Preparing for the Festival

The ring gave of a small glow that felt like nature's embrace before it receded.

"Seems like the ring accepted it. Well, off ye go then, ye need te prepare fer the Winter Advent." Harmur commented.

I thanked him and everyone else greatly for their help with this project. They all appreciated it and just said that they were happy to even be part of such a monumental project, even if they didn't do much.

With the ring now ready to be gifted, all that was left was to get myself ready for The Winter Advent.

And that meant getting myself ready, and the first step to doing that was.

A bath.

I needed a bath because I hadn't had one in over a week, combined with the fact that I was stuck in a smelly workshop practically the whole time, I smelled real bad right now, so I headed home as soon as possible.

And on my way home, I decided to check out what the ring did.

[Ding!]

[Nature's Gift]

[Item Type: Ring]

[Grade: Mystic]

[A ring forged out of love as a gift for a special individual using a newly crafted technique to compress a Dungeon Core into a more powerful and compact form, empowering the wearer's magic, and Nature affinity by 20% This ring has been Blessed by the God ??? of ??? to protect the wearer from danger.]

[HP: +15,000]

[MP: +10,000]

[SP: +5,000]

[Magic: +20%]

[Nature: +20%]

It was rather impressive, although it had less stat increases than my own items, but the other benefits it gives more than make up for it. Also seems like Loki doesn't want anyone knowing what he's done for some reason. I don't wanna make him angry so I won't say anything.

When I got home Ayuri confirmed that I indeed stunk.

"Ugh… Forgive me mistress, but you smell awful. I suggest that you take a bath as soon as possible." She said while pinching her nose.

I smiled wryly at her words as I knew that. I went into the bathroom and had several showers before taking a nap for a few hours in the bath.

When I woke up, Ayuri was ready with a towel in hand. I got out and she dried me off. I then got into a simple pink shirt with flower patterns dotted all over it as well as a frilled blue skirt.

There were still a couple of days left before the festival so I would be spending those days getting prepared.

And the first step to doing so, is to pick out some new clothes to wear for the occasion.

I took Ayuri with me and headed over to the commercial district, which is where most of the tailors were.

As we made our way over there, I asked Ayuri if she had any recommendations on which store we should go to, and she suggested that we go to a place called 'The Sapphire Needle'.

Soon we arrived at the shop Ayuri recommended and found that it was packed with other customers, likely doing last minute orders like I am. I wondered if we should even bother going in or not until Ayuri spoke up.

"I would suggest that you go in and see if they have any staff available to tend to you as, despite them looking busy, I know for a fact that they aren't as busy as they seem."

'If you're sure.'

With my maids encouragement, I entered the store and was immediately greeted with a bustling crowd of customers and employees, all of which were buzzing about the place, trying several sets of clothes at a time.

Before I could get a better look at what was going on, I was greeted by one of the stores attendants, who was a futa boar-kin, wearing a scandalously scanty uniform that accentuated the bulge in her shorts and left her boobs spilling out of her top.

"Welcome to the Sapphire Needle, how may I help you?" She asked in the typical obligatory service tone.

I looked to Ayuri, asking her to speak for me.

She stepped forward and explained why we were here. "My mistress would like to order an outfit for the upcoming festival."

"Ah yes, the Winter Advent. What kind of clothing would she like?" The attendant asked.

Ayuri looked back to me with an inquisitive gaze. I took a second to think about what kind of clothes I wanted to wear.

'I think I'd like to wear a robe of some kind. Something with white in it to represent winter along with a contrasting colour for both red and white.'

"Hmm, if you want a robe then we can have the base colour be white with the contrasting colour be either green, a navy blue or black. Then there's the pattern that the complimentray colour will be, if you have any specific design or even just a concept of what you want, we can work with that." The attendant advised us.

Once again, Ayuri spoke up for me as we spoke about the latter question on the way here, "I believe we will go with either the green or the blue, as for the pattern, we would like some sort of tree pattern with a serpent wrapping around it if possible."

"I see, that's certainly a rather heft pattern to make but I'm sure we can do it by tomorrow's end. Is there any specific fabrics you would like?" The attendant asked.

"We don't have any in mind, is there anything you would suggest?" Ayuri asked back.

"Hmm…" The attendant took a moment to think and responded with, "Since this is for the Winter Advent, I would recommend something that can keep you warm in the cold, that said, you want to wear robes. With that in mind I have a few fabrics that might interest you, they're a bit on the pricey side but I believe that won't be a problem for you."

"In that case, we shall accompany you to try these fabrics out."

With that, the attendant led us to a corner of the store where a bunch of fabrics were laid out randomly in several different piles. We weren't the only ones here, as I saw some familiar faces.

"Oh, fancy meeting you here." Runaq greeted.

I nodded in return.

"Here for a last-minute tailoring as well I take it?" He asked with a dry smile.

I smiled wryly in response.

"Yeah… I've been busy helping prepare for the festival that I had no time to prepare any clothes." He told me why he was doing last minute preparations, and I figured I should do the same.

'I've been preoccupied with making a gift for my fiancé the past couple of weeks or so, hence why I'm here now.'

"Haha! Ahh, the struggles of balancing our time, it's painful to find time for them but so rewarding when we do." He sighed tiredly.

That was a feeling I could relate to.

"Mistress, we should get back to choosing the right fabric." Ayuri reminded.

'You're right.' I agreed, so I said the same to Runaq, 'You should probably focus on finding your own fabric as well, I wish you luck with that.'

"And good luck to you too." He returned the gesture.

With our quick conversation over, we both returned to choosing out a fabric for our festival clothes.