It was early in the morning, not even 9am yet, when Seira was awoken from her deep sleep. She had been dreaming a lot lately, nightmares unfortunately, and as a result the woman hadn’t been able to sleep very well. She moaned annoyed when she had realized she had woken up and annoyed by the situation, she turned around, wrapped herself up in sheets and pressed her face back into the pillow. She was most likely not going to get any more sleep, and she hated being up this early, especially during daytime when it was still summer and still hot outside. Seira had no plans whatsoever for the day but knowing Hargeon, there was always something to do if one just kept looking. Due to the city having a harbor a port and a dock, there was a lot of traffic going on, in and export with a lot of items and sometimes even illegal things being moved in and out of the country. Hargeon was the perfect place for something like that and truth be told, Seira had worked against and for smugglers before. She worked for whoever paid the most money and in the end it didn’t really matter to her what she did, she was a mercenary and money was all that mattered to her. She spent some more time in bed, perhaps an hour or so, before slowly climbing out of it. She wasn’t all too into it but after taking a look outside and realizing that it was clouded, she figured she could somehow survive the day. Seira’s sleeping schedule was a complete mess and so was she, whenever she wasn’t surrounded by other people, so she decided to go into the bathroom first where she could take a shower and fix herself. She did that and after about half an hour she came back out looking much nicer than before. Her hair was in place now and she wore beautiful clothing as well. Seira wasn’t really hungry yet, she rarely was so early in the morning, so she reached into the fridge and was looking for what she had left of blood bags she had stolen from the local hospital. Thus far, there were five more which was plenty thankfully. She opened one and started drinking from it while walking through her room and thinking about what she could possibly do with today. There were many options but most likely it was the easiest thing simply to walk to the harbor and see who needed help. There was always someone willing to pay decently enough and she could live with that. Seira eventually finished her blood bag and wiped her mouth clean. It was B+, her favourite blood type, and she felt much more refreshed now that she has had a sip of it. The vampire put her stuff together, closed her fridge before leaving the place she had rented for the time being to walk through the city. Hargeon was as busy as ever.

[502/2000]

Everyone was out and about, most people were working in the stores that they owned and those that didn’t were shopping through those stores. She spotted many women carrying groceries around and some brought children to school or the kindergarten. All in all, Hargeon had always been a busy city, but Seira didn’t minded that at all. She used to be quite sensitive when it came to loud noise but ever since becoming a vampire that had changed. She no longer felt that way and her ears were fine. She strolled through the streets and stopped here and there to look through the shops. She was still looking for Navani leaves, but thus far she hadn’t been very successful yet. There were no such things here in Hargeon and Seira began to wonder whether or not the fortune teller had actually scammed her. It didn’t matter though and as long as Espeon was fine, Seira didn’t really care either. The little creature was still somewhere out there and occasionally when Seira left the house at night she would even run into it. It was as tame as ever and often expressed gratitude and happiness towards the mage whenever they ran into each other and Seira wondered if it had somewhere to go and if not if she could perhaps take it home and raise it? She didn’t know whether or not she was prepared to have so much responsibility over such a small creature, but it didn’t really matter either. Until Espeon made a decision Seira wasn’t going to push the issue. She continued to walk through the streets and slowly headed towards the harbour. It was a bit apart from the market and on her way there she even went through a fish market, although that was nothing Seira was really interested in at the moment. She liked seafood very much but lately she hadn’t been craving it at all. Seira didn’t run into any specific people for quite some time and as soon as she got closer to the harbour she began looking out for familiar faces. She had worked here many times before and often made a good amount of money, which is why she was hoping to see some people she had worked for before, perhaps they could give her a job to do? Seira strolled through the docks and only noticed the huge number of ships that were here. Merchant ships and whatnot, and as per usual the area was crowded by Rune Knights as well who had work here to do. Seira certainly wasn’t the only one who felt uncomfortable with them roaming outside Era Town, which is why she had often been hired to fool or distract them. The Rune Knights in this area were supposed to make sure that no drugs ect were being smuggled into the country, but often that couldn’t be avoided. Seira knew that and she was a hundred percent sure that everyone here, including the Rune Knights, knew that as well.

