My hammer rose and fell in a rhythmic pattern above my personal anvil, my upper torso glistened with light sweat as flickering lights danced around the room from both the pool of molten stone and the red hot metal I was striking. I was putting the finishing touches on a custom piece of armor for my newest general. He, like the two before him, was to be in charge of a new district in the mountain and he would be getting this personally fit and crafted armor during his elevation ceremony.

I placed my hammer into its designated slot under my anvil while I closely inspected my latest work. It was slightly better than my previous attempts at this same design and I had improved yet again in my attempts to build Ether channels directly into the piece instead of carving it out later. I had stumbled across this technique about 3 weeks ago, I already channeled Ether into each strike of my hammer. But by shaping more Ether directly above the piece I could emboss the channels into the metal to be used in the enchanting, like a magical stamp press. This allows the piece to maintain even more structural durability and enabling the enchantment to produce better effects thanks to the metal's improved ability to direct energy with less loss to microfractures and other imperfections.

Carefully, I lowered the completed piece into the prepared alchemical bath that would both harden it and infuse the metal with the elemental affinity that would be used in its enchantments. I nodded to myself before waving my hand at my forge to open the release latch that dropped the slag and slowly cooling magma back into the dedicated pool behind it. The door to the room opened at the same time to reveal Oswallt, as prepared and composed as ever, who handed me a wet and cool towel to wipe off with before helping me into my coat.

I stepped through my prep room and into the stairway to my study as he followed a meter behind me, I could already sense the person waiting for me to arrive. Sweeping into the room I found the former imperial princess, formerly Felice Esme Gecuria and now just Felice, standing at attention near the door to the hall. Dressed in her well-crafted maid uniform, of the English variety, that I had popularized with the seamstresses and tailors of the capital a few months ago. She had spent a few days after her brother's sentence began in our guest wing of the castle before requesting an audience with me, surprisingly I had arrived in the chamber to find her prostrated on the floor before my throne.

She had proceeded to thank me for my mercy in just stripping her mother of her titles and worldly possessions and request that she be allowed to look for employment within my city so she and her mother could afford to live once I stopped hosting them. I decided the seize the opportunity and offered to hire both herself and her mother as royal maids in training, in reality, they would unknowingly be providing information for the rest of my maids. Another source of noble human etiquette would be good to round out their skillset and observing the speech and actions of former royals would be a great chance for that. Plus this would allow me to keep potential enemies close, I had learned this was an unnecessary worry over the past few weeks that they had been working for me. The former empress has lost all of her drive and ambition and only seemed to be animated when she had something to do, whereas Felice was a shy and introspective young lady who only wanted to care for the last of her close family. As much as her family had been general monsters they had apparently been closely knit when outside of former settings, I even learned that the empress had personally raised her children instead of leaving them to caretakers unless her duties required otherwise.

Felice curtsied slightly as she saw me enter, before opening the hallway door for me to walk through. She fell into step behind Oswallt as I proceeded out of the castle and into my personal carriage, today I would be reviewing the progress on our third district and the newest tram line being constructed between it and the capital. I settled into my seat as she perched across from me and Oswallt climbed into the coachmen's bench.