“Good day, Mr. Wayland I presume?”
“Ah yes, that’s me…”
Roland wasn’t at his best, his face was covered in sweat as he had just walked out of the workshop to get some fresh air. It was still the middle of the day but he didn’t really care if people saw his dirty face. All the craftsmen in this world were somewhat expected to be covered in grime.
Before him was someone that he never expected to get a home visit from. While his clothes were different now, the man was once the town mayor. During some announcements at the town square, he had seen him performing some speeches. Even when the new lord showed up this man was there.
“Good, Mr. Wayland I won’t take much of your time as I have only come to deliver a message.”
The man looked more like an old butler now than a city mayor. It was quite the fancy suit along with a vest and white gloves. In those gloves, he was holding a letter that had a seal with the emblem of the Valerian household.
“This is?”
“It’s a letter from Lord Arthur Valerian, the lord hopes that you respond positively to his call, the details are included in the letter, please read through it with haste.”
Roland just looked at the sealed letter while spacing out for a moment. The golem that he sent to the new noble was probably the reason for this letter. If this was a reason for joy or despair would only be revealed when he read through it but maybe this butler could answer some questions first.
“The Lord calls for me?”
“I’m afraid that I’m not allowed to relinquish any more information, I have only been tasked to deliver this letter thus I will bid you farewell Mr. Wayland.”
The old man bowed quite graciously before him. This reminded him of the old butler from the Arden estate, both of the men had a similar air around them. Ferdinand did appear a bit different now as during the speeches he seemed more relaxed. Now on the other hand it looked like a switch had been flipped and he was now role-playing as a proper high-class butler.
“Ah yes, good day…”
Ferdinand turned around and started walking away. Not far away he saw three people holding spears standing next to the forest. There were obviously guards from the city, one of them he recognized to be one of the gate guards.
‘Maybe I should clear out some trees…’
In the past, he decided to clear out a path towards his store. Without a road, it would be impossible for a carriage to get through the dense forest. It was fine now as it was just the butler, but some nobles would find it offensive if they needed to walk through the forest to get here.
The people that delivered the message left, Elodia quickly peeked her head out of the store while Roland was looking at the letter.
“Wasn’t that the Mayor?”
“I think it was.”
Elodia looked down at the item Roland was holding before asking the next question.
“Did he come to deliver that?”
“It seems so.”
While he didn’t think there would be something incriminating in it, he wasn’t sure. Maybe the new lord figured out his true identity and was trying to blackmail him? This was highly unlikely as he wasn’t anyone famous when he left the Arden estate.
Besides his closest family, no one would probably be able to recognize him at his current age. Probably half his family members would have trouble, Robert was somewhat different as the two had more interactions while they were younger.
His two older brothers and sisters only met during the family dinners which grew lesser and lesser with time. Their father was quite busy with military work and did not stay at the estate too much. Only when he returned would they sit down to eat but even then, most of the time his brothers were missing as they were busy with the knight academy.
“It’s a letter from the lord, you probably should go through it alone.”
Thankfully Elodia didn’t prod the issue and just turned around. Roland was even considering reading the letter in front of her to further their trust but he wouldn’t be given a chance. They weren’t married, so a degree of confidentiality was still out on the table. Just like she didn’t pry into his history before he arrived in this city, so did he.
“Let’s see then…”
After Elodia left he decided to go back to his house and open the letter. With somewhat sweaty palms he held it out in front of his face and started reading.
“... What is that guy thinking?”
The letter was filled with flowery words and somewhat hard to read. If he was a common blacksmith he would probably had gotten a headache after going through the first few statements.
At the beginning of the letter, the person name Arthur started praising his craftsmanship. The golem that he had sent seemed to have done the trick. After the paragraph of praise, he finally arrived at the meat and potatoes of this letter. It was actually a call for a business offer.
‘It has come to my attention that you had been wrongfully barred from participation at our Valerian auction house, I would wish to discuss this issue further…’
It looked like the lord had looked into his ban from the auction house. Roland did know that the Valerian household was the real owner of that establishment and it seemed that he was now getting another chance.
