M.I.T. I

Red Jade Mansion had an entire second building dedicated to personal care, connected to the main building by a covered walkway. It included not only the baths, but every other amenity one might expect. Hair, skincare, massage, a tailor's fitting studio, even a dance studio. The only thing they didn't have was a gymnasium or practice yard. Those facilities were in another building, shared with the rest of the palace complex.

Taylor and Jane entered a large room full of mirrors, where several people waited for them. "This is your image team," she said with a grand gesture. "They will transform you from country vagabond to wyvern-killing legate. Everyone, this is Bilius d'Mourne, son of Legate Mourne. He doesn't look like much, but he's killed three wyverns and about fifty dire wolves this winter. I assume you've all read the brief and understand the problem with his curse. Bilius, this is the team. Everything that passes between you and them is contractually confidential, so you may be somewhat free with them.

"Florence is in charge of comportment, Benedict is your tailor, Varda is your accessorist, and Korneli is your beautician. All of them are classed." Each of them had at least one other person with them, an apprentice or assistant. Although getting classes to work on him was a great thing, he noticed they all looked under thirty. It was probably difficult to get high-level classes to help an unclassed child.

"I'll keep watch from over there. Florence, the floor is yours."

Florence was a white-haired woman with violet eyes, whose posture managed to be every bit as erect as one might expect, without being stiff. Taylor wondered how awful she would be.

"We'd like to get an idea of what we're working with, Mister d'Mourne." She made him walk up and down the room a few times, which was intensely awkward with so many people watching. Then she asked him to run and, at Jane's suggestion, perform a bit of swordwork with all of his enhancements active. Florence didn't show any reaction, but the others did, especially the accessorist, who popped an enchanted jeweler's loupe into her eye and grinned through most of his demonstration.

"We've taken the liberty of preparing a target for you." Florence gestured at an upright bamboo pole across the room, and made it look like an elegant invitation embossed in heavyweight paper. "If you can, without breaking anything else, could you demonstrate some attack magic for us? Your guardian says you have a good Stunning Bolt."

The pole fell into several pieces, without any apparent prompting from Taylor.

Korneli's carefully groomed eyebrows shot upward.

Benedict rubbed his chin and smiled.

Varda gasped.

Florence blinked.

Taylor grinned behind his mask but tried to keep it hidden from his voice. "Were you expecting more ceremony?"

"I see now," said Benedict. "Not a country legate. A frontier legate. Unassuming. Genial, even. But … "

"Dangerous," said Varda, eagerly.

"A little wild," added Korneli.

"Needs work," finished Florence. "Is he truly dangerous as all that?" she asked Jane.

"If cornered. One of the wyverns he killed was a hundred-foot monster. He could use a warning label."

"Now come on, Miss Jane! You make me sound like some kind of …" It was at least a little true. He'd gotten into altercations before because he didn't advertise his strength. Being underestimated was a valuable advantage, but it invited people to start trouble with him. That might be okay if he were willing to lose a confrontation now and then, but there was something in his Bilius heart that refused to consider backing down. "Never mind. Maybe the curator's right, and I need a sign that says poke at your own risk."

"A hidden dark lord," suggested Benedict.

Varda loved the idea. "Terrible power, held in abeyance behind literal and figurative masks. But if you look closely … "

Korneli nodded. " … you can see it. A wild power that stands against the wilderness."

"But it has to know how to move among civilized men," finished Florence, "or else it's another monster to put down."

If their theme had been 'dark lord,' Taylor would have vetoed it instantly. But hidden dark lord was just about the most awesome thing anybody had ever said about him, and he didn't have to be pretentious to wear it.

Jane approached with quill and paper. "Next, I want you to stand back there and take off your mask."

"You want me to what?"

"They have to see what they're dealing with. These are professionals. They'll do their best even for a client they dislike. Trust me. This will be interesting. For all of us."

"Are you sure this won't turn into a disaster?"

"Somewhat sure." Her quill was poised to write.

"Who is this experiment for, exactly?"

"For you. And my class. And all of theirs. Do get on with it, Bilius. Time is short."

"And all of you have been briefed and accept the risks?"

"We have," Florence confirmed. "We shall not allow emotion to interfere with our work for you."

"We'll see about that." Taylor felt bad for what he was about to do to them, but they had made their choices. He removed his green mask entirely and let them all have a good, long look.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

A shiver of mana passed through the room. Two of the assistants fled, falling over each other twice as they tried to get through the door at the same time. The remainders' faces twisted into several kinds of expressions ranging from fear to hate, but they stood their ground and didn't attack.

"I see," said Benedict.

"To think I'd get this chance," muttered Varda.

Korneli huffed. "Guess I'm the lucky one after all."

Florence was entirely unperturbed.

Their eyes went unfocused for several seconds, as their classes generated quests and hinted at the possible rewards. Classes thrived on new and unusual challenges. Taylor counted as both.

He put his mask on. "Dare I ask what quests you received?"

Florence spoke for them all. "With respect, Mister d'Mourne, mine specified confidentiality, even from the client himself. If I may hazard a guess, this may be true across the entire team." Everyone nodded.

If he had taken a class, Taylor would have received counter-notifications about quests involving himself as the subject. Granting secret quests was the gods' idea of baiting him. He didn't mind the old fellows upstairs or their little quirks, but he wasn't about to take a class just for that reason alone. But neither would he take out his frustrations on the people in front of him. They were all fairly young, in their late twenties or early thirties, second-stringers for the governor's staff, eager to challenge their skills. Their superiors probably snapped up all the best cases.

If they had that much to gain from him, then there was no reason for Taylor to hold back.

"I put myself in your hands. Do not fail me, and surely Knexenk and the gods will reward you. Spare no measure of your talent!"

