Wuxia - Mtl
CH.280 Luncheon with Baron Bloggs
CH.280 Luncheon with Baron Bloggs
“Sir, there is a messenger sent by the Lord waiting for you.” The inn's proprietress informed me, as she came to wake me up.
It was now our third day in town, and it was also going to be our last full day here. Today, Mariina would hold that exam thing and she had again asked for Lua’s help with that. I hope she is paying Lua for her part.
I was planning on taking another trip to HomeBase, so I could make a few things for Cailie, but apparently, the world has different plans. And as long as I deal with this quickly, I can still make the trip to HomeBase.
I’ll need to accelerate the plan to have HomeBase lift off from the ground. But my spellcasters, Laura and Tahlia all say we don’t have the mana for that yet. Even with Spell Counters each counting as 1000 mana, floating an entire dungeon will take way too much of it for us to sustain it. I need another card besides Magical Citadel of Endymion making the counters, but I just don’t yet know what it is. Spell Power Grasp is something we are experimenting with, but even that isn’t enough, because there was a time limit on how often one could be activated.
Because of that, Laura has been testing out different combinations of cards, trying to make something that can make even more Spell Counters. Safely, so the Tower of Babel is still banned.
In theory, Tahlia calculated that we’d need around five Spell Counters per Spell Power Grasps activation to be able to lift HomeBase off the ground, and that is with only it floating, so we would actually need more. In short, I need either a better field spell, more spells that generate Spell Counters each time a spell card is activated or I have to force my Guardians to loop Butterfly Dagger - Elma even more. But I really don’t want to do that, as it relies on my Guardians, and they already feed my Pack token factory. It will be nice for emergency extra mana, but I don’t want it to be my main source of mana.
I did consider a loop using Banisher of the Radiance, either Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning or Chaos Emperor Dragon - Envoy of the End and Primal Seed, but that is just a bit too convoluted and requires the control of at least two monsters, as well as the factor with Banisher of the Radiance banishing all of the cards I activate while he is out.
It honestly is not a bad loop or anything, but again, because of Banisher of the Radiance banishing every card I’d use, it isn’t quite usable long term. But another great short term option. But I’m sure we can come up with something, if just given a bit more time.
And honestly speaking, because this will be something that won’t take place in the factory, but will instead take place in the real world, I have to be able to do this all with installs, so that limits options as well. If I have to be there summoning the monsters, and giving them cards from Pack Opener’s Collection, what is the point? I need something else.
… did I get sidetracked? Again? Probably, but who cares?
Oh right. I have a messenger from the town’s Lord waiting for me, so yeah. He might care.
The town’s Lord invited me to a luncheon. I was asked to meet him so he could personally thank me for solving the fishing problem, so why not? I only took Agunan with me. He was playing the part of my attendant. I had to leave Alice to take care of Cailie, so I hope they will be fine. I trust Alice, but the two of them cannot communicate, so I just hope it will work out. Lua and Ria went with Mariina to hold that magic exam thing, in case you were wondering.
… speaking with a mermaid… my Mermaid monsters, Enchanting Mermaid, Cure Mermaid and Mermaid Knight all speak the language Alice and Lua understand… So can they speak both? If they can, they could act as translators.
Sure I could also have Laura translate to Alice and Lua, but that won’t work if I’m not there. Well it would, but it would be a convoluted process of Mia or Kekri sending Laura a message with what Cailie said, Laura translating it using my Language Comprehension (humanoid) and then answering with the translation. And it wouldn’t allow Alice or Lua to speak merfolk. Maybe I should just ask the Goddess and/or Aulis if Alice and Lua can have Language Comprehension (humanoid). Considering all the favors I’m doing to them, they might agree.
Well, I’ll ask about that later.
“I thank you for your invitation, Lord Bloggs.”
“Yes. Thank you for coming, Sir Wood. You as well, Sir Dragon.” The current Baron Bloggs greeted us as we arrived. “Please, take a seat.”
The current Baron was someone I had met before, as he was with his father at the birthday celebration, so I am at least acquainted with him. Also, him calling me ‘Sir’ and me calling him ‘Lord’ is just etiquette and all of that. While we are both Barons in rank, I’m an honorary Baron, so permanent nobles do out rank me.
“First, allow me to offer an apology for what my father did to you. What he said, what he did, the way he acted. I apologize for all of it.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not the type of person to punish someone for the actions of their parents.” I answered, as if I had the bigger power out of the two of us. Well, I kind of do, but I try not to abuse my connections too much. And still, the fact stands. As long as he is reasonable, I have no reason to punish him for what happened with his father.
“Thank you. Also, let me thank you for your service to the town. I was already under scrutiny for my … abnormal nomination to take over, so when the town soon ran into trouble, I was under quite a lot of pressure to solve the issue. So thank you for taking care of it.”
“Yeah. That was no trouble, and you really should be thanking Lady Mariina. She is the only reason I even came into town, and I may have not taken part in the quest had it not been in the way of her work.” I answered almost honestly. Of course there was that entire System Mission thing, but that is a secret.
“Yes. I understand. I shall extend my thanks to her, as well as the rest of your party. It is a shame the others couldn’t come.”
