As soon as they stepped inside the couriers guild Harlan felt something was off, nothing hostile, but a familiar feeling he couldn’t place.

He decided it wasn’t worth bothering with at the moment.

“Hello, I need to send a letter to the royal family regarding me becoming a full noble.”

“Oh, what a sweet boy. Now did someone tell you to say that?”

“No, I really do need to send that letter, a royal messenger came but I wasn’t there and I am supposed to tell them to come back now.”

“I’ve played along, either tell me what you are here for, or leave.”

“I’m serious! I have a crest here on my shirt, I am Harlan Fomoria. What do I need for proof?”

The woman at the front desk went to get someone higher up than her.

A man who smelled faintly of dog stumbled out of his office and down to the lobby.

“Kid, what is your problem?”

“I need to send a letter to the royal family, I am Harlan Fomoria, here is my crest on my clothes, I don’t have my ring right now because he is teaching at the moment.”

The man went through several confused faces before he went back to his office for a moment.

He came back with a large folder with sketches of people and started flipping through them.

“Let’s see, described as pale, smoky shifting blue eyes, 10 years of age, black hair, off putting silent demeanor. Shouldn’t have said that part.”

The man held up the sketch of Harlan next to him for a moment, shifting back and forth between them.

“I am very sorry Sir Fomoria, is there anything I can do for you today beyond that letter?”

“No, I just need the letter. Wait, actually what should I say? Do you know?”

“A simple acknowledgement of return is all you need to send. That will cost 40 if you would like it sent express, otherwise 20 silver. For a 10 silver fee we can write it for you.”

Harlan pulled out a single gold coin.

“I only have gold on m-”

Harlan didn’t even see him move, but the coin in his hand had been replaced with a pouch holding 50 silver coins.

“Thank you for choosing express delivery and writing, I have exchanged your gold for silver. Do you need anything else?”

“Uh… No?”

And the man walked back to his office.

Harlan decided that he should go buy his own tools, the servants at Redwall mansion had given him some for carving but he felt like he should get his own.

“Dad, do you get tools from the armorsmith?”

“Nope, I’ll show you where he is, people who make weapons and armor generally don’t have time to make mundane items.”

Nothing happened along the way, he spent more money on his new set of tools and there was even a book for woodworking projects for sale that he picked up.

Finally it was time to go home, Harlan had never really spent money before, but his pouch growing lighter over the day wasn’t a great feeling for him.

They passed the adventurers guild on the way out, a bar fight had started and someone came flying out the window. Guards were already rushing over with clubs in hand.

On the way back Harlan tried to find as many birds and other animals out the window as he could, designs were coming to him but it was hard to settle on any one.

Eventually he saw a fox curled up on a tree branch next to a white fox, it was strange enough for him to decide what he wanted to make.

He saw a wolf following them and tried to ignore the feeling that it was looking directly at him.

They finally reached the mansion without anything happening, the wolf disappeared at some point but Harlan didn’t see when.

He noticed the same two guards outside from earlier.

“Is Autumn still alright?”

“Yes Sir Fomoria, we have heard no ill news of her.”

“Please, just call me Harlan. It’s still weird having a last name.”

“All the better to get used to it then.”

Harlan just shrugged it off, maybe he was right.

Harlow went to see if Aida needed anything. Ava went to find Breken.

Harlan wandered around looking for someone to get him wood for carving.

He found the same servant who ran from him before and asked if she was busy.

“AH! I mean, n-no Sir Fomoria I am at your service.” She was fidgeting like Harlan had a knife to her throat.

“Why are you so afraid?”

“W-what do you mean?”

“Please, just answer me.”

“I’m fine…” She looked away from him and kept shuffling in place.

“Is it the soul stuff? We are using trees, it’s fine. No one is being hurt.”

“Do you need help with anything?” She finally found some composure, though Harlan was pretty sure it would break if he put any pressure on her.

“Alright, fine, don’t answer me. I need wood, I will be carving some things. And also I need to know what your favorite animal is.”

She finally stopped being scared and was instead just confused.

“I like sheep?”

“Thank you. You can bring the wood to my room.”

Harlan went over his designs a few times in his head before the wood came, then it was working time.

He was going to make the sheep first, it wasn’t planned originally so it would be his practice run.

He started on its head, then the neck, trying to see how much articulation he could get while keeping it strong. For the fluff on its body he had to find another servant who was wandering the halls.

It came out a bit more blocky and angular that he was planning, but he decided he actually liked the look, he painted it as well as he could, using little bits of water magic to spread it evenly, the last step would take more time so he just started on his foxes.

