Nero Walker, Book 4 Ch.87 (318)

Seated across from each other near the front table, Battle Leader Averett was once again arguing with Lady Verina. This time, it was over how much fiscal reserve should be reserved for the Wacko’s upcoming deployment versus what percentage of income should be reinvested into House Walker’s local holdings.

Meanwhile, former captain of the Dorchester Army, now Knight Harold Angelton, focused on the information in front of him, cross-referencing what he was reading with what he was seeing through his link. He’d arranged for physical files to be printed and was now busy making sure everything was in order. While he may not be as adept at multi-tasking with his link as some, he was more than proficient in logistical tasks like commanding and supplying a group of soldiers. Or, in this case, adventurers.

He, along with everyone else who’d be leaving, needed to be ready as soon as possible.

Having had a solid 4 hours of sleep in a real bed, he’d gotten up early, allowing him plenty of time to stop off at the merchant’s office he’d hired to sell off what few possessions he’d acquired over the years. Everything he’d owned that he wouldn’t be taking with him when House Walker left Dorchester was now gone. Unsurprisingly, he’d gotten a good deal with all the immigrants arriving in the city. Prices for furniture and knick-knacks were now higher than ever. But that was neither here nor there, as he’d already begun to feel somewhat attached to House Walker, along with his new yet somewhat impossible young lord.

Next to him, Team Leader Harring, who still wasn’t used to being referred to as anything other than ‘Mike’, leaned over and said in a whisper, “Hey, sir. Did you get a chance to look over the release forms Sarah and I finished?”

The paperwork in question were the final submission forms for the formal criminals being rehabilitated under House Walker’s aegis. He’d already approved them before sending them to the law-binders of House Walker. It had been one of the first things he’d done upon arrival this morning. By now, they should already be being processed by the Tower of Law.

Nodding his head slowly, without stopping what he was doing, Knight Angelton replied, “Yes. Everything looked fine. When we leave, your people won’t have any issues.”

“Our people, sir,” Team Leader Harring replied with an embarrassed smile.

Indulging the young man with the closest approximation of a smile of his own, Knight Angelton replied, “Right you are. Our people.”

Refocusing on what he was doing, Knight Angelton tuned out the rest of the room. If he were lucky, he’d be able to get all of this checked before Lord Walker arrived. He’d expected the room to be empty when he’d arrived, but it seemed that he wasn’t the only one feeling rushed by the various pressures weighing down on them.

Between Leader Keening’s team struggling to deal with the rumors surrounding Lord Walker’s divinity, the nobility’s very loud silence on the subject, and the flood of applications arriving from citizens interested in joining House Walker, it was understandable that House Walker’s leadership was feeling under siege. That’s not to mention the continued warnings from Archmage Jennings concerning the Great Houses from the capital and their interest in Lord Walker.

So, even though they’d just returned from battle, having achieved a glorious victory, everyone was working hard to prepare for their imminent departure. Each department, each person, they all had their assignments to complete.

Which was exactly what he was currently doing, attempting to organize the Wackos.

Not all of House Walker would be leaving Dorchester. They couldn’t. And while a significant number of administrators and guards would be staying here, those people weren’t his concern. His responsibility was to those who’d be leaving with Lord Walker, regardless of their ultimate destination.

Hearing the conversation turning back to something more interesting than what House Walker should be expecting as a reward for their having closed the portal, Knight Angelton looked up from his papers and mentally set aside the roster he’d been reviewing.

“It’s just conjecture at this point, but what we do know is that if Lord Walker decides to take up the archmage on his offer, the adventuring contingent will be leaving through an astra-teleporter, not the gates,” Lady Verena declared firmly before beginning to discuss with Quartermaster Holden the supplies the Wackos would be needing.

Amused that once again Lady Verena has avoided referring to the Wackos by their name, Knight Angelton interrupted the room to ask, “And when exactly is the delegation from the dwarves expected to arrive?”

Turning to address him with a frown, Lady Verena replied, “Another three to four hours. Ms. Keening is already en route to pick them up. Hopefully, she’ll be able to get to them before the guard forces them to the keep and we get embroiled with the nobility. The last thing we need is for them to stick their noses into what we expect to be a request for Lord Walker’s help with their invasion portals.”

Lord Verena, Lady Verena’s husband and Lord Walker’s friend, added from his seat next to her, “If Lord Walker takes the dwarves up on their offer, you’ll be first heading to the new city they’ve built, or are in the process of building. Likely, they’ll already have set up their version of long-distance astra-platforms. Which, interestingly, are based on entirely different principles than ours. Their magic practitioners use runic magic to interface with what they call ‘the veins of the world’, using them to connect multiple places across the continent. And when they say ‘veins’, they do mean both to reference both the veins of the body and the veins of ore that one can find in a mountain. In their original language, the meaning is practically the same thing. A dwarf would consider their physical bodies a reflection of the very mountains they inhabit. Also -”

Patting his hand consolingly, Lady Verena interrupted him, “Yes, dear. That’s all very interesting, but I believe Knight Angelton would rather take his time to read your primer on dwarven culture than attend a lecture at the moment.”