“Well, they are busy helping Lady Mariina, so it cannot be helped.” They definitely didn’t say they wouldn’t come, even if they could. Well, one of them might have. Alice didn’t exactly enjoy the fact that this guy tried to take her for the first dance at the BD party.
“I hope you will be willing to take some of the food to them, just so they can really take in the great fish of this town.” The Baron said, before he gave the sign to the servants to bring in some food.
“Yes. I’m sure they will enjoy it.”
Our spread of meals wasn’t too bad, but it wasn’t amazing either. It was… so-so. Good, but not amazing. Though Agunan seemed to quite enjoy himself, so at least that is good.
As our luncheon came to an end, I handed Baron Bloggs a quick gift my monsters had made after the invitation. It was nothing special, just a filet knife. It was made from leftover blood iron with a grip of ever wood, so it basically cost nothing to make. It did look fine, but basic. But at least with the metal's tendency to draw in blood, it would be good for that.
Baron Bloggs thanked me for the gift, and apologized that he didn’t have a full apology gift for me, but I just accepted his apology before I left. No reason to hold him responsible for his father’s actions.
After our luncheon, I asked for some of the best dishes to be put aside for me to take back and the Baron agreed to give us some, as he did lack the apology gift. Then Agunan and I returned to the inn.
“Hi, you two. How did you do?”
“Welcome back. How was the lunch?” Alice asked.
“... it was alright, I guess. I think my Dragonmaids make better food, as do the chefs at your home and your grandpa’s place, so… it wasn’t bad, just not quite what I hoped for. I do have some of it in my Storage, so you can have a taste later.”
“Thanks.”
“So, how was Cailie?” I asked.
“Well, she is napping now, but she was a bit… not so calm. I think she had some… issues because I couldn’t speak with her at first, but then I made a spell to translate the speech, so we managed.”
“Oh? Wow. Nice call.” I honestly forgot that Alice can do that type of stuff with her unique-racial skill. Great call by her on that.
“... But…”
“It takes a lot of mana, right?”
“Not that bad actually, just not something I can keep active all the time. My efficiency did go up a bit because the skill leveled up. I can use that translation spell for about two, two and a half hours with it before I run out.” Oh yeah. I think I forgot to mention that part. Alice’s reward for the mission to solve the fishing problem was a level up to her Magical Girl skill.
“That’s really not that bad. You have like little over 4000 mana at the moment, right? So that divided by 150 minutes… is like … 30-ish mana per minute?”
“A bit more. You don’t factor in mana recovery speeds.”
“Yeah. I guess that is just a bit much then. But still, I wonder if using it will eventually give you the Language Comprehension title. Because I feel like it might. And getting that title on both you and Lua would be useful. But still, a great spell to have in your arsenal. … does it work with draconic?”
“We could try.” Alice agreed. “... just… alright. Agunan, can you say something in draconic?”
I heard Agunan and Alice begin a conversation in draconic, so it seemed to work. I have to say, full points to Alice on that one. Great call using her unique skill that way.
I decided to focus on my own things so I pulled out the Dungeon Founder’s item developer and began working on the WDBDD. I still need a better name for it. My current goal is to make a Dimensional Barrier Observer, a DBO. It will just make me a baseline on how the barriers are and when I have that, I can use that data to hopefully make the full WDBDD.
Cailie woke up from her nap a bit later, so I spoke with her a bit. I also spoke to her about what she would need for daily life. This resulted in a small list of stuff that I’d need to get her, and I was planning on doing that tomorrow. I could likely buy most of it, but I can also just visit HomeBase and get the stuff from there for free, so why not? I also had a few things I should get for my own use.
The biggest thing Cailie really needed was a water bracelet, or similar magic tool. This is something merfolk use to keep their skin moist while out of water. Lua, Alice and I had all been doing it with magic, me with the help of the water spirits and Alice with her Racial-Unique skill, but a more permanent solution would be better. The device itself was nothing special, just some sort of holder for a low ranking water attributed magic stone, with the spell carved into it, which would spread water across the skin of the wearer. HomeBase catalog had well over 100 of them in different designs, so I just opened the skill up and asked Cailie which one she’d like.
Other than that, I was planning on getting her a wheelchair, just so Agunan or I didn’t have to carry her. Cailie was a bit against Agunan carrying her in the first place, so it was mostly me doing it. I did play around with making a floating wheelchair, but mana consumption got in the way. I should ask my Spellcasters to min-max these levitation spells better. They just really aren’t that mana efficient. Telekinesis is more mana efficient, than the levitation magic circles that these magic tools use. That might also help with the flying dungeon project.
Last thing Cailie would need is some clothes. Ones that won’t be so susceptible to water. So for that, I again searched the catalog for water-proof clothing and found a long list. From there, it was fill up the ‘shopping cart’ and go pick them up tomorrow for 50% off, compared to getting them delivered right now.
In the early evening, Lua, Ria and Mariina returned from the adventurer’s guild, so we enjoyed dinner together. It was from the dishes I got from Baron Bloggs, as well as a few other local dishes I picked up on my way back to the inn from the Bloggs’ manor.
We also went over tomorrow's schedule, just so we would be on the same page, before we called it a night and headed to bed.
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