‘So in short he liked the golem so much that he sees a potential business opportunity?’
Arthur Valerian was a new player in this growing city. It was normal for him to not have made any contracts with the dwarven union or any other powerful merchants. He could very well unban him from the auction house to allow him to reach a broader customer base if he so wished.
‘The question is, why would he be willing to work with me over the dwarves? Couldn’t they just supply him with similar wares?’
Roland wasn’t really sure what Arthur’s angle here was. While he could make golems that would probably go for a lot, he was still just one man. His output wasn’t that great as he would not be able to supply the auction house with constantly golemic constructs.
On the other hand, the dwarves could produce more in bulk as they had many more craftsmen. Probably in the future, some higher leveled smiths would appear, if he went against the auction house they might decide to not use it at all. They had their own shops in which their wares could just sit on the shelves.
They didn’t really need the auction house at which they also needed to share some of the profits. It was still a good place to drop off some wares as there was a certain spectacle to it. Some people liked to show off in the bidding wars which did inflate the prices.
‘Does he know something I don’t?’
From Roland’s standpoint, if people knew his true level and his special class they would probably be willing to invest money into his progress. If he managed to become a tier 3 Master Runesmith his worth would skyrocket. Was this Arthur banking on his quick progress? Did he want to entrap him in a contract after doing some research?
‘That’s a possibility…’
Roland frowned while putting the letter to the side. At the end of it, he was invited to the auction house. The date was for tomorrow at noon, the person inviting him wasn’t losing any time.
‘Either way, I can’t just refuse a meeting with the city lord.’
It was an unwritten rule for any commoner to answer the call of a noble. If he decided to not show up, he would be accused of dishonoring the noble's name. This was an actual law for which you could be thrown into prison. The sentencing depended on the noble and they chose when they felt disgraced.
“The new lord wishes to see you?”
“Yes, that’s why I need your help…”
Some time had passed since he received the letter, and now he was discussing everything with Elodia.
“I’m not sure if showing up in my usual clothes would be appropriate…”
Roland never really cared about his appearance, he liked to wear more functional clothes than ones that made him look good. Thus his wardrobe only consisted of things that he could either take into battle, like armor or workshop gear. Other than that he had loose t-shirts and loose pants that he wore when he was relaxing at home.
“You are right, I don’t think wearing that bulky robe and armor would be appropriate for the visit…”
Elodia looked to the coat hanger where a dark cloak was hanging. It was one that Roland liked to cover his half-plate armor that he usually paraded through the city in. Then there was the ugly face mask to the side that he also tended to bring with him. To this day Elodia was not sure why he was that pedantic when it came to protecting himself but at this point, she was afraid to ask.
“Yes but he wishes to need me tomorrow, I’m not sure I’ll find anything at the tailor this fast…”
This was not the modern world, a person needed to go to the tailor and get their measurements. A person would not just create twenty sets of clothes of varying sizes and leave them out on the shelf.
With tailoring skills they did work fast though, it wouldn’t take longer than a week for the order to be finished. The person with the proper skills wouldn’t even need to take measurements of the potential customer. They could just take a snapshot of their dimensions and quickly manufacture anything they had previously worked on.
“I don’t think that will be needed, it was supposed to have been a surprise but …”
“A surprise?”
Elodia smiled and told Roland to wait a moment as she went to fetch something from the store. After a few minutes, she returned with a locked box in her hands. Roland recognise this box as something that she kept up in the attic.
“This is?”
While still being silent, she opened up the box to take out a nice-looking set of clothes. There were pants, a vest, and a nice proper shirt that at first glance looked to be made from some expensive fabric.
At this moment he recalled that Elodia did have quite a wide range of skills, tailoring was one of them. She was not an expert tailor so she would not be able to work as fast but this did not make her creations any worse.
At first, he thought that she might have made it as an acknowledgment for the bracelet that he made for her. The timeline didn’t quite add up though as he had given her the bracelet recently and with the orphanage situation on her mind, it would probably be hard to focus on it.
