MUSIC TO MY EARS ; job

Standing in the magnificent guildhall of Crystal Swan, Valeria felt as if she was a princess, just casually walking around in her palace. That was what it felt like to be in Crystalli. Everything was so grand and the decorations were on point. They somehow managed to keep this huge ship clean and clear of dust. That was one of the things about Crystalli that amazed Val. There were definitely parts of the ship she had not been to, for sure, though she already had a minimap of the structure in her head at this point and it was much easier to find her way around now, compared to when she first arrived. When she first got here, finding her way was a nightmare and she would get lost every single time, especially during the night. It was funny how her sense of direction seemed to be slightly worse compared to during the day. She recently discovered a request board with jobs that were exclusively for members of the Crystal Swan guild posted on it and there were a few for her rank. As of now, she was at pretty much the lowest rank in the hierarchy. She would have to put in some work for people to start recognizing her. Though, of course, she understood that it was not something that could happen overnight. It was obviously going to take time.

Valeria laced her fingers behind her back as she hummed a tune under her breath. There were a few others looking at the board too, but she was starting to feel very comfortable living in Crystalli, so she did not feel embarrassed knowing that they were probably hearing her humming. She was not surprised to see that there were only like three jobs for her rank, so she picked two for now. She had all the time in the world since had nothing else to do. Squeezing her way out of the little crowd at the front of the job board, she stood by a large pillar to read the details of the jobs. Both of them were very easy, as expected, of course. Now she had to pick which of the two jobs to do first. One of them required her to know how to knit, which she did, so she knew what she was going to do for that. The other one, she was not sure what she was going to be doing since all it said was to pick an instrument and either learn how to play it or teach others how to play it. There were a few instruments Valeria knew how to play because she was taught as a child, so she was probably going to be the one teaching the others how to play something. Valeria decided she was going to take the musical instrument job first and headed to the Crystalli Concertium. According to the details of the job, she was to look for the donated instruments in the storage area.

Once she arrived at the Crystalli Concertium, Valeria began looking through the instruments. She spotted a violin, a guitar, some trumpets and a grand piano. It was just sitting there right in the middle of the storage area and as soon as the sorceress caught sight of it, there was a glint of excitement in her eyes. She had not touched a piano in years, ever since she moved out of her parents’ house and started living alone, wandering alone and just doing everything on her own. Saying that she was excited would be an understatement. It was the same feeling that the child of a soldier would have when their parent returned from war. Maybe that was a bit exaggerating, but it was pretty similar. She stood rooted on the spot, simply staring at the piano before she was brought out of her daze and that was when she rushed towards it, letting her fingers glide over the black and white keys. Someone was already playing it before Val got here, seeing how the cloth that was supposed to cover it was on the floor, and the cover was lifted.

It came back to her naturally, probably because she had been playing it since she was like four, Valeria could not lift her fingers off the keys as she played the songs that she remembered by heart. After the last note, her hands departed from the piano and sat on her lap. With a sigh of satisfaction, she stood up from her seat, feeling ready to teach others how to play the piano, though she was not sure how exactly she was supposed to start. She read over the details of the job once again, trying to figure out if she was supposed to make an announcement that she was going to start her piano lesson, or if she was supposed to wait. Soon enough, people started to gather in the Crystalli Concertium. They either heard her playing, or they heard the news of musical instruments being donated to the guild.

According to the details of the job, the lessons were given on Sunday mornings, which was the exact time now. She looked around and realised that it was probably why people were starting to flock into the Concertium. Valeria asked around to see if there was anyone giving piano lessons and apparently there were none. Everything was going well for her this morning, it was almost unusual. And so she announced that her lesson was going to start soon and instructed those who were interested to pick up one of the lacrima powered keyboards since there were a few lying around. Since it was hard to move a grand piano around, she told them to gather around her and soon began her lesson, teaching the way she was taught when she was a child. She could at least cover the basics for them, and that was probably enough for now. She taught for about two hours, and afterwards dismissed the students and continued to play on her own just because she loved playing the piano.