Sayuri eyed the ponds appreciatively. They were certainly beautiful, there was no denying that. Almost a water garden, really. The crystal clear waters revealed the bottom of soft white sand, brimming with koi in a multitude of brilliant colors. Delicate lilies and lotus blooms dotted the pools, and the edges were adorned with irises and cattails. It was a relaxing place if she'd ever seen one, and she felt that she could spend forever gazing at the sight and never grow tired of the view. But she wasn't here to admire the feature- she was here to save it. Something was wrong here. Dead fish had been found floating around the ponds, but no one knew what had killed them. And that was her job for the day- to figure out what was harming the fish, and fix it.
Sayuri's first clue was some sounds coming from one of the nearby ponds. She could hear children laughing, and as she drew closer she heard the sounds of waters splashing. Sure enough, her suspicions were confirmed when she spotted a group of children playing in one of the ponds. They were chasing each other around, playing tag, splashing each other with water, giggling and occasionally shrieking with amusement. They seemed to be having a lot of fun. Perhaps a little too much fun. She scanned the area for the children's parents, but there was no sign of any adults hanging around. Apparently the children were unsupervised. That was dangerous. Sure, the water only cane up to their thighs, but that was still plenty deep enough for someone to get hurt, or even drown.
She walked over toward the children. They hadn't noticed her yet, so she observed them for a few minutes. She had thought that perhaps the children might have been hurting the fish somehow. After all, they didn't seem to be paying much attention, and she worried they might step on the fish, or hit them while they were flinging water at each other. But now that she had watched them, she saw that the children were staying near the edge of the pond, and the fish had retreated to the far side, in the deeper water by the guildhall's walls. They were well out of the children's reach, so she seriously doubted that the children were the cause of the problem, and she didn't want to ruin their fun. She decided that she would keep an eye on the children while she investigated, just in case anything happened. Hopefully their parents would turn up soon.
Now that her first theory had been ruled out, Sayuri had to return to searching for the real cause of the problem. She began circling the ponds, looking for anything out of the ordinary, and it didn't take her long to spot one. Garbage! There were several bags-worth of garbage dumped into one of the ponds! Who would do such a thing? The thought infuriated her. How could anyone be so irresponsible? Well, there was only one way for her to fix it. It looked like she would be getting wet today.
She made her way back into the guildhall to talk the bartender into giving her a couple of garbage bags for her to put the trash in, then briefly stopped by the inn she'd been staying at to change. There was no way she was going swimming in the nice kimono she had been wearing. And she would have to venture into the deeper waters to gather all the garbage. The wet cloth would be heavy by that point, very heavy, and she had no intention of drowning, thank you very much.
She put on a bathing suit, then threw a much more casual kimono on over it- she had standards to uphold after all. Then, after grabbing a towel and the garbage bags, as well as her swords, since she never walked around unarmed, she headed back to the ponds surrounding the guildhall. The amount of garbage floating in the pristine water seemed even more overwhelming than when she'd first spotted it, and she sighed. It was going to be a long afternoon.
Well, there was no point in delaying the inevitable. She waded into the water, gathering the flotsam as she went. There was a lot of paper scraps, which didn't concern her too much, but there were worse things mixed in. She stepped on something and pulled up a half-eaten apple, now brown and rotting. Eww, really? And that was just the tip of the iceberg, unfortunately. Next she found a disembodied doll head floating through the waters. She was really glad she was the one who found it, and not one of the children. They would probably have been scarred for life. She quickly shoved the head to the bottom of the bag. And what was that plastic thing? It looked suspiciously like a blow-up... Never mind, she wasn't going to dwell on it, or she'd probably never eat again. It went in the bag with everything else.
By the time she filled one bag she was close to gagging. Whoever had done this had better hope she never discovered their activity, or she'd probably kill them. Especially since she'd almost stepped on a needle a little bit ago. Were they totally lacking in common sense, or did they just not care? She was fed up. The number of soda bottles and those little plastic rings were mounting, along with a disturbing amount of undergarments. And not cheap or clearly 'used' ones either. She had a feeling someone had stolen them from someone and then gotten rid of the evidence. And then there was the stench whenever she pulled up the pieces of rotting food. Honestly, it was a good thing she had a strong stomach. Even the promise of a paycheck wasn't enough to keep her here. What really kept her going was the idea of this tarnishing her guild's reputation. She didn't want anyone thinking that the guild cared so little about their city that they would just leave it like this, and she wouldn't wish this task on anyone else. Besides, she'd already taken the job, which meant she had to give it done. Even if the passers-by were giving some very odd looks to the strange girl playing with garbage.
It took Sayuri most of the day to gather up all the garbage. In the end she filled three and a half large garbage bags. Ugh. She felt like her hands would never be clean again, and she really wished that she could be done for the day. After all, no one would blame her for assuming that the garbage was what had been killing the fish. But there was one big problem with that theory- Sayuri had passed these ponds on her way into the guild that morning, and there hadn't been any garbage in them, yet the job to solve the mystery of the deaths of the pond's inhabitants had been posted already. In other words, the garbage had been dumped here after the fish had started dying, so it couldn't be the cause...
