After the job she recently did for Adarian, she thought she would at least have like a gap of two days to rest before she was going to be asked for help again. Well, she was wrong. That day, she woke up feeling quite fresh. She made coffee and also made her bed before going over to the one and only window in her inn room, opening up the curtains to let the light enter her room. It was dark inside otherwise, just like her soul. After pulling apart the curtains, so sat on the chair in front of the window and just stared outside. It was a good way to collect her thoughts and just be at peace. The window was quite big, to be honest, so she could see a lot of Dahlia Town through it. It seemed like a normal town, just like every other town, during the day, so it was like the freaky things only happened after dark. She was not sure about that though, because she had not been to Aldenwald. She did not plan to go there either, because she did not need to. Unless she was given a job to go into Aldenwald, there would be no reason for her to go there at all. The vampyress basically sat there for about an hour just looking outside and admiring the view. It was a pretty great view, to be honest. With a sigh, she shifted in her seat and grabbed the cup of coffee she had placed on the hand rest.

The feeling of the coffee flowing down her esophagus and the warmth spreading all over her body made her shudder slightly. It felt good and bad at the same time, like her humanity and vampyrism over which got the feeling it liked. Joan placed the coffee cup on the hand rest and sighed. It was nice to feel peaceful sometimes. Now would be a good time for a cigarette, she thought and got up from the chair. She went over to the table where she had placed her pack of cigs and her lighter and picked them up, bringing them back to the window. She opened the window and then brought out a cigarette from her pack. And then she used her lighter to light up the cigarette. After taking a long satisfying drag, she blew the smoke out of the window. She did not want her room to smell like cigarette smoke. There was this air freshening thing in the inn room that smelled like lavender and she liked that. She did not want to ruin the nice smell in the room she was going to be staying in for weeks to come, if she did not decide to leave. She did not know when her jobs with Adarian were going to end, so that was basically what was stopping her from leaving Dahlia. It was not just Adarian, too. She had business with his enemy -- Bishop Santos as well.

As she was taking another drag from her cigarette, the vampyress heard a very familiar sound -- the sound of something being slipped through the gap under her door into the room. To make sure it was what she thought it was, the vampyress turned to see another envelope on her rug. She turned back to the window and took one last drag, then exhaled the smoke out of the window. She got up from her chair and stretched, reaching to close the window. She grabbed the cup of coffee and brought it over as she picked up the envelope that was on her rug. She had to figure out who it was from first. It could either be from Bishop Santos or Adarian. When she opened up the envelope and looked at the letter inside, she saw that it was from Adarian again. What could he have possibly wanted again so soon? The vampyress put the letter on the table and decided to take a shower and get straight to the place she was supposed to be at. It was the same place that she met Adarian before -- the old abandoned house. She stepped into the shower and let the cold water soak her body. She felt even more fresh than she already did, so after the shower she dried her hair and tied it up into a ponytail. She put on a shirt and her normal dark jeans. Even though it was a bit warm outside, she still put on her leather jacket.

Since she knew the way to the abandoned house now, she tucked the letter in the pocket of her jacket and got out of her inn room, locking it and keeping the keys in her pockets as well. The cool thing about the jacket was that there was an inner pocket where she could important things like the keys to the inn room, which she just shoved into said inner pocket. She walked quickly to the old abandoned house. She was pretty active right now and she felt like she could do anything. Once she arrived at the old abandoned house, she saw that Adarian and his cult friends were there as usual. He greeted her and welcome her into the house, as if it was their own house. She nodded and entered, looking at the other cult members who observed her closely without being subtle about it at all. The vampyress ignored them and listened to Adarian. He wanted her to find things again this time as well. But they were not just ordinary things. Adarian wanted her to collect skulls of specific people. The look on her face showed how confused she was, because he then started to explain why he needed the skulls. Apparently there was a mausoleum full of powerful bodies that the Red Hades cult was trying to gain access to and for them to do that they needed to craft the ‘Skeleton Key’ which was why they needed those skulls.

