"So you're the Archwizard of Stars?" She incredulously asks as both Vedas and Theodore march through the dark corridors of the dungeon.
Most cells were already empty, the Madras having executed most detractors and anyone who dared to question their authority.
"Yes, I am."
"The youngest human Archwizard to ever live?"
"Uh huh."
"The Slayer of Goliaths?"
"They do call me that, yes."
"The Savior of Alkatraz?" She asks as they approach the deepest cell of the dungeon, where they could see the silhouette of a solitary man hanging off the walls off of his shackled arms.
"I actually had help with that." He turns to the woman. "Look, Ovia, can we do this later? I have things to do right now." He said.
"Ah… Of course." The overly enthusiastic middle aged Mage looked sufficiently chastised.
The door to the non-empty cell opens through a simple wave of Vedas' hand, showcasing the identity of the man inside.
He was a man on his forties, with gray hair, and gentle yet stoic looking eyes, even in his disheveled state he sported a majestic moustache that could not be ignored.
He had many wounds in his body, with blood still dripping from his mouth.
"Richard!" Exclaimed Vedas while automatically releasing his shackles and levitating the man in a comfortable position.
Halo lit up in a dim green light, lighting up the man's wounds in healing light, and clearly soothing his pain as he seemed to let out a restrained sigh.
"Young Master, thank god-*cough*- Thank the gods you're finally here."
This was Richard Norton, the dutiful and loyal chamberlain and butler to the Agis' family, he had a major role in Vedas' childhood, as he was a constant presence in his formative years.
"What'd they do to you?" Theo asked.
A couple of coughs allowed Richard to clear his throat. "They tortured me for information, the location of the treasury, hidden caches, promissory notes, hidden passages, they wanted to know everything." The man latched on at Vedas' sleeve with a deathgrip, staring him right in the eye with a determined gaze. "I didn't say a thing, Young master. I didn't say a word…" His voice tapered out at the end of the sentence, as fatigue slowly caught up to his worn body.
"I know, old chum." He softly patted his back. "I know."
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After leaving the butler in a comfortable bed in his carters, healed as much as possible by magic and taken care of by the servants, and after dismissing the Court Mage for the day, Vedas went to go through his new duties.
Liberal use of magic made short work of repairing the damage, a simple psychometry/force attuned runic matrix allowed him to put things back as they were when they were fixed, even that destroyed wall got fixed, somewhat. There was still a trace of the damage like scars to the surface of the wall.
Eh, at least it'll serve as a reminder not to do that again.
But now it was time to meet back with Erling, to determine the sort of damage caused by that damned Madras.
"Alright, hit me with it." He asked.
"The treasury was looted to the brim, to pay for the mercenaries I'd presume, the physical defenses and fortifications were kept to date, but we are severely short staffed, they got rid of all the loyal servants, and the rest are either incompetent or untrustworthy. The scribes, maids, cooks, we lack all of them. But most pertinent is the lack of a sufficient garrison, my men are competent, but eight hundred men are not enough to guard such a castle."
"That's to be expected; hopefully Richard would be able to fill us in with the rest after he wakes up."
"Are the mercenaries still stationed outside the castle walls?" He asked.
Erling scratched his chin in thought. "Some of them, at least those that saw the writing on the wall and chose to surrender instead of just escaping did." He responded. "Why, do you wish to recruit them?"
"Not all of them,-gods no- and certainly not the leaders, make some inquiries to the footmen, spread the word that the Archwizard that conquered the castle is recruiting some common soldiers, and as an olive branch, use the prospect of recruitment in the Knight Order as an incentive. Most soldiers dream of knighthood, they'd certainly endure the lower pay for a chance like that."
"Understood." Erling responds.
"Look at the bright side Erling, your Order has eight hundred aura users, that's at least four times the average." He remarked. "Now before you leave, fetch someone to find Madras' books, they must have left at least one scribe, right?"
