Four hours past midnight, Medea opened her eyes. With a short yawn and stretch of her arms, she rolled onto her side and looked at the strong, bare back of her husband. He slept without making a single sound or movement. The room was still completely dark, yet his pale skin seemed to shine brightly.

A smile appeared on Medea’s lips and she turned around again, sitting up and moving out of bed after carefully peeling the sheets off her as to not wake her husband. Not that she thought she would be able to anyway.

Once out of bed, she went to the closet, grabbed a set of clothes and headed for the bathroom. She opened and closed the door without making a sound and moved over to the mirror that she had placed inside.

Then she started to rid herself of her black night garb, folded it and placed it on top a small drawer. The only thing left on her body now was the black ring embedded with a dark ruby and engraved with ancient words of the Elder Tongue. Twirling with the ring for a little, she faintly smiled to herself. After a few seconds, she stopped, gave the ruby inside a kiss and finally looked at herself in the mirror.

She briefly glanced to the bathtub on her right and shook her head. She then snapped her fingers and suddenly, a blue light started to surround her body and Medea began to hum as she watched the light spreading over her limbs, torso and even hair.

After roughly a minute, the light subsided and left her refreshed, with a sweet, herbal scent wafted from her. After she had been cleansed, Medea grabbed her underwear from the pile of clothes she had taken from the closet. Seeing herself in white underwear made her frown, so she quickly continued with the rest of her clothes.

Next was a plain, white blouse, followed by a brown corset skirt that reached down to her knees, white stockings and a pair of leather boots. Her outfit was finished by a red tie, white gloves and a red armlet in the form of a sword.

With her clothes settled, she proceeded to comb her hair and braided it into a single plait that elegantly draped over her shoulder. A few touches of make-up and three sprinkles of perfume later and she was done.

Leaving the bathroom, she looked at her slumbering husband, smiled, spun around and left the room with a bright smile. In the hallway, she turned right and walked towards the end of it until she reached the staircase leading down into the first floor, the restaurant part of the inn.

Coming down the stairs, she spotted the Owner—the same man that had given her the keys to her room yesterday—wiping the tables with a wet cloth.

He was burly and clearly past his best years, yet he appeared to be full of vigor and energy, even this early in the morning. Medea was certain that he must have had high Vitality. His Perception on the other hand seemed less outstanding as he only noticed her once she was already halfway at the door.

“Mornin’, Miss. Ya slept well?” He asked, causing her to come to a halt and turn to him.

“A good morning to you, too,” she replied with a neutral smile, “Yes, I have slept quite well.”

The innkeeper stopped cleaning the table, throwing the wet cloth over his shoulder.

“Ya sure woke up early for that to be the case,” he laughed

Medea chuckled softly, “I suppose so, but work is work.”

The old man’s eyes wandered to the armlet she was wearing.

“Yer with the guild? How come you live in an inn, then,” he asked with obvious confusion.

Medea chuckled nervously, “My last house burned down, so I am currently looking for something new.”

The innkeeper nodded his head in understanding, not pressing the issue any further. Grabbing his cloth again, he returned to scrubbing.

“Well, I hope ya find somethin’. Although I don’t mind ya staying here a tad longer,” he laughed.

With a swift turn, Medea pivoted on her heels and made her way to the exit.

“I wish ya a good day, Miss,” the old man called from behind. Medea waved him a last time and opened the door.

Stepping out of the inn and closing the door behind her, she was faced with the broad main street of the city and a row of one-story houses on the other side of the street. A few people were already walking around, even at this time of the day, a couple of carriages loaded with crates and barrels made their way north, into the center of the city. But overall, the city was still quiet, with the majority of people still asleep.

That was why Medea liked the early morning before dawn. The quiet, the chilly breeze and the calm. She stared at the cloudy sky, more specifically, the two moons in the sky. After a short while, she looked back down and spotted a man on the other side of the main street, waving at her while grinning.

He looked young—maybe in his mid-twenties, with short, slicked-back brown hair. And he was dressed in a white shirt under a brown jacket and black pants. And around his right arm was the same red armlet that Medea wore.

Her smile cracked for a moment, the happy expression on her face almost crumbling, but she caught herself, sighed and approached the young man.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“What are you doing, Mitchel?”

“Did you forget that I live here?” He pointed a thumb behind him.

Medea’s eyes glazed over the sign hanging over the door of the building behind Mitchel.

Webster’s Leatherworks.

This was the shop of Roland Webster, a good friend of Medea. A high-level Tailor and Leatherworker that is occasionally being employed by the guild to create uniforms, such as the one she and Mitchel were wearing. More importantly, the man before her was Mitchel Webster, the son of Roland.

“I did,” she replied nonchalantly. This was not a lie. She rarely remembered which of her friends had already decided to create mini versions of themselves, and Roland was not an exception to this. Even if he was currently her neighbor.

Mitchel looked at Medea dumbfounded, his prior vigor almost completely gone.

“Seriously?”

“So, what are you doing here?” She asked him, crossing her arms before her chest.

He laughed awkwardly with a slight blush on his cheeks, and Medea could only sigh seeing that. Instead of waiting for him to say anything, she started walking away. She had to get to work and no time for something like this.

