The Grand Hall of Manor Nukem was, more than anything, fucking big. It reminded me of nothing so much as a cathedral, really- it was wide open, with the gracefully-arched ceiling standing at least a hundred feet above the floor, and a row of columns on each side separating the empty nave- floored in beautiful, polished marble with its striations (either natural or adjusted with earth magic) aligned to produce the suggestion of mosaics- from the aisles, where the rows of tables were, with everyone seated behind a table, facing into the nave.
At the opposite end of the nave was a transept, where well-groomed House Nukem servants would come and go to ferry out food and drink for the guests, entering and exiting through out-of-sight servant's entrances and staging areas.
And behind the transept stood the chancel, where the table of honor stood, Duchess Nukem sitting beside Duke Nukem, whose throne sat in bright daylight which shone through a stained glass window in the wall above and behind the entrance, casting the Duke in a projection of House Nukem's crest- a circle of shadow with a white pentagram circumscribed, set in a larger yellow circle and orbited by three triangle-like shadows, with the inner and outer edges curved to conform to the circle.
So, you know, the "radioactive hazard" symbol with a pentagram drawn on the central dot, because of fucking course the radioactive hazard symbol is the family crest of Duke Nukem.
The daylight itself was a bit of a power play- as one could plainly see through the windows that were only somewhat high up the wall, it was twilight, and dusk had already fallen. The daylight, bright as noonday yet at an angle that very much spoke of two or three in the afternoon, was clearly the result of an illusion baked into an enchantment, on a much larger scale than a simple flameless lantern. And, you know what, yeah, I was pretty impressed with it.
To Duke Nukem's unoccupied side sat Rachel, her hair carefully styled in a rather butch/masculine way. To Duchess Nukem's unoccupied side sat Eris Nukem. And while the most common... ethnic phenotype, for lack of a better word... around Nukem was sharp features, bronze skin, and copper hair, House Nukem did not look like they were from around here.
Duke Nukem herself was pale and blonde with a chin to shatter boulders, her hair cut very close in the same fucking flat-top hairstyle that video game Duke Nukem wore, with big, thick, bulgy, very-defined muscles, and she even wore sunglasses, a muscle-hugging red tank top and a pair of what I swear upon HaShem's name were blue jeans. Blue jeans that, it must be said, were apparently not high-waisted enough to contain the full magnificence of the, ahem, ducal scepter, whose outline showed more clearly through the tank top.
Considering that I'd invented the knitting machine three weeks ago and only I had access to the bigger one capable of making tank tops, Duke Nukem's red tank top was clearly hand-made, laboriously knitted one stitch at a time, on a big ol' set of double-point needles, by someone who I dearly hope was well-compensated for her time.
On top of the tank top- which, I will note, was being stretched out on top by a noticeable pair of tits that were juuuust the right size to be potentially mistaken for pectoral muscles- was a pair of suspenders holding up Duke Nukem's pants, and bearing a number of badges, pins, and a few odds and ends I can only assume are either trophies from battle or really weird-looking magic items.
Duchess Nukem was dressed a much less jarring manner, but still... okay, actually, Duchess Nukem's outfit was more jarring, it just wasn't obviously a reference to Duke Fucking Nukem. Her main garment, quite visible, was disqualified from 'bikini' status by the fact that it used lengths of cloth that narrowed in the middle rather than thick strings or cords, and the rest of her outfit was composed of a pair of very sheer, translucent sheets of silk. The first sheet, sheer white, tucked under the straps of her top as it traversed her wingspan, bound to her wrists at each end by a pair of golden bracelets. The second sheet, which was a very faint blue, formed a perfunctory sort of skirt, the 'waistband' cocked such that only one side was actually on her waist, with the other side sitting a few inches below the widest point of her hip. The skirt hung open on that side, managing to do an even worse job of concealing her long, toned leg from onlookers than the sheer blue silk covering her other leg.
