“Obviously foreign?” Serenity’s first thought was to make it look like the modern body armor he’d styled it after on Earth. It wasn’t as good as his scales, really, since it took on some of the properties of what it looked like, but it would definitely be foreign.
Wait, why couldn’t he make it look like his scales? Dragonhide was certain to be obviously foreign; dragons weren’t generally found on low-tier worlds, and Zon was definitely a low-Tier world. Serenity couldn’t be sure exactly what its cap was, but he’d be completely shocked if it was over ten, and it was likely lower.
“Give me a moment.” Serenity concentrated. He couldn’t shift his human form without compromising the disguise, and since both of the people in front of him had seen him in it, he didn’t want to do that. During his testing, he’d found that he could shift the other form if he was careful. He wasn’t certain if it affected how long he could hold the “permanent” disguise; he hadn’t had much time for testing them, after all.
Human body with dhampir bloodline, stay the same. Armor form, shift to dragonscale. Soft inner layer, leather, then scales. My scales. He modeled the scales after his own in chimera form; it was simple enough and other than some modifications for being armor instead of his own hide and to fit a human instead of a chimera, it was easy. It was both weird and completely natural to think of wearing himself.
Since he was shifting only one form, he had to stand to complete the shift; he’d also have to lift each foot if he wanted to add armored footgear, so for now he didn’t bother. “Will this work?”
“It’s definitely foreign,” Kalo started, only to be interrupted by his daughter.
“It’s perfect! In that armor, I can introduce you as a friend from offplanet. Another noble. You can pass as a noble, can’t you?” Andarit seemed positively giddy. She wasn’t actually bouncing in her seat, but Serenity felt like she should be.
It took him a moment, but there was an obvious reason for her excitement. “You just don’t want to be seen with a bodyguard, do you?”
“Ah, it’ll also help with your Quest! I can go all sorts of places showing you around!” Andarit clearly made that up on the spot.
Even so, it wasn’t a bad idea. Serenity turned to her father. “Is she right? Would an offplanet noble be more accepted?”
“Only if you are an offplanet noble,” the Duke replied. “There are Skills that can tell that much, and I’d expect places like that to have people with those Skills.”
“It doesn’t work that way at home. We don’t exactly have nobles,” Serenity demurred, but Tzintkra came to mind. “But I suppose I’m about as close as we get. I’m pretty confident a Skill looking for recognized nobility would recognize me.”
Andarit clapped, but the Duke was less excited. “That’s a good start. I’d like to see your full suit of armor; that way, we’ll know if you need something over it to look appropriate or if the armor is enough for tonight. We’ll also have to get you some proper clothing; I assume you don’t have anything formal with you?”
Serenity didn’t see any reason not to take off the Tutorial outfit; he was fully covered by the armor, after all. “No. I wasn’t expecting to go to anything formal.” He was halfway through taking off the top when it suddenly occurred to him that Djen might recognize him. Would that be a problem?
Did he have a choice even if it was a problem? Well, he could probably explain away a disguise skill; after all, that was how he’d explained the armor. Still, that was the same face even if the hair and eyes were different. If he went back disguised and Djen still recognized him, it would be obvious he was trying to sneak something by them. If he went back as “himself”, simply as a noble that (when they checked) was a noble, they might be suspicious or they might not be.
He hated this sort of doublethink.
If he went back as a noble accompanying Andarit, while he’d left after being hired by her father to bodyguard Andarit, the odds were good that they’d guess he was really there as a bodyguard. If he went back as a noble with a slightly different face, it was all too likely Djen would think to look. After all, there was supposed to be a bodyguard. Changing his disguise was too risky, but he’d need to make sure that Andarit seemed to be leading most of the time. That way, they’d think he was there because of her and not the other way around.
“I see why you said it was your people being kidnapped.” The Duke’s words pulled Serenity out of his thoughts; it was fortunate he’d already reached a decision.
“What?” Serenity looked at the Duke in confusion.
Kalo smiled. “Your sigil. I can see why you think you’d be recognized as a noble; we’ll need to make sure that whatever you wear over your armor hides that. I don’t know how recognized it would be.”
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Serenity blanched. Had he really duplicated the sigil that appeared on his chest in all of his living forms on the armor’s chest? He looked down and found that it was there. Double planets surrounded by a twisted braid and the word Friend. It even glowed with mana and essence when he checked. “Oops.”
“His sigil?” Andarit sounded confused. “You mean the symbol on his armor? Why would that make it obvious he’s a noble?”
