When Seira awoke from a deep slumber, the sun was still out. She arose from her sleep with a grumpy expression on her face; her hair was a mess and she looked tired. After checking the time and realizing that it was not even noon yet, the vampire sighed and fell back into her sheets, not making even a single attempt to get out of bed again. She had spent the last few days by herself and as a result her sleeping schedule had reverted back to night time, which caused her to be relatively tired during the day. She tried her best to avoid the sunlight, as always, seeing how it made her feel weaker than she was at night, but the Sorceress couldn’t help it at all times—most jobs in Hargeon Town simply happened during the day and she had to adjust to that. It had been quite a while since she had last done any work and truth be told, the vampire felt like she had gotten lazy over the past few weeks. Money was never an issue for her, thankfully, but she was still interested in obtaining items that were worth a lot of money and to do so she had to work after all. Finding work was easy if you were a normal person with a decent reputation, but Seira couldn’t help her case. Hargeon was the location of the guild Blue Pegasus, which was not only of good alignment but also well known throughout the country. She herself was merely a guildless mage, so she had to take whatever she could get in the end. Not that it bothered her, of course she had gotten used to that a long time ago, but from time to time she wished it was easier to find jobs during night time. Of course there was always Oak Town, it was a perfect place for that and Seira very much appreciated all the opportunities it gave her, but she couldn’t help the eerie feeling she had whenever she entered that place. It was most likely due to the Phantom Lord guild being located there and although Seira tried her best to let them mind their own business while she minded hers, she still had to deal with them one way or another. After all one of their members was responsible for what she was going through right now. Seira would never go as far as to claim that becoming a vampire had made her worse and in fact it was actually quite the opposite. Thinking about it, Seira became better when she became a vampire, stronger with more interesting abilities and although it was difficult to live those, she decided that she wouldn’t mind it and make the best out of it. There were probably many more ways for her to appreciate this new found nature of hers and she was slowly getting used to it. Of course there was still much to do regarding her magic, however, but she could take her time with that.

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After spending some more time in her room, the vampire decided that it was finally time for her to get out of bed and get ready for the day. Perhaps she would find some work that paid her decently enough—she was certainly hoping for it. The vampire slowly got out of bed and made the sheets, neatly putting them back together, before going into the bathroom. She washed herself, brushed her hair out and made sure that she looked presentable for the day. She was never like that when she was with Finn. She behaved much more ladylike around him, but at the same time she also hid her racial traits from him perfectly without him ever suspecting a thing in the end. After she finished she put on some black clothes and walked into the kitchen where she prepared a snack for herself. As per usual there were the daily newspaper in front of her door, like every morning, and she brought them in to read them while having her breakfast. There was never anything really interesting going on in hargeon town anyways, so most of it didn’t matter. She was usually looking for job opportunities or any events that were interesting enough and worth being attended, but at the same time she couldn’t find anything that truly interested her. The reason she was in hargeon in first place weren’t any events anyways, but rather a single person. Either way, when Seira browsed through the news that morning she spotted an article about the noble family to which the lord of hargeon town belonged to. She had heard about him before even though she didn’t care much for the rich people either. His name was Reign Valystasia and according to the information presented to her in this paper he was fairly young, which is why many families disapproved of him being the lord of Hargeon Town. At the same time, however, he was said to be very kind and fair to his citizens which led him to become one of the more popular lords after all, considering that he treated the people who lived here nicely. If that was true then Seira could certainly show appreciation for that—it was rare to find people with positions of power that were still somewhat good hearted and not corrupted. Either way, the article wasn’t just about him only but rather about his father and his upcoming birthday. Apparently Lord Reign was planning an event for his father’s birthday and asked all the citizens and visitors of Hargeon Town to attend, which was nice from what she could tell. Apparently he was also giving away tasks to prepare for the big day, which gave away many job opportunities. He stated that he would be paying everyone who showed up to assist well and with that, Seira was sold. She would never refuse a job offer made by a lord of a town, and from the past experience she has had, as long as she fulfilled everything according to their wishes, they were always grateful and generous with their rewards, which was definitely something Seira was looking forward to.

