It had been quite some time since Seira’s arrival in Marigold Town. Nothing out of the ordinary, of course, the young wizard prefered not staying in one place for too long and after the recent events at Hargeon Town she could not wait to finish her work in the farmer’s village and move on yet again. It had been fairly quaint in Marigold, the city was small and relatively quiet, the most outstanding events were usually involving the Syllas family and the people who lived here absolutely adored their young lord. Fortunately, that man always had plenty of work ready for the people who were willing to go on a job or two and Seira was grateful that she had the opportunity to earn money even in a small, seemingly far away place like this. Marigold Town was on the border of Fiore, quite far away from the rest of the world and the south was ever so peaceful and quiet as she had imagined it. Seira very much enjoyed staying here but after what had happened in Hargeon she grew more nervous by the day. For some strange reason the woman couldn’t help but realize that something about her was changing and while she had completely recovered from the attack and blood loss itself, she wasn’t exactly sure whether or not there were going to be lingering after effects. After all, her body felt fine but something was strangely out of place and the young Sorceress had a difficult time explaining what exactly it was. Perhaps she would find out later or perhaps that weird feeling would simply disappear. When she woke up that morning, however, everything seemed fine so she decided to continue to go by her day like she had done the days before. Seira wasn’t sure for how much longer she was going to stay in Marigold Town but it was most likely until Syllas, or anyone else for that matter, stopped giving her good reasons to do so. In the past few days she had done quite a lot of work for the young lord and the jobs couldn’t have been more different—but he paid her decently well and that was all that mattered. In a small place like Marigold she could do things as she pleased, she was in one way or another protected by the law and that man didn’t seem to care just exactly how she finished his business as long as she did finish it without harming citizens. She had been helping him with his banquet a few days ago, being one of the few mages who was allowed to present their magic in front of an audience as a matter of entertainment. It wasn’t what she usually did but a job like that was unthinkably easy and she just couldn’t help but enjoy the quickly earned money. In spite of that, Seira had also been able to get a glimpse inside the Syllas Castle and for that she was very grateful.

[501/2000]

Furthermore, only a short while after assisting him for the very first time the girl had received a letter from the man himself, this time asking her to help him out with a more pressing matter which, of course, she could understand and accepted to do so. Apparently Marigold Town wasn’t always so quiet and lovely and a group of bandits had figured that there was no way a place like this knew how to defend itself—and for a good amount of time they had been right about that. They broke into stores, stole from people and went on a rampage night after night without anyone being able to do something against it and they did it all without ever being seen or caught. That was unpleasant, of course, but the lord knew he had to do something about it. In that case hiring a mercenary, or a mage like in Seira’s case, was a relatively normal thing to do and as expected she took care of the situation within a single night. Although she hadn’t been able to catch the other bandits, she was able to catch at least one and they had never returned since. It seemed that they had thought themselves safe since Marigold rarely had visitors and strong mages present. After all it wasn’t a place where a normal mage would go considering that there was hardly anything to do here and that there was no guild present either. Seira, however, solved the problem and he seemed to be grateful which was fair enough. Today, Seira woke up relatively early only to notice that there was no letter that had been slid under her doorstep and clearly her help wasn’t needed for the day. She figured she would simply pass by the request board which every wandering mage had access to and see if she could find something she would like to do. The weather was alright, much better now than it had been the night before. Last night, Seira had been woken up from her sleep several times because of the massive storm that had been going on outside and rampaged through the small town for hours and hours. Fortunately the inn she had booked was of excellent quality, the building was stable and the windows were unharmed as well but it had been quite noisy and almost frightening. Seira generally enjoyed storms but the recent one must have been very big and destructive because when she looked outside the window the streets looked like they had been messed with badly. Some of the cafe’s decorations and tables and chairs which they kept outside during the night had been thrown around, plant pots had fallen over and fallen off the balconies and from what she could tell more than one rooftop had suffered through the storm and broken as well. Upon first glance, Seira could tell immediately that the storm had hit certain buildings badly and that they were now in need of repairs and constructions.

