Seven people stood on the purple grass front yard of the Bluegold residence, chatting amongst each other as the afternoon sun beamed down on them. It was another gorgeous spring day for Redwood and Jane would take advantage of this great weather to show off her surprise she had for the other seven people here.

Besides Jane, the other six people were Dean, Amelia, and Eric Frier— Hannah unfortunately was put in charge of watching over the younger ones while they were here. Then there was the rest of the Bluegold’s which included Jeff, Rosalie and Abigail.

The seven of them talked amongst each other while Jane stood nearby getting more and more impatient. She thought they all said they were busy but here they were casually chatting for minutes on end.

It was only when Jane was fed up with standing around in the heat for over fifteen minutes while everyone talked non stop, that she decided to take charge. “Okay is everyone ready!?” She shouted louder than normal, a little annoyed.

“Ready for what again?” Jeff asked, rubbing his bald head. He wasn't exactly sure what they were doing today.

Jane sighed and recomposed herself. Why was she getting annoyed? She was the one taking their time away from them. It was properly the excited nerves getting to her, so before she answered Jeff, she took a deep breath and put on a cheerful smile.

“It's a surprise! I told you that last night, did you forget about it already, old man?” Jane teased him with a grin.

Jeff crossed his arms and looked her dead in the eyes. “Ho ho, This better be good then.”

“Oh, you’ll be thoroughly surprised. Come on, follow me!” Jane motioned for everyone to follow her as she took the lead in leading them down the hill towards the old creek house. The old creek house— or her place now— wasn't that far from the Bluegold’s home, it was just a little ways past the Bluegold hill, resting at the edge of town near the redwood forest.

During the walk, Jane kept to herself but could hear everyone else whispering, wondering what the surprise Jane had for them. After roughly an eight minute walk through the heat of a mid-spring day, they arrived at the old creek house property.

Jane stopped when they got to the bottom of the path leading up into the house and turned to face everyone else with a confident look. She put her hands on her hips and said, “Alright everyone, we're here!”

They all looked up at the dilapidated building that was the old creek house and looked confused as to why they were here. Amelia was the first to speak up about this situation, “What's this supposed to be Jane?”

“This… is my new house. I just bought it yesterday.” Jane replied and got silence in return. It took a few seconds before everyone processed what she said. They looked at the old creek house, then back to Jane, then back at the house, and then their eyes widened.

“Wait wait, you bought a place!” Everyone said something similar to this at the same time.

“Yep! I bought this place for a cheap deal considering how large the house and land is.” Jane was grabbed in the shoulder by her mother who looked at funnily.

“Why’d you buy such a run down place though?” Rosalie asked Jane, wondering why.

“It's perfect for everything I wanna do— beside it being run down— but then I realized it being run down was actually even better!” Jane replied.

“Huh?” Everyone said.

“It gives me a project I can work on in my free time, hopefully together with you all. If we don't rush, it might take a few weeks, maybe a month or two, which gives me lots of time to live at home and spend time with you guys.” She directed the last part to her family. “But I do want to move out into my own place and this place will be perfect once it’s fixed up— I think I hit three birds with one stone here.”

Everyone took in what she said and then smiled, especially Rosalie and Jeff. They knew their daughter wanted to move out and if she had the money to buy this, she could've bought a place anywhere and moved out already, but it seemed she wanted to spend more time with them.

“Maybe I hit four birds with one stone considering this place is also close to home which means visiting each other is pretty simple.” Jane finished saying and was surprised to get hugged by her mother.

“Oh, what's up?” Jane hugged her mother back anyways.

“I'm so, so proud of you.” Rosalie wiped a tear dripping down her cheek and looked warmly at Jane. “My baby girl is all grown up— she's a powerful classholder but she still cares about spending time with her family. I couldn't be happier right now!”

Jane's eyes began to water up hearing her mother spout such remarks, and this time she took the lead and gave her mother another hug. She then felt tiny arms wrap around her leg and looked down to see Abigail looking up at her with a giggling smile as she joined in on the hug.

Then she felt more arms, this time much bigger and hairier, wrap around her as Jeff couldn't not join in on the family hug.

“Congrats kiddo, you've entered the big leagues.” Jeff said. “And… it was pretty damn surprising, so you got me there.”

“Heh, that's good.” Jane rubbed her eyes trying to get herself back to normal, before she led everyone up the bump of a hill towards her place. “I'm gonna need your guys expert advice and experience on how to handle this place. I have no idea where to even start.”

“That's what us old men are here for, right Jeff?” Dean patted Jeff on the back and got a nod in return.

They all walked through the fence gate and took a good look at the mess that was this entire place; there were overgrown weeds everywhere, basically anything wooden was rotted beside the house itself, and even the trees were oddly creepy looking.

“Us guys will take a look at the outside while you four inspect the inside since there's probably a lot more to look at. We'll meet you at the front yard once we're all done.” Jeff said and saw Jane pull out a small notebook from her pockets, “Ah that's perfect, use that to record everything you see and then we can put together a list of things to do.”

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Jane nodded before she saw the men get to work. Dean took one side while Jeff and Eric took the other side of the house, they went around looking at everything making sure to take their time so they didn't miss anything important.

Jane, Rosalie, Amelia and Abigail followed their advice and went into the house, but Abigail immediately cringed at the smell. “Yucky! It smells bad!” She then ran out of the house not able to take the smell, which in turn made Rosalie run after her.

“Guess it's just me and you on this one.” Jane said to Amelia who smirked in response.

There was a lot to go through on the inside purely because the size of the house was quite large compared to most houses. On the main floor there was a kitchen, a large dining room, an even larger living room, an office room, and another room that was filled with random items.

