Camera Retrieval

Job Details:

Job Sign-Up: Page 3, Post Number 72

-Outside the Haunted Guild, midnight-

Dressed in her casual outfit with the inclusion of tan hiking boots instead of dress shoes thanks to a brief trip to the mall after talking with Lorelei Wingate in Capital Crocus several days ago, Lucia was undoubtedly a curious sight... if anyone was around to see her, that was. Lucia stood about three meters from the steps leading up into the Haunted Guild, which would be the site of her first "real" job as a Guildless mage. Tonight her mission was to retrieve an old-fashioned camera that had been left behind by an amateur photographer from Magnolia Town who sensibly fled the Haunted Guild when they were started by what they claimed was a spirit. Now it was up to Lucia to retrieve the camera and take it back to Magnolia Town.

Having brought her new pistol Shining Light with her, Lucia was well-prepared to defend herself from any spirits who wanted to attack her. Shining Light fired rounds that could harm the supernatural... at least that was what the owner of Hargeon Handguns had told her when she bought the weapon. She hoped that she had not been conned when she purchased it. Lucia took a deep breath before mustering the courage to climb the stairs to the run-down building and open the door with her left hand before stepping inside.

-Inside the Haunted Guild-

Lucia shut the door behind her and looked around her. To her left was an old bookshelf filled with old books that were almost completely molded away. Slightly further up the hall and to her left was a wide staircase that led down to what she assumed was a basement. Straight ahead was a hallway that went on for several meters before an opening to the right could be seen. Lucia had no idea of where to go to find the camera since the person did not write down where the camera had last been seen, so she decided to go straight ahead first before she risked a trip to the basement.

Lucia drew Shining Light and walked down the hall that loomed straight ahead of her, noting that it was wide enough for one person to walk through and noting the rooms on the left side of the hall as she went.

When she reached the first room in the hallway she peered into it and saw nothing of interest except an old room with wallpaper that was peeling off of the wall and a floor that had cobwebs in the corners plus a lot of dust coating the floor. Lucia moved on and walked another ten steps until she came up to the entrance of the next room. She peered inside and saw nothing but an old wooden chair that looked like it would fall apart at any moment and a dusty floor with cobwebs in the corners. Lucia went down the hall to the third room and glanced inside.

Inside the third room was an old wooden bookshelf that was liberally coated in dust and containing books that were far older than Lucia. Cobwebs sat on the bottom shelf along with a few dead insect husks. Lucia moved on down the hallway and came to the branching path where she could either go right or continue straight ahead. The pistol-packing blonde looked down the hall straight ahead and saw something shiny gleaming in what little light there was.

That might be the lens of the camera.

With nothing else to go on, Lucia walked straight down the hall towards the gleaming object further down the hall. While walking towards the camera she thought that she saw a translucent humanoid shape lurking in the gloom about fifteen meters away, but she could not really tell. It might just be the power of suggestion at work. Since the place was named "Haunted Guild", one would reasonably expect it to be haunted. Lucia was about to find out whether the place was really haunted or not.

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Lucia approached the gleaming object with Shining Light at the ready and with her eyes open. She thought she had seen the translucent humanoid figure from earlier, but again she was not sure because under the right conditions the power of suggestion could be very strong. Lucia was in the middle of a building infamous for paranormal activity and right now she was not in the best frame of mind. The pitch black darkness looming further down the hallway was not doing her mindset any favors... it reminded her of the darkness she had awakened in after four years of being dead.

Keeping her eyes on the hallway ahead of her and her pistol at the ready, Lucia bent down and picked up the object with her left hand, then began to examine it. It was a bulky black object with a tube on the front that ended in a shining lens. It also had a strap that could go around a person's neck. It was the camera all right. It was an old an expensive brand that was in surprisingly good shape considering it had been dropped on a hard wooden floor.