Chuckles around the room didn’t stop Knight Angelton from continuing what he was going to say. “I believe we all know that Lord Walker will likely be choosing to head into dwarven territory going forward. He hasn’t made much of a secret of his preferences, despite repeatedly claiming that he hasn’t yet made a decision. Therefore, I’ve already begun preparing the Wackos for what’s coming. However, that doesn’t mean a precise timetable wouldn’t be appreciated.”

Understanding what he was getting at, Lady Verena responded, “Based on past experiences, I doubt Lord Walker will hesitate long before making his choice. And you’re likely correct in assuming that he will ignore the archmage and instead choose to visit the dwarves, whatever the details of their offer they might make.”

Sighing, she continued, “After you and the adventuring contingent leave, House Verena will continue to manage House Walker’s now limited assets in the city. Hopefully, those people who’ve been wanting to join House Walker will not mind instead serving his local representatives. Gods above know we could use them. Even with how many valens are coming in, we still haven’t come close to approaching the size of some of the other larger houses in the city.”

Battle Leader Averett asked, “Do you think it might be wise to delay our departure and use Lord Walker’s presence to steer these potential followers toward your house? Personally, I don’t like the idea of leaving a potential resource untapped.”

Knight Angelton spoke up quickly, “Regardless of how you choose to handle it, the budget for the Wackos has already been allocated. We’re taking 250 people total. No more, no less.”

Lady Verean nodded in agreement. “The rest of House Walker will remain, although we will recruit another 100 members of the adventuring contingent to be housed here at the estate while you’re gone. They will serve as reinforcements and replacements if, gods forbid, you need them. Until then, they’ll be serving as local adventurers representing House Walker here in Dorchester. Hopefully, their income will at least cover their expenses.”

Battle Leader Averett added, “I’m aware of the plans, but I still don’t like how cavalier we’ve been treating the subject of Lord Walker’s divinity. The public is in an uproar, and if he leaves the city before we make a statement, I can’t begin to guess how they’ll react.”

Somewhat tensely, Lady Verena replied, “Yes, as you’ve made very clear to everyone here. But, until either the religious district or the council of leadership addresses the matter, all we can do is publicly deny it. However, as you’ve mentioned, we don’t expect that to have much of an effect on the rumors.”

Speaking up, Leader Harring said, “And I still don’t understand what the problem is. Sure, there are a lot of people in the streets, and the Thought-Hub is buzzing with how many people are talking about Lord Walker, but why are you all so set on considering that a bad thing? You’ve said it yourself, people all over the city are adopting the ways of the adventurer. Our lord has created a movement. Divine or not, he’s still the representative of an entire way of life. People will follow him, regardless of whether or not they join up with our house. Even if he’s gone off on an adventure of his own.”

Seeing as he was met with nothing but silence, he added in a quiet voice, “You have met the young lord; you should have seen this coming.”

Just then, the doors to the conference room opened, and in walked the lord in question. Trailing behind him was his personal maid, closing the doors politely after he entered.

Knight Angelton, along with everyone else, stood up to greet him. Each person slightly bowed in silence while Lady Verena welcomed him into the room.

He always found it amusing to watch Lord Walker’s expressions. The young man was obviously never trained to hide his feelings, regardless of how controlled his presence was growing. And as expected, the young lord was still quite clearly uncomfortable with the pageantry, likely one of the many reasons everyone felt obligated to treat him according to his station.

Lord Walker was a unique, and a powerful one at that. Knight Angelton had seen him perform his miracles up close, and he could still barely understand half of what he’d witnessed while fighting alongside him. Honestly, after having heard his speeches and seen the numerous memory engrams of his achievements on the Thought Hub, posted there by those who were lucky to have witnessed them, he wasn’t surprised that the mysterious young man had begun to attract a following.

It was the way of the world to have people want to emulate those who’d accomplished great things. They were the ones who blazed the trails that the rest of the citizenry followed. Arguably, even if the former evaluators from the Royal Academy hadn’t begun actively spreading his legend, Lord Walker’s expanding presence would have accomplished the same thing eventually.

“All right, everyone can take your seats, there’s no need for dramatics,” Lord Walker declared before muttering to himself under his breath, “You’d think I arrived with my own theme music. I swear I’m never going to get used to this.”

