Standing before her was indeed a Moss Rabbit, except that the shadowy creature's aggression wasn’t targeted at her. Instead, the dark figure was surrounded by a pack of goblins, about five of them. They held up their wooden clubs encircling the Moss Rabbit. Its constant growling, snarling, and snapping, proved hopeless. The goblins, with caution painted over their face, slowly encroached on their target. The radius of the circle slowly shrinking with each passing second.

The Moss Rabbit lurched at the goblin in front of it. Its hind claws dug into the goblin’s fleshy chest, a stable foothold for the rabbit's incessant attacks. The goblin yelped in pain letting go of its club before crashing onto the floor. It clawed away at the rabbit, a Sisyphean attempt at pushing off the creature. The rabbit continued its unending flurry of bites and scratches, all targeted at the goblin's face.

The goblin's compatriots moved slowly towards their fallen comrade. Their heads swinging back and forth looking at each other. With each step, an extra layer of worry was added onto their faces. With each step, the cries of their friend grew softer and softer.

After what felt like eons to the goblins, they were inches away from the downed goblin. The cries had stopped and the Moss Rabbit turned around. The spongy black fur was now red with bits of green strewn all over. They didn't have time to yelp in fear before it leaped again at the closest goblin, aiming right for the face. The rest of the goblins screamed while the unlucky one fell to the ground arms flailing trying to push the Moss Rabbit off him.

With their bodies filled with dangerous levels of adrenaline, one of the goblins started smashing its club at the rabbit. Then another goblin joined in, then another. They continued their onslaught of blows on the rabbit, their companion an unfortunate bystander. With each swing of their clubs, they screamed. Whether it were screams of rage or abject horror was unknown.

Their swings slowly died down. Their chests heaved as they caught their breath. The only thing left was a pile of mush. A mush of red and green with some fur and skin sprinkled about. The goblins spoke with each other in their goblin tongue. Elaine could only guess that they were distraught. The frantic waving of arms and loud screeching indicated that much. One of the goblins had tears flowing. It bent down at the pile on the ground. Pushing together the mush to form a sort of goblin shape. Without the support of its hands, the mush kept on falling apart, losing its shape. With each failed attempt the tears and cries only increased in intensity. Goblin-colored snot flew out of its nose.

"I'm sorry," Elaine sighed.

The conjured bow appeared in her hands, with a swift pull and release. The remaining goblins fell to the floor. Their deaths were swift. The only pain being the one in their hearts.

Elaine walked up to the aftermath of the battle, checking the corpses for anything of value. Goblins being goblins didn't have anything of use. She avoided the slush on the floor, the smell of blood was overpowering.

With one last look at the corpses that littered the forest floor, she headed back. Retracing her path back out of the forest. The journey back was faster, not having to stop every few seconds to check the trees certainly helped. The rays of sunshine shone brighter the closer she got to the main path. The sound of birds chirping returned as well. She hit the dirt path and began walking back to Wintrell, arriving at the guild hall and approaching Leilani's counter.

"Done with your first quest, Elaine?" the bubbly receptionist asked.

"Yep. Got the moss right here," she pointed at her bag.

"Great. Just head to Mr. Thorne's room. Pass him your guild card and once he's done verifying everything head back over here to complete the quest."

"Alright, thanks."

With that Elaine headed back towards the appraiser's room, joining the queue of adventurers waiting their turn. The wait wasn't too long, soon enough it was her turn. When she entered the room, her only greeting was a grunt. His piercing gaze inspected her very soul.

"Um here?" she handed him her grunt.

A louder grunt was all she got.

He took the card and scanned it using the crystal ball on his desk. He grunted again, pointing at her bag at the same time. Elaine just nodded before she opened up her bag. Remembering her last interaction and Leilani's warnings, she took great care to pull out each patch of moss and place them on the counter nice and softly.

After the last patch was placed on the counter, she looked up to face Mr. Thorne. She was greeted by the same stern expression but he gave a nod rather than a grunt. Once again he began in appraisal, aided by the plethora of tools at his disposal. He carefully inspected each large patch of Shadowbark Moss followed by separating them into smaller patches, then finally placing them in an empty box. After inspecting all 50 patches of moss he wrote on a piece of paper.

"Anything else?" his voice slightly growly.

"I still have these," she reached into her other bag, carefully pulling out the four Moss Rabbit paws she had collected.

He grunted again in response, the inspection process beginning again. He looked at the paw rotating it, checking it with his magnifying glass, paying particular notice at the point of incision.

"Did you cut this?" his voice remained low and harsh.

Elaine instinctively folded her arms and crossed her legs, "Yes, I did. Any problems?"

"No. It's a fine cut. Clean."

"Thank you," Elaine nodded.

"Although," his voice slightly warmer, "this would be a finer specimen if you prepared it better."

"Meaning?"

"You've got a fine cut, girl, but you've got to drain the blood."

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"And how would I do that?"

He grunted, "Like this."

A blob of mana permeated from his hand engulfing the rabbit's foot he held. The pale blue mana seeped into the foot only to come out from the other side. The mana now housed globules of crimson-red blood. He placed the now-drained rabbit's foot on the table. With the mana still clinging to his palm he brought it over a glass flask letting the blood leak out into the flask below, filling it. With the task completed the mana in his hand dispersed.

He looked up at her, "Learn the spell."

"What?" her face scrunched up in confusion.

"Learn the spell, ‘Sanguine Harvest’."

"What?" her voice louder with a tinge of confusion.

