The World Dragon's Heir
Chapter 53: Formal Dinner

Chapter 53: Formal Dinner

Dominic was twenty War Picks into the day, all Uncommon Quality, when a messenger jogged into the forge and handed him, Pops and a handful of other Journeymen and their Apprentices a folded letter on thick paper, with the Royal seal holding it closed.

They all seemed to be taking it in stride, so Dominic picked up one of the chisels and gently popped the wax free.

[You are cordially invited to dinner this evening in the third dining room of the palace main building. Dress code semiformal.]

It wasn’t signed, but it seemed like everyone who got the letter had gotten the same thing, and they were all preparing to pack up for the evening to get ready. Dinner was in an hour and a half, and they would need most of that just to get clean and changed.

"Wait, before you go, I have to try your lucky oil bucket." One of the other apprentices called as Dominic finished packing away his tools for the evening.

"Sure, have fun with that." he laughed. There was still plenty of core dust in the oil, as it hadn’t been refilled, and wouldn’t need to be for weeks, but he hadn’t put any mana into it after his last creation.

There was a nearly guaranteed chance that the apprentice would get a Common Grade item out of it, but it was unlikely he would do any better.

Two smiths came over with their freshly created war picks, and dunked them at the same time. Both of them flared with magic from the oil, and both pulled back up as Common Grade weapons.

"Damn, it is a lucky bucket." The smiths laughed as they admired the dull black heads of the freshly quenched hammers.

"And that’s why I’m keeping my lucky bucket close. See you gentlemen at work in the morning." Dominic replied, then jogged out of the forge with the bucket in hand.

He had limited time to get clean for dinner.

An hour later, Dominic was scrubbed properly clean, though he was forced to give up on some of the black under his fingernails, which he thought might never be free of forge soot again, and he was staring at the pile of silky cloth that was his new Sorcerer Robes.

They didn’t come with a hat, so he wouldn’t be able to hide his horns at all. But he only had one other option for semiformal, and that was the black robe that he got from the Princess, which he wore last time.

Dominic might not be a noble, but he didn’t want to have people think he only had one presentable piece of clothing.

At least not now that it wasn’t true.

Instead, he styled his hair into a curly mass that made his short golden horns at least a little less noticeable, while keeping the hair out of his face. It went well enough with the robe, but he did have a bit of a mad Technomage vibe going on with the mass of curled blonde hair.

So, when Pops knocked on his door, he was as ready as he could be.

"I brought you a gift. I know how hard it is to get the forge out of your hands, but this will help hide it." He explained as he handed Dominic a small jar of what smelled like paint.

"Nail polish. I’m told it’s quite fashionable to have golden nails these days." He added.

"It’s very shiny. Do you think it will be dry in time?" he asked, admiring the shimmering paint.

"Aye, it only takes a minute, so keep the lid on the bottle, or it will dry up on you as well."

Dominic nodded, and carefully opened the lid, which had an attached brush.

"Let me, I have practice painting intricate designs." The old Dwarf laughed.

That was true, he painted them on magical items all the time, but these were fingernails. Not that he cared about the difference, as he held Dominic’s fingers in place and quickly coated each nail with shimmering gold paint.

"Next hand. Let’s get this done so we’re not late for dinner. I hear that they want to thank us for a job well done, and that usually means bonus pay." Pops informed him with a wink, and Dominic noticed that Pops was putting on a pair of white silk gloves.

That would have been the logical option here. If Dominic had any.

"You should have said that I could just hide the mess earlier, I could have spent much less time cleaning and scrubbing." Dominic complained.

"You think you could get away with that? I don’t. Do you have any cologne? You smell like the alcohol-based scrubbing soaps." Pops asked.

"The scrubbing soaps are as close as I have to scented products," he shrugged.

"Alright, once we get paid, I’ll make sure you get a day to go shopping. Being stuck in the Palace, we’ve all got to pretend like we care about appearances more than the average citizen." He sighed.

"Well, at least there’s a chance of a bonus, and we’re almost guaranteed good food again tonight. The Palace kitchens really do live up to their reputation." Dominic shrugged.

They made their way to the dining room, and Dominic resisted the urge to laugh at the other smiths and apprentices’ attempts to look formal. Most of the apprentices didn’t own a fancy outfit, so they wore their formal uniform instead. While it technically made the dress code, it felt more like they were working the event and not here as guests.

"If you turn the dress uniform coat inside out, it has a gold lining. That hides all the badges and gives you a splash of colour. Then take your black kerchief and fold it in the pocket like this, and you’re set." Pops whispered to the group of forge apprentices.

"How come he gets such a nice outfit? Is it from the Princess? I heard he was escorted to the Palace from the battlefield by the Royal Lady Alexis on his first day as an Apprentice." One of the other apprentices asked.

"It’s actually a drop item from an Ogre I killed." Dominic replied.

The boy turned to stare at him, then tripped over his feet and nearly ended up on his face before his Journeyman caught him.

"Come on now, Rico. I thought you were going to put on your best show and impress the new apprentice with your experience? Where are those slick moves now? Maybe show him your muscles." The Journeyman smith taunted his shocked apprentice.

"You really killed an Ogre?" Rico stammered.

"Well, not alone, of course. The guards tripped it with a bola, and I stuck it through the ribs with that magitech sword you all watched me make the other day."

Rico looked a bit pale as he stammered out. "How did you end up fighting Ogres during a delivery?"

"They broke through the defensive line near the smithy cart. We couldn’t let them get to the weapons, so we fought them off before finishing the deliveries."

"You’re as crazy as the adventurers." Rico sighed, as he gave up on trying to impress the new apprentice.

Then he straightened his coat, which was now turned inside out to show off the gold lining, and continued heading for the dining room.

The other apprentices smirked, as they knew he was going to try to impress the Noble ladies, and the Journeymen traded a few coins as they settled the bets on his chances.

They entered the dining room, and found it nearly empty, with only a handful of guard officers present. The officers smiled at them and waved them over.

"Good work gents. We owe you for the influx of good weapons to the lines. Those Uncommon Spears have been wrecking the Ogres all day long. Are there any more coming?" One of the officers asked.

"Not tomorrow. We were making war picks all day today. So you will be getting smashing tools tomorrow, then maybe more spears if you need them and the boss says yes." Dominic explained.

The officer laughed and patted Pops on the back.

"Pops, buddy, old pal, you can get us some more of those spears, right? The enlisted men have seen more uncommon magical weapons in the last twelve hours than the last two months." He asked in a conspiratorial voice.

"I’ll see what we can do. But surely weapons aren’t all that you need." Pops replied.

"True, but we still need a load of them. With this much use, everything is wearing out, and the Ogres are hard on weapons." He replied.

The others present were mostly from the armourers, along with the Master Farrier and his apprentice, an odd boy with a deformed face and so much muscle his shoulders seemed to start at his ears.

The damage to his face was semicircular, so he had most likely been kicked by a horse while working. That meant he’d worked with real horses. Dominic had only seen one working horse in the last few years. The one at the Wiz family farm. The farms that used animals usually preferred oxen.

They were stronger and tasted better when they were too old to keep working.

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