It was a day of fine weather; not too cold, not too hot. Joan was prepared to take this day off for some ‘me time’. She had it all planned out. She would get her daily dose of caffeine. Then, she would go to the flea market and just walk around and look at stuff. After that, it would be around evening time, which is when she had planned to go to the local spa, probably get a massage and head into the woods for dinner. Baska Town was one of the towns in which she had never gone for the spa. It was not necessarily famous for spas or baths but there was always a spa in every town. After asking the innkeeper about the whereabouts of the best spa in Baska Town, she was given something like a business card of the spa. The inn probably had a bunch of those to give to its guests who wanted to know places to visit while in Baska Town. The vampyress gladly accepted it. There was a number to call in case she wanted to, as well as a mini map with directions to the spa location from the town square, which was quite close to the flea market, so it would be quite easy for her to navigate her way to the spa after she was done at the flea market. She was stuffed after last night’s dinner. She had definitely been feeding more than before, which was good for her well being.

Since she was full and satisfied, she did not fear joining the crowds at the flea market. The last time she was there, her head was throbbing with the sounds of the pulse of literally everyone there. She remembered the awkward encounter she had with some guy who had brightly colored hair, and a very strange name. The vampyress looked into the mirror in her inn room, checking to see if she was looking good in the outfit she had picked for herself. It was her normal attire, although it did not look very normal to most people. She just liked to be dressed in a sophisticated way. That was something she probably would not get tired of anytime soon. She did not use to do that before, though. It was probably because of the dark wizard. Speaking of that guy, Joan had also been trying to do something about it. Although it was hard for her to do it alone. She was unconscious the whole time all of that was happening, and only knew about it when one of her guildmates in Phantom Lord who went by the name Bodak told her about it. Apparently, she saw him while she was at the hospital to bring Joan some blood bags, because she actually knew that Joan was a vampyre. This did not surprise Joan. Most of her guildmates in Phantom Lord knew of her race, that she was a blood sucking beast of the night.

After finding out about this whole dark wizard thing, Joan started digging up on her family background. That was the first place she decided to look because her family had a lot of enemies as well as people who wanted her dead because of what she was seen as by the entirety of Oak Town at that period of time. However, she could not find any affiliations her family had to any wizards. They were always interested in their business and it seemed that they did not have any dealings with anyone who did magic. It was probably a surprise when they found out that she was a wizard. They never showed disgust to her nature, but of course there was a possibility that they did not like wizards, which could have caused this situation that had been clouding her mind for the past week or so. But she assumed that was highly unlikely, and began to look into her bloodline’s background, although she was quite sure that no one would dare to mess with her bloodline given how powerful they were. Even if that was the reason for the dark wizard to do what he was doing, he would have had to be hot shit to want to mess with her bloodline. If he was powerful like that, would he not have finished the project before Joan woke up? After all she did take a few months to wake up. So, maybe he was not that powerful after all.

However, Joan could not be so sure about this. Her instincts told her to look further into it, and it came to her mind that she should probably ask for some assistance with this from her distant vampyre relatives who she was not actually related to by blood, but by bloodline. The only person she could think of to help her solve this problem was Adelaide -- one of the most powerful vampyres she knew. She was quite different from Joan, as she was a pureblood and had been a vampyre for much longer. Adelaide would help Joan, but she would ask her to give her specific details about not only the dark wizard, but also the vampyre situation in Fiore. Which is why Joan had been wandering off to restricted areas lately to keep herself up to date with the Fiorian vampyres’ movement. Since the king had been replaced, there had to be change with how the vampyres here were working as well. Joan was closer to her guild and therefore barely knew any vampyres in Fiore. The only reason she knew of Adelaide was because of how popular she was as a pureblood. Joan had heard of her, and Adelaide knew her as well because of her past as a troubled child. She seemed to know a lot of vampyres, whether they were purebloods or halfbloods. Joan had already planned to write a letter to her with specific details of the movement of Fiorian vampyres provided in the letter.

