#18 people that are "away" from the mansion still take up space in your mansion. They effectively have a bed "reserved" for them that no one is allowed to use. Which type of bed it is depends on what they were using at the time of their departure. Away slaves include such things as Grade changing and Specialization learning from the slave guild, pregnancy recovering, injury recovery, laboratory recovery, Alchemy quest, and possibly more. There is no way to remove someone from a reserved bed until they return to service in the mansion.
#21 not sure where you see green that you want to be gold. Within my inventory both Cursed Blade and Ayneris's Rapier I only see gold text. Within the tooltip for both of these weapons I see: gold name, white details, and yellow weight (there is no green anywhere). If I click inspect on either weapon I again see only gold, white, and yellow colors. If I equip them I still see no green anywhere. Can you be more specific where the green is?