Zoë's heart beat fast. Her hands trembled and her legs were shaking. The man she saw dead at the beacon... she knew that the Carons' assassins were most likely not associated with any of it, but that was the first dead body she had seen since she was fifteen. She was just lucky that she was not there when the murder had happened or else she may have been killed or injured. At the very least she would have had flashbacks about the night her parents, her cousins and her grandparents were murdered. The dead body didn't trigger a lot of them, but it did bring forth the same uneasy feeling about seeing someone lying dead. No pulse. Not being able to breathe. Not moving. It sent shivers down Zoë's spine, but she had to remember that she would unfortunately have to get used to those sorts of things if she was going to be an official mage. It wasn't too long ago that she decided on becoming a full time mage, so it wasn't too late to back out. She could take on any other job if she really wanted to, but then what would all the time spent on getting taught magic and teaching herself magic mean? It would equate to nothing. Plus, she was pretty sure that being a mage payed better than most jobs. Sure, doctors and lawyers got lots of money, but they were often tied down to one location. That was something that could possibly cost Zoë her life, so one could imagine that she would want a job that traveling was pretty much a given. In the past, if someone asked Zoë why she moved around so much, she would have had to concoct some sort of lie. She would never dare tell any random person what happened to her family. For all she knew, they could relay (rather it was purposeful or not) to the masked men. She just couldn't risk that. Plus, who would want to be burdened with some 'tragic backstory?' Zoë knew that she wouldn't. Furthermore, nobody even needed to know anything about her. Zoë didn't need nor want her life to be an open book that she let everyone read. She would only tell the story of her life thus far to anyone who absolutely needed to hear it, but who would? Maybe if someone needed to run a background check, but wouldn't they figure it out if they linked her surname Caron to the assassination and found out that she was the same age as the surviving daughter. Zoë let out a sigh. Just the thinking of all that stuff was tiring. She turned the corner of the street. By then she had stopped the shaking and trembling. Her heart rate returned to normal and she was mostly calmed down. It would only take a few moments for her to be completely calmed and officially ready to take yet another request. Maybe if she was lucky there would be another put out by Lord Phantasm.

WC: 508/1000

While Zoë was used to bad luck happening to her and her family, it seemed that when it came to requests, her luck turned out for the better because it seemed that there really was another request put out by Lord Servus Phantasm! Zoë put on a genuine grin and happily made her way back towards the castle whose location she knew so very well. She reached the gates and showed the guard her request once more. Just as last time, without saying a single word or giving the little red head another thought, they let her go through the gates and towards Lord Servus Phantasm.

She walked up to the lord who was being told about the dead body by one of his guards. Once the guard was dismissed, Lord Phantasm motioned for Zoë to approach him. "That dead body is grave news," he said almost unemotionally. Zoë knew why. It was the anniversary of his wife's death. As luck would have it, a person who worked for Lord Servus Phantasm had died and he had to be informed about it. "Yeah, it is," Zoë responded, letting her gaze fall to the ground for a moment. She felt that it would be weird to make eye contact with the lord. She was afraid that it would communicate something unspoken that she would have rather not wanted to be communicated.

"Anyway," Lord Servus Phantasm said breaking the silence, "I need you to go underground to the dungeons and fetch a pair of flowers for my late wife's ceremony. They... they were her favorites." A frown came upon the lord's face as he briefly reminisced about his deceased wife. "Luckily the only kind of flower that can grow in the dungeon is the one I'm talking about, so once you feel its petals, you'll know it's the right one. Oh, and by the way, unlike most flowers this one doesn't need a bit of light to survive. In fact, it can't survive with light. So, you'll only be able to find it once you're completely deprived of any light source. I usually have one of my butlers do it, but they're all busy. I trust you will make it back within a reasonable amount of time?" He arched an eyebrow as he awaited confirmation. With a smile on her face and an energetic attitude, Zoë agreed. Once she was dismissed, the red head made her way down into the dungeon.

It smelled of mold and mildew. The air was thick and musty. Not even being in a cell was punishment enough. Zoë glanced at a few people in the iron barred cells who were kept in shackles. Zoë didn't think that any ordinary criminal would be kept in this kind of prison, so she had to wonder what kind of crime someone had to commit to be put in the castle's dungeon. It didn't take too long before Zoë was enveloped in complete darkness. She got on her hands and knees while she felt around for any sort of plant life. She crawled across many patches of moss and grabbed at nothingness before she finally gripped the stem of two flowers. She moved her hands up to feel for petals and thankfully found that what she grabbed was indeed a flower. She yanked it out of the ground and returned to Lord Servus quickly. With more than a few tears, he personally rewarded her for her work and went on with the ceremony's preparations.

WC: 1091/1000