"Learn the spell, Sanguine Harvest, for better quality monster products."

"Are you going to teach me?"

"No."

"How am I supposed to learn it then?"

A grunt was the only response she got. He went back to his work, appraising the remaining rabbits' paws on his desk, draining the blood from each foot, and slowly filling up the glass vial. Elaine watched him work. She watched him perform the spell. She watched his every move, she studied it. She observed every single movement he made, scrutinized the way he moved his hand, the way the mana flowed through the rabbit. She internalized all of it.

With his appraisal done, he handed Elaine a form to sign, similar to the one the day before.

"You get the payment for the Shadowbark Moss upfront but you'll have to wait to receive the money for the Moss Rabbit's paws and blood."

He went back to organizing his desk, putting back everything in neatly adjusted order. Elaine retrieved her guild card and proceeded back to the main guild hall, where she began to speak with Leilani again.

"Hi Elaine, how was your appraisal?" her cheery personality on display.

"I think it went alright?" her voice raising in pitch slightly, "he praised the Moss Rabbit feet I brought but also told me to learn a new spell?"

"Was it ‘Sanguine Harvest’?"

"Yea. Wait, how did you know?"

"It's the usual progression of Mr. Thorne," she shrugged, a smug smile on her face.

"Usual progression?"

"Yup. He normally acts neutral to the people he first meets, but once they show even the slightest disrespect to their materials his opinion of them instantly lowers. Those who get the hint and start treating their materials better will usually cause his opinion of them to improve, but those who don't end up complaining about him and accuse him of devaluing their materials during the appraisal process."

"Oh. How does ‘Sanguine Harvest’ get involved?"

"Well monster corpses or at least parts of them are the most common material to pass through his doors, and when you're dealing with monsters you tend to end up dealing with blood, lots of it. For one, if blood isn't drained then it gets everywhere on the floor and someone has to clean it up and I think he mentioned something about the corpse degrading faster and losing value or something if there's still blood. Honestly, I care more about the blood on the floor."

"Yea, I can tell. Especially after how you chased that guy out yesterday," she giggled.

Leilani just rolled her eyes, "Don't even get me started. Every single day there's some adventurer just dredging in a bag of monsters oozing with blood. And every single day one of us has to ask them to leave the area, then if we're lucky they only leave giving us the stink eye. More often than not there's some sort of argument involved and only when another adventurer intervenes do they leave. It's so annoying."

"Wow. I didn't know you had to go through all of that. I just thought that you did paperwork and directed people wherever they had to go. No offense, really."

"None taken, that is what my job mainly encompasses but every once in a while you have to deal with a troublemaker. Sometimes it can be you or sometimes it's one of your co-workers," she just sighed, "anyway, so do you know how to perform 'Sanguine Harvest'?"

"I have some understanding of it after observing Mr. Thorne. If I'm not wrong and I hope I'm not, it works on similar principles to 'Cleanse'. Except that while 'Cleanse' works on the exterior, 'Sanguine Harvest' involves manipulating mana through the interior and collecting all the filth, which in this case would be blood."

"Well, you're on the right track. The spell itself is very useful and here's a little secret," she leaned in closer, "When you drain blood from a monster of an animal it improves the taste when you cook it. A little tip for when you end up camping outside."

"Really?"

"Yea. It helps to get rid of that gamey taste. Or that's what the chefs in the tavern always say," she shrugged.

"Wow, I did not know that. I don't even think my Father knows that."

"Not many adventurers do and most don't bother to listen," she just shook her head," Anyway, if you need help with the spell just come find me."

"Alright, thanks. Now about the quest."

"Oh right. I may or may not have forgotten about that," she scratched her head while giving a cheeky smile.

"It's all right," Elaine giggled.

"Could you pass me your guild card?"

"Sure."

Elaine handed her guild card and Leilani proceeded to process it. Reading whatever was revealed by the crystal ball and writing it down. Processing whatever paperwork that was required.

"Just give me a sec."

Leilani turned around and proceeded into one of the rooms in the back. She came back moments later with a small pouch.

"Guess what's inside?" she shook the bag, the sound of metal on metal resounding from the pouch.

"I wonder..." Elaine paused tapping her finger on her chin, her eyes staring up at the ceiling.

Elaine looked at Leilani, the two girls just giggled at their exchange.

"Anyway here's the reward for the quest, 50 gold coins."

"Thanks," said Elaine as she grabbed the pouch.

"So planning on doing another quest?"

"What do you mean?" Elaine cocked her head ever so slightly.

"I mean you completed a quest and there's still plenty of daylight left, so are you planning on taking another quest?"

Elaine stared at Leilani, the gears in her head turning. After a brief pause, she blurted out, "I can take more than one quest in a day."

"Yea?" Leilani said, her vocal pitch marginally rising.

"I just thought it was a one quest a day situation."

"Why would it be like that?"

Elaine could only leave her mouth open, unable to formulate a response. Eventually only being able to stammer out, "I-I-I don't actually know."

"Anyway as long as you're not already doing a quest you're free to take on another quest."

"Right," her cheeks flushed.

"Just don't take too long picking out a quest. I'm sure you want to get it done before the day's over."

"Uh right. I'll see you later," Elaine quickly departed from the counter.

When she was further away from the rows of counters she buried her face in her hands.

"Ughh, why am I so dumb? One quest a day just made so much sense to me," her voice muffled by her hands.

She lowered her hands and took a deep breath, regaining her composure.

Let's just not think about it and find another quest to do, she reaffirmed herself.