Children learn best through a routine which seemed to be the rule by which Lady Acacia lived her life. Aleera’s time was nearly completely monopolised by her, structured and planned. It may have been that she had less time for herself and her projects, but it seemed that the time was being used highly effectively. I was almost jealous.
The highlights of day 1 under Lady Acacia’s training regimen were she had arrived at dinner having learned the skills Glide and Ambidextrous. I had managed to pick up Ambidextrous at the dinner table by mimicking my sister’s actions and using alternate hands but having done so I had to hide my progress from the watchful eyes of the Lady. It wasn’t until the morning that Aleera was able to explain the process, she had followed to get the skill Glide. Something I resolved to practice in private, or at least out of sight of our new guest. She had been asked to walk with cups of tea filled to the brim with water without spilling them while maintaining a smooth and steady pace forwards. It might have been a significant number of cups but what I was most impressed over was the fact that it didn’t involve any knives being thrown at her. I wondered what Grandfather would think of that!
On day 2 she came to dinner having gained Poise which was noticeable to watch as she sat down to dinner. Her back straight, arms level and head held high. This time she sat next to Lady Acacia and copied her every action rather than sitting with us her family although there were only a few chair seats separating us. She was working at levelling up her Poise and Ambidextrous skills. Something our family was reminded we could all be focussing on by Lady Acacia. Once more Grandfather and Mother seemed to have little difficulty in maintaining a similar pose through their skills or stats. While I also took a little longer to get there. Aleera had already attended the meal with the skill, so she was ahead of me this time. I pretended to struggle to gain it and when I did I quickly dropped it to practice later. Father as usual struggled to pick up the skill but kept trying anyway determined to at least pick up Ambidextrous from the day before although attempting to do the two skills at the same time proved too much. This time it turned out though that she had been strapped into a back posture brace for the majority of the day to get the skill although she was not wearing it for the evening meal. Lady Acacia had told her that she could either get Poise or Posture from the training. Watching her eat was a good way to remind me to sit up straight.
On day 3 she descended the stairs with Grace, Poise and Glide before continuing to practice her new skills as she ate using her new skills Grace, Poise, and Ambidextrous. She used every opportunity to level every skill. We were again suggested to copy along with her. Particularly, if we did not wish to embarrass her when she made her debut in 10 years. As it was also mentioned, if we attended her debut as the Scion of the Silversea family despite all eyes being on her we would still be watched to see how we measured up. By this point, I had managed to acquire Ambidextrous, Glide and Poise myself but Grace remained elusive in obtaining, at least during the evening meal. I would practice later at night once Aleera explained the process. Grace, it turned out was right up my Grandfather's alley. Aleera had to practice Poise, Glide and Ambidextrous while having various nuisances thrown at her. The annoyances ranged from startling noises to nudges, to finally soft little bean bags which were thrown closely past her but never into her all in an attempt to get her to spill the tea as she glided around the room with poise while holding it in her left hand. I thought I would get Father to help me with that one rather than Grandfather. I might get hit a little bit more but at least I knew that he would use soft balls rather than be tempted to turn to knives.
On day 4 she quietly told us all over dinner how she had managed to gain Charm under Lady Acacia’s Tutelage. When she used her Charm skill she did indeed appear to be more engaging in her conversation but it was difficult to judge the improvement because I knew her so well. Perhaps as it levelled it would seem to be a greater skill. But for now, I was not particularly impressed. They were all only Tier 1 skills but there was some truth to the idea that quantity has a quality all of its own. Aleera was certainly picking them up a lot quicker than she had once been doing. The great news was that every skill she was being taught I was then being taught in turn so in the end, I didn’t feel like I had any true reason to be jealous over the one-to-one attention. For Charm Aleera had to keep Lady Acacia engaged in lively little anecdotes of her life and life on Wester Isles for an entire hour. I thought that was fairly challenging seeing as there did not seem to be a lot going on but Aleera knew the town like the back of her hand so did not struggle overly with this one. I had a plethora of ideas to tell the world about. However, the trick was to keep the person engaged. Talking about masonry with Father would not work. You had to find a subject they were interested in to keep them charmed or be astoundingly charming. It was also very close to my Appeal skill in description and I was left wondering at the difference. Either way, regaling Father with the myriad of fantastical fish we had been discovering seemed to keep him charmed.
