Working in the West Kingdom

This story takes place in the game Architects of the West Kingdom. The letter below was found in a church and was translated by somebody very talented yet also very vindictive. He modernized the language of the letter and, when reprimanded for that, destroyed the only copy of the letter. Thus, the letter below is his translation. He has now been sacked.

Dearest Mother,

I have arrived in the city and I am doing well. Thank you for encouraging me to make my own way in the world.

It has been my greatest honour to be employed by one of the finest architects anywhere in the West Kingdom, Fara. I’m not sure why she never gives her last name, but they do say that the powerful people are often strange in many ways.

When I first arrived, Fara’s administrator had me running around the city delivering messages and the like, but after two months, I had graduated to the inner circle of Fara’s workers.

This means that I am often tasked with going to a location in the city or its surroundings and doing a specific task.

No more messages for me!

I must say that the work has become much more rewarding since I joined this inner circle of 20 people.

Unfortunately, my first task was to be sent to the clay mines to deliver some resources for a building that she said would be very important in her quest to become the greatest architect in the kingdom (she mentions that a lot).

Mining clay was very difficult work and for a while I decided that delivering messages was actually preferable!

But then, to my surprise, my old friend Francois joined me and said they had discovered a vein of gold and I wouldn’t need to worry about clay anymore!

You remember Francois, don’t you, Mother?

He was the boy who dared me to climb that tree in the middle of the village and I fell and hit my head?

We caught up with each other while we were digging into the gold vein.

Did you know he wants to go to university and actually doese have some schooling?

The talking didn’t last, though, as soon we were joined by representatives from some of the other architects and the mines became much more crowded.

The sound of axes prohibited any further conversation.

After a couple of other Fara employees showed up to continue the mining, suddenly guards sent by Louis showed up at the mine and rounded up all of us and said we had to leave!

They surrounded us and led us to Louis’ villa and placed us in some kind of holding cell that, if I am honest, stank of cows and sheep.

It may have been the barn, actually.

I didn’t know they could do that. Where are the city guard?

After a few days of feeding us bread and a little water (I didn’t like Louis at all and his men were even worse), they rounded us up and took us to the City Guardhouse to much better cells.

They only stank of humans.

Anyway, we were only there for a couple of days before one of Fara’s representatives showed up to let us out.

On our way out, we were passed by some of Louis’ men who were apparently being released from Fara’s dungeon!

It seemed very fitting, though I didn’t realize that Fara even had a dungeon.

I hope I never end up there.

Fara let us recuperate some from our ordeal, and she personally came to us and thanked us for our service to her.

But it didn’t take long before she was sending us out on other tasks.

Time waits for no great architects, I guess.

When I heard what my next task was, though, I almost said no!

Mother, she asked me to raid the Tax Stand and collect all of the money there.

Yes, Mother, steal money from the city!

But I could not return to the village and shame both you and Father, so I went ahead and did it.

When I got there, Francois was there! Apparently this wasn’t the first time she was raiding the treasury.

I sat outside until Francois distracted the workers and then I ran in, emptying the strongbox that they had left unlocked and then hurrying out before I could be seen.

I’m not sure why Fara asked us to stay there even after we had delivered the money, but soon some more of Louis’ men showed up and back into the smelly barn we went.

This job was starting to wear on me.

This time, instead of being sent to the Guardhouse, Louis’ guards came and told us that we could leave.

I don’t know what happened, but when we returned to Fara’s villa, she was enraged. She shouted about how she didn’t have the money to free us earlier so she had to go into debt and that we had better be worth it because so far we had just been semi-useless peons who only were good for the Mines.

I didn’t have the courage to tell her that if she had just let us leave the Tax Stand after the theft, we wouldn’t have been caught.

I didn’t think that would make her any less angrier, and might get me fired.

I also don’t know what she did with all that money we had stolen, if she couldn’t afford to pay to free us.

That was probably a question best left unasked.

I guess Fara had been able to gather enough resources in other ways, though, as she apparently decided to try and increase her virtue by helping build the city Cathedral.

I escorted Francois to the Guild Hall, as apparently he had developed some building skills that I wasn’t aware of.

He went through the doors of the Hall, and…oh, I hate to say this, Mother. I really do.

He never came back out!

I went to visit him when Fara sent me to the King’s Storehouse to pick up some marble, and they wouldn’t let me in!

They said it was only for guild members and they wouldn’t take a message to him either.

I worked up the courage to ask Fara if she would be retrieving Francois from the Guild Hall at any point, as I enjoyed doing tasks with him.

She waved it off like he didn’t matter.

Mother, I think they lock people up in the Guild Hall and never let them leave!

Oh, why did I come to the city in the first place?

Fara had me do a few other things. I visited a shady character in the Black Market to get extra resources for Fara’s new building project. I think it was a Tavern, but I’m not sure.

As before, though, I was quickly apprehended, though this time I went straight to the Guardhouse without the smelly barn.

So that was a plus.

I was also sent to the Workshop to hire a Woodcutter because Fara said she wanted to increase our Forest efficiency.

I wasn’t sure what that meant, but Isabeau (that was the Woodcutter’s name) and I became very good friends after having a few drinks while I was trying to hire her.

I would often request to be sent to the Forest in order to collect all of the wood that was being chopped (Isabeau was very good with her hands and the wood really piled up) just so that I could speak with her.

Yes, that often resulted in me going to some smelly barn and then to the Guardhouse once more of Fara’s employees showed up, but it was worth it.

I was in love.

Finally, Fara came into our worker barracks and proudly announced that she had been named the Greatest Architect of All Time and thanked us all for the work we had done.

I guess that debt didn’t hurt her.

She seemed happy, anyway.

After this, Fara said that she wanted us all to stay with her and continue to do the odd job for her, but at this point I was ready for a change.

I was hoping that I could avoid being sent to the Guild Hall and forever disappearing!

Also, Isabeau and I were in love and decided to take her earnings (Fara never paid us, now that I think about it) and move to another village in the forest where we could live our lives in peace and she could chop wood to her heart’s content (and maybe we could even convince her friend Robert, the Stonecutter, to help us build our house).

Between the wood and the stone, I think we could live very comfortably.

Dearest Mother, thank you for all of your encouragement to leave home and come to the city. If I hadn’t, I would never have met Isabeau.

However, since you never actually did respond to any of the letters I wrote you from the Guardhouse despairing about how I would rot in prison, we both think it would be best if you and Father do not come to our village to visit.

Your son,

Baldric

P.S. Fara still needs workers, so please feel free to send my brother Sigmund to her with my recommendation. He could stand to do some work.