She sighed, hauling the last of the garbage out of the ponds and wringing as much water out of her hair as she could, because unfortunately she'd had to dive for a few of the bigger pieces of trash. After dragging all of the bags to the guild's dumpster, she returned to the ponds, but decided not to dry off and get dressed yet. After all, she may well have to get into the water again before she found the real source of the issue.
She finally returned to her inspection of the ponds. The children she'd spotted earlier were gone by now, and the light was beginning to fade. She'd have to investigate quickly, or she would have to repeat this process all over again tomorrow. She began scanning the waters, looking for anything out of place.
And that's when she spotted it. That definitely didn't belong here! It was an inflatable shark, made of clear plastic and festooned with neon green polka dots, which was weird enough as it was, but it was also swimming of its own volition. As she moved a little closer she could feel a magic aura coming from it. Someone had definitely enchanted it, that was for sure, and she had a feeling the fish couldn't appreciate it that much. After all, it was a shark! They were probably scared half to death. If fact, some might have been scared all the way to death...
She sighed. This day kept getting better and better. Now she had to wrangle an inflatable magic shark. What was next- a kraken showing up to drag her to her watery death? It wouldn't surprise her. With a groan, she grabbed her longer sword, Kizo, and waded into the water again. She didn't know if she'd need it- it was just a toy after all- but she was inclined to stay on the safe side.
The shark seemed not to take any notice of her as it continued gliding through the tranquil waters. It was heading for the deeper water though. Damn it! The last thing she wanted was to have to go after a "shark" where she had to swim, but she didn't have much of an option, so she pursued it. On finally catching it, she grabbed its tail with her free hand and tried to haul it back toward the shore. It didn't like that at all.
The shark whipped back toward her, and before she could react it clamped its jaws down on her free arm. That probably would have hurt- if the shark had teeth. But unsurprisingly, inflatable plastic toys did not have real teeth, or much jaw strength really. It didn't even hurt as well.
"Yeah yeah, settle down. Behave and I'll find you somewhere else to live instead of deflating you and tossing you in a dumpster."
Why was she talking to this thing? But it actually let go of her arm, so maybe it actually understood her. Or maybe it just realized it wasn't having much of an effect. Either way, she managed to haul it all the way to the edge and on to the shore.
"Alright little beastie, you behaved yourself, so I'll find you a nice home."
She set it down for a moment to dry herself with a towel and throwing her kimono on. It was pretty much dark by now, so she couldn't do anything else tonight anyway, and she wasn't sure if she even had to. So she'd just deal with the shark and head home.
She wanted to find him somewhere where he wouldn't pose any threats to animals, which meant somewhere artificial, and she didn't have a whole lot of ideas other than pools, so that's what she went with. She hauled the shark a few streets down to the home of someone she'd run into a couple of days ago and spoken to for a little while. They had kids and had just gotten a pool for them. She thought the kids might get a kick out of a magical shark, and as she'd determined earlier it was quite harmless.
An hour later she finally arrived back at the inn she'd been staying at, minus one inflatable shark. The entire family had been very amused by her catch and had immediately agreed to take it in. And on being put into the pool the shark seemed happy with the arrangement as well, although it might be a bit fanciful for her to ascribe emotions to the creature. Still it had been swimming around investigating its new home, so she figured it was a good ending for all involved. Now she just needed to get some rest.
The next morning Sayuri headed up to the guildhall bright and early to check out the results of her work the previous day. The kids were back and playing in the pond again, but this time she noted with approval that they were accompanied by a group of adults watching over them from the shore. There was also no garbage and no magical sharks. That was a good thing. There was just one problem- there were a couple of dead fish floating in the water. Damn it! It looked like none of her efforts the previous day had worked. The issue still wasn't fixed. It looked like she had another long day ahead of her.
Well, there was no time like the present. She'd come prepared to get wet today, just in case, and she striped down to her bathing suit and got into one of the ponds, ready for a more thorough investigation. She methodically worked her way around the pool, looking for any little thing that might be amiss, but she found nothing. At least, not until she reached the wall at the edge of the guild hall. The water was oddly... Still. She'd been told that there were filters under the guildhall that kept the water clean and pure for the fish. So shouldn't there be some sort of water flow?
She dove down under the water, and quickly spotted a couple of open pipes along the wall under the water's surface. They were clearly for the filtration system, to bring the water to the pumps and then back out into the ponds. But there was no water going in or out of any of them. Now, she was no expert here, but she decided to take that as a sign that the filters weren't running. Well, that couldn't be problematic.
She returned to the edge of the ponds and dried up and dressed again, then headed into the guildhall with purpose. She spotted one of the staff members who had explained the job to her the previous day and made a beeline straight for him.