Adarian instructed her to find the skulls at the Forsaken Cemetery, which she had visited numerous times either because of quests or for her ‘research’. It was the first place she visited when she first got to Dahlia Town, too. Her client then started giving the specific details about the skulls she was supposed to collect. Each of the dead people she was supposed to take the skulls from had like little descriptions. Like for the first skull, it was supposed to have belonged to a bishop closely linked to Adarian’s enemy. The second one was the skull of a child who was innocent until death. Adarian did not really elaborate on this one, and Joan did not bother to ask more or why he was not going to give more details. And the final one was that of a murderer who caused the death of a loved one. The last one was actually the guy she had buried a few days ago. A normal human being would not have been able to handle doing something so disgusting. The body was probably rotting with maggots everywhere. Joan nodded and asked if there was anything else she needed to know and Adarian shook his head. She then asked him if she was supposed to come back every time after getting each skull, and he shook his head. So she continued to ask if it was fine if she did this in the evening because it was still daytime and it would be awkward if someone caught her.

Since Adarian answered all of her questions, she nodded and left the abandoned house to go back to her inn. She could not start her work yet so she decided to do her daily things. She had worn her work attire for no reason. Once she got back to her inn, she took off her jacket and untied her hair. Then she laid down on her bed for a quick nap. If she took a nap now, she would probably wake up in the evening which was perfect timing for her mission, so she pulled the sheets over her head and dozed off. Just like she had expected, she woke up around evening time. She got up and took another shower because it was hot and got dressed just like before. Since she did not need to go to Adarian again, she just headed straight for the cemetery after a cup of lime juice. She remembered the owner of the skulls she was supposed to retrieve quite clearly since she was told earlier that day. She wondered if the Red Hades cult hung out at that old abandoned house all the time. They were there in the evening, at night and during the day as well. The thought made her smile. It was funny if she was right, like they were a little group of friends hanging out at a place that was abandoned, because they did bad things and people didn’t like them.

It was dark outside and there was almost no one in the streets as Joan left the inn and headed to the cemetery. She was prepared for the job. She brought with her a large black bag to put the skulls in to make it easier for her to carry them around. She recalled what Adarian had told her when they were meeting at the old abandoned house and remembered the first skull she was supposed to get. The vampyress kept her gaze on the concrete platform as she walked, ignoring any looks she received from the few people she met in the streets. They were staring at her because of what she was holding – the black bag that she brought with her to put the skulls in. She had folded it but it was still quite big and would not go unnoticed for sure. Once she was at the Forsaken Cemetery, the dark haired sorceress went straight for the first skull that belonged to the traitor who had killed a loved one. And apparently this was the guy she had buried alive a few days back. This was going to be disgusting, but she had no choice. She had forgotten to bring gloves or something so that she did not get her hands dirty, but she was going to have to figure something out. She remembered the spot she had buried him, so she went towards there and saw that no one had tried to dig up his body.

She figured that Bishop Santos was as heartless as Adarian the heretic, so she kind of guessed that he was not going to come back for the spy. Joan herself would have done the same, to be quite honest. There was no point anyway and she realized that she had the same mindset as both Bishop Santos and Adarian. But she knew that Adarian wanted to send a message to Bishop Santos by burying the traitor alive. She was pretty sure Bishop Santos already got the message. She figured he would have his eyes and ears all over the town. Joan could not wait for this skeleton key to be made, so that she could see some exciting shit go down between the two sides. Right now she had been receiving letters only from Adarian and not Bishop Santos. It was not because he found out that she was working for Adarian, because if that was the case, he would probably have sent his men to kill her or something. The vampyress remained in Dahlia knowing very well about this. However, she made sure of her safety by working in secret so if she was exposed, it was probably the work of a snitch. Joan had made many enemies in the past, so she did not mind having a few more added to that list. Besides, given the nature of the work she did there was no doubt she was going to make an enemy or two along the way.

