https://www.fairytail-rp.com/t35214-free-form-jobYou know, like not killing young animals so that they could be harvested later on in their lives. But yeah, that didn’t seem to be the norm around here. The herb spots were baren. That was exactly not the right thing to do so she was understandably pissed. “What if they went and got rid of all the herb sites and now I have to spend weeks looking for more!?” were her immediate thoughts. This whole situation screamed that someone around here was a jerk or wasn’t trained well in the slightest. Well, she was going to have to find who did it.
Suddenly nothing made sense. She felt like she was… was she in a bar? She couldn’t think straight. She had a feeling that she had wanted to drink… but she felt already drunk. Wait, where was her drink? She looked around. Somehow it had moved. She leapt at it, walking on top of a table and reaching for her pitcher. “how’d you get over there!?” she asked as she started drinking. That was when she noticed the someone start partaking in the drinking and she heard words form in her mind. "You’re about to meet your downfall!” At the end of those words she suddenly came back to reality. Something was odd about this forest. It caused her to see some illusions that she didn't understand. She'd have to keep on her guard.
“Oh…” she said to a woman who suddenly appeared in front of her. Then she said, “OH! Are you the one I’m supposed to meet here?” She wasn’t one for names but she could definitely remember this girl for the brief moments they had spent together. She let the woman come closer to examine all she liked. “Oh hey you,” Ivara would call back, without even turning around, “we’re looking for herbs. How about you help us with those eyes of yours?” She turned and pointed to the scroll which depicted a number of herbs on it. “You always do pop in just in the nick of time!” Then out of nowhere even more girls came out of nowhere. Ivara did her best to keep control as the other girls went crazy. She let out a snicker when the new person she’d met today let out a very smart comment. “Good one,” she noted. That aside, they still had their obstacle to contend with. A big scavenger hunt of herbs that she didn’t think she wanted to tackle after looking into it. She frowned as she walked up to it then put her hands on the ground. The ground shook a little and a giant tree formed, causing a bridge to be formed across forest. “That’ll do won’t it? This will give us safe passage I hope.”
Ivara ran through the area and finally, at long last, turned around the corner and saw a big ol’ collection of herbs. She thought to herself that she must have gotten the good end of the deal if she had been dealing with all those small herbs but this creature guarded this particular collection of herbs jealously. The lizard looked over at her which was exactly what she needed to trigger it into a trance that caused mental damage. It writhed even more vigorously but it would be unable to do very much as it was too busy trying to cope with its mental fatigue. Any opening. Perfect. Of course, there was little she could do to actually get to her opponent but there was something that she could do… She ran like there was no tomorrow, trying her best to position herself in such a way that she could dodge if the creature actually got his attack off. While he was distracted with her partner running around, Ivara shouted at the top of her lungs. Whether the creature focused on her or not was a nonissue. He would hear her scream and she used her time magic to paralyze him. Good. Now they could gather herbs.
Ivara shrugged when she realized that people were still tagging along. She heard that they were coming and heard some words. “You lot are kind of suspicious. Are you following me or something!?” she acted suspicious but she then burst out laughing, “just kidding. I’ve bumped into a number of people over and over again… maybe they’ve just laid this forest out so that you naturally go from one attraction to another.” She really couldn’t say. As the group dawdled around the lizard more and more people started filtering into the area. It wouldn’t be long before the mass of people would make it impossible to enjoy the herb collection spot for long. “maybe it’s time to head onto the next place,” she suggested to the people around her with a sigh. Ivara looked at which direction her partner had gone to and she went the opposite way. There was no point in entering a match of speed because she would probably lose. She was going to try her luck at getting to the next good herbs first. Except not one minute in and she’d already run into a dead end. She shouted angrily and wished that she could just penetrate the trees of the forest. She knew she could… if she tried hard enough. But she wasn’t that desperate. For now she would double back around and take the next path. She read something about being able to solve any maze if you kept turning in the same direction.
