Teresa was stopped, dead in her tracks, by the sudden question of whether she was busy. The truth was that she had actually just finished and was now on her way to find a new job. She had only just recently joined the Silver Wolf guild and she was eager to make a good impression. So to see it was actually the head of the scholar division, was a pleasant surprised. If she recalled correctly and judging from the hair color, this was probably Mercury. “Also you are correct, I am Teresa Sinclair. It is a pleasure to meet someone as esteemed as yourself.” She said with a faint smile as she looked straight at the person in front of her. “Well I have always been a lucky woman.” She continued with a polite smile as she stiffly nodded towards the insinuation about being lucky.
As expected the woman was indeed Mercury, the description Leona had given was quite accurate. The fact that the question, are you busy, lead to a job was even less surprising. The silver eyed witch could tell Mercury found the situation funny for some reason. “It will be my pleasure, miss Arseneault.” She replied stoically, yet sporting a smile, as she accepted the job slip. She put two of her slender long fingers around the piece of paper Mercury held forward and she gently pulled it out.
With that over, Teresa bade Mercury goodbye and made for the bar where she had an appointment to meet a man. After fixing up the roof of Josh, after the recent storm, he had insisted upon rewarding her with something other than the standard fee. After long haggling she had finally managed to talk him down to a nice dinner. Since she was not familiar with the area they had agreed to meet in the Silver Wolf headquarters.
She had planned to pick up her next job, have a quick dinner and then leave. However this new job was an emergency, it even said so on the job slip and therefore a good excuse to get out of it.
Ten minutes, quite a scene and some embarrassment later, Teresa was finally free to move on. In hindsight she wished she never gave Josh even the dinner. Apparently he had taken her finger and went berserk. He had taken it upon himself to hire a table in the most exclusive restaurant in motor city, arranged a carriage ride to the place and somehow managed to arrange a minstrel. At the very least. He was complaining so loudly about the costs of the preparation the bartender had intervened and threw him out.
“Right, I should bring back a little than you souvenir for him.” Teresa muttered to herself as she sat down on top of her bed. She was just busy working out what kind of things she would need for the trip.
If she recalled correctly the village lay to the south-east of Fiore and could be well reached by train. Which was rather good as that meant she would have the time to start and maybe finish a book she had been meaning to read for a while. She had picked it up recently during one of her explorations. Somewhere deep in the snow covered mountains above the haunted castle, she had come across a small village. All in all nothing special, except for the way they had incorporated their magic in the metals they used. Somehow they managed to bind their magic into their steel to make it stronger. Similar to her haki magic to strengthen her sword and armor if need be.
However these villagers had apparently found a way to do it more naturally, perhaps even during the forging process. To say Teresa was looking forward to reading it, was a slight understatement.
She quickly packed her spatial bag with all the necessities and then made her way to the train station. The station was packed and Teresa noticed how the cold air was forming little clouds as she exhaled. It was a bit early, but it seemed the first snow of the season was about to come down. Which meant delays of course. Luckily there was a place on the station that sold hot coffee and gave her a bit of shelter from the cold wind. Sipping from her steaming hot coffee, Teresa pulled out the thick tome and began to read it.
By the time the train finally arrived, she was already a hundred pages into the book and quite intrigued by everything that was being described. Somehow they managed to use lightning magic to super heat the metal or something. It was all rather technical and she did not completely understand yet.
As the train finally rolled into the station she closed the book loudly, put it back in her bag and threw the five empty cups of coffee in the thrash.
For a moment she wondered whether she should get a new coffee, but judging from the trembling in her fingers, she probably had enough already. Instead she got an extra large cup of sencha green tea to go and quickly boarded the train. Due to the snow it was rather full. Normally she did not care much about it, but she was set upon reading an ancient and possible very expansive tome. So she quickly approached one of the employees and arranged that she could use one of the first class carriages. Since she was a guild mage she even got a discount.
Of course it was lucky she could use her shield magic to cover up the broken window. Which was why the wagon was abandoned in the first place during the cold. Had she known that beforehand she might have gotten more of a ‘discount’.
