Chapter 89

"As it so happens, being as I am a Duke, I am required to raise and maintain a Ducal Army," I explained. "Which is a requirement I'm sure that your father will be quite lenient about given that New Shanghelm has been here for almost two whole months, but nonetheless, I have set about recruiting volunteers and drilling them in military discipline, small-unit tactics, general operations, and a number of other very useful military skills that go beyond simply hitting people with the sharp end of a spear. That doesn't mean that they don't know how to fight, though- in fact, thanks to my unusual gift with martial science and technology, I have also been able to equip them far beyond the current state of the art, and therefore, in addition to security, they will also be very, very effective showpieces to any guests who remember that they're nominally intended to be military aristocrats."

"Right, right," Penelope said, nodding. "Although... explain to me what this equipment is, that is apparently so advanced?"

"Where I'm from, it was just a fantasy of future technologies to come," I said. "Something we thought we'd eventually be able to make work. It's called power armor, and... as for the power armor that I've actually created and that you will interact with, it is essentially a small mechanized vehicle that is shaped like a person so as to trick the System into thinking it's actually a suit of armor, and giving it all the attendant bonuses from being worn by a person that it wouldn't get if it were a more reasonable shape for a vehicle. Aside from turning a typical 5'6 soldier-" that may have been short for an alpha, but it was the average for betas, and for a variety of complex social reasons, the Army of Shang got a lot of beta applicants, which Indoleth (Nel's sister, the ambassador from the Amazon Isle, remember her?) said was a big win for beta's rights that she was sad she hadn't gotten to fight for, on account I already decided to make my armed forces fully gender-accepting, rather than only taking alphas like most others. "-into a seven foot tall hulk of gleaming metal, which is far more impressive, it also incorporates a lot of powerful and useful systems that'd normally be too bulky to integrate into a suit of conventional armor."

"I... see," Penelope said, as I pulled up an illusory recording of a soldier in power armor going through a melee target drill, moving with a very surprising grace and agility for someone wearing an absolute fuckton of metal. "I... hrm. I must ask, darling- how on earth are you paying for all of this? I know Delvers are unreasonably wealthy, but... surely not this wealthy, no? I've yet to see you do a single profit-motivated thing- even your publishing house seems to simply be your attempt to patronize the arts more broadly."

"Well, this is one of those secrets on par with my secret class," I said. "I have managed, with all of my crafting classes working together, to create an enchanted machine that uses a potion engine, a condensed auto-farm, and an auto-brewer to burn magicka potion to grow herbs to make more magicka potion, with such efficiency that it is left with more magicka potion than it started with. With those, I power other auto-farms that essentially turn magicka into useful plants, or auto-mines that turn magicka into useful ores, or auto-foundries that turn those ores and also some magicka into finished goods. I pursued the path of the Dungeon Master, and in the process stumbled upon a revolution in productivity that has broken the shackles of scarcity and subsistence from around mankind's wrists. The outside world could collapse, and Shang could remain a Glass Desert until the end of days; for so long as one of my Infinity Engines continues to run, then New Shanghelm will still have food to eat and clothes to wear and silver to spend."

Penelope nodded, slowly.

"I will, of course," I continued, "be doing what I can to pass these abilities to you, as well, before I leave. Now, aside from security, what other considerations must we make for our wedding?"

"Food is a major one," Penelope said. "I'm aware that you have machines that generate ration packs from nothingness, but I doubt that the Duke of Black Sands will tolerate being fed one of those."

"I'll send for a few suitably fancy caterers from the capital, but I'll also solicit caterers from New Shanghelm itself," I said. "I have the suspicion, if we don't tell anyone which is which, then we'll trick a bunch of aristocrats into enjoying poor people food."

"Oh, that's hardly difficult," Penelope said dismissively. "Now, for the venue..."

"I have... a request," I said, weary and exhausted, despite having simply sat at a table talking all day.

"Yes?" Penelope asked, also clearly flagging a little.

