NOVEL NEXT 135 - Dad’s Quality
"Father," Archmund said. "I really should have asked this sooner, but how powerful are you?"
The Lord Reginald Granavale looked at his son from across the dinner table.
"What do you mean, son?"
"We have very arable lands. Agraria chose to let us keep our autonomy instead of forcing us into utter surrender when you asked, even if he keeps us in an economic chokehold. You spend all your time arranging trade deals. Yet despite all that, we're under no significant military threat. Why is that?"
"I'm in good graces with the Omnio Empire," Reginald said. "Emperor Marcus and I were a few years apart in school, before he married into the family and became Emperor. We were acquaintances enough that a few odd letters were hardly unwelcome, and I maintain that connection even now. Should a matter of sufficient import arise — one that isn't a capital crime — I have a slightly greater string to pull than the long ropes already afforded to the nobility."
"And your Awakening?"
The Lord Granavale smiled. "I suppose you're old enough for me to tell you."
"I achieved the Fifth Awakening in my twentieth year," Lord Granavale said. "Which, unfortunately, placed me far below Marcus, who achieved the Eighth by the time he was twenty-five. I have gone no further."
"What of the Duke of Agraria?"
"He's at Sixth."
"How great is the power differential?"
"Not high. But the flexibility is immense."
"How strong is that, relative to the general bulk of the noble classes?"
His father leaned back in his chair and considered his words carefully.
"Do you know the difference between lesser nobles like us and the thousands of lesser nobles that dwell in the Imperial City?"
"A thing or two, yes."
Archmund didn't know the full nuances, but the Granavales had land, an ancestral holding, and a manor. Those were more significant than he'd first realized. In contrast, nobles in the Imperial Capital lived in cheaply-produced if ornate homes with no ancestral provenance, upgrading after every few years. But more importantly they were granted minor titles straight out of graduation and then became qualified for the jobs of the Imperial Bureaucracy, if their families didn't have a spare accumulated title to give them.
"To graduate from the Imperial Academy with a granted title, you must achieve Third Awakening with at least one Gem. Anyone with a landed title tries to achieve that significantly sooner, but traditionally speaking Third Awakening was enough to be considered fully part of the nobility. These days, those born into wealth and power aim to achieve the Fourth Awakening before assuming their titles, but that's a matter of fashion, not law."
"That's it?" Archmund said. "When do most people achieve Second Awakening?"
"By the age of… fifteen or so?" his father said. "You're quite a prodigy, to have achieved a First Awakening at so tender an age. I would tell you to slow down and enjoy yourself, but I was much like you at your age — constantly rushing to find the thing I actually could see myself enjoying. And once I found it, then I slowed down."
"Huh," Archmund said.
"But again, that's for the lesser nobility. People like us, who are to tend to lesser parts of the Empire. I've heard some members of the Imperial Family achieve Third Awakening by ten."
Archmund shifted guiltily in his seat. Some ups, some downs. He was ahead of most "normal" people, but not quite ahead of the massive structure advantage granted to the Omnio Imperial Family.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
"Son," his father said, "is there something you want to tell me?"
Easier to show than to tell.
Archmund placed his Gems on his table — his Onyx of Bodily Barrier and his Ruby of Energy.
Just a second of thought, and both glowed with bright orange light.
His father seemed immensely proud.
"A Second Awakening," he said. "Good job, son."
"Thanks, father," Archmund said. "I suppose you don't regret letting me go into the Dungeon."
"I would prefer you chase safer pursuits. I have buried enough children."
Safer pursuits. Archmund wondered whether navigating the world of politics and business connections really was any safer.
"The Duke of Agraria," Archmund said. "What is he really, to us?"
"A patron and a direct superior," the Lord Granavale said. "Militarily, more powerful than us. But he never threatens with his power — I have never known him to chase power for power's sake."
A difficult kind of person for Archmund to relate to, in that case.
"But he's not weak."