Knight Angetlon retook his seat, suppressing his smile at his lord’s everlasting humility. Despite hearing Lord Walker speaking quietly and only to himself, he likely wasn’t the only one to clearly hear the young man add, “Another day of adulting in the land of madness and magic. Yay for me…”

—--

Nero had tried, he’d really tried, not to get too hung up on the specifics of Ms. Davis’ mind-boggling ability. But still, he’d ended up spending the entire trip through the halls of the Walker Estate interrogating her with pointed and somewhat intrusive personal questions about how her pillar had developed over the years. Unfortunately, all he’d gotten for his trouble was a gentle understanding smile and what amounted to more than a few ambiguous statements, each of which having been more confusing than helpful. And by the time they’d arrived at the conference room, he was more than a little annoyed at having to settle for ‘that’s just how pillars are’.

Looking around the room, Nero found himself wondering about other people’s pillars. Each of them obviously having their own life stories, likely developing their pillars in response to their unique and diverse lifestyles. And looking at it objectively, when it came down to it, each of them was the main character in their own little adventure, earning themselves their own personalized superpower that represents exactly who they are on a fundamental, metaphysical, weirdly spiritual, and ultimately ‘bullshit’ level.

“The dwarves are expected to arrive in a few hours, but before they get here, there are a few matters that we should address in regards to House Walker’s operations,” Vera said while immediately taking control of the room.

With a not-so-small effort of sheer will, Nero focused on corralling his rambling mind fragments, forcing them to come together to pay attention to what she was saying.

“Alright, hit me,” he replied while leaning back in his chair, his fingers intertwining over his freshly fed post-breakfast tummy.

After Vera nodded to Cathleen, Nero bit back a chuckle when Cathleen stood up to address the room like she was presenting a book report.

What followed was a long and boring explanation of House Walker’s updated organizational chart. She explained in detail how the guards, adventurers, wackos, and anyone else who carried a weapon to work would be assigned.

According to what she was saying, the wackos would be following Nero as his personal gang of muscle. So, whether he stayed in the city, went off to take quests from other cities, or ended up visiting the dwarves like he semi-planned, they’d be the ones coming with him. She also went into a broad explanation as to how the specifics of their life oaths, along with how they were looking forward to earning their new names.

Luckily for Nero, Cathleen had been kind enough to send out an informational packet so everyone in the room could follow along. Although it was only able to be seen through his link, Nero appreciated having a magical version of what amounted to a Power Point presentation to explain things that he was missing.

There were even links included to help him check the reference texts. She really was an overachiever.

While listening closely, he took a moment to research the different levels of life oaths she was discussing. He was surprised to find that some of them came with some serious cultural repercussions that he hadn’t been aware of. Specifically, the criminals who’d taken him up on his offer to join him had formerly left their last names behind, dedicating their lives and futures to House Walker. Which, while something he’d known about, wasn’t something he’d truly understood.

The poor bastards had lost their last names! And apparently only a few of the more notable recruits had been allowed to keep their full identities and legacies intact. Angelton and Cathleen were obvious exceptions, but how that guy Mike had made the cut, Nero had no idea.

He couldn’t begin to understand the difference, but everyone else seemed to, so Nero decided it would be best just to keep his mouth shut.

‘I’ll have to remember to ask someone about this later. Good ‘ole Harry will probably be able to explain it without turning it into a lecture,’ Nero thought to himself.

But that was only one small, not at all important, part of what Cathleen was addressing. She then went on to cover how the other departments of guards and adventurers would be deployed. Namely, the ones who were staying in Dorchester as his representatives.

Nero continued to listen closely, absorbing as much interpretable information as he could.

He was surprised to hear that she and Vera had decided to run with his mercenary idea and had ultimately turned it into an adventuring group. And he was even more surprised to hear that she’d already been in contact with the military, arranging for them to represent House Walker under contract in the ongoing war with the kobalds. She’d even gone to the trouble to set up a training schedule along with recruiting more people into the house to act as trainers. All of which having been registered through the Hall of Hunters.

‘When in the hell did she have time to do all this?’ Nero wondered with a frown as he mentally flipped through the numerous pages of paperwork she’d sent him over his link.

Only by the time she was done did Nero realize that Cathleen had only been discussing the armed division of House Walker. Apparently, her title of Battle Leader had put her in charge of everything military under his banner.

‘You already knew that,’ he reminded himself before forcing himself not to get distracted.

Yet, without even bothering to ask for questions, Cathleen took her seat, allowing a man from the other side of the table to stand up and take his turn.

Nero didn’t recognize him, but he was kind enough to begin his presentation by introducing himself. Named Oliver Wents, he looked to Nero like a cross between a salaryman from a webcomic crossed with a used car salesman. Not terribly attractive or unique looking, nothing about him seemed all that special. However, his smile was bright enough to remind Nero to ask someone if dentists were a thing here.

