Shaping Up a Church [Event/Guild/Kazuko]

[Hirosame]

Hiro stood in front of the large Abbey, where many adventurers had revived at least once before. This place was regarded as being a sacred one, but was in a bit of disrepair, ever since this game was first conceived. Hiro had thought about it a bit, and, since the beginning of this spring cleaning event, figured that a few places could probably use a bit of shaping up. However, the use of Mechanic in this place was a bit pointless, being that it had nothing to do with mechanisms anywhere. So, he might as well use some brute strength, and pick up large pieces of rubble. But, he wouldn't be here alone, which he was going to make absolute certainty of. He invited Kazuko, the shrine maiden in Apocrypha, to help fix things up. She was an Artisan, so it'd make sense for her to be here. After all, what else would a priest of any sort want to be near, other than a church or holy place that followed their ideology?

Perhaps a Shrine Maiden in a church wasn't the best way to go, but it was still a thing to do. It would eventually pool over into helping the guild get a place of their own. This event basically encouraged the activities of guilds, and the involvement of guilds in the reforging of the town. It didn't hurt to help clean things up a bit more here and there, and it would probably serve to the benefit of all the people who would show up at the abbey. They'd know that Apocrypha's Monk and Shrine Maiden cleaned up the Abbey, for whenever someone needed to revive. Sure, it's a bit of product placement, but it was still useful enough. Most people probably noticed the state that the Abbey was in when the revived, and wished that there would be a better place to respawn in. So, why not fix it up a bit? Good enough idea, Hiro was convinced that this would help everybody out in the long run, so it would be worth it in the end. Probably.

Hiro took a few steps inside the building, and saw that his entire idea of the place was completely wrong. It was a wreck. A total mess. Hiro was more than certain that if Renai could see this place, he'd throw an absolute fit, and go into a cleaning frenzy. Probably exactly what happened when Hiro brought Renai to his workshop for the first time, and immediately started cleaning the place up. However, if Renai were here, this would probably get done in minutes. But, he'd do the best he could with Kazuko. He was confident enough in her abilities, even though he'd never seen them before. If she was in Apocrypha, however, he'd go ahead and assume that she would do just fine. After her work on the golems, it was apparent that she'd be good enough to at least carve a few stones, and then place some solidifying substance on the places where she replaced the stone. So, he didn't need to worry all that much about her work. He'd mostly have to focus on moving the big pieces of stone, or possibly breaking them to make smaller stones for Kazuko to use. Either way, she needed to get here first, so he just leaned back, and relaxed, while waiting for the Shrine Maiden to arrive.

[570 Words]

[Kazuko]

Shortly after Hiro had gone inside Kazuko had shown up and stared up at the large abbey that was to be her new project with her guild leader. Now Hiro wouldn’t have known this but the shaman had actually been here to work on quite number of occasions and her deity, Kagura, was even discovered and lived there. It still wasn’t much as there was only so much work one little girl could do alone, but she hoped this event might make this church a better place in the guild’s name as well as being a better place to study until she got a real Shinto shrine of her own.



Carefully taking a few steps inside Kazuko might a polite bow and spoke gently into the empty church “Tadaima". After scanning around the church, eyes passing over the guild leader already present before landing on the object, or person, in question. “Hi Kagari, sorry it’s been so long since I’ve been here I got really busy with work." She said moving over to Kagura, a girl who looked to be of a similar age to Kazuko, Hiro however wouldn’t be able to see the small girl that stood in front of the shaman while they talked. The girl, Kagura, that Kazuko was speaking to didn't seem to take notice of either one's presence and simply left the room to sit on the rooftops as she usually did around this time. Finally looking up from her deity Kazuko spoke up to Hiro, “Hello Hiro, I’m glad you could come and help me with this for the event. Oh and um sorry if it seemed like I ignored you when I came in I haven’t seen Kagari here for quite a while with things being so busy lately." She explained with a smile at the monk’s direction.



Looking around the main entrance it was obvious the place was in complete ruins and would take quite a bit of work to restore. In its present state it wasn’t much for resurrecting a fallen player, much less give them place to shelter and practice their faith. “I know it might sound odd with me being a shrine maiden and all, but I’ve been trying my best to take of this place as well as made it a sort of 'unofficial home' for myself." She explained waving an arm to the back that had a desk that appeared to mostly clear as well as a small bedroll and lantern. “Until I can get something better I’ve been using the back room there as a workshop kind of, but I haven’t gotten any requests so it’s still empty." Kazuko explained further, head hanging low upon mentioning the low work flow going in.