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She finished eating her breakfast and stepped outside. The weather was quite beautiful and for late summer it was still quite warm, which was pleasant. The sun wasn’t all too bright today either and hid between very few clouds, which made things a lot easier for the vampire. There were already a lot of people outside, going by their business as usual. All the stores were open and most people were out either working or shopping. Seira herself was heading for the town’s square, where she knew would be a stage with some festivities going on, where Reign would celebrate his father’s birthday and discuss the details with volunteers in regards to work. Before Seira headed there, however, she stopped by a few shops and bought a few thing she thought she needed and basically took her sweet time before doing anything else. She also bought a coffee to get used to being up so early, considering that she was a nightwalker and all that, and after about 45 minutes she finally had herself together and approached the square. There was decoration everywhere, mostly flowers and beach and harbour related items such as plastic seastars, fish figurines and of course lots and lots of flowers. It looked nice, there was no doubt about that, but Seira couldn’t help but laugh at how cheesy everything looked. The people of Hargeon seemed to enjoy it, however, so she didn’t really mind it at all. It looked nice if you looked at it from afar and the girl appreciated how much work the young lord put into superficialities. It made him look almost innocent which was actually kind of nice, from time to time. When she reached the town’s square she spotted a large stage from afar on which young lord Reign was standing. He was surrounded by locals, holding a speech and explaining the things he had planned for that day and Seira quietly approached and started listening. Apparently he was a fan of pompous things and he wanted to make huge gifts to his father who, according to himself, he owed everything to. That was understandable and the town would profit from it as well in one way or another. Seira waited until he had finished with his longest speech and finally started paying attention to the people who had lined up to find work under his name. Seira walked over, stood in line and waited until it was her turn. She didn’t exactly know what to do so she just decided to introduce herself formerly when it was finally her turn. “My name is Seira Navillera, I’m a guildless wizard from Era,” she spoke with a friendly smile and watched as Reign pulled out a few pieces of paper that stuck together. “You have a strong aura,” he complimented her in a weird way, “certainly you will be able to fulfill a bigger task, right? I will pay you generously, but this is very important. It’s the biggest gift for my father,” he said and handed her a bunch of papers.

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Seira frowned at him and accepted the papers. After looking through them she noticed that they had the drawing of a huge ship on it, as well as a bunch of notes and drawings of items all around it. It was titled “The Warship - for Father’s birthday” and it was quite a detailed plan of how to build exactly that, a warship. A little confused, Seira tilted her head and looked at the young lord. “What exactly do you wish for me to do?” she asked and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “My father has always been a proud man of the sea, a sailor, a captain even! And because of that I want to build the greatest warship in his name and let it sail the seas to honour him! And I want you to help me with that. I have made a rough draft of how it’s supposed to look like including the items you can decorate it. Make it look fearless, beautiful, strong—you know, all that good stuff,” he nodded and seemed very excited which worried Seira a little bit. “You want me to make you a ship?!” Reign laughed. “If you finish this task properly I will pay you a hundred thousand Jewels! How do you feel about that? All you really need to do is to decorate a ship that is already there,” Seira looked at him in disbelief, “that’s a very generous reward but—” before she could say another thing he interrupted her again. “Of course there will be plenty of workers to assist you, and you will have a place to go. There is a man called Mywand Olden, he owns a store that sells all sorts of weapons and armor here in Hargeon. He will have everything you need for your warship. Put it on my bill and then you have nothing to worry about. Now hurry and go, this ship isn’t going to build itself!” Reign laughed and gave Seira another bunch of papers with more instructions, as well as the address of Mywand Olden’s store, before turning around to speak to another local townsman who wished to help. Seira has had a lot of strange request during her career as a mage, but never once had she been tasked to build an entire freaking ship! Either way, there was no helping it and the mage was strong after all so it made sense that he was looking for wizards in the end. Seira left the square and sat down in a corner nearby to go through all the documents slowly. She sorted them so that the order made sense and put the lists of items she had to get from Olden’s store together before heading there quickly. When she showed up at his doorstep he smiled widely. He was a friendly looking old man who was already expecting her, as it seemed. Reign must have informed him beforehand, which is only fair if you thought about it.