The spot where she had buried the traitor remained neat like she had left it. She liked to have everything neat and organized. You could say that she was a neat freak. A smile crept onto her lips when she saw that no one had messed up her work – a smile of satisfaction. She found a shovel that was at the foot of a tree. Someone had probably left it and she could use it to dig up the skulls. Leaving the black bag at the spot where the traitor was buried, she went over to the tree and picked up the shovel, then brought it over to the spot. The shovel looked like it had been used recently, so she tapped it against the gravestone of some random person and some debris that was clinging to it fell off. Then she started digging and once she was done, she noticed that there were maggots all over the body. She sighed and used the head of the shovel to cut off his head, with enough force. Afterwards, she opened up the bag and picked up the head with the shovel and dumped it into the bag. Then, she refilled the spot before moving on to the next spot. She carried the black bag to the next spot and held it so that the smell did not reach her. It was disgusting, but she was not really fazed by it. She had seen worse things, so this was nothing to her.

The next skull belonged to a child and Adarian did not really give many details about the child. He simply gave her the name of the child and so she brought out the note to make sure the name she was looking for was the right one. Looking around the graveyard, she finally came to a gravestone bearing the name that Adarian had given her. This was it. She dropped the bag next to the gravestone and started digging once again. She felt like she was one of those grave diggers while doing so. After digging for a while, she found the small body of the child in a coffin. She did the same thing she did with the previous body to get the skull. The shovel was pretty useful for this job. She did not mind holding this skull because it was not filled with maggots and it was dry. After dropping it into the bag, she refilled the grave and clapped away the dust on her hands. It was time to get the last skull, which was going to be the most challenging, according to Adarian. Since the skull belonged to a priest, she was going to have to sneak into special sanctum that was underneath the church. Even though she was not familiar with most of the places in this town, she had an idea of where she was supposed to go was going to be. First, she left the shovel at the foot of the tree.

After that, she took the bag that now had two skulls in it, and headed for the church. She made sure she was not noticed, as always. She did not have to worry about being heard because being a vampyre, she was an expert at being sneaky, but she could still be seen, so she kept to the shadows as she walked to the church. It was really dark already, and there were not many street lamps in this area. She entered the church, looking around to check if anyone was around to see her. There was no one in sight, so she found a spot to leave the bag because she did not want to bring it into the sanctum. She found a nice place that could not easily be seen and left the bag there before she started to look for the special sanctum. It was underneath the church basically, so all she needed to do was to find an opening like a trap door or something. After looking for a bit, she found a door that would lead her underneath the church. The vampyress pushed the door open and it did not budge, so she looked around first before knocking it down. Then she looked for the tomb of the priest among the many other tombs. It was not hard to find because Adarian had given her some details, so after a while she found it. Once she did, she removed the heavy lid off the tomb.

Joan removed the head from the body and placed it aside while she put the cover back on and picked up the skull. Now all she had to do was return her findings to Adarian. She exited the sanctum through the same door she had used to enter through and got out of the church. She returned to where she had left the bag and put the last skull into it. Carrying the bag out of the church, she headed back to the abandoned house where the Red Hades cult usually held their meetings – or at least their meetings with her. She would not know if there were other meeting spots because Adarian had only given her the address of one. She believed there were other places and they could not just stick to meeting in a single place every time. They could have been caught easily that way with how Bishop Santos was using spies and shit like that. The vampyress carried the bag over her shoulder and walked towards the abandoned house. It was not far, and hiring a carriage was not ideal for this situation. She was literally carrying a bag full of skulls so that could raise suspicion. After walking for a while, Joan arrived at the door of the abandoned house. She was welcomed in by one of the cult members and she presented the skulls to Adarian who seemed satisfied. He paid her for her work and went on to create the skeleton key.