NOVEL NEXT Chapter 21 – Outlining
"Are you sure, my Lady?" Garside asked as he stood in front of the desk in the mansion's office.
"Yes. The sooner this is dealt with, the better," Scarlett said. "We have allowed the current situation to proceed for far too long."
Garside bowed, his shoulder-length grey hair springing from the movement. "I will personally see it done."
Scarlett nodded her head in approval. "Remember to confirm what the necessary procedures are as well. I will not have this become more complicated than it has to."
"As you wish. I will carry out your commands immediately," he responded. This was why Scarlett liked the man. Not only was he one of the few people that didn't even slightly irk the Scarlett part of her, but he was also incredibly efficient in basically everything he did. She would have been so much more lost in this world if he wasn't here to help her.
"Is there anything you need while I am gone, my Lady?" Garside continued. "I will relay the orders to the other servants."
She thought about it. There was something she had wanted to look into. "I require maps of the surroundings fiefs, as well as a map of all active Kilnstones," she said after a moment.
Garside's mustache trembled slightly as he grew a thoughtful expression across his wrinkled face. "I believe we have an old map in the library of Kilnstone locations, that belonged to the late Lord. It would be over twenty years old, but it is most likely still accurate. I will have one of the servants bring it and a map of the fiefs."
"Good," she nodded. "And Garside?"
"Yes, my Lady?"
"What did I have on the calendar in the coming weeks?"
"There was nothing until the Light Fest in the capital, two weeks from now," he answered.
That's right, she'd forgotten that the first Light Fest was pretty early into the game. It was just a large festival that took place in Elystead once a year. She hadn't been there for the first one in any of her playthroughs, but she had participated in several of the later ones. There were a couple of quests related to those.
She had things she wanted to do in the capital, so this wasn't unwelcome news. But two weeks...Was that enough? She had some things she had to prepare before going there.
She'd have to wait until she got those maps to make sure.
"...I see. good," she said and brought her attention back to the old butler. "Then you may get to work."
"Very well." Garside performed one last bow before leaving to execute her orders. Right now his first job was to look into if there were any decent buildings in the city where they could move all the children to. Scarlett was still waiting for word from Evelyne on the matter, but she was starting to fear that might not pan out.
She'd had the thought of establishing an orphanage to house them in before, but she hadn't really considered it seriously. And although an orphanage might be a bit more than she wanted to deal with, she at least needed to move them somewhere. That had been made clear the day before when she returned from Ambercrest and followed Kat to do a quick check on the kids, finding the servant responsible for taking care of them at the time almost completely run-down from overworking, that she realized that she'd let this whole thing run on for far too long. Taking care of a large group of children wasn't what the people in this mansion were paid to do, yet they were still forced to perform that job in addition to their original duties. So she'd finally decided to handle the situation. In addition to finding new housing for the kids, Scarlett had also asked Garside to find some temporary hires to off-load the responsibility from the mansion servants. Frankly, she should have done that ages ago. But despite how she acted as if she belonged in her position, she really wasn't used to being in charge of other people and managing things like this. She was glad Evelyne was the one who actually took care of all the management matters in the Hartford family.
That reminded her that she had to inform the younger Hartford sister of her plans. She'd instructed Garside to address all potential costs to the Hartford estate, after all. Hopefully it wouldn't be expensive enough to prompt the younger woman to come running here to yell at her again. That was never a particularly pleasant experience for either of them, she wagered. Although, in the long run, she wasn't too concerned about their financial status. She'd concocted enough plans and tactics with her game knowledge for how to—among other things—earn money for her to feel safe in that area.
She took out a small key from the pouch of holding she had lying on the desk in front of her and used the key to unlock the drawer where she kept her notes. She picked out the red journal in it and placed it on the desk. Sifting through page after page of information she'd written down from 'Chronicle of Realms', she eventually stopped on a page where she had written several place names. She'd only been in this world for about two weeks so much of her game knowledge was still relatively fresh in her mind, but she still liked double-checking things from time to time. Although there were enough places in the game for there to be a decent chance she'd gotten at least a few of the names she'd written down wrong on a letter or two. Nonetheless, she found the name she was looking for, with a few notes beneath it describing what could be found there. Memorizing the name, she pushed the journal to the side and pulled another one out from the drawer. This one was black instead.
Opening it, she flipped past the first few pages. This was her 'min-maxing' book. Here she wrote down all the useful character builds she could think of. While stats like Strength, Charisma, HP, and things like that didn't seem to exist as they did in the game—or maybe they were just hidden for now—she did still have access to skills and items. As such, she had written down several possible combinations she'd thought of, to compare them. Many of them required skills or items that she was unlikely to ever get—just for fun she'd written down a build that would let her be a fighter through the use of a certain late-game skill that converted mana into strength—but those that her main focus was on were those that revolved around her pyromancy and pyrokinetic skills.
