WQ - Reconstruction of Astorea- a Little Help?

(Private with @Seigi )

Hmm... this place was no-good. The soil looked to be jagged and unstable, perhaps over an underground cave or such, and it would most likely collapse in time under any serious building project. How about that clearing to the left of it, though..? That could be good. For all intents and purposes it looked quite solid for construction...

Haru stood at the top of Vintergard's wall, overlooking the lands below in an attempt to figure out where to begin his little project. Upon running all the way back to this city after having woken up in that rather run down temple, he had found the city to be rather more well off than he had expected. The city was still built to the brim of its walls and only minor damages had befallen the people here. It seemed as if Titanius didn't get very far in it's efforts. A smirk ran across his face at the thought of what his own death-along with that of many other brave souls-had accomplished before he made his way down the wall to begin this little project. As the little trip on foot went on he had to ponder about the so-called assignment he had been given.

'Assignment' was a rather stiff word for it. There was no incredible royal letter signed to him from the king (Was that 'former', now?) or wide-spread commandment besides 'help our country, people!' from the royal family. This was actually more of a favor than anything that had bloomed from some regal looking woman he didn't even know.
"An Orphanage!" the woman had begged from anyone who could hear her. Pretty much everyone had ignored her to begin with, and he couldn't really blame them. Haru didn't see any children with her and if there were any street-rats he would had found them by now. So why was she so intent on it..?

It hardly mattered at this point. She had sounded desperate and Haru had nothing better to do right now. It wouldn't be cool to ignore a lady in need like that anyway, now would it? He had eventually taken her up on her offer, letting her know that he'd come back when he was finished. This train of thought needed to end at the moment, for he had already arrived at a lovely little patch of grass by the wall of Astorea. This should be the ideal spot- it was close enough to a city gate for anyone to get in and for guards to keep an eye on, though not so close that it held up any flow of businessmen to and fro the capital proper. The ground was stable and firm and had a lovely view out to the northern mountains beyond the forest.

Here was his project. The only guidelines were that which he made himself. One: Build a quaint cottage with enough rooms to keep a number of kids happy. Two: build some kind of barricade around it to ward off any particularly bold monsters who were dumb enough to approach these capitol walls. And so here he would begin..!
To Haru's credit, it only took him about an hour and three trees chopped down with his own soul to realize how much of a pain in the arse this was going to be. Oh, and that he could barely drag the wood along if he really strained himself. Trees were surprisingly heavy. Who would have known?

"Aha... I need a break." Tired breaths came out of his mouth in huffs that vaguely resembled words at all as he lay down on the trees proper, having lined them up in a row by the base of the town. As much as he claimed that he had as much stamina as he felt like having on a given day, everyone has a limit and this was far past his. He takes up a flask tied to his hip and takes a long drink, credit to Hydromancy, to try and cool himself down. Looking up at the sky he could see that the sun was already beginning to set down below the horizon. He could even start to see stars in the midst of the new twilight. "I'm not really about to try and build this place overnight, am I..?" The resignation in his voice told him that yes, he really was. Oh, how steep is the price of empathy to total strangers.

 

'An orphanage! An orphanage! Please, please. You HAVE to!'
'For free?'
'Of course!'
'CONSIDER IT DONE!'
...

Seigi had met this particular woman a few hours or so ago. Going around town and begging for something crazy. A whole lot of people ignored her. Others made fun. A third group pretended sympathetic to her cause without following up. And then there were the ones like Seigi. Usually, she would be out and about beating up bads and baddies, but, a Hero wasn't just about beating up the villains. They were also about helping people, and with her UI lock in place, Seigi couldn't even begin to imagine how it must be.

A lot of kids surely turned up without anything to call their family over the course of one day. Seigi? She couldn't see her family, but she knew they were alive. She was past falling in self-pity, but well remembered the pain she had endured and the tears she had shed.

Thus, she possibly couldn't leave the woman alone! Seigi wouldn't attempt to convince any others, for now at least anyway, but she did hear from the woman that apparently someone else was already getting started on this project.

'Somewhere there. His white hair and gentle face are unique enough that you should know when you meet him!'' Were the woman's words.

...

