Venture Through (the Decrepit Mansion) with Me ?

Job:

Any mage. That was who could take this job; any mage.

The girl balked at that for a moment before she actually considered what it meant. Dark mages could theoretically come on this same mission with her, and she would be forced to work with them. Killers and liars and sinners, the female had no desire at all to associate with people she considered to be the lowest of the low. Of course, this in itself showed just how much of a hypocrite the redhead was... having claimed so many lives and flashed gold to get her way. Don't even mention that when tested her maximum time for going without a single lie out of her mouth was twenty two hours, and that was because she was unconscious the entire time. But to a certain Leahndr Aspont, the world was made up of good and bad people. Aware as she was of others' sins, she knew her own just as well, down to each and every falsity that sprang from her lips. But a sin could hardly render another obsolete. So here she was, tearing the slip of paper from the mission board in the Golden Phoenix's guild hall, teeth clenched stubbornly together and eyes set hard like emerald flint stones (was that a thing? No, but let's keep going). The pay was good: fifty thousand jewels. She would bite and ignore whoever she had to work with unless circumstances deemed that not a possibility. First of all, though... was that a dirty table over there in the corner? The mage's fingers twitched as the OCD itch in her was inflamed, and before she even hardly knew what was happening there was a dish cloth in her hand and it was warm and soapy with water. Although the girl snorted at the idea of her being a common maid or cabin girl, everyone who knew of her insane penchant for organizing things wherever she went (unless she could somehow escape and kill everyone who claimed she had left without fixing the place) would say that Leahndr Aspont would fit the bill perfectly for either. She was indeed a mage, though, no matter what those demands for a bucket of pine sol (crack goes the fourth wall...) and sponges might make one so inclined to believe. And the redhead liked to think she was a decent one as well. A mage, silly, not a decent sponge. She actually recoiled from water like a cat.

In fact, she even had the battle scars to prove it. Across her left eye (or was it her right? I switch it every thread, I swear and pfft there goes the fourth wall again) was an almost vertical scar, just slanted enough to look like it could be from a stray blade and not a cut that someone made in an attempt to look cool. And now the table was clean, and she was tossing that rag across the room towards the sink behind the bar. Of course the emerald eyed girl missed; we can't make things easy on our protagonists now can we, and she reluctantly tripped over to the miniature kitchen and snatched the rag off of the place where it had landed, draping it over the center divider of the sink. As she was about to leave, the bartender shot her a dirty look, but the mage was already on it. That smear left from the wet towel on the pristine counter top was... not exactly encouraging. If that made any sense. Since I doubt it did, just roll with it. Anyways she was going along and re wiping down the stone surface, moaning and groaning to herself the entire time. Really, if anybody was to blame it was only Leah, and no, she couldn't pass it off to whoever hadn't cleaned up that table in the corner in the first place. And God didn't count either, for giving her freakish compulsiveness when it came to things being in order. Everything currently going on honestly should hardly have taken place, because why would a ReQuip mage who was based around throwing knives and daggers all over around her, misplace an easy shot that was barely six or seven meters away? Who knew, but at least the task was over and she was rushing out the door before anything else could catch her notice and require being patched up in some way or another.