"Hey- Sayuri, right? Did you manage to fix whatever was wrong with the ponds?"
Ah, so optimistic there. But while she wish she could tell him she had, she wasn't the type to lie.
"No, not yet. You said that there are filters for the ponds right? Can I see them? Surely there has to be some way to access them from inside for maintenance."
The man nodded slowly, clearly understanding where she was going with that line.
"You think that there's something wrong with the filters? They're very good, I haven't heard of them going down before, but I suppose there's no harm in checking it out. Let me go get the key from the maintenance closet and I'll take you down there."
He scurried off to one of the doors near the bar and she waited patiently for his return. Thankfully it didn't take long, and he returned with a bulky key ring. It must have close to a hundred keys on it. Holy cow, why did they need that many keys? She was tempted to ask, but she figured he wasn't going to answer, so she didn't bother. It wasn't important anyway.
He opened a door in a corner that she hadn't noticed before, probably because the door blended in to the walls of the room. Inside was an incredibly narrow staircase, which he proceeded to make his way down, and Sayuri grudgingly followed him. She wasn't exactly claustrophobic, but such a cramped space made even her uncomfortable. She didn't have much of a choice, though.
When she hit the bottom of the stairs she realized the miniature landing at the bottom wasn't much more spacious. Her guide took up pretty much the entire space, so she was stuck with hovering on the bottom step while he selected a key off the ring and carefully inserting it in to the lock, then tried to turn it. Nothing happened and he pulled the key out, muttering to himself before choosing another key and repeating the process. After the third attempt Sayuri mustered the courage to speak up.
"You... Know which key it is?"
The man snorted with a brief laugh before answering.
"Nope. I know it isn't any of these five- I use them all the time. But I've never had to come down here before. I sure hope it's on this key ring and not the other one. It should be, but you never know..."
Was he serious? She seriously hoped he was joking about the other key chain, because she already had no idea what on earth they needed all those keys for. Still, this could probably take a while, so she sat on the step, counting the amount of tried out of sheer boredom. Four, five, six...
Sixty-four, sixty-five, sixty six... Click! Whew. Sayuri almost cheered when she heard the lock finally clank open, but she figured her companion wouldn't appreciate that, especially since the past fifteen minutes and been filled with a fair amount of swearing. Instead she just quietly followed him into the room. The very quiet room.
As the light flicked on the man in front of her gasped slightly. The edges were ringed with tiny machines, an eerie light coming from the tiny lacrima inside them. They were surrounded by a complicated network of pipes. But none of the machines were running, and there was no water in any of the tubes.
"It looks like you were right. The filters really are down."
Sayuri couldn't help but feel a flash of annoyance at his shocked tone. So much faith there. He had thought she was a wack job, hadn't he? Still, at least now she was pretty sure she knew the cause of the problem. There was only one issue with that- she knew nothing about the machines.
"Yes, it would seem I was right. Now we have to figure out how to fix the filters. Do you know anything about them?"
The man shook his head.
"No, I've never been good with machines, and I have no idea how they work. I hear they were made by a man named Phineas Cail. A genius they say. They're almost fifty years old and still more advanced than anything out on the market. They're very special machines, these. Like the rest of the ship, actually. I hear Cail had his hand in building more parts of the ship than just these."
Well, at least that gave her at least somewhere to start. She had a name now, and surely the inventor would know how to fix them. She just had to go ask them.
"Awesome. I'm sure Cail will be able to fix them for us. Where does he live?"
"Well... He's actually a guild member and his quarters are in the guild's dorms below the hall. The problem is, no one's seen him coming or going from them for almost a month now. We all sort of assumed he'd found somewhere else to stay. After all, he's getting up there in age now and some of the younger mages can be rather... Rowdy. So no one really knows where to find him right now."
Oh no, surely that couldn't be. It seemed like the whole world was against her finishing this job. One small favor, they said. It will be easy, they said. Yeah right. Why could nothing ever be easy? She could never catch a break. But all was not lost, not yet, and she wasn't giving up.
"Can you at least describe him? If I know what he looks like I might be able to find him."
"I can do one better," he told her as shooed her out of the room before locking the door again.
"We have a guild scrapbook upstairs and he's in several of the pictures. They're a couple of years old at this point, but he still looks pretty much the same. I'm not sure you'll be able to find him, though. This is a big ship, and there's no way to know if he's even still on it."
He had a point. Still, something told her that if he had been instrumental in building the ship then he probably wouldn't have just abandoned it. She had a feeling that he was still here, somewhere.
"I'll take my chances. Thanks for the help. And don't forget which key opens that door- I'll need it again later."
He smiled at her optimism, pulling a heavy leather-bound book from underneath the bar and flipping through it and pulling out a photograph. He tapped on the elderly man in one corner of the picture.
"That's Cail there. He's the one you need to look for. Good luck."
