Turn 38 Social - 2488.5 - Part 2
You hadn't been entirely decided, but hearing about Eike's development into what seems a lot like your younger self settles the matter. "I'll take her on," you say. "I move around a lot, but I've got Ulgu-only rooms that will allow her to continue her education in both Karak Eight Peaks and Tor Lithanel."
He nods. "Ah yes, your World's Edge Branch." He makes a few notes. "Very well, I'll have word sent to you when her graduation tests are scheduled, which will likely be in the summer. If you can make it yourself that does tend to make an impression on the Apprentice. At your rank it's generally assumed that the only one who is qualified to teach your understanding of Ulgu is you, but we do have a course that is tailored for Magisters taking on their first Apprentice if you feel like you would benefit from it."
You nod. "Is there some sort of ritual or ceremony for taking on an Apprentice?" You'd asked Regimand that about a month after he'd officially taken you on, and he'd told you that it had already been done. You never managed to get a straight answer out of him as to whether he meant that some part of your esoteric early lessons had incorporated that, or whether your presence hadn't been required for it.
"If you believe your Apprentice would benefit from one, we have templates available of many themes and styles, and agreements with the Ambers and the local Cults to use their facilities for such. If you want to get really elaborate, just wave a bag of silver within earshot of the Breughel."
Of course that wouldn't have a yes-or-no answer. You thank the Dean for his time and the information.
---
Anatomy is a rather fraught science in the Empire, as the demand for legal corpses so that physicians and anatomists can learn their trade greatly outstrips supply, leading to a black market price of ten crowns or more for a fresh or well-preserved corpse. Rising to this opportunity are the criminal enterprises known as Resurrection Men, who at best consist of grave robbers and crooked embalmers and grave wardens, and at worst consist of those who turn to more direct methods to ensure a supply of fresh corpses. This would be reason enough to earn the attention of the Amethyst Order, but that this illicit industry provide necromancers with cover to acquire raw materials for their twisted art makes it one more front in their eternal war against those that misuse Shyish.
Grim business, but one fortunate side-effect of this is that the Amethyst Order always has a few Wizards who circulate in those circles and as such require a working knowledge of anatomy to blend in. One such Wizard is Magister Margarete Schluchtbuck, a short-haired and pretty young woman as skilled with a scalpel or pistol as she is with the Wind of Death. She cheerfully receives your visit and guides you through the dusty hall of the Morrite cathedral that the Amethyst College is somehow within, and despite looking for it, you're unable to spot the point where one gives way to the other and are quite surprised when you reach the office marked with her nameplate. "Let's see," she says, rummaging through shelves filled with preserved creatures and organs. "Ah, yes. I haven't had the privilege of having a Rattus sapiens upon my table, but in this case it was no obstacle to identifying the organ once I got one out of that goop. Do you recognize it?"
In the clearer liquid you can make out enough to see that it's spongy-looking and vaguely triangular, but that doesn't really narrow things down for you. "Can't say I do."
"Glandulae renibus incumbents, though significantly larger than what I usually see. We each have two of the very same organ within us, perched atop our kidneys like a jaunty hat, and it's actually the centre of something of a controversy within anatomist circles, over whether it should be properly labelled ad-renal or supra-renal. Humoralists call them capsulae atrabiliarae, believing it to be an instrument for the creation or storage of black bile. The rest of us, being burdened with the obligation to actually investigate and test instead of being able to make it up as we go along, were a little more in the dark, and in truth few had given them too much attention. One more weird wobbly bit in a body full of 'em. But if our downstairs neighbours are going to the trouble of collecting and preserving them in a warzone, it stands to reason that there must be some significance to them. So I rounded up some physiology students and pointed them towards the slaughterhouses, and before long they were able to reliably extract the fluid within. Unfortunately for you and me, but fortunately for the advancement of knowledge, one of them blabbed to the Physicians Guild, and now those buggers are running around giving it to everyone for everything. I can't get them to stop - might be there's not a power in the world that could get them to stop selling the latest nostrums - but I can bully them into telling me what they've found, and I have."
She opens a drawer and pulls out a notebook and flips through it until she finds what she's looking for, and continues on. "Drinking it does nothing but make the physician richer, as expected, but things get interesting when you're a bit more creative with it. Applied as a vapour has proven very effective as a tonic against croup and anhelitus, but when injected it causes the subject to feel anxious and jittery, of all things."
