Joan had been investing her time into accumulating fame among the citizens of Fiore. There were a few people who recognized her for who she used to be, but they had no proof to validate their accusations and thus the vampyress had been able to dodge these ‘false’ claims, especially since she had been working with clients from the legal side. Recently she helped a ‘Guard Captain’ who went by the name Devon find out about a cult in town. The vampyress had been actively seeking out requests from clients with more authority to be noticed even more, all the while keeping up with her TV shows as well as book series written by her favorite authors. One of the reasons she liked being here was because Magnolia Town had a bookstore with a massive collection of all sorts of written material. She would live in there for a few days if she was allowed to. All those undiscovered gems. She was already spending a good amount of money she received from taking requests on some books. Every time she went to the bookstore, she would feel a strong urge to buy something which was why she was forcing herself to focus more on creating a good image in the world of sorcery. Most of the Magnolians did not really recognize her by her current appearance and that was a good thing. Only some of them did and would freak out in the middle of the street when they saw her, although without proof, they were just seen as crazy or stupid. Joan always reacted calmly, which made them look even worse.

It was a sunny afternoon, and although Joan would have preferred staying indoors in this weather, she was out and about, looking for work to do. As usual, she started out by visiting the cafe at which she was a regular customer at this point and got herself coffee to help get through the day and a slice of cake. She sat at the same table for two she always sat at, next to a large window through which she watched the people outside. It took around ten minutes for her to finish the coffee and the cake since she was not really in a hurry, but afterwards headed to the center of town, where most of the important events normally took place. Once she arrived, it came to her attention that there was something going on down at the base of some mountain. She asked around, but no one could provide her sufficient information which was why she decided to go and investigate herself. The walk from the center of town to said mountain was a pretty long one. As soon as she arrived, Joan noticed the group of people gathered at what appeared to be a small cavern opening at the base of a mountain. She approached them, looking for familiar faces although she could not find any. Then, she felt a tap on her shoulder.

The vampyress had let her guard down, having had a feeling that there was no one within this group who would have ill intentions towards her. The moment she felt a tap on her left shoulder was the moment she realised that she should stop doing this. But at that moment, she turned so that she was facing the person fully, with a slightly confused expression. The man immediately retracted his hand, since Joan probably looked offended. He cleared his throat, speaking fast so as not to cause a misunderstanding. The vampyress looked around quickly before fixing her eyes onto his. He was offering her a job, something that had to be done in secrecy. She nodded when he asked if she was interested, and then he continued speaking about what he wanted her to do. His name was Barras, a smith who was curious to know if the rumored existence of a certain mineral was more than just a rumor. This was pretty similar to her most recent job, which was to find out if the rumors about Magnolia Town housing a cult was true or not. This was not going to be too difficult, so she accepted the offer, although it was already obvious that she was taking the job after listening to Barras tell her all the details. She was not going to pass up a chance of getting free (and easy) money. The rare metal that he was interested in obtaining was rumored to be far stronger than anything else he had used in the past.

The metal was supposed to look like a solid blue rock, one that had a natural glowing effect, so it was probably easy to spot in a dark place — like the cavern. Barras also wanted her to start right now, and Joan had no problem with that. All she needed to do was get past the group of people at the entrance of the cavern, which would have been easier if she had not sold the ring that allowed her to turn into a raven, but she already found a way to sneak into the cavern, without letting the other people notice. After Barras finished talking to her, he blended back in with the group, subtly keeping an eye on her. Joan wasted no time in entering the cavern. There was no reason for her to draw out her time to finish this job. If she did not run into any obstacles within the cavern, she could complete this task with ease. As soon as she entered, she realised how dark it was inside, but thanks to her vampyrism, she was able to see everything clear as day. Barras advised her to wait until the crowd dispersed, but given how good she was at being sneaky, that was not necessary. She did not want to spend extra time waiting, too, since she was not a big fan of waiting. She did not have the patience for something like that.

As she walked through the tunnels within the cavern that happened to be much bigger in size than she imagined, she came across some paths that were blocked off by some fallen rocks. This was no big deal for the vampyress of course, given her great strength she was able to simply lift them off to clear up the path so that she could go on her way to finish this job. There was more than one blocked off path, however, so she had to spend some time moving rocks out of her way. She wondered how many more blocked off paths she was going to come across before finding the metal that Barras wanted. He did not state that he wanted her to bring it back to him. All he wanted was to know if it existed. She wondered if this was a matter of trust. He had to know that Joan could mine it for herself and sell it on the black market, but of course the vampyress was not interesting in doing such a thing. She did not desire money. Her objective was to gain some level of trust from the important figures from the legal side and fame among the citizens. Although this would take some time and effort given what she had done in the past. Joan clapped away some dust clinging onto her sweaty palms as she walked through yet another tunnel. This cavern was too big but she was determined to find that rock.

After a while of walking, she finally came to a large area where she saw something that made her halt in her tracks. A single pillar of light illuminated the central part of the area. As she looked further, she noticed that it led into a deep hole where the light faded and was completely dark once again, just like the tunnels that she had walked through to get here. With a newfound excitement, the vampyress skipped over to the hole in the middle of the large space. The hole itself was pretty large, but she knew that this was where she was supposed to go. The light told her so. Once she got close to the hole, she found that the pathway split into three different paths again. Without a second thought, she went straight into the first one she saw from the left. If she went into the wrong one, she could always come back the same way and try a different one. There were only three of them so she did not mind and did not take a lot of time thinking which was the right path to take. She walked through a tunnel once again, that was pretty long and narrow, and also completely dark. This was no issue for her, as mentioned, her vampyrism allowed her to see through the darkness perfectly. So she walked along the tunnel, and after a few minutes came to find that she had walked into a dead end.

