle to the invisible one. Her path the night before had been a submerged tunnel hidden by waves under the craig that carved into the land.
"How big is this castle?" Asking her escort maid Emerald. Caretaker rights despite her fainting spell were retained by the maid.
"At last count the entire space was nearly forty by a hundred kilometers." Those numbers went in one ear and out the other. Notwithstanding that only magic used calculations in meter units, the noble couldn't visualize such a space. Even if she knew these numbers the girl had never learned them being taught the imperial measures instead.
"That sounds large." Grasping for a sense of scale the noble pondered what it could be.
"It's just over fifteen thousand of the standard servants' beds."
Fifteen thousand? The servants' beds were huge for the tiny ten-year-old, she couldn't imagine that many beds in the world much less one building.
"If you're wondering it is the largest building in the world, even the grand magisters tower, with it all its' magics isn't as large." With sense of pride at the accomplishment of the family the maid gloated freely.
Filling that away the noble and maid reached her third new room in less than a week. It was far nicer than the regular servants' quarters, but it lacked the sheer opulence of her second room in main castle. This was still more than she felt she deserved; however, it was less draining on her soul that felt the need to recompense the Dyne family.
Her mornings had returned to what had become a routine. Wake, a light meal, attend classes with the young students, helped the instructor manage the mob, be freed for the rest of the day. It transformed by a difference in two ways.
"Class this is the new heir to the family of Dyne, so remember to be respectful." Instructor Rose had introduced her again to her height assigned class. Expecting hateful cries what she received instead was something different.
"Of course, she would be the heir, her block laying skills are top class!"
"I love all her art projects to!"
"She's always so calm and helpful."
"What's the lady of the castle like?"
"Can we still call you 'Tiff' since we found you first?"
Swarmed and bombarded the noble was shocked, the question spilling out before she could stop it?
"You don't hate me?" It was a hushed whisper more to herself than anything else.
"How could we?" The children had asked as if they never even thought about it. Each of them began talking over each other at all her good points. The idea that she could be forgiven for her behavior was stunning, even if it was more a lack of understand on the children's part.
"Mostly it's because Miss Tiffaney is so cute!" One of the girls in the class spouted off before the entire room including Instructor Rose were nodding along.
"She would be the cutest, if I had to say so." The swarming eventually dissolved but not before a completely stained heir stumbled out of the room, her face the color of Rubys hair.
Heir classes had been much better, the apprentice would come and school her in some of the basic requirements of running the castle, as well as the start of special classes.
"Excuse me, why are there letters in this mathematics worksheet you gave me?" Tiffaney asked the person whose name she still didn't know but was the apprentice of Sir Bandersnatch.
"Advance math has many symbols, for now we will figure out your overall level through some discussions and small test, before building a proper lesson plan for you." Smiling softly the servant took out several more books and papers.
"This will be the entire curriculum, even if it looks like a lot, we will work through the whole thing bit by bit. For the next few days let's see if we can assess you properly."
Assessments worked differently in the castle. She was given plenty of breaks that include tasty snacks and few grueling assignments. For humanities he simply asked her opinion on some matters, same with politics. Short test for math, and short answer for natural science. Sometimes he would ask a real strange question that the noble didn't even understand the words to.
"What is a tensor? Having never heard the word the noble merely shook her head, ashamed to not be able to answer the questions.
"You're doing great, let's keep trying to do our best." Were all the words she received even when all her answered were wrong or incomplete. By the time she finished her first two days of testing, she looked forward to classes for the first time in her life.
It was here as the noble started to enjoy life things took a turn. Her adoptive mother called her suddenly, a week to the day that she had come to the castle roof. Nervous, no one knew what she wanted not even her future head servant.
"I know you her heir and all but are you sure about going to the roof? I know there's all sorts of dangerous stuff up there." Instructor rose had been present when the summons was issued. The days weather forecasted indicated just lighting strikes no rain.
"Just last lesson we covered never to go to the roof unsupervised, are you sure you don't want me to come at all?" Worried for her favorite student that she would never admit to, Rose didn't like this. Too many servants had disappeared into strange circumstances, there was many tales of ghost that inhabited the castles that were former servants.
"Thank you for your concern, Lady Rose but I don't know how the lady of the castle will react. She seems very focused on things being specific to her taste."
Lady Dyne was almost a myth in rear castle. One would occasionally see her installing some new contraption. If one really messed up, one would be taken to see her, but for the most part she was just the lord who carried the Dyne name. From what the instructor gathered; the family head would choose one heir who inherited the entirety of everything.
Now it seemed that the lady intended to destroy her heir before she even began.