"In no way at all is he weak," his father concurred. "He can afford to avoid seeking more power because he has no need of it. There is little we can do to challenge him, but his presence grants us protection against the forces of the wider empire."
That was good to know.
"So for domestic matters, we can expect neither interference nor aid from him?"
"That's quite hard to say. But I think he'd name you as his heir if we made a case."
"Are you serious?"
"He's childless. Rumor has it he's an invert. He's certainly never spent effort on seeking a wife. He spends all his time chasing greater depths of magical power."
Archmund could guess what invert meant, but he didn't intend to pry. The man's personal life was his own, no matter what the rumors throughout the empire might be. But still — apparently Sixth Awakening was sufficient to chase deeper magical power while ruling a Duchy, in the sense that no one else would interfere with you, and that there was no risk of dying or being overthrown.
And yet someone with the Sixth Awakening was only ruling a Duchy, while someone at the Fifth was only ruling a County.
"What were the terms of the deal we struck with the Duke of Agraria when the Crylaxan Plague came?"
The Lord Granavale stroked his beard. "What a curious time to ask these questions," he said. "It was a twenty year deal; we've still got another five until it's up for renegotiation."
"My understanding was that he lowered our taxes, and in exchange he got the land," Archmund said.
"Got the land is… reductive," his father said. "He's free to cultivate a large portion of Granavale County land as much as he'd like, and develop it, but the land is nominally still part of Granavale County — which, in turn, falls under Agraria Duchy. He's treated the farmland like farmland, and the woodland like woodland, and he's made no effort to build fortifications or strategic outposts along the border of 'his' Granavale and 'our' Granavale."
"You don't see any use for the land?" Archmund said.
"I can imagine uses," Reginald said. "But I don't imagine them practical. I abhor slavery, so I doubt we could find the hands to sow and harvest those lands any easier or better than he can."
"Does he use slaves?"
"Heavens, no. Agraria is not, by any means, a bad man," Reginald said. "He's historically held more land than we have and was well-equipped to manage more in turn. Chokehold is… a bit of a misconception. Our economic situation is largely our own making — we have enough people to sow, but need to bring in hands to reap, but your mother was so dedicated to the idea of edifying the common people that she promoted the idea that each family should have a craft of its own, even if not strictly practical. The Bakers and Masons and Coopers and Smiths are old here, but Basketweavers and Harriers are… newer."
"So our economy is too dependent on the cottage industry, is what you're saying."
"Yes. And because of how much we can actually tax on such meager industry, we could never shift back to being the breadbasket of the empire. Until now. With the Dungeon's output."
Archmund had come to a tipping point.
There were a few immediate ways to boost the economy of Granavale County. None, taken alone, seemed to lead in the direction of it being prosperous and sustainable.
Extract value from the Dungeon. The people would get massively rich for a period of 15 or so years, or become servants to extremely rich outside adventurers. Once that dried up, the town would be a hollowed-out husk, like a coal mine in earthly Appalachia. He'd intended on avoiding this outright from the get-go, which had caused a whole host of problems as a result.
Persist as cottage industry. Quality of life would be… he imagined it was decent, but from what he'd seen and what Mary had said, it wasn't great. He simply couldn't know how good it was without having other points of comparison, like other towns and cities. But cottage industry didn't scale, and it could barely sustain households, let alone governments.
Return to the farms. With the greater land of Agraria, all hands would be needed. So everyone would be put to work in the fields, which often was not very tempting work for those who had tasted the fruit of being a skilled craftsman. They would need to hire and house a lot of migrant workers, and that always had a chance of causing domestic tensions.
Using his Gemstones and gear to go on a campaign of military conquest was, at this point, right out. He had a few soldiers with magic swords, and was at the Second Awakening. But the Duke was at the Sixth Awakening, and the Emperor was at the Eighth. He couldn't even begin to imagine how much power that was.
Soon, he'd have to make that decision. But everything was pointing him towards needing more information.