Civilization Chronicles: Rise of the Divine Creator

Cheers went up again as the guests began to file out the various exits into the adjoining lounges, lobbies, and corridors.

At the same time, an army of servants flooded the grand hall, quickly carrying and arranging tables, chairs, and all manner of items necessary to convert the space into a banquet venue.

Lucas had attended a couple of noble banquets in Iron Rock, but they were naturally incomparable to the scope and scale of the Balfour Family’s annual new years celebration.

This year, in particular, was even grander and more extravagant thanks to the preceding ceremony. There were so many guests, in fact, that even in the largest hall in the Balfour Family Manor, they wouldn’t all fit.

As such, after a quarter-hour of preparation, only 1,500 of the original 3,000 occupants from the ceremony were invited back inside.

Of course, that didn’t mean the rest of the guests were unceremoniously thrown out.

No, tonight, the Balfour Family had gone all out and prepared 4 separate halls so that everyone could join in the revelry.

The guests with the highest strength and status were naturally seated in the main hall, while those who didn’t make the cut had to settle for the smaller rooms.

Once everyone was seated, Celestina, much to her chagrin, rose one last time to make a final speech.

Fortunately, this time, it was both short and sweet, "To all those who have gathered together with us tonight, and to all those who have departed for the next life this year, cheers!"

"""Cheers!"""

And with that, Marquess Celestina Balfour completed her last official duty of the year and could now sit to enjoy a much-anticipated feast.

Given the unique seating arrangements this year, there was no small amount of quiet grumbling. Some believed they deserved to be seated in the grand hall, while others worried that sitting in the ’lesser’ halls would also mean a ’lesser’ quality of service.

Once the food was served, however, all those complaints were washed away, replaced with lavish praise for the incredible craftsmanship of the Balfour Family’s chefs.

This wasn’t just hollow pleasantries, either, as thanks to two of the Marquess’ Disciples, several new, unheard-of delicacies were being served tonight.

Although Lucas was the driving force behind most of the menu changes, the first novelty that all 3,000 plus guests tonight were presented with was actually Christina’s Redwood-Style Bread.

Having achieved a quality in her flagship product that she deemed sufficient to begin selling a few days ago, Christina had opened Princess Bakery to the public with great expectations, only to be met with bitter disappointment.

It seemed the people of Misty City weren’t quite as adventurous as she had hoped, with few people willing to sample the ’funny-shaped’ bread from her bakery.

Those who did try the bread universally enjoyed it, with many becoming daily customers there despite a single loaf costing twice as much as an equally sized flatbread; however, word of mouth from so few was quite slow to spread.

Still, Christina, Jake, Jenny, and Jessie didn’t lose heart. They were confident in Redwood Bread and knew that they just needed to find a way to break into the market, to showcase their innovation and attract the interest of the public.

It was as she was looking for such an opportunity that Christina consulted her Senior Brother and he suggested serving the new bread at the new year’s celebration.

After giving Lucas a big hug, Christina immediately began planning how to make a splash at the banquet, pouring a huge amount of time and effort into the preparations.

Now, the small operation the princess opened couldn’t possibly supply enough fresh bread to feed 3,000 guests even if they closed down the shop on New Years Eve and did nothing but bake, so Christina and Jake cooked up a scheme to hire some outside help.

Borrowing another concept from her Senior Brother, Christina hired a couple dozen workers and organized a kind of ’assembly line’ where she and the siblings handled the weighing and portioning of ingredients, while the others did the more labour-intensive work of mixing and kneading dough.

Waking before dawn, Christina, Jake, Jenny, Jessie, and Tess all made their way to the bakery where they began measuring out flour, salt, milk, butter, maple sugar, and the all-important apple-yeast juice.

Preparing all the ingredients themselves should have been enough to ensure no one quietly acquired their secret recipe, but just to be extra safe, Christina arranged to have one group of workers do the first kneading in the morning, then she and her inner circle would punch down the doughs themselves.

Shaping and cutting was then handled by a second group before they too were dismissed, allowing the dough to have its second rise without prying eyes lurking around.

Distributing the work like this allowed the princess to deceive outsiders into thinking they were just making ordinary flatbread as the process was basically identical if one didn’t count waiting for the dough to rise twice.

By the time the sun set over Misty City on New Years Eve, 900 loaves of Redwood-Style Bread and 9,000 similarly fluffy buns were ready to bake.

Transporting so much bread from Princess Bakery to the Balfour Manor where they were to be baked later that evening required 4 separate wagons, but that was hardly a problem for Christina.

Tina wanted to oversee the baking process personally, but with needing to prepare for the Discipleship Ceremony, she had to entrust that responsibility to Jake, Jenny, Jessie, and Tess.

The bakery siblings, along with the ever-so-slightly-less nervous than before maid, would also be in attendance at the banquet as the princess’ personal guests, but other than getting dressed, they didn’t have anything else to worry about, unlike Christina.

It was exhausting and more than a little stressful to prep and bake 10 times as much bread in a single day as they were used to, but all those involved felt it was worth it when they watched the first reactions of all the evening’s guests.

Some of the nobles and dignitaries were hesitant to try this funny-looking bread, but it wasn’t long before curiosity won out and after that, the soft, warm, freshly baked buns began rapidly disappearing.

Served hot in baskets with freshly churned butter, honey, and a variety of fruit jams, the ’dinner rolls’ as Lucas called them were demolished within minutes of hitting the tables, everyone marveling not only at the delicious taste, but also the light, delicate texture which was so different from the dense, heavy bread they were accustomed to.

Everyone was thoroughly impressed with this new ’Redwood Bread’, and when they learned that the ones responsible for its invention were present tonight, some couldn’t contain themselves and rushed to make their acquaintance.

Mobbing a princess certainly wasn’t possible, but Jake, Jenny, and Jessie were just young commoners, so many nobles, merchants, and dignitaries began trying to swarm them, hoping to learn more about their secret recipe, form business partnerships, or at the very least, order more of the delicious bread.

Fortunately, such a reaction had been anticipated by Christina, so she had specially asked her Master to arrange some protection for her friends so they weren’t completely overwhelmed.

Having ’sampled’ the bread Christina had invented, Celestina took this matter very seriously and had entrusted the matter to her ever-reliable adjutant, ultimately resulting in Allina Crest and Vanessa Clark, who was participating in the ceremony as a representative of the Golden Wings Legion, personally flanking the siblings.

Jake, Jenny, and Jessie were all at least somewhat familiar with these two women thanks to their friendship with Lucas, Eris, and Christina, but they were still a bit nervous sitting together with such powerful masters.

They also felt that having two Peak-Rank Spirit Initiates as guards for the night was severe overkill, until hundreds of people representing dozens of incredibly powerful and influential forces began breathing down their necks.

Needless to say, the siblings were extremely grateful for Christina’s foresight, easily able to imagine what would have happened if Allina and Vanessa had not been present to run interference for them.