They began with clothes and accessories, since those had long production times. Benedict's and Varda's adjacent workshops were in another building, and Taylor spent much of the first day there. They had to take frequent breaks because of his curse, but the work got done.

The current mode of dress for legates and their ilk was long socks, breeches that tied just above the calf, a shirt and vest, and a close-fitting coat that was short in the front and knee-length in the back. He would need a few varieties, each with subtle differences for their purposes. One suit in particular was to be his "good suit", used for important events, meetings, formal meals, and the like.

There were thousands of types of cloth to choose from. But after his experience with the remodel of his mansion, it wasn't entirely overwhelming.

Benedict stroked a bolt of woolen cloth the color of Taylor's hair. "We'll use extra material, and stitch enchantments into the seams and lining. Expansion to accommodate growth, up to a point. Self-mending, self-pressing, and impervious to blood!"

"What do you think I'll be doing in my suits?"

"The frontier legate never knows when he might have to defend his domain. Best to have a suit that will continue to impress, even after a good bloodletting."

"Just what kind of place do you think Mourne is?"

"The kind of place where a ten-year-old slays fifty dire wolves in a single winter."

As cloth choices were made, Varda showed off a selection of little bows for tying off the breaches. Taylor hated them all with a passion, so he convinced the accessorist to fashion clips from flexible wyvern bone, suitable for Taylor to inscribe with Spellscript, because loading up against a broad spectrum of threats was never a terrible idea. To Varda, the important fact was the material.

"It sure makes a statement," she claimed. "I killed this wyvern, and now I wear its bones to keep my socks up. That's infinitely more than anything you can say with black silk." The wyvern bone became a decorative theme, used for buttons and other fasteners. Young wyvern bone turned black when treated with mana, while the older bone shifted to white or a deep blue, depending on where it was harvested from. That gave his team flexibility, without having to treat the bone with heat or stains.

"We still lack a centerpiece, Mister d'Mourne. There is the mask, of course, but a legate requires at least one good jewel in a discreet setting."

She showed him a tray of jewels, and then another, and another. To Taylor, they all seemed absurdly priced and completely uninteresting. He used to grow better pieces in his crystalarium as easily as factories mass-produced hairpins.

"I might have something. Come to my room later."

"I have something, about the same size as what you showed me earlier. It's only a mana stone, but it's very high quality."

The wyvern stone begged for improvement, but before he touched it, he had started practicing on his erstwhile training tools. He removed all the impurities and flaws, resulting in smaller, higher-quality stones. Then, he merged a few stones to create the one in his hand. Taylor plopped the finished rock onto a tray and slid it across the table to his accessorist.

"This is quite good," she said, examining it through the loupe. "Very good. But, we'll have to cut it in half to make the proper shape."

"No need. I can change the shape." They decided on an oval, flat on the backside and slightly domed on the face, with a thin groove around the edge for the setting to hold onto. The more he worked the gem, the more questions pressed behind Varda's eyes. But, whether from professional reticence or her class's command, she stayed silent.

For some reason, Taylor wasn't satisfied after the job was done. The little jewel could be more. Its small size didn't have to be so limiting. It lacked the full wonder of the stream itself, its lively joy running down hillsides as eels ran upstream, the trout lingering in its slow places, damsel flies dancing around reeds by the shore, sun flickering on their iridescent wings.

Volume nine of Art and Practice, Greater Works, said the most wondrous magics were often little ones, born more of inspiration than planning. In its highest form, magic knew its own way: the magician need only point.

Here was inspiration, and the river's stone was full of mana. Taylor cupped it in his palms and felt himself wading in the water, feet cold, head hot in the sun, the light winking at him in the moving water. Lanulculte was just beneath the surface in her shifting form, revealing herself as a fish, a woman, then a fish again, as the day's heat reached his chest and legs, to be whisked away again by the stream. It was the first place on Aarden to acquire for him the hazy collection of pleasant memories he could call home.

It was a feeling, turned into mana, and infused into the perfect stone. It didn't change much in any obvious way. Perhaps the color flowed when it was tilted against the light, and it was easy to imagine Lanulculte there, like gazing into startling clear water and discovering the water gazed back at you.

He laid the enchanted gem onto the tray and slid it over the table. Varda took it with reverent hands. She did not speak, but her welling eyes said all. A shiver of class-induced mana disturbed her body with that characteristic harshness of Knexenk's interference. Either she accepted a new quest, or an existing one was extended into stretch goals.

"Thank you and bless you, Mister d'Mourne! I won't let this chance go to waste!"

"The constraints are difficult, but do your utmost."

As soon as Varda shut the door behind her, Taylor held up his palm against Jane's next comment. "Don't say it."

"But, those lines! They feel so natural from you. 'Spare no measure of your talents.'" She said too dramatically. "'Do your utmost.' It's all they can do not to fall on their knees. And you tossed off such an elegant enchantment on a whim. If she could talk about it, the whole palace would know you were filled with wondrous and terrible powers."

"Your enthusiasm vexes me."

"See? You're still doing it. I'm writing that one down."

"Are you keeping records?"

"Only when you're interesting."

"Please stop."

"As your legal guardian, I must continue."

Rather late, Taylor understood his image team weren't the only people with quests about him. He wanted to complain to the gods, except he'd probably given them the idea when he interfered with that Bard on the road. Maybe, he'd even begged for it.

"I'm wrecked." He threw himself at the couch behind the paper screen. "When exactly did I agree to all of this?"

"When you decided to face your responsibilities, and not let the Augbergs walk all over you."

"Right, the Augbergs. Thank you, Miss Jane," he said sleepily, ready for a nap. The enchantment had taken a deeper toll than he realized. "For everything."

"It is quite bothersome," she allowed, "but I don't mind it."

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