Joan was on a mission today. Another day, another dollar. She was ready to earn these dollars. She had a lot of things to spend them on. Not only as expense for his research. Oh yes, Joan liked to calculate things like that. She calculated everything, listed everything, marked and noted everything. So of course she made a calculation for her research, how much she would have to spend on it. Basically, it was like how much she would have to spend in case she had to traveled to do this research, or if she needed to use money in any part of the research. She also needed to find a place for Adelaide to stay. That was if Adelaide did not find one herself, although she believed she could find one herself since she used to stay in Fiore as well. She was basically born here. Joan did not like to think too much about it, but she was doing it anyway because she was that type of person. She liked the make everything in place. Little did she know how much Adelaide was like her in that way, even though she was different from her in many other ways. The vampyress had bought some instant coffee from the convenience store near the inn she was staying it, so she made a cup of coffee and sat on the edge of her bed. Warmwool Inn was very nice. The lighting was not too bright as well. Just the way she liked it.

After about ten minutes, a letter was slipped through the gap under the door. All these inns had gaps under their doors, which was funny. But it was great for delivering letters. Joan finished half of her coffee before going over to pick it up. She was kind of lazy, before she read the letter. It was from Aadrian, who was offering her a job to do something wicked, as usual. The vampyress read on. He did not give the exact details of course, and so she would have to meet with him first before doing the actual mission. Which was better. Since she was not given a lot of details to be able to do the job herself already. Even though she felt like lazing around for a bit, she realised that she could do that after the job was done. After all, the thought of having more money after doing that kind of motivated her to get off her ass and get to work. The vampyress got up and went over to her travel bag, picking out her usual work attire. She had been really liking the leather jacket she got for herself. She usually wore it everywhere now, well unless it was daytime because it was damn hot in the daytime. She sighed and looking in the mirror, sorting her hair so that it was not a bird’s nest. She brushed through the tangles and pulled up her dark hair into a high ponytail.

After dressing up, the vampyress finished what was left of her coffee and headed out of the inn. It was no longer day time. The sun had set and it was starting to get dark. She enjoyed the darkness, but she also enjoyed the beauty of the sky right after the sunset. It was sometimes purplish, sometimes orangish and sometimes pinkish. She enjoyed seeing the different colors that the sky shifted into as the day ended. Since she was feeling kind of active after having a full cup of coffee that she had planned to finish slowly, she brought a pack of cigarettes and lighter with her. On the way to the cemetery, she lit up cig and used the fastest route to get there on foot. By this time she was already halfway done with her research and did not have many things to be stressed about. Soon she would be completely done and could just relax. What was stressing her out even more at this point was the fact that she had told Seira about Adelaide. It felt more like a warning, because she knew that Adelaide was not the type to care. She was nothing like Joan, and since she was born as a vampyre, you could say that she was not born with humanity. Joan took a long drag from her cig and released a huge cloud of smoke. Even though this was complete bullshit, it felt like with every drag, her stress was going away.

Soon she was standing close to the cemetery that Aadrian was waiting at. He was not exactly waiting at the cemetery, but a rooftop that overlooked the cemetery. Joan made her way to the rooftop to meet her client, and as soon as he spotted her, he gestured for her to come over, which she did. Now that she was here, he began to explain the details of the request to her. This time, he was interested in getting a dead body to be used in his undead army. She nodded and listened although she was making a slight frown that the client would see if he was observant enough. It seemed that he was more interested in the mission and did not notice it. She could not expect anything more ‘out of this world’ from Aadrian. He was part of a cult anyways, so that was a given. The client made hand motions to describe his great plan. She could see that he was quite passionate about it, and really sure that she could do this for him. She wondered what he would do to her if she failed. Would he use her as some kind of sacrifice or something even worse? Or just let her go and ask someone else to do it? But given the conditions of the request, if she fucked up, there was no second chance. Aadrian finished explaining and was now giving her instructions on how to do what he wanted her to do.

