Apparently the doctor had heard of Mikajia making his way back to Oak. He had only been in the town for a couple days before he received his letter; the odd doctor requesting his assistance with another task. As usual, the man was less than forthcoming about what it was he was needing assistance with, usually because any time Mikajia had helped him, it was dealing with stealing highly valuable and illegal objects, or testing out extremely experimental drugs. The man had been honorable enough to always make good on his payments, so Mikajia had no real qualms with working for the doctor. He just hoped it wasn’t another experimental drug.


The last drug he’d tested for the man, he had personally been the test subject, and had endured hellish visions under the influence of what he had come to call ‘White Claudia’. He definitely wasn’t looking forward to ever going through that process again. Even now, several months after dealing with that, he would occasionally wake up in a cold sweat, believing he was back in that hallway, running from that nightmarish blackness; the ghoulish decaying fingers creeping out of the darkness, trying to grab him and take him to someplace he couldn’t nor wanted to know.


The thought sent shivers down his spine once more as he brushed aside the memory. Whatever the doctor wanted, even if it was more experiments with White Claudia, he would still offer his assistance, he just seriously hoped it was something different this time. He really didn’t want to have to worry about dealing with any other nightmares. The shit he was dealing with already, was plenty. He gathered his coat and dagger, then took a deep breath as he readied to leave, and eventually deal with the mad doctor once more.


WC = 300/1,000

Once he arrived at the doctor’s store and met up with the man, he would be very relieved to find out it had nothing to do with White Claudia. Instead, the doctor needed Mikajia to fetch a particularly rare ingredient for an equally rare potion. One that could easily bolster a mage’s magical reserves. It was a highly valuable potion, and one that required an ingredient that was frowned upon to obtain. Mostly due to the rarity of the creature itself that possessed the item.


According to the doctor, the tail of a particular lizard was needed for this potion. The lizard in question had been hunted to near extinction due to how valuable its body was in making powerful potions. As such, this lizard had been classified as endangered, and it was highly illegal to hunt and kill them now. Hence the request for Mikajia’s assistance. Mikajia didn’t usually think well on poachers, but considering how quickly these little bastards procreated, and how steep the fine was, and finally, how long it had been classified as endangered, Mikajia felt he could take out just one of the lizards without feeling too guilty.


After the doctor told Mikajia where he could find the lizards to hunt, Mikajia gathered his stuff, as well as a bag to place the lizard in, then made his way out of the doctor’s shop. From there, he headed for the forest nearby. The doctor said he could find plenty of these lizards sitting around the stream in the forest, so it shouldn’t take too long. However, once he entered the forest, and found the stream, he was sad to say he didn’t see a single Green Spined Lizard in sight. After what felt like hours of searching, Mikajia finally found the lizard. Except it was sun bathing on a rock out in the open. Nowhere near the stream.


WC = 613/1,000

Once he had the lizard in sight, he crept ever closer till he was within range. Mikajia crouched, then unsheathed his dagger. A second later, with a well aimed throw, Mikajia impaled the little lizard through its stomach, killing it in seconds. Mikajia approached the dead reptile, removed his dagger, then cleanly cut its tail off. He placed the tail in the bag he had grabbed, then placed the rest of the lizard’s body in a separate bag, figuring the doctor could find some use for the rest of the lizard. After all, it was technically endangered, so it would be a shame to let any of it go to waste.


With the tail and rest of the body bagged, Mikajia began wandering back out of the forest. It didn’t take him too long, to find his way back out, considering he didn’t have to spend hours trying to find a tiny lizard this time. Less than thirty minutes later, Mikajia was exiting the forest and making his way back to the doctor’s store. Once there the doctor asked him how the search went and if he had actually found the lizard. He was very happy to see the bags Mikajia presented. Apparently he had honestly half expected Mikajia to fail, considering this time of year it was exceedingly difficult to find the little bastards.


Mikajia gave the man a deadpan stare, wondering why the hell he couldn’t have told him that before, and saved him a great deal of time. After all, he had spent probably close to three hours searching around the stream for the reptile with no luck. He took a deep breath and sighed, pushing aside his frustration with the doctor and then handed over the bags. The doctor almost gleefully accepted the bags before handing over payment for the job. However, just as Mikajia was about to leave, he told him that he would most likely be calling on him again very soon for the rest of the ingredients for the potion. According to him, they were all fairly illegal to obtain. Mikajia just raised his brows a bit before shrugging, telling him he would be willing to help so long as he continued being a proper client and paying. It really wasn’t all that difficult to appease him, just pay for his services, appropriately that is. He didn’t stand for cheap skates.


With that, Mikajia took his payment and left. Wondering exactly what the next job for Dr. Stephan Mabuz would entail.


WC = 1,031/1,000