Ivara frowned when she came up to an injured animal. He looked wounded, or dizzy, something like that. She focused healing energy into him which would hopefully make him feel a little better. It was the least she could do for having him do all the hard work. She guessed that it had been struggling out of a trap. “Boy, that thing tuckered you out didn’t it? I’m glad you got stuck with him, not me! What are you doing after this anyways? I’m getting kind of hungry.” She thought about how far the nearest town was from here then wondered if she was willing to even walk that far. She shrugged. She guessed she could make it if her partner could. Ivara walked along, directly behind some animals as she hunted for herbs. She wasn’t too worried about them the rickety branches above her falling off as the trees were quite girthy. But in any case, she was positioned between the various people around her so that she could catch them with branches if something like a strong gust did happen to push against them.
After most of that had been settled, Ivara snooped around this area with a practiced eye, trying her best to look for clues that would lead her to more herbs. Though all she found was a locket on the ground. She heard some commotion behind her. It sounded like ghosts were in the area and started to arrive. Ivara shrugged and booted the locket only for her foot to meet an impressive force of resistance. “Really now, you come to my farm and the first thing you do is kick my favorite locket?” It was Ivara who screamed this time. She turned around to see a man dressed in exquisite clothes. The ghost looked so prim and proper, except he was holding his head under his arm like a football. “Heavens keep your voice down,” the ghost said as he got scared from her yelling. She ran as fast as she could. She didn’t want any haunted herbs. After about half an hour of wandering through the forest and getting absurdly tired of walking, Ivara spotted her partner coming from the opposite direction. It seemed that it didn’t matter which way you entered the forest, you were bound to arrive at this very spot. They were, in fact, not too far from the center of the forest. You could even hear the people on the other side of the bushes gathering stuff.
“I hate crowds,” her partner said. “Yeah I feel you,” Ivara said to her partner. Big crowds were always a hassle, especially when dealing with a hangover. She then positioned herself so that she could talk to the other group of gatheres. “I heard there are some performers in the next town over. How about we go check them out?” She gathered up some herbs that were left and with that she made her exit. Hopefully they wanted to see some cool stuff with her and provide interesting commentary. She’d always wanted to see a trained fire dancer and this was going to be her chance! But when she walked towards the town she frowned. There was a kid sitting on a rock and trying to sell them something. She wanted to ask how this kid even got here but the answer to that was simple. It was probably some kind of transportation magic. She guessed that most places were accessible with that kind of thing. “We’re not interested,” she told the kid and then she shrugged off his peddled wares.
Soon they entered a fog. Someone asked if she was really her and she said, “yeah it’s me. Maybe I shouldn’t have gone this way,” before turning to face whatever it was that was causing the fog. It lookedlike a ghost or something. This was much unlike any kind of ghost Ivara had ever seen before. Was it even a ghost? She didn’t even know. She felt roots curl up around her to help defend herself. She hoped she hadn’t accidentally stumbled upon some kind of enemy. “So what’s your deal?” she asked the spirit looking thing, “are you a demon or were you really that ugly when you were alive!? Wait, what do I care, just tell me why you’re haunting us!”
Ivara frowned at the strange spirit… whatever this was. He claimed to have possessed a human body but that really didn’t answer her question. She wanted to solve the mystery so she could rub it in everyone’s face that she’d been the one to do it. But it seemed intent on fighting so she thought she might as well do something about that. Except… yeah she didn’t think anything she had worked on the undead, or the non-living. If they didn’t have senses to fool then she was boned. Well, that meant she was just going to… run. She dove for cover, out of the way of the boulder, as someone shot out a torrent of water at the thing and she shouted, “yeah, get him!”
After getting doused with water the ghost thing just… disappeared and then they were allowed to get on with their day. Once in the town Ivara walked about, not sure what to do with her day. She’d just left the gardens and she was ready to watch some performers. That was what she had wanted to do for a while though. She needed to find something to do to burn time though. She only had to do a little bit more in order to make sure that she got the fullest experience. She ended up watching some big sumo wrestler sized guy blow fire several meters into the air. Cool beans. But what else was there to offer? Surely there was some magical stuff around here somewhere… She ended up spending the rest of her day in a maze of some sorts. Ivara kept on running, turning every which way at random and before long she started to tire. She slowed to a slow jog and wondered how big this maze was. She knew she had been close to the end but… now she was perhaps moving away from the center? What, was that just a tease? She eventually finished the maze and went home.