In any case it was nice to have a private carriage and with the window fixed for the moment, it was already getting quite nice in here. With a happy sigh she took a sip of her tea and picked out the bench that looked the most comfortable. From her bag she pulled out a small pillow, the blanket and her book. This was the reason why she loved traveling. It usually allowed her to read as much as she wanted during the trip. After having wet her finger she opened the book at the page she had marked and continued what she had started outside.
…
By the time she arrived she was three quarters into the book and definitely in over her head. She had some idea’s how things worked, but she was definitely going to have to visit the blacksmithing guild for their help on some of the more refined theories described.
Partially annoyed though that they were already there, she closed the book, folded up the blanket and stuffed everything back into her bag. As soon a train slowed to a halt, Teresa got up and began to make her way outside. By now the train seemed to have been almost abandoned. Only a few more passengers were still sitting and fewer got off at this stop. She had been so preoccupied she had barely noticed all the stops.
“Allright now to find the school.” She said to herself as she stepped out of the train. Luckily it was not hard to find. The village was very small and she could smell the goats all the way from the station. “Ugh… this is not going to be pleasant.” She said as she swallowed before making her way to the school.
The closer she got the stronger the sound and smell of goat became. She had thought about a strategy, but aside from killing the goats, there was probably not a lot she could do about them. Heck if her theory was right about the type of artifact, the goats would probably not dispel either once it was stopped. The goats were here and they were here to stay.
“My name is Teresa Sinclair and I am with the Silver Wolf guild. You asked for help?” She said as she reached the gates of the school. Luckily it was a classic design, surrounded by high walls on all sides to protect the students from wild animals and in this case keeping the goats in. Considering from the noise, that was probably a good thing. “Ah nice to meet you. I am the principle. As you can probably smell we have an artifact here that summons goats.”principle began, not before having checked the validity of Teresa’s stamp in the back of her neck.
The gist of it was that a pendant a student had been wearing for a long time somehow had been activated. The children had been practicing their magic and in specifically their ability to absorb it from the air and harness it to bolster their own might. Somehow the pendant had suddenly began to whir and sizzle. Luckily the student had been able to take it off just in time, before it was engulfed in some kind of red glow. Ever since then it had been summoning goats all over the school grounds. They had tried to destroy the pendant, after disabling it did not work, but somehow the glow acted as a kind of barrier. Or something. The principle and teachers were completely outclassed by this artifact. After all they just been teaching middle school.
After exchanging all the information Teresa had taken her leave from the principle and entered the gate. Luckily she knew a magic to settle her stomach and it still managed to almost turn around as soon as she entered the school. There was a reason why goats were outside animals. Their own smell combined with poop EVERYWHERE, was enough to make her instantly nauseous. With a snap of her finger she reequipped a scented scarf over he nose, but it barely helped.
Luckily soon her attention was drawn from the smell. At first the goats seemed to ignore her, but for some reason the closer she came to the central hall, the more aggressive they became. Several times she had barely been able to jump aside to avoid a serious head butt. Still by the time she got to the staircase her boots where covered in poop and she could feel the smell seep into her pores.
“Lucky my pink soft ass!” She grumbled as she annoyed grappled an on storming goat by the horns and threw it in a single motion across the room. Teresa was used to swinging her one hundred thirty pounds light claymore, so the goats were nothing but a nuisance. Still they were disruptive and their fatty oils from the fur was slowly getting on her hands. “Tsck and still… if I killed you all and painted the school red with your blood, somehow people would find a way to make me look bad…” She grumbled as she finally made it to the class room from which she felt the magic flow.
With a few waves from her hands she placed forcefields around all the doors and windows leading to the classroom, so she could focus on the pendant. On one of the tables lay a small black pendant. From what she could tell it was just oxidized silver. However there was a pattern of black crystals and the center piece was made out of red onyx and shaped in the form of a bull. “Ah so this is it.” She said quite interested as she stretched out her hand towards it, only to be repelled with quite a nasty shock.
