As I sat behind my desk, here in the heart of my Order’s fancy new headquarters, I couldn’t help but feel certain…things. Wonder, for one, at just how far the Order of the Polaris Reach had come in a mere two months since our founding.

  Primarily exhaustion, though. Turns out, taking on the duties of a Marshall on top of everything else on my plate had been a bit arrogant of me. I had little free time to myself these days, and was barely keeping up with what was most important to me.

  Worth it, though. Since we had begun this endeavor, I’d felt a degree of satisfaction that I’d rarely felt since I’d arrived on Vereden.

  In that time, it was hard to describe what we had done as anything more than the very definition of ‘hitting the ground running’. The deals that had been struck at the Ball which Wenzel had thrown for Aurelius had turned out to be only the tip of the iceberg. It’s not like everyone in both Blutstein and Herztal as a whole had been in attendance, after all.

  But everyone had ended up hearing about us. Word had spread quickly about the founding of a new Order that, from all appearances, was meant to fill the gap left by the absence of Shacklock’s. We’d almost immediately begun to receive inquiries from interested parties, either from those looking to sign on as members or from potential investors. As it turned out, a typical Order was a very financially lucrative business.

  We weren’t a typical Order, though. Once word got out that our focus wasn’t going to be exclusively on recruiting promising Classers to build up a sizable force, the fervor of our founding had been replaced by confusion and a fair bit of scorn. The people of Herztal simply didn’t understand the point of a Martial Order whose purpose wasn’t explicitly Martial. I got it, I really did. The presence of the System had skewed some priorities. Because of that, though, Isolde and I had gotten very picky about who we chose to associate with.

  That didn’t mean we were hurting, however. Rather, there were still more than enough people interested in sticking with us, as we worked to right a number of wrongs plaguing not just Herztal, but Vereden as a whole.

  For the most part, our focus had been on outreach to the communities affected by the Construct War. There were hundreds of disaffected soldiers currently living in and around the capital. Though it sounded cold, all of these people were prime material for recruitment into a burgeoning Martial Order. If you simply gave them a support structure that was at all similar to what they had known in the military, they had a real chance at recovery.

  And those efforts had succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. I was proud to say that the Catch had been all but emptied these days. Most people, if you gave them the chance, were willing to contribute in some manner to society at large, if that society extended a hand back to them. There were so many roles and positions that needed filling in a Martial Order that there was plenty of work to be found for the disaffected. While there were always going to be some people who remained uninterested in engaging with offered help, we were doing our best to at least provide them a life line if they needed it. A simple meal or a temporary place to stay for the night in one of the rowhouses we’d built was often more than enough to help some of those people.

  There were far fewer homeless out on the streets of Blutstein these days. That, at least, had done a little to earn us some legitimacy in the eyes of the people, though we were still derided as ‘idealists’ fairly often.

  By now, our member count had grown far beyond the mere fifty that had signed the founding charter. That number was more like five hundred these days, and of course, you couldn’t exactly run an organization of that size based out of my little lighthouse complex. Isolde had pulled through for us on that one. The Royal House had a personal claim to many different properties, here in Blustein. Most of them they didn’t even use it, but it was the principle of the thing, from what I understand. Even though most of the nobility had extensive suits and outright ownership of floors in Kyronkar where they lived, they still owned land out in the city. The Eisenherz were no different. My Commander had personally owned more than a few that she’d outright inherited with her position, all of which she had never even visited. However, none of them suited our purposes. From what I understood, she had engaged in a bizarre exchange of near horse trading with Oskar, exchanging several of her personal holdings for a single one of his.

  It was a bit odd, to barter real estate like it was nothing more than a trading card. But, hey. It had worked out for us.

  The property Isolde had secured for us was a large, decommissioned fort in the lower layer of Blutstein. Initially, I had been skeptical when I heard about it. After all, why had it been decommissioned by the Army? Our funds may be…fairy significant, putting it delicately, but they weren’t infinite. Rebuilding an old ruin would be beyond our means and would likely bankrupt us right when we were getting up and running.

  The answer I received was a bit ridiculous.

  It was because the architecture of it was out of style.

  The Lowerstone Bastion, as it was called by the natives, did not adhere to the typical spire structure that most buildings in Blutstein did. As I understood it, the advent of what caused the capital to be known as the ‘City of Spires’ came as a push from Isolde’s Great-Grandfather, a High King from four generations past. At the time, the man had thought the city was decidedly ugly, a sprawling mass with no cohesive style. He’d visited Rhoscara in that era and had become jealous of the Dwarven city and its cohesive architecture. Thus, he had decided Blutstein needed something similar, and considering that Kyronkar was by far the most distinctive feature, he based his push on the idea of a ‘tower’. It had become an actual law, part of the Blutstinien building code that still existed to this day. However…as was typical of governmental orders, many were loath to part with coin when they didn’t have to. The Bastion had been a fortification of minor significance at the time, and the Army had balked at the idea of paying to redesign the entire thing. Thus, they had chosen to sell it off to the Crown, and over the generations, it had fallen to successive Princes and Princesses who had done little with it.

  It hadn’t taken much cajoling from Isolde to Oskar for the future High King to trade it off to her. Isolde had realized the potential it had for our purposes, and now, it was the official headquarters of the Order of the Polaris Reach.