The next day she focused on training. To become one with oneself. Hmm, what a novel concept. Ivara wasn’t one to put much stock in being a better version of herself which was why the thought of meditating and getting a clearer mind was completely foreign to her. She took out a piece of paper and some drawing utensils. She hoped that by drawing out the steps necessary she would get some inner enlightenment. After a good half hour she had finished drawing all the lines, the woman then stretched out her arm, she had her right hand, all these fingers were tight. Suddenly, her hand was surrounded by a bluish color, it was energy. She was very surprised by her technique, she cut the papers as if they were broken in butter. The cut was clear and precise, if it did not go, it was bound to be her fault, her work seemed perfect. She smiled at her little art project but it was hardly going to be enough to call today a wrap. She had much to do in terms of becoming a better person with some serious character development. She tried to sit still and meditate. It was time for self reflection after all and she was determined to make this work out.
If only this was going to be that simple. She was unfortunately disturbed by people doing construction in the next building over. She groaned and opened an eyelid to peek out the window. She saw workmen then arrived and brought the plates to go the plates against the base of a house which they had made. Part of the foundation had already been repaired and a woman covered it with sand, it was a characteristic of the buildings in the area, the main material that we use comes from the natural resources they had to offer. It is an inexpensive material to bring and very versatile! This woman, she think she is a designer, she does not just cover the wall, she sculpts certain shapes using her special abilities, she find her rather pretty and brought her a certain atmosphere to the neighborhood. Ivara shut her eyes again but she couldn’t help but notice something that she saw. She saw a shadow near a door, it was a human shadow. Oh why oh why was someone trying to bother her when she was trying to focus within herself and become a better person? This was self reflection time, couldn’t they see that!?
She opened her eyes and looked out the window again. It looks like people, the shadows move and vaguely draw the silhouette of people. She cannot say how many there are. However, civilians and other people are prohibited here during the works. She will have to go and check. She walked then towards the door, it was the laying of work and she still had time, she did not know what she was going to discover but this was going to be could make her experience the strangest day of this week. She was advancing then, she did not know what was hidden behind but as she advanced, she distinguished two voices, one must be that of a girl, the other, more serious, a boy. They seemed to be bickering, when she opened the door, she saw two teenagers, a boy and a girl, as she had imagined. When they saw that she had opened the door, they stopped, she saw on the face of the girl that she was annoying, her arms were growing weary at her chest. She looked at her and said, “Hello you, I'm sorry, we didn't want to scare you. We are both students of the dojo being built next door.”
Ivara groaned. So much for self reflection. She shrugged it off though. She had other stuff she could be working on. Like… she thought, oh yeah, she could train. She walked out of the building and by doing so she left the room, leaving her with one of them. The teenager who argued with her. "It seems to be sad, however, if a girl like her bickers with her, she will be really happy that she goes away and leaves me alone, really crazy her daughters .." He looked down, then continued his little monologue that was addressed to her while looking at the ground. “it's true that we often bicker, in fact we are rivals but , recently... No nothing, forget it, anyway I have to go back to work. They are really scary here, their behavior is so abnormal that I get goosebumps, well, I'm going back to it." He then joined the worker's team, his work was finished but, he still had to put away the equipment, some of them were refining what they had finished by adding finishing touches. So he placed her armpits on the rollers, and had stuff on each of his hands. He brought everything he was going to use outside.
Ivara was glad to see those guys go. Now, finally, she could leave and go to the training area. The trip there was rather uneventful except for the fact that there was a cat following her. This wasn’t the first time she’d been tailed by a cat. She’d even bonded with one recently to help train in the arts of feeling and manipulating the natural energy around her. So she chatted with the cat, learned his name, and why he was here. Sure enough he was here to hound her to make sure she didn’t slack on her training and to make sure that she mastered what she had started some time ago. It was annoying but… she couldn’t complain too much. This kind of stuff was really high on her priority list but she just put it off way too often. But soon enough they got to the training area and took a seat by a big old tree. It was one of the few trees around that could actually be considered a tree in this dry environment. But no matter, she could just make her own tree. She willed nature around her to shift and out from the ground rose a sapling.
