Aya woke to the silence of her apartment, not having to go to work meant her disabled alarm clock had now found a home under her bed with the rest of the random junk there.
She yawned, checking the time to notice it was just about 10:30 am.
"I wouldn't even have thought about doing this on my weekends, it's nice to not have to maximize time constantly anymore," she said, getting out of her bed.
Stepping into her kitchen she filled a cup with water from the tap and gulped it down in one go.
"Refreshing," she said leaning on her counter, she perched herself on her elbows and began to think.
'The Gold from Mars and this recent sale will be enough for a while but if I really want to leave this place I've got to get serious about crafting and cooking,' Aya thought.
'Who knows, maybe I'll be able to move to one of the better parts of Axen before I uproot and head to Mericross,"
Footsteps caught her attention again, it was almost like a routine now that she noticed it. On a Thursday too, Lydia pounded on the door no doubt with a closed fist.
Aya crouched and tiptoed towards the door not making a sound. She held her breath and listened to see if the woman was on a call with someone.
"Must you insist on making me do these checks Fido? I told you she's been employed for the past year, she's not at home during working hours!" Lydia said into the phone receiver.
Aya's eyes rounded in surprise, she knew Fido was part of the operation but she didn't think he was the one masterminding all this.
"That scumbag!" Aya hissed under her breath from her place on the floor. Her grandmother had trusted him with her life and this is how he repaid her? By blackmailing the only person she might have left?
She heard Lydia's footsteps recede into the apartment hallway, probably on their way to harass another tenant.
"That hag!" Aya said still whispering. She pulled herself away from her door, making sure the bolts were secure.
"I'm upgrading them if need be, can't afford to take any chances," She puffed her cheeks full of air and released it.
"You gotta buckle up Aya," she said slapping her cheeks with both hands, "Play the game,"
She went back to her bed to dig out the Revista. She turned it on, placing the PacBook beside her, and starting up the game where she left off.
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"You're back!" Sprite said, Yvlena opened her eyes to find herself in the center of the Outpost next to the table she set up to hold the remains of the fallen town guards.
"Good to see you guys," Yvlena said, allowing the fairy to perch in her hair. Rabbit Knight sheathed the sword he had been cleaning and joined Yvlena by her side.
"Only one left I remember," She said. William was in the first building, O'Leary on the grounds, that only left the second building and the guard tower left.
"Let's get something out of the way first," She said. Equipping her hoe, she dug the grass until it was deep enough to bury the first skeleton. Yvlena hoisted up the bones of William Brackett and placed them gently within his newly dug grave.
Yvlena dug another grave for the Lieutenant as well, picking up the broken bones and laying them to rest.
She placed two regular wooden torches as grave markers then bowed her head in respect to the pair of graves.
“I think we can look for Commander Addison now,”
----------
"The guard tower will be the quickest to check," Yvlena said already moving in the direction of the guard tower. She cut through some of the taller grass as she moved through the Outpost.
She stopped at the old Outpost Guard tower. It was a structure made entirely out of wood and seven meters tall in length topped with a triangular room made of straw and leaves.
A wooden ladder stuck out from the side inviting Yvlena to climb it. The girl frowned and went closer, placing her hands on the ladder and putting one foot to climb.
"I hope there's nothing waiting for me up there," she said to herself, she hoisted her weight unto the structure and began climbing up the ladder. The ladder squeaked as the worn wood nearly gave out at being forced to hold someone's weight after such a long period of time.
Yvlena climbed as Sprite flew by side, racing up the ladder to either find nothing or confront the undead Commander Addison.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
"Let's hope it's nothing," Yvlena muttered.
Reaching the top, she leaped in over from the side with an exhausted sigh.
"Whew what a climb," she said. Yvlena stood in a wooden box filled with junk and straw. At the top, she could see a few holes in the roof where the straw used to patch it had fallen out.
"Caw!" the sound blared close to her ears, Yvlena swatted an annoying bird that brushed past her. The bird circled overhead and eventually landed in a nest.
Yvlena looked around, the old guard tower looked to have been completely overrun by birds.
Only a specific type of bird, it was a small raven like bird covered in blush pink feathers and a black stripe wrapped around its neck, but what stood out to Yvlena was the black heart mark right at the corner of its wing joint.