As the vampyre was about to leave from her inn, a note was slipped under her door again. She already guessed who it was going to be from and went over to pick it up hoping it was not who she thought it was. Removing the letter from the envelope, she dropped the enveloped to the floor and unfolded the paper inside. Sure enough, it was from none other than the leader of the Cold Colliers, Mattoro himself. She thought she had seen the last of his requests the last time she was working for him when she killed Giroud, one of the contractors involved in the issue. She had no idea how anyone reacted to finding him dead at the entrance of the mines with his heart in his mouth, but she had no interest in it since she thought her part was done in that mess. Now that she was receiving another letter from Mattoro, it seemed otherwise. The vampyress read through the letter, realising what it was about this time. So they were going to go to some kind of war with the miners? A frown appeared on her brows as she folded the paper and went back in front of her mirror. It seemed that today was not going to be her day of relaxation. Goodbye to aimless flea market visits and relaxing spa treatments. The vampyre undressed and put on a mission appropriate outfit. If she was going to be paid, she was interested. It was not about joining the battle or anything like Mattoro mentioned in the letter.

After she got dressed in a more appropriate outfit for battle, the vampyress headed out of her inn room. Instead of going to the flea market, she was now headed to the Cold Colliers’ hideout. The innkeeper even asked her if she was still going to the flea market, to which she replied by saying, “Maybe another day, ma’am.” She took a carriage to the hideout, but not directly to the hideout, as always. She would take it to a spot near where the abandoned warehouse itself was and then walk to it only when the carriage was out of sight. She did not want anyone to catch her going into the Cold Colliers’ hideout. That would be bad for them, since it was a hideout after all. They definitely did not want others to find out about this place. And she was glad Mattoro trusted her enough to come to the place herself and not let one of his men escort her around or something like that. Joan could take care of herself and he obviously knew this as well, which was why he did not have one of the Cold Colliers escorting her around. The vampyress arrived at the spot she usually stopped at and paid for her ride. She stood there for a long time, watching the carriage take off until it was completely out of sight. Then she would enter the hideout.

As soon as she arrived, she did not even bother to wait for one of Mattoro’s men to gesture for her to walk in like they always did. She just walked in, looking for her client. The man was holding two pickaxes when she found him. Everyone in the hideout was gearing up for the upcoming battle. She could not help but feel a little bit of excitement as soon as she saw how they were preparing for it. As the vampyress walked in, she was greeted by Mattoro’s huge grin. He probably was not sure if she would come, but now that he saw that she was here, he was probably glad that she was going to join the fight. He expressed how much this meant to him as soon as he saw her after greeting her of course. Joan returned the greeting and gave him an excited smile of her own. Everyone who was near her at that moment also greeted her before they went back to finishing up their preparations. Now Mattoro would begin to explain the details of this mission. What he wrote in the letter was just a brief description of what they were going to be doing this day. When he told her a more detailed version of this, she nodded along. She could taste the desire for vengeance in the air. Everyone in this warehouse wanted their revenge, and they were going to get it. She shared the same feeling even though she was not even directly involved in this.

As Joan did not need any preparations for the battle, she took a seat in the same chair she sat in that was in front of Mattoro’s desk. She sat and watched as his men scurried about, making sure they had what they needed. They were not magic users like herself, so they needed a lot of equipment, and they had it all, in this very abandoned warehouse. They had been preparing beforehand, probably while Joan was doing her part in this operation. Mattoro hurried up with getting himself ready so that he could have a word with Joan on how he wanted to go about this. They were simply going to march up to the mines and attack. The mine would be swarming with personal enforcers after what happened to the two contractors -- which was the work of the vampryess herself. Her lips curled into a satisfied smirk upon hearing this. Clearly, it was not over with just the two contractors dead. She had a crawling feeling that something was off, but she did not want to ruin Mattoro or his men’s current hopeful moods, so she kept her mouth shut. If something was indeed off, they would find out soon wouldn’t they? And she would be there to make sure that things didn’t go wrong. A few minutes later, it seemed they had finalised their preparations. They were ready for the battle. And so they began to travel to the mine.