She flashed him a rueful smile as she took the picture from him.
"Thanks- I probably need it."
She exited the guildhall, wondering where she should start. She was new to the ship and the picture didn't ring any bells for her, but there were plenty of other people who'd been on the ship for a long time now. Maybe she would happen to come across someone who had seen him recently. So she started harassing everyone she came across.
"Excuse me sir, ma'am, have you seen this man?"
Her first several encounters were unsuccessful, but she finally hit gold when she encountered an unassuming elderly woman. She almost hadn't noticed her, until the woman dropped some papers that started blowing down the street, and Sayuri instinctively chased after them and retrieved them. After the woman thanked her ad nauseam she decided to show her the picture, just in case.
"Do you by chance recognize this man?"
"Oh, that's Phineas Cail. Of course I know him deary. He's a sweet man really. I chatted him earlier. We both happened to be getting hair cuts at the same time. So interesting. He's an accomplished mage you know. We're so lucky to have him."
Score! Someone who had seen him, and recently too. It was exactly what she had hoped to find.
"Thank you ma'am. I actually need him help. One of the machines he invented stoped working, and no one else knows how to fix it. Do you by chance know where he might be now?"
"Oh dear, we can't have that! Such a nightmare! Of course, we have to get things up and running as soon as possible. Unfortunately he didn't tell me where he was going, but I can at least tell you where the salon is. The employees might know more about his plans. They do know him quite well, after all."
Sayuri smiled. It wasn't perfect, but it was a good start.
"That would be great! Thank you for your help!"
"Oh, any time dear, any time. You stay safe now!"
She waved at the woman as she ran off, following the directions she'd been given. The sooner she got there, the closer on his heels she would be.
She'd been hoping things would be smooth sailing from there. Unfortunately that was not meant to be. The hair stylists had seen Cail, and they knew exactly where he'd been headed. He had to pick some clothes up from the dry cleaners. Unfortunately, they didn't know which dry cleaner he used, but it had to be nearby, so she'd had to scout around to the locations that were close by, and it didn't take her long to find the one that Cail used.
However, she hadn't made it quite in time, and Cail had left about five minutes prior to her arrival. So close, and yet, so very far. Thankfully, they had known that he had to make a quick trip to a hardware store to pick up supplies to fix a leaky sink. But, you guessed it, they didn't know which store, so she had to scout around again. It took her about fifteen minutes to find a shopkeeper who recognized Cail and had sold him some parts a little bit ago. Again, though, she had missed the repairman by just a few minutes.
The shopkeeper had been able to tell her that Cail had mentioned that he was going to have lunch before heading home. At a local cafe, the man said, a new one the elderly man had been very excited to try. Which left Sayuri to scout the area yet again.
She was starting to give up hope when she spotted a man exiting a tiny little cafe she'd almost missed. She stared at him for a long minute, not quite able to believe what she was seeing. Then she glanced down at the photograph and back up at the man. It was Cail!
He was a couple blocks away, so she chased after him, finding herself close to out of breath before she got close enough to call out to him.
"Hey! Mr. Cail! Please wait!"
He stopped, turning to face her.
"Oh bother. I do get so annoyed by youngsters sometimes. What is it now, missy?"
She sighed. So sweet, the little old lady had said. So charming. Sure. Still, she had to be nice to him. She did need a favor from him, after all.
"I'm sorry to disturb you sir, but it's very important. I'm a member of Crystal Swan you see, and I was was asked to look into the deaths of some of the fish in those ponds around the guildhall. I discovered that none of the filters are running anymore, and no one else knows how to fix them. If you don't fix them I'm afraid all of the fish will die. Please, it's such a beautiful pond, and I would hate to see it ruined."
The man's expression softened a bit.
"I see. That is a problem. I agree, the ponds are so beautiful, it would be a shame to see anything happen to them. Fine, I'll come see about fixing them, but I want to be left alone after that, you hear!"
Sayuri had no problem with that. She wasn't a very social person, and she could understand his desire for some peace and quiet.
"I understand completely, sir. My lips are sealed, and you'll never have to see me again except in case of emergency."
He snorted, clearly not believing her, but he followed her back to the guildhall anyway. Luckily for him no one really paid him any attention, aside from the employee who gaped at him disbelievingly before quickly grabbing the key and escorting Cail down to the room with the filters. Sayuri opted to stay up in the guildhall. Her time spent down below had not been pleasant. It took the pair almost two hour to reemerge, but upon questioning Sayuri learned that they had been successful, and the filters were all running again. That was a huge relief. Cail stalked off in relative anonymity as the employee put the photo back in the scrapbook.
"Well, I can't believe you actually did it. I thought the fish were all goners for sure. I don't know how you did it, and I'm sure you're not willing to risk Cail's wrath to tell me, so I'm just going to congratulate you on a job well done."
"Thank you. I'm just really glad it's over. This job has been exhausting."
The employee laughed.