“A sapling? That’s it?” the cat said with a sarcastic meow. “It’s harder than it looks when it’s all dry like this. It’s exhausting,” Ivara replied with a sneer. “And besides, I’m not done yet.” She focused harder and willed the tree to grow. It sucked the little water in the ground and low and behold… the tree grew to be a half meter thick within a minute or so. It was exhausting, having to provide her own energy into the process as there wasn’t much to go off of. It was difficult work and in the end she panted and leaned against the tree for support. “not much better than a sapling,” the cat commented quite rudely. “Well, did you at least try to mix in natural energy? That’s why we’re here anyways. If you’re just going to goof off and do your own thing I can just leave.” The cat pounced onto her shoulder and ruffled her hair with its paws. “Hey stop it! Get off!” Ivara shouted, grabbing the cat with both her hands and tossing it up into the tree. “As if. Now I want you to make this tree bigger. And don’t waste my time. I’ve got a nap scheduled and I can’t miss it.”
Ivara groaned. She couldn’t have asked for a less understanding teacher. But whatever. She put her hands onto the tree and meditated while standing. She already knew the basics of pulling natural energy around her to her aid. It was part of what made her special. She was more or less infused with the ability to gather energy around her so she put that to her advantage. She drew in the natural energy, feeling her body change under the effects ever so slightly. But she didn’t keep it within her body. As soon as she got it she pushed it into the tree. It was this that she had a lot of difficulty with. She pushed too much into the tree and it grew. It grew much larger in all the wrong places. Within a minute it’d grown to have a beer gut, if a tree could possibly have such a thing. It was more or less bulging out on one side which was not exactly what she had intended to do with the energy. It just meant that there were a lot of things she could improve upon. “not bad,” the cat said from up above, “but remember that this isn’t a show of force. Yadda yadda.”
Ivara tried again. She put more energy into the tree after carefully collecting it. She felt the energy push into the tree but this time she tried to direct it as best she could. She could send the energy upwards, downwards, wherever she liked really. It was like having to relearn how to create a tree all over again. It was tedious. She hated the process. But she continued all the same. She let the energy continuously flow through her this time. There was no pause or break in this process. It was like she was a vacuum to the energy around her and she simply fed the energy back into the tree at the same speed she took it in. And boy, did the tree grow. Within a couple minutes it was three meters thick and dozens of meters tall. The cat hopped down and dug its claws into her as she started going faster and faster. “That’s enough there. Don’t need you drawing too much and getting penalized for it. Let’s head back to where those construction workers were. Maybe we can put your newfound abilities to the test.” Ivara nodded. She was ready to move on by now.
And so they headed back to the construction site. Ivara and the cat sat and observed the people working for a while. After this little tidying up, which lasted a long time, the workers were responsible for cleaning the room. A foreman walked up and said to them “When we make a site, it must be clean, it's like we recognize the importance of sanitization.” The cat said, “we can help. Give us a job.” So the foreman scribbled down some instructions. Ivara took them and before she knew she then carried out a chore provided with a mop and a bucket of water. She then wiped the floor, drawing "S" with the mop that she had in hand. While she was working, “This isn’t what I had in mind." She sighed then, no one was in this room, they had left for, she guessed they were smoking outside. Some people are really stupid, they spend their time complaining about their poor income but spending the little they have on these things that destroy them from the inside. Medicine may be at its peak, no effective remedy has been found on the ravages of cigarettes. However, something interrupted her thinking, the two young people who kept spoiling her day were kissing.
Ivara tried to ignore them. She thought that this kind of public display of affection was a little much. So she tried to work on her chores. The cat sat on her shoulder and whispered, “it’s not about the chore, it’s about using natural energy around you to help you. Try infusing that mop with some natural energy and see how much more range you get out of that bad boy.” Ivara nodded and did so, flowing natural energy into the mop and trying to spread out the mop’s area of influence. She did not understand anything anymore though, the girl was in the arms of the young boy, they looked now in the eyes, she believe that they do not know that she was still there. However if she remembered correctly, they said they were raised in a dojo or something. According to typical rules, it was forbidden to maintain a more than friendly relationship between students. The two teenagers then turned to her, they had just seen her, it was too late, she couldn't pretend that she hadn't seen anything. They got nervous, one nodded from left to right, it is a tick that many sorts of people have and they do when they have made a mistake.
