Chapter 304: Start Early
Beth was one step ahead of Dominic, and had multiple packed boxes ready, depending on what time of day he was planning to take Alexis out for a private adventure.
"What are your plans for the morning?" Beth asked as Dominic slipped one of the baskets into his storage cube.
"In the morning, I am going to make a load of spears for the farmers. Then, I will come back for lunch and bring the Princess out to the festival until dinner." Dominic decided.
"Alright, that is easy enough to work with. I wasn’t sure how many to cook for, as almost everyone is likely to be in town for lunch."
"Good point. With the festival going on, everyone will be out socializing. That was part of why I wanted to get spears made this morning. If I’ve got them, I can hand them out when everyone comes in for the festival, and I won’t have to send someone to all the farms." Dominic explained.
Beth just laughed. "Give them to the Innkeeper. He will see every man in town by the time the day is over."
She wasn’t wrong about that. The Innkeeper was also the town’s only bartender, and the only spot in town that even carried alcohol other than the wines you could get at the Mercantile store.
That would change soon, though.
Billy Bob should have grapes already picked and wine fermenting. The first batches would have gone into barrels not long after he arrived, so there would be fresh vintages in the next month or two.
Perhaps not the finest of wines, but they should be palatable enough.
If there was one talent that soldiers learned on deployment, it was new and innovative ways to make cheap liquor drinkable. Well, that and the ability to sleep anywhere.
What Dominic didn’t realize that there was an actual winemaker among one of the groups, and he had moved to the hillside under the Baron’s jurisdiction to take over the process.
Though it might not be as lucrative as his own vineyards, it would still allow him to practice his trade and make a living. An excellent living, if the production on the hills held up as well as it had for the last month.
Pops was busy in the forge when Dominic arrived, but the two part mould for the spear tips was still sitting in the corner of the room where he had left it, and the tubing press was ready to go.
It had become one of the most popular tools in the forge, as the architects needed so much plumbing for the buildings, and Pops was exceptionally skilled at turning out smooth and even tube.
"Making pistols again this morning?" Pops asked as Dominic began to arrange the workshop and stoke his side of the forge.
"Spears first, so that everyone coming in from the farms can grab one. Even one spear per family should make them feel better, and this batch should be enough that even the Baronies’ farmers will be able to get one.
I will make pistols later, since the guards all have one already. I also gave the hunters some rifles." Dominic explained.
Pops nodded. "So I heard. They’ve been avoiding using them, though. Most of them figured that it was better to bring some of the feral stock in alive to see if it could be domesticated, so they haven’t been shooting anything."
Dominic chuckled. "And how did that go for them?"
"They lost the argument and had to spear four wild pigs, and there are two very confused antelope in one of the paddocks, but they did manage to find a roaming water buffalo." The dwarf joked.
The Antelope could jump a three-metre fence from a standing start. If they didn’t want to be penned in, they wouldn’t be. Unless someone had managed to get a collar and rope on them. But even then, they would likely chew through it or pull the fence post from the ground trying to escape.
The Water Buffalo didn’t really need domestication. They were simply too mellow to cause troubles unless you forgot to feed them.
The pair worked in relative silence for the next hour, as Dominic used [Clay to Steel] to transform spearheads and make shafts, then he moved on to sharpening them and preparing them for the oil bath.
All the practice paid off, and Dominic found that it was becoming significantly easier to complete the mana charging of the monster core infused tempering oil than it was when he first started as an apprentice.
But more importantly, the blue stripes in his trade skill core were becoming noticeable from a distance, marking him as an early-stage Journeyman, and not a late-stage Apprentice.
"You really do have an affinity for the forge. I’ve never seen anyone go through the progress on a Trade Skill Core like that before. Most would take years just to get through the Apprentice stages, but here you are, already showing blue." Pops congratulated him.
"It’s all up to your expert tutelage." Dominic agreed with a sly smirk.
While it was true that he learned everything he knew from Pops, or close to it, Dominic felt that he didn’t actually know all that much, and it was simply his affinity for magic that made the whole process possible.
Even if he asked the farrier, she would know more about metallurgy than he did, and she was still only a level four apprentice.
Dominic had a definite sense of impostor syndrome, but when he finished, he had fifty more spears, all level five uncommon grade magical items, which would cut through Goblin hide with ease.
All that he had to do was deliver them, then go get cleaned up before lunch and hope that his wife wasn’t too annoyed that he snuck out while she was sleeping to go work the forge.
Pops smirked as he watched the changing expressions on Dominic’s face.
"Relax, boy. She is used to you already, she’s not going to yell at you too much for working on a festival day. Especially when you let her sleep in.
You did remember to fix the curtains, didn’t you?"
Dominic nodded. "I made a magitech pulley, so I can open and close them from bed."
Pops gave a short laugh. "Well, that’s one way of doing it. Common folk just run a string from the curtains to the bedpost so they can tug them shut."
That would have worked too.
He probably should have thought about that first, before going looking for a magitech solution.