Day 5 was Composure. Lady Acacia was proving that she was worth her weight in the pearls she was being paid. By the end of the first week, Aleea was almost a different girl when she sat down to dinner. She would glide to dinner with poise and grace before comporting herself with Charm and Composure. While her table manners could still be improved Ambidextrous had continued to improve throughout the week and there were more than one kind of knife you could hold in the left hand. Grandfather seemed principally pleased about that aspect of the training the ability to stab someone quickly and cleanly with either hand. This time Aleera had to complete all of the above for Grace while calculating various mathematical questions that were also fired at her.
The most interesting aspect of the training to me was the aspects Lady Acacia seemed to be focusing on first. She seemed to have focused on first impressions, the appearance and demeanour of nobility. The outward appearance at least. It raised some questions as to whether honour, virtue, integrity, and decency could be gained as skills through selfless acts. It made you wonder. It also made me think that while I may have become a Lord, noble in name, had I truly done anything to be noble by nature? What kind of Lord did I wish to become?
With all of her time monopolised by Lady Acacia, it meant that Des and Sinis had to do the majority of the salt gathering, pearl farming and actual farming in the cauldron garden. It was great for them and their levelling but it sounded like Aleera was missing out on controlling everything and itching to get back to it. I was still leaving the island for the majority of the day with my father while we continued to catch fish off the reef. His mini mascot for the trips. This was also the other reason I wasn’t jealous of my sister. I was having a whale of a time sailing, fishing, trapping and exploring the reef. Every day adds a significant amount of experience to my total be it through catching fish or simply sailing the greater distances beyond the isle.
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Each day Father would cut off a different part of the coral reef or catch a different fish or eel. Each one explained to me in detail the dangers it possessed. A surprisingly high number of them were poisonous in one way or another. A greater argument for poison tolerance training a skill it turned out my father had. I had even now been allowed over the side of the boat to float and watch him dive but he had refused to let me dive down with him just yet. My job was to act as a lookout for the more dangerous of the reef’s inhabitants that he had described. He had a rope that was attached to the baskets he would take down and if I was ever to see a goblin shark or other dangerous sea creatures I was to let him know by pulling on it. Luckily enough we had yet to come across anything more dangerous than my father. But we were sailing a shallow part of the sea. The larger dangers were in the deeper depths.
Regardless the trips were good for our bank balance, our stat sheets and levelling up my skills. Even if we had not seen any lethal dangers yet we seemed to be gaining more experience from our hauls. That or the fish we were pulling up were a lot higher in levels. I had even been able to direct my father to the odd pearl here and there which probably due to the ambient mana in the coral reef seemed to naturally grow far larger than the ones in the lake. Or at least larger than the ones in the lake that we had not supplied with extra mana. They shone brightly to my mana sense, a sparkling diamond on the sea floor, at least to my eyes. Father enjoyed following my directions to find larger and larger pearls, riches for the taking that lay hidden for most beneath our hull.
. . .
The first weekend after she arrived Lady Acacia gave Aleera two days off from studying with her and went to visit the town for the day. I wondered what she would think with time to wander and appreciate the place we had once called home. It also allowed us to expand her corridor and the rooms available to her while she wasn’t there to watch us work. Or witness the fact that our construction team consisted of me and my mother.
Although all her belongings were now on the island they failed to fit satisfactorily within her suite of rooms. So, she had requested access to more rooms. Both for herself and the training of Aleera. At the time we created her corridor we had made stone doorways for other rooms further down the corridor. For rooms that we had not yet completed even though it from the outside at least looked like we had. Once she was gone Mother and I worked hard and created a mini library next to her set of rooms to house her books. Her many books.