The woman, she was waving her hand to her, like she shouldn't say anything, like she should never have been there. The task of infusing natural energy into her mop was so boring that she wished she was transported away to a much more complex set of tasks. She had to make a choice, warn the managers of the dojo and tell them everything she had just seen or keep quiet, for the good of their couple but at the risk of taking a penalty if we ever discovered that she didn’t. What was she going to do? She hadn't chosen, she didn't even think about it. She simply put the mop she was holding in her hand against a wall, to listen to what the couple was telling her. The two young people seemed to be willing to do anything and so far they hadn't stopped bickering. She don't understand anything about their behavior, nothing stuck with what she had just seen. And yet, she had just seen them make out. Whatever. Ivara sighed, picked up the mop again, and just started working on gathering and using nature magic again with her false god lacrhima. “Why am I doing this anyways,” she asked the cat.
“It’s to work on your delicateness. You proved you can surge energy into the tree. That is good. Now you have to repeat the process with something delicate like in your every day life. If you want to be one of the greats, you have to learn how to be gentle with your energy.” The cat extended a claw as Ivara got annoyed and went a little too far, blowing apart the end of the mop with a single bad thought. “now now, control your temper. And go get another mop.” So Ivara went over to get another mop. On the way she was confronted by the boy again. The young man, very embarrassed, put his palm on his neck, while the girl jumped on the side, yet all that was useless, she had seen them and they knew it. The young man took a step forward and stammered, “It's not what you think.” The girl cut him off, and took a hesitant but equally trembling tone. “Do not say anything. I know you saw us but if you ever tell everything to madam, we would be punished and we could not come to the dojo.” She shed a tear though she knew there were rules and they must be enforced.
What the girl didn’t know was how little Ivara cared. As she picked up the mop to do more practice with gathering natural energy she couldn’t help but want to just leave. But the cat was very insistent. Perhaps his goal was to put her in a distracting environment to test her nerves. Ivara realized that when she actually used energy around her in battle she wouldn’t have time to calm down. She would have to work under stress. So she dealt with it, focusing energy down the mop and trying her best to coat the entire object with natural energy that she drew in from her surroundings. It was hard. Far harder than she thought it should be… but she persevered. The teens looked scared out of their minds though. They were aware before they even came here to learn that it was punished and yet. She don't understand how you can do such a thing. Certainly, love is something special, you can't get rid of it that easily, but they could at least have kept Ivara away from it. If they had no desire to have so many responsibilities imposed upon their little souls, they should have thought about it.
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The cat jumped off Ivara’s shoulder and said, “I think you’ve done it. This is as good as you’re going to get with our training thus far. You have to practice in combat next. And I’m afraid I don’t have time to help out with that as I’m going to be late for my nap. Good day to you all.” He then walked off out of the room and then was not seen again for the rest of the day. Perhaps he had taken to perching atop the construction site or something. Ivara didn’t really care though. She was way past being bored of learning this natural energy stuff. She was ready to just go home and post up in bed. But she felt like she should deal with these teens first. The young boy recovered and seemed to regain courage. He glanced at the person he was holding in his arms. “I'm sorry but we shouldn't have. You know it as well as I do. And now we have mixed this woman in our business, I intend to denounce myself, I would say that I forced you, I will invent a story, something, I will get you out of there.”
Ivara thought he was completely crazy, he was a fool, in addition, if he told someone his unbelievable story nobody would even take him seriously. She said, “Well to tell you the truth you’re both overreacting. I don’t care about either of you or this dojo. I’m just temporarily housing nextdoor and you lot decided to pull me into your business. So yeah, I guess just be careful around people who do care? I don’t know. I’m out of here though. I would be impressed if someone was going to get angry for so little, but I guess you must think about the consequences. And don’t you think that the foreman, the old man will come back to check the cleaning that you guys have done. Maybe he will ask and make you tell him about it. He's an old man and he's probably someone with great wisdom. Go bother him for advice.” She then left the couple to their own misery. It wasn’t time for Ivara to be sad. It was time for her to be happy.
5051 words. A rank job COMPLETE!