Still that hardly mattered. Even without touching it she could sense the magic flowing. The pendant was absorbing the aether from the air, using it to summon the goats. At this rate it would probably fall formant in a couple of weeks anyway, as there would be no more aether left in the air. Still that would probably annoy the principle and she was under strict orders to solve the problem before the man pulled out his remaining hair. A futile measure, but still one she should adhere to. So she focused deeper onto the pendant and felt the core. It was tiny, yet powerful and self sustaining. Meaning that now that it was active it could probably keep doing this indefinitely.
Rather impressive since she guessed the pendant to be at the very least three hundred years old.
Still there were several ways to resolve the situation. She could wrap the pendant in one of her cubicle kekkai forcefields, thus cutting of it’s supply of aether. That way she could take it back to the guild and let Mercury figure it out. However that probably would not count as resolving the job and could possibly unleash a plague of goats in the HQ. She shuddered at the thought of those foul goats roaming through the beautiful halls. Not to mention the fact that Mercury might not like it if her precious labs were overrun by these unholy creatures From what she heard, Mercury was rather protective about them.
So no, that was not really an option. As she circled around the pendant and studied it, she thought of several methods to render it inactive, but try as she might, none worked as intended. Puzzled and frustrated she kept pacing, wondering whether in the end she would be forced to give up either and call defeat. Until suddenly a wave of inspiration hit her.
The pendant was drawing in the aether. All she had to do was absorb the aether in the pendant and especially that core thing. If she could do that, she could probably disarm it.
“Ok little one, let’s see who can absorb magic faster, you or me.” She spoke softly to the pendant as she stopped in front of it and stretched out both hands till the palms were directly above the item.
As the magic in the pendant was slowly absorbed through her finger tips, the glow around it started to fade. Normally draining magic is easy, however to drain something completely is a different story. Imagine if you will the different between emptying a bottle and creating a vacuum inside said bottle. Beads of sweat were falling from Teresa’s head and the tip of her tongue was sticking from the corner of her mouth as she was concentrating.
After several tense minutes, finally the pendant made a weird sizzling noise and the glow faded completely. To Teresa’s surprise a small hatch on the back of the pendant swung open and she could see all kinds of tiny gears inside the crystal. In fact the gears occupied far more space than there actually was in the pendant. She had seen this kind of dimensional or spatial technology, yet never on such small scale. The silver eyed witch barely recognized half of the things inside, but upon further studies she found what she was looking for. It was a tiny, tiny, less than a grain of sand, black crystal. It was what had allowed the pendant to gather magic over the centuries and than work upon it’s activation. “There we go.” Teresa said with a smile as she had drawn a sigil in the air and formed a minuscule, but eternal shield around the crystal.
Well eternal is a big word, but at this side, the cubical hekai shield should at least last several centuries and preventing the pendant from gathering energy. With a sigh of relief she dispelled the shields around her, grabbed the pendant and made her way through the hordes of goats.
“Okay I am done. Now I am not sure what to do about all those goats. It does not seem them will disappear, just because the pendant is now shut down. Perhaps you could sell them to the farmers in the North. I hear they value goats milk there as is it quite fatty.” She said neutrally as she approached the principle, waiting for her by the door.
Naturally Teresa did help with hoarding the goats together. By using a combination of moving shield and solid shields, she managed to sweep all goats from a room and than sealing it off with a shield to prevent them from reentering. By the time the afternoon sun was already beginning to sink, she was exhausted, covered in sweat and excrement and smelling like a bunzing. At the request if she felt like she helping clean up the floor, amongst other things, she strongly declined. That was not her job at all. In fact the only reason she had agreed to be a goat herder was because she wanted to borrow the pendant.
After she was done with all the official pleasantries, she exited the school, the pendant tightly tucked in her breast pocket. She was just making her way through the city, back to the train station when she came across a curious little stall. It had recently started snowing here and that meant stalls which sold warm beverages and spirits to keep a person warm were sprouting up again like weeds. Interested she looked through the wares and suddenly her eye fell upon something in the bottom right corner. “Oh can I please have two of those bottles? I presume that is original Oshibana sake?” She asked the young woman occupying the stall. “Yes off course. My family has been brewing this for decades.” She replied with the sweetest smile Teresa had ever seen and she had to resist the urge to buy all the bottles. Just because of that smile.
