The Artifact

Count Agist brought his closest knights with him to formally sign the royal orders that would make Lady Sylvia the Lady of Flint and Flint's leader.

Lady Sylvia arranged a neat table with parchment, quill, and a wax bowl for when they needed to use their royal seals.

Count Agist thought Lady Sylvia was pretty from when he first saw her, but today she seemed almost glowing. He remembered the noises he heard coming from her bedroom last night and thought maybe she was doing more than just trying to sell the act. "I need to remember to ask her about it..."

Normally a lord would have an adviser of sorts to help with their duties, but seeing as Flint's last adviser is dead, Lady Sylvia instead had her maid stand in the advisory position.

Count Agist looked at the maid and had to admit that the late Lord Alfreed must've spent a fortune hiring a maid as gorgeous as her! He heard Lady Sylvia address the maid as 'Alice' and he had to admit that if he were to choose between Alice or Isadora it would be a very difficult choice.

Isadora was beautiful and sexy, her naturally tanned skin and large eyes gave her an exotic appeal. Her breasts weren't huge, but they were perky and perfectly proportional for her smaller frame. Remembering the way her thick lips pouted when Count Agist left her room, he couldn't help but want to taste them again.

Looking at Alice though, she was more of a mature beauty, but her body exuded sexual charms. Her huge breasts were as big as Lillica's if not bigger and the maid outfit she wore couldn't even contain them. She appeared to have more curves than Isadora as well leaving Count Agist dying to see what was under the uniform.

"Count Agist, shall we begin?" Lady Sylvia addressed Count Agist directly, bringing him back to his senses.

"Of course!" Count Agist swore inwardly as he realized he was getting distracted from work by women. "I've never been this careless before, what is wrong with me. I'll try to ask about it later." Count Agist thought to himself.

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The whole event finished quickly and uneventfully since Count Agist and Lady Sylvia had already verbally came to an agreement after Lord Alfreed's burial ceremony. The only thing that changed was that Lady Sylvia wished to move in to Count Agist's manor and bring her maid, Alice, along. When he asked who would be managing Flint directly, he was very surprised when Thomas stepped up and volunteered himself for the role.

"Thomas, I never expected you wanting to take a leadership position, what happened?" Count Agist said with genuine surprise.

"When I was running around the village earlier, I fell in love with this place and felt like I want to be a part of it." Thomas had a faraway look in his eyes while saying this.

"...or a certain barmaid." Nicholas whispered to Thomas.

Thomas elbowed Nicholas and said "You're welcome to visit anytime, brother."

Count Agist ignored their squabble as they've been working extremely well together ever since that dinner party and he wasn't about to interfere with it. "I still need to ask Lorraina what she did to them." Count Agist thought to himself.

__________

Count Agist, Lady Sylvia, Alice, and most of the knights returned to Count Agist's manor.

Lillica, Lorraina, Isadora, and some of the garrisoned knights and guards greeted Count Agist and the rest when they returned.

Lorraina saw Alice and Sylvia and nudged Isadora playfully "Competition?"

Isadora blushed slightly then bit her lip when she saw the sexy body of Alice and wondered if she could even compete with her.

Count Agist greeted Lillica, Lorraina, and Isadora separately and he was surprised to realize that he actually missed them even though it had been only 3 days.

"Agi!" Lorraina said excitedly then she ran over to Count Agist, hugged hum enthusiastically, then draped herself over his shoulders.

Count Agist didn't even mind being called 'Agi' for once and said with a smile, "Lorraina, good to see you are doing well. I'm glad to be back."

"Glad your back too!" Lorraina said with a pure smile on her face that made Count Agist want to question every single stereotype he's ever heard about demons. Lorraina seemed genuinely happy to see him and he felt like he could get used to this.

Seeing that Count Agist was staring at Lorraina's smile, Lillica sauntered over to Count Agist and caressed his arm, "Agi, I'm happy to see you came back safely."