"YO!" The orange-hair greeted the eager @Haru as she got closer. There seemed like indeed a good spot. Had she ever seen this person before? Maybe. But talked to? Not at all. The fledgling Hero took a look at the logs that the white-hair had already produced through hard work. "I' am Seigi Ling Ling. Sunset Sage of Seven Strikes. HERO of JUSTICE. And TODAY we're going to build the most awesome orphanage, ever! Right? Right."

Yet, they were still only two people. "So..." This was one of the rare times where Seigi's other expertise would be helpful, huh? She wasn't as good as her siblings at it, but she still knew a thing or two! Yet, building experimental futuristic weapons weren't anything like a simple medieval building. "Got a blueprint or something? Where's the playground going to be?!" Heck, Seigi didn't even show off her superheroic super strength! Right now, one could even assume that -just maybe- she was an orphan herself, who just really wanted to help the cause?

But what could a child even do?

 

Though rather taken aback, Haru welcomed the other face with a serene grin and a lazy wave of the arm, which then pointer over to a mound of dirt to his left. On the face of the dirt resided a rather crude drawing of the layout for a building with multiple spacious bedrooms, two bathrooms and the other necessary halls and miscellaneous rooms to patch the whole thing together. He hadn't put too much work into the design on 'paper' because we was keeping the actual design ideas under his skull. He hardly had a degree in Architecture, but the measurements in his head checked out.

"Yo! I'm Haru. People call me... Haru. I would love some help, ma'am." Taking the time to safely get off all these logs, he continues, "Blueprint's over there. It's kind of terrible, I admit. I'm not going off of much more than instinct right now." He admits it rather shamelessly. If he was to get any help he'd have to lay out his faults right on the table. Seigi, she called herself. Haru briefly thought of a faint, fuzzy memory of a blonde force going buck-wild in the body of Titanius and wondered if this was the same girl. He didn't have any evidence, but the haircut gave him a sense of deja' vu and he liked to follow what he felt. He pats the logs. "I'm too under-brained to get a real structure going and under-muscled to put it in place. If you help me patch up our problems with enough grit then I'll be more than happy to let you pick where the playground will go. Sound good?"

Feeling that he's had enough of a break in the minute or two of talking, Haru immediately gets back to work. Drawing strength from himself, he pulls out his soul in the shape of a saw and begins the long process of shaping logs into usable planks for flooring. He looks back over his shoulder for a moment and poses a question. "So, you met that woman too? What pushed you to decide to help her out?" He might as well see if he couldn't get to know his new acquaintance a little bit better.

 

"Ah..." Seigi took a look at the quickly 'drawn' blueprint. A wonder the wind hadn't blown it kaput yet! Either way. "So... us two... doing this I can carry wood all day but..." Eh, whatever. "IF WE DO THIS I'M SURE MORE PEOPLE WILL SEE HOW AWESOME WE ARE AN JOIN! WOOOO!" Definitely! THAT. Was the plan. "It's for the children! LET'S GET FIRED UP. Guts and Effort." With those words, more-or-less aimed at herself rather than Haru, Seigi actually responded to what he had said.

"So, Haru! 'under-brained'? 'Under-muscled'? Don't sell yourself short! The fact you're here, helping, stands proof that you're plenty awesome enough! As for me. What is there to decide? I'm a Hero! That Lady needed help! And it's an Orph- urgh..." Seigi stumbled a few step back as a headache assaulted her!

O̢͟U͠R̴ ̕o̴r̴͝p҉̸h̷̀a̛n̴̶̡a̛g̵̵͏e.̀͠.̨.͝ ̧̧͝Vén̶̢e̴s̸҉ş͘a҉̨ ̕͞w͞i̛l̶l ̵́͜b̵̛e̶ ͏͏s͏o̶ ̴̕h̴̷̨-̛̕̕

This one was more intense than usual, but just as quickly over. "Ah... sorry about that. Where was I? RIGHT! Doing JUSTICE. Because it's the right thing to do." Seigi nodded to herself, already feeling better. "Now, we need lotsa more wood, right?!" With these words, Seigi Ling Ling started to rip out some of the trees that were more-or-less close by and carrying them towards Haru. "So... are you a, urm, a 'Player', too?!"

 

"Yeah, that's me-just another player, not that I can do anything that isn't in this world... Don't worry, I'm hardly trying to lowball myself, it's just that being humble-" Jesus H Christ, did she just rip those trees out of the ground?! Haru wipes the look off of his face that was DEFINITELY NOT shocked, frightened, amazed or any combination of the three. He then proceeded to get back to... what was he even doing again?

