Oak Town was fascinating.

Far from her expectations, the Sorceress fell in love with the castle town, which was situated on a hill, surrounded by forests and mountains, with a river flowing nearby. In spite of its shady reputation, caused by the local Phantom Lord guild which threw an eerie veil over the lovely countryside, Seira was taken aback by how much she felt at ease here. Solely build on the hill with a castle on top, the historical city had an ancient feel to it and Seira believed that there were many mysterious places to explore—places she could not wait to visit. She had found herself a sweet little inn in which she would set up her camp during her stay in Oak and keep her belongings while she ventured the city to look for places, shops, interesting goods and, of course, jobs. Seira knew that, just as with any other town. Oak had a local request board with fliers plastered all over it for the guildless mages of this country to enjoy. The members of the Phantom Lord guild received better missions, of course, but something told her that those were, perhaps, of darker nature as well.

Shady business was not meant for outsiders, and in some aspects she could understand why that made sense and why she wanted nothing to do with it just yet. The female vampire strolled through the streets during the early morning hours and while this was usually not the time for her to be awake, she had to admit that she was a little too excited and eager to see what she had gotten herself into. This was the furthest she had ever been in the west of Fiore and everything else, especially the flora and fauna, was quite different here. Even more so if you compared it to the warm south and very floral center of the country. As someone born in Era, Seira had never dared to travel off this far away from her hometown and Orchidia had been the limit, in a way. Of course her encounter with Bianca, another vampire who had seemingly turned her into what she was now, had changed many things and her life had been turned upside down in more ways than one. Fortunately, however, Seira did an excellent job at handling all those changes and the young woman was prepared to jump into the next adventure. She was not going to storm directly into Phantom Lord to find the vampire and demand answers—Seira wasn’t that stupid. She wasn’t even going to bother herself with Phantom Lord for now, all she wanted was to find work and get to know the city. Seira always made sure to stay long enough in one place to get to know a few people that could offer her job, grow familiar to the scenery so she had something to work with in case she left and returned another time. But finding those clients was a difficult task, and she had to start soon.

[505/2000]

Seira stumbled through the streets of Oak with a sheepish smile on her lips. She wasn’t usually like that, not even when she was in Magnolia, but the young woman found endless amusement in watching people and seeing new things—as corny as that seemed, it was true. After working job after job after job in Hargeon she’s had enough of the ocean for a while and wanted to surround herself by land, mountains and forests. She had also already taken a glimpse at the local hospital in case she was in need of blood bags which, to her surprise, was fairly large even in spite of the strange architecture. Seira spotted a herbal store from afar and quickly rushed towards it to see what sort of herbs they had to offer. She had always shown interest in herbalism, ever since she was a young child, and the selection was, just as she had expected, different from anything else she had ever seen. Some of the herbs were familiar but extremely expensive if you were to acquire them somewhere in the south or east, whereas others were completely foreign to her. Seira walked through the shops and began looking through the shelfs, one after one. Eventually she decided that she wanted to take a few things with her and started picking out herbs, before discussing their usefulness and purpose with the owner of the shop.

The elderly man, the store owner, clearly knew what he was talking about and left a good impression on Seira. He seemed to enjoy the conversation with her as well and got curious when he realized that she wasn’t from Oak or anywhere near Oak and that was where her fascination came from. “Interesting, so you are a traveler? We have quite a few of those here, every now and then. But none stay long,” he laughed it off with a smile and Seira frowned at his words. “Well, the best jobs in Oak surely are taken by the members of Phantom Lord, so that does not surprise me,” she explained and the man gave her a long look before nodding. “Indeed. If you are looking for work it is best to stop by the local request board, nothing you take from there can get you into trouble.” His words struck her as strange and Seira wondered how things would be if she accepted jobs through other means rather than the request board. The last thing she wanted to happen was for her to clash with any dark mages and even though she was confident that nowadays she could take on most people, Seira wasn’t provocative and did not enjoy meaningless conflict at all. Seira ended up picking out about five herbs of different nature, none of which she had ever used before and couldn’t wait to experiment with and paid for them before leaving the store. Of course there was much more Oak Town had to offer and she wasn’t even nearly done with exploring, even though this was only her first day.