But Mitchel was not so easy to get rid off. And because he was her friend’s son, she couldn’t bring herself to do anything to him. She would have to endure the energetic brat for a while.

“That was rude,” he said, appearing by her side.

“Then don’t waste my time,” she said without looking his way.

“I…, rude,” he mumbled “Hey, have you heard the news?”

Medea didn’t know what he was talking about, and honestly, she didn’t really care, but she would have to deal with Mitchel until they reached the guild building, so she might as well hear him out. As long as it wasn’t him trying to flirt with her.

“I have not,” she shook her head, not sparing a glance towards her colleague.

“We have multiple reports of a new lair in the Bloodriver Woods,” he said.

Medea’s eyes widened, as she turned her head and looked right at the grinning Mitchel by her side. She quickly caught herself and regained her composure, not ceasing her steps. Before she said anything, Mitchel already continued talking.

“One report says it belongs to a titled Wild Woman.”

Now Medea was even more surprised and put a hand to her chin, looking slightly down.

“If it has a title, there won’t be many that are able to deal with it,” she muttered to herself.

Monsters with a title were rare, at least those who created lairs. Not to forget that Wild Women were rare creatures, which made them extremely valuable. They also possessed an unusual degree of intelligence.

“But that wasn’t were the reports ended. Yesterday, one of the parties we sent there claimed the lair was contaminated.”

Why do the most interesting things always happen on my days off, Medea thought to herself. She briefly looked up to see Mitchel’s face that was very telling in what he was thinking.

“Let me guess, you also know the source of the contamination?” She sighed, massaging the bridge of her nose.

As if waiting for this, Mitchel puffed out his chest and held up a finger like a lecturer.

“A mutated species, called Exapoda. We suspect them to be related to Forest Centipedes. We don’t know much about them, since the entire population moved into the lair and basically vanished from the forest itself,” he explained.

Medea raised an eyebrow.

“The entire population went in? As far as I know, Forest Centipedes do not group up, right?”

“That’s right, but who knows why. Monsters are monsters, there is no reasoning behind their actions.”

Wrong, Medea corrected in her mind. She saw no reason to give the brat a lesson on monster biology and psychology. There must have been a reason why they decided to enter a lair instead of growing their population topside. Mitchel was not wrong in that he thought monsters had no mind of their own, however, this was only generally the case.

In the realm of creation, it is a proven fact that exceptions exist in all frameworks of established rules, be it society or nature. The Exapoda deviated from the norm in behavior of their cousins, which was enough to make Medea’s imagination run wild.

Maybe it was time for her to go out on her own again. It might have been possible to ask the Wild Woman about the Exapoda. One could do many things with a mutated species and if she were able to get her hands on some blood of an Original…

Only when Mitchel beside her burst out laughing did she snap out of her thoughts and quickly turned to glare at him. He didn’t even know the impact of what he just told her.

Medea scoffed and sped up her steps and ended the conversation with the foolish brat. After a few minutes, they finally arrived at the city square—the center of the city.

In the middle stood a magnificent fountain that easily topped a house in height. Unlike the main street, the square was filled with a variety of people. Vendors who set up their stalls, merchants who already traded with each other and lastly, another group of people that were all armed to the teeth, clad in armor of leather and iron—adventurers. There were some by themselves, some in groups and they interacted with each other, counted potions and rations or polished weapons. All of them were gathered and waiting in front a single building.

On the southern side, a particularly big building dwarfed its neighbors, not only in height, but also in width. Over the large double doors that led inside, hung a single sign, displaying letters of the Common Tongue spelling a single word: Guild.

Medea and Mitchel made their way over to the guild building. Navigating their way through the crowd of adventurers. Upon reaching the guild building, Mitchel stopped.

“I’ve got work in one of the storages today.”

Fortunately, Medea couldn’t help but think.

“See you around, Medea. Have a good day,” he said with a smile.

Medea waved at him as he vanished in one of the side streets that led behind the guild building, to where the storage facilities of the guild were located.

She passed the few groups of adventurers that were sitting on the stairs before the entrance, exchanging small formal greetings, before knocking on the double doors. She waited for a few seconds and the door opened, she stepped through and the door closed behind her again, without anyone touching it.

Inside, the grand hall, usually bustling with seasoned adventurers was quiet, instead only a few other employees engaged in mundane tasks. Medea looked around, spotting two of her colleagues working on the quest board that encompassed the entire left wall. At the back of the hall was the guild’s reception desks, where she would be working and behind it a single person sorted a stack of papers.

A young woman with short brown hair, wearing exactly the same things as Medea herself. Raising her head, her eyes landed on Medea and she broke out in a smile.

“Morning Medea.”

“Hello, Emma,” Medea responded with a genuine smile of her own.

“Good thing that you are here, Vice called for you,” Emma told her.

Medea’s eyes widened ever so slightly.

“Do you know why?” She asked while moving behind the counter.

Emma grabbed one of the papers and handed it to Medea. She took it and read its contents. It was a form for filing a request. The client was the city major and the target none other than the Wild Woman lair.

Already?

The city was already reacting to the contaminated lair. Medea was surprised and slightly disappointed. If the city was already on it, going on her own just became a lot harder. Well, she would figure something out, but for now, she had a meeting with the vice-guildmaster.