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CH.377 HomeBase Grand Reveal, part 3
CH.377 HomeBase Grand Reveal, part 3
Lunch
Soon enough, it was time for lunch. … I guess I’ll mention a thing or two here before that. This party would last into the evening/night, but the guests could leave whenever they wanted to. I’d just have to have someone take them home, which was likely going to be Ria and Wilma. I did also have rooms prepared for everyone, but I know not everyone wants to spend the night, so the offer to take them home was there.
But back to lunch. For lunch, we were going to have a multi-course meal, not an open buffet, that is saved for dinner. My maids and butlers set out some tables for us. Originally I wanted to just have one super long table, but that would have been difficult, so I had to go with multiple tables. Not difficult because I couldn’t make space for a long table, but because it would just be awkward to move around, and the table would split into separate conversations anyway, so might as well have multiple tables to make it easier for my staff to serve our lunch.
The main reason I wanted to serve a course-style lunch was so I could show off a bunch of interesting foods. I was hoping my guests would have an open mind, as some of the foods were a bit … uncommon, but I did test them all out myself, and they were all delicious.
In my table, I had the King, the Prime Minister, Duke Burch, Lady Wendy, Lady Shisu, Mariina and Lady Janina. I was sitting at one end, with Lady Janina at the other. The three males were to my right, while the ladies were on my left.
Most of us were quite happy with how this table turned out, I mean, almost all of us are high ranking people in our own ways. Myself being a System Support holder, two dukes and the King, Lady Wendy is almost as powerful as a King, someone might argue more powerful, Lady Shisu was a Sage, and while it might not equal a duke, it is pretty close. And Lady Janina is Lady Janina. She is literally the most powerful and high ranked among us. The only one that felt a bit out of place was Mariina, as she was still just a sage candidate, but she was holding her own.
After everyone was seated, I gave the sign to serve the appetizers. It consisted of a few one-biter foods. You could eat them with your hands, but since etiquette and all of that, utensils were naturally offered.
The appetizer consisted of a boiled egg-half topped with some sort of mayo like sauce and some green herbs to look nice, a small piece of blood sausage, which was mostly there to test if the guests were willing to eat foods made with blood, some cold smoked Terrorking Salmon, a few pieces of cut fruits and because we had some from the Terrorking Salmon, some Terrorking Salmon roe.
By the way, I didn’t use dragon blood for the blood sausage, just out of respect for Lady Janina. While Agunan doesn’t make a fuss about Lua and Ria drinking dragon blood, and he even eats dishes made of dragon blood, I know he isn’t the biggest fan of the idea, as whenever I serve anything made with dragon blood, he eats less than he usually does. But that isn’t a problem, as this blood sausage uses blood from a Big Koala.
Beast blood isn’t quite as good as dragon blood, at least according to Lua and Ria, but it doesn’t really affect the taste of the ready foods.
Also, truth be told, I almost served the Terrorking Salmon raw, sashimi like, but I think the cold smoked is better for everyone. Like the blood problem, not everyone wants to eat raw fish. Even if it is 100% safe. You won’t get some sea of darkness parasite even if you eat raw Terrorking Salmon.
From my table, the Prime Minister was especially surprised by the offerings and seemingly enjoyed everything. But he talked up the Terrorking Salmon, both the cold smoked and the roe, so much that I deduced that it was his favorite.
The King and Duke Burch found the blood sausage to be their favorite, while Shisu preferred the fruits. I think that is an elf thing, maybe. Perhaps like the horse girls, elves might not like meat.
Mariina, Wendy and Lady Janina on the other hand really like the eggs, especially when they added some of the Terrorking Salmon roe on it.
For me personally, it was probably the sausage, but the cold smoked salmon was also amazing, so it is a little difficult to say.
Our second course was all vegan based, well almost. We had fruits, vegetables as well as some garlic bread. I personally loved this round, but a few were a bit hesitant because of the strong scent of garlic.
After the salad, it was time for our main course. And oh boy I had been waiting for this. Behemoth steaks. With a side of fries and steamed vegetables, but those are less important. All with some amazing red wine and blood sauce to pour on top. And the blood actually came from the very behemoth we were eating, so that added to the experience.
And as I said, I’d been waiting for this. I had a test steak about a week ago when I approved the menu, and I literally have been wanting seconds every day after that, but I’ve luckily managed to hold myself back.
Of course the fried potatoes were nothing special for me, but fries, actually any deep fried foods, aren’t common here. … scratch that, I don’t think I’ve seen any deep fried foods. So yeah, they aren’t common so they have a bit of shock value to them. And since they are HomeBase grown potatoes, they taste really good.
The vegetables were pretty good as well. At least in my opinion, but I think to Shisu, they are something amazing. She seemed to really enjoy them. But luckily she also did eat most of her behemoth steak. I know they are kind of big cuts, so not everyone will eat all of it, but I also hope most of it will get eaten, instead of being wasted. … though I feel like Einar, Eline and Maya will eat any leftover pieces of the steaks.
Oh and I guess this is about as good of a time as any to mention this. Before every course, I announced what would be on said course, so that people would know what they were eating. And no, I wasn’t sugarcoating the fact that we use blood for some of the foods. If they can’t deal with blood, they can’t deal with Lua. And if they can’t deal with Lua, I don’t want to have any contact with them.