[1013/2000]

Before Seira left the store, however, the elderly man stopped her in his tracks and pointed out a person he had just noticed outside on the streets. “Do you see that young man over there?” He said and Seira looked to where he was looking and nodded slowly. “I do, who is that?” He was dressed completely in dress, a handsome stranger with a stern, dark expression and a callous aura. He was tall, almost intimidating looking and for some reason she couldn’t help but think that there was something he was annoyed at. “That man is Sirius Phantasm,” the elderly shop owner explained to her. “Have you heard of the Phantasm family yet? They are high nobility in Fiore, own a large amount of land around Oak and the castle on top of the hill is theirs. You could say they basically own the entire town. To see one of them walking around is rare, but sometimes they do offer jobs to outsiders so if you are lucky and you can talk to him maybe he has something for you.” Seira raised an eyebrow. “Really? Is that so?” The man nodded. “He is the oldest son of the family. Their castle can also be entered by adventurers in order to take quests, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who is too curious or prone to cause trouble or disturbances—if you do that, they will take care of you and not in the nicest way.” Seira was surprised and didn’t know what to say. “That’s interesting information, I had no idea. Thank you so much for telling me,” the young woman said to the man, grateful that they had this conversation. Seira then left the shop and walked outside. She wasn’t exactly sure how she was going to address Sirius and whether or not she was going to address him at all, but fortunately that job was taken from her when he spotted her and called her out instead. “Hey, hey you over there. You look like a wizard to me! Are you a wizard?” Seira nodded slowly. How he could tell was beyond her but perhaps that was a nobility perk of some sort. He must have met many wizards by now that he could probably tell them apart. “Yes, Mr. Phantasm, I am. May I help you with something?” The man waved her closer and Seira obeyed. “You are a traveler, right? You are not from Oak, I can tell by the look on your face and the clothes you wear. Anyways, none of that matters, if you need a job I may have something for you. Not sure if you can do to it, but it’s whatever. I’ll pay you well if you manage. You see, lately my guards have been a real disappointment. Disgracing my family like that, puts me at a loss of words.” The man seemed seriously stressed out about this situation, and even though his expression never changed the tone of his voice faintly did and it almost caused her to laugh.

[1523/2000]

“Anyways, what I’m trying to say is that they are fucking useless and I need someone to train them. Do you think you can do that?” Seira nodded slowly. “Of course, I’ve trained guards before.. in other cities.” He nodded with an approving expression on his face. “Alright, come along then, I’ll show you where the courtyard is. To ensure that they are doing everything right I’ll be watching the training session of course. I just can’t train them myself because I am a nobleman and I need to hire people for that. That’s what I do with my money, you know?” he walked all the way up to the hell where the castle was located and Seira followed him quietly, always making sure to let him know that she was listening and following up with his words. “Certainly, my lord. I can get the job done.” Seira didn’t look like it, but not only was she strong and sturdy, she was also quick on her feet. The guards he introduced her to where the ones usually positioned in front of the castle and she understood how their lack of motivation and strength could cause trouble to the family in case they ever needed them to actually do their job. To prevent that from happening Seira began training them. Since they were all men none of them was too thrilled to see a petite female approaching at the scene, but the fact that she was a mage was probably enough to get them going. Of course Seira wasn’t going to reveal much about herself and merely used her physical abilities to train them. Sirius stated that he didn’t mind a few broken bones here and there so when the first guard, a show off, came up and tried to impress her, she became violent. Seira’s vampire strength made it relatively easy for her to beat the man into a pulp and she did so to get her point across. She began instructing the guards and told them that they were welcome to fight her personally if they thought they didn’t need any of this training. Quite a few men actually walked up to her that day, but none of them made it out of there as a winner. Seira’s strength, compared to theirs, was overpowering and she checked in with Sirius several times throughout the day to make sure the young lord was satisfied with what he was seeing. He was. She pointed out that the lack of motivation and strength came from their general habit to underestimate their enemies and probably their job and overestimate their own abilities. They needed to be put into place more often and reminded that they were by no means the best of the best and could consider themselves fortunate to have been hired by such a prestigious family Sirius took all of those comments with a grain of salt but he seemed to accept them which was Seira’s goal all along the way. When the sun set the training was over and after he rewarded her, the vampire was free to leave.

[2042/2000]