Erling's expression soured at his liege's comments. "I'll do that."
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"What's this monstrosity?" Vedas exclaimed, staring at the hodge-podge of papers at his desks.
"The papers you asked for, sir." Drawled a teenager standing in a sarcastic tone, sporting a thick pair of spectacles.
Meet Roland, a scribe apprentice, and the last loyal man with the basic capabilities to read and fill in the tax papers.
Devas sifted through the mess of papers, he was no stranger to paperwork, but this was just too ridiculous.
"How old are these." He asked.
"These date back to the last couple of years, milord." For one in his situation, the boy was surprisingly calm.
"No wonder those fuckers thought they could revolt, this is just the epitome of negligence." He found several papers that had their own handwriting, each ones using their own systems of recording information. And of what little he could understand, Vedas could find several inconsistencies, caused by either incompetence or corruption.
The lack of standarisation didn't help matters, this was like a message from hell for the OCD eyes of Vedas.
"Hey, Roland right?" At his nod, Vedas waved the teenager over. "Walk me through these, what the fuck do these figures mean?"
The boy just nodded. "Well, this one is…"
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It took a couple of hours, but they did go through most of these papers, and through that Vedas discovered that while his Father left all matters of taxing to the Madras, the latter used their position to get away with the most amount of gold possible, and didn't even hide it.
They embezzled great amounts of money for at least the last couple of years, and the worst thing is that he couldn't know where the money went, he had an idea, but if that was true then it was as good as gone anyway.
"So, is it only you that is left?" Vedas asked the scribe.
"Well, there were a dozen apprentices like me left, but they urged me to volunteer and meet you, my lord."
Vedas just sighed. "Alright, I guess it's best to start young. Now, here is how the new system's going to be…"
And then Vedas introduced them to the wonders of double-entry book keeping, for boys who were supposed to be trained to navigate through a jungle of different norms, it was practically a godsent.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Richard had woke after a good night's rest, and had demanded to go back the work ever since he did.
The Court mage that seemed intent on following Vedas around didn't seem to help matters, but he thought it better to tackle problems at a time.
"All I need you to do now, Richard, is to give me direction to the hidden caches and emergency treasury, you can do it while lying down too, no need to stand up." Richard's face morphed in offense (who the fuck gets offended at the prospect of not working?!) and Vedas felt thankful that his hair was always white.
"You know what? Fuck it, lead the way, dear butler." He relented.
Richard didn't smile, he didn't do joy, but his measured steps has the slightest pep to his step.
He led them to his Father's study, or I guess it is Vedas' study now? Then he approached the chimney.
In a truly cliché and underwhelming manner, he pulled on one of the gaudy candlesticks (he should probably change the décor) and pulled on it, showing a small compartment.
"They had already known about this, my Lord. They mentioned it at length when they were trying to ferret information out of me." He took a stack of paper from the hidden partition and handed them to Vedas'. "I thought that they might have started using it themselves, it is quite a convenient hiding spot, after all."
"Yeah, it is much more convenient than building your own hidden chamber." Vedas commented.
His face morphed in shock at after he began to read the content of the papers, however. "Fuck, this is…"
These papers were important, but useless at the same time, they were account numbers at a bank, the Onyx Bank to be specific.
Richard read the papers over his shoulder and froze in shock too.
The Onyx Bank is the most influential financial entity in the world, founded by the Onyx Dragon King in order to increase the size of his hoard, it is backed by the magical might of several true dragons and many countries in addition, and they prided themselves in respecting contracts by the letter, and were known for their unending greed.
"If the Madras stored their gold in the Onyx Bank, then there is no way in hell we're getting it back." Richard said.
"Not only that." Vedas hands the butler another set of papers. "They took several loans in our name, so now not only are we left with an empty treasury…"
"We're also deep in debt, crippling amounts of it." Drawled the chamberlain.
How are we dealing with this shit?