Yvlena opened her eyes and was once again standing within the Rose Manor's grounds with her axe in hand, ready to gather the next hundred pieces of wood she needed to craft the staircase.
"At this rate, I'll probably be able to get the rest of it today," Yvlena said, already chopping down another tree to get her twenty wood. She was getting better at it but still wasn't at the speed the previous Harvest Guardians probably were.
Yvlena panted, wiping the sweat off her brow and checking her inventory to see a hundred and sixty pieces of wood sitting there.
"Just forty more," she said, nearly dropping the axe in exhaustion. She perked up suddenly getting an idea. "Why didn't I think of this before,"
The girl rushed into the house and headed straight into the kitchen to prepare the Rabbit Meat Soup.
Yvlena lit the stove and tossed the ingredients into the bubbling pot, after a moment she had whipped up another bowl of Rabbit meat soup. She eyed her creation warily remembering it hadn't tasted too good the first time.
[Rabbit Meat Soup improved slightly]
She read the notification, cheering up as she did. In one go Yvlena downed the soup, noticing some major improvements to the dish, it was less salty and the meat was a bit more tender.
"It really did get better!" She said, The soup was a lot more edible than it previously was, it could still use less salt though.
[+5 HP
+Temporary [AGI] Boost]
A rush of energy flowed through her just as she had predicted, Yvlena once again ran out of the kitchen and picked up her axe ready to collect the rest of the wood.
----------
"I'm done!" she yelled, looking through her inventory at her two hundred pieces of wood. Sitting down under one of the trees and panting heavily, even with the temporary Agility boost, it had still taken a lot out of her.
"And my strength is pretty decent so why did that take so long?" Yvlena whined.
The elven girl looked at her axe and sure enough, the once dull blade had a keener edge. The handle had straightened out a bit as well, revealing the space for an upgrade gem.
"No matter, let's go fix that staircase,"
----------
[Unstable Infrastructure, Your Character Risks Possible Injury]
[Repair Staircase To Proceed To The Upper Level?
Wood x200]
[Yes/No]
Yvlena clicked 'Yes' waiting for the hammer to materialize in her hands once more. She got busy, smacking and fitting wood into place to repair the dead, termite-eaten wood and many patches still on the Rose Manor's staircase.
It wasn't long before the staircase to the first floor was done. Yvlena observed the quality of the wood, finding it the same as the porch steps she had fixed.
No doubt they would be ranked F as well but it was a start.
She stood on the first floor observing the rooms around her. The first floor was decorated with pale pink tiles with many chipped, missing, or broken. Wooden panels covered the walls along with a rose colored wallpaper.
[Special Subclass Quest
***
Restoration of the Rose Manor 2% Completion]
"Looks like I've started another quest but this doesn't look like a world quest," Yvlena said, squinting her eyes as she read it again more carefully. "A subclass quest? This isn't like the healing prayers quest I suppose,"
Yvlena dismissed the windows and began walking around, careful to avoid the holes in the floor and other broken parts of the structure.
"Wow, this place is a...dump," she whispered to herself, it wouldn't do to trigger a challenge from the game due to her comment. She looked up at the walls with the peeling wallpaper and portraits that hung from rusty nails.
Yvlena looked through the portraits that lined the walls of the first floor but most of them were torn or slashed through by some sort of creature with sharp claws.
Yvlena gulped, hoping whatever caused the damage was far away from the manor.
Others had just barely survived, with the fabric of the portraits hanging off the frames or just plain missing. Name plaques shone underneath the portraits, allowing Yvlena to read the names of Harvest Guardians long past.
She read through them looking for Rael's only to find his portrait missing.
"At this rate, I'll never know what he looked like," Yvlena said resting her hands on her waist in frustration.
"It seems to me that something dire would need to happen to the previous Harvest Guardian before another can be chosen," Yvlena said, folding her arms in thought.
[Story of the Harvest Guardian 15%]
Yvlena gasped, she reasoned now that Rael must either be gravely injured or dead!
"Well, well, the mystery continues," she said as she walked away from the portraits and began looking around the rooms on the first floor. There weren't many things around, save for a rotting carpet and debris lying around the hallway.
She looked through guest bedrooms for the most part, but Yvlena hoped to find a library, a study, or even the secret room to which the key she had gotten belonged.
The girl had just closed another guest room door when a beastly growl echoed from behind her followed by a creak of one of the doors. The deep growl made her think of a wolf of some kind and caused her to hasten her steps.
The animalistic growl followed prompting Yvlena to be on her guard, she didn't want to turn around, fearing an encounter in the hallway, if only she could lead the creature somewhere it wouldn't do much damage.
Like the Manor Grounds.
She knew deep within the manor was a corruption of some kind, the miasma must have seeped into the foundation at some point allowing foul creatures to nest within it.
The growl resounded again, forcing Yvlena to finally turn around, the creature at the other end of the hallway was a large wild cat with fur as black as night and mad yellow eyes. Miasmic vapors seeped out from each step the beast took as it approached her.
[You have encountered: Lower Miasmic Beast]
The black cat roared, no longer content to growl and intimidate, it ran forward forcing Yvlena to take the second freeze potion and hurl at the beast, it narrowly missed.
The bottle broke open, hitting the beast's foot and freezing the cat's paw to the rotten carpet of the Rose Manor.
"Sprite, Rabbit Knight!" Yvlena called in fright. Her summons appeared, standing before her and leaping into battle.
Having the battle within the hallway put Yvlena at a disadvantage, she couldn't use her Carrot Sword skills without causing further damage to the Rose Manor and its already weakened structure.
"It's up to my summons now, but that doesn't mean I can't help," Yvlena said. She summoned her cauldron from the inventory and began brewing and bottling her next potions while Sprite and Rabbit Knight handled the beasts.
Yvlena threw in the ingredients for the Entanglia potion and hurriedly bottled The brew while her summons fought.
"Watch out!" Yvlena said, throwing the potion and watching as the potion exploded in a burst of life, squirming vines sprung up from the floorboard, wrapping the creature up. The Miasmic Beast Roared, trying to break free from the vines fighting back as hard as it was.
"Wow," Yvlena gasped, expecting the potion to work more like bind and keep the vines stationary until the Prisoner broke free.
"We only have thirty seconds," Yvlena said to herself.
[Subclass Skill: Alchemy Leveled Up]
She read the notification before brushing it aside and bottling a freshly made Entanglia potion. The Miasmic Beast roared and swiped its claws at Rabbit Knight
[Rabbit Knight Cast Slash (03MP)]
[Skill: Slash leveled up]
The Rabbit unleashed its attack, reading Yvlena's mind and keeping its thrusts small to minimize damage to the first floor of the Rose Manor. The walls were already scratched up from the beast's claws, as Rabbit Knight dodged its attempts to attack.
"Rabbit Knight watch out!" Yvlena yelled, the miasmic beast lowered itself and opened its mouth to release a beam in the same way Viseli did during her fight.
"Oh no! The Manor!" Yvlena yelled watching the beam miss and scrape against the wooden panels and ply them off the walls.
[Sprite cast Sting (01 MP)]
"Yes