151: Responsibilities

Once we made it back to the house, I was surprised when we entered because it felt alive. The new staff were already working as Archie welcomed us back, again with more scrolls of parchment in his hand.

“Welcome back, Trevor, Sir. We’ve had several more messages delivered to the house in your absence,” Archie said, handing over the papers.

“Thanks, Archie,” I said, looking at them.

I really didn’t understand what to do with them all. I didn’t want to attend any of the dinners or parties I was invited to, and I didn’t know any of these people, and couldn’t see any reason to see them.

“Trev, could we speak with you privately for a moment?” Hari said.

Both Jen and Liane wandered off, just leaving Milo and Hari there.

“Sure?”

“Come to the study. That’ll be best,” Hari said as he led the way.

I caught sight of Micca in the library on our way, but only managed to give her a wave before we entered the office and Hari shut the door behind us once Milo was inside as well.

“This is about all those messages you’re getting,” Hari said, pointing to the papers in my hand, while he took a seat.

“I’m sure you have a lot more?” Milo said.

I just nodded.

“You can’t ignore all of them, not while we’re in the capital anyway,” Hari said, sounding serious.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You’ve accepted this house, you’re tied in royal politics, and you’re no longer hiding your connection to Lily or any of the other mythical creatures, so your days of hiding and being unnoticed are over,” Milo started.

“We can help guide you—houses to avoid, events to avoid, and traps you may fall into—but you’ll need to do the bare minimum while we’re in the capital,” Hari said.

“Can’t we just lie low and relax until we leave?” I said, looking between them.

“No. If you do that, the political pressure will fall on Micca and the household. You might avoid it because other people want to avoid upsetting you, but it’s going to make their life harder,” Hari said.

“How many messages do you have so far?” Milo asked.

I pulled out all the ones I had. In total, I was up to twenty-three messages, and I placed them all on the counter.

“Hmm, this one…” Milo said, pointing to it. “This one is not a message from a noble. It’s from the guild.”

Hari reached out, taking it in hand, before reading it.

“That’s concerning… It says here there are rumours that an adventurer party was attacked close to Grey Rock. It’s not clear exactly what attacked them, as they appear to be traumatised, but they’re saying it’s an unknown large black cat?” Hari said.

“Lily?” I asked.

“It doesn’t say it directly, but clearly they think it’s a possibility or they wouldn’t have sent this to you,” Hari said, passing the note to Milo.

“When though? Why would she?” I asked, confused. If Lily attacked someone, would they even still be alive?

“Hmm, I’m not sure. I don’t exactly know where they were; the information here is sparse.” Hari said.

“We could probably ask Lily, but I would think if she attacked someone they likely wouldn’t have survived,” Milo added, confirming my suspicion.

Looking to Crisplet, who was just observing, “Crisplet, you don’t know if Lily attacked anyone, do you?”

Getting a single ember in response.

“I’ll ask her,” I said. I couldn’t see any reason she’d attack anyone.

“Right, the rest of these messages,” Hari groaned at how many there were in the stack.

“Any of these large parties or large dinner events you can ignore. They are traps for the unprepared, and you are not ready for them at all,” Hari said, separating half the stack, as Milo went through and double-checked them all.

“These private meetings over tea might be best, but we’d need to send someone with you, as there will be no chance we can leave you one-on-one with these people. If they don’t try to take advantage of you and bargain out favours, I’d be shocked; I feel like they’d be more likely to turn it from a rumour about Lily attacking people to reality,” Hari said.

“There are some houses I think we’re best to avoid: any of the military houses, and likely House Valrith since they are tied to the Alchemist Guild, and that’s one we want to keep our distance from,” Milo added.

While they went through the scrolls in detail, I took the opportunity to ask about the butchery room.

“Also, I wanted to build a large butchery room. I have several large beasts we need to butcher and no proper room to do it unless I did it in the open, so a very large butchery room would be ideal,” I said.

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“That will cost a bit of money, but we can certainly do it…” Milo said.

“Can we sell some drake scales for money here?” I asked curiously.

“Yes, we can,” Hari said simply. “We can get it built. It would likely turn out to be very useful long term if we come back here with any regularity, but getting back on topic.”

Hari pushed three scrolls forward.

“These three, I think these are best: House Fellwood, Fairmont, and Blackmere, with the latter being a crafting house. I think it would be useful to have ties with them for ingredients, but again we’d need to ensure you don’t go alone,” Hari said.

Milo nodded. “The next thing we need to address is your health, and more importantly, those mana channels. I know you’ve been carrying on like nothing has happened, but they wouldn’t have healed properly yet, if ever. You’ve just not put enough strain on them to see it yet.”

I was surprised at this. I had not really noticed anything mana-related in a while now, so I didn’t think that was a big deal.

“We can have someone come out tomorrow and see him. I can have Archie organise it,” Hari said.

“Wait, is that really necessary? There has been no pain,” I protested.

“Yes. I understand you’ve bounced back, and it’s not causing you issues right now, Trev, but you need to understand if you don’t get them checked and ignore it, say in a year from now you have a rupture, you’re crippled for life. Wouldn’t you prefer to check it now?” Milo said.

“I guess…” I was not convinced.

“And the last thing we wanted to discuss with you was your surname. This is a bigger deal than you’re likely considering. This house may have been a gift, but it came with responsibility, and even if you don’t act like it, you’ve been brought into the fold of nobles whether or not you like it,” Hari said.