House Repair!

Job details:

The storm in Magnolia was easily one of the biggest in the recent history of the town. It was coast-hugging town, as was most of the towns in Fiore, and the storm had caused considerable damage to the structures of the town. Most of the buildings constructed out of stone were fine, barely able to weather fierce storm as it passed through, some bearing large cracks while some had huge chunks as if bitten out of them.

However, the ones that had taken the most damage were the civilian buildings. Everywhere Shane went, repair work was ongoing, people rushing around with wooden planks, bags of cement, carts of stones. It was imperative for them to finish up the repairs as quickly as possible, even if that meant crude handiwork for now. The reason for that was horrifying. It had appeared in the early morning newspapers as a forecast from a meteorologist. This storm was just the beginning. Based on the current weather patterns, another one would follow. A bigger, stronger one with the capacity to do more damage than the first one.

That was the reason for the sudden influx of mages in Magnolia, aside from the local mages, as everyone sought help to complete their repairs in the shortest time. Shane was the recipient of such a job, to aid in the house restoration of a couple called the Weathersteins. He picked up his pace as he moved towards one of the quieter sections of the town, a residential zone for mid-income level. When Shane arrived, he saw that the entire place was rather quaint, with a very strong sense of community despite the gated houses.

With the instructions in hand, he quickly navigated the residential zone and arrived at his client’s place. From the job description provided, they had requested for help because they were already too old to manage the repairs themselves.

Shane made an O shape with his mouth as he took in the amount of damage they had to repair. Was he going to have to do this alone?

[344 words]
[Total WC: 344/3000]

Tam spent most of his time training and fishing, or just lazing around on the beach was Tam's whole mantra. Most of the time, a day of doing absolutely nothing productive and perhaps a side of light exercise was ideal for Tam. However today was not one of those days. As a man of the ocean Tam was aware of the the damages storms could bring to a town near by the the coast. He was used to fixing broken ships, and the house back on the island. It wasn't too difficult, nor was it ever overwhelming. However looking at the sight in front of him Tam, was taken aback. You see Tam had never really been to a a big city, it was only recently that due to certain circumstances he was permitted to leave the island and head towards the main land. Truth be told Tam was enjoying his stay, the large amounts of people was fascinating and exciting. In Tam's eyes everyday was an opportunity to make a new friend. However being awkward and overly sarcastic was most definitely a hurdle Tam  need to always jump over (And occasionally trip and take the fattest L and eat some metaphorical dirt. In short Tam was sometimes..... correction.... Tam often times screws things up when trying to make new friends.)

Tam laid his emerald sea green eyes upon the glorious and copious manual labor. Broken windows, wood, trash and scraps adorned the greatly fucked up house. It was a mess that displayed itself like a butt ugly french girl begging to be metaphorically painted.  Tam walked to see another person, another Rune Knight, most likely his squad mate for the day. "Holy shit....That's a lot of damage...I shoulda bought more magical flex tape...." Tam sighed. He saluted to his senior officer, however Tam saluted using the wrong hand it was clear... Tam never bothered to read all the material given to him before hand.

"Uh...my names Artorias R. Tamlin, ya can call me Tam for short my dude...err I mean sir" Tam smiled just like the sun smiling upon the ocean blue. Exuberating a postive sunny aura around him, one could easily assume that he was either a great optimist or just a grade A idiot. Tam adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat.

"Ahem...er...I brought some of my tools ready when ever you are my guy." Tam chuckled as he held up his tool box. His words casual and inviting at the same time just straight up unprofessional. If there was a magical counter to see how many fucks were given by Tam, the grand total would tally up to a fat zero.

_______________________________________________________
[446]
[790/3000 Total WC]

Shane had not known that he would have a partner for the job, and even more surprising was that it was a fellow Rune Knight. The young boy, horrified by the amount of work that they had to do, tried to salute Shane but with the wrong hand. The silver-haired mage cocked up an eyebrow, his mouth lifting upwards to form a half-smile as he looked on with amusement. That and the way he spoke, a garbled sentence of formal and informal speech. The final sentence with Tamlin calling him “my guy” was the last thing that broke through as Shane laughed out loud.

A look of amusement on his face after recovering from the laughter, Shane shook his head.

“I’m Shane Stern. I’m a private like you too. Don’t let the silver hair and lazy expression fool you,” Shane said and smiled. “You really came prepared. I came here empty-handed, and hopefully the Weathersteins have some tools. Come on, let’s enter and see what they want us to do first.”

Shane led the way as he swung the unlocked iron gate open, an ear-numbing creaking sound accompanying it.

“That’s gonna need some oiling,” Shane exclaimed, leaving the gate open as the two of them walked through it. Apparently the creaking had also function as a doorbell or sorts, with their client, Josh Weathersteins rushing out of the house shortly with a tool box in hand as well. On his face was a large smile.

