By the time you read this, I’ll probably be the greatest person who ever lived, as there must be so many people who would have to hand write my story and spread it around the globe. Imagine the scale! Imagine my novel in every house and home, reading about the great and glorious me.
Who am I? Well, glad you asked.
My name is Zyan Rochester, a noble of the Syrilian Empire. I know, I know, that little edit in the beginning of my story may have been a tad false, as we’re not extremely high nobility. We’re lesser barons, not barons, and Sheeza forbid not the lesser lesser barons.
Let me tell you something. When the Syrilian Empire was created, a nobility system was created to separate everyone out. The tops and bottoms were obvious, royalty on top, peasants and commoners on the bottom, easy! But what about the middle?
Alas, the first Syrilian King was an efficient person, he didn’t want so many weird names cluttering all of the nobility charts, so he stuck with the standard: baron, marqueis, viscount, duke.
There was one issue though. The baron role was too wide spread, there were too many of them. Some people had worked great deeds for the newly made empire yet failed to be a marqueis, some were in the middle, and some commoners were either super good or bought their way into nobility. Either way, the baron pool was too large.
What genius plan did our first king have? Easy, split the baron into three subclasses. Baron, Lesser Baron, and Lesser Lesser Baron. Easy bam pow, no random new classes needed.
Well you may ask, if you’re all barons, who cares? Oh man, if you’re someone in some part of a baron family, everyone cares.
Barons constantly say to the public that their role cannot be replaced by the other two baron classes, Lesser Barons are constantly ranting on how they’re not lesser lesser barons and try to tell people apart from them, and lesser lesser barons rant how they worked hard to get into the nobility, so they should be treated as such, and that the baron snobs should shut up.
To make it more understandable, Lesser Lesser Barons are rich commoners, Lesser Barons are Barons but there’s not enough Baron spots to move them up, and Barons are just Barons. They’re standard nobility roles. Jeez, saying Baron so many times in a single moment really makes me question if it’s a real word or not.
Back to the point, my name is Zyan Rochester, I’m a lesser baron of a lesser baron family, and hey look at that I have a last name! Bet you’re really jealous! You see, commoners don’t have last names, another reason why lesser lesser barons constantly flaunt their nobility, so when you call out to a peasant or commoner, they always go by their first. Kinda sad, not having any real identification, but what do I know, I’m a spoiled noble without any sense of the commoner world, I jest.
My family consists of two brothers and one elder sister. I’m the second youngest at 12 years old, the youngest at 8 years old, the eldest brother at 15 years old, and the eldest daughter at 17. All of these people are so damn noisy all the time, so when I get the chance, which is basically always, I just sit in the household library and read the books, and there are some interesting books in there.
And there’s some really interesting stuff in there, ranging from the taming process of hippogriffs, the slaying and even peace talks between humans and dragons, and a lot of other things I should read more in depth later.
I also have friends. Huh? Did that surprise you that a cloistered child like me who stays in the family library also has friends? Wow, applause for you.
I do have friends, well, namely one. His name’s Klien, and he’s a commoner. I met him in one of my secretive undercover missions when I was younger when I wanted to explore the city and I happened to meet him while sitting down at a fountain.
Apparently he had mistook me for someone else and took me by the hand and dragged me away somewhere. I couldn’t blame him, as I was wearing a hood and was dressed as a commoner myself, but man, for a person as young as him back then, he was really strong, strong enough to lift a loaded crate without any fuss, probably.
He dragged me over to a worker at a stall who at the moment was infusing some magic into a set of tools like a hammer and a handsaw, but something caught my eye. In the corner of the stall was an intricate gearwork machine that lay there, collecting dust. It must’ve had some purpose, as what would the purpose of all those spokes and bearings be for?
As I looked onward at the cobwebbed gears and the laboring worker, Klien was blabbering something about it being my birthday and me having the choice to pick something that I wanted to have. He talked about how “I” had always wanted a sword, so I could choose one if I wanted to.
Now I wouldn’t give up a time where I had the opportunity to learn something new, so to not reveal my disguise, I pointed at the gears and bearings in the corner of the stall.
“You want what?” he asked. “Doesn’t look like a sword to me. Looks kind of like some old wood boards.”
I continued pointing at the gearwork in the corner.