Kazuko’s mood was only brought down for a moment though before her head came back up with a smile again. “But it’ll be fine now because you’re here to help me fix this place up again good as new. I can handle the stonework and decorations for it like back when we worked on Midori’s golem, but I can’t do a lot of heavy lifting on these larger rocks and beams." She said eyes going around the large debris piles scattered throughout the main room. It would take a lot of work to get this place presentable again to Landers and Adventurers but hopefully when it was done it would provide a symbol for the city again as well as provide a good name for Apocrypha for helping the city with its restoration projects.



Word Count: 590
Muse: Radiance

[Hirosame]

Okay, this girl was a bit off the deep end, for sure. She was talking to herself. Or, it looked like she was. But when she started to explain that there was some sort of another being in the room, Hiro took a little look around the place, just to make sure that Kazuko wasn't completely insane. After seeing that no one was also in here, he went back to figuring that the female Shrine Maiden was a bit insane. But, then he remembered that Shrine Maidens, and other religion-based classes could see things that normal classes couldn't really see. So, he laid back with the judging mindset, but still kept it in the back of his mind. He never knew when this girl was just going to crack, or if there actually was something nearby that only she could see. He shrugged it off eventually, though, only to have it replaced with a sense of sympathy, seeing that the girl had been living here for quite some time now.

He turned and took another look around the place, and really assessed the situation. The abbey was in disrepair, and could really use a face lift, let alone some better stonework. It'd be a large effort on their part, but it was still something that needed to be done, for sure. However, despite the Monk's physical capabilities, some of these rocks would need a bit of extra work. Luckily enough, one of his newer abilities, Battering Ram, was made for just that sort of thing. But, then his mind shifted back to how the girl had been living here. He turned to her for a moment, after she was done speaking, and inserted his own ideology of how the day was going to go. "Well, this is exactly why I'm here to help rebuild things, Kazuko. You can't just live in the abbey. So. once we get this done, and report it to the larger guilds, we might be able to get a bit closer to that guild home discount that will be released soon." He was sure that Kazuko would be a bit excited for that, at least.

As for now, though, he needed to know exactly what needed to be done. "So, where do you want to start?" He asked patiently. He wasn't good at the whole decoration thing, and he was sure as hell not really able to do anything crafting related in here, since it was a church after all, and mostly devoid of modern things. A small jukebox to play a few songs wouldn't be bad, though. It'd be kinda nice to listen to some working music while they fixed the place up. He always worked better with music in the background. Turning around to really look at the place, he realized just how big of a job it would be. This would be viewed by any and all Adventurers that die out in the field, and get reborn back into this place. A small sweat bead rolled down the back of his neck, thinking about how if they screwed up here, it would cost them quite a bit. He shook the idea from his head, and just focused on the job before them. Hiro would be the crane, of sorts, and put places where they needed to go. He turned back to Kazuko, and waited for her to give him his first task.

[569 Words]

[Kazuko]

Tilting her head to the side Kazuko looked a little confused at Hiro’s words. “But I need to be here for Kagari, I made a promise to her…" The young girl trailed off looking off to the bell tower access. “She doesn’t want to leave here so I guess if I can fix it up I can just come here to work. Can I our guild housing have a place to add a Shinto shrine somewhere? It would really help out a lot." She said bringing her attention back to Hiro for a moment before moving over to the back. “I found these plans back here while cleaning they appear to be floor plans for the building layout." Spreading the sheet out in front of her she began drawing on it to fill in missing details.



Pointing to various points on the blueprints in front her she’d casually mention each part to Hiro. “The alter here where players respawn will need to do a bit of stonework shaping, the pillars are really damaged and fallen over so we’ll need to get the up and able to support weight again. This area over here is mostly private quarters stuff for me and Kagari so don’t mind them as much." Inhaling a breath from giving commands Kazuko swallowed some air as she looked around again. “Oh and there was a library here, I already moved the books into a storage a while ago so they wouldn’t get damaged anymore." Staring at a particular point on her map Kazuko’s face made an expression of being both concerned and afraid at the same time. “Over there is the entrance to under the abbey where the catacombs and stuff are…I don’t want to but I should go down there at some point to make sure the dead down there are still alright and nothing bad happened, like zombie monsters or something." Kazuko made a breathy sigh at last as she looked around for a convenient place to have the plans out in case she or Hiro needed to look at it again.



