[PQ] Plaza Post Office

Tal hadn't exactly been in a hurry to build another courier station in the rain after his experience in the Hollowed Grounds, but after a couple of weeks of waiting it didn't seem like Stormbreak was going to give him much choice in the matter. With some help from Soh and a lot of patience from Alys, the Messenger had prowled around the city until he'd found a good place to set up shop. Not in Pacifist Plaza or on the way to the skyport as he'd originally thought, but instead right across the street from the Tower where a small restaurant had just gone out of business, leaving an empty building - or at least, part of one - that was the perfect size for Tal to move into. And for once it was actually in pretty good shape!

...Not that things were ever that easy.

Standing in the doorway with the keys in his hand, Tal surveyed what needed doing with a critical eye, then heaved a heavy sigh and schlepped back out into the rain to post some "help wanted" posters, shoot a few letters to friends, and arrange for some raw materials and tools for the work ahead.

A few days later, with the lightning crawling across the sky like fiery spider webs, he opened the door for those that came knocking to help, inviting them in and handing out mauls and axes. "Hey, thanks for comin'. Hopefully we'll be gettin' a few more, but t'start we need to knock out all th'booths an' dismantle th'kitchen," he explained, while Boreal happily made greetings of her own to friends and strangers alike.

---

This is a PQ to set up an official courier station in Stormbreak! Please post your character arriving and getting to work on the demolition.

1. Tal
2. Ellyra
3. Alys
4.

Alys

Alys was nothing if not patient, and she'd been more than happy to wait for Tal to find the perfect place in Stormbreak for his delivery station. She'd gone with him on a number of tours until he'd picked out just the right building. Standing in it now, she had to admit that he had more vision than she. How he was going to transform an out-of-business restaurant into a delivery station was beyond her.

But despite her reservations, she was here to help. As they waited for more people to arrive, she silently told Sascha to stay out of trouble and got to work on demolition. It wasn't something that came naturally to her short, petite stature, and her magic was more or less useless - so she took up a maul that made her slump with the weight of it and started to bash at some of the kitchen, hoping she didn't mess anything up too badly.

------

Alys starts demolishing the kitchen!

sometimes i think all i'm ever doing is
trying to convince myself i'm alive

Ellyra, to be honest, was not a builder. But after the war she had volunteered in enough projects to be competent with some tools. So with a help-wanted poster in her hand, and a desire to be better in her heart, she made her way towards the address provided. When she pushed into the building and looked around, her heart jumped a little. ”Hey!” The lioness said enthusiastically, closing the distance between her and Alys with a swift few steps. Her bright smile was a beauty on her face as she sidled up to the fortune teller—er, seer—and rocked on her heels. ”How are you?” She asked, then tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and looked to Tal. ”OH! Hi. I saw this, and thought I could help.” She said, extending her hand and unfolding her fingers to reveal his poster. ”My family lives in the Hollowed Grounds, so I am always looking to send them packages and letters.” Ellyra arrives with enthusiasm and nothing else. Ellyra

Sometimes you had to break shit down before you could build something new from it. Mostly Tal just needed to open up some space and get rid of the unnecessary seating, and he took an axe to the booths with a will and a grunt of effort that...

Did not go quite as well as he'd hoped. Turned out he really was better at building things than at tearing them down, and he couldn't stop himself from trying to take the booths apart with the most minimal amount of damage and mess. He only got through a single chair and table before Ellyra arrived and he paused to greet her with ill-disguised relief. "Oh, hey! I'm Tal an' uh... I guess you already know Alys?" He shot his partner a rueful grin. "There's definitely gonna be a discount for anyone who helps set th'new station up, so grab an axe an' jump in!"

Alys was by far the most successful in her destruction. She was small but mighty, as Tal would have assured her, and she took out several of the cupboards and counters in the time it took the courier to manage his single booth. The kitchen was well on the way to being properly gutted and ready for remodeling when Ellyra arrived, and Tal looked in on it with a whistle of admiration. "Hey, this looks good! Let's get the debris cleaned out an' see what's left t'work with!"

Back in the front room he surveyed the remaining booths with far less satisfaction. "An', uh... keep hackin' away at this stuff, I guess," he admitted with a sigh.

---

Round 2!

1 person to clean out the fresh debris in the kitchen
2 people to continue smashing or dismantling the rest of the booths and tables built into the walls!

Alys

"We've met," Alys called from the kitchen, flashing Ellyra a quick smile. "How are you?" she asked the girl, taking a momentary break from her path of destruction to catch her breath. The seer wondered what Ellyra had thought of her reading, once she'd had a chance to consider it fully. She hoped that it had been helpful - though, how no one had yet pulled the Tower with all that was going on in Caido, she wasn't quite sure.

She got back to her demolition, working slowly and methodically to clear out sections of the kitchen without destroying anything too important, and when Tal paused to whistle in admiration at her work, she tossed a playful wink over her shoulder at him.