The camera had been built to last. In fact, the worst "damage" that had been done to it was to slightly scuff the paint on the bottom. Lucia put the camera strap around her left shoulder instead of around her neck so that if the ghosts here could interact with the physical world they could not reach out and seize the camera to strangle her. Once that was done she turned around and faced down the hall towards the door she had entered through. It was at that time that Lucia spotted a translucent humanoid figure appearing about three meters in front of her.

"You don't belong here!" The ghostly figure of a man in clothing from almost a century ago shouted at Lucia. A ghostly woman in an old dress appeared beside him and gave a sinister smile.

"Well, we could make it where she belongs here..." The female ghost said to her partner. Lucia was pretty sure that the ghosts wanted to make Lucia a permanent resident of the Haunted Guild, but she was not going to let that happen. The two began to laugh just as Lucia aimed Shining Light at the female using a two-handed grip and carefully aimed for her head. Lucia squeezed the trigger and fired a shot that punched straight through her forehead and disintegrated her, but not before she let out a long, piercing scream that hurt Lucia's ears.

The male of the spectral pair glared at Lucia as if questioning her audacity before the blonde aimed at him and caused his facial expression to change to one of fear. She would not give him the chance to "run" and reappear to cause trouble for her later. One shot to the face later and he too had vanished with a scream. However, Lucia's troubles were not over.

"GET HER! MAKE SURE THAT SHE NEVER LEAVES!" A voice shouted behind her. Lucia began to run for the entrance and ducked while running, narrowly avoided ghostly hands reaching out for her from the side rooms she had peeked into earlier. Mere moments after she had run by the ghosts themselves floated out of the room after the blonde.

Lucia straightened up and saw another male ghost looming ahead of her with an angry look and arms outstretched. She held out Shining Light in a one-handed grip and began firing at it. The first two shots on the run missed the target by a wide margin, but the next two hit it in the chest and stomach respectively. It disappeared with a drawn-out scream as Lucia ran past the stairs to the basement and reached the exit.

The blonde did not stop to see if her pursuers were still floating after her because she saw a gang of ghosts floating up from the basement just a short distance behind her and to her right. Lucia glanced and saw that she could not shoot them all before she was overwhelmed, so she set aside all thoughts of a fight and reached out for the doorknob with her left hand. She grabbed it, flung the door open, and escaped just ahead of her spectral pursuers.

-Outside the Haunted Guild-

Lucia hurried down the steps and kept running as fast as she could go, not daring to look back because the ghosts might be gaining on her. She heard screaming coming from within the guild hall as she fled for her life. Lucia had retrieved the camera, so now she would make good her escape while she still could. Once she got clear of the area her destination was Magnolia Town. That town was guaranteed to be a safe place since it was not full of ghosts... as far as she knew, anyway.

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-Magnolia Town, eight hours later-

Having reached the safety of Magnolia Town after a very long walk that was fraught with uncertainty, Lucia holstered her pistol and entered the town that was home to Fairy Tail, an Independent guild that was one of the most prominent in Earthland. Lucia knew that she was safe from the ghosts of the Haunted Guild here... they had been left back at the guild, but she had a feeling in the back of her mind that they would one day meet again. They probably would meet again, but for now her biggest concern was finding the owner of the camera that had been hanging from her left shoulder for the past several hours. She took the camera off of her shoulder and placed it around her neck now that she was confident that no ghostly hands would grab it and try to strangle her with the strap.

Lucia was not sure where to begin the search for the camera's owner, so she began to examine the camera for any clues like a name, a set of initials, or a Lacrima Identification Code. The blonde searched over the device for any of those things and found a name on the bottom. The name was "Terrence Miller."

Now that she had a name, all Lucia needed to do was find Terrence and return his camera. But first she had to find his house. Maybe one of the locals would be kind enough to help a Guildless mage find the Miller residence.

-Outside the Miller residence, twenty minutes later-

A kind local had pointed Lucia towards the Miller residence and after a bit of a walk found it in a nice middle-class neighborhood. Now she stood outside the door with the camera around her neck and a sense of relief that the job was almost completed. After taking a breath Lucia pressed the doorbell with the index finger of her right hand.