Her appearance was rather more typical of what I'd come to think of as the 'local stock,' with bronze skin and coppery hair, and much like most omegas over the age of 30 I'd met so far, she was five feet tall and stacked as fuck, complete with wide hips, thick thighs, and what I could only assume was a particularly plush ass to keep her comfortable during these long court sessions sitting on her throne.
Eris, the daughter of Duke and Duchess Nukem, looked a lot like a slightly tanner version of her father, complete with the tank top- white this time- paired with red jeans. However, unlike her father, her hair was longer, wilder, and a bright, flaming red I hadn't seen among any of these people before. My weeb instincts told me that, clearly, she was a tsundere, but my ability to understand and think about things like an adult told me that, no, Sir Eris Nukem probably does just genuinely hate Sir Rachel Miranda for being a threat to either Eris' power- for if Rachel married a hypothetical omega daughter of the Duke, it would not be remotely surprising for Rachel to take the throne instead of Eris- or Eris' freedom from childbearing, which is something I'd asked about- while there were legends of mighty mages who could bear children in rather a lot less time than was normal, they were just that: legends. If Eris was expected to bear Rachel's children- and she would be, if they married- then Eris would be stuck with a vagina and a uterus for at least as long as it took to give Rachel a child.
And here I was, associated with Rachel, with my success being her success. Frankly, I had to applaud Eris' sense of restraint. If I didn't know to be looking for it, I wouldn't have been able to tell she was powerfully, incandescently, rapturously just absolutely in hate with me.
"Introducing to the court of Duke Leyla Nukem of the Blue Flame," the herald announced loudly and clearly, her wind-magic-enhanced voice carrying through the whole of the Grand Hall just before I stepped through the entrance. "We present to you, tonight's guest of honor, our traveler from another world, the Archmage Lucifer Morningstar."
Of course, even if Eris had been obviously staring at me like she wanted me dead, I wouldn't have noticed that until after I'd been announced to the court and stepped inside, so she couldn't exactly stop me from doing that.
Gasps echoed through the Grand Hall as I strutted down the nave, head held high, and my feet swinging around in tight arcs to land on a single central line, swaying my hips with every stride.
I'd gotten the full lecture on aristocratic body language from Rachel. I'd read a fairly recent and well-regarded mirror-for-princes type book specifically dealing with the nuances of aristocratic body language. And so I knew very nearly exactly what I was doing with my body here, and the most fun part was that nobody else really knew what the hell I was doing.
The centerpiece of my outfit was an unusually long spaghetti-strap tank top, whose hem came down to my upper thighs, forming a particularly tight, stretchy, and clingy mini-dress that showed off very well just exactly what I'd done with my body. It wasn't the only piece of my ensemble, but it was very probably what was drawing such strong reactions.
Now. To ensure we're on the same page, let's review the basics of aristocratic body language. Due to the prevalence of biosculpting, how big your cock was- at least, in terms of how big a bulge it made in your clothing- was more or less a fashion statement in the halls of power. The bigger it was, the more social power you were asserting, but then came the balancing act- too big and you'd look ridiculous or presumptuous, for trying to claim more power than you actually had.
Of course, because I was an Archmage with two void affinities, and also the one who'd reinvented industrial textile mechanization, I was fairly confident that I was pretty hot shit, so I figured I could get away with a hog so big you couldn't see the head's bulge because it was buried in my cleavage.
Incidentally, more-or-less the same rules applied to tits, but only really among omegas. For an alpha to have boobs bigger than medium at the most was more-or-less unheard of in court.
And naturally, I'd decided to break with that convention too, partly as a calculated play, and partly because I wanted that goddamn gender euphoria I was promised when I first saw the words [New Skill: Biosculpting, Level 1.] And so, in addition to a thick ol' hog nearly as long as my torso, I was also stretching out my tank top dress with some big, fat, juicy, bigger-than-my-head-sized knockers, managing to also overshadow Duchess Nukem.
And, fully aware that this wasn't really a signaling thing anymore and was really just me doing what I wanted, I also got a pair of silver barbell nipple piercings, which were incredibly visible through my dress.