“It should be proper enough for a meeting with a noble, you should have some fitting leather boots to go with it…”
“This is great, when did you have time to make it?”
Roland started going through the box and could see himself wearing this to a meeting with a rich merchant. The fabric and leather was of high quality and while buying the materials was cheaper than buying fabricated clothing, it still had to have cost Elodia a bit.
Initialy he wanted to ask about the costs of those materials but he bit his tongue. It was clearly intended as a gift and if he tried to cover the cost of it all, it would just lessen the work Elodia went into.
“Mostly when you were out on your adventures or in the workshop, not like we have customers in the store the whole day, just something to keep my hands busy, now go wash your face.”
It seemed that she was intent on him getting into these clothes here and now. Lobelia and Armand were sticking closer to the orphanage now due to the problems with the merchants. While Elodia did have some more time on her hands, he would not want to keep her away from her extended family in their time of need.
But while looking at Elodia’s rather radiant face he decided to drop the issue. Perhaps what she needed was something to keep her mind off it, instead of a constant reminder of the deadline.
While he had shared his tent idea with her beforehand, she didn’t seem all that glad in taking him up on the offer. It seemed that she didn’t want to abuse his goodwill and was still trying to fix her problems by herself.
Thus he headed over to his bathroom to get cleaned up, regretfully he was refused when he offered to take a bat together. Elodia proved to be a tough nut to crack when it came to the one-on-one time. It didn’t take him that long to clean up and after some time he was given the clothes.
“These really fit well, how do I look?”
Roland asked while looking into the mirror with Elodia next to him. He was quite surprised at just how well these clothes fit him. There was never a point where he was measured by Elodia which meant that she had to eyeball it. The tailoring skill must have worked its wonders as it was a perfect fit.
He was now standing with a dark vest on and with a white shirt under it. His pants matched the vest's dark coloring, the only thing that he was missing was a tie and some shoes to go with it.
“Is there a problem?”
Elodia seemed to have gone quiet after he put on some clothes. He even attempted to style his hair into a more modern look. Now he was being stared at by his girlfriend that had gone quiet. She was clearly staring at his face with a red tint to her cheeks.
“Problem? Ah now… but maybe… it would be better to wear that robe when you go into the city…”
“So you want me to wear my old robe?”
He wasn’t sure what this was about as Elodia clearly agreed with him when he pointed out his lack of attire.
“Well… what will you do if your clothes get dirty? You only have one pair and it could start raining.”
“Raining huh?”
Roland nodded a bit as it was possible that he could accidentally get some dirt thrown his way.
“Maybe I should take the cloak instead, my hair could get messy…”
“N-no, just put the robe on!”
“Oh… uh, okay?”
It did seem that Elodai wanted him to cover up from head to toe apparently. He wasn’t sure why but there was no reason to dig into it too much.
When it was an hour before the intended meeting he decided to leave his house. There were many things going through his head. At first he thought to bring up the orphanage with the lord but this would show a big weak spot.
If they were there to discuss business the lord could prod at this issue. He could promise to take care of it only if Roland signed an unfavorable contract. It wasn’t out of the picture but first, he needed to prod this Arthur Valerian for answers. What kind of person was he? What did he want to achieve here and why was he giving him this strange offer of cooperation.
It didn’t take him long to arrive at the Auction House. It was a place that he had not visited in quite some time, even Bernir and his wife were eventually banned from attending it. Any known associates that tried to sell anything were seen as potential eyesores.
He came half an hour early and it didn’t seem that the lord was quite there yet. For the time being, he decided to wait while examining the current Auction House. If things went well, then perhaps he could resume his involvement with them.
How they treated him for the past few years didn’t matter to him. It was clearly just business-related and he just did not have enough pull to make them bend the knee. Now on the other hand he had managed to attract the eyes of the city lord. While he still didn’t like to work with or for the nobles, if it allowed him to progress and save the orphanage, he was willing to take some risks.
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