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“Hello, my name is Seira. I’m here to buy items for the warship that Lord Reign requested to honor his father’s birthday,” she explained quietly and slid the lists over the table and towards Olden. He nodded quickly and reached under his table to give her a bunch of keys. “I am aware!” He said with a smile. “I actually prepared everything in advance so it is ready for you to pick up and work on. It’s over at the warehouse nearby. There will be some oxen driven wagons waiting for you so you can use those to transport the items to the dock. Have fun and good luck!” Seira nodded and he stepped outside to show her the way to the warehouse, she followed him quietly. Seira also noticed that one of the notes Reign had given to her said that she may not use magic unless it was to boost her strength, which she could accept just fine. Besides, Seira didn’t think there was a magic out there that could suddenly build a ship anyways. When they arrived at the warehouse Seira said goodbye to the elderly man and opened it using the keys. She then started loading everything onto the wagons which, granted, took her quite a while and she probably would have been faster if it was night time. But of course the vampire couldn’t help that, so once all the items were loaded she drove them to the dry docks where she could begin building the freaking ship. Once she arrived there with all the lumber on the wagons, she ran into a bunch of people who were there to assist her and then they started building a ship. Seira never build a ship before but fortunately she was pretty good with instructions so this task wasn’t impossible for her. It was very exhausting and she had to admit that building an entire freaking ship took for fucking ever, which was fine since she had help and all. It was different from what she usually did and granted the Sorceress did prefer sneaking around town, spying or stealing from people over this, but today it couldn’t be helped. They placed everything together and once they had built the wooden outline itself, they started filling it up and last but not least began painting it so it looked nice as well. Building the ship itself already took them the entire day, and painting it took also very long considering that they had to wait for the paint to dry before they could continue with anything. Seira used the break to go through the following instructions and see what else was needed for this thing to be finished. After the painting it seemed to be only the decoration after all, to make it look like a proper warship. Seira didn’t have any experience with warships, so she just went with what she thought looked badass enough to be considered a warship and slowly started piecing the last few pieces together.

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By the end of the day they eventually finished the ship. They built it with wood, inserted some metal here and there to make it stronger and more majestic looking, whereas painting it in a black colour with golden ornaments and gave it blood red sails, with the emblem of the lord’s house on it. All in all it looked pretty gorgeous and it was most likely going to do the job. When Seira finally finished with everything she cleaned up around it and took a short break before taking it to Reign so he could look at it. She returned to the square and approached the young Lord. “Your ship is completed,” she said with a smile, “Why don’t you come take a look at it and see if this really what you imagined.” He nodded and followed her to the dry dock, where he took at the ship and expressed his gratitude and happiness with it towards her. “It’s exactly the way I imagined it!” He said, smiling at Seira. “This was exactly what I was hoping for. Now we just have to test whether or not it can swim, but it will be connected to another ship anyways so that is fine.” He then ordered a few other people around to help him move the ship towards the harbour, where it was indeed connected to another ship that would help it swim onto the ocean. He wanted to put it onto the open sea so it could become part of his fleet and both of them were really relieved when they noticed that it could actually swim and the work wasn’t for nothing. “Your father will be delighted to see all of the work you have gone through for his birthday,” Seira explained and nodded at her own words. Reign smiled and reached into his bag, pulling out a sack of gold and giving it to her. “Yeah, I hope you are right about that. But this is for the people of Hargeon as well. Here is your reward, 100,000 Jewels as promised. I hope that one day you will be able to work for me again, I very much enjoyed this partnership.” He said and Seira nodded politely. “Thank you very much, it would be my honour. Either way, I have to leave now and rest so please excuse me,” she bid her farewells and departed from the scenery, glad that she had done all of that and managed to earn a chunk of money in a relatively short time. While this sort of work certainly was hard, it was at least safe and a somewhat easy way to earn money. Seira, however, had enough of the harbour today and returned to her hotel, where she would take another shower and climb back into her bed to rest from the long day. The actual festival would start tomorrow and she considered attending it if she could be bothered with getting up in the morning. For now, she wanted to sleep.

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