“Are you sure? Well, maybe you had a change in heart, I’ll buy it for you. Though I’m pretty sure when I asked you yesterday you wanted your very own sword, but whatever.”
Klien then proceeded to get the worker’s attention and ask for the price of the gearbox in the corner. The worker said it would have to cost him several silver sildens, as it contained some expensive metal parts.
At that point, Klien looked kind of distraught, as the money in his hand was far less than a couple sildens, and he tried to haggle with the worker. Honestly, I felt pretty bad dragging this guy into this predicament, but maybe he’d pull through.
Luckily, the worker immediately stopped him from haggling and just took the money he had and gave him the contraption. He held the machine, sighed a sigh of relief, and gave it to me.
As we walked down the street, me trailing behind him, hood still on my head, with the rays of light slowly falling behind the cramped commoner homes, I had to clear stuff up. I pulled off my hood and tapped him on the shoulder. He turned his head immediately.
“Hello, I really appreciate you buying that for me, you have a kind soul deep within your heart” I said, as his face quickly changed from confusion to shock. “If you can meet me at the fountain again tomorrow, that would be very much appreciated.”
I put my hand into my pocket and took out fifteen silver sildens, a lot of money for a commoner, and handed it to him. “Here’s some money. I’m rather sorry for bringing you into my interests so suddenly, so here’s something to repay you.” I started to walk off and said, “You can still give your brother or your friend the sword they wanted. It’s on me.”
I walked a good length ahead and took a glimpse back at the kid. He was still standing there, jaw dropped, at the site of all those silver sildens in his hand, given to him for my appreciation. I blew a sigh of contempt and walked off. A commoner like him probably wouldn’t keep his promise about the fountain, he’d just forget it.
You should’ve seen my surprise when I came back the next day.
Sitting right there on the fountain’s edge was the same kid. He was holding a grocer’s sack, and his legs were rhythmically tapping the stone tiles. I went over and sat next to him.
At first there was silence. Then he whispered, “Thanks for the money yesterday, I really needed it. And I forgive you about the whole thing yesterday, it was my fault I didn’t notice.”
He paused.
“But, you should’ve seen my little brother’s face, he was so astonished and happy that I came home with a proper short-length broadsword. I didn’t want Mother to get suspicious, so I didn’t spend a lot. Here’s it back if you want.” He pulled out the handful of sildens out of his pocket, with a slightly smaller quantity. I pushed it away.
“What’d I say yesterday? I said it was on me. Keep it, it’s yours, but don’t tell your mother. Anyways, I believe we hadn’t started any introductions?”
That’s how we became friends, and had to spill the beans that I was a noble. He was pretty surprised and attempted several times to converse with me in broken noble speech, but I shut him down. We conversed a lot, talking about life, talking about his life, what we liked to do etcetera, and what he talked about was pretty depressing.
Klien had four younger brothers, and they pretty much relied on him. His mother had back problems, and his father was a tired and hardworking tinkerer who tried to make things for the public. They didn’t sell well.
Furthermore, his family’s income tanked, and they were kind of getting desperate for money, so I could feel happy that I did a good deed yesterday.
His brother’s ages were five, seven, seven, and eight. He was ten years old, just like me, and he had a ton of responsibility. Most times there wasn’t enough food, and he’d often give most of his portion of potato and turnip slices to his siblings. That was why that day he decided to spend a little bit of the money I gave him for some better food.
I took a peek at his grocer’s sack. Indeed, it was filled with delectable greens and there was a hearty loaf of bread as well. He was really purging his money wasn’t he.
“Isn’t your mother going to get suspicious about you getting this food?” I asked him.
“Oh don’t worry about it, I can just tell my mother I found some spare lingrets in the street.” he said. “And there’s always some rich guy’s money in the fountain.”
I sighed. How bad was his family’s income anyways. I talked more with him about his lifestyle, where he lived, what he really wanted, what he liked doing….
…
“Zyan?”
“Zyan!”
I popped out of my daze and looked around. I was back in the library, books in hand, with the soft golden rays of the sunlight plastered on my face.
“Hey Zyan, didn’t you know,” said my oldest brother Dennis, “Randolph is coming over! You better get on your former apparel in check and come down! I heard he’s even bringing a Jersey to show its power!” He quickly left.
Wait.
A Jersey?
I checked the calendar.
Oh sh*t! Randolph’s coming! I have to see that Jersey!
