CHAPTER 253: TIDY UP FOR GUESTS

Baron William retired inside after he had eaten so that he could see the maps and get an idea of where he needed to go. But while they would all be headed for bed, Dominic had work to do.

"What estate are you sending him to? I need to clean it. I suspect that the atonement is part of keeping the area free of curses, and we don’t need our new Baron chased off by ghosts." Dominic asked Alexis as she came to the Library to get the details from the old records.

"This one here. Someone blotted out all the old names, but I can see that it’s appropriate sized, and it touches the river, while still being mostly on high ground, so there shouldn’t be any major flooding." Alexis recommended.

"Ah, alright. I know the one.

I might not be back tonight, depending on how bad it is. But if you send a guardsman with him in the morning so he doesn’t get lost, it will be ready." Dominic agreed.

The houses there were clustered at the top of a hill, and if it had survived the years, the hillside should be terraced for growing grapes on the south side.

An excellent choice for their first Baron.

It was hard to go broke when you had a productive vineyard on your property.

Dominic changed to travelling clothes, namely heavy canvas pants under plain black Sorcerer’s robes, and headed out at a jog.

It was a little under three kilometres to the property, just outside the plot that was dedicated to the Ducal Estate, but not a hard trip across open ground.

Dominic paused when he reached the estate, and then smiled when he realized that he actually knew this one very well. Their son liked to play in the woods by the river, the same region that Dominic liked.

So, they had known each other quite well, and he had seen the boy many years later in Axbridge. The father had fallen in the battle at the Earl’s Estate, as he was visiting during the attack, but he only had his wife and oldest son with him.

The rest of the family had gotten the warning in time, and had fled for their lives, headed southwest, away from the attacks and skirting the border.

That way, if they were caught, they could pretend to be from Cygnia. The Dagos invaders wouldn’t know exactly where the border was until they encountered a border fort.

But by then, the refugees would be long gone.

That also meant that the place should be reasonably clear.

Dominic’s mood was high when he approached the grounds, then his heart fell to his feet when he saw a small forest of spears driven into the ground and surrounded by skeletons.

How had that happened? The family hadn’t fought here.

Then, Dominic saw the signs. Dragon claw marks on the stone of the Manor, and scorch marks on the stone.

He had happened here.

It must have been during the early days after the invasion when his mind was still clouded. He had even left one of his hand woven bracelets hanging from the door handle of the estate, with his name on it.

The door was closed, and the windows were slightly open. A standard method of keeping the house from holding too much humidity.

But Dominic didn’t start inside.

Instead, he used his storage cube to pick up all the soldiers’ bodies and equipment. Then, he put all the spears away in the manor’s armoury and moved to the nearby farms to check them.

Some had been partially looted, tables overturned and cupboards open. But nothing was burnt, so it should be safe for residents to move back in.

Dominic collected the last of the bones, and then created another small memorial crypt to place them all in. Just a small stone dome marking the tragic past of the Barony.

Then, he went to the Barony manor and swung the door open to inspect the interior.

Some of the wall sections needed patches, which would be easy with [Fieldstone Wall], but other than that, it was just horrifically dusty.

He didn’t bother to go to the root cellar, he knew that would be a mess for someone else to clean. But Dominic did take the time to ensure that the main bedroom was alright, as well as some of the servants quarters.

None of the windows were broken, and he didn’t see any mould growing inside either.

A sign that there had at least once been magic here.

So, Dominic went to the basement and found the magitech controls set in the wall right by the stairs. They were behind a simple metal panel, but nobody had disturbed them.

Likely, nobody had even entered the Manor House before he had passed by in a feral state and turned the yard into a forest of impaled corpses.

A twinge of memory came to Dominic, like he should have remembered something about that event. But as soon as it came to him, it vanished again.

One day, he hoped to regain some of those lost memories.

But the more that he saw of the aftermath of the invasion, the more that he considered that it might be a blessing not to know.

A hundred impaled soldiers at an abandoned Manor said that Dagos might not have been wrong to call him the Butcher of Wistover.

Maybe he could play that up? Stupid people liked to cause trouble. Making sure that they didn’t forget would make his life easier in the future.

The Barony manor also had minor self repair built into the structure’s enchantments, which took much more mana than the Ducal Estate had. This house wasn’t as well-built to begin with, and it hadn’t held up as well to a decade untended.

But now that he had refreshed the spells, there were working magitech lights in the great hall, the basement, and the master bedroom.

Not the whole house, but the major rooms.

The Manor was more like a large farmhouse, Dominic decided. Two levels, five bedrooms, plus the small servant suite by the kitchen with two beds.

That was all the staff that the Barony would have had inside. The others would have been in one of the nearby houses, which were clustered so that the fields extended out from them like leaves on a sunflower, descending the hill.

Mission accomplished.

Now, he could head home for the night instead of staying overnight at the Barony.