With the two bottles in her bag, Teresa got onto the train and waited for it to start moving. It would take a few hours till they would get there, so she pulled a cozy blanket from her spatial bag and made herself comfortable. With a sigh of comfort and happiness she pulled out one of the bottles. Carefully she unscrewed the cap and brought the bottle to her nose. Careful like a cat she sniffed a few times and then took a tiny sip.
Instantly her eyes trembled a tiny bit and she licked her lips. It took all her will power to screw the cap back on and put the bottle back in her spatial bag. Instead she pulled out the thick tome she was reading on the way, wet her finger and opened it at the page she had last left it.
…
“Hello everyone, I am back.” She said jovially as she entered the HQ of the Silver Wolf guild a few hours later. The big tome was almost finished and she was quite eager to continue it in the comfort of her own room. Before she did though she opened her spatial bag and pulled out the job slip and the pendant. “Here, could you give this to miss Mercury and tell her the job has been finished. Oh and tell her I thought she might find it interesting to study the pendant. Since it is quite an ancient artifact and cleverly combined technology and magic.” Teresa said with a smile as she walked to the front desk and slit both items to the person occupying it at the moment.
Next thing she did was walk to the bar where she pulled out the two bottles of sake. “Here as a thank you, for helping me with that guy.” She said as she put the two bottles on the bar with a gentle touch. “The one that has been opened is mine. I will come back later to drink it. I would be happy if you were to drink yours than as well.” She said with a warm smile, gently brushing her blond hair to the side, before abruptly turning to the side and moving away from the bar.
It had been a long day, filled with goats and all she wanted to do was take a nice long shower and jump into bed to finish her book.
“Oh crap… I forgot to tell her about the shield.” She suddenly mumbled, having remembered she should have left instructions for mercury not to remove the tiny shield or crystal, as that might accidentally lead to the reactivation of the pendant. And she did not want to be held responsible for turning the HQ in a den of Goats. For one she did not think her nose could survive it a second time. With a sigh she shrugged her shoulders and made her way to the front desk.
Sadly upon arriving there she was told the pendant and paper were already on the way to Mercury in research lab three. Putting on a brave smile, Teresa nodded and than began the trudge to the lab herself. Oh and I should probably mention the family wants the heirloom back. Their priceless heirloom. She suddenly thought to herself, suppressing a shudder about the things a curious scientist could do in the quest to find out how something worked.
Hoping she was not yet too late, she increased her pace.
@Mercury Arseneault
As expected the woman was indeed Mercury, the description Leona had given was quite accurate. The fact that the question, are you busy, lead to a job was even less surprising. The silver eyed witch could tell Mercury found the situation funny for some reason. “It will be my pleasure, miss Arseneault.” She replied stoically, yet sporting a smile, as she accepted the job slip. She put two of her slender long fingers around the piece of paper Mercury held forward and she gently pulled it out.
With that over, Teresa bade Mercury goodbye and made for the bar where she had an appointment to meet a man. After fixing up the roof of Josh, after the recent storm, he had insisted upon rewarding her with something other than the standard fee. After long haggling she had finally managed to talk him down to a nice dinner. Since she was not familiar with the area they had agreed to meet in the Silver Wolf headquarters.
She had planned to pick up her next job, have a quick dinner and then leave. However this new job was an emergency, it even said so on the job slip and therefore a good excuse to get out of it.
Ten minutes, quite a scene and some embarrassment later, Teresa was finally free to move on. In hindsight she wished she never gave Josh even the dinner. Apparently he had taken her finger and went berserk. He had taken it upon himself to hire a table in the most exclusive restaurant in motor city, arranged a carriage ride to the place and somehow managed to arrange a minstrel. At the very least. He was complaining so loudly about the costs of the preparation the bartender had intervened and threw him out.
“Right, I should bring back a little than you souvenir for him.” Teresa muttered to herself as she sat down on top of her bed. She was just busy working out what kind of things she would need for the trip.
If she recalled correctly the village lay to the south-east of Fiore and could be well reached by train. Which was rather good as that meant she would have the time to start and maybe finish a book she had been meaning to read for a while. She had picked it up recently during one of her explorations. Somewhere deep in the snow covered mountains above the haunted castle, she had come across a small village. All in all nothing special, except for the way they had incorporated their magic in the metals they used. Somehow they managed to bind their magic into their steel to make it stronger. Similar to her haki magic to strengthen her sword and armor if need be.