So a body was being moved into the cemetery tonight and basically Joan was supposed to get that body for Aadrian to do whatever he wanted with it. That was easy. She did not mind having to carry a corpse across the cemetery to bring it back to Aadrian. She was a vampyre after all. She could see how ordinary humans would not be able to do a job like this. They would probably back out when they found out that they would have to hold a corpse. Not even in a casket. They would have to hold the corpse itself. The thought of this made her smile a bit. Aadrian was done and she was ready. According to what her client told her, the body belonged to someone who used to work very closely with Bishop Santos. She could see why Aadrian would want to use him as part of his undead army. She wondered if his cult activities could make it so that he could use the knowledge of the guy against Bishop Santos. Joan thought this was a pretty neat and smart idea. She would have done the same in his place. So once she left the rooftop, she sneaked towards the cemetery. It was easy for her to do that, given that her actions were silent. Being a vampyre had its perks. Treading across the cemetery silently to look for the body, the vampyress stood behind one of the old trees within the cemetery, blending in with the darkness.

Soon she could hear some footsteps and distant chatter as if people were entering the cemetery. And sure enough, she spotted some priested coming into the cemetery with a casket. That had to be it. She looked up to the rooftop where Aadrian would be watching and saw that he was making a thumbs up, to confirm that it was indeed the casket in which the target corpse would be. Joan waited a bit, and after a while the priests disappeared somewhere. This was her one and only chance that she predicted she could not get another time as easily. Hurrying over to the casket, she opened it up and found a dead body inside. She picked it out of the casket and placed it next to the casket. Since she had some time, she went over and pulled out a gravestone, splitting it in half with her strength and placing one piece in the casket, and tossing the other piece far away. Then she picked up the corpse and started making her way to the rooftop so that she could not be detected. Joan thought that her job was done here. She had no idea what the client was going to make her do next. Once she got to the rooftop, she saw that Aadrian was looking at the corpse as if he was seeing a delicious meal. He looked like he was ready to chow down on it. “That all?” she asked to make sure.

“Not quite,” was Aadrian’s reply. Joan blinked in confusion. She had actually expected him to reward her and let her go already, but it seemed the job was not over. So she asked what else he wanted her to do. He chuckled as he examined the body closely. If she did not have a clue as to what was happening, it would seem as though he was about to actually eat it, and she would have been worried that might have actually happened because eating a corpse was definitely not healthy. But the vampyress knew what he was going to do with this corpse, so she waited for him to stop admiring the dead body and give her a clear answer. The client then revealed to her that he was kind of running low on mana and needed hers to reanimate the corpse that she had just brought for him. She understood that this was going to be an easy task, so she nodded. He told her to carry the corpse once again since they were going to do it in a different location. Joan reluctantly picked up the corpse and followed him as he led them to an abandoned house that was pretty close to the cemetery, to begin the ritual. She wondered if his other cult friends were going to be there. Probably not, because if they were, he could have borrowed their mana instead. Or so, Joan thought. Soon they arrived at the abandoned house. It smelled really bad, but they were just using it for the ritual so Joan tried to ignore the smell.

Aadrian shut the door once they were inside the house. He instructed Joan to place the corpse in the center of the hall and so she did. They were going to begin the ritual now, and Joan was quite curious to see a ritual happen right in front of her. This was going to be a first for her and she was ready for the experience. She patted away anything disgusting that might have clung to her clothes while carrying the dead body and stood about three feet from the dead body as Aadrian began his work on it. He started drawing stuff around the corpse and soon Joan realised that it was a pentagram. She wondered where he got the chalk he was using to draw the pentagram with, because she did not see him having one before. Then he took a few steps back so that he was standing near Joan. He began chanting and the corpse began to float in the air, and then he turned to her to ask her to place her hand on his shoulder to pour mana into him. Once she did that he continued with the ritual and when it was done, the corpse was standing in the middle of the hall. Joan watched in awe as Aadrian rewarded her for helping him. He expressed his thanks and left with his new undead warrior.