Long Live the Emperor: Chapter 3 (Patreon)

Awareness came slowly. In the night, dreams had turned to vague nonsense, and the world shifted.

Alvin remembered shaking hands with Aldrich in his dreams. They’d met at the crossroads of dreams where their minds touched. A moment later, the stranger stood where he had been a moment before, and he stood where Aldrich had been. When the dream ended, the Aldrich's consciousness returned to Alvin’s body, and Alvin took the Aldrich's.

The bed beneath him was comfortable, so even though he knew his bed was unfamiliar, he didn’t plan on waking up anytime soon. He probably would have stayed there a while longer, but someone was tapping on his door. Alvin ignored it the first time, and then he ignored it some more the second time.

Eventually, though, whoever wanted to see him tapped more feverishly. He would have ignored that too, if she hadn’t spoken.

“Master Aldrich, is everything alright? You are normally on the practice field by now.”

Her voice was adorable, like the chiming of bells in a cool summer breeze. Just hearing it brought a smile to his cheeks, and the need to see the woman the voice belonged to was enough to rouse him from bed.

“Coming!” Alvin said, but the voice that came out was different from what he was used to.

He rolled out of bed and stood before the full-body mirror across from it. Aldrich’s room was well furnished, that was certain. Instead of a sheet of glass, the nobleman had a thick pane of polished silver as a mirror. It wasn’t as good as what Alvin was used to, but it was certainly a lot more impressive. This sort of thing would have been worth more than everything he owned put together before selling that lamp.

Elsewhere, the mirror would have been the centerpiece of the room, but in Aldrich’s bedroom, it was just one of many. The bed he’d just rolled out of was massive and intricately carved. The sheer size of it suggested that the bed had been built in the room because there was no way anyone could fit it into the room otherwise. The door presumably leading to the rest of Aldrich’s home was large, but not so large double-door things, but even that wouldn’t be enough to fit a ten-person bed.

Every inch of woodwork along the bed was carved with exacting detail, with outlines of great sea turtles, fairies, and dragons lining its entire length. The embossed images probably told some sort of story, but the silk sheets covered most of them.

The room’s roof was high enough overhead that he could have bounced up and down on the bed and not been able to touch it. An elegant arch swept through the center of the room, decorated just like the bed and made of the same ebony-colored wood.

A tea set sat in the corner next to an instrument. Both seemed unused, but both were adorned with as much decorative silver and gold as possible. On the other side of the room was a rack of two dozen swords. Compared to the tea set and the instruments, several of these blades were battered, and their handles worn smooth. The pile of practice weapons, sweaty gambesons, and battered armor made it clear that Aldrich’s interests had lain more toward combat than tea or music.

Alvin had never really been in good enough shape to excel at sports. Even in high school, he’d been one of the filler picks in gym class lineups and left for the end of team-building. Looking down at himself, that would no longer be a problem. Aldrich was taller than he’d been, but he wasn’t clumsy like he should have been if he’d been suddenly enlarged to a taller height. It felt like the instincts and coordination had stayed with the body, which was pretty useful.

But that was all something for later. For now, he needed to find some pants and open that door. He failed to find any pants but found what was a tunic, along with something vaguely leg shaped.

“Lord Aldrich!” The maid called again. “May I be of service?”

“One second!” Alvin called out again as he hastily threw on the tunic and what looked to be pants. As soon as he was done, he pulled the door open.

The maid was every bit as adorable as he guessed from the sound of her voice. She stood only to his chest, but this body was taller than his old one, so she was only a little under average height.

Her hair was thick and brown, straight at the roots, but it took on a gentle wave as it trailed down the sides of her cheeks, only to gather up in a bun behind her head.

The uniform she wore wasn’t quite what Alvin thought of when he pictured a maid, but it was black and white and seemed to serve the same purpose here. She was younger than a lord’s personal maid probably should have been. Back home, a girl like her might have just started college, but here in Aldrich’s world, she’d been working for several years, perhaps even a decade.

She had a tray in one hand covered in a bowl of hot porridge, a cup of tea, and a few crackers. It was silver, like the one in the corner, but not nearly as decorative. It was also well-worn, which meant this was what the maid used every day.

“Oh, uh... thanks,” Alvin said. He tried to take the tray, but the moment he did, it wobbled in his hands. It was about to slip right off and fall to the floor, but the maid was faster and caught it. She took it back from Alvin and elbowed her way into the bedroom so she could set it down by his bed.

“Mother mentioned you would be sick today, but she didn’t say you’d be this sick! Normally, you’re up before dawn. I usually wake up and see you on the practice field outside my window,” the maid said.

“Yeah... I’m... uh... sick.” Alvin grimaced. He hadn’t really thought about what he’d say to Aldrich’s servants. He’d hoped the nobleman had set something in motion ahead of time, but from the sound of things, he’d only told a few of them what was going on.

How strange was it to switch bodies with someone from another world? Knowing that could be crucial to figuring out just what Aldrich did and how it worked.

“Well, I’ll just have to tend to you the old-fashioned way. Everyone with a vitality spirit is on the front lines right now, so you’ll have to make do with bed rest,” the maid said.

“Question,” Alvin asked. “Have you ever heard of switching bodies with someone from another world?”

The maid furrowed her brows. “Ah, like the twin souled! They say some dreamwalkers can reach into their past or future and touch upon one of their soul’s other incarnations. Legends say the emperor had a twin soul and could contact him for the secret knowledge that let him build the empire! To replicate the feat, you’d have to be as good a dreamwalker as he was! But those are just myths and legends. I’m not sure if there’s any truth to them at all.”