"Well, don't get too excited yet. You still have to fill out the paperwork."
The... What? He produced a binder from under the counter and handed her a notebook worth of papers..
"All jobs that are for the guild have to have certain paperwork filled out. You know, if you actually want to get a reward from it."
Sayuri groaned. The world really did hate her, didn't it?
Word Count: 4,614
Sayuri's first clue was some sounds coming from one of the nearby ponds. She could hear children laughing, and as she drew closer she heard the sounds of waters splashing. Sure enough, her suspicions were confirmed when she spotted a group of children playing in one of the ponds. They were chasing each other around, playing tag, splashing each other with water, giggling and occasionally shrieking with amusement. They seemed to be having a lot of fun. Perhaps a little too much fun. She scanned the area for the children's parents, but there was no sign of any adults hanging around. Apparently the children were unsupervised. That was dangerous. Sure, the water only cane up to their thighs, but that was still plenty deep enough for someone to get hurt, or even drown.
She walked over toward the children. They hadn't noticed her yet, so she observed them for a few minutes. She had thought that perhaps the children might have been hurting the fish somehow. After all, they didn't seem to be paying much attention, and she worried they might step on the fish, or hit them while they were flinging water at each other. But now that she had watched them, she saw that the children were staying near the edge of the pond, and the fish had retreated to the far side, in the deeper water by the guildhall's walls. They were well out of the children's reach, so she seriously doubted that the children were the cause of the problem, and she didn't want to ruin their fun. She decided that she would keep an eye on the children while she investigated, just in case anything happened. Hopefully their parents would turn up soon.
Now that her first theory had been ruled out, Sayuri had to return to searching for the real cause of the problem. She began circling the ponds, looking for anything out of the ordinary, and it didn't take her long to spot one. Garbage! There were several bags-worth of garbage dumped into one of the ponds! Who would do such a thing? The thought infuriated her. How could anyone be so irresponsible? Well, there was only one way for her to fix it. It looked like she would be getting wet today.
She made her way back into the guildhall to talk the bartender into giving her a couple of garbage bags for her to put the trash in, then briefly stopped by the inn she'd been staying at to change. There was no way she was going swimming in the nice kimono she had been wearing. And she would have to venture into the deeper waters to gather all the garbage. The wet cloth would be heavy by that point, very heavy, and she had no intention of drowning, thank you very much.
She put on a bathing suit, then threw a much more casual kimono on over it- she had standards to uphold after all. Then, after grabbing a towel and the garbage bags, as well as her swords, since she never walked around unarmed, she headed back to the ponds surrounding the guildhall. The amount of garbage floating in the pristine water seemed even more overwhelming than when she'd first spotted it, and she sighed. It was going to be a long afternoon.
Well, there was no point in delaying the inevitable. She waded into the water, gathering the flotsam as she went. There was a lot of paper scraps, which didn't concern her too much, but there were worse things mixed in. She stepped on something and pulled up a half-eaten apple, now brown and rotting. Eww, really? And that was just the tip of the iceberg, unfortunately. Next she found a disembodied doll head floating through the waters. She was really glad she was the one who found it, and not one of the children. They would probably have been scarred for life. She quickly shoved the head to the bottom of the bag. And what was that plastic thing? It looked suspiciously like a blow-up... Never mind, she wasn't going to dwell on it, or she'd probably never eat again. It went in the bag with everything else.
By the time she filled one bag she was close to gagging. Whoever had done this had better hope she never discovered their activity, or she'd probably kill them. Especially since she'd almost stepped on a needle a little bit ago. Were they totally lacking in common sense, or did they just not care? She was fed up. The number of soda bottles and those little plastic rings were mounting, along with a disturbing amount of undergarments. And not cheap or clearly 'used' ones either. She had a feeling someone had stolen them from someone and then gotten rid of the evidence. And then there was the stench whenever she pulled up the pieces of rotting food. Honestly, it was a good thing she had a strong stomach. Even the promise of a paycheck wasn't enough to keep her here. What really kept her going was the idea of this tarnishing her guild's reputation. She didn't want anyone thinking that the guild cared so little about their city that they would just leave it like this, and she wouldn't wish this task on anyone else. Besides, she'd already taken the job, which meant she had to give it done. Even if the passers-by were giving some very odd looks to the strange girl playing with garbage.
It took Sayuri most of the day to gather up all the garbage. In the end she filled three and a half large garbage bags. Ugh. She felt like her hands would never be clean again, and she really wished that she could be done for the day. After all, no one would blame her for assuming that the garbage was what had been killing the fish. But there was one big problem with that theory- Sayuri had passed these ponds on her way into the guild that morning, and there hadn't been any garbage in them, yet the job to solve the mystery of the deaths of the pond's inhabitants had been posted already. In other words, the garbage had been dumped here after the fish had started dying, so it couldn't be the cause...