Count Agist looked at her smile and wanted to pinch her cheeks. Lillica was trying her best to give the same type of innocent and pure smile Lorraina had, but it wasn't working and was frankly adorable. Count Agist merely patted Lillica on the head like she was a small pet. "I'm back Lillica."

"Agist... Sweetie... You pat me like that again and I will cut your hand off." Lillica said with the same attempted innocent smile.

"That's more like it, I like you better as yourself." Count Agist said honestly to Lillica.

Lillica blushed and looked down, then Count Agist walked over to Isadora with Lorraina still draped on him. It used to bother him when she hung on him, but he kind of liked it now.

"How are you feeling Isadora?" Count Agist said kindly to Isadora.

"I am well, milord, thank you for your concern." Isadora said with a smile, then bowed politely.

"Good to hear. We will be having two more residents to the estate, the first is Lady Sylvia Alfreed, the Lady of Flint. She prefers Lady Sylvia though. The second is her personal maid, Alice. Give Lady Sylvia her own room and I'll leave it up to you where to put Alice."

"Private room for Alice?"

"I'd rather not, while you two can be considered at the same level of hierarchy, I think you are far more important."

Isadora blushed when she heard this, although it didn't last long because she knew Count Agist was talking about her job rather than herself.

Count Agist turned to look at Dion and shouted "Dion, our barracks is probably getting full, only relocate knights, whom are willing as much as possible, to my estate. We need to find a better solution soon while it is still warm out."

"Milord, I'm not the best at finding out these sort of solutions, but frankly we're lacking in administrative talent. Morgan is our best and Nicholas is just behind him, but the rest of us, yourself included, are only passable."

"Agi, might I have a word with you in private?" Lillica whispered to Count Agist.

"Yes, give me a few minutes to get settled and unpacked first."

"Hey, Agist! Where is our room?" Lady Sylvia said loudly for everyone to hear.

"YOUR room is on the same floor and wing as mine with the other large guest rooms." Count Agist made sure to emphasize the 'YOUR' part as he didn't feel like making certain women jealous.

"...Whatever, lead the way!" The wagon that Lady Sylvia brought from Flint was carrying what she called her necessary belongings. It was also the reason why it took longer to get back to the estate as the wagon's wheels would sink deep into the mud at times.

Several servants tried to lift the chest off of the cart but they were barely able to slide it towards the edge of the wagon. Two knights, seeing that they were having trouble, offered to assist the servants and attempted to heft the chest as well. They barely got it over the lip of the wagon and then dropped it down off of the wagon onto the grass.

The ridiculously heavy chest sunk 2 inches into the ground and by now Count Agist was watching as the knights were taking turns trying to pull the chest out from the ground.

"Lady Sylvia, how did you even get that chest on the wagon?"

Lady Sylvia smiled and said "That's a secret!"

Count Agist rolled his eyes and was about to go over to help them, but Lillica stopped him and whispered to him "Wait one moment..."

Lillica squeezed his hand and he felt his whole body become hot, his armor felt like it was nothing at all and he looked at Lillica questioningly.

"I gave you my strength, someone tampered with that chest after it was loaded probably so you should be able to easily lift that chest now." Lillica whispered to Count Agist.

"How much time do I keep it?"

"5 minutes at most, otherwise I'll risk dropping my illusion and I have to be in sight of you or you lose it."

Count Agist nodded, thanked her, then walked over to the chest. Count Agist made a big show of it by stomping his feet first and was surprised at how deep he made his footprints. "Was this Lillica's strength all of the time?" He wondered.

Count Agist reached out and grabbed the handle of the chest and pulled. Count Agist felt he could lift it easily, but he also felt like the handle would tear off if he used only one. Count Agist stepped in front of the chest, squatted down and then gripped both handles at the same time.

While squatting down he heard Lorraina whistle at him and then say "Nice butt Agi!" causing everyone to laugh and Count Agist almost to fall over.

Count Agist cleared his throat then hefted the chest with all of his strength and Lillica's strength and was surprised to see he almost flung the chest in to the air. Like it was perfectly normal, he carried the chest as if it were nothing and said "Follow me Lady Sylvia, I'll take you to your room."