"After all... all of this bullshit I've just gone through, planning out the finer points of this event that's evidently only barely about us and clearly more about giving the aristocracy another opportunity to socialize and network... I demand that the wedding reception be something where I can cut loose and do whatever the fuck I want."

"Oh? Like, say, a masquerade ball?"

"...Yes, actually, exactly like a masquerade ball. As a matter of fact, I have a few options for making a masquerade ball very interesting. We'll have to say the masks I provide are imported artifacts from abroad, but that should be an easy lie to sell." Gears turned in my head as I considered how I'd go about throwing the most memorably debauched masquerade ball on this fucking continent since the days of the Empire run by an Incubus.

"I take it you already have some idea of what you're doing?"

"I do, yes. Let's adjourn for today, and meet back up tomorrow; I have ideas for this ball."

"So, you want to hire us for a masquerade ball?" the union rep asked.

"Yes, please," I said, nodding. "I'm willing to address security concerns, provide any requested medical care, provide hazard pay- you have a blank check, here. Name your price."

The union rep considered this carefully, hemming and hawing as she scanned back over the packet.

"...Tell you what," she said carefully. "You've got enough masks for all of us, yeah?"

"Yes, I do," I said, nodding.

"If they do what you say they do... We're gonna wanna keep those."

"Mm. Well, if you insist," I said. "Anything else?"

"We'll need a good supply of potions," the rep said. "Don't want anyone getting sick here."

"Of course, of course," I said. "I'm an Alchemist myself; I'll brew the finest there is."

"Aaaand... we're also gonna need writs of immunity to prosecution."

"...Oh, is sex work illegal in Dorn?" I frowned; that would put a damper on my hiring of sex workers to attend my wild sex party. "Hrmph." Thankfully, I was the Duke of Shang, and I had options. "I'll pass an edict fully decriminalizing sex work in the entirety of Shang tomorrow. Put an end to this puritanical moral panic nonsense."

"That... huh. Yeah, that'll... that'll work."

"Alright, the prototype is done," I said. "Gentlemen, behold! The Mask of the Seducer!"

"It's a really simple enchantment," Lisa pointed out. "It's just a one-time Trickster disguise shapeshifting that applies when you put on the mask, plus an ongoing Trickster effect that makes you harder to recognize."

"Well, yes," I admitted. "It's an enchanted mask for a masquerade ball, and it turns out that an effect that confers both humanoid shapeshifting and shapeshifting one's clothes is very, very helpful to the end of letting people anonymize themselves and also make themselves look a lot sexier. Although, it also incorporates an enchantment to mark the wearer as an Imp, so that we'll be benefiting from all the debauchery at the masquerade ball, not just the debauchery we're involved with... which, admittedly, will still be a lot. I mean, we're all hot chicks who're fine with the idea of fucking a bunch of people- a masquerade ball where I went out of my way to hire out the entire New Shanghelm Whore's Guild should give us plenty of opportunity to get some action."

"It... varies from person to person," Ariel said, rubbing her upper arm. "I'm still acclimating to being in a harem with eight other people."

"...Alright, well, if you really want, I can add in a backdoor guidance system to push you towards others in our group, so that you don't have to fuck a stranger if you don't want to."

"Can you actually do that?" Lucy asked.

"Probably," I said, shrugging. "We'll see, won't we?"

The answer was yes, I could add in a guidance enchantment for specifically this purpose. I could, in fact, add a lot of exceptions to the general Trickster-based 'you don't recognize me' field, most of which were easily-justifiable safety measures. While the whole point of a masquerade ball was that you didn't recognize anyone, and nobody recognized you, it was still ultimately agreed that some guard rails were necessary to avoid, say, somebody unknowingly fucking their own sister, which would be bad. There were a few other safeguards of a similar purpose, to ensure nobody got freaky with anyone they absolutely shouldn't be, but otherwise...

...well, what was the point of anonymized debauchery if you weren't gonna fuck people who'd ordinarily be a normal amount of bad idea to sleep with?

So, I wrote up invites and sent 'em out, inviting the entirety of Dorn's high society to New Shanghelm for a wedding in the afternoon and an adults-only masquerade in the evening.

And then... I waited.