Of course, I wasn't just wearing a dress and nipple piercings. If I was, people might have thought Duke Nukem had hired a Beta Exemplar sex worker for tonight's entertainments. No, I had other shit going on to bring this look from 'slutty' to 'mighty, refined aristocrat, who just might fuck you if you behave yourself.'
Atop my head was my hair, which hung even longer than usual, trailing behind me in silky, shiny waves that would come down solidly to mid-back when I stopped walking and momentum and wind stopped lifting them to trail behind me. And atop my hair, secured with a steel hatpin capped with a bauble of engraved silver and blackened steel, was a wide, tall, and pointy witch/wizard's hat, the point bent precisely enough backwards to convey the proper image, without bending back and drooping so much it would imply impotence.
On my legs- which, incidentally, were a bit thicker and a lot longer but no less carefully sculpted than Duchess Nukem's- were a pair of very tight black thigh-highs, which came up to about two inches below the hem of my dress, leaving a strip of skin on each thigh exposed. On my feet were a pair of high-heeled thick-soled boots, the thick and chunky four inch heel not even bringing my foot angle above 45 degrees, and with black canvas uppers carefully waxed, polished, and burnished to look like leather. Thick straps and buckles ran up the central line of the boot, securing my legs in place and also looking fly as fuck. Fun fact! With my feet flat on the ground, I stood about six feet and two inches tall. The heel differential increased that by four inches, and then the thick soles added yet another two inches to my height, bringing my height up to a genuinely excessive six foot eight that I will not apologize for.
And, hanging from my shoulders and drifting back dramatically in the breeze was my greatcoat, a last-minute addition that really, really should've been planned on from the beginning, due to how crucial it was to bringing the whole ensemble together. It hung open, because like fuck I was going to obstruct everyone's view of my goddamn titties I worked so hard on any more than I absolutely have to, but the sharp lapels and shiny silver-and-blackened-steel buttons (showing a bright pentagram over a background of black) were arrayed such that clearly, when it was closed, it buttoned left-over-right in a double-breasted manner, with two columns of buttons spaced eight inches apart. On my shoulders were a pair of bare epaulet straps, secured at their ends next to the collar with yet another pair silver-and-steel buttons. The coat split down the back at the waist, which was a detail I not only thought was nice but also would be eminently useful if I intended to ride a horse at some point- something that wasn't really done that often in war because wind-affinity humans could run faster than horses- and, of course, that carried with it its own connotations of nobility and personal capability, usually but not exclusively referring to martial prowess.
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Overall, the impression I'd intended to convey with my constructed appearance was pretty straightforward: "I am powerful. I am more powerful than anyone else in this room. I play by your rules purely because I currently feel like humoring you. I, personally, wield such ability to change the world that you should love me and fear me, for my displeasure spells your doom."
And, as an Archmage from another world, in a room full of people who did not know what Rachel knew- that I'd grown up in a world without magic, and while I may have an effective Learning of 25- I had gained five actual levels in Learning, which my +20 bonus stacked on top of, giving me one hell of an edge- I still was only on the level of a reasonably competent young mage who'd learned all her spells out of books, and had no idea how to practically use most of them.
Fortunately, it didn't look like any of them were aware of that.
"I greet you, Duke Leyla Nukem of the Blue Flame," I enunciated clearly, my own wind magic carrying my voice around the nave as I came to a stop at its border with the transept. To step closer would be intrusive and rude. To stand back would look like I was addressing the entire court, not merely the Duke- this way, I implied quite clearly that only the high table in the chancel was worth my attention, and the rest of these gathered knights-bachelors and -bannerets and petty barons and counts and marquises, they were all bottom-feeders who stopped mattering the moment the real people started talking business.
I didn't like how naturally the aristocratic power-playing mindset came to me.
"My name, as you are no doubt aware by now, is Archmage Lucifer Morningstar," I continued. "I arrived here, in this manor, precisely one month ago, when I was summoned by a knight of your household, Sir Rachel Miranda of the Black Wind. In that time, with your knight's modest patronage, I have developed tools that, though they may seem simple to me, have allowed a scant handful of common farmers' wives to spin thread and weave cloth as though they were ten times their number."
