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Post by Noa on Dec 22, 2021 23:11:36 GMT -6
The last job they had taken on had been an absolute disaster. Noa almost didn't want to think about it. There had been a workshop on fire, filled with toys gone out of control, and he'd had to wade through that mess to put a stop to it. To add insult to injury, his only point of contact for said job had been a particularly long-winded young man with apparently not a wit in his big, empty head. What a treat that had been to deal with. It almost hadn't been worth the trouble of trying to extract the means for his compensation from someone like that, but Noa also wasn't the type to work for free. And so he had grit his teeth and snapped at the man until he had gotten what he wanted, then vacated the premises with a promise to himself to never go back there again. 1
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Post by Noa on Dec 22, 2021 23:13:52 GMT -6
And if their fortune held, they wouldn't have to. Noa certainly wasn't going to take another job at that location if he could help it. But they did need to take on other jobs, unfortunately; now that he had come out of his research fugue somewhat, he had come to the uncomfortable realization that his work wouldn't have been sustainable for much longer anyway. The material costs alone were enough to necessitate that he shift his focus elsewhere for a time, and so he found himself making his way to the quest board much sooner than he would have liked.
So much for rest and recuperation.
Rhys was optimistic about the whole affair, as was his habit. He seemed to think that they could find a job that might help Noa rest and recover -- of all the things to suggest. If such a thing existed, Noa had certainly never heard of it.
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Post by Noa on Dec 22, 2021 23:16:12 GMT -6
Not all the jobs at the quest board were difficult, of course. In fact, some were easy to the point of being absurd. He had been tasked with squashing bugs once, which wasn't difficult so much as it was unpleasant -- or so Avander had told him, when the Wiurn had been set to it, though at the time he had still been a drake. If he'd had the abilities that he possessed now, Avander might have just been able to frost the whole garden to get rid of the things... Ah, but no, that would have killed the plants that the bugs were eating to begin with, and would probably have cost them the job. The time that Nightshade burned down a barn came to mind, but Noa chased the thought away as quickly as it had come on. There was no sense in dwelling on things that had already happened.
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Post by Noa on Dec 22, 2021 23:21:04 GMT -6
Not that it bothered Noa that much, besides the fact that they hadn't actually gotten the payout for the job. They hadn't exactly done the work as specified, but Noa had still gone out there with his creatures and inspected the place, so it had been a drain on his time... Maybe it would have been better to have left Nightshade and Azalea back at the estate, and simply have Rhys take care of the problem.
It was just Rhys with him today, but that was more because Noa wasn't in the mood for managing his bigger creatures. The ones he worked with mostly did listen to him, but they weren't clever enough to offer solutions or formulate their own plans, and it was exhausting sometimes to keep track of them and to think for everyone involved. Fortunately, Rhys didn't have this problem -- and more to the point, Rhys almost always came with him no matter where they went.
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Post by Noa on Dec 22, 2021 23:25:47 GMT -6
Such was the bond between a familiar and the mage they wer bound to, but in Rhys and Noa's case, their relationship had been that way even before that. Rhys had been given to Noa to monitor his health first and foremost, though the companionship had been a secondary consideration. As far as arrangements go, it wasn't bad; and when the time came, Rhys had been the obvious choice for a familiar. Nothing else Noa had available to him had the same mix of intelligence and skill, and frankly he had yet to encounter another familiar with the same breadth of abilities that Rhys boasted.
The air was brisk with chill, but at least this time Noa had dressed appropriately for it. This time he had known better than to expect for this to be a quick and easy trip out. If anything, he might have dressed a little too warmly.
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Post by Noa on Dec 22, 2021 23:28:46 GMT -6
It hadn't seemed so bad when he had first stepped out, but now that he had been walking a while, he was starting to sweat beneath his layers. He considered taking some off, but then he would have to carry them -- or Rhys would, really, but it was a little absurd to be walking around with an entourage of your own clothes following behind you like some sort of bizarre retinue.
... If he got a little sweatier though, he might consider it. The discomfort would outweigh the absurdity at that point, and after all, it wasn't as if the opinions of passers by meant much to him.
The walk to the quest board was a familiar one, even if it wasn't short or particularly pleasant. He hadn't had to ditch any of his layers by the time they arrived, though it had been a near thing, especially toward the end.
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Post by Noa on Dec 22, 2021 23:32:16 GMT -6
Even now, he was half tempted to take off the heavy overcoat and hang it from the corner of the board, but instead he directed himself to the front of it, so that he could peruse what it had to offer him today. He didn't have hopes for anything that would align with his own aims, but there might be something that wouldn't be a torment to take on.
... That was what he thought, anyway. What greeted him was a board almost entirely taken up by the same posting. Not one large posting, either, but the same one repeated over and over, in such quantities that it had veritably taken over the whole board.
{This person must really want people to take the job,} Rhys remarked.
"That's a polite way of saying they're desperate," Noa said. Rhys didn't respond, so Noa knew that his comment had hit the mark, even if the Faeron wouldn't admit it.
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Post by Noa on Dec 31, 2021 12:53:07 GMT -6
Desperation wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, of course. Desperation usually meant that the job would pay well. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, and if they really needed things done, the people offering would usually make at least an attempt to sweeten the deal somehow. Of course, what they were willing to offer to that effect and what Noa himself found worthwhile didn’t always line up, but usually he had the choice of at least a few different jobs… Not so this time, unfortunately.
