My Servant System

Despite my best efforts to stifle my heat, it had apparently gotten to the point that my mate had sensed it, and when that prior conversation and the emotions it had elicited were added to this equation, Anput grabbed my wrist when I gave everyone their coffee and cake and pulled me away from everyone, taking me out of the room and into another somewhere down the hall to 'cool off' and rid me of this heat.

There was no helping it at this point; I was too wound up from my thoughts and from Cali's talk, and Anput was too irritated and too aroused thanks to the pheromones that had been wafting off of my body for this to not be the case, so I happily went with her and allowed her to help me.

And considering they were still asleep when we returned who knows how long after we had left, it would appear that we weren't really that missed, so we took a seat and returned to the conversation of planning this trip of ours as best we could.

Loose planning was what I always stuck by in this situation; no strict deadlines or timeframes for anything whatsoever wherever we went, since it only invited undue stress onto us and made for it to be an unpleasant trip if anything interesting popped up that we wanted to do during a time we already had something planned for.

And considering the type of people we were and the things that we wanted to do, strict planning would never work out for us since we were all open to do whatever whenever we could, and especially if it meant we were either fighting or 'fighting'.

"The decision was for us to spend a day at one of the arenas - be it watching or participating - so that we could unwind after one of the many days spent out in the sand dunes battling the various Fiends. On that same vein, there are two amphitheaters and teahouses that seem interesting according to Anput's memories, and then we have some fun clubs we could visit if we want some different kind of unwinding..."

Jahi looked around the table before adding "There are also a myriad of restaurants that serve all sorts of incredible foods that are native to the Sultanate, like the various curries, kebabs, barbecued meats, stuffed peppers and cabbages, some kind of bread called... naan..? All of that sounds excellent. Spicy, but excellent."

"And rice dishes, though they are more exquisite and expensive than the others since rice is only grown within the oasis scattered across the desert. But otherwise, most of the cuisine within the Sultanate is entirely meat oriented; even the stuffed vegetables are primarily focused on the ground meats that you stuff said vegetables with. Far more meat heavy than the Empire, though we do enjoy a good amount of grains as well."

"Something to do with the primary populace being Caninekin, perhaps? The Sultanate is roughly 60% to 70% Caninekin, with the remaining being a mixture of other Beastkin and then Elves, Dwarves and Orcs right? Makes sense to me that they would all be primarily carnivores, and the diet would reflect that."

Anput shrugged her shoulders and replied to Mother Ria with a small smile as she just said "Meat just tastes better anyways, and it has most of what you need. Especially since the water in the oasis' have a lot of minerals in them, and we do love bread as well; helps make all our meals filling no matter what."

"The seasonings are delicious too. Honestly, what with us being so close, I made Les learn how to cook some of the Sultanate's dishes just so she could transfer that over to our meals, and damn did it work out... Best things we got from the Sultanate seasoning wise was cumin and nutmeg. Cinnamon too, but that grows in parts of the Empire quite well and quite abundantly so I don't count it. They really are dead asleep, aren't they?"

Mom turned and looked back at the sleeping Elves before sighing as she added "You four should probably go and do something for a couple hours... looks like that concoction of yours really put them on their ass Kat. Gods know what that'll do to a normal person..."

"Probably a coma, if I had to wager a guess~!"

Jahi smirked at me before standing up, glancing at Mother Ria and only continuing on when she got a nod in return, which made her look back at us as she said "Let's go then. I think I want to run a small test before we go do our own things; Anput, could you forge two identical blades, and Kat, place identical enchantments on them, but only after Leone puts them in a bath?"

We all got up and began to filter out of the room, with Mom leading the other two back into the bedroom to leave the older Elves to themselves once more, which would hopefully lead to us returning to them being awake...

Just in case, we placed the ornament in a cabinet before we left, returning to the forge afterwords and getting back down to it as we spent a couple of hours shacked away in that small room, working together on a few different things as Jahi ran us through a couple of ideas she wanted to work on for the future.

Even after the Fiends were taken care of - or not, depending on when we got to it - people would still need weapons, and she wanted to see where the baseline for each lay and how far we could push certain materials to be as profitable as possible, and to do so she had us calculate the base cost of said materials and then had us produce two identical weapons from those materials.

The catch was one would be subjected to beautification and the other would be left alone, and that meant we had to calculate the price of the herbs as well, but that wasn't too difficult to do; after that, we just stowed them away and decided to place some bets on what would net the most money.

Jahi said swords - specifically broadswords - while Anput said longswords, then Leone came out with the more 'outlandish' prediction of the warhammer being worth the most, though the reasoning was simple enough with her arguing the material cost meant it would have a higher base cost, which would be more than enough to compete with the swords.

As for me, I said that the spear would net the most money, since it was the easiest weapon to use here and the cost to make it was so low thanks to the wooden haft and small amount of metal used; it would have more profit than the other three picks because of that, at least in my mind.

All that was left was to go get them appraised and sold, but that wasn't to be done today, so instead we put them in storage and made our way back towards our room, finding a dozing Grandma resting in the rocker and Grandpa sitting up sipping on something warm, albeit with hazy eyes and a blank expression... which was mirrored by Lakshmi beside him as she yawned and stared blankly at the floor.

"Grandpa, Grandma. You're finally awake! Sleep well?"

I smiled at them both as they turned to me, and I noticed instantly how Grandma narrowed her eyes whilst Grandpa shook his head in belayed amusement at my jovial tone, whilst the smugness on my face was poorly concealed.

"You... You are a dangerous woman, Katherine... What was in that tea?"

Those sharp blue eyes were trying to bore into my soul as Grandma asked that, and I wondered if the assassin in her was curious because she wanted to use it on someone... or if she wanted to try and develop an immunity to it so that going forwards, I couldn't knock her out like this.

"Oh, you know... herbs, water, love. The usual~! Did it taste good~? I bet it really~ complimented the chicken..."

Instead of giving her a direct answer, I just grinned at her and kept her attention as I approached her, allowing Jahi to go grab the gift without alerting them too much about it, so that they couldn't catch a glimpse before hand.

"You never answered me though, Grandma~! Was your sleep good? Feeling well rested now? Are you going to be able to spend quality time with everyone and not feel sluggish?"

She gave me a small frown before looking towards Jahi, who had coughed and decided to interrupt us so that we could get on with the reveal, something that made the two Elves raise a brow when she said "Whilst you were asleep, we went ahead and made you something. An... ornament to remember us all by. Something to have back at your own home."

That grabbed both of their attention easily, and they got up with the twins in their arms to approach the table and take a seat... though Grandma frowned at me again when I poured her a cup of coffee with a smile, the Elf tapping the edge of the cup and appraising it before glancing at her husband, who shrugged and sipped on his coffee in response.

"What brought this on? Something to remember you all by... We're old, but we're not senile. Still have a few more centuries before that point. Maybe not if Katherine here keeps spiking our tea..."

"There are no promises there, Grandpa~! You need to sleep to remain healthy, after all~! Perhaps it was just your bodies demanding you make up for the time you've spent awake, and nothing~ to do with my ability to brew an excellent tea for sleep..."

I just smiled back at Grandpa after he said that, the older man chuckling quietly at his own joke before gesturing to the cloth covered ornament, waiting for the grand reveal... all with Lakshmi yawning on his lap and rubbing her eyes as she fought to remain awake, and with Alessandra sitting on the table with Grandma holding the scruff of her neck to keep her from crawling over and unveiling it herself.

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