However these villagers had apparently found a way to do it more naturally, perhaps even during the forging process. To say Teresa was looking forward to reading it, was a slight understatement.
She quickly packed her spatial bag with all the necessities and then made her way to the train station. The station was packed and Teresa noticed how the cold air was forming little clouds as she exhaled. It was a bit early, but it seemed the first snow of the season was about to come down. Which meant delays of course. Luckily there was a place on the station that sold hot coffee and gave her a bit of shelter from the cold wind. Sipping from her steaming hot coffee, Teresa pulled out the thick tome and began to read it.
By the time the train finally arrived, she was already a hundred pages into the book and quite intrigued by everything that was being described. Somehow they managed to use lightning magic to super heat the metal or something. It was all rather technical and she did not completely understand yet.
As the train finally rolled into the station she closed the book loudly, put it back in her bag and threw the five empty cups of coffee in the thrash.
For a moment she wondered whether she should get a new coffee, but judging from the trembling in her fingers, she probably had enough already. Instead she got an extra large cup of sencha green tea to go and quickly boarded the train. Due to the snow it was rather full. Normally she did not care much about it, but she was set upon reading an ancient and possible very expansive tome. So she quickly approached one of the employees and arranged that she could use one of the first class carriages. Since she was a guild mage she even got a discount.
Of course it was lucky she could use her shield magic to cover up the broken window. Which was why the wagon was abandoned in the first place during the cold. Had she known that beforehand she might have gotten more of a ‘discount’.
In any case it was nice to have a private carriage and with the window fixed for the moment, it was already getting quite nice in here. With a happy sigh she took a sip of her tea and picked out the bench that looked the most comfortable. From her bag she pulled out a small pillow, the blanket and her book. This was the reason why she loved traveling. It usually allowed her to read as much as she wanted during the trip. After having wet her finger she opened the book at the page she had marked and continued what she had started outside.
…
By the time she arrived she was three quarters into the book and definitely in over her head. She had some idea’s how things worked, but she was definitely going to have to visit the blacksmithing guild for their help on some of the more refined theories described.
Partially annoyed though that they were already there, she closed the book, folded up the blanket and stuffed everything back into her bag. As soon a train slowed to a halt, Teresa got up and began to make her way outside. By now the train seemed to have been almost abandoned. Only a few more passengers were still sitting and fewer got off at this stop. She had been so preoccupied she had barely noticed all the stops.
“Allright now to find the school.” She said to herself as she stepped out of the train. Luckily it was not hard to find. The village was very small and she could smell the goats all the way from the station. “Ugh… this is not going to be pleasant.” She said as she swallowed before making her way to the school.
The closer she got the stronger the sound and smell of goat became. She had thought about a strategy, but aside from killing the goats, there was probably not a lot she could do about them. Heck if her theory was right about the type of artifact, the goats would probably not dispel either once it was stopped. The goats were here and they were here to stay.
“My name is Teresa Sinclair and I am with the Silver Wolf guild. You asked for help?” She said as she reached the gates of the school. Luckily it was a classic design, surrounded by high walls on all sides to protect the students from wild animals and in this case keeping the goats in. Considering from the noise, that was probably a good thing. “Ah nice to meet you. I am the principle. As you can probably smell we have an artifact here that summons goats.”principle began, not before having checked the validity of Teresa’s stamp in the back of her neck.
The gist of it was that a pendant a student had been wearing for a long time somehow had been activated. The children had been practicing their magic and in specifically their ability to absorb it from the air and harness it to bolster their own might. Somehow the pendant had suddenly began to whir and sizzle. Luckily the student had been able to take it off just in time, before it was engulfed in some kind of red glow. Ever since then it had been summoning goats all over the school grounds. They had tried to destroy the pendant, after disabling it did not work, but somehow the glow acted as a kind of barrier. Or something. The principle and teachers were completely outclassed by this artifact. After all they just been teaching middle school.