You consider that. "That sounds like a perfectly reasonable reaction to being stabbed by a physician, regardless of the substance involved."
"I tried it myself. The heart beats faster, the body sweats, the hands shake, fatigue is banished. Rather similar to the feeling one gets during a confrontation."
"Might this be related to the phenomenon of 'Black Hunger' among the Skaven?"
"I suspect so, in which case replacing or supplementing an oversized version of the same gland would drive them to even higher heights and lower lows, which seems like just the sort of thing they'd be liable to dabble in. I don't know if there's any use to that facet of the discovery, but personally I'm delighted that their experiments have inadvertently advanced our grasp of anatomy and medicine. There's a pair of papers making their way through the Colleges, one from me and one from the Physicians Guild, and though they beat me to the punch I did badger them into giving us some credit."
You skim a copy of her paper, and nod. A pity that part of the credit had been poached, but before you entered this office you had no idea that there were results worth poaching, so there's a limit on how upset you can rightfully be. And this paper, competently-written and kicking apart a pet theory of the Humoralists as it does, is something you're happy to have your name attached to. "Thank you for your work on this."
"No, thank you, Lady Magister. This has given me a significant amount of credit within the circles I work in, and that's going to do a lot of good for the causes of the Amethyst Order within them."
[A Novel Treatment for Croup and Anhelitus, 2488. Subject: Common, -1. Insight: Revolutionary, +2. Delivery: Dull, -1. Contributor, -3. Useful, +1. Total: +1 (minimum).]
[The Function of Glandulae Renibus Incumbents, 2488. Subject: Common, -1. Insight: Shattering, +3. Delivery: Competent, +0. Secondary Author, -2. Thorough, +1. Varied, +1. Popular, +1. Total: +3.]
---
It's been seven years since you last paid a visit to your fief. Part of you frets at this, but the reason this land was chosen for you is that it can take care of itself while you're taking care of the rest of the Empire. Besides, it's not like you've abandoned them entirely, as you left them with instructions to contact you via the EIC if anything was amiss and left the EIC instructions to keep you informed of any significant dangers in the area. As neither has done so, you're reasonably certain that there's nothing to worry about, though despite this you're still at least a little relieved when everything looks intact from the sky as your Gyrocarriage approaches. It's not the first time you've visited here by air and the locals are interested but unworried, save for a dog that stands between the Gyrocarriage and the crowd as it lands, barking at the strange, roaring metal beast that has intruded on its domain.
You learn that the headsman you knew is still given the respect due to a headsman, but over the years the unofficial authority has unofficially migrated to his son, Rolf, your Steward for these lands. You find him older, more confident, and now with a flock of his own and several children, one of whom is named Mathilde. He leaps straight to business, showing you a trio of rams kept in a fenced-in area of pasture just outside the keep. "Estalian mayor sheep, m'lady," Rolf says. "Imported from Averland, who imported them from Tilea, who stole them from Estalia. You did tell me that if I saw an opportunity to invest I should take it, and I had your EIC check the seller to make sure they were reputable." He pauses as if waiting for you to react, and continues on once he's sure you're not going to do so. "It has a reputation for very fine wool, but more important, they're smarter than the average sheep. Problem we're having up here is the ragwort, it springs up all over the place if other plants die off and leave room for it, like during drought or if you overgraze. So in bad times there's more ragwort than anything else, and it's poison if a beast eats enough of it, and sheep ain't got the sense to avoid it. The mayor sheep is smart enough not to eat too much of it, and almost as tough as the local breed, so we're breeding them in to the local flocks."
You give a thoughtful nod, as though you're at all qualified to pass judgement on animal husbandry. "I see. That seems a sensible idea."
"I'd also like to bring in some East Westerlander rams to try to improve milk production in our ewes. You said I could make improvements without asking, but problem with these is that they're a lowland sheep. I could let the mayor sheep out with the other flocks tomorrow and they'd be mostly fine, but lowland sheep don't do well up here, and it could take generations of crossbreeding them until we get something that does. Until then I'd need to bring in provender from Tarshof, that'd come to a shilling per head per month, more during the winter, so maybe as much as a crown per head per year. To maintain a breeding population until there's enough of the local blood in them to survive up here, without breeding out the extra milk..." He inhales through his teeth. "Could get as high as a hundred crowns, and no guarantee that it'd prove worth it in the end."