Right now her biggest obstacles were her low mana and her inability to cast spells. The mana problem she'd found two solutions for. The first was to use items that increased her mana. The artifact she'd gotten from the demon the day prior had effectively quadrupled her mana, from a rather measly 1000 to an only slightly measly 4000.
[Depraved Solitude's Choker (Unique)]
{This necklace hungers for power and appears to suck in the mana around it, waiting for it to be unleashed. 3000/3000}
It was slightly limited in that it would take her a while to fill it up herself—or that she had to get someone like Kat to fill it up—but in combat, that didn't make much of a difference.
The second way to increase her mana was by training. This wasn't anything new to her, she'd been doing some practicing with pyrokinesis and hydrokinesis for an hour or two every day for a while now, and it increased her max mana by around ten points each day. It was far from efficient, but she'd done the math and come to the conclusion that she would have to do it if she wanted most of her builds to work.
Sadly, her spellcasting problem didn't have as clear-cut of a solution as her mana problem. She was still spending some time practicing with Kat and studying the basics with the books she'd found, but it was like trying to learn a completely new language. Only worse.
She could still barely understand what an 'inner circle'—a term that was repeatedly used both by Kat and the books—was actually supposed to be. And she was no closer to feeling or moving her own mana. Using pyrokinesis or hydrokinesis didn't constitute, for some reason she still didn't understand, but she was having a really hard time figuring out how to do anything else. At the rate it was going right now, it might literally take a year for her to cast the most basic of spells. If she would even manage that.
So while she hadn't completely given up on the idea, her current plans were made on the assumption that she wouldn't be able to perform magic, and as such mostly had to do with making up for that.
[Name: Scarlett Hartford]
[Skills:
[Minor Mana Control]
[Pyromancy]
[Pyrokinesis]
[Minor Hydromancy]
[Minor Hydrokinesis]]
[Traits:
[Dignified August]
[Supercilious]
[Cavalier]
[Callous]
[Overbearing]
[Third-rate Mana Veins]
[Mana: 365/1088 (3000/3000)]
[Skill points: 4]
For now, her mana had increased by about 100 since she first arrived in this world. She had upgraded her [Minor Pyrokinesis] and [Lesser Hydrokinesis] to [Pyrokinesis] and [Minor Hydrokinesis] to better make use of her Aqua Mines, and for now, that was her main focus when it came to using more of her skill points.
[Skills Menu:
Upgrades
[Greater Pyromancy] (10 points)
[Greater Pyrokinesis] (10 points)
[Hydromancy] (5 points)
[Hydrokinesis] (5 points)
[Mana Control] (5 points)
New skills
[LOCKED]]
If she could get both the skills to the Greater stage she felt pretty confident she could make great use of them both, even in other ways than just her Aqua Mines. After that, she might look into maybe upgrading [Minor Mana Control] or some of the other skills. Or maybe she'll finally have figured out how to unlock new skills by then.
A knock sounded out from the office's dark mahogany door. Scarlett looked up from her notes. "Enter," she said as she put both the red and the black book back into the drawer before locking it. She put the key back into the pouch of holding.
The door opened and the dark-haired Molly entered the room with a blonde servant girl close behind her that Scarlett had seen a few times before. Both of them carried large rolled-up pieces of parchment that stuck up above them.
"My Lady. We have brought the maps you asked for," Molly said as she performed the closest thing she could to a curtsy with both her hands busy.
"They are larger than I expected," Scarlett noted. Those wouldn't fit on the desk. Maybe there was a map-viewing room? She hadn't explored all parts of the mansion. She couldn't exactly ask that either. She considered it for a moment. She couldn't just unroll them on the floor. Both because it might dirty or damage the maps, and because it offended her sensibilities. Or rather, the original's sensibilities.
The dining hall's table was more than large enough, but that wasn't exactly the kind of place you looked at maps in. Neither was the parlor or her bedroom. She hadn't had much reason to visit many other places, except for the library, where she'd been when she looked for books on decorum and other things before. It was far too cramped to do anything but read books there.
That only left the reception hall, which was currently an impromptu living space for a bunch of children. Well, Kat was bound to be there so Scarlett could always use her presence as an excuse. The Shielder's opinion might be good to have on this as well.
"Come," Scarlett said as she rose from her chair. She then walked around her desk and past the two servants who immediately fell in behind her as she began walking towards the mansion's reception hall.