FFXIV: List of Chores

OOC: The following is my RP response to a message Maia left on Quick "offscreen" notes thread of the IC Shenanigans board on the forums for the Role Playing group Rendezvous of Stars.

This response will be updated throughout the day as he gets chores done. Warning, this might get a little emo. . Rai is going through some stuff.

"Mr. Raimy,

With the Host Club opening little more than a week away, I will be in need of more assistance than ever, I'm afraid. Please complete the following tasks before the end of the day, if you are physically able to do so. I also ask that you refrain from drinking while doing these tasks, as they will require the utmost attention. I will be on-hand and working as well, so if your wound is troubling you, just ask for a healing spell, all right?

- Please clean both the chandeliers. Be certain to remove each lantern piece and clean it individually, as well as the main structure.

- Please utilize the seeding beside the garden to reseed the lawn, as many people tend to walk from the gates to the door, and we do not wish to have dead grass on opening day. (Also, if any flowers have been trampled, please try to save their life.)

- Please tend to weeding the garden in the backmost corner beside the house, and till the ground to prepare it for planting fresh fruits and vegetables.

- Please clean the ceiling and all corners of the Host Club thoroughly, ensuring that no cobwebs reside anywhere, in any of our small (or main) rooms.

- Please ensure that all vases are in their proper place, cleaned, and have fresh flowers within them. If you see any spills or scattered articles within the side rooms, clean or place these items away accordingly.

- Please wash all dishes within the kitchen area, dry them, and put them back into their proper place.

- Please wash all bedding and furnishing with stains until stains are removed. We should have chemicals on hand for this, but it may take some doing to accomplish. This is particularly important, as all furnishings must look like new on opening day.

- Please sweep and mop the floors, and take each rug outside to shake the dust from it. If you need help with arranging the furniture atop the rugs, please call on me to assist, as I will be around.

- Please arrange all teacups and dinnerware in the cupboard in groups dictated by size and color. Also, please arrange everything within the chest and organize things there as well.

- Please clean the benches and tables outside, as well as their corresponding parasols. I understand the parasols are quite large, but feel free to take a chair outside to stand on in tending to them.

- Please inspect and clean the outer walls of the Host Club, as the dust from Thanalan does tend to accumulate there.

- Please clean the windows until there is a reflective shine on the glass, and the panes reflect the sun of The Goblet, if you would be so kind.

If you run out of tasks to complete today, please come to me and I would be happy to assign more, as much still is in need of doing.

Thank you for your assistance, Mr. Raimy." 

Rai wakes up with a mumble, looking no less sad than the night before. Maybe even more so since the near drowning would have woken all sorts of demons hidden deep inside that would have have taunted his nightmares. He immediately notices the stick on his hand and all over the rest of him, as it got all over the bed in his early morning stirring, tossing, and turning. He lifts the covers and looks around horrified to realize he didn't put on his four layers of night clothes. He pulls the covers close to himself again, but sees no one. He can hear Maia upstairs and frowns, wondering if she played the mean honey trick on him. He starts to get up and feels things under the covers with him. The first he pulls out and is an empty rum bottle. He checks it for contents, though uncorked his waking mind knows the rum would be in bed with the honey by now. He sets the bottle aside and pulls out the waded piece of paper covered in sticky golden goo. He frowns at it's disgusting state as he unfolds it and tries to read past the honey spots. Good thing most of them were on the back of the letter.

He sighs and looks up at the chandelier. It's high and heavy. A few weeks ago it'd not been a problem at all. He looks down at his right side where the poisoned sword sunk into his flesh with a wound that won't heal by magic. He still has stitches there, something he heard you shouldn't get wet, but he went swimming last night anyway. It never gets cleaned or treated except by Raimy in his failed attempts to learn this stuff on his own. Doc keeps disappearing and when he does see Doc, Doc runs. He's pretty sure the wound will kill him now, so no harm in doing things that might stretch it or open it?

He reorders the lit in his mind of things he can do, and things that will be quicker to do so that he'll be almost finished when others start to show up and yell at him for not being done yet. He knows that they've figured out he is the most useless of them all. He can't ask questions, because questions lead to fighting. And he can't talk to anyone, because talking leads to fighting. . . or drowning depending on who you're talking to. He reads the part again where Boss tells him he can't drink while doing these chores. He reads it several times. Last night she seem to acknowledge it was a pain killer for him, but today she gives him a long list of things to do that will cause great pain, but he's not allowed relief. He's not sure what he did, but he's pretty sure it's punishment for something.

He gets up and since he has to wash his honey covered bedding now anyway, even if it wasn't on the list to do, he drags the blanket to the floor under the downstairs chandelier. He steps back to his little room and puts on some clothes. He then lowers the chandelier onto the blanket, ignoring any pain having to slowly lower something so heavy causes his probably infected wound. He goes and washes the honey off his hands the best he can, but they'll still feel sticky for awhile, as will most of him where it got. He will then get a bowel of hot water and a towel before going to sit down next to the chandelier on the floor. He will then spend about an hour or so meticulously wiping every spec of dust he finds on the light fixture.