Finishing the aforementioned task Kazuko turned back to Hiro with her hands clasped behind her. “Thanks for being worried about me and Kagari, things haven’t exactly been easy but I wouldn’t have this any other way, so if we do get our guild housing I’ll need some time to think about moving in."

Word Count: 400
Muse: Morning Glory
Notes: Map of Westminster Abbey

[Hirosame]

Hiro followed the girl over to a place where she could show him the plans for the place. Instead of doing any talking, Hiro only nodded at the female, as she placed the plans somewhere for both of them to access. Hiro figured that he'd start with the altar. It certainly was misshapen, and needed some immediate repairs. Hiro walked over to it, and started to use one of his newer skills, Battering Ram, to cut the altar up in nice, block-like pieces. Kazuko could probably fix up the altar to look nice and such later, so he moved on to the pillars just nearby. All of them looked to be relatively bad in shape, so Battering Ram was used on nearby blocks to shape them up in pieces that Kazuko could, again, fix up as she saw fit. The next place to look into was the storage place, but Kazuko had mentioned that it didn't really need any other fixes. Aside from that, nothing else really needed his touch.

Perhaps outside could use some work, though. He nodded slightly to Kazuko, and walked outside to observe the face of the abbey, and saw the state of disrepair that it was on. Blocks of stone were everywhere outside, so Hiro started to combine his Battering Ram and Magnet Grip to start putting the pieces where they belonged. As if the game itself was trying to fix the place up, the pieces that he put into place mended on their own. Perhaps the game itself was trying to repair the city? Hiro had no idea what was going on, but he went with it, and soon enough, the outside of the abbey looked perfect. Hiro stepped down, having used up about half of his total mana over the course of about an hour of hard work, but it looked a lot better on the outside. He went back inside, to check up on Kazuko, and see if she needed his help any further. He imagined that she would, since she probably couldn't fix up the pillars on her own. Until she needed him again, he just remained looking over the floor plans, just to make sure that everything else was in good order.

[372 Words]

[Kazuko]

Standing back a bit Kazuko waited patiently as Hiro did his thing with the smashing smashes that he was so good at. With only a silent nod Kazuko took Hiro’s place at the alter and began working at shaping the nice small blocks he left her to create a more appealing alter for people to come back to. One thing the girl noticed was the work was a lot harder but there was lot less fine finesse involved from when she helped with Midori’s golem, this was mostly just hard tedious work of making sure everything fit together like a puzzle. After the alter was all fixed up to a condition of looking presentable again Kazuko moved over to each pillar in turn, working each one with carving and polishing till the stonework was smooth and even. Something she noticed was after she reached a certain point of restoration the building seemed to start fixing itself to finish off places she couldn’t reach to easily.



It was around the time Kazuko finished the last pillar that Hiro came back inside that the girl looked around at the rest of the church. ‘Guess now is a s good a time as any.'  Thinking to herself as she made a small sigh and hopped off the small ledge she was standing on. Moving to the back of the abbey Kazuko began working in the back on the old tombs and chapels that dotted the back of the building. Once this was done she could check on the living quarters area to see if Hiro did anything over there. The main concern at hand was to get as much of the heavy stonework out of the way as possible while the monk was there helping. If she had to she could finish the polishing and fine work at another time



Brushing aside some small rocks off a tomb she had been restoring Kazuko clasped her hands in a brief prayer before jumping up. “Oh gosh I nearly forgot! I had told Kagari I was going to fix those towers for her!" She exclaimed as she rushed from the back in a brisk walk and made her way up the crumbling stairs to the towers. “Yeah needs a lot of work, but she enjoys being up here so it’s important." Kazuko muttered as she began setting some of the stones back roughly in place before kneeling down to begin the process of working the weathered stones. They didn’t seem too bad up here so she didn’t bother asking for Hiro to come up unless he wanted to.