Quiet murmurs of "that can't be right" and "but what if it is?" rippled through the nave behind me.
"Indeed," I continued, "I have, in the space of this past month, produced machines of such productivity, of such heretofore unseen efficiency, that I was able to have this very outfit produced from raw fiber in that short time, with such casual ease, that the fabric workers felt annoyed that they could not convince me to let them do anything more for me, so grateful were they for the aid of my machines! And so, having brought these machines with me in my void space, I offer to you, Duke Nukem, a demonstration, as well as an accord."
"Show me the machines," Duke Nukem said, in a mildly gravelly and crude-sounding voice, because of course she even talks like Duke Nukem. "How else am I supposed to know if you're just blowing smoke?"
"Very well," I said, before stepping to the side and summoning from my void space the tank top knitting machine, along with a big ol' spool of thin red yarn. It took me barely a minute to get it set up, and from there, turning the crank made the yarn-carrier go around and knit another row in the space of a few seconds. I cranked and cranked and kept cranking, attaching some weights to the tube for tension at the beginning, until I had more than enough tube length for a tank top fit for Duke- sorry, for the Duke- at which point I cut the yarn, cranked it one more time around, and let the tube fall out the bottom, the weights clattering and detaching themselves. I flattened the tube, eyeballed a good armhole and neck size- Level 11 Tailoring for the goddamn win, here- and swiftly cut them out with a pair of fabric scissors. Next up was a treadled sewing machine- because making an adjustable clutch for an engine or a potentiometer and a generator for an electric motor would've been a huge pain- and some woven red fabric tape. I first sewed the straps together, so that they were no longer just unusually long flaps, and then sealed up the rest of the cut edges with the fabric tape. Then, as a quick little clean-up step, I vanished all of the cloth and thread scraps to my void space. Didn't want to leave a mess.
The whole process, start to finish, took me about five minutes, during which time the muttering continued. Everyone knew what textile production looked like, after all- sure, the elite of the elite, like Duchess Nukem herself, might not do it themselves, but it was a basic household fact of life for just about everyone. And so watching a woman produce and finish off a large knit garment- a simple knit garment, sure, but still a long one- in the space of five minutes, when such a task was supposed to take at least a week, and often more like a month...
Well, it was a sight to behold, wasn't it?
"My demonstration is complete," I said, holding up my copy of Duke Nukem's tank top for all, but especially the Duke, to see. "Whether I leave here with your patronage or not, I gift this garment to you."
"Alright," Duke Nukem said, nodding. "I'm pretty convinced. You're the real deal. So, what do you want, exactly? Titles? Land? The right to build your own wizard's tower?"
"Not at present, no," I said, carefully leaving open the possibility of those things in the future. "Like I said, what I want is your patronage. You may have noticed that the machines I build are made of iron, and rather a lot of it. Iron is cheap, but it still costs money, which I don't have. I want you to provide me with a workshop and a budget, to pay for raw materials, apprentices, and other miscellany that may arise. And in exchange... my machines and the productivity they bring will spread throughout Nukem. I will guide your lands into an age of abundance, where nobody wants for anything, and you will be remembered as the Duke of Nukem who started a golden age."
Left unsaid, of course, was that, as the Duke of Nukem, she had the prerogative to collect taxes on this increased productivity, and so she would personally grow much richer from the dawning industrial age, to say nothing of the prospect of her commissioning enough of my machinery to start a factory, which she could profit off of in a more straightforward way.
I didn't need to tell her that. She wasn't stupid.
Well. Hopefully.
"Pretty tempting," Duke Nukem said. "But, as cool as this shit is... I can't do that. Not now. I don't act alone, and I've gotta talk to my council before I can give you an answer. But I like your style, kid. C'mon up here, and break bread with me." She stood up, and cleared her throat, before announcing, much louder: "ALRIGHT, MOTHERFUCKERS, IT'S TIME TO KICK ASS AND EAT DINNER, AND DINNER IS ABOUT TO BE SERVED!"
