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That had been a much more difficult meeting than this current one. Understandably, none of the Rainlord families had seemed especially eager to lend him such a large sum of money, but in the end, they did agree to help--and to the collective tune of twenty-five million troa, no less.

Hector had to credit Garovel with the victory on that one. The reaper had been able to reframe their "loans" as "investments"--which was true, Hector supposed. He fully intended to pay them back.

Assuming this bank didn't blow up in his face, that was.

Oh god, what if it blew up in his face?

One more thing he didn't want to think about.

Hector's current meeting with the Rainlords seemed like it was nearing its end until a new subject was brought up.

'Before we adjourn, there is one more matter that I would like to discuss,' said Sentsia, looking straight at Hector. 'Since it seems that we will be staying at Warrenhold for the foreseeable future, I would like it if we could organize a more rigorous training and education system for the children here.'

Hector's brow receded.

'I have been concerned about that as well,' said Axiolis. 'As I understand it, each of the families have taken on the rather burdensome task of homeschooling all of our own children, and I fear that is not the most efficient use of our available talent.'

'You might be right,' said Iziol. 'Perhaps we should appoint instructors for all of the families and organize a formal schedule.'

'That is what I was thinking,' said Sentsia. 'This is a serious matter. The children's education is perhaps more important now than it has ever been.'

'I agree,' said Axiolis.

'Indeed,' said Yovess.

'Perhaps we should also be searching for highly-qualified teachers to hire during these mission deployments,' said Sentsia.

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((The Mon/Wen/Fri Double -- page 2 of 2))
Delilah had not had many nice things to tell him regarding Amelia, either, but the examples she provided had been similarly questionable to Lionel's. Things like Amelia "acting disrespectfully toward her in the presence of guests," "giving shameful gifts to her children without her approval," and "promising her a job only to renege on it later."

That last one, Hector remembered hearing about from Lionel.

He decided to ask Amelia about it directly, and lo and behold, the old woman's version of that incident turned out to be quite different.

"I never promised Delilah any job at all," she'd said. "She just assumed I would give her the position and then became furious when she eventually found out that I had hired someone else for it. Oh, and she did not appreciate it when I explained the concept of nepotism and the corresponding problems with it."

All in all, Hector had felt like he'd heard enough by now. He decided to give the Madame Carthrace the green light with the Bank of Darksteel, and now the whole thing was finally in motion. He'd already met with a few of the new people she wanted to hire, and he'd even given his approval for most of them as well.

Everything was moving a bit fast for his tastes, but he supposed the economic crisis facing Atreya wasn't going to wait for him start feeling comfortable. The sooner they were able to get things set up, the sooner the nation might be able to recover.

In theory, at least.

Funding the Bank was still a problem, of course, and while Roman's ten million troa in help was more than enough to meet the minimum threshold required for legally opening it, Hector and Garovel had decided to ask the Rainlords for their assistance as well.

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((The Mon/Wen/Fri Double -- page 1 of 2))
That was also one of the big motivating factors for these treasure hunting missions. It wasn't just about finding powerful artifacts. It was about finding valuable ones.

Garovel had already expressed some of his reservations about that to Hector in private. The idea of selling legendary artifacts for cold, hard cash apparently didn't sit perfectly with the reaper, and Hector could understand why. There was more to "value" than just money, of course. History and sentiment were important, too.

But with all the new financial demands being placed on them recently, Hector found it a little difficult to care that much about such things. Rebuilding Warrenhold and feeding all its residents were much greater priorities in his mind.

Then again, perhaps the so-called Bank of Darksteel would soon be able to help with that problem. After meeting with Lionel Carthrace at the Gala and not being very satisfied with how it had gone, Hector had decided to meet with a couple more members of House Carthrace, just trying to get a clearer picture of Amelia's true character.

Those brief meetings hadn't really gone much better, though. He met with Lionel's son, Kenneth Carthrace, who seemed entirely uncomfortable and rather like a frightened mouse the whole time. Kenneth did speak a bit more favorably about Amelia than Lionel did, going so far as to say that she had always been kind to him, but Hector's main takeaway from that meeting was just feeling sort of bad for the guy.

Which was really odd, because Kenneth, at least on paper, was supposed to be the vice president of his family's real estate company, the CPG, or Carthrace Property Group. Hector would've expected a bit more composure from the man.

His other meeting had been with Lionel's sister, Delilah Carthrace, who certainly had more fire in her than her nephew--that was for sure. She actually kind of reminded Hector of Amelia in some ways, if Amelia were about twenty years younger and about five times more angry-looking.