"This is too much," I said. "I can't take this."
"You can and you will," Siobhan said firmly, foisting a bundle of black fabric upon me.
"This is unreasonable," I said.
"She's being stingy, kid," another omega commented, grinning. Her name was Annabelle, and she was a close friend of Siobhan's. "If you'd given me all this machinery, and only asked me for one set of clothes out of it, I'd be offering you my firstborn as a way to settle up."
"Hell, I'd offer you both my daughters," Penelope- another omega- said. It would seem that, since Siobhan's house was reasonably big- she was married to a cartwright, after all, and interior workshop space was something they valued having a lot of- and also all of the big heavy textile machines were here, Siobhan's house had become the preferred social gathering space for the omegas in the village who wanted some company while they spun wool.
"I'd offer you as many daughters as you could put in me," Ruby, Penelope's older and still-unmarried daughter, said. She was nineteen, last time I asked- thank god this culture doesn't think it's rude to ask someone how old they are. "By which I mean, like, in the sense that I'd offer to have your children, not- void preserve me, that sounded so much better in my head."
"Look, ignoring the comedy club for the time being," I said, "I can't reasonably commit to helping you any more than I already have; what I've made so far might be the only things I can get to work for the rest of my life! I mean, okay, sure, I've built you a spinning wheel, and a sock knitting machine, and a drum carder-" Carding was the process of combing washed wool with densely-packed wire teeth, straightening and aligning the fibers and also helping to get out some of the knots and dirt. "-and a power loom-" When I got here, vertical warp-weighted looms were the standard. Introducing horizontal frame looms would've been a marked improvement. Adding a simple treadle system for lifting and dropping threads would've been an even bigger one. Flying shuttle? Huge improvement. But I'm not here to fuck spiders, so I hooked all that shit up to cams and gears and drive shafts and now it was a complicated construct of carpentry and mechanism that, once you finished warping the damn thing, would weave fabric a lot faster than a woman working with a vertical loom could've, without requiring a woman to stand there working it, thanks to the enchanted compressed air engine I attached to the central drive shaft. "-but that's just being neighborly!"
"You will take this fabric and use it for whatever you want," Siobhan threatened, "or I will stop letting you into my house to show me your latest machines."
I winced.
"Fuck, you're not kidding, are you?" I said.
"You take that fabric if you know what's good for you, girl," Penelope threatened, visibly very pleased with the sock knitter and apparently eager to get her hands on whatever I made next.
"Alright, alright," I said. "But just so you know, I've already got the main piece of the outfit put together."
"...You do?" Siobhan asked. "But..."
"Okay, so. You know how woven fabric doesn't stretch, and knit fabric does?" I said.
"A slight simplification, but yes, more or less," Siobhan said.
"Well, I wanted something that would cling to me like a second skin," I explained. "Naturally, if I want that, then using a stretchy fabric is going to work a lot better than a fabric that doesn't stretch and having to tailor it very carefully."
"Naturally," Siobhan said. "So, if I may take a guess and skip to the end- you've built a second, larger knitting machine, with which you can knit a tube wide enough to accommodate your body?"
"...You really do know me," I said.
"You're not that complicated," Siobhan said, reaching up and ruffling my hair.
"Buuuut," I continued. "Aside from fabric never really being useless, it does occur to me that my current outfit idea is missing something. Something big, something flashy and showy, something that..." I looked down at the bundle in my hands, then back up at Siobhan. "Well. Would use a lot of fabric. There's one slight problem, though."
"You know how to knit, but not how to sew garments from cloth?" Siobhan asked.
"Not well, at any rate," I admitted. "Back home, that'd be fine- fabric was cheap and plentiful, and screwing up wasn't a big deal. Here, though, fabric is... a bit more of an investment. So, Sio, I have one more trade for you: I'll build you a machine that sews in one particular way, if you in turn can find it in your heart to help me one more time, because I would really like your help turning this fabric into something I can wear that looks good."
"Tell you what," Siobhan said. "I won't just help you- I'll teach you, like you were my own daughter."
"How is Beth doing, by the way?" Ruby asked.
"She's out playing with the other children," Siobhan said. "I heard they would be fishing by the river today."
"Here's hoping she catches something you can have with dinner," I said.
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"It's been almost a month," Rachel said, that evening. "I've spoken with the Duke-"
"Wait," I said, blinking. "Your lord is a duke?"
"Yes," Rachel said. "Did I... not tell you already?"
"You did not," I said.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
With the advent of my knitting machine, and also better thread-making tools, I'd made some simple yet comfortable knit bedclothes for us... which, really, was just a tank top and a pair of boxer-briefs. More comfortable than the clothes I'd been wearing to sleep beforehand, and the tight, stretchy fabric also looked very good on my girlfriend, who was by no means ignorant of this fact.
"Ah. Yes, I suppose I see now how it would be unpleasant to learn that you will be impressing a full-blown duke, and not merely some lowly baron with only a single village to her name."
"Yeah, that's... definitely what I'm worried about," I said, trying desperately to not burst out laughing about the fact that my girlfriend's liege-lord was addressed as Duke Nukem. I don't think she'd appreciate that, even though she knows me and what I'm like and still somehow decides to let me kiss her at night behind closed doors. "Anyway. You've spoken with Duke Nukem?"
