The World Dragon's Heir

Chapter 707: Prep The Payment

Unsure what to do about the message, Alexis brought it over to the office, where Dominic was gathered with the Advisors.

"I don’t suppose that any of you know anything about this?" She asked, holding out the letter for them to see.

Alistair smiled. "Oh, I haven’t seen one of those in ages. Toss it in the fireplace."

"Is there something wrong with it? It looks like an elegantly written letter, and apparently expensive." She asked, confused.

"It’s a magical spell. Delivery. If you hold the paper over the fire, you will get the hidden message and whatever item was attached to it. It’s not that you didn’t get a gift with it, it’s just hidden."

Unsure if he was pranking her, Alexis held the paper against one of the magitech lanterns, and watched in awe as the paper glowed with magic, then transformed into a small velvet box.

"See? It’s a brilliant bit of transformation magic, a step up from a standard illusion.

There aren’t many people that can use it these days, it fell out of favour once everyone realized how to activate it. Well, that and the invention of invisible ink for common use, which also appears when heated over a flame." Alistair explained.

"Ah, that makes sense. The script was also somewhat archaic. Like you would do for a calligraphy project, not a regular letter." Alexis agreed as she carefully opened the box.

Inside was a simple jade ring, jet black in colour, but covered in runes that she couldn’t decipher.

Dominic examined it for a second, then turned to Alistair.

"I know quite a bit about magical writing, but I’ve never seen that before."

The aging mage examined the ring then shrugged. "I have no idea what language it is either, but I can tell what it’s supposed to do. It’s a storage ring, and it appears to already be bonded to the Princess.

I have no idea how they did that, unless it was set to bond to the first person who touched it.

But it should open just like any other ring."

Alexis put the ring on, then gasped in shock. "The storage space of that ring is larger than our airship factory. Forget the usual limits of a storage ring, we could use this thing as a granary for the entire city.

It’s absolutely huge inside."

"Well, now we know that whoever sent this is a truly unique character, and not just a bit of a traditionalist. I wonder if it’s related to that message from Asmodain, the Archmage of Kinewen Academy?

He’s the sort that would be amused by sending a letter like this without anyone realizing how it got there.

But there are other options, and it might simply be another older mage giving you a wedding gift." Alistair noted.

Dominic shook his head. "If you said that you haven’t seen it in ages, they’re likely more than a bit old school. But still, it would have been good to know who it was so that we could have properly thanked them for their wishes."

With so much more storage space, Alexis spent some of her spare time over the next few weeks organizing her belongings between devices.

Having all this extra space was absolutely wonderful.

The days began to blur together as everyone worked hard to get everything ready for the first payment to Dagos, including a rushed harvest by the Trollish village north of the city.

They had prepared an absolutely absurd pile of potatoes, following the instructions of Dave, who viewed potatoes as the most versatile base for soups.

Need thicker soup? Add mashed potatoes. Need more solids in the soup to soak up flavour? Add potatoes. Didn’t want to use cream, but still get that creamy texture? Potatoes.

They weren’t a flavour, they were the core ingredient that humans greatly underestimated.

And now, it was up to Dominic to sort out the mess.

As such, he found himself sitting across the desk from Rill, the manager of their local Merchant’s Guild branch.

"Alright, I know that the Guild has agreed to do the transfer, and I’ve sent the documents to the King already for our first monthly payment. The Trollish village has generously grown two thousand tonnes of potatoes for our first shipment." Dominic informed him.

The Guild Leader frowned. "You’re saying that you have a hundred trailer loads of potatoes, waiting for shipment to Dagos, and what? You just expect me to find the equipment?"

Dominic shrugged. "It’s going to be a monthly thing for the next decade, and the Guild is getting paid for it."

"Is there anything else going?" Rill asked, resigned to his fate of scrambling to find enough caravan drivers.

"That will be the majority of the shipment from us this month. We were going to send a tractor, but as it turns out, we’re incredibly short on them, and the Barons have requested no fewer than sixty of them as soon as possible.

If they don’t get them by the end of the season, they are going to struggle to get the fields all prepped for the dry season crop planting.

So, we have food, but nothing to move it with this time.

Oh, I do have a bunch of fireplace inserts to go as well. They’re the B grade ones that failed quality checks, but still work. Not quite as pretty, but we’ve labelled them for internal use inside stoves, where nobody will see that the logs are misshapen, or that the flames aren’t quite even."

"You stopped breaking down the miscast items, and just slapped them together into a budget line? That’s... incredibly capitalist of you."

"Waste not, want not. Right?"

"Alright, we can work with that. As long as they’re fully functional, and we’re not going to be accused of sending out a substandard product."

Dominic shook his head. "No, these are just not pretty. We also glazed them flat black, so it’s obvious that they’re not the same as the usual ones that we sell."