"I'll give it some thought. Any concerns in the area?"
"Nothing out of the ordinary, m'lady. The Elector Countess' men have been coming through the towns checking taxes, but I've kept ours paid up proper. Widened what could be paid in kind, too, and there's more roadwardens around lately, so nobody's grumbling too much." He thinks for a moment. "Top Walter lost an eye to a hawk that tried to take one of his sheep and got tangled in the wool, but he sold the feathers for enough that he says he got the better of the deal. The Wagners, silly buggers, kept drinking from a stream from which they shouldn't've, almost lost their youngest before they saw sense. The Senns are feuding with the Ankenbauers again, but that keeps happening and it never goes beyond shouting and insulting each others' cheeses. Rumour has it they might be building a new road round here, but nobody can agree whether it'd be Tarshof to Pürgg, or Sonningwiese to Pürgg, or Sonningwiese to Ohlsdorf, or Tarshof to Biberhof. Was a time when a few'd be talking about joining the work to make some coin on the side, but digging up flint is closer to home and pays better." He scratches his chin. "Think that's about it, m'lady."
You let the wave of bucolic mundanities wash over you with a faint smile. Worlds away from your concerns of Waystones and interprovincial rivalries, the people of this fief need worry about nothing more than the weather and the wildlife. You're not sure if you would have found the same sort of peace if you'd remained in this sort of life, or if you would have been driven mad with boredom, or if you would have ended up clawing your way into a position not unlike Rolf's out of sheer need to meddle in the world around you. And speaking of which, the decision is now yours whether to okay his ambitious plan for animal husbandry. Judging from the rattle in the chest that Rolf digs out of his vegetable garden, you've got more than enough funds to do so.
836 crowns have accumulated at your fief.
[ ] [FIEF] Approve
Will cost between 20 and 100 crowns over the coming years.
[ ] [FIEF] Approve plus Jade Wizard
Put word out that there's good, easy work here for a Jade Journeyman. Will cost between 70 and 150 crowns over the coming years.
[ ] [FIEF] (Write in)
Alter this plan in some other way, or suggest some completely different plan to improve the fief.
[ ] [FIEF] Deny
Make it clear that the mayor sheep was a good investment that you're happy with, but this one is too uncertain and expensive to be the same.
[ ] [CASH] Take all
[ ] [CASH] Take half
[ ] [CASH] Leave it
[ ] [CASH] Other amount (write in)
Library Purchases:
[ ] [LIBRARY] Colleges of Magic
Name four magical, non-divine topics to acquire all available Empire books on.
[ ] [LIBRARY] Barak Varr booksellers
Name three public topics to acquire all available Empire and Dwarven books on.
[ ] [LIBRARY] Library of Mournings
Name two non-magical topics to hire Cityborn scribes to copy all available Laurelorn books on.
[ ] [LIBRARY] Back-fill.
Instead of seeking books on specific topics, give a very broad direction and have your bookselling contacts grab everything on it that you don't already have, with special attention to existing but incomplete topics. Possible categories: Dwarven religion, human religion, geography, war and combat, social science, natural science, applied science.
Dwarf Favour Purchases
Aethyric Vitae can be spent instead of favour at an exchange rate of 3 favour per gallon; for Rune-related purchases, this will also guarantee the cooperation of Runelords who may otherwise be disinterested. To use this, simply add 'paid by Vitae' or similar to an item you are voting for.
[ ] [DWARF] No purchase.
[ ] [DWARF] Write-in.
College Favour Purchases
[ ] [COLLEGE] No purchase.
[ ] [COLLEGE] Write-in.
Other Purchases
[ ] [PURCHASE] No purchase.
[ ] [PURCHASE] Write-in.
- There will be a two hour moratorium.
- How much of the credit you'd get for the organ vat results and how much was poached was rolled for here.
- Even if Mathilde cleans out the coffers, she'll make it clear that the fief is allowed to use future accumulated taxes to make improvements.
- The current state of the fief can be found in the Organizations threadmark.
- The mechanics of the back-fill option for the library have tweaked.
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