Her eyes darted between the ground and Alvin’s face as though excited to be sharing her knowledge with him for once, but uncertain if he’d be impressed or not. From the faint blush on her cheeks, she seemed like she desperately wanted to impress him. It made her look even more adorable.

“Right. Good to know...” Alvin gave her a smile so she’d know she’d done well, and her blush deepened.

Good news and bad news. Dreamwalking was common enough to be general knowledge, at least among a maid of Aldrich’s manor. Aldrich had to have a book somewhere that explained the basic concepts. He’d need to find it. That was the good news, though. The bad news was that Aldrich probably didn’t know what he was doing. This wasn’t like building a trebuchet after drawing schematics and calculating arm and sling lengths all day. This was taking a bunch of logs and slings and trying them to see which one worked the best.

“I’m glad to be of service. Remember, my lord, I’m your personal servant, though it sometimes doesn’t feel like it. Other than making your bed from time to time, there isn’t much for me to do. I would be perfectly happy to sit by your bedside if you want to spend the day lying down...”

She shifted from foot to foot and shrugged her shoulders. Her eyes stayed glued to the ground at his feet, and she shrugged in such a way that the shoulders of her maid outfit started creeping downward, held up only by the soft mounds of her chest.

Alvin was surprised. He hadn’t expected a move quite that forward. But those thoughts were quickly driven from his mind as blood rushed from his brain downward.

“You know... I think I am feeling pretty sick right now. Maybe I should lie down for a bit...”

A few moments later, Alvin found himself right back in bed. Only this time, a pretty maid was spoonfeeding him his breakfast while she talked and answered his questions.

He started with a few vague questions about the weather and drew out what he could from her. This was a fantasy world filled with magic, lords, and nobles. The region he was in reminded him of the Holy Roman Empire with a lot of feuding nobles who were independent kings in their own right, but paid some token fealty to an elected emperor that dealt with any outside threats.

Aldrich was from a long and respected family line that had originally been dukes. A few sick wards and hard seasons had hacked them all the way back to one of the family’s smaller but profitable seats of power. The estate he was in now was a manor of exceptional luxury, though not as defensible as the castles many nearby lords lived out of.

“The garden is doing well! There are plenty of fresh peppers to be picked. Mother is going to make her vegetable stew tonight. I know how you love a nice hearty meal. Normally, we’d serve goose or chicken with it, but you know how things are right now. At the very least, the apiaries are doing well. The cherry trees are in full bloom, and there will be quite a bit of wax and honey to sell. I know you’ve been looking to buy some more incense for dreamwalking, and the local creditors won’t loan you anymore until you make payments. So that will be nice to harvest!”

On the outside, Alvin was as relaxed as he’d ever been. Laying in bed while a pretty maid whispered in his ear and spoon-fed him, he realized life got little easier than this.

But it sounded like Aldrich was in a bit of trouble. He let the maid talk while he listened, and from what he gathered, Aldrich was a renowned swordsman and an extremely skilled dreamwalker. And that was it. In most other categories, he was just average or downright bad.

He’d lowered taxes because the people asked him to. It made him popular with the townsfolk, but it had been a mistake. His estate desperately needed those taxes to equip his soldiers and maintain the town’s infrastructure. He’d been able to live off the gold his father had stored up during his reign, but that only lasted so long. By now, all of it was gone.

Worse, he’d borrowed a hefty sum of money from every lender in town. For a while, that helped him keep the manor afloat, but once his creditors started talking to one another and they realized how much he owed, they started having doubts about his ability to repay what he’d borrowed.

Now, he had to pay exorbitant fees at a bare minimum to keep the merchants from pointing to their contracts while they seized control of what little lands he still had under his direct control. He was on the verge of losing the family manor.

Most of that money had gone into the incense he’d been buying to practice Dreamwalking. Apparently, this world had special scents that could lull a user into a special state of mind during meditation that would facilitate them entering the right state to lucid dream, like what Alvin had practiced doing on his own.

Pitiful. Aldrich had blown his family fortune on his drug addiction.

Alvin could only shake his head and laugh. Good thing this wasn’t his problem. He’d give Aldrich a few suggestions when they switched bodies again, though. The man needed help desperately, and just about anyone would make a better treasurer than he would. Hell, he could appoint the cute maid as his treasurer and probably be better off. She had to have skill bartering for fruit at the local marketplace or whatever the people of this world used.

“There we are, all done with breakfast!” The maid said as she finished speaking.

“it was great,” Alvin said. “But get back to your story. What were you saying about the lenders in town?”

“My lord, I thought I remembered you ordering me not to talk about that? I thought it ruined your mood.”

“I’ve reconsidered,” Alvin said.

“Alright then. I’ll tell you what I’ve heard. But I would like a favor from you if you don’t mind,” the maid wrung her hands awkwardly.

“What do you need?”

It was probably money. This was a bad time to ask, considering she’d just gotten through telling him that Aldrich was not only broke, but deeply in debt. Still, Alvin wouldn’t mind giving away a little of Aldrich’s remaining trinkets to see this cute maid smile. Was she in trouble with the local loan sharks as well?

“It isn’t every day I get to tend to you, my lord! Truth be told, I’ve wanted to practice my back massage skills. The others say I’m quite good, but the books say men require a slightly different technique, and you’re the only man in the castle. If you let me, I’d like to--“

Alvin rolled over and patted his back.

“Sounds like a fair trade to me.”

“Thank you, my lord!”

Alvin thought he could grow to like this place.



Note:

Ah, the eternal gripe of third person. When characters switch bodies, do I call them by their original name or the name of their body? IDK.

Anyway, the story is slowly coming together. I think I can start getting into the real plot next chapter. We'll see. I'm still feeling pretty good about this story.