He didn’t like the lack of choice. He never did like the idea of being coerced into something. Having grown past the age where he had to bend to the will of those around him, he had grown used to having his way -- having come into a great deal more power and freedom than most youths on the cusp of adulthood when he had assumed, through the death of his parents, the position of Gracehaven’s master.
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Post by Noa on Dec 31, 2021 12:53:19 GMT -6
He resented having to take the odd jobs, but much of the wealth had been lost through the generations to the demands and rigors of the search for a cure to the family affliction. And so, here he was.
He took the paper with only a slight grimace of distaste. There was nothing unpleasant about the posting itself, and the paper was only cold to the touch, a result of unpleasant weather and the time of year, nothing more. He flipped it open and read the contents, and the frown deepened.
“This,” he said, “is a job?”
It hardly felt like one, from what the posting was describing. Some organization -- or perhaps it was simply a family? -- had run into some hiccups with their preparations for a feast, and was enlisting the help of any willing worker to… replenish their food stocks, help with the cooking, and then partake in the feast as a reward.
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Post by Noa on Dec 31, 2021 12:53:50 GMT -6
It was foolish, but then many of the jobs here were. Noa’s mouth drew into a thin line, and he perused the scant offerings he could find at the edges of the board, to see if he could find a more suitable job. But he didn’t have much hope, and the other jobs available were mostly even more mundane and unpleasant tasks, with even fewer promises of reward, if any at all. He could see why they had been left to fester, rather than being taken up by anyone who had been here before him. The board was frequently visited, and often by people in more desperate need of employment than Noa himself, but a bad job was still a bad job.
With a sigh, he went back to the first posting that he had read, and tucked it into his pocket for safekeeping so he could refer to it later.
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Post by Noa on Dec 31, 2021 12:54:04 GMT -6
There had been an address on it, and he would need it to find the place.
{It sounds like it’ll be fun, doesn’t it?} said Rhys, who had skimmed his thoughts to get the gist of the posting. {We’ve never been to a big feast with lots of people before.}
Indeed they hadn’t, though if one had asked Noa, he wouldn’t have named it as an experience that he had particularly been hoping to have. A crush of people, the making of small talk, and eating in a loud communal space… None of these things had any appeal when he imagined them, though he also couldn’t imagine them with any real clarity, having no practical experience with what it would actually have been like.
“Yes, I’m looking forward to cooking for strangers,” said Noa blandly. The sarcasm was evident even without any telepathic or emotional link between them.
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Post by Noa on Dec 31, 2021 12:54:15 GMT -6
Gamely, Rhys tried to rally his spirits again -- not that they needed any rallying, Noa thought, but the Faeron did always like to do useless things like this. {If you can’t cook, we can just help out with the other stuff! I’m sure they’ll have good cooks there already, and it’s been a while since we’ve eaten real food.}
Noa’s frown deepened incrementally. “The food I eat is real,” he said. He didn’t bother with such unpleasant chores as cooking because there was no need to. It was a waste of time when he could simply summon edible foodstuffs with a spell, and he had never had any qualms with the taste or the quality of the food he ate. It was always sufficient, and over time he had refined the spell to such a point that it was easy to consume as well: nutritious blocks, of a soft texture, that could be eaten quickly and without mess.
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Post by Noa on Dec 31, 2021 12:55:09 GMT -6
There were no unknowns, no possibility of the shock of an unpleasant flavor, or worse, the spoilage that led to an illness that would set him back even further on resources and time. Rhys could cure most ails, but he was sick enough on a regular basis that he had little desire to be sick any more than he had to be.
Rhys, perhaps sensing now that this was a lost cause, didn’t refute his statement, though Noa could sense that the Faeron didn’t exactly agree with his own assessment. But it didn’t matter. So long as he was compensated for his work, Noa could bear a certain degree of unpleasantness. And if the food seemed of a dubious quality, he could always refuse to eat it. There was no situation in which they could force him to partake in the food, if he didn’t wish to.
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Post by Noa on Dec 31, 2021 12:59:10 GMT -6
Finding the house in question turned out to be less troublesome than usual, at least once they had reached the right neighborhood. The uproar surrounding one particular home made it immediately obvious where their destination lay, even from a distance. Noa looked upon it and did not quite brace himself, but... resigned himself, perhaps, to what was to come. And then he stepped forward.
"Oh! More helpers for the feast? You're just in time!" A stout man with a full beard and small horns jutting out from his wild curls greeted Noa with a clap on the shoulder. Noa winced, and stepped away, out from under his grip. "I tell ya, we've had just one heck of a day! Say, you any good at wrangling chickens?"
"Wrangling... chickens," Noa repeated. He remembered now that the job description had said something about escaped birds. Maybe the specter of kitchen duties was the least of his concerns.
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Post by Noa on Dec 31, 2021 13:01:48 GMT -6
All along he had worried himself over the wrong part of the job. It would have been funny if it wasn't for the prospect of... Well, whatever was about to happen now. Wrangling chickens, apparently.
"Sure! Oh, don't look like that, it's not so bad. They'll give you the run around, but catching them is easy! You just grab them around the middle so they can't get you with their wings. Pin 'em down like this." He moved in, as if to demonstrate on Noa, who immediately took two steps back and frowned at the man. The man instead pantomimed a lunge -- had that been his original intent, or had he simply adapted to Noa's wordless refusal to be the test dummy for the demonstration? "See? Not so bad, is it? Oh, but you've got to be quick, or else they'll dash right out from under you and you'll have to chase them down again."
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