He realizes halfway through cleaning the first chandelier that he's looking at it all wrong. Maia is blind and even if she wasn't, he's way taller than her and blind or not some of the things on the list are things only he can help her with. And he did tell her to give him more chores so he wouldn't feel like a freeloader. This makes him feel a little better, but just as unlikely to complain about the pain or to stop until the entire list is finished. It needs to get done and he's never seen anyone else doing the chores along side himself and the Boss. He also looks up and frowns at the cobwebs over the place the chandelier hangs and realizes he's not doing it right. It may be land, but he still has to think like he's on the ship when it comes to cleaning, so he reorders the list again to get things done top to bottom, stem to stern.  

He will raise that one again and then repeat the process for the one upstairs, again trying to wash honey off his hands before starting the task. Somewhere along the way he starts to get hungry, having skipped breakfast, but he ignores that feeling. He's also pretty thirsty and feels rather sticky. In some places his clothes are sticking to his skin and he finds it uncomfortable, but the list is too long for him to stop to shower or anything. He knows if he doesn't finish not only will Maia be disappointed, but everyone else will yell at him for not being able to complete something so simple as a chore list. He promises himself he won't let her trick work. He isn't going to start feeling useful because of some chores. He's done chores before.

After cleaning the chandeliers Raimy moves onto the ceilings, walls and horizontal surfaces starting upstairs and working his way down so that dust doesn't fall on anything he has already cleaned, expect the chandeliers because he cleaned those first before thinking about it. He tries not to think too hard on things as he's cleaning, but does his job without any complaint, despite also doing it with an injury that should have him bed ridden and no pain killers.

Pretend he has a long pole with a feather duster tied to the end, as he can't reach with just his hand.

After that he washes all he dishes, but as this is a task he does often anyway there wasn't really that many of them. With both him and Maia always around to clean the cupboard also isn't in that bad of shape, but he straightens it anyway.

Rai putting the mugs away.

He sees a spider in the cupboard scurrying around the shelves, but leaves it alone. It's an itty bitty spider and can harm nothing but bugs. He is very careful to watch for the spider and not hurt it. It's so small it's probably been there for weeks and no one has noticed it. Barely larger than the head of a pin.

He sees something? maybe a spider?

Then he reorganizes everything in the chest. Anything heavy or pointed on the bottom and all light things on top. Except for the medical supplies, he keeps them together by putting them all on the second to the bottom so nothing can leak out or break onto the clothes which he puts on the top shelf.

Top shelf: Clothes, towels, cleaning rags
Second Shelf: Anything that looks like it makes or goes in tea or food.
Middle Shelf: Extra bottles, vials, cups, plates, whatever all sorted by size and color.
Second to Bottom: Medical supplies sorted by size, color, and shape.
Bottom Shelf: Cleaning supplies, and anything that looks too sharp (extra weapons if there are any), saws, extra armor pieces.

Anything that makes dye or is dye may be mistaken for medical supplies and be on the 'medical' shelf now. Some may be mixed in with the cleaning supplies. Rai has obviously not gotten very far in his attempts to learn alchemy. Some medical herbs may have been misplaced with the teas. He's feeling rather proud of his organization skills and sighs realizing he's starting to feel useful. But he won't let Boss know she's winning.

Raimy sorts the company chest. Good luck finding your stuff!

After that he tries to take care of the vases, but he has no idea where to get more flowers if they need them. For now he just cleans up around the vases and saves the flower buying for later. He does wipe up any spills or drips from the vases and picks up any random item, which he will then put in the chest where it goes including his first aide book which he puts on the medical shelf. He puts all his own things away in the shelf or in a little personal basket he keeps in the top shelf of the cupboard where most others can't reach it.

He then starts to work on the stains, but as he cleans most of those as they happen these days he decides to focus most his attention on the rug upstairs, that gets all the traffic. He doesn't really know how to clean a rug, so he tries to clean it like he would a chair, which is also a self taught skill.

Raimy scrubs the rug.

Part way through scrubbing the rug, Yatta has come up the stairs and the two get into a small conversation about cleaning rugs. Raimy mentions that he can't do the job, moving the heavy furniture and the heavy rugs is too much for him right now, so Yatta happily declares he'll do it. Rai worries at first, but pirates look out for each other and so he decides to not worry about how the others will see things and do things the right way instead. He helps Yatta move some chairs off the rugs and maybe even helps move the top floor rugs to the door to move them out. It proves a grat strain on him so instead he decides to sweep and mop the floors while Yatta does the rugs. He of course calls it swabbing the decks for Yatta's sake.

The floors are dry by the time Yatta has finished shaking all the many rugs of the house and the two drag the rugs back into the house and put them all back into place with a little discussion on which ones go where and deciding it doesn't really matter, Boss won't notice anyway. This takes up good hour or two and make the outside of the house even dustier as the dust flies off the rugs and onto everything else.

Rai did the windows on the last chore day. Well, the inside anyway, he has to redo the outside now since the rug cleaning either way. Rai will then leave for a bit to go find flowers and someone to wash the house down.