Apparently, Vera had recruited him to represent the legal and social arm of House Walker. This, of course, confused the hell out of Nero, because he’d thought that Keening woman was in charge of his media relations.

Yet, the longer Mr. Wents talked, the more Nero began to understand what was happening. Best he could tell, Keening would be ostensibly working under him, or adjacent to him. His job being to manage the business relationships and the nobles, while hers was to manage his public perception.

Reading the man’s PowerPoint, Nero came to realize that Ms. Keening wasn’t staying behind in Dorchester. She’d instead be coming along with him and the wackos, serving as his roving press secretary. At her request, that is.

A lot of what the man was saying was nonsense, or at least not something Nero had a hope of understanding. Since a majority of Nero’s worldview was a composite of metaphors and equivalencies with ideas and subjects he’d made comparisons to between this world and the one he was more familiar with, most of what the man was saying ended up going over his head.

Nero didn’t know what ‘seasonal rankings’ were, or what Mr. Wents meant when he discussed ‘gate impact ratings’.

Unfortunately, despite how long Mr. Wents talked, Nero didn’t have nearly enough time to go through all the reading, so he was forced to mentally move on before he’d begun to decipher half of what Mr. Wents had just covered.

Up next was Nick, whose long-winded presentation was on the local Center’s response to Nero’s closing of the portal. He’d even taken the opportunity to use the table’s holographic projector to show everyone the incredible amount of data that had been somehow recorded.

Glancing around the room, Nero was surprised to see that more than a few people were actually capable of following what Nick was saying.

The long and short of it was that multiple research teams had already begun to filter the data, and House Walker would be rewarded with some sort of payment for… something. Nero was utterly incapable of understanding just what exactly House Walker was being rewarded for, but he was sure he heard the word ‘reward’ mentioned multiple times. Nick even made a point of nodding to Mr. Wents as if what he’d just said had something to do with the man’s department.

Before Nick had even finished sitting down, Vera was already standing up and glaring at the room as if they’d been naughty children due for a polite and matronly scolding.

Her presentation was on Nero’s public perception, House Walker’s expected payment from the completion of their quest, and the political realities surrounding Nero’s recent rise to power, both local and on the kingdom level.

With every part of his brain utterly focused on what she was saying, Nero felt like his mind was melting as he tried to interpret the massive amount of information that she wasn’t saying. There was so much assumed knowledge in her presentation that Nero felt as if he were a child attending a board meeting.

Even with how long she talked, he didn’t have time to confirm any of his assumptions. Like for instance, did the Council of Leadership approve the completion of his quest because he’d finished it, or because he was going to be being paid too much? Also, if the Capital was going to fit the bill, why were the nobles possibly still upset with him? And how in the hell was House Walker making so much money… or valens… if he’d already signed over all his businesses to her and Nick’s house?

She just kept talking and talking, every subject being a grueling reminder of how little Nero was prepared for actually running a house or being in charge of anything.

Ultimately, all he could do was nod along and pretend to agree with whatever she proposed. Everyone else looked as if they were on board with her, so who was he to disagree with her?

‘You’re the lord of the house, dipshit,’ he reminded himself before ignoring the thought as irrelevant.

Luckily, before anyone else had a chance to stand up and ruin what was left of his morning, the conference room doors opened.

Mr. Cochran, the estate’s butler, took two steps into the room and announced, “Apologies for the interruption, my lords. Ms. Keening has returned with the ambasidorial contingent from the dwarves. However, Lord Seevus and his retinue from the Keep and the Tower of Law have requested to be present for the duration of the meeting.”

Vera, not looking the least bit surprised, replied, “Very well, Mr. Cochran. We’ll be along shortly. Be sure to offer the dwarves the imported ale we’ve stocked for them. In fact, be sure to offer the same to Lord Seevus and the others. It will be interesting to see if they know what they’re getting into.”

Nero, having just spent a few hours listening to the audible equivalent of a proctological exam, couldn’t help but smile at the thought of having earned himself a few brunch beers.

‘If the kitchens were thoughtful enough to include ribs and hot wings, I’d be feeling like I was off to enjoy a day at O’Malley’s. Speaking of my favorite bar, I wonder if they have any sports here other than the arena. I very much doubt I’ll be able to stomach eating while watching idiots dismantle each other with pointy sticks of varying size and shape,’ he thought to himself as he stood up from his chair with a groan and a stretch.

*Chapter 318 - It's good to have minions.

*Spoiler - A good meeting is one where you don't need to say anything, but everyone believes your presence was beneficial.  An even better meeting is one where you're considered too important to attend.