[ 2,000 / 3,000 ]

As they arrived at the mine, the Cold Colliers took no time to initiate the battle. They began by attacking the overseers, who were all over the place by the way. Joan stayed in the back to get a scope of the battle and see how she could find out if something was indeed off about this whole situation. While the vampyress was focused on this, from the corner of her eyes, she noticed that a few of the overseers were making their way towards her. The Cold Colliers had gone all in and there was no backing out now, even if Joan thought that something was off and that they should stop. She did not bother stopping them anyways. The bloodshed was glorious. Not only did the overseers fall, but also the Cold Colliers. It was an epic bloodbath, and Joan was glad she was there to witness. Although, she would have to defend herself from the incoming overseers if she did not want to be a part of the bloodbath. That did not mean that she was just going to protect herself and run around. She was going to kill them to clear away the obstacles in her path. As the overseers attempted to throw their sloppy attacks at her, Joan overwhelmed them with her strength and speed, completely butchering two them while the third stared at her in shock. If they had not expected her to be this powerful in the first place, why did they come in threes?

Joan was outnumbered, but not overpowered. She advanced towards the remaining overseer and tore his limbs off as she hissed angrily, fangs out and all. Once that was dealt with, she kept looking for more clues, but this bloodbath was getting more and more intense by the second and with the amount of blood being spilled it was just a bit harder to concentrate on what she was trying to achieve right now. More and more men fell to the ground as the vampyress weaved her way around the battling men. She would only fight back if someone attacked her, otherwise she was on to a completely different thing. She also made sure to keep a tab on Mattoro’s situation. So far he was doing pretty well, slaughtering his enemies with the rage of a thousand angry bulls. A smile appeared on her face as she continued to observe while keeping herself out of harm’s way. Sooner of later, she would find out what was wrong. Her instincts were never wrong, and she could always trust them with anything. And right now her instincts were telling her that something was definitely wrong. The noises of the men involved in the battle filled the whole mine area. The angry shouts and roars, swords clashing over and over, and many more. Joan would use her magic here and there to help herself, but she stayed out of the main battle that was causing a lot of blood to be spilled.

Joan almost forgot about Mattoro when he let out a shriek of pain. As soon as she heard this, her head whipped around in the direction from which the shriek was produced. Mattoro was on the ground, severely injured by one of the overseers who was now trying to get away. The leader of the Cold Colliers shook his head and cocked his head in the direction that the overseer ran. He wanted her to follow him and kill him. With a quick nod, the vampyress was on her way. She sprinted through many obstacles until she caught sight of the overseer’s back. He turned around to see if he was being followed, and once he saw that he was, he panicked and ran straight into a mineshaft. Bad idea, to be honest. The vampyress did not bother being sneaky about it. She followed him straight into the mineshaft as well, and caught up to him quite quickly. The overseer was screaming when he saw that Joan was getting super close. He then ran down towards an old area of the mine. Joan could tell by how there seemed to have been no activity in this area for a while. A low rumbling sound resonated throughout the mine, which made Joan stop and look upwards to see if the mine was going to collapse. She was not going to die in here with that cowardly man. Luckily for her, that was not what was happening. Unluckily for him however, the rocks above him would fall onto him, crushing one of his legs and trapping him.

As soon as she heard him scream, Joan hurried to where he was and found him trapped under some rocks. Before she could make her move, she heard him curse a name. A very familiar name as well. He cursed the name Frankan, the remaining contractor. Joan knew something was off about this operation. Frankan was also involved! She wondered why Giroud acted as if he was so alone though, if Frankan was also involved. That meant that he was not alone in the mess after all, unless he was a beta bitch to Frankan much like Kalaus or something. Joan did not even bothering giving the overseer a nice pleasant and quick death. She left him there to bleed to death and feel every bit of pain from the rocks on his leg. Since she had some seriously important information, she returned to Mattoro and spilled the beans. He seemed shocked, and then angry. He then made some kind of announcement to the Cold Colliers about the situation and they ceased the battle. Mattoro seemed quite infuriated. After all, he got injured for nothing. Their real target was still out there. The Cold Colliers then began to bury their fallen comrades somewhere near the mine, while leaving the overseers to rot in the mine. Afterwards, Mattoro provided her with her rewards and then told her that he would call soon for operation: kill Frankan.