Serenity wasn’t certain what the local world knew, but Andarit’s confusion told him that they didn’t follow the same rank-symbol system as the Sterath. That wasn’t much of a surprise; almost no humans did. The fact that Duke Lowpeak clearly recognized the group the symbol belonged to meant that he definitely needed to keep it hidden. “It’s related to a fairly famous symbol, and the reason I have it is the same reason I’m pretty sure I’d be recognized as a noble.”
“It’s like the triple mountain symbol for Lowpeak,” the Duke explained to his daughter. “Since it’s his people being kidnapped, it needs to be concealed.”
Serenity put the top back on. “I might be able to make the armor not show the symbol, but I’m not certain I can.”
“That’s fine. To be properly attired, you can’t simply wear armor. You’ll need to wear something over it. Also, do you have a weapon? If not, I’ll need to provide one.” the Duke moved on without waiting for Serenity to try shifting the armor again. He was just as glad, really.
Serenity opened the Rift and removed his ax. “Will this work? It’s not particularly formal; it’s a killing weapon.”
Andarit laughed. “It just needs the right display. A cover for the ax head and a strap to hold it by should be good enough; it’s clearly high quality and that’s what matters. You’re foreign, so a brutal weapon will work. Especially when you show up wearing actual scale armor!”
Serenity shook his head at her, amused. “If that’s taken care of, I need some local money. Both to pay for this clothing and to buy any of my people who are enslaved back. I want to get them safe before doing anything else.”
The Duke lifted his shoulders, then sighed. “I can advance your wages as a bodyguard, and cover some of the clothing. I only have so much money in the capitol, unfortunately.”
Serenity shook his head. “That’s not what I mean. From what you said, monster cores should be pretty valuable, right? I have a lot of them.”
Serenity didn’t plan to let them know how many he actually had. He had enough to glut the market, probably several times over, even if they had dungeons that did produce cores and the dead erkal were harvested the way he thought the Duke suspected. After all, he had the products of his share of years’ worth of Trial Dungeon runs. He’d spent well over a subjective decade in Tutorials, and that was quite rewarding in terms of tiny monster cores.
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Andarit took Serenity around town to take care of getting ready for the dance; they only had a few hours, so it had to be fast. This time, they took a mana-powered flyer.
The first stop was a shop that sold enchanted items like flyers, storage items, illusions, and anything else a noble might want that wasn’t weapons or armor. Andarit negotiated with the owner to sell him some tiny monster cores for 10,000 kopeks each; she explained them as having found them “during her time offplanet” and that seemed to be accepted. He was only willing to take three, though he told her he’d be able to buy more in a week or so.
Serenity had no idea if that was a good price or not. When he asked, Andarit told him it wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terrible either. It would more than cover the clothing she planned to have him buy that day, and that was the important thing.
During the trip to the first clothing shop, Serenity tried shifting his armor to not show his symbol. He could manage it, but it was a nagging wrongness that he had to pay attention to. If he let his attention drift too far, it would reappear.
Fortunately, it wasn’t any more difficult than holding one spell while casting another. He could hold it for hours, if he had to. He didn’t want to, and it would reduce his other capabilities because he was multitasking, but that was better than having the symbol revealed. He’d be able to relax once they were done with the shopping; possibly as soon as he’d been measured, but he didn’t want to count on that. No one would expect him to disappear into a changing room to try on things he was wearing over armor, after all.
Unlike a clothing shop on Earth, but like many elsewhere in the universe, the first clothing shop they stopped at had a number of examples of the type of clothing they could make but very few completed pieces. Each piece was expected to be made to order; you simply had to order what you wanted and they’d make exactly that. Having something ‘close’ that would then be tailored to you was probably available at some lower-end stores, but the one Andarit took Serenity to was clearly not lower-end.
Formal clothing in Zenith was strange. There seemed to be four basic styles, and none of them were gender-linked. Instead, the primary division was Noble or Court.
The full formal Court attire was a fighting robe, something that reminded Serenity strongly of a gi, or perhaps the robe worn by boxers between matches, but the material was some form of silk and instead of ending around the knee, it fell to the ankle. The sleeves of each robe had what looked like embroidery; one looked like waves while another had a wolf motif. Andarit couldn’t explain what it meant, but she confirmed that Court formal wear always had a pattern on the sleeves.
The lower portion of the robe varied from minimal to extensive; it almost looked like they were accommodating different fighting styles; some didn’t use the legs for anything other than running, while others clearly had a style that included kicks. Only one of them had a hood, and it was both too small to actually go over a head and was sewn to the back so that it would display itself, clearly a fashion item all on its own.
Simple pants (still silk) were worn underneath the robe, and which Court you belonged to determined everything from the colors to how the robe was closed; there were several different methods on display, and Andarit could tell him which Court they were for at a glance.