She sighed, hauling the last of the garbage out of the ponds and wringing as much water out of her hair as she could, because unfortunately she'd had to dive for a few of the bigger pieces of trash. After dragging all of the bags to the guild's dumpster, she returned to the ponds, but decided not to dry off and get dressed yet. After all, she may well have to get into the water again before she found the real source of the issue.
She finally returned to her inspection of the ponds. The children she'd spotted earlier were gone by now, and the light was beginning to fade. She'd have to investigate quickly, or she would have to repeat this process all over again tomorrow. She began scanning the waters, looking for anything out of place.
And that's when she spotted it. That definitely didn't belong here! It was an inflatable shark, made of clear plastic and festooned with neon green polka dots, which was weird enough as it was, but it was also swimming of its own volition. As she moved a little closer she could feel a magic aura coming from it. Someone had definitely enchanted it, that was for sure, and she had a feeling the fish couldn't appreciate it that much. After all, it was a shark! They were probably scared half to death. If fact, some might have been scared all the way to death...
She sighed. This day kept getting better and better. Now she had to wrangle an inflatable magic shark. What was next- a kraken showing up to drag her to her watery death? It wouldn't surprise her. With a groan, she grabbed her longer sword, Kizo, and waded into the water again. She didn't know if she'd need it- it was just a toy after all- but she was inclined to stay on the safe side.
The shark seemed not to take any notice of her as it continued gliding through the tranquil waters. It was heading for the deeper water though. Damn it! The last thing she wanted was to have to go after a "shark" where she had to swim, but she didn't have much of an option, so she pursued it. On finally catching it, she grabbed its tail with her free hand and tried to haul it back toward the shore. It didn't like that at all.
The shark whipped back toward her, and before she could react it clamped its jaws down on her free arm. That probably would have hurt- if the shark had teeth. But unsurprisingly, inflatable plastic toys did not have real teeth, or much jaw strength really. It didn't even hurt as well.
"Yeah yeah, settle down. Behave and I'll find you somewhere else to live instead of deflating you and tossing you in a dumpster."
Why was she talking to this thing? But it actually let go of her arm, so maybe it actually understood her. Or maybe it just realized it wasn't having much of an effect. Either way, she managed to haul it all the way to the edge and on to the shore.
"Alright little beastie, you behaved yourself, so I'll find you a nice home."
She set it down for a moment to dry herself with a towel and throwing her kimono on. It was pretty much dark by now, so she couldn't do anything else tonight anyway, and she wasn't sure if she even had to. So she'd just deal with the shark and head home.
She wanted to find him somewhere where he wouldn't pose any threats to animals, which meant somewhere artificial, and she didn't have a whole lot of ideas other than pools, so that's what she went with. She hauled the shark a few streets down to the home of someone she'd run into a couple of days ago and spoken to for a little while. They had kids and had just gotten a pool for them. She thought the kids might get a kick out of a magical shark, and as she'd determined earlier it was quite harmless.
An hour later she finally arrived back at the inn she'd been staying at, minus one inflatable shark. The entire family had been very amused by her catch and had immediately agreed to take it in. And on being put into the pool the shark seemed happy with the arrangement as well, although it might be a bit fanciful for her to ascribe emotions to the creature. Still it had been swimming around investigating its new home, so she figured it was a good ending for all involved. Now she just needed to get some rest.
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The next morning Sayuri headed up to the guildhall bright and early to check out the results of her work the previous day. The kids were back and playing in the pond again, but this time she noted with approval that they were accompanied by a group of adults watching over them from the shore. There was also no garbage and no magical sharks. That was a good thing. There was just one problem- there were a couple of dead fish floating in the water. Damn it! It looked like none of her efforts the previous day had worked. The issue still wasn't fixed. It looked like she had another long day ahead of her.
Well, there was no time like the present. She'd come prepared to get wet today, just in case, and she striped down to her bathing suit and got into one of the ponds, ready for a more thorough investigation. She methodically worked her way around the pool, looking for any little thing that might be amiss, but she found nothing. At least, not until she reached the wall at the edge of the guild hall. The water was oddly... Still. She'd been told that there were filters under the guildhall that kept the water clean and pure for the fish. So shouldn't there be some sort of water flow?
She dove down under the water, and quickly spotted a couple of open pipes along the wall under the water's surface. They were clearly for the filtration system, to bring the water to the pumps and then back out into the ponds. But there was no water going in or out of any of them. Now, she was no expert here, but she decided to take that as a sign that the filters weren't running. Well, that couldn't be problematic.
She returned to the edge of the ponds and dried up and dressed again, then headed into the guildhall with purpose. She spotted one of the staff members who had explained the job to her the previous day and made a beeline straight for him.
"Hey- Sayuri, right? Did you manage to fix whatever was wrong with the ponds?"
Ah, so optimistic there. But while she wish she could tell him she had, she wasn't the type to lie.
"No, not yet. You said that there are filters for the ponds right? Can I see them? Surely there has to be some way to access them from inside for maintenance."