The trip out of the guild hall was just as boring as usual; not only did the portal take an exceedingly short amount of indescribable time to move her from the underground city located somewhere at the bottom of the ocean, to a mountain top in the Phoenix Isles, but Leah also did absolutely nothing during the ride. If one could dub the teleportation as a ride, which is a doubtful course of action but it's too late to turn back now! (Ignore that back space key right there and oh what was that sound of glass breaking once more? The fourth wall needs to be fixed again? See, this is why the insurance company makes me pay such high premiums.) So the redhead's route was direct enough that she managed to get to the summit of the mountain without difficulty, and the trip down was easy as well. Basically, it consisted of jumping off the side of the nearest precipice and hoping that one of the lovely nixy birds that tended to fly around the area (thus hence the name) would catch her and spirit her away to the main land, where she could begin the actual journey to the Pergrande Kingdom. That in itself would require quite a bit of work, since mages were so unwelcome in the greyed out and mechanical nation that she might need to do some deceiving. Of course, that was the female's specialty. She did have to survive the fall first, and as it turned out the cute nixy birds weren't exactly in the mood to be catching idiotic mages on that day (actually, they loved all the Golden Phoenix people to heart but for the purpose of this thread... yeah. You know the drill by now). This fact was made clear by how they staunchly ignored the falling redhead, and she ended up having to be saved by a certain speckled appaloosa pegasus by the name of Ilosa, an irritable mare who was in this case puzzled by her rider's odd attempt to kill herself. At least, that's how the flying horse saw it; the emerald eyed female was still only a bit miffed that her trust in the fiery nixy birds had been misplaced (oh don't give me that look, canon, I know they're actually lovely guardian creatures). The black and white animal let her off with a whinny of warning that any more suicidal thoughts would be met with an abrupt twenty year sentence in the Animal Kingdom's prison without parole, and Leah was very tired of talking to her by the time the horse agreed to leave. Some people just refused to believe what was right in front of their eyes. Jumping off a cliff hardly constituted trying to kill one's self, alright?

Now safely on the ground, the mage was free to wander around and waste more of the word count (I mean, what??) until she got to the shore of the island that the Golden Phoenix guild entrance was on. Thankfully, a small spot of luck ensured that a ferry was running and just about to depart when she came rushing onto the docks, bypassing all security and therefore the required toll (this is why you be a mage, suckers). It wasn't actually much in the way of luck; the boats ran on the half hour, and it was precisely 4:30 in the morning. Actually, why the hell would the crafts be running now? Hold on back it up a second- nevermind, too much effort to rewrite, let's just make an exception about working and travel hours. The main land was barely ten minutes' worth of a ride, and after that period of time (during which the redhead was graced with the most extraordinary view of heart clenching, pulse stopping open water, being deathly afraid of such), she was dropped off at the docks of the small port town that the ferry traveled from to the isles. Now, for the Pergrande Kingdom... oh wait, she probably should stock up on food first, yes? That meant heading to the market, so the female happily strolled across the town, taking her sweet time until it was at least 5am in the morning when she arrived. Of course, there was nobody there yet; nice one, making it super early so you can't spend more time describing the market place, well anyways the mage continued on her journey with a slightly disgruntled expression remaining on her face for the rest of the post (I mean, what??). It turned out that fortunately for Leah, trains were running to the outskirts of Fiore, where she might be able to catch passage to the Pergrande Kingdom through a series of uses of non magical transportation, such as more trains, taxies, car rides, hitchhiking, walking, boats, and so much more. In order to get to the station that would be able to travel all the way to the border of the nation, though, the mage first had to find a more major city. Despite the fact that it wasn't the nearest, Oshibana was well known for its numerous rail roads, so the girl decided to travel there.

Hello four more days of walking.

Just kidding, she used Ilosa, I mean she borrowed Ilosa, I mean, Ilosa helped the incompetent mage teleport through shadow travel to the Oshibana station. Why didn't the pegasus just go straight to the Pergrande Kingdom? Well, because neither the redhead nor the horse felt like being gutted as soon as they magically entered the country full of haters. The station was good enough, and in fact the ride only took a mere... uh, insert some reasonable time for a train ride to the edges of Fiore here and then add a measure of time, which pleased Leah a great deal. Next the step was to catch another train across the small strip of Seven, into Bosco, and from there through Stella, Joya, Desierto, Bellum, and finally into the Pergrande Kingdom. Or, she could cut across Iceberg from Stella, but that would be too much effort, she detested the cold. Sailing across the small inlet of water and skipping over Desierto was an option too, but the sun wasn't bad... of course, maybe she could just go with the boat idea and hitch a ride on a mercantile ship heading straight from Fiore to the Pergrande Kingdom? Yeah, that sounded reasonable. Slinking into the nearest warehouse, the mage buried herself in a box of plastic peanuts and cast some random charm that she had learned somewhere (don't question it) in order to be able to breathe if the cargo was sealed. Then she waited and... and fervently hoped that the one she had chosen at random would actually make it to the Pergrande Kingdom. What were the odds? Actually pretty good, because this is a thread that I control and I don't want her sold in slavery to Bosco, so there! Ha!