"That's a pretty bird," Yvlena said.
The feathered creatures flew away as soon as Yvlena's boots took a step forward.
"There's gotta be something in here," she said already heading towards one of the piles of junk and nests. She searched the nests.
[Yvlena Acquired
***
Heartish Raven eggs x3]
"I can probably cook this," She said, continuing to search the nests until she ended up with nine eggs.
"There's nothing else up hear not even a trinket or something, well I guess it's just a tower after, not much is going to be up here," Yvlena said. She hoisted herself over the edge of the tower and slid down the steps the way she had done sometimes when she still worked in Nue Corp's mailroom.
"To the other building then," she said.
----------
With a swipe of her hand, she sheared the grass blocking the path to the second building within the Outpost.
She pushed the squeaky door open and began walking through the overgrown insides, this place was a lot worse for wear than the other two.
"Something's strange about this one," Sprite said. Indeed, the room seemed to go on forever in one long stretch of hallway.
The door shut behind them, plunging the girl and her summons into the darkness.
"Hey!" Yvlena yelled, grabbing the knob and trying to force it open. The knob refused to move, locking the entire party within the building. Yvlena let go, backing away from the door to look around.
She retrieved her fairy lit torch and asked Sprite to light it.
[Sprite cast Sting (01 MP)]
Light bloomed within the room, she looked around finding only grass and vines growing within the building's interior.
It reminded her of the hidden temple within the Bloom Haven Hidden Depths. The way the vines wound around the structure.
Yvlena gulped, the foreboding sight before her sent chills up her spine. The building was a single long hallway that seemed to go on forever.
"Alright, let's go," she said holding her fairy lit torch and illuminating a path into the darkness.
'At least I'm not alone.' Yvlena thought.
There were no doors to rooms, no indication anyone had ever used the building to house people. After a bit of walking, Yvlena noticed the end did not come closer at all.
"I could have sworn we were getting closer but we aren't even the least bit closer to the end!" Yvlena said. She turned around to face the which was now miles away from her at this point.
Rabbit Knight's nose twitched as he drew his sword. In the blink of an eye something fell from the ceiling, Rabbit Knight acted fast, slashing the object before it could hit the ground.
"What was that?" Yvlena asked shining her torch on the ground, she picked up the seed now split down the middle from Rabbit Knight's attack.
"What the-" Yvlena was about to say, when something fell on her as well. Yvlena looked up, gasping as she was overcome by horror.
Merged with the ceiling was a giant ghostly face, breathing in and out as if in slumber. The rest of his body was not visible only the face coalescing with the building.
After a moment, Yvlena noticed the plants and interconnected vines and flowers that grew out of the man's orifices. They spread around the building, coopting it as their own.
It seemed Commander Addison's mutation had taken a different turn than the other two, a much darker mutation than even Viseli's.
The grassy vines reminded her of the Giant Weed Mimic she had cleared previously and hoped his skillset would be much the same.
Every vine within the former Guard house came from Captain Addison's mutated form.
"I might be able to get a grass stone if I beat this, but just how tough is this guy? He has to be the boss of this quest,"
"Are we going to wake him up?" Sprite asked apprehensively. The large being deeply frightened her, something was off about him. To her, this creature was a perversion of nature and all it stood for.
"We have to if we want to set his soul free," Yvlena explained to the fairy. "But I wonder how we're going to wake him up,"
In a flash of a brilliant idea, Yvlena looked at the torch in her hand and then up at the ceiling.
"Hmm?"
She reared her hand back and flung the torch towards the face above them. The fairy lit torch bumped hard against the creature's nose before falling towards the ground.
Yvlena quickly lit another torch, unable to stand being in the dark with such a foul thing.
The burst of fairy magic within the small torch roused the being from its deep sleep.
A bellow of wrath resounded through the building, so loud Yvlena covered her ears and grimaced.
The face groaned, struggling against its place within the ceiling, it was clear to Yvlena and her party that Commander Addison was trapped there, twisted by the darkness of the Miasma.
The creature opened its mouth, releasing a tormented shriek. The building shook at the howl of pain and only then did it notice Yvlena.
Bloodshot eyes stared down at her, the creature roared, the vines around him began to shift forming a mass only the creature in the ceiling could control.
Torch in hand, Yvlena faced it.
"Now we fight!"