Oh, right, making use of those trees. The first one had made some pretty horrible planks, but about halfway through the second one he started getting them really fine and solid. He was rather impressed with himself. They'd have enough for a room soon, and after Seigi was done with her rather heroic display over there they might even get a third of this place done with the lumber taken down so far.

Yikes, wasn't construction supposed to take way longer than this? "To be fair though, it's not like the average crew has superpowers..." Haru mumbles to himself for a moment. Just talking to himself was incredibly boring, though. At this rate he'd greet his eye again.

As he lays out the planks shred out from the third tree felled in a neat little stack for their use, Haru grows curious and inquires from his sudden partner, "What, are you not one yourself? Not like it's any skin off my back, but I feel like a second Zeus couldn't have just been born in the same planet."

 

Tree after tree, Seigi went on a spree! Sooner or later, it felt like she had taken out half the forest before finally taking a break. This was most likely enough wood to build a big, nice, Orphanage!

"S-Second Zeus?!" The girl listened to @Haru. NEVER Had anyone made such a nice compliment to Seigi! Zeus was like, a kind of idol to her! So being directly compared to the most heroic hero of Terrasphere was just, wow! "T-Thank you!" Seigi beamed. "I'm a player, too, yes." The orange hair added a bit sadder thou. She missed her family.

W̡e҉̡̀'re̢ ͡f͠͝ą̕mily.̧̨.̷.̶̀

"Urgh... e-either way! With just us two we will be here for weeks... how about... hey! Can you build a booth or something?! And two chairs! I got an idea!" And with that, Haru would get to work? Surely!

Either way, once the white-hair was done, Seigi's plan was simple: An arm-wrestling competition! For those who lost, they had to help build the orphanage! Those who won would get a large sum of GP from Seigi! Of course, with a Mastered Heroic Might, something like that was out of the question... or was it?

Either way, after word got out how a little girl and her white-haired friend beat people in an arm-wrestling match, they had gathered quite a crew of muscular muscle men, ready to build! Surely, Haru would step up his game and coordinate em all!

"Do we need more trees or should I do...?" Seigi asked, too.

 

...Hah, so she caught on, did she? Haru wasn't terribly surprised-only an idiot would actually start going to try and build any building overnight. That's just inviting whatever comes of that work to collapse inward the next day.

Still though, he had to set unrealistic expectations for himself or else he'd never fail. And because of that he'd never learn, and because of that he'd never grow. That's how he taught himself to see things.

Still though, it wasn't fair for him to have caught this girl up in the middle of his humors. "Sorry," he admits, "I've been getting a bit ahead of myself. That doesn't sound that half bad of a plan to go with. Good thinking."

Standing up a few planks up in the shape of a table, planting the legs in the dirt, Haru gets the nails to-
"I forgot the nails..." He was a blubbering idiot! How is someone even supposed to build a structure without a way to connect the beams?!

Fortunately they didn't quite need it for something as simple as one table with a temporary need. The man in white robes pulls out his staff, which stares back at him with unnerving eyes. He gives it a wide, kind grin. He might as well keep being friendly with this staff so long as it didn't try to kill him. Who cares where (or who) it came from?

"Strangleweed." A single whisper from his lips was all he needed to send a pulse of energy from it into the ground. Weeds grew beneath the table, lashing around the sides and anchoring it into the ground in a stable manner.

That should do it. The only touches he needed after that were a few torches, taken and lit from his inventory, to be placed around the table so everyone coming in from the road could see this spectacle. Haru stands upon this makeshift table brought from creativity (and confirms that yes, it's stable,), opens his arms wide and gets ready to make an idiot of himself in front of this girl to appeal to the rather olden-minded lines of thought of the NPCs.

"Come one, come all! I, Berlin, the Great Wizard of the Clock, call upon any hearty challenger to face this young girl here! For I have seen into the vastness of time and deemed her to be THE CHOSEN ONE!

Defeat her in a contest of strength here and I shall admit that I'm an arrogant, crazy jerk and pay you a mighty hefty reparation of FREE GOLD... But should you fail, you shall help us build this ORPHANAGE, starting with buying some nails for us!

What do you mean, why?! SHE JUST FEELS LIKE BUILDING ONE! What kind of sensational superhero doesn't do charitable things like building for the homeless, you idiots? As her wizard I am obligated to help her out here. Really, this kid would be hopeless without me! Come on, you aren't all chickens, are ya?!"