1900/10,125 Words.

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Jiyu often times did not actually sign up for the jobs she took, which was something that made her possibly someone who was subtly known by others. If she heard an interesting rumor than the young Inugami would go to check things out regardless of any common sense or such! If a mysterious portal appeared in front of everyone? Often Jiyu was the sort to jump into the gate to another place, without truly thinking about it first due to the potential for more experience, though when it actually came to fighting she was a bit of a strategist due to being able to take fewer risks there because of a weakened physical form. The mission she was thinking of taking on right now? Was something she had heard about while working her shift at the Silver Moon between her sessions of taking multiple jobs. Most mages would avoid taking the job, but for Jiyu the only caution this added was making sure she properly took it instead of showing up as penegrade was an extremely dangerous place for mages, potentially deadly to enter and if she went it was unlikely anyone else in Black Rose would be able to bail her out! Looking at the current paper of job details she had managed to get her hands on? It seemed as if anyone could take this mission on if they desired to do so, even dark mages. While that would break the deal for most people, Kazehime did not truly care she had worked with a dark mage or two in the past, and knew someone who last she knew was married to one of them, though she did not know the details she had offered to help the pair if she ever could. In the end Jiyu did not care about one’s alignment, she cared about how they related to her own personal goal and keeping the family she had managed to find after so long of being alone she would do whatever to protect what she had obtained. Good and evil? Were not terms that existed within her vocabulary, just people who happened to be alongside her goals and those who she had to make vanish to accomplish what she wanted in this world. Thus this mission had no issue’s so long as she used her shapeshifting to hide her status as an Inugami while in penegrade.

Of course, this all made the biggest question, if she was going to ask marschal to come with or not.

Normally? Jiyu prevented asking her boyfriend to come onto missions with her because of the fact they both happened to be very protective of each other. When out on a mission with other’s expect each other, they were actually a liability most times! She knew his first instinct was to protect her and her’s was to protect him, they didn’t hesitate to follow one another into danger and that could put other people traveling or working alongside them in danger. Thus often times she would sneak off to do missions without telling her protective partner, apologize profusely upon returning and things would go back to normal after a bit. However she was often getting less inclined to do this, and sometimes he caught her before she could get out the front door. Waiting until she left to try explaining what she wanted to go do, would certainly result in Marschal locking her in their room with magic canceling cuffs or something like that, doing everything in his power to prevent her from taking this on. However, there was the slight chance that if she told him now the male would simply urge to accompany her, well force himself into accompanying her because honestly two inhuman creatures going to Penegrade together was not a very good idea.  “Marsch?” she spoke up, her elfin ears flicking as she set the paper down on their nightstand and crawled to where he was reading one of his books on the other side of their bed.

Sharp golden eyes looked over the tip of the piece of literature he had been digesting with those piercing feline like optics. After a second or two, he folded the book back up and set it down beside him, stretching out one arm to bring his girlfriend against his chest, nose touching the crown of her head as he held her and felt her smaller arms wrapping around him. “I have a new mission.” that was a set of words that often brought him immense worry when he heard them from the canine girl's mouth, Jiyu had a tendency to pick out missions with the potential to kill her as if she didn’t care about death anymore. Of course coming back from the dead seemed to be one of her powers, but that didn’t make him feel any better about Kazehime taking such risky tasks with how frail he knew her to be. “What is it this time?” his deep voice was very cautious as he tucked his fingers beneath her small chin to force her to look directly at him as she explained just what she wanted to run off doing. The female seemed to squirm slightly and that was his first sign whatever job she wanted to take was very stupid to actually take on for one or both of them. “There’s this place in penegrade hiring” his eyes widened and his fanged mouth went to scold Jiyu for even thinking of going to a place that virtually had a death sentence on mages. “They need help Marschal, I’m going with or without you and you can’t stop me!” she bit her lip and recoiled slightly, waiting for him to get upset with her over how headstrong she was, but the male simply sighed and wrapped his arms around her flopping back, holding the young woman as he realized they were going no matter how much he disliked it.