As the kitchen began to take shape - or, rather, fall apart - Alys realized that the other two hadn't had as much luck in the front of the old restaurant. "Need some help?" she asked her partner with a raised brow and a smile, hefting the maul she'd had such luck with. She hadn't thought to be any good at demolition, but somehow she'd been the most successful of them all! Maybe she'd be able to do the same for the remaining booths and tables.

------

Alys works on demolition in the front room!

sometimes i think all i'm ever doing is
trying to convince myself i'm alive

It did not seem there was enough time to visit with Alys before she was needed for the work she came for. Instead, she offered the woman a short answer of how she was doing (which was good), then set to the tasks. Leaving the continued demolition to the two close friends, Ellyra started clearing out the debris. She coughed with the dust as she moved partial, broken pieces of booth and wall and all manner of destruction. It was interesting to the lioness how much destruction needed to go in to rebuilding. In her personal life, the woman strayed away from that. Instead, she flitted here and there and focused on the next thing in front of her (preferably, the fun thing), rather than going inward to start the demolition needed for growth. Ellyra clears out the debris! Ellyra

It only made sense that a healer would be less at ease with destruction than repair, and luckily the day's goal required both. Ellyra was able to clear out the debris from the kitchen without so much as a papercut from the rough edges and sharp nails that occasionally poked through. Every time she came close, her animal instincts seemed to guide her hands away from the sharp bits so she could get a better grip on the chunks of drywall, sections of tile, or veneer from the cupboards. While the other two worked out front, the lioness cleared the back and soon revealed the room that Alys had previously knocked the edges off of. There was a lot more space now!

Alys and Tal, unsurprisingly, made a pretty good team. Tal kept their energies directed to the next section that needed to come apart, and Alys kept him from getting so caught up in perfection that he failed to move forward. With the two of them working together they managed to tear out and dismantle the rest of the booths in the front, and after a couple of hours the restaurant was down to its bones.

Tal wiped the sweat from his brow and surveyed the progress, looking mildly surprised at how much they'd already managed to do. "Hey! It's lookin' less like a restaurant already," he declared with satisfaction. "We can keep th'dividin' wall with th'window in it. That's a good place t'take packages." It must have been where the cooks had passed food through from the kitchen before, but now it would have a new purpose. "So now we gotta build shelves to go in the back, for th'packages waitin' for delivery to be stored on. An' Stormbreak's a pretty big place, so I'll need as many as we can fit back there!"

---

Well done on getting rid of the old restaurant furnishings!

Round 3:
building shelves to store packages on!

The lioness was able to clear the debris and demolition without much hassle or fuss. Thankfully the dust didn't bother her too much more than just a sneeze here and there. Next, Ellyra stood amid a pile of wood, nails, and tools with a determined gleam in her eyes. Carpentry might not have been her forte, but enthusiasm bubbled within her like an irrepressible force. Undeterred by her lack of carpentry finesse, Ellyra grabbed a hammer with a grin, and started helping build shelves. Despite a few wonky nails and slightly uneven shelves, laughter filled the air as the lioness worked. In the end, it wasn't about perfect shelves (in her opinion) but simply at helping. Ellyra helps build. What she lacks in skill she makes up for in enthusiasm. Ellyra

Alys

Who would have known the the petite seer would have such a penchant for destruction?

There was something almost soothing in working alongside her partner to prepare the space for his vision, for all that they were tearing down someone else's. She supposed that was the way of the world: constant change, constant growth, especially in this case, as they took something old apart to make way for something new. She could only hope that she would be as successful as they began the building phase of the day's operations.

Alys eyed their piles of supplies with something akin to trepidation, but followed Tal's lead in selecting materials and beginning to attempt to put together shelves for the back. Truth be told, she almost missed the maul she'd been using as she tried to put together the shelves. She'd little practice with building, not nearly so much as Tal, and she was sure that it showed in her slow, careful, rough workmanship.

------

Alys tries to build shelves.

sometimes i think all i'm ever doing is
trying to convince myself i'm alive

Even left to her own devices, the lioness had a bit of a knack for building. And she was right to think that function was more important than form. The shelving that she banged together might have been a little rough around the edges ("It's got... character," Tal decided upon seeing the result) but they were sturdy. That was the most important part, and Ellyra got it exactly right. She filled one short wall with her constructions, but she wasn't the first one done.

Alys was, if not quite as good with building as she was with construction, still not bad at it. She took her time and it showed. If her shelves weren't perfect they were still something to be proud of, and in spite of her care and thoroughness she finished a few minutes ahead of Ellyra, giving her time to sit back and admire her work if she so desired. Tal came over to give her a one-armed hug and a grin of support for the artist hiding beneath the surface before going back to his own task.

Which, uh. Could have gone... better? Look. Some days you were the hammer, and some days you were the nail, and all the woodworking experience in the world couldn't save him when he started assembling his shelving and the pieces crumbled in his hands, spilling a small termite infestation into his lap. The courier yelped and shot up, doing the "oh fuck get 'em off get 'em off" dance and started stomping, and Boreal heard the din and barreled in to add to the chaoshelp. Her muzzle might have been short and broad, but she did an excellent imitation of an anteater as she gleefully hoovered around room, slurping up snacks as she went before any could escape into the corners.

