Lord Jerald sighed, putting down the letter and leaning back in his chair.  This was the second year in a row that Floatspire village had been struck by a disaster, so he was going to have to put his power to use.  After having been struck by a crop blight, they had sent a notice that they were unable to provide their taxes of food, as they couldn’t even feed themselves for the whole year now.  As if that wasn’t bad enough, they had also reported large numbers of twisted beasts lurking in the forest, making hunting incredibly dangerous.  He had thought that after last year’s beast swarm that the Church of Conflict had opposed, it would have calmed down.

After a few moments of thought, Jerald grabbed a new sheet of paper and began writing up his response.  He couldn’t allow his people to starve, so he would have to redirect food towards them, but he also had to keep enough food flowing back to the capital as well, so he would have to raise the taxes on the other villages for this year.  As he wrote down the notice that all other villages would have to provide 5% more, a messenger came in with another letter.

Setting his pen down, he accepted the new letter, the messenger bowing before he left, then began to read.  Blightfall village had its own disaster now as well, but reported they had mostly handled it, with a bit of loss to their livestock and a handful of villagers dead.  Considering for a moment, he put the letter down and marked out Blightfall village from the increased taxes.  He didn’t want to take too much from them when they had already lost a fair bit.

Upon finishing the draft for tax changes and food redistribution, he began another notice.  To deal with the beast problem, he would need a good amount of manpower, so he would call for two hundred of the least trained of his men and fifty of his most elite.  This arrangement should allow a good training experience while also having enough force to maintain safety.

After a few more minutes of thought, he decided that it was probably a good idea to push back the wilds a bit as well, and grabbed a third sheet of paper.  He was aware of a number of bandit groups in his lands, but they had not been harmful enough to send forces to wipe out so far.  This was a good chance to change that.  Many of the bandits had turned to crime due to temporary difficulty, and only remained so because they would be punished if they returned, so he would offer them a pardon for most crimes if they productively aided in a campaign against the wilds.

Of course, he wouldn’t pardon anyone who raped or murdered those they stopped, but most of the tales he heard said that the main groups were quite polite despite their situation, only taking a small fraction of what was carried, and even protecting from other groups.  Due to this, he had high hopes for their cooperation.

As he finished the third notice, he put away his pen, picked up the papers, and headed outside.  Opening the door, he saw that someone had left another gift on his porch, a quite pretty glazed pot.  Smiling at the gratitude of his people, he put it inside the door before continuing on his way.  Fortunately, the scribe lived in the middle-class district as well, so he didn’t have to walk far.

He still considered it a waste that some other nobles insisted on the highest of luxury at all times, shaking his head at the idea of it.  He was able to do much more for his people by living a modest life instead, though it would be nice to have someone to help out.  Arriving at the scribe’s shop, he left his letters behind with instructions on how to pass the copies out, then returned back home.

**********

Morris paced along the balcony of the spire, watching Kel flying high above.  He could hardly believe the news he had received from his former student, to think that the Church of Conflict, even if only a small group, would ever work with an awakened…  It was going to be interesting to see if they would keep their word, he certainly couldn’t risk them harming Amilya’s daughter when she arrived, so he would have to keep an eye on things when she appeared.

With a sigh, he stopped his train of thought and resumed his work, placing a hand on the head-sized mana stone resting on the pedestal and linking his mana to it.  Reaching his mind out, he began pulling in the ambient mana and funneling it into the stone.  He carefully watched with both eyes and manasight to ensure he didn’t cause an overcharge, pulling away several minutes later.

Morris grabbed the mana stone and headed back into the tower, carefully bringing it down several floors to a storeroom.  Within, he passed several racks of similar charged stones before placing his in an open spot.  He considered charging another stone, but ultimately decided to go check on the apprentices first.

As he no longer had to carry anything, he headed to the hollow core of the spire instead of the stairs, placing a hand and foot against the bare wall of rock.  Channeling his earth magic, he formed a small ledge and a handhold, then braced himself on them and stepped off of the entry platform.  With a small nudge of his mana, his earthen constructs slid down the shaft, rapidly dropping him around fifty floors before he slowed them to a halt.  Reversing the process, he stepped onto the entry platform and removed his constructs, then turned to head towards the apprentices’ balcony on this level.

As he arrived, he glanced around, seeing that most of the apprentices were working on charging finger-sized stones, though a few had larger ones, ranging up to fist sized.  Checking with his manasight, he noticed that his favorite apprentice, Thomas, had improved again.  Rather than pulling randomly, he seemed to have gotten the hang of controlling where he grabbed ambient mana, as he was catching the majority of the leakage from the others around him.  Perhaps he would be able to advance soon, since he was showing such progress in his control.

As he turned to head back into the tower, he spotted a young woman charging three stones at once, and stopped to watch.  On closer inspection, she was primarily charging one in her left hand, while using one in her right hand to siphon the leakage from the first, switching to the third stone every few seconds without touching it.  He was glad to see that someone was using his training methods, and even expanding them.  Far too many of the young folk thought they could just focus on power, neglecting their control, and then complained they were not allowed to advance.  Perhaps this young lady would be able to join Thomas soon.

After getting her attention, he nodded and gave her a thumbs-up before returning to the center of the spire and ascending back to his floor.  As he returned to the balcony with a discharged mana stone, he spotted the alarm gem glowing beside the doorway.  Morris carefully hurried to the pedestal to place the stone down before glancing down from the edge.  Far below he saw rock walls rising to block off a section of the courtyard as a writhing brown mass emerged from the tunnel opening within it.

Taking a careful look, he confirmed there were no civilians at risk, and pulled several chunks of rock from the large block beside the door.  Twisting his mana inside them to fracture all but the outermost part of the rocks, he then hurled them down towards the enclosed area.  Several seconds later they impacted with a loud bang, shattering into razor-sharp shrapnel and spraying the area.  Even as his attack was in progress, he saw the results of several other mages striking as well, bolts of ice, fire, and other stones flying down from both above and below his floor.  He knew there were wind mages too, but from so high up he was unable to spot their workings.

With the number of strikes, he didn’t bother with forming another of his own, instead simply observing for a moment until the walls began lowering again.  Evidently it was only a small outbreak if the guardians swapped the warning condition over to safe again already.  Since he did not need to provide any more assistance, he returned to the pedestal and began siphoning mana into the stone to recharge it.