Normally Jiyu would use flight for transport, but she tended to avoid this when traveling alongside Marschal due to her boyfriend's fear of heights. Flying right into the kingdom full of people who would murder a mage in cold blood if they got the chance? Was not wise, so it entirely ruled out her normal method of transportation. Thus the two of them were stuck taking several combinations of carriages and trains. In the middle of the trip? They got caught in the decision to take a ferry and have Marschal suffer from seasickness as he shown the first time they took a ship anywhere or continuing the long way to make sure they used a ship little as possible. Eventually, after a few days, they would be able to arrive in penegrade, the town that had hired them. However? Arriving would open a whole new set of trouble for the pair on the way to the target location...

Perhaps it wasn't such an intelligent idea to simply choose a warehouse at random and sit like an egg in one of the basket boxes. Wait, there she went mixing up metaphors again... oh well, either way, things weren't going particularly well, since the redhead hadn't been lifted up and placed in a ship yet. That did mean she still had time to influence where she was going, though, and actually to take back her previous decision to leave everything up to fate. Fate didn't know what it was doing half the time in her opinion (just look at those dark mages traipsing about everywhere and all the corruptness in even the most prestigious positions of wizards), so Leah shoved the top of the crate off and hopped out, scattering more styro foam peanuts all over the cement floor. Somehow her shoes had gotten so immersed in the packaging that they were unable to be extracted from their position, buried inside the mess; with a twinge of sorrow, the emerald eyed female waved the dutiful combat boots good bye and exquipped them away with the box still attached. It didn't count as stealing if the carton had, uh, attempted to take her own items first!

She stood on the icy floor that was so freezing and smooth to the touch that it seemed to be more like linoleum than actual concrete-- wait, was it actually linoleum? Thinking about that would probably pop a few vessels in her brain, so the mage simply shook her head and hopped about furiously, alternating from foot to foot as the cold burned into her admittedly rather delicate soles. Desperately, she searched in her inter dimensional space for some kind of proper foot wear; however, considering that she couldn't actually see where everything was stored, it was pretty much impossible to pick out a pair of shoes that she didn't already have in mind. So the girl gave up on that task and instead just plopped her butt down on the nearest package of goods, wrapped up neatly in a cardboard box that looked sturdy enough to hold her weight (although judging by the way it flexed underneath her to the point of almost creating a half moon shaped bend, that was a questionable call on her part). If she was to stow away on a ship, particularly a trading one, wouldn't she have to look the part? A normal mercenary's guise wouldn't do, although... with a shrug, the redhead now suddenly turned blonde tugged at her new hair for a moment before examining her fingers.

They were always so beautifully slim and smooth; the female couldn't resist running the pads of her fingers over the backs of her hands whenever she first transformed into her original body. The one she kept most of the time was sturdy and had a wiry sort of strength, but it was literally scarred to every inch except for her face and other visible parts of her skin, all half glamored so as to not scare passer by on the street. Now just for actual garb... Leah bit her lip thoughtfully before she yanked a white shirt with ruffled, puffy cap sleeves and an even more ruffled collar out of her extra space. It came with a rather odd black vest and black skirt, the latter item having two white stripes around the hem. Basically, it looked rather sailor-esque; with the exception of the missing navy hues and accents, she would look decent on a ship as long as it had a stereotypical uniform or none at all for the crew members. Since the vessel she intended to catch a ride on wouldn't actually be part of the Fiorian navy or something, there was no need to be all official and use camouflage print or actually get a hat. She did put her newly blonde hair up in a high ponytail though, if only to get it out of her face (not because she hated having hair in her eyes, well she did, but was used it it; no, the main reason was so that the complete yellowness wouldn't distract her and continuously shock the mage with its sudden difference from her normal crimson locks).