  The actual building itself was shaped somewhat like a bracket, from stone quarried in the mines within Horsaval, the Younger Twin. It possessed a long, wide, rectangular main building with two shorter extensions jutting downward to create a courtyard between them. A few of Isolde’s past relatives, who had possessed the deed to the fortress in years previous, had sought to add on to the complex to make it fall in line with modern architectural standards. A series of spires and towers had been almost bolted onto the roof at the ends and junctures of the building, meant to both civilize the structure and provide defensive emplacements. They were visibly newer than anything else on the Bastion, and it was in the central tower where I had set up my personal command structure those months ago.

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  It may have only been a short while, but I was already up to my ears in scrolls and parchment in here. And not the fun, bookish kind.

  Reports.

  Expense reports, Classer mission reports, communiques from people in the field, reports and requests from our backers, information regarding the state of the city and nation, and on and on and on.

  I’d thought I was being so clever when I mandated that at least one person per team needed to be literate. After all, Terra had practically run on the free exchange of information, even though the idea of an internet here was laughable. Surely it was a good idea to have concrete records and proof of all of our activities…right?

  Ha. This wasn’t even all of it. I’d already had to hire on a few people to manage an archive of everything that came in, set up in one of the lower rooms. This was just what was deemed important enough for me to see it.

  I sighed, staring at the cost of one of our rowhouses we’d built on the Bastion’s grounds. I was going to need to start delegating some of this more heavily. As much as I was devoted to the Order, I had other things that demanded my attention. I was at a very crucial stage in my personal development, after all.

  The other day, all of the crafting I had done had finally pushed me over an additional level. Almost longingly, I called up my Status, just stare at it.

  I was so close.

  I’d hit level one hundred and ninety-nine from pure crafting over the last four-ish months since I’d arrived in Blutstein. That was just one level away from the point where I could perform my second Ascension Ritual and break through once more. I was so close that I could taste it.

  Because when I did, I would get a Skill Evolution. With that, I could finally, finally, heal my long since damaged Skill Ringed Mind.

  My God, soon I’d get my Middle Ring back. With it would come control over my mental state that I had lost, the additional thought line, and that wasn’t even counting whatever would come from the evolution.

  And that wasn’t even all. I had long since wondered just what the interaction would be with Umbra Gemina Exactoris. Would…would I be able to generate a second clone that my Middle Ring could operate? Was that how it worked?

  I really, really hoped so. I wouldn’t even care that each instance of myself would only likely be one-third of my total level. I would be able to have a clone here doing Marshall work, a clone keeping an eye on Aveline, and I would be able to attend classes like normal. At least on days I wasn’t casting, that is.

  I just needed to get one more level from working with Aetherial Melding, and so many of my issues could potentially be solved. I estimated that it would take me about a week or so of my usual crafting to get that last level. Then, Grey and I could finally set up the Ascension Circle that we had already designed for my usage. This time, we had accounted for my Precursor status and my inherent lack of accumulated Aether in my soul. It wasn’t much of an issue, since my Mana had already been sparked, combined with the additional time I’d spent on the planet just residually absorbing Aether. Still, best not to take anymore chances. I’d gotten lucky last time, just picking up a second Affinity.

  But, even with all of that, even considering how important my advancement was to me personally….

  It wasn’t the most important thing in my life right now.

  Bleddyn had sent another messenger our way a few days ago. The first batch of former slaves he had freed in the Principality were on their way. Considering the lag between the message arriving and when he had likely shipped them out…they could be only days away.

  We were prepared for them. Supplies had been gathered, accommodations had been prepared, and funds had been squirreled away. I’d spoken to many of our backers and those who believed in our cause, and potential opportunities had already been arranged en masse when the refugees were ready. I wouldn’t rush them, because I had no idea in what condition they were. Hell, I even intended to offer many of them a place within the Order.

  I just…I really wanted to give these people a chance at a real life here. People needed a sense of purpose, especially those who had survived the scourge of slavery. Renauld was with me on this, and I was extremely grateful that the head of my Healing Division had the wherewithal to offer positions to a number of young, untested Mind Healers. I hadn’t even known that was a real thing. It was apparently a rare application that lies between Mind Magic and Healing Magic. They were also trained in a discipline that, from what I’d seen, didn’t seem all that different from an early form of therapy. Our new Mind Healers had already been a great help dealing with all of the haunted, homeless veterans we’d worked with.

  Everyone who was in the know about what we were expecting was on edge right now, as we anticipated the refugees. But the world didn’t stop, even though it felt like it needed to. We had lives and duties to attend to in the meantime.

  I was no exception. The semester only had a few more months left in it, and I’d been approached to deal with something I’d already put off. To be fair, they had put it off as well.

  I had an Abjuration project to do, with that strange Orc woman Meia Itzelan. I’d been considering the matter for a while now, and I already had an idea of what I wanted to do it on. As such…

  I’d invited her over to my home for the evening. She should be there soon, considering the day was just about over. Bait had been attending my lesson for the day, while I worked on Marshall duties. I was about done by now, so it was time for me to head out.

  I packed up and exited my office, saying goodbye to the woman I’d hired to act as my secretary just outside of it, behind a desk of her own. Sally was another one of our former vets and had vehemently not wanted to join up in a combat role.

  Plenty of non-combat roles here in the Order of the Polaris Reach. Easy accommodation there.

  And with that, I climbed the stairs to my personal landing pad on the roof, transformed, and winged home.

  I was looking forward to finally digging into a particular minor mystery, with the help of another student of Abjuration.