Goddamn fucking cornball ass butch lesbian Duke Nukem. I want to fuck her but I'm mad about it.
I crossed the transept and up the stairs to sit in the empty stone chair that sprouted from the floor, as Rachel and her chair were scooched aside to make room for me. I felt a barrier pass over me as I approached, and some air magic helpfully informed me that it was a privacy barrier, with a bit of void magic added in to contain information a bit more esoteric than just sound waves alone.
"You're pretty fuckin' cocky, you know that?" Duke Nukem said, flopping back down in her throne like it was an armchair. Clearly, in this... well, more private than it could be... setting, Duke Nukem was pretty cozy, comfortable, and informal. So, well, why shouldn't I mirror that back at her?
I looked down at my chest, then back up at her. "I don't see it," I said. "Look, the head ain't even pokin' out of my cleavage yet." She chuckled, and I tossed her the new tank top. "Catch."
"Thanks, it's nice having a spare," Duke Nukem said, folding it up and putting it on the arm of her throne.
"Mhm," I said as I sat down in the chair between her and Rachel, before grunting in surprise. "Huh. This is a lot more comfortable than I thought it'd be, what with bein' a stone chair and all."
"What, you think I'd put up with chairs that suck?" Duke Nukem asked, as a grand stone table rose from the floor in front of us, and the serving staff began to pile the table with platters from carts. "This here manor is the ancestral home of House Nukem. Just because I don't have a void affinity doesn't mean no Duke Nukem has had that affinity. This place is pretty much made of magic. Sure, I can only really make it do stuff that great great grandma thought it should be able to do, but great great grandma wasn't a fucking slacker, and she thought this place should be able to do all sorts of shit."
"It does seem pretty swank, yeah," I said, nodding. "Can't wait 'til I can get my own place, do that sorta thing to it. I fuckin' love building shit, y'know? Why do you think, first thing I did when I landed in a new world, I started building sewing machines and power looms and shit? Wasn't like I had a lot else to do."
"Hell, if you're really bored, I can see about keeping you entertained," Duke said, breaking off a piece of bread and stuffing it into her mouth. "Mmh. Fuck, I don't know what it is, but the bakers suddenly started making this soft-ass bread a few weeks ago, and I fuckin' love it."
"Oh, shit," I said. "Okay, so, first morning I was here, right? I start talking to the staff, 'cause I'm bored, and next thing I know, I'm in the kitchen, helping them scrub out pots and pans to level my void manipulation, right? And Penny, this apprentice baker, was there, and I shared a little baking trick from back home, called a tangzhong or a water roux, depending on who you ask. You precook a thick paste of water and flour in a skillet, get that starch nice and gelatinized, and then when you mix it in with your dough, you get a softer texture that holds onto water better, so it won't go stale!" I took a bite of bread myself, and nodded. "Mmph. That's good shit. I'm glad you like it, cause I'm a big fan myself."
"Look, kid, I wasn't blowin' smoke myself," Duke said. "You're cocky as hell. You think you're pretty hot shit. But, and this is crucial, you've done a damn good job convincing me you're pretty hot shit. I'm interested in givin' you a chance like you asked for. But, a good Duke doesn't rule alone, and I do gotta talk to my council about this first, before I can do that for you."
"Well shit, that isn't a no," I said. "I can work with that. 'Sides, I like an opportunity to get all dolled up. It's not every day I get to walk around with tits like this."
"Well, why the fuck not?" Duke asked. "Don't tell me all that swagger was just for me. You wanna walk around looking like that all the time, just do it. Who the fuck's gonna stop you?"
"Your Duke speaks the truth," I said, turning to face Rachel, who was only not redder than a tomato by virtue of biosculpting. "Now... what the hell is that?"
"That right there is my favorite fish stew," Duke said. "The head chef keeps trying to gussy it up, 'cause it's a peasant dish, but fuck does it tastes good, and everything she does to fix it just makes things worse. And that..."