Now the girl was ready to illegally board a ship (psh who pays for passage nowadays?) so she hopped off the crate that she had perched on while dressing and immediately collapsed onto the ground as soon as her feet touched the floor. Damn. She had forgotten how cold the linoleum metal concrete whatever it was ground of the warehouse was. Quickly requipping some steel toed combat boots, if the ship sank she might as well go down with it, in a nice shade of blue that clashed spectacularly with her outfit (just kidding, they were actually just black. Boring, wonderfully blending black), the girl fled the building in the hopes that nobody had seen her enter and nobody would care about a worker leaving a half empty storage area. Leah was actually almost close to being right with her thinking; although indeed not a single person cared to watch for people going inside the buildings while off duty and without actual precious cargo inside (only empty boxes full of left over packaging) several others noticed as she left. A few were willing to arrest her and of their number, two were fully intending to, but thankfully one of the ones who was not fitting under either category, managed to reach her first. She called out to the petite blonde (another thing the mage had to get used to again, this stupid barely anything height) a sharp greeting that sounded more like a reprimand. Scratch that, it was definitely a rebuke of some sort.

"I wasn't aware that anyone was working with Warehouse Four today," she said in a voice loud enough that people turned their heads. Inside, a redhead with green eyes shrunk down defensively and readied some blades, but to everyone else a sapphire eyed female smiled brilliantly at the stern faced officer. She addressed the woman with a polite, yet slightly confused and puzzled tone. "No, madame, I am leeking for a zertin personne," she began to reply with a voice that grew more patronizing and confident as she went on, in a natural shift in the undertones that clearly irritated the sharply uniformed woman, who interrupted before the girl could finish constructing her beautiful and utter bs of a story. "Letting foreigners into Fiore will be the death of us all," she snapped before pointing further down the scene (I mean, what??) towards the docks. "You'll find crew members not on duty down there, or they'll be in town." With a shake of her head, the female left Leah alone from there on, much to the blonde's satisfaction. Most importantly, everyone else also seemed to forget about the strange girl dressed in an improper uniform and labelled her as some lollygagging weird one from another nation. Some of them had a slightly different opinion, but she just categorized them all as not caring in the end (those who weren't quite believing her front that was put up trusted the impressions that 'Gloria' had received; that was clearly the serious woman's name).

And it really wasn't as though she was a serial killer, drug smuggler, or any other kind of criminal or anything! Just uh, a poor girl who didn't... didn't want to pay the fee for legally boarding a ship. Did that really make her a criminal? Maybe the law was too harsh sometimes, or perhaps she was just a cheap skate. Oh well, she didn't feel like caring about money right now, and her conscience hadn't gotten to her yet, so the blonde just headed down the cobbled road towards the long and rather large main dock, from which there were numerous smaller and thinner branches connected. Each still looked rather sturdy, and large vessels were tied up and anchored there securely. The mage reflected that if she was to figure out which one belonged to which captain and was heading to which place, there would have to be some talking and interacting with people involved. Unless, of course, she simply left everything up to luck again... but Fortuna was most certainly not to be trusted, and the blue eyed pessimist wasn't leaving anything to chance. She immediately set about finding the correct one, and upon deciding it was a certain craft that had been named the Silver Wind at some point, promptly boarded and asked if she could have a job as a member of the crew. The girl even went so far as to explain that she was emigrating to the Pergrande Kingdom and didn't even require pay but would work for free so long as she was on board. Something had prickled in her morals and forced her to not just stow away; that was rather too bad, since now she would have to work. And oh boy, was the female lazy. This was even evident as she stood on the deck, blatantly staring around at the port town and everyone passing by; the captain seemed to ignore the fact that she wasn't working as she had promised a few minutes ago, which was quite nice.

3450/10,125 Words.