The man nodded slowly, clearly understanding where she was going with that line.
"You think that there's something wrong with the filters? They're very good, I haven't heard of them going down before, but I suppose there's no harm in checking it out. Let me go get the key from the maintenance closet and I'll take you down there."
He scurried off to one of the doors near the bar and she waited patiently for his return. Thankfully it didn't take long, and he returned with a bulky key ring. It must have close to a hundred keys on it. Holy cow, why did they need that many keys? She was tempted to ask, but she figured he wasn't going to answer, so she didn't bother. It wasn't important anyway.
He opened a door in a corner that she hadn't noticed before, probably because the door blended in to the walls of the room. Inside was an incredibly narrow staircase, which he proceeded to make his way down, and Sayuri grudgingly followed him. She wasn't exactly claustrophobic, but such a cramped space made even her uncomfortable. She didn't have much of a choice, though.
When she hit the bottom of the stairs she realized the miniature landing at the bottom wasn't much more spacious. Her guide took up pretty much the entire space, so she was stuck with hovering on the bottom step while he selected a key off the ring and carefully inserting it in to the lock, then tried to turn it. Nothing happened and he pulled the key out, muttering to himself before choosing another key and repeating the process. After the third attempt Sayuri mustered the courage to speak up.
"You... Know which key it is?"
The man snorted with a brief laugh before answering.
"Nope. I know it isn't any of these five- I use them all the time. But I've never had to come down here before. I sure hope it's on this key ring and not the other one. It should be, but you never know..."
Was he serious? She seriously hoped he was joking about the other key chain, because she already had no idea what on earth they needed all those keys for. Still, this could probably take a while, so she sat on the step, counting the amount of tried out of sheer boredom. Four, five, six...
Sixty-four, sixty-five, sixty six... Click! Whew. Sayuri almost cheered when she heard the lock finally clank open, but she figured her companion wouldn't appreciate that, especially since the past fifteen minutes and been filled with a fair amount of swearing. Instead she just quietly followed him into the room. The very quiet room.
As the light flicked on the man in front of her gasped slightly. The edges were ringed with tiny machines, an eerie light coming from the tiny lacrima inside them. They were surrounded by a complicated network of pipes. But none of the machines were running, and there was no water in any of the tubes.
"It looks like you were right. The filters really are down."
Sayuri couldn't help but feel a flash of annoyance at his shocked tone. So much faith there. He had thought she was a wack job, hadn't he? Still, at least now she was pretty sure she knew the cause of the problem. There was only one issue with that- she knew nothing about the machines.
"Yes, it would seem I was right. Now we have to figure out how to fix the filters. Do you know anything about them?"
The man shook his head.
"No, I've never been good with machines, and I have no idea how they work. I hear they were made by a man named Phineas Cail. A genius they say. They're almost fifty years old and still more advanced than anything out on the market. They're very special machines, these. Like the rest of the ship, actually. I hear Cail had his hand in building more parts of the ship than just these."
Well, at least that gave her at least somewhere to start. She had a name now, and surely the inventor would know how to fix them. She just had to go ask them.
"Awesome. I'm sure Cail will be able to fix them for us. Where does he live?"
"Well... He's actually a guild member and his quarters are in the guild's dorms below the hall. The problem is, no one's seen him coming or going from them for almost a month now. We all sort of assumed he'd found somewhere else to stay. After all, he's getting up there in age now and some of the younger mages can be rather... Rowdy. So no one really knows where to find him right now."
Oh no, surely that couldn't be. It seemed like the whole world was against her finishing this job. One small favor, they said. It will be easy, they said. Yeah right. Why could nothing ever be easy? She could never catch a break. But all was not lost, not yet, and she wasn't giving up.
"Can you at least describe him? If I know what he looks like I might be able to find him."
"I can do one better," he told her as shooed her out of the room before locking the door again.
"We have a guild scrapbook upstairs and he's in several of the pictures. They're a couple of years old at this point, but he still looks pretty much the same. I'm not sure you'll be able to find him, though. This is a big ship, and there's no way to know if he's even still on it."
He had a point. Still, something told her that if he had been instrumental in building the ship then he probably wouldn't have just abandoned it. She had a feeling that he was still here, somewhere.
"I'll take my chances. Thanks for the help. And don't forget which key opens that door- I'll need it again later."
He smiled at her optimism, pulling a heavy leather-bound book from underneath the bar and flipping through it and pulling out a photograph. He tapped on the elderly man in one corner of the picture.
"That's Cail there. He's the one you need to look for. Good luck."
She flashed him a rueful smile as she took the picture from him.
"Thanks- I probably need it."
_______________________________________________________________
She exited the guildhall, wondering where she should start. She was new to the ship and the picture didn't ring any bells for her, but there were plenty of other people who'd been on the ship for a long time now. Maybe she would happen to come across someone who had seen him recently. So she started harassing everyone she came across.