When she finally fully unpacked it turned out that the majority of her belongings were books. No wonder the trunks had been so heavy for the Swift’s sailors to carry. It was easier to craft the bookcases out of stone rather than wood at least for us. But I hoped one day to do something similar with wood as my material. My stone shelves had my signature stone songs sung into them. I felt this added to their form and improved on them merely being functional.
Once they had been created we left the crates of books in their new home without unpacking them for her. I knew how nice it was to have things laid out just so. Neither of us wanted to get it wrong for someone with as many thorns as Lady Acacia. Once we had created her new public spaces it was time to work on something a little more private. Something a little bit more secretive.
. . .
I had also started work on my toddler tunnels. They ran between rooms or along the sides of corridors. They were a lot easier to make than the other tunnels simply because they were so much smaller, they only had to be large enough to accommodate me and I was not fussy. Also with the continued use of my new understanding of stone from stone singing I had finally gained a new skill, stone shaping!
This meant that not only was I able to shape the tunnels quicker it also meant that I didn’t require clearer doors and locks to enter them. I was now able to open and close stone doors into them and behind me wherever I wanted. The tunnels themselves took a little more work but once they were in place I could disappear into the mountain whenever and wherever I wanted to. I was going to dominate the next game of hide and seek with our cousins.
. . .
While it had not been noticed yet by Lady Acacia that mother and I were singing the stone into shape, it had been noticed that we were a little light on servants. Other than our two employees Des and Sinis the only one we could mention was Wanda. She insisted that every Lady had a lady in waiting at the very least. Furthermore, each Lord should have at least one servant to set things out in the morning etc. This meant that between the five of us we should at least have another three adults living on the island with us. And that, only if you included Des and Sinis who had plenty of other jobs to do.
Indeed, she had a long list of positions that we would have to fill if we were to ever receive someone officially. Butler, maid, nurse, and tutor just to mention a few that should also apparently be taking up residence on our island. But that was not all, oh no. We also had to have a greater presence within the town. Each establishment would need a protocol for dealing with our new house. The best of the shops including the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker would have to have some business with us, whether we needed their custom or not. They did not necessarily have to be employed by us full time but we needed to have a regular order with them to establish our position as a noble family that supported the local tradesmen.
It seemed a little complicated and convoluted but at the same time, I could see how such trades and contracts would support the local area gaining us a sense of goodwill from the people as our newfound wealth was spread a little bit more equally across the town. What we would need with a box or two of candles each week when we used our mana mote lanterns to light the place was seemingly not important according to Lady Acacia. The principle of the matter was to become a greater part of our neighbour's business. We could box them up and sell them in bulk to Mercurio later at cost or a profit. It was all about the optics of the matter.
That was where she had gone this weekend. It was not so much as having a break from my delightful sister. More it was a chance for her to get to know the town and what it had to offer. She had left with a long list of the shops we had in the town and she intended to visit every one of them before closing. She intended to buy something at each one and request it be sent to the island and was even willing to pay the delivery price rather than carry it around the town herself.
We had always kept ourselves to ourselves. It seemed that Lady Acacia was determined to change this. It was the beginning of her public relations campaign and she was adamant that it went off without a hitch. She also had a list of our cousins. Over dinner, one day father boasted about the number of brothers he had and their trades. Then continued to boast about the number of nephews and nieces that we had. These children were now top of the list for teaching the roles she wished them to play. I was not sure how keen they would be to be playing. But just like Aleera, they might not have a choice in the matter.
When asked whether she would have the time to teach more children she replied that if she was already teaching one she might as well teach more. It turned out that her lesson was not just about giving Aleera a new set of skills it was also open to the public. The first lessons were to give her a head start on her peers. It sounded like she would also be visiting our relatives to see if any would be willing to take up the position of Aleera’s maid. Lady Acacia had asked mother if she needed a wet nurse for herself but she declined, Thank the Compass.
. . .
Life looked like it was going to get a little bit busier on our island if she had her way.