It was an ordinary day for the vampyress. There was nothing to do except searching for food later in the evening, and that was not anything out of the ordinary. She got up from her bed to get one of the blood bags she stole from the local hospital. That was when she noticed the letter that had been slipped into her room through the gap under the door. She already knew who it was from, but what was it this time? She did not like getting involved in long chains of drama. If it had to go her way, she would probably have killed all the contractors as well as anyone working for them in the mines. But since this was not completely her problem, and she was being paid to do the work, she had to do it the way Mattoro asked. She went to get her blood bag first since she was feeling thirsty, and then bent down to pick up the letter. It was definitely from Mattoro. This time, he wanted to make sure which of the contractors were involved. Rolling her eyes, she continued reading the letter so that she did not miss any of the details. She was not going to decline this offer. She wanted the money. Joan folded the paper in two and finished all the blood in the bag. She was going to get dressed because Mattoro mentioned in the letter that she was to meet them again at the hideout.

The last time, Joan walked all the way to the hideout, but this time she did not feel like wasting that energy. She got a carriage right outside her inn and directed the driver to somewhere close to the hideout. She did not want anyone to know about the hideout. She was sure Mattoro did not want that either, and since she was working for the guy, she could not mess it up for him. The vampyress paid for her carriage ride and stepped off the vehicle, watching it until it was out of sight before she started walking towards the hideout. It was a secluded area anyways, so there was no need to worry about anyone else apart from the carriage driver seeing her go to the hideout. She entered the abandoned warehouse, meeting face first with one of Mattoro’s men who recognized her on sight. He gestured for her to walk in a certain direction even though Joan was already aware of where Mattoro would be waiting for her, just like the last time. The vampyress nodded at the man and walked towards where Mattoro would be waiting for her. Once he noticed her arrival, a grin appeared on the man’s face. Joan wondered if he was worried that she would decline his request. If so, now he would know that she was not someone to just refuse easy money. She smiled and sat in the chair she was told to. “What do you need this time, Mattoro?”

Joan did not even feel like exchanging greetings and all that stupid shit. This was not the first time they met so it was not necessary, really, and Mattoro was all about business. He dived right into the details of the whole request. He was willing to pay more than the job before since it was supposedly more challenging than the ones before. Joan almost yawned while he was telling her what to do, but suppressing it turned it into a hiccup and Mattoro stopped talking for a bit. “You good?” he asked and continued when Joan give her a nod and a thumbs up. So for this time, Mattoro wanted to know which of the contracts were actually guilty of being involved in this hot mess. Joan already knew that from the letter which was kind of vague but she picked up what the point was. Now the man was giving her details about the whole mission and giving her instructions on how to go about tackling this request. Joan nodded along until he finished explaining which was basically his part in this request. She wanted to know what the Cold Colliers were doing in between her missions. She was not a part of that though. She played a specific role in this whole project(?) and she did not feel like being nosy so she kept her mouth shut, although it would be a lie to say that she was not curious about what the Cold Colliers did for their part.

Mattoro claimed that he was sure that at least one of the contractors was involved. Joan almost rolled her eyes at how obvious that was. Afterwards he added that he thought it was Kalaus because the guy was present when the incident happened. Joan nodded, remembering this important piece of information. She definitely would have to look into that to make sure he was right. Mattoro provided her with Kalaus’s address in the town. She looked at the scribbled information on a piece of paper and then folded it. She knew where she was going after seeing the address. She did need to get a carriage, because she was definitely not walking all the way there. When she asked Mattoro if it was easy getting a carriage around here because she did not see any on her way here, Mattoro assured her that he would get a carriage for her. He immediately got one of his men to get to it, so Joan just sat there patiently, looking pretty while Mattoro tried to make small talk. She replied quite briskly, as if she was in a hurry. She was not a fan of having conversations that were not job related with her clients. It was awkward. What if they started asking for favors? She did not want to get friendly with them. Sure she did not mind befriending enemies just to make use of the friendship to her own advantage, but she usually spoke formally with her clients.