As soon as she saw that she had walked into a dead end, she turned back and started walking back so that she could try the next opening. Once she was back at the hole where she could see all three openings, she noticed that the third had been blocked by more fallen rocks, so she decided to go through the second one since she was in no hurry. There was no need to put the trouble first, and so she took the second pathway. It was pretty much the same as the first one. It was completely dark and although it was wider than the first one, it did not matter, because after a few minutes of walking, she came to another dead end although it took a bit longer for her to reach the end of the second pathway compared to the first one. It seemed that she would have to move those rocks away to find the glowing blue metal. She was pretty optimistic about finding it at some point along the third tunnel, though. Once she was back where she could see all three openings, she began to lift off the rocks that were blocking the third opening. Once she was done with that, she clapped away any dust and exhaled sharply before entering through the opening. It took less time for her to reach the end of the third tunnel before she found what she came here looking for. The precious substance sat there at the end of the third tunnel, glowing a pale blue just like Barras had described.

The sight of the substance caused her eyes to widen. She had a feeling that it was somehow enchanted. No ordinary mineral would glow like that, not that she knew of. Since she lived in a world of magic, of course she thought this. Even though it existed, there was not a lot of the metal. She noticed that the amount was quite limited, which she should probably let Barras know. She did not know what kind of weapons he was thinking of forging with this, but since they came in a limited amount, he probably could not do much, unless there was more deeper in the cavern, or in different caverns. Barras only wanted to know if it existed, so her job was done here. She would return to him and let him know of this and would be done with her job. The vampyress looked around to see if she was missing anything before turning in the opposite direction and walking back the way she came, through the third tunnel before she came back to the hole that was illuminated by the mysterious light. She climbed out of the hole, coming back to the large area, before walking towards the tunnel she remembered she came through to reach this part of the cavern. Then she began to walk back along the same path she used to come in through to get to here.

It was not hard finding her way back out of the cavern because she made sure to remember her way as she went in. The journey out of the cavern seemed shorter than the journey inside, probably because she knew for how long she was going to be walking to get outside as well as her destination. When she was walking inside, she had no idea where exactly she was going, or how long it would take for her to get to that place. The vampyress passed through the openings that she had walked through after lifting off some rocks in front of them. She actually stopped to place the rocks back in place of the openings just to make it harder for people who entered the cavern after she did. This was also good for Barras since he probably going to start mining the metal. The less people finding out, the better. It was very quiet and peaceful within the cavern. The large area where the light came through to shine at the center seemed like a great spot for meditation. Even though it was mostly dark, that was the only spot with light. Although she did not mind whether her location of meditation was well lit or not, she was thinking in general, and not just for herself. Maybe taking requests from all these legal clients were making her go soft or something. She did not mind though. She had a feeling that meeting Adelaide was going to reverse that even if it happened.

As much as Joan anticipated the arrival of her vampyre friend, she was slightly scared about it as well, since Adelaide had a worse record than she did. She was positive that Adelaide would help her with her issues, but would the arrival of said vampyre bring negative influence to her surroundings, she did not know. Joan had not thought about this thoroughly, because she was desperately in need of help and this desperation blinded her from all the consequences that could result from bringing Adelaide to Fiore. Of course she never thought of Adelaide as a bad person. This was definitely caused by the type of influence Adelaide had on her, and the way she acted around her. Adelaide was like a bigger sister to her, even though they were not related in any way outside of coming from the same bloodline. In their short time together, Adelaide had influenced Joan to the point she was kind of like an idol to Joan. Although of course Joan would never openly admit this, she secretly admired Adelaide. And of course she had no idea that Adelaide was not her actual name, and the stories of her past that she was told were mostly fake. Joan had idolized a character that existed only to her. She was admiring someone who was not real. The stories she thought were oh-so-fantastic, had mostly been made up, and the vampyress she was seeking would bring plenty of trouble.

The thought of Adelaide came to her mind at least once or twice a day, and of course she was thinking of it while she had the time to since there was nothing to do while walking through tunnels to get out of a cavern. Of course these thoughts attacked her brain at times like this. But soon she was able to see the light at the end of the tunnel, which meant that she would now have to find a way to sneak past the group that was outside the opening. She had a feeling that they were still there and to be safe, she of course used some stealthy tactics to get past them without getting noticed. Once she accomplished this, she blended in with the group again, searching for her client who was also among this group. Once she found him, Barras the smith, the vampyress hurried over to where he was standing and presented the information of the glowing blue metal to him. He seemed quite shocked about this, as if he had expected for the rumor the be nothing more than just a rumor. Of course Joan did not say this loud and clearly for everyone to hear. She whispered it to him after making sure that no one was around to eavesdrop their conversation. Barras asked her if she was telling the truth several times and of course Joan replied that she was each time. She had the patience for that, because getting her reward or not depended on if her client was convinced or not.

Barras was extremely pleased with the information that he was given, a silly grin plastered on his face now as if he was five years old. The vampyress kept a straight face, not wanting to grab too much unwanted attention. There was no one near them at this point. Barras reached into his pockets to bring out a pouch and handed it to Joan. She wondered why everyone was so into giving money pouches, because now she had a bunch of pouches that she did not need lying around in her inn room that she was probably going to just leave when she left the inn when she decided to leave Magnolia Town. Hopefully the people who cleaned the room after she left would find some use for the pouches. Joan had a wallet to carry her money in, and the pouches were too small to hold all her money anyway. The client thanked her verbally for the work she had done. She was sweating a bit, but not disgustingly so. After taking the pouch from him that she put away in one of her pockets as well, she headed back to the inn to take a nice refreshing shower. Her grand plans for the evening included paying the local hospital again since she was running out of blood bags now. After that she would probably watch some TV since she was done with work for the day.