Suffice to say... they got a line for the table. It wasn't a very big line, but it was a line-up one mostly full of cheap-shot shady folk who hung out around the walls this time of the night. Haru was pretty proud of himself, but not as proud as he was of this Seigi kid.

She blew through the thugs like a bag of crackers. He was considering asking to arm wrestle her before thus while thing started to gague how well she was at this but he was glad he didn't. Was she fueled on nuclear power or something?

Before long after that they had their workers (and nails). These men were surprisingly all willing to go along with this whole shenanigan, either because of a sense of honor or because there actually weren't any orphanages in this capitol of players.

Haru himself had immediately gotten to laying out a real, solid chart of how to build this thing. The doodle in the dirt had long blown away, and he couldn't just go on instinct when other people were doing the work instead. He began to start bossing them around, too, as reluctant as he was do do so.

And so, they began building.

 

And how they started to build! With big, muscular, men having certainly more experience than Seigi in building... buildings, and @Haru's expertise in architecture, the Orphanage for (soon to be?) Orphans was slowly taking shape! What seemed like impossible 6 hours ago now looked like an actual place. Rooms to accommodate ALL the people. A nice big patch of walled off greenery for the orphans to safely be outside. Heck, the thing had even 3 floors! Only a cellar was lacking, yet, they could simply add more floors!

Seigi, in the meantime, simply got more wood. A single girl, doing the work of many, as she deforested the nearby forest in brutal fashion, not even aware if anyone owned that piece of land.

In the end, they even got a playground. And not just any kind of playground either, the Justice Girl had made sure to get the BESTEST playground anyone had ever seen. It was the kind of playground where parents dropped off their children to do... stuff. Like visiting a wildlife park and at the end was a section for food and drink and just a giant playground for way too many kids. This was the kind of playground they now had. And this was the sole reason they worked even longer hours.

Yet, it hadn't been all, the final touch for the outer area was in form of a big, ancient, tree Seigi had ripped out deeper inside the forest. "A Treehouse! The kids need a treehouse! Every kid deserves a treehouse!" Was her reasoning for the tree that was taller than the building itself.

With that also finished, everything was finished! Duh.

"GOOD JOB! ALL OF YOU." Were Seigi's last words to most as she put her hand on Haru's shoulder. "I will remember your face, and name, and color! My dear Comrade of Justice!" Was this... a compliment? It had to be. Seigi smiled in a way she used to be in her early days of Terrasphere!

 

Haru felt a smile come rushing up to his face as he saw how earnest this kid was. He just didn't see honest smiles like that anymore- they were something of a commodity these days.
"Ha ha ha ha... Yeah, same to you. You're pretty cool for a hothead." A simple exchange between the two was the last they saw of each-other that day. Afterwards he had business to take care of.

Where did he go after that? The man in white made his way back to the city. Haru had an unpleasant feeling hitting him, and wanted to prove himself right. And, over the course of the rest of the next day, he did.

That woman was nowhere to be found. Not the place they had spoken, nor the alleys or slums. No lofty pavilion nor recently built structure housed her. Even more worrying was how he couldn't even hear mention of her in the memories of the people he had asked, and he was pretty darn sure that he had asked a few people who knew before last night.

As the sun began to set for the next day, Haru sat down on a fountain in the town's middle square where many of the merchants usually set up stalls and opens up his menu. Truthfully he had been putting this off as long as he could have to delay the notification he most certainly did not want to see, but he did it anyway. Once open, a window that was becoming increasingly familiar to him popped up in front of his eyes.

You have further attuned yourself to Spirituamancy.​

"...So that's how it was." He's done it again. He'd spent his time busting his back for someone who wouldn't even stay around to thank him for it, hadn't he? Haru groans, rubbing his forehead as he felt a headache coming on. He really needed to stop fulfilling requests that didn't give him Quest prompts...

Oh, well. He did good. There might not be lost kids in this city today, but come tomorrow, long after he had departed, someone could come then. Then they'll be able to use that playground for sure.

"And they'd better be thankful when they go play in it. Someone put a lot of effort into that..." Haru mumbles complaints to no-one but himself until the sun sets, already conceding to whatever had given him this request in the first place. Hard work was cool enough in its own right.