"Excuse me sir, ma'am, have you seen this man?"
Her first several encounters were unsuccessful, but she finally hit gold when she encountered an unassuming elderly woman. She almost hadn't noticed her, until the woman dropped some papers that started blowing down the street, and Sayuri instinctively chased after them and retrieved them. After the woman thanked her ad nauseam she decided to show her the picture, just in case.
"Do you by chance recognize this man?"
"Oh, that's Phineas Cail. Of course I know him deary. He's a sweet man really. I chatted him earlier. We both happened to be getting hair cuts at the same time. So interesting. He's an accomplished mage you know. We're so lucky to have him."
Score! Someone who had seen him, and recently too. It was exactly what she had hoped to find.
"Thank you ma'am. I actually need him help. One of the machines he invented stoped working, and no one else knows how to fix it. Do you by chance know where he might be now?"
"Oh dear, we can't have that! Such a nightmare! Of course, we have to get things up and running as soon as possible. Unfortunately he didn't tell me where he was going, but I can at least tell you where the salon is. The employees might know more about his plans. They do know him quite well, after all."
Sayuri smiled. It wasn't perfect, but it was a good start.
"That would be great! Thank you for your help!"
"Oh, any time dear, any time. You stay safe now!"
She waved at the woman as she ran off, following the directions she'd been given. The sooner she got there, the closer on his heels she would be.
She'd been hoping things would be smooth sailing from there. Unfortunately that was not meant to be. The hair stylists had seen Cail, and they knew exactly where he'd been headed. He had to pick some clothes up from the dry cleaners. Unfortunately, they didn't know which dry cleaner he used, but it had to be nearby, so she'd had to scout around to the locations that were close by, and it didn't take her long to find the one that Cail used.
However, she hadn't made it quite in time, and Cail had left about five minutes prior to her arrival. So close, and yet, so very far. Thankfully, they had known that he had to make a quick trip to a hardware store to pick up supplies to fix a leaky sink. But, you guessed it, they didn't know which store, so she had to scout around again. It took her about fifteen minutes to find a shopkeeper who recognized Cail and had sold him some parts a little bit ago. Again, though, she had missed the repairman by just a few minutes.
The shopkeeper had been able to tell her that Cail had mentioned that he was going to have lunch before heading home. At a local cafe, the man said, a new one the elderly man had been very excited to try. Which left Sayuri to scout the area yet again.
She was starting to give up hope when she spotted a man exiting a tiny little cafe she'd almost missed. She stared at him for a long minute, not quite able to believe what she was seeing. Then she glanced down at the photograph and back up at the man. It was Cail!
He was a couple blocks away, so she chased after him, finding herself close to out of breath before she got close enough to call out to him.
"Hey! Mr. Cail! Please wait!"
He stopped, turning to face her.
"Oh bother. I do get so annoyed by youngsters sometimes. What is it now, missy?"
She sighed. So sweet, the little old lady had said. So charming. Sure. Still, she had to be nice to him. She did need a favor from him, after all.
"I'm sorry to disturb you sir, but it's very important. I'm a member of Crystal Swan you see, and I was was asked to look into the deaths of some of the fish in those ponds around the guildhall. I discovered that none of the filters are running anymore, and no one else knows how to fix them. If you don't fix them I'm afraid all of the fish will die. Please, it's such a beautiful pond, and I would hate to see it ruined."
The man's expression softened a bit.
"I see. That is a problem. I agree, the ponds are so beautiful, it would be a shame to see anything happen to them. Fine, I'll come see about fixing them, but I want to be left alone after that, you hear!"
Sayuri had no problem with that. She wasn't a very social person, and she could understand his desire for some peace and quiet.
"I understand completely, sir. My lips are sealed, and you'll never have to see me again except in case of emergency."
He snorted, clearly not believing her, but he followed her back to the guildhall anyway. Luckily for him no one really paid him any attention, aside from the employee who gaped at him disbelievingly before quickly grabbing the key and escorting Cail down to the room with the filters. Sayuri opted to stay up in the guildhall. Her time spent down below had not been pleasant. It took the pair almost two hour to reemerge, but upon questioning Sayuri learned that they had been successful, and the filters were all running again. That was a huge relief. Cail stalked off in relative anonymity as the employee put the photo back in the scrapbook.
"Well, I can't believe you actually did it. I thought the fish were all goners for sure. I don't know how you did it, and I'm sure you're not willing to risk Cail's wrath to tell me, so I'm just going to congratulate you on a job well done."
"Thank you. I'm just really glad it's over. This job has been exhausting."
The employee laughed.
"Well, don't get too excited yet. You still have to fill out the paperwork."
The... What? He produced a binder from under the counter and handed her a notebook worth of papers..
"All jobs that are for the guild have to have certain paperwork filled out. You know, if you actually want to get a reward from it."
Sayuri groaned. The world really did hate her, didn't it?
Word Count: 4,614