The piece of paper she had the address on was neatly tucked in one of her pockets. It only took a while for the carriage to arrive, even though she was going to have to walk a bit from the abandoned warehouse to where they told the carriage driver to pick her up. One of Mattoro’s men escorted her to the carriage, which was nice. The carriage began its journey to the other side of town, which was where Kalaus was staying. Well, he was not staying technically. He was apparently out of town for business purposes or something, according to Mattoro, so the vampyress would have to sneak in to his place, which was something she was really good at at this point. Given how she was able to travel without being heard, and the fact that she had been doing it more times than she could count, this should be pretty easy. The carriage stopped in the Kalaus’ neighborhood. She paid for ride since it was not much, and started to search for Kalaus’ place. She matched up the house number to one of the houses in the neighborhood and decided this was the one. She climbed the wall and went to the back of the house to find any back doors or things like that. Since Mattoro told her to make sure no one noticed her breaking into Kalaus’ place, she had to go the extra mile. Normally she would just break a window or something like that.

At the back of the house, she actually found a window that was not shut. Lucky. There was no need to break anything to enter now. She slipped through the open window after gently lifting it. Mattoro did assure her that the house would be empty, but you could never be sure about that. She could not risk being caught in the act, so she searched everywhere in the house to see if she was alone or not. Mattoro was right. She could not find another soul anywhere in the house, so she began her work. She looked through everything, the entire house. She searched through all the drawers and even in cupboards and closets. It took quite a long time and it got boring at one point but her mission was not over, so she took a deep breath and continued searching. After quite some time, she stopped to have a glass of water from the fridge. No one would notice a tiny amount of water missing anyways. She actually even sat in front of the fridge with it open to cool her face. It was terribly hot, since winter was pretty much over and she hated the heat. After a very long time of searching, which was like an hour, Joan finally found something useful. It was a letter from Giroud about all the problems that Mattoro and his men were causing. It also mentioned how he thought they should have killed him when they could have.

So that was one part of her job done. Both Kalaus and Giroud were guilty. She folded the letter and tucked it away in one of her pockets and left from the same window that she came in through. She shut it slowly not to make a noise and bring attention to herself in case anyone was around. After doing so, she began the second part of her job. The last person remaining of the three contractors was Frankan. He was not staying anywhere specific in Baska Town, so she was supposed to follow him around to get information. Mattoro did not add that it was necessary to be subtle with Frankan, so she knew how she was going to get that information. The vampyress already knew what Frankan looked like, so all she had to do now was look for him and get him to spill the beans. After she left Kalaus’ residence, she immediately began her search and found the man about thirty minutes later. It was a small town, and it was apparently easy to find him. This seemed to be her lucky day. Everything was going smoothly so far. Frankan was alone, having lunch, although she could not trust that he was actually alone. She was thinking that he probably had someone watching him from somewhere, or something like that. Joan watched him from afar as well, until he was done with lunch. The man stood up from his table after paying for the meal he had.

Once he exited the restaurant, Joan followed him. He was returning to his carriage when he was stopped by the vampyress. Joan calculated that it would be at this moment, that one of Frankan’s bodyguards would come rushing to protect their master, but no one came. So he was alone. Frankan looked as though he had just seen a ghost. He was basically freaking out and could not even utter a word to her. She then began interrogating him, asking anything he knew about what Kalaus and Giroud were up to. It seemed he was clueless about all of it since he just appeared confused and horrified. He then started talking about everything he knew about them, which included their timetables and things like that. He was probably trying to protect himself since he was being threatened. Once the vampyre got the information, she disappeared to return to the abandoned warehouse. It was enough information for her to pass to Mattoro. Frankan was innocent, but the other two were involved. Once Mattoro got this information, he seemed quite please with it. He read the letter between Kalaus and Giroud out loud as the Cold Colliers were listening. Joan almost remembered the whole letter by now, but she just sat there and waited for him to finish. Once he was done, Mattoro laughed a bit before keeping the letter in one of his drawers. It seemed her job was doing for the day since he rewarded her and thanked her.