Gideon returned, not with tools, but with a look of pure dread.
"My Lord," he began, his voice barely a whisper. "The treasury... it would be better if you saw it for yourself."
Kaelen raised an eyebrow. That didn't sound promising.
He followed the old steward through a series of cold, drafty corridors. They descended a flight of stone steps into the castle's underbelly, the air growing colder and damper with each step. Gideon fumbled with a large, rusty key and opened a heavy, iron-banded door.
This was the "treasury."
It was a small, stone room, completely empty save for a single, dust-covered chest sitting in the center. It wasn't a large, treasure-filled vault. It was a closet. A very secure closet.
"This is it?" Kaelen asked, his voice flat.
"Yes, my Lord," Gideon confirmed miserably.
Kaelen strode over to the chest and lifted the heavy lid.
He stared inside.
At the very bottom lay three lonely silver coins and a small handful of grimy copper bits.
Three silvers.
That wasn't a treasury. It was the forgotten contents of a dead man's pocket.
The last sliver of hope Kaelen had been nursing—that maybe, just maybe, there was some hidden wealth to make this all bearable—died a swift and brutal death.
He was trapped.
Broke.
The Baron of nothing.
A surge of pure, unadulterated frustration boiled up inside him. It was the same fury he'd felt falling from his skyscraper. The rage at utter, preventable incompetence.
"Are you fucking KIDDING ME?!" he roared, the sound echoing off the stone walls.
He spun around and slammed his fist into the wall behind him.
It wasn't a calculated move. It was a raw, impulsive act of sheer exasperation. He expected to feel the sting of stone against his knuckles.
Instead, there was a loud CRACK.
Not of bone, but of plaster and crumbling mortar.
Kaelen stared at his hand. It was buried up to the wrist in the wall. Dust and debris trickled down around it.
He pulled his arm back, revealing a dark, gaping hole. The wall was hollow.
Gideon gasped, his eyes wide as dinner plates. "My Lord! Your hand!"
"My hand is fine," Kaelen said, his frustration instantly replaced by a sharp, focused curiosity. He brushed the dust off his knuckles. This body was weak, but the wall was weaker. He peered into the hole.
It wasn't a natural cavity. The stones inside were cut and fitted. It was a hidden space.
"Help me with this," he commanded.
Together, they tore at the crumbling plaster. Behind it was a section of false wall, made of loosely-fitted stones. With a bit of effort, they pulled them away, revealing a dark, dusty alcove that had been sealed for who knows how long.
And inside that alcove sat another chest.
This one was different. It was smaller, made of dark, almost black wood, and bound with bands of untarnished iron. There was no lock, but a complex-looking latch on the front.
Kaelen's heart, for the first time since he'd woken up, began to beat a little faster.
He reached in and worked the latch. It moved with a series of satisfying clicks, a testament to quality craftsmanship. With a final THUNK, it came open.
He lifted the lid.
A soft, gentle gleam met his eyes.
The chest was filled, nearly to the brim, with gold coins. Not a king's ransom, but dozens of them, maybe a hundred or more. They shone with a warm, buttery light in the gloom, a beautiful sight for a man who, moments ago, had a net worth of three silvers.
Beneath the gold, there were other items. A beautifully crafted short sword in a simple leather scabbard, its pommel a polished black stone. A dagger to match. And at the very bottom, a small, leather-bound book.
Kaelen reached past the gold—a move that made Gideon nearly faint—and picked up the book. He blew a thick layer of dust from its cover.
There was no title. He opened it.
The first page contained elegant, handwritten script.
To my heir, should you be clever enough to find this, and desperate enough to punch a wall.
Kaelen blinked.
This Barony is a trap. A gilded cage of rocks and rain. Our lands are poor, our neighbors greedy. The title is a leash, not a crown. I tried to make it work. I failed. This gold is all that remains of our family's true fortune. It is not enough to live like a king, but it may be enough to escape. Or, should you be a greater fool than I, it may be enough to try and build something here. The choice is yours. Use it wisely.
—Baron Alistair von Greylock, your ancestor.
Kaelen stared at the words. A smart one. There had been one smart ancestor. A man who saw the barony for the trap it was.
Gideon was peering over his shoulder, his mouth agape. "By the gods... the lost fortune of Baron Alistair"
Kaelen closed the book. He looked at the gold. Then he looked at the pathetic three silvers in the other chest.
This was it. His seed money. His startup capital.
His ticket out? Maybe. But where would he go? He was in a strange body, in a strange world. Running away was a risk.
But staying here... staying here meant he had to fix this mess. And with this gold, fixing it was no longer impossible. He could pay for labor. He could buy resources. He could generously fund his projects and get things done fast.
He could build a comfortable, secure, profitable enterprise. He could build the peaceful retirement home he so desperately craved.
A slow, predatory grin spread across Kaelen's face. It was the grin of a developer who had just secured funding for his favorite project.
"Gideon," he said, his voice brimming with a newfound, dangerous energy. "It seems we've just had a successful round of venture capital funding."
The steward just stared, utterly bewildered.
"Gather the council," Kaelen commanded, scooping a handful of gold coins and letting them run through his fingers. The sound was a beautiful, reassuring music. "The board meeting is on. And this time," he said, holding up a single, gleaming gold coin, "we have a budget."