Word Count: 433
Muse: Sprouting

[Hirosame]

As the female Shaman scurried off to another section of the abbey, Hiro slowly followed her. He wasn't rushed at all, and figured that he could probably help Kazuko out with this next thing, and then they could call it a day there. He heard her talking about some other person, who he figured was some sort of religious figure that Kazuko seemed to believe in, and heard that the religious being wanted some help with the restoration of the towers in the church, Hiro could only imagine that the bell tower needed some work, and as Kazuko started to work on the stairs, Hiro ascended them, making sure not to add anymore work for the girl to have to do. He stepped up carefully, and made his way to the belfry, beginning to tinker with the machinations of the bell's codes. He made good use of Quality Control in order to examine it properly. He saw inside the mechanization of the bell's movement and usage, and when it was supposed to chime. It was programmed to chime once, when a player is revived. But, it was meant to have a different sound from the clock tower, which Hiro was hoping to repair later on this week.

This was a good start for him. Being able to fix up the bell here would make it easier to fix up others later on. Since this bell has a randomized time that it chimes, it'll probably be harder to code than setting it to chime when an hour mark hits. So, Hiro finished up with that, and figured that he'd give it a quick test run. He simulated it using a code to make it seem as though a player had just appeared in the abbey, and the bell chimed flawlessly. He set the code back, and started down the stairs. He turned to Kazuko for a moment, and smiled to her. "Well, the bell seems to be working. I'm gonna fix it up from the outside, and I'll call it a day there, okay? Good work, Kazuko." He waved to her, and nodded happily to the girl. He went outside, and used his Magnet Grip and Battering Ram skills to make things fit as they should, and did so along the entirety of the outside of the abbey. In no time at all, Hiro had finished up his portion of the job, and started to walk away. After walking a little ways away, he turned around, and looked at the repaired abbey, nodding slightly to it. He mentally patted himself on the back, and thought that he'd go ahead and pick something up for Kazuko, who should probably enjoy the refurbished state of her temporary home. A house warming gift: A more comfortable cot. He'd bring it back later, as a way of saying thanks for the hard work today. He turned back around, and headed towards the shopping district.

[489 Words]

[Kazuko]

Kazuko was happy that Hiro decided to come up and help with the tower after all. On her own she wouldn’t have been able to get the bell mechanisms working again, artisan skills didn’t work like that. On her own she could only hope to get the tower itself accessible and presentable, and maybe get the bell fixed to look nice even if it didn’t perform the chimes of its programming allowed it to. While the monk focused inside the tower on the mechanisms Kazuko began work on the other tower instead, fortunately the bell on this one was on the same code as the one Hiro was working on so they could each work on a tower and not be cramped together. Having finished the interior the young girl made her way outside to help Hiro finish off whatever work he still needed outside.



Again after reaching a certain point of manual repairs to the building itself the system seemed to take over as it repaired itself as well allowing their whole process to go much quicker than if it didn’t. Wiping her forehead with her sleeve Kazuko climbed back inside the tower and started to smooth the stone steps leading up to their location, adding in new stones where they were needed before moving down. Reaching the bottom step she turned around to face Hiro, “Thanks for all the help today, the abbey looks much better for people now and me and Kagari have a much nicer place to live now." She said beaming a smile at him. “I decided though that although we’ll still live here for a while me and Kagari are going to look for a place she likes even better and I’ll build my own Shinto shrine there. Hopefully you’ll still drop by and see us when we do even if end up far away from London." She spoke again folding her hands behind her with a smile.



As Hiro left the abbey, probably to go shopping or level some more or something, Kazuko turned back inside and went to her back room again. Being alone once more the fox girl let her concealment drop allowing her orange ears and tails to be visible again. Grabbing a broom from a corner Kazuko began doing some light sweeping to remove the dust that had accumulated from their work. While she worked Kazuko noticed something strange fall on ground in front of her. As she examined Kazuko noted it was a maid outfit of her size. ‘How’d this get here, some kind of quest reward or something?' It was then that she remembered something about the London restoration event having butler and maid outfits for those that took part in the event. Smiling as she gathered up the clothes Kazuko folded them nicely and placed them in her inventory, maybe for later she could wear them while not at work since maid outfits didn’t fit a shrine maiden at work so well.

Word Count: 496
Muse: Fertilizer