Jane had seen it all yesterday but only briefly, now that she was doing a deep dive into all of it, she could see just how bad the place really was. There was shit everywhere, everything was either broken, incredibly old, or just rotted and nasty.

They started in the kitchen and there wasn't much to see. The kitchen equipment was all rusted and nasty looking and even if they worked, she wouldn't want it. The cupboards were mostly empty, only cobwebs and bugs filled those places, while the refrigerator and freezer were also bare with items.

The dining room wasn't too bad, there were a few cabinets to the sides that held extra utensils or plates, but they were also home to bugs, cobwebs and a few dead animals. After seeing a dead mouse in the cabinet, Jane took a step back and made a grossed out face.

The dining table itself looked pretty okay, it was probably the best off item she had seen so far, but the same couldn't be said for the shit on top of it. Whoever last owned this place really liked to make a mess since boxes of random garbage rested on top of the table, alongside left out utensils and plates still filled with moldy food on them.

It was just straight up nasty.

A few paintings hung on the walls but they all had a layer of dust covering them and looked a little worn out. There was also a fancy chandelier that lit up the room using light runes, which still functioned properly and also didn't look too bad— she might keep it.

Moving on to the living room was where things got really bad. Beside the smell of dead animals, the smell of the musty furniture was the worst. There were two large couches and a few comfy looking chairs but they were wet, ripped up by some small critters, and looked to be covered in a layer of moss somehow.

Jane pressed on the light switch rune and a pattern of runes on the ceiling turned on and lit up the god awful mess of the living room. If there was one word Jane could use to describe the house it would be messy— not nasty.

While things were gross here, it was more messy than anything. The old owner must have been a hoarder looking at the piles of random items splayed out across the living room just like the dining room.

Jane made sure to use her notebook to write down notes of things she needed to do to make this place livable— and boy did the notebook fill up fast. She continued jotting down words as she and Amelia made their rounds around the last two rooms in the main floor. The office and storage room were mostly the same; dirty and messy rooms that needed to be cleaned dearly.

After the main floor they decided to look through the two floors above first, before they went down into the basement since Jane said the basement was the easiest to go through.

The second floor had four large bedrooms, a small library room, and another office room it seemed. It was much the same as the rest of the rest and they quickly went through it all before they worked their way up to the third floor.

The third floor was a little smaller than the others as it tapered off from the first two floors which left it with only three small bedrooms and another smaller storage room filled with junk. The cool thing about this floor though, something Jane liked a lot when Angeline showed it to her, was the balcony.

At the end of the hallway on the third floor, there was a door that led onto a flattened roof turned into a balcony that had a few couches alongside some other pieces of furniture left. The furniture out here was more damaged and ruined then the ones inside since they’ve been affected by the weather and such.

The balcony floor was solid wood like most of the house, but it wasn't damaged at all and seemed to be in perfect condition— Jane thought there might be priest wards to help prevent the floor from getting damaged.

Jane approached and leaned against a fence that went around the large balcony, alongside Amelia as the two stood there taking in the beautiful sight of the redwood forest that lay in front of the balcony.

“You really got yer own place to call home.” Amelia hung one arm over Jane's shoulder as they stared into the forest.

“Not yet, once it's all fixed up then I can call it my own home.” Jane leaned into Amelia. “It's exciting to think about.”

“Oh it is. I remember when me and Dean first moved into our own place, it was a whole new step of our life.” Amelia commented. “Now once this place is finished, we can hold a housewarming celebration here.”

“I don't know if I wanna think about another celebration just yet, there's already one occupying my mind more than I'd like.”

“Heh you’ll be fine— great as a matter of fact. I'm personally looking forward to it, and so are the rest of us. I can't imagine how excited yer parents are about this.”

“They're trying their best not to show it but I can see the sparkle in their eyes as they count down the days until their baby girl is celebrated by the whole town.” Jane said with a sigh.

“I can understand why as a parent.” Amelia replied and then said. “It's gonna be different once everyone knows what you look like. I just hope you continue to spend your life the way you want to, don't let anybody make you change that.”

“Where'd all these inspirational words come from?” Jane looked at her with a questioning gaze.

“Eric might’ve slipped how you were feeling last night.” Amelia saw Jane raise an eyebrow. “Now don't get mad at him, okay? I was the one who pushed him for all the details since you left so earlier last night.”

“Eric… Ah well, I know I might be overthinking the whole thing but I'll have to see what the future holds. I'm just hoping everything turns out okay.” Jane then stretched her arms and shook off the stiffness she got from leaning on the fence. ”Sorry for leaving early last night, there's just so much to talk about and I'm not trying to rush it since I'm gonna be here for years to come.”

“Ah don't worry about my ramblings, I'm just a curious woman who wants to know how your time was at the academy. I've already interrogated Eric about everything you told him so don't bother with me, just take things at your own pace.” Amelia patted her on the shoulder. “But I really do want to know more about Mira.”

Jane started to walk back into the house while replying to Amelia with a cheeky smile, “You’ll just have to meet her yourself when she comes to Redwood.”

“Ah come on, I can't wait that long!” Amelia followed after Jane and the two got back to work.

They finished up their inspection of the house by finishing with the basement, which was currently just one large empty room filled with worthless junk and held together by a few pillars for support. Did she even have to say what the current state of the basement was? It was just like the rest of the house— a mess!

After looking at her notebook full of her own tiny notes, she and Amelia stepped out of the house to find everyone else plopped down on a blanket laying on the grass. The adults were thoroughly enjoying themselves after having grabbed a beer from a cooler filled with refreshing drinks that was placed off to the side. Abigail herself had her own bottle of juice she sipped on while also munching on a handful of snacks laid around the blanket.

‘Where'd all this come from?’ Jane wondered.