“Come in guys! I’m Josh. My wife, Annie, is in the kitchen putting together some stuff for us to eat later on,” Josh said, pushing his thick-rimmed glasses with the back of right hand as he spoke.

“I’m Shane,” the silver-haired mage said as he walked towards the house. “So where do you want us to start?”

“I’m really grateful that you guys picked up the job. Well, let’s take a look. First off, as you can see, the porch’s been entirely destroyed. I’ve got the wood ready, so we need to saw them and rebuilt the railing after the tree’s been removed. Floor boards too, wrecked by the fallen tree,” Josh pointed around him. Shane whistled as he took in the damage.

“Then there’s the roof. Almost half of the roof’s been blown right off during the storm, so we will need to replace the shingles. Gutters took a hit too, so we will need to re-secure it. That’s the easier stuff,” Josh said as he brought them around to the side of the house. The gutter really did take a hit, having been entirely torn off its brackets and was now lying on the ground.

“Some of the windows need replacement too, all of them on the 2nd floor. I’ve got the windows prepared, so it’s just a matter of detaching the old ones and attaching the new ones,” Josh concluded with a clap of his hand and looked at the two of them. “Shall we start? We’ll take a break for lunch later. You will love Annie’s cooking!”

[506 words]
[Total WC: 1295/3000]

Tam smiled as he eagerly stepped forward ready to start whipping the house back into shape. The sun was up but was accompanied by some nice shade of the passing by clouds. A nice breeze kept all the workers nice and cool. Tam jogged around the house to see the full extent of the damage. Tam nodded to himself and noted the parts that was mentioned that needed some repairs. While at the same time keeping an eye out for anything that may have been missed during the initial inspection.

"Mr.Josh, Shane I'll take care of the roof and the gutter" Tam smiled as he came back trotting around to the front to meet the  two. "Just let me know if yall need help with anything" Tam smiled as he took a piece of ripped white cloth he brought from home and used it to tie his hair back. He moved to the back of the house and gathered the supplies he needed. Tam took the ladder and placed it against the house, with a few seconds of scaling the steps Tam found himself on the roof and began to get to work. Laying shingle after shingle Tam was able to get half of the roof done when he noticed something...

Tam leaned down in the hole of the roof and inspected the wood work inside, he noticed that one of the beams was quite damp. His keen demon slayer nose was immediately greeted with a damp musty smell. Tam narrowed his eyes to inspect the wooden beam closer, it seemed that the beam had shrunk just a bit. The color of the timber was darker than the wood surrounding it. There also seemed to be a bit of mold growing on the side of the beam. Tam pressed his finger on the wooden beam and noticed that it was a bit spongy and didn't have the firmness that it should. Tam took in the sight of the beam, it look cracked and as if it could snap or break if the beam were to dry up. With a sigh tam scratched his head.

"Damn... this doesn't look good, this is some pretty bad wood rot... the roof prolly had a leak even before the storm hit...Good thing I noticed...it shouldn't be too difficult to replace though... gonna need two other people to fix this though.... " Tam mumbled to himself as he looked around the area and began to compile a mental list. when he was done assessing the extent of the damage of the wood rot, Tam climbed out of the roofs hole and made his way down to report to Josh.

"Heyo boss man, while I was up there I noticed one of the beams that holds up your roof has a substantial amount of wood rot, I'd highly recommend that we replace it... wouldn't want a portion of your roof cavin in on ya... it's a easy fix" Tam gave a smile as wrapped up his a report to Josh with a positive note.

_____________________________________________________________________________
[507 words]
[Total WC: 1802/3000]

Shane nodded to Tamlin’s exclamation and then he spoke up too.

“I’ll take care of the porch then,” Shane said as he pulled up the short sleeves of his T-shirt. The saw and other equipment were already prepared and the silver-haired mage went to the fallen tree first. He was going to have to saw the entire thing into manageable pieces and throw them away before he could get any work done. He looked the entire thing up and down, running his fingers over it, thinking if there was a way to recycle the fallen tree. However, when he was finally done, the Rune Knight said nothing and just began to saw it.

As he sawed away the first segment, his idea being to saw it into five segments to make it more manageable, it was obvious that rot had already set into the fallen tree. There was no point to keeping it now. Shane had wanted to use his magic to make short work out of it, but he was worried that it might cause more damage to the instead. Hence, resolving himself to do it like a normal civilian. Not that he was complaining. He treated it as nothing more than exercise, putting consistent strength in each motion, pulling and pushing away until what remained of the tree was five circular pieces of the trunk, cut at similar height.