Count Agist made it look easy which shocked the others that had tried it before. The only thing that made it look like it was still incredibly heavy were Count Agist's feet sinking an inch or two into the soft ground with each step.

Lady Sylvia was the most surprised as she knew why the chest was so heavy and it honestly should've been impossible to lift up alone.

Count Agist finally reached the room that would be Lady Sylvia's quarters with Lillica behind him. He could see her breathing start to increase as if she had just finished taking a light jog. It was just about 5 minutes and he saw her sigh in relief when he finally put the chest down. Everything felt heavy again when Lillica took her strength back and he felt a little envious of her for having such strength even if it was magically aided.

"Count Agist... I had heard you were strong, but that... that shouldn't have been possible, are you even human?" Lady Sylvia said when she walked in behind Count Agist and Lillica.

"What do you mean? This little thing?" Count Agist kicked it lightly with his foot as if it was nothing special.

Lady Sylvia opened the chest, then reached deep inside of it and pulled out a small black brick that had several buttons and symbols on it. "Yes, this little thing is an artifact we dug out of the mines once, the royal inspector said it was worthless to the kingdom and only offered a tiny amount of compensation for it so we kept it, then figured out how to use it. It honestly is worthless, but I like to play pranks with it."

Lady Sylvia placed the artifact on the ground. "Those 4 buttons and that cross seem to control it, but so far we only figured out one function of it. Press this round button once, the other one twice, the first round one again, then press this capsule shaped button once."

Count Agist walked over to it, pressed the buttons in the order she instructed and nothing happened. "Now what?"

"Pick it up of course!" Lady Sylvia said with a grin.

Count Agist bent over to pick up the brick, but it was once again so heavy that he was unable to lift it without the aid of Lillica's strength. "Wow, so this thing increases it's own weight somehow?"

"Yeah, we're pretty sure there are more functions to it but we only discovered this one on accident. To reset it, push both capsule shaped buttons and both round buttons at the same time."

Count Agist pushed the 4 buttons at the same time then was able to pick up the brick with ease. "Did you ever find any other artifacts or relics in your mines?"

"Nothing yet, but we're honestly not looking for them as we don't want to risk damaging them with our mining tools."

"Do you know the origin of these artifacts?" Lillica asked Lady Sylvia.

"No, but from what I've read, artifacts were from an ancient civilization that has gone extinct. The people were physically much smaller than us since the few intact dwellings we've seen had structures that were seemed built to house small children."

"Interesting, well, we can look into that later if we have time, for now though, I think I'm going to lock this thing up in my study as I have a feeling leaving it with you is a bad idea." Count Agist said while looking at Lady Sylvia.

"You can't do that! It's mine!"

"I can and I will."

"Ok, then how about this, spar with me and if you win I'll let you hold on to it, but if I win I get to keep it! I know you have ridiculous strength, but I don't feel it anymore for some reason."

"Sounds reasonable, wooden swords I presume?"

"Yes! Meet me in your training field an hour from now, we'll have Alice hold on to this thing until then!"

Lady Sylvia then took the artifact from Count Agist and tossed it to Alice who expertly caught it, stuffed it in her cleavage, then winked at Count Agist as he watched her "hide" the artifact.

"I shall see you in an hour then." Count Agist was extremely confident he would win anyways since he had seen her use a sword earlier. While it wasn't his strongest weapon, he still wasn't worried. What did worry him though was that she picked up on when his strength returned to normal. "She's sharper than she looks..." Count Agist thought to himself.

Count Agist walked out of Lady Sylvia's new room and left her their with Alice since he suspected they were going to redecorate or something to suit her taste. He felt a tug on his arm and saw Lillica pulling him.

"Let's talk now, my room, just you and me... alone..." Lillica said with her usual slightly seductive tone.

Count Agist gulped, nodded, and then let Lillica hold his arm as they returned to her room.