After exchanging all the information Teresa had taken her leave from the principle and entered the gate. Luckily she knew a magic to settle her stomach and it still managed to almost turn around as soon as she entered the school. There was a reason why goats were outside animals. Their own smell combined with poop EVERYWHERE, was enough to make her instantly nauseous. With a snap of her finger she reequipped a scented scarf over he nose, but it barely helped.
Luckily soon her attention was drawn from the smell. At first the goats seemed to ignore her, but for some reason the closer she came to the central hall, the more aggressive they became. Several times she had barely been able to jump aside to avoid a serious head butt. Still by the time she got to the staircase her boots where covered in poop and she could feel the smell seep into her pores.
“Lucky my pink soft ass!” She grumbled as she annoyed grappled an on storming goat by the horns and threw it in a single motion across the room. Teresa was used to swinging her one hundred thirty pounds light claymore, so the goats were nothing but a nuisance. Still they were disruptive and their fatty oils from the fur was slowly getting on her hands. “Tsck and still… if I killed you all and painted the school red with your blood, somehow people would find a way to make me look bad…” She grumbled as she finally made it to the class room from which she felt the magic flow.
With a few waves from her hands she placed forcefields around all the doors and windows leading to the classroom, so she could focus on the pendant. On one of the tables lay a small black pendant. From what she could tell it was just oxidized silver. However there was a pattern of black crystals and the center piece was made out of red onyx and shaped in the form of a bull. “Ah so this is it.” She said quite interested as she stretched out her hand towards it, only to be repelled with quite a nasty shock.
Still that hardly mattered. Even without touching it she could sense the magic flowing. The pendant was absorbing the aether from the air, using it to summon the goats. At this rate it would probably fall formant in a couple of weeks anyway, as there would be no more aether left in the air. Still that would probably annoy the principle and she was under strict orders to solve the problem before the man pulled out his remaining hair. A futile measure, but still one she should adhere to. So she focused deeper onto the pendant and felt the core. It was tiny, yet powerful and self sustaining. Meaning that now that it was active it could probably keep doing this indefinitely.
Rather impressive since she guessed the pendant to be at the very least three hundred years old.
Still there were several ways to resolve the situation. She could wrap the pendant in one of her cubicle kekkai forcefields, thus cutting of it’s supply of aether. That way she could take it back to the guild and let Mercury figure it out. However that probably would not count as resolving the job and could possibly unleash a plague of goats in the HQ. She shuddered at the thought of those foul goats roaming through the beautiful halls. Not to mention the fact that Mercury might not like it if her precious labs were overrun by these unholy creatures From what she heard, Mercury was rather protective about them.
So no, that was not really an option. As she circled around the pendant and studied it, she thought of several methods to render it inactive, but try as she might, none worked as intended. Puzzled and frustrated she kept pacing, wondering whether in the end she would be forced to give up either and call defeat. Until suddenly a wave of inspiration hit her.
The pendant was drawing in the aether. All she had to do was absorb the aether in the pendant and especially that core thing. If she could do that, she could probably disarm it.
“Ok little one, let’s see who can absorb magic faster, you or me.” She spoke softly to the pendant as she stopped in front of it and stretched out both hands till the palms were directly above the item.
As the magic in the pendant was slowly absorbed through her finger tips, the glow around it started to fade. Normally draining magic is easy, however to drain something completely is a different story. Imagine if you will the different between emptying a bottle and creating a vacuum inside said bottle. Beads of sweat were falling from Teresa’s head and the tip of her tongue was sticking from the corner of her mouth as she was concentrating.
After several tense minutes, finally the pendant made a weird sizzling noise and the glow faded completely. To Teresa’s surprise a small hatch on the back of the pendant swung open and she could see all kinds of tiny gears inside the crystal. In fact the gears occupied far more space than there actually was in the pendant. She had seen this kind of dimensional or spatial technology, yet never on such small scale. The silver eyed witch barely recognized half of the things inside, but upon further studies she found what she was looking for. It was a tiny, tiny, less than a grain of sand, black crystal. It was what had allowed the pendant to gather magic over the centuries and than work upon it’s activation. “There we go.” Teresa said with a smile as she had drawn a sigil in the air and formed a minuscule, but eternal shield around the crystal.