“Wow, that’s some damage,” Shane exclaimed when he finally moved the last of the tree. It had occupied a third of the porch when it fell, and the damage was much worse than expected. None of the wooden planks forming the porch was whole. Each of them had been broken to some extent, the tree having fallen perfectly across all the planks. Josh poked his head from around a corner, working on some part of the house and then walked over.

“Fortunately I got more than enough wooden planks to replace it,” Josh said after whistling when he saw the damage. “I really can’t thank you enough for the help, Shane.”

The silver-haired Rune Knight merely shrugged it off, “Hey, it’s our job.”

And then he got to working. Grabbing four to five planks each trip in a bear hug, he finally moved all the required pieces that he needed near the porch. It took him fifteen minutes of placing down the planks, and another fifteen to align them as evenly as possible. Another fifteen was taken when Josh walked past and accidentally knocked into them as he carried some flowerpots in his arms. The man mumbled an apology as he continued on, leaving Shane to give him a dirty glare until he turned around the corner, unseen by the recipient.

[452 words]
[Total WC: 2254/3000]

Tam quickly went to work and managed to figure out a way to fix the rotten wood without pulling Josh or Shane from their work. Tam simply took two pieces of lumber and used them as points to keep certain parts a hoist as he took out the rotten wood. After a few grueling minutes Tam was able to place a new board in order to replace the rotted wood. Some sweat began to pour on his brow as he hammered the nails on the fresh timber. Eventually the replacement wooden beam was in its place. Tam began to return back to his original purpose and fix the shingles on the roof top. He swiftly placed the busted wooden boards and began to quickly set the shingles bit by bit. Eventually the roof began to come together as the hole on the roof began to shrink. Soon enough the damaged roof was repaired leaving no trace of the hole caused by the storm.

The next on Tam's list was the gutter. His eyes widened as he saw the gutter haphazardly lean on the side with the missing bolts and pieces scattered around. He quickly went to work and began to unscrew the remaining bolts. He carefully removed the damaged gutter and began to lay the scrap metal on to the side to keep it out of everyone's way. He then went over to the front of the house and began to gather the materials he needed for the gutter repair. Once everything he needed for the repair was accounted for he quickly began to work and began to repair the broken gutter. Tam hoisted himself back upon the roof and began to set the new gutter in its new home. After meticulous measuring and a bit of planning Tam was able to finalize the location for the last remaining parts of the gutter. Tam screwed the gutter to its place, he nailed some of the lose parts, and he double checked to make sure that it didn't spring any leaks. He held out his hand and summoned a small stream of water and poured it into the gutter. He checked his handiwork to make that there wasn't any leaks that was springing out from it.

Everything seemed good, the gutter worked properly. Tam smiled and gave himself a metaphorical pat on a back by rewarding himself with a candy bar. He happily munched on his candy bar. "I wonder how Shane and Josh is doin..." Grumbled Tam as he climbed down from the roof to in order to see how his fellow compatriots were doing. He peeked around the corner and saw Josh accidentally knock some of the planks out of place. Tam went over to Shane and quietly helped him put the planks back to their original places.

_______________________________________________________________________________
[469 words]
[Total: WC: 2723/3000]

Shane grinned when Tamlin came over to help with arranging the floor boards, another pair of eyes and hands making short work of installing the new floorboards. Once they were hammered in and secured, the silver-haired mage pulled out the can of lacquer and brushed on a nice layer of the amber liquid on it. Once dried, it would give off a shiny gloss and add a nice depth of color to the different-colored planks that they had used. Satisfied with his work and glad that Tamlin had helped him out, Shane gave the young man a pat on his shoulder.

“Thanks Tam, couldn’t have done it better without you. Get yourself comfortable since you’ve done all of your stuff. I will go upstairs to help Josh with the windows and we should be able to call it a day,” Shane said with a grin before clearing up his used equipment and can of lacquer before running off to the second floor of the house. Shane gave the house a good look over as he went upstairs, noting the minimalistic décor of the house that gave off a warm feeling despite being simple.

He found Josh struggling with the windows, having only completed replacing one of out of the six windows that were broken. The man lacked the strength, but he did his best to balance the windows in place while screwing it in as quickly as possible. The Rune Knight went over to help him hold the window, drawing a smile to Josh’s tensed face and with a few expert twists of the screwdriver, secured the new window. The remaining four windows was completed in record time, Shane holding up the new windows while Josh secured them.

And when they were finally done, Shane collected all of the broken windows, three under each arm, and brought them downstairs to the yard where he placed it the rest of the broken stuff. Josh had contacted a rubbish collector to pick up the unwanted stuff so they wouldn’t have to worry about the disposal.

Looking at his repaired home from the yard with a satisfied grin, Josh then clapped his hands and said, “It’s time for lunch, isn’t it?” just as his wife shouted for them to come in and have their lunch.

[382 words]
[Total WC: 3105 / 3000]