[1002/2000]

The streets were also emptier than usual and barely any shops were open which only confirmed that theory of hers. The woman got dressed and went downstairs only to find a relatively full lounge, where everyone was heaving breakfast. She greeted the owner of the inn and ordered something to eat for herself while taking a seat. “There is quite a lot going on,” she said to the middle aged lady with a smile who responded immediately. “Yes, but not all of these people are guests in Marigold. Most of them are citizens, they came here to have breakfast because the stores and bakeries are closed because of the storm. They want to gain some strength for the day before they start helping with the reconstruction and repairs of certain buildings that have been hit hard. If you are looking for work, Lord Syllas is paying everyone who is willing to help with the repairs.” Seira knew that normally a petite girl like her had no place when it came to repairing buildings and such, but due to being a Sorceress she was quite strong in spite of her looks and could lift heavy things in spite of not looking like she could. “Thank you for telling me, I will most definitely do that.” She said with a smile and started eating away. The room was filled with many men and woman and she eventually found the person who seemed to be in charge of it all. After finishing her meal she walked over to them, greeted him kindly and took a seat. She explained that she wanted to help and that she was a wizard and he seemed to be very welcoming, immediately explaining what she could do and where to go. Apparently some people were already at work and down the street were a bakery, a café and a flower shop that needed help with the repairs. Since they were close to her current location it was a place Seira could quickly go and help out at. She left the inn and walked to the streets. From here she could get a better look at how ruined most places looked, but the townspeople weren’t discouraged by that one bit. Instead, they were all already working hard on restoring the buildings to their former glory. Quite a lot of construction had to be done and it was a manual labor, nothing too spectacular but it was for a good purpose. Seira knew she would probably spent her entire day working here and quickly settled in, starting out with the bakery. Some of the windows were broken and the roof had suffered some damage as well. She discussed with other townspeople how they wanted to do it and then figured they would start with the windows. New ones were brought along and Seira and another two women then started replacing the broken ones, removing all shattered glass before setting the new windows in. Once that was completed they went for the roof to make sure rain and water wouldn’t come in.

[1513/2000]

After hammering around for a good few hours and carrying wood around they were able to fix all leaks and holes that had been in the bakery. After the bakery had been reconstructed and the owners were pleased and grateful with the result they decided to tidy up a little bit as well, since there was now dust and dirt everywhere. They received help from the owner’s children as well, since she herself was an elderly lady who couldn’t exactly do much. With the help of everyone that took about another hour before they finished. Some of the men made sure to build the roof that way that it couldn’t break again so easily in case there was a new storm coming up and once they finished they had a little lunch break together. The people of Marigold were relatively pleasant folks and Seira enjoyed working with them. After the break was over they decided to go for the café next. Unfortunately, the café had a fragile build with a lot of glass and windows to begin with, which made it the most damaged among them all so the first thing they did was to remove all windows and replace them with much thicker and stronger ones, windows that could easily withstand a storm. The roof, which was pretty much gone in its entirety anyways was removed as well and completely replaced by a roof that was also much stronger and most definitely storm proof. The windows didn’t take as long to be build in as the roof since they had to do that from scratch but with the help of everyone and many people working on it they managed to finish that within a few hours. The café wasn’t very big after all. They also fixed whatever damage had been dealt to the walls from the outside and inside as well. It was afternoon when they finished and the last one in line was the flower shop. The flower shop’s building in itself hadn’t suffered as badly as the other two, a few windows were damaged but not all of them and the roof had some open spots that could be fixed, rather than having to replace the entire roof in itself. It were mostly the flowers that were inside the shop that had suffered the most damage but granted, that couldn’t be helped. Like before, the windows were replaced with stronger glass, the roof was repaired and strengthened as well and precautions were made in case another storm would hit. Seira helped cleaning up the store while the men did work on the roof and on the windows. There was minor damage on some of the walls inside the door so Seira helped them fixed after after cleaning up all the broken vases and removing the flower, which she had to throw away unfortunately. Once it was all nice and clean she reorganized the shelves together with the shop owner and was finally released from her duty when the day was over. She was super exhausted from all the physical work and really needed some rest. The man who was in charge of everything paid her the money for the day and she left and returned to the inn to get some sleep.

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