[1005/2000]

But they had to do their jobs and that couldn’t be helped either. Seira continued to roam the docks but there was still no one to be found. After a while, when she was about to give up anyways, Seira noticed what seemed to be a frantic individual roaming the streets. He was walking up and down the dock, chewing his nails, being all nervous and skittish. Seira had never seen this person before and if she didn’t know better she would say he had something to hide. It was a small person, male, with fair skin and brown hair. He was still very young by the looks of it and somewhat dainty. He was a boy, not a man, but strangely enough he was dressed like a Rune Knight. It didn’t suit him at all especially not with how nervous he was looking and Seira couldn’t help but wonder what he had been up to and why he was so nervous for no apparent reason. Everyone around him seemed to be doing perfectly fine so she decided to approach him and check on him, even though it was only for her own curiosity’s sake. “Excuse me, there? You look like you need help with something. Is everything alright?” She asked politely and put on a smile for him. The young man turned around, looked at Seira and shook his head in a very frantic way. He seemed out of breath while speaking and Seira found it difficult to follow him. “Y-yes, I mean no!!! I need help, I need your help please! I can pay as well! Just listen to me!” Turns out that his name was Collin and that he was a page who had been brought to Hargeon Town to gain more experience. Which means he wasn’t even a real Rune Knight yet, which was fine to be honest. He was from a small village and very excited about seeing everything in and around Hargeon, but he seemed to have a problem now. “You see, I was summoned by the lord of Hargeon today!! Because of private matters, honestly I haven’t done anything wrong if I think about it but I really don’t know what the lord of Hargeon Town could want from me in the end,” he seemed extremely nervous and Seira couldn’t help but laugh at his struggle. “I don’t know what he wants from someone like me but I have to go see him in one hour!!! In one hour, and I was supposed to find a quick replacement for my position during this time and I have yet to find someone!” Suddenly, his erratic personality seemed to make sense. He was nervous because he hadn’t found anyone who could take over his shift and thats why he feared he was going to miss his appointment with the Lord—which was more than understandable. Seira nodded quietly to all of this. “Well, if you say you are willing to pay me then I could take over for a while for you.”

[1511/2000]

His eyes widened in surprise. “C-could you really do that?! I will pay you what I would have earned today!!!” Seira nodded slowly. “Sure, you go ahead to your meeting. It’s not like I have anything else to do anyways,” she said and shooed him away. Collin took his stuff, thanked her and promised to be back soon. Then he ran off and for Seira it was time to start her day. She had nothing really to do, still, so she roamed the streets surrounding the harbour and the dock to see whether or not she could find anything suspicious going on. She walked around for a bit, checked with the other Rune Knights but it seemed to be a normal day. It was only until Seira got bored, that she decided to be a little more sneaky. She usually knew where the drug trafficking was happening behind the scenes because she had worked for people in that branch before, so she walked around some of the warehouses close to the docks until she finally ran into someone. There were two men talking about something, one of them was handling drugs over to the other one, Seira could see that very clearly. One of the men, however, seemed to remember Reagan Hullston, a smuggler whom she had worked for many times before. Because she didn’t want to endanger him or his business, she approached them slowly and eventually made her presence knowing. Immediately, when they spotted her, both of them bolted off into different directions and Seira made sure to chase after the man that wasn’t Reagan. He was fast but of course the vampire was faster than him, and stronger as well. It didn’t take long for her to catch him. It was unfortunate of him, really, but it couldn’t be helped. Seira didn’t want to destroy her potential working relationship with Reagan and she knew he would appreciate if she didn’t run after him. Besides, he knew the dock much better than her and he was fairly clever, so she probably wouldn’t have caught him anyways. This other guy, however, was much easier and easily could be blamed for everything as well. That didn’t mean, however, that Seira could just lie to a Rune Knight so she decided to interrogate the man she had captured and see what he knew. It seemed that he knew very well who he was dealing with and who he was smuggling drugs for and she kept him captured until Collins returned, who was very surprised by her achievement. “I caught this one smuggling drugs, but it is up to you how to deal with him,” she said and handed the man over. “He seems to know a few things but I will leave all of that to you. I want nothing really to do with this and the other person who he was with escaped. After all I could only catch one person,” she cleared him up on everything that had happened and he seemed satisfied with it. In the end, Seira was paid and allowed to leave while Collins dealt with the situation.

[2033/2000]