He kept with the more angular design, the biggest issue he had was the tail, articulation on it would look out of place. Eventually he decided that he would try hiding it by adding some actual fur on the tail, that way it could move how he wanted it too.

Then came the second fox, identical to the first.

But one was painted orange, the other white.

He looked over them for a while before he was called for dinner.

Unsurprisingly it was just him and Count Redwall. Autumn had delivered both babies without any extra issues but Jaramis, Harlow, Aida didn’t want to leave her. Harlow had the sense of mind to ask that their food be brought for the 4 of them.

“Count Redwall, I am sorry that I haven’t done all I could for our deal.”

“Balor has more than taken your place, though I would like to privately speak with you if you are available after dinner. You will be made a real noble soon, and you likely have no real idea about what you can do or ask for. My father was a soldier, he earned his name on a battlefield and then flubbed his negotiation for what he would be given. I do hope you avoid such a thing.”

“Thank you, not just for that though, I think Autumn has been happy here. And there is something I also want to ask about.”

Harlan felt the dinner was awkward, he really didn’t know much about the count.

“How did your father earn that name then? If you don’t mind answering.”

“There was a battle in a valley, it was farther to the east of here. The commanding officer had called a full retreat, the past king had allowed him to be a commander through gold and who his family was instead of through steel and blood. But my father saw that the battle was not lost, he rallied the troops he could while the commander fled. He set them up in narrow parts of the valley and made a shield walls. He was a budding mage and held a wall himself using ice. The theocratic troops ran headlong into it thinking to break it. But he held strong. By the time reinforcements came the whole group was covered in red, head to toe. They called him the Redwall because he used the blood of enemy soldiers to repair his icewall.. So the crown gave that name to him.”

“That is ingenious. I wouldn’t have thought of using blood.”

“With good reason, he was nearly court martialed. Blood magic is just water magic by another name. But it has such a poor reputation because of how it sounds to people. That is part of why I do not place such superstition on your use of souls, they are far too useful to not use. And with the trees we are past most moral implications unless you consider the souls of all things to be sacred like the theocracy. And that brings me to some questions I had…”

Harlan felt he had broken the ice with the count and they spoke for the rest of dinner, then they moved to his office for a more private chat.

“I’ll allow you to ask your questions first.”

“Thank you. I wanted to know if I could buy a mimic tree for my own experiments? And I want to know a servant’s name. Finally a blacksmith in town wanted me to see about enchanting some of his things. I was wondering if you had any idea how much that might cost him?”

”I can loan you a tree, once we begin making a profit I will just take its cost from your cut. The trees are quite easy to make, most of the cost is in hiring people to work them and also to make the formula to put them to sleep. I need to know why you want to find a specific servant, I hope if you have an issue with the staff you will ask someone to handle it. And I have been consulting with enchanters, your soul enchanting will not be replacing them entirely. And the way every item is more or less the same effort makes regardless of who makes it has affected how we will price items. Since the item is the expensive part in this. 40% of what the item will be sold for with a minimum of 1 gold is how I have worked out pricing with my clients once we start really making items. Depending on what is being enchanted this will bring in sizable amounts of gold while still avoiding time being wasted on small items. But if you wish to go deeper into economics, Balor is supposed to speak with me about these things tomorrow.”

“No… I think I will trust Balor with that. I want to find a servant girl, she is afraid of me. I made her a little sheep as practice for my gift for the twins, I want to give it to her.”

“What are you making for the twins then?”

“I want to give them fox dolls that are soul enchanted so they move like real foxes, I am going to need to train them unless I use a real fox soul, but that could make them violent which I don’t want.”

“That sounds like a nice gift, this does bring a question back to my mind however. How does a soul learn if they are not really thinking? Balor tried to explain it once but it didn’t make too much sense.”

“Oh, well… let me think… so you know how you can do a structured spell so many times you start to take parts out of it but it still works?”

“Yes.”

“Well basically the soul inside the item is holding onto spell structures, it’s like they have it written down, and when you think about it they just do it. They can hold onto new memories but they are a blank slate that shouldn’t develop into a real person or animal.”

“How do they know what you are thinking?”

“I am not entirely sure, but I think if I was way better at seeing souls I would find we are all connected more than we think we are. Why does a sixth sense work? It’s not magic, no mana is shaped or changed. I think everyone is a little bit connected, and the soul inside the item just links up to the user.”

“That… has many implications.”

Their conversation went to lighter topics after that, which tree was Harlan’s the proper procedure to putting it to sleep, how much it costs per tree to make them sleep. Many more mundane things.