After the mains, some snack sticks were brought out. They were mostly cheese with some fruits and stuff, but a few of them had some pieces of meat as well. They were just something nice before our dessert and were a suggestion by Lorpar. And since I left the dessert up to Tinkhec, I think it fair that Lorpar gets to decide on a course.
Our dessert was crème brûlée. It really wasn’t something I expected Tinkhec to whip up, but it tastes delicious. She also caramelized the sugar on top with her dragon fire and after I saw her do that, I just knew that had to be the dessert for the reveal.
After lunch was going to be my favorite event. You know what it is, right? The one I want to do whenever I have an excuse and a reasonable location. Dragon riding.
What? You think we are not at a reasonable location? Really? What do you think HomeBase was doing while we were socializing? I had it moved about 120 km away from the capital, so we were now over some random area. The closest village is over 20 km away, so there should be no one that can see us, even if someone accidentally flies too far and gets outside of HomeBase’s invisibility barrier. By the way I switched the defensive barrier off for this, and the dragons will know where I am even if I’m inside the invisibility barrier. They can kind of sense where their card is. And I can also just turn the invisibility barrier off, so there will be absolutely no problems. Unless someone tries to fly off with a dragon or something, but why would they do that?
Some of my guests were really looking forward to this when I told them it was happening, while others were a bit more hesitant. But I still wasn’t expecting the two princes to be at the front of the line waiting for me to summon them their dragons.
“Brian, may I have that golden one again?” Elias requested.
“Victory Dragon? Sure. I’ll summon him for you.” I agreed.
Victory Dragon was perfectly fine for this. The only problem with it is that I have to tribute summon it every time I summon it, so I don’t usually use it. … it also doesn’t really offer anything that my other dragons do. I quickly summoned three Troop Dragons and then tributed them for Elias’ golden dragon.
“... amazing.” I heard the first Prince mutter. “It really is a golden dragon.”
“Would you like a golden one as well?” I asked Legio. Oh yeah, I think that is the first time I’ve mentioned his name, but yes, the first Prince is named Legio.
“... do you have another golden dragon?” He asked.
“Yeah. Two more on top of Victory Dragon. But Kaiser Glider isn’t the greatest for flying on, so I’ll give you this. Felgrand Dragon.” I called out a dragon for Legio.
“You like him?” I asked Legio.
He just stared at Felgrand, until he realized he was staring. He then nodded in response and began to make his way to the dragon.
After the Princes, a lot of the adolescents came to get their turn. Sadly I had to limit some of them and order them to go with an adult. It isn’t like I really want to, as my dragons are smart and can keep the kids safe, but I still don’t want to give a 12 or a 10 year old a dragon. That just doesn’t sound ideal. … Well, I would give one to Einar and Eline, so maybe I just trust them more or maybe I’m just a hypocrite.
After calling out a total of ten dragons and filling up my duel disk completely for the second time ever, I just sat down and looked at the dragons flying about. I did have Alice and Lua both join the riders in the skies, just to make sure they could help if anyone looked like they’d get into trouble. Agunan was also on standby so he could fly in and help if necessary. And I guess another thing worth mentioning is that Lua wasn’t actually riding a dragon, as Number 24: Dragulas the Vampiric Dragon is a Wyrm-type monster.
As I was watching the flying dragons, Lady Janina came up to me.
“Aren’t you going to join?” She asked.
“Nah. I can do it anytime.” I told her. “Besides, no more space on my duel disk.” I pointed out. Sure I could hold the card in hand, but riding a dragon while holding onto a card is generally a bad idea.
“... you do realize you have two dragons right here, don’t you?” She asked.
“... are you offering me a ride?” I carefully asked.
“I might just be. Would you take it if I was?” She teased.
“... YES!” I called out like an excited child. Come on, how could I not? When the massively large divine dragon offers you a ride, you don’t hesitate to take it. Because you never know if you’ll ever get a chance to ride her again.
“Good answer.” Lady Janina said, with a smirk forming on her face. “Let’s show these half-grown dragons what a real dragon looks like.”
She jumped up into the air so high that it almost looked like she disappeared from sight. But all of us saw when she returned. You couldn’t miss the over 100 meters long serpentine dragon coming down from the sky above as if she was the Goddess of Dragons. Wait, she kind of is just that.
I watched her majestic full dragon form with its shining golden and bronze scales. … Wait, are they shining as much as they were last time? They look a bit dull. Or is it just the lighting? Or maybe they shine because of the amount of mana she radiates, but HomeBase is also releasing tons of mana, so maybe HomeBase can eclipse her shine?
It was a little difficult for her to land due to her massive size, but she managed, so I climbed aboard and joined my summoned dragons in the skies above. But my dragon wasn’t quite so summoned.
Riding Lady Janina really was a treat. She wasn’t like my dragons. Sure mine are amazing, but she is … wonderful. So gentle yet so powerful. I honestly felt like I could fall asleep mid flight and not worry about falling off.
… maybe I should do just that? I wonder if she would mind if I took a nap on her back?
{Slap Slap}
I quickly slapped my cheeks with my hands. That is a terrible idea. I’m still the host and I have over a dozen guests flying on dragons. I can’t nap now.
Let’s just enjoy the beautiful view. And no, I’m not just talking about the up close look of Lady Janina’s back, though it was quite nice as well.