REQUEST Request name: Cat Herding Mission Type: Social Client name: Loren Affer Objective: Keep all the animals safe and healthy for the day Location: Shirotsume Town Request description: Helped Needed At Local Animal Shelter. Request details: - Ms. Affer runs the local animal shelter and has an errand to tend to today. She needs your help watching - the shelter for the day. - Tend to the animals basic needs. - Somehow the cats get outside and run to hide throughout the area - Catch all the cats and bring them back safely before Ms. Affer returns NPC's Name: Loren Affer Type: Client Age: 28 General Appearance: Cute, modest. Long blond hair, green eyes. Generally dresses in tan while working with the animals. Personality: She acts responsible, and does not talk a lot needlessly. She is informative and kind, but since she works primarily with the animals, she isn’t as conversational with people. Other: She has a few volunteers, but no paid employees to watch the shelter.
Rena stood stiffy, her arms folded across her chest and her eyes narrowed suspiciously. ”Fine, I’ll do the job. But only because it’s for your friend... and what kind of request is this anyways? You said that your husband wasn’t willing to do it?” Considering that Mizu was married to a rather proficient mage, she had trouble believing it. Her acquaintance sighed and just shoved the folded request slip at the disbelieving girl. And then watched as Rena stalked away still a bit suspicious.
”Nana, just a warning... I hope you don’t mind practical jokes by magical animals,” Mizu muttered a bit apologetically even though the younger girl was already out of sight.
Standing in front of the doors of the address Mizu had given her, Rena was extraordinarily pissed. She had been expecting an extremely difficult mission, one that was absolutely impossible for most to accomplish. As the girl stared at the doors of the local animal shelter, Rena was already complaining about the fur and licking and general mess. And it didn’t help when an enormous dog, nearly half the height of the girl herself, flew out of the door as soon as the wandering mage heaved it open. She was knocked over and energetically attacked with slobbery kisses for no apparent reason. Gritting her teeth, Rena tried to push the creature off, but to no avail. It moved to a sitting position, from being sprawled across her stomach, and seemed to stare into her eyes innocently. Rena snarled at it and kicked her legs futilely. Geez... this is so troublesome. I’m totally going to kill Mizu later, the girl thought as she waited irritably for help to arrive.
Fortunately, this process didn’t take an overly long amount of time, and therefore soon enough a young woman, perhaps in her late twenties in age, rushed through the door way and heaved the canine off of the annoyed dancer. Rena forced a smile but inwardly was far past the point of being annoyed. Just what the heck was Mizu thinking? was the only thing lingering in her mind as she bowed politely to the woman and asked what her mission was. The request slip had only said that a civilian needed help desperately and it had to be someone brave enough to take on the responsibility of many lives. Rena hadn’t felt particularly reassured by that statement, but she wasn’t a complete coward and her friend Mizu had asked her to complete the request, anyways. Rena glanced at the woman and decided that she was most likely the shelter owner. Attired in white and tan, she had a bit of a stern look on her face in general, but seemed to be apologetic at the moment.
That was good, because right now Rena was rather angry but tried to keep her emotions under control. This was a job, after all, and even though she had just been squashed by a dog that was really no reason to lose her cool... right? Gritting her teeth, Rena bowed politely to the woman and said, "My name is Oshitari Nana, it's a pleasure to meet you." The young woman introduced herself as Ms. Loren Affer, and Rena was invited inside to get be given a bit more instruction before the woman left to run some errands, which was the reason she needed the girl's help in the first place.
Eventually, Ms. Affer left and Rena was left to tend to the animals' needs on her own. Sighing rather heavily, the girl pushed up her sleeves and slipped on a pair of gloves. Well... here goes nothing, she thought, before diving in and beginning to clean all of the cats' litterboxes. They were quite a rowdy group of felines, constantly meowing and bawling loudly, so Rena put them all in a small room with a few of the already cleaned litterboxes, so that she had plenty of peace and quiet to properly get to work. After locking the cats safely back up in their cages, Rena left that section of the shelter and went to take care of the other animals.
A few hours later, Rena had cleaned the majority of the animals' cages and was just about to start working on the birds when she noticed a distinct lack of meowing coming from the cat section. Since she had put them back in their cages, they hadn't shut up and had continuously yowled every few minutes. It had been at least a half hour since the mage had last heard any of those dreadful screeches, the girl thought with a crinkle of her eyebrows. Reversing her direction, she left the hallway leading to the birds and quickly made her way over to where the cats lived. A terrible sight met her eyes...
The fire mage groaned as she saw that all of the cages had somehow been unlocked and the cats had all escaped. Considering the fact that there was a nearby window open and it was only a couple feet up off the ground, Rena assumed that they had escaped through there. Going to the window herself, the girl slipped through quickly and looked around for the troublesome felines. Oddly enough, there were plenty in sight. They hadn't yet left the area, and Rena could count at least four kittens in various places-- one was up in a tree, while the other three were playing in the grass, rolling around and getting themselves rather dirty.
The girl marched up to the three playing in on the grass and swiftly scooped them up, walking back over and depositing them safely into the room of the shelter before firmly closing the window and trying to grab the other kitten. Rena sighed and decided to just try to climb the tree, which took her a long time, since the girl went at about an inch every minute. Eventually, she made it to the top and grabbed the other kitten, after some more time finally making it back down and then depositing it in the room along with the other three. After shutting the window to make sure they couldn't escape again, Rena lifted a hand to shield her eyes and contemplated upon where the cats could be.
Tilting her head slightly even though it really didn't do anything to enhance her hearing, the girl listened for a tell tale (or tell tail haha) sound of meowing. There seemed to be nothing, but just as Rena was beginning to become annoyed and perhaps a bit dejected, there came a rustle and meow from a nearby group of bushes. Immediately the girl pounced, like a cat herself, on the bush, and dove right inside to come up with... two cats, the scruffs of each grasped in each hand. Triumphantly, Rena smirked at the cats. "Gotcha," the girl whispered.
After leaving them in the room with the other cats, Rena was in much greater spirits. According to her count, she only had four cats left to find before this accident would be in the past. And so, after running around town for the next hour, Rena finally located the four cats, all bunched together and sleeping quite peacefully on the top of a random towns person's roof. Rena scooped them up in a bunch and delicately placed them in a giant basket together. She was careful not to awake the cats, since after all, she was only a single person and probably wouldn't be able to handle four felines if they were desperate to escape from her care. Beaming widely, the girl set off back to the shelter.
After the day was finally over, Rena had cleaned every square inch of the place and all of the animals were safely locked back up. Rena had even put a charm on the locks so that they couldn't be opened by the animals themselves from the inside using telekinesis or whatnot. The mage had discovered that many of them possessed magical powers, and the cats just happened to be avid pranksters who only respected Ms. Affer, who they fondly referred to as Big Sister. However, it seemed that after Rena had managed to round them up, the group of fluffy felines had gained enough respect for the dancer that they didn't attempt to break out again, perhaps realizing it was futile and she wouldn't fall to their pranks.
And so, Ms. Loren Affer arrived back at the shelter to see the girl sitting calmly on the steps outside leading up to the front door, apparently waiting for the woman. She paid Rena and thanked the mage, and the girl bowed back. Then she went back home, and with relief collapsed on her bed and cursed whoever had decided that creating magical cats with devious minds would be a good idea. The entire day had been exhausting, but at least it had been different than Rena's typical missions. At least now the girl knew the reason why a mage was required for the job... and she would never make the mistake of trusting Mizu when it came to request selecting again.