Lucia heard running and a black-haired teenage girl answered the door. She was wearing an orange t-shirt and blue jean shorts and looked at Lucia with brown eyes. The young woman then gave a smile.

"How can I help you, Miss?" The young woman asked Lucia. Lucia took the camera from around her neck and presented it to her.

"I was hired to find a camera that had been dropped in the Haunted Guild. This camera belongs to a Terrence Miller and I'm here to return it." Lucia explained. The young woman smiled again.

"Just one moment, please." The young woman requested. She stepped back, shut the door, and ran back into the house. Lucia waited patiently with camera in hand for her to return, but when the door opened two minutes later she found a tall, lanky, black-haired young man wearing a gray t-shirt and blue jeans with sandals standing at the door.

"Hey Lady. I'm Terrence Miller. My sister Janet told me that you managed to get my camera back from the Haunted Guild!" He said to her. Lucia nodded and gave him the camera.

"I went into the Haunted Guild and got it for you. Aside from minor scuff marks on the bottom, your camera's perfectly fine... as far as I can tell." Lucia replied. He smiled at her.

"I'm glad to get this camera back. It's an old model from roughly forty years ago, long before iLacs were a thing. This camera belonged to my grandpa and I thought that I had lost it for good. I was sure that some adventurer had found the camera and had taken it for themselves." Terrence explained why he was happy to have it back. Lucia could tell that the camera was old, but she did not know that it was almost forty years old. She also did not know that it was a family heirloom of sorts.

"I didn't have a weapon and I'm not a mage, so when that ghost appeared in front of me in that hallway I had no choice but to run for my life. I thought I had lost this camera forever. Thanks to you I have it back!" Terrence said. He reached into his back pocket and produced a bag of Jewels that he gave to Lucia.

"Thanks." Lucia thanked the young man for the payment.

"No problem. You saved me a lot of time and money that would have gone towards a replacement camera." He replied. Now that her job was done, Lucia was ready to go home and look for another job.

"Well, I'd better make sure that my camera didn't take any damage from the drop. Thanks for retrieving my camera for me!" Terrence thanked Lucia for retrieving his camera.

"It's no problem. I'm glad that I could help." Lucia said to him. He waved goodbye and shut the door. Lucia turned around and headed for home. She had a long way to walk to get back to Talonia. Still, she was grateful that she did not have to walk all the way back to Bellum because getting to her home country on foot would have been a grueling ordeal.

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-Talonia, two hours later-

Lucia entered Talonia and began to maneuver through the crowd to get to the Soul Bar, a bar where many Guildless mages congregated to have drinks, meet up, and other activities. Lucia would stop there and see if anything interesting was going on before she went home to the hotel room she was currently staying in. The blonde needed to find more permanent housing that she did not have to pay for because the rental fee was chewing through her modest savings. The best way to do that would be to join a guild, but joining a guild was a commitment that she did not want to make lightly.

The benefits of joining a guild were hard to ignore. Lucia would gain housing, some acquaintances that could become friends, potential partners to take on jobs that she could not handle alone, and other assorted benefits, but in exchange for those boons she would relinquish some of her freedom. If she was going to give up some of her freedom by joining a guild Lucia wanted to be sure that she picked the guild that was right for her. But first she really wanted some coffee.

Before Lucia went to the Soul Bar to see what was going on there the blonde would go to her room and use the coffeemaker she had won at the Christmas festival to brew a cup of strong coffee. Lucia changed course and began to turn away from the path that led to the Soul Bar and went towards a path that would lead to her hotel room. Once she had gotten her coffee fix she would go to the Soul Bar to listen for the latest gossip and waste some time before she looked for another job. Lucia had completed her first "real" job as a Guildless mage and felt proud of herself even if the job was something as simple as retrieving a camera. She was looking forward to more challenging work, but she needed to take it slow and not get in over her head by taking on something she was not ready for... in time she would be strong enough to take on more challenging work of greater importance.

Patience was a virtue, after all.

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