The World Dragon's Heir

Chapter 743: Signets

Dominic made his way to the forge, and began stamping out the rings. But as he got started, he realized that there was a better way to do this.

He had a seal that was very specifically for people in the employ of Wistover Manor.

It didn’t imply any sort of rank, or right to speak on behalf of the duchy, it only identified a courier or staff member as legitimate.

If he made a casting for those signets on rings, he could give them to every single person who worked for the Manor, and then nobody would suspect the ones that were actually storage rings.

Or, he could have Benedict make them all into storage rings.

They didn’t have to be large, but if all the veiled maids, cleaning staff, and others could keep their work tools in them, it would be enough.

Having official identification for the employees would be good. But having storage items for them, so they didn’t need to constantly carry around all their tools, or go running back and forth to get them during the day, would be so much better.

Dominic carved the first ring out of wax, making it to fit one of his own fingers. They were easy enough to resize, but that could be solved later, or they could be worn on a necklace.

Many jobs didn’t want to wear rings anyhow, and making staff carry something larger would just be a hassle.

It didn’t take long to make a casting of twenty copies of the ring, and then press wet clay into them. Only a few minutes, after he had the demonstration ring made. So, he made two batches.

One in Dark Iron, one in Cart Bright.

Some people naturally wouldn’t want a shiny and flashy ring, so having some dark black ones would be a nice change. Especially for the guards and militia.

Though, the Royal Guard and Militia would get their own, now that Dominic had the basic design down.

He would just make a fresh prototype, and add another casting to his stack of castings. He was building up quite a few of them in his storage ring, for all the various items that he mass-produced in the forge.

Whoever he passed all this down to was going to inherit a massive treasure trove of assistants to the forge, and Dominic briefly wondered if Mead was going to inherit the same sort of treasure from Pops one day.

The old man didn’t have his own kids, and she was his apprentice. One that wasn’t going to be dragged away to do other things, and a full dwarf that he could teach the Forge Runes to.

Surely, that had to count for something.

Dominic set the staff rings aside, and began working on ones for the Royal Guard, denoted with the symbol for the House of Wavemates, but bordered with the Cygnian Royal Dragons.

That differentiated them from the old rings, and let anyone who saw them know that the guard wearing it was not just a Wavemates Guard, but a Royal Guard of the Cygnian Kingdom.

That seemed perfect to Dominic.

It marked them as Royal Guards, but not explicitly as Wavemates Royal Guards, which might raise some questions. However, as he had married a Princess of Cygnia, they were honour bound to protect her as well, so you could say that they were both.

Those, he only made ten of, and he pumped them with as much magic as possible, turning them into a deep black metal that flickered with golden reflections in the light.

Dominic wasn’t quite certain what it was called, but it was definitely an upgraded version of Dark Iron.

He would ask Pops about it later, when he went over to upgrade more metals for the forge.

It was still easier for him to do a bulk transmutation than for Pops to do it. The Quality Increase Orb simply didn’t want to work the same way for him. It was happy to make dark iron, but Pops had never bothered to upgrade the orb. There was no need when Dominic came by every week for an update and refilled his stockpile.

With the ten of those made, Dominic pocketed the casting, and made the final batch. The ones for the militia and other soldiers of the Duchy.

These were simple, and Dominic only put the dragon of the Duchy crest on them, surrounded by the words "Citizen’s Militia" in the most common magical language.

Anyone who could read it would know what it was, and that the ring was for a militiaman. But it looked fancy enough that nobody would question that they were employed by the Duchy in some capacity.

Benedict came in as Dominic was finishing the tenth batch of militia rings, and looked at what he was almost certain was a jeweller’s wet dream sitting around on soot covered workbenches.

"What have you got for me?" He asked.

"I have these ten rings for your guards. Then I’ve got these ones for the household staff. If you can put storage enchantments on them, I would be grateful.

The militia ones, I’m not certain if we need enchantments on. I just wanted something to identify them to people of the Baronies.

Not everyone can be expected to just accept that anyone with a spear and a tabard is one of our militia, especially if they’re misbehaving. But if someone gets arrested, and this ring is found on them, the Barons can be one hundred percent sure that it really is a militiaman, and can respond accordingly.

We don’t go easy on our own, we have standards to stay in the militia.

Though, we did give spears to basically any farmer that asked for one, and most of their wives, so there are no shortages of weapons around the city."

Benedict laughed. "That will likely carry over to the Baronies as well, once they can get enough spears. Everyone wants one, when they’re allowed to have them. Especially the ones who lived under Dagos control."