"Indeed," Rachel said. "I spoke to her about your presentation before the court, and she looks forward to seeing you on the evening exactly one month after your arrival in this manor, along with whatever it is you've prepared to impress her- I haven't told her what it is yet, on grounds it would spoil the surprise, and what you have prepared would be perfectly harmless."
"I can work with that," I said, nodding. "I've finished the bulk of the outfit with Siobhan's help, along with some of the other villagers who like me because they've gotten to use the sock-knitting machine I made."
"That alone would have made you quite popular, yes," Rachel said, nodding. "But you... you've never been one to under-achieve, were you?"
"In point of fact, I did pretty poorly in school despite my intelligence, due to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder," I said. "Buuuuut, now that I'm in a hands-on environment where I can just reach out and do stuff, and also I can foist all the boring and repetitive tasks off onto people who're already used to them and who will still thank me because I at least made the task easier and faster, so I am fucking thriving. Also also I've gotten Biosculpting up to Level 13 at this point and now I've got a little gland that puts tiny amounts of dextro-amphetamine in my bloodstream so I can get shit done."
"...Well, I'm glad this environment was able to bring out the best in you," Rachel said, nodding.
"Hey, if you think you're happy about this, imagine how I feel," I said. "I live in a place where I can help people, and all that stupid trivia is actually useful, and I get to be a wizard who does magic..." I turned and grinned at her. "And, of course, my favorite part is that, at the end of the day, I get to sleep with you."
"Flattery will get you everywhere," Rachel said, grinning back. "But, before we get carried away... what do you mean when you say the bulk of the outfit is done?"
"Ah, right, that," I said. "That means that, well, all of the cloth work is done. I've fabricated a set of decorative black-and-silver metal buttons for it, plus some clasps, and now Siobhan just has to finish attaching all of those. Plus, I've scraped enough goodwill among the townsfolk that the cobbler has accepted a commission, in exchange for a decent amount of fabric, plus a machine capable of sewing leather faster than she can by hand."
"Considering all of the many, many useful machines you've built so far," Rachel said, "I cannot even begin to imagine what you would need the Duke's patronage for."
"Well, don't get me wrong, making machines that speed up the household production of cloth is a big deal, from a quality-of-life perspective," I said. "Buuuut, that's only really the start of what I can do for y'all. And, well. Like you just said- in this world, I'm an overachiever."
"I did say that, didn't I," Rachel said.
"Anyhow," I said. "I think that's enough talking about the future for one night, don't you?"
"Just one more question," Rachel said. "Will I be seeing this outfit of yours before the Duke does?"
"You will not," I said, nodding. "That would just spoil the surprise."
"Well," Rachel said, shrugging. "Fair enough. I'm out of questions, so now..."
I kissed her hungrily. Having a girlfriend you shared a bed with was the best.
----------------------------------------
"You remember the way to the Grand Hall?" Rachel asked.
"Very well," I said, carefully adjusting a particularly stubborn lock of hair. If it had been at the front of her scalp, it would've been called a cowlick, but here, in the middle of her scalp, it was just annoying. "I'll make my way there just fine, hon. Besides, if we arrive separately, people won't think we're very close, and I won't be tempted to hold your hand on the way there."
"Fair enough," Rachel said. "I must admit, though, that a part of me wishes to hold your hand on the way there anyways, despite the reasons why I shouldn't."
"I'll see what I can do about wiping the stain of homophobia off the face of this society," I said. "Alright, that's your hair done. I think you're ready."
"Wish me luck," Rachel said.
I kissed her. "Good luck."
"And good luck to you as well," she said, hiding her blush with biosculpting. "I have the easy part."
"I'll try not to disappoint," I said, as she finally left our shared bedroom.
Once the door was closed, I was free to open up my void space. See, as a Mage- that is, someone with void as her primary affinity- I had intuitive access to void-based magic skills, and only really needed practice. Now, sure, void was a very useful affinity that concentrated among the societal elite, and I absolutely could've found a tutor to teach me how to access all the different void skills, but that would've cost money that I didn't want to spend on something that, evidently, I didn't need. Not when that money could've been better spent on iron for my machines. Uh... shit, where was I? Ah, right, my void space.
The most useful of the void skills I'd picked up- so far, at least- was [Void Storage], which was the ability to store objects in an extradimensional pocket anchored on me. I didn't have to carry the weight or deal with inertia, and I'd been practicing with it enough to get it up to Level 10, so I could carry all of my goddamn machines in my pocket, plop them in the middle of the Grand Hall and show off exactly how cool and big-brained and 132 IQ- the guy I went to for my ADHD diagnosis made me take an IQ test, for some reason- I was in front of all these nobles.
It was also pretty useful for carrying my outfit around in my pocket so Rachel couldn't see it until the big moment.
An outfit that I began to put on, biosculpting myself into the form I'd settled on for tonight's display. It was a bit daring, but... well, I was an Archmage, twice-blessed by the void, and I had produced some fairly impressive shit with what basically amounted to a middle class kid's allowance. Claiming power you didn't have was a bad idea. But claiming power you did, well. That opened doors, so long as you could back it up.
So.
Let's fucking go.