Tal could feel his ears and neck flushed bright red with embarrassment as the excitement subsided and he reached up to cover his face with both hands. "...Okay. Okay. I'm gonna... just... go buy some more wood an' try again. Um. D'you guys think y'could paint over that dismal wallpaper in th'front room? There's some blue paint over behind where th'wood was." And with that, he fled.

And the wallpaper in the front room? It wasn't hideous... necessarily. But the pink and green diamonds were definitely not Tal's style.

---

Great job on the shelves, ladies! Too bad Tal's struggling a bit...

Round 4:
Tal has to redo his shelves
The front room needs painting!

Good luck!

Alys

Much to Alys's surprise, her shelves turned out... well, they were actually not bad. Good enough, at least, to earn Tal's approval, which was all the really mattered in the end. As she straightened from sliding a lower shelf into place, she felt Tal's arm slide around her and grinned up at her partner, leaning affectionately into his hold. Then she turned her attention to Ellyra. "Those are lovely," she said, not wanting the younger woman to feel like a third wheel.

Tal's efforts, unfortunately, did not go to plan, and the seer winced as the poor man had a bundle of termites dropped into his lap. Her own skin crawling, she started forward to try to help, but Boreal beat her to it, quickly and easily disposing of the insects. As for the wallpaper... well, she was an artist, wasn't she? How bad could painting be?

So as Tal went out to get more wood for the shelves, the seer pulled out a gallon of paint and poured some into a tray. Then she got to work trying to paint over the wallpaper in the front room. "I'll take this side, if you'll start over there?" she asked Ellyra, gesturing to the opposite wall with a smile.

------

Alys starts painting!

sometimes i think all i'm ever doing is
trying to convince myself i'm alive

While building may have not been what Ellyra was most gifted at, the nurse still found that the shelves came together with relative ease. Proud of herself, the lioness let the feeling swell without hindrance, even as Tal regarded them with a less-than-ideal response. Ellyra didn’t care. She was helping. She did something new. She was proud. Beaming as Alys encouraged her, Ellyra finished up with the shelves and followed the seer. ”Okay!” Ellyra said, gathering the proper supplies she would need. Painting was something she was a little more familiar with, but still stood in a grey space as far as experience and talent went. But, her enthusiasm couldn’t be curbed, and she set to the task with an excited tenacity. Ellyra paints! Ellyra

The courier finally caught a break, and with fresh wood that was thankfully free of termites he was finally able to strut his stuff. Tucked away in the backroom, with Boreal continuing to hunt down any stray termites, he focused down on his carpentry without interruption. The shelves he built were fine indeed, with crisp angles and smoothly-sanded edges so no splinters would catch a finger or a package stored on them. He filled the back wall with them, leaving only the sink because he didn't want to fuck with the plumbing, and having an extra sink for washing up wasn't a terrible idea.

Who knew that the painting would prove the hardest part of the whole endeavor?

Back in the front room, Alys and Ellyra tackled the walls with enthusiasm and determination. That more or less made up for the lack of skill the brought to the task. Alys was an artist, but the techniques for putting paint cleanly on a wall were surprisingly quite different from working with a small brush on a page, and she soon had a bit of a mess on her side of the room as paint dripped and splattered onto the floor beneath her roller. Ellyra's side of the room was noticeably cleaner, with only a few drips to clean up afterwards, but with their combined efforts the room was beautifully blue by the time Tal emerged from the back.

"Whoa! This is lookin' way better!" he assured them both. The pink and green triangles were completely gone, and once the walls dried they'd be ready to hang some nice pictures on. Maybe he could put some tables for people to wrap their packages on over the worst of the paint drips...  "Thanks a lot! Let's get this cleaned up an' I'll buy everyone dinner," he offered, already heading into the backroom to get some water and rags to start wiping up the paint smears.

---

Last round! Clean up the mess and the last person out can put a ~Fin~ on it, please!

Alys

"...she was an artist, wasn't she? How bad could painting be?"

Ha. Shouldn't have tempted the dice gods written that.

The seer didn't look around until Tal had returned and finished his shelves, until her partner stood in the front of the shop and praised their work. Then she made the mistake of glancing back at him... and cringed at the mess she'd made of her side of the room. Ellyra had managed to be a little less messy, and somehow, that made Alys feel all the worse for making more work for them.

Even so, she waited for Tal to return with rag and water and sheepishly accepted a rag with a soft word of thanks. Then she focused her attention on the worst of the paint splatters, hoping that the paint was still wet enough that she'd be able to mop it up. Maybe if it was too late for the floors, he'd let her come back another day with something from the market to strip the paint away entirely.

------

Alys cleans paint!

sometimes i think all i'm ever doing is
trying to convince myself i'm alive