Well eternal is a big word, but at this side, the cubical hekai shield should at least last several centuries and preventing the pendant from gathering energy. With a sigh of relief she dispelled the shields around her, grabbed the pendant and made her way through the hordes of goats.
“Okay I am done. Now I am not sure what to do about all those goats. It does not seem them will disappear, just because the pendant is now shut down. Perhaps you could sell them to the farmers in the North. I hear they value goats milk there as is it quite fatty.” She said neutrally as she approached the principle, waiting for her by the door.
Naturally Teresa did help with hoarding the goats together. By using a combination of moving shield and solid shields, she managed to sweep all goats from a room and than sealing it off with a shield to prevent them from reentering. By the time the afternoon sun was already beginning to sink, she was exhausted, covered in sweat and excrement and smelling like a bunzing. At the request if she felt like she helping clean up the floor, amongst other things, she strongly declined. That was not her job at all. In fact the only reason she had agreed to be a goat herder was because she wanted to borrow the pendant.
After she was done with all the official pleasantries, she exited the school, the pendant tightly tucked in her breast pocket. She was just making her way through the city, back to the train station when she came across a curious little stall. It had recently started snowing here and that meant stalls which sold warm beverages and spirits to keep a person warm were sprouting up again like weeds. Interested she looked through the wares and suddenly her eye fell upon something in the bottom right corner. “Oh can I please have two of those bottles? I presume that is original Oshibana sake?” She asked the young woman occupying the stall. “Yes off course. My family has been brewing this for decades.” She replied with the sweetest smile Teresa had ever seen and she had to resist the urge to buy all the bottles. Just because of that smile.
With the two bottles in her bag, Teresa got onto the train and waited for it to start moving. It would take a few hours till they would get there, so she pulled a cozy blanket from her spatial bag and made herself comfortable. With a sigh of comfort and happiness she pulled out one of the bottles. Carefully she unscrewed the cap and brought the bottle to her nose. Careful like a cat she sniffed a few times and then took a tiny sip.
Instantly her eyes trembled a tiny bit and she licked her lips. It took all her will power to screw the cap back on and put the bottle back in her spatial bag. Instead she pulled out the thick tome she was reading on the way, wet her finger and opened it at the page she had last left it.
…
“Hello everyone, I am back.” She said jovially as she entered the HQ of the Silver Wolf guild a few hours later. The big tome was almost finished and she was quite eager to continue it in the comfort of her own room. Before she did though she opened her spatial bag and pulled out the job slip and the pendant. “Here, could you give this to miss Mercury and tell her the job has been finished. Oh and tell her I thought she might find it interesting to study the pendant. Since it is quite an ancient artifact and cleverly combined technology and magic.” Teresa said with a smile as she walked to the front desk and slit both items to the person occupying it at the moment.
Next thing she did was walk to the bar where she pulled out the two bottles of sake. “Here as a thank you, for helping me with that guy.” She said as she put the two bottles on the bar with a gentle touch. “The one that has been opened is mine. I will come back later to drink it. I would be happy if you were to drink yours than as well.” She said with a warm smile, gently brushing her blond hair to the side, before abruptly turning to the side and moving away from the bar.
It had been a long day, filled with goats and all she wanted to do was take a nice long shower and jump into bed to finish her book.
“Oh crap… I forgot to tell her about the shield.” She suddenly mumbled, having remembered she should have left instructions for mercury not to remove the tiny shield or crystal, as that might accidentally lead to the reactivation of the pendant. And she did not want to be held responsible for turning the HQ in a den of Goats. For one she did not think her nose could survive it a second time. With a sigh she shrugged her shoulders and made her way to the front desk.
Sadly upon arriving there she was told the pendant and paper were already on the way to Mercury in research lab three. Putting on a brave smile, Teresa nodded and than began the trudge to the lab herself. Oh and I should probably mention the family wants the heirloom back. Their priceless heirloom. She suddenly thought to herself, suppressing a shudder about the things a curious scientist could do in the quest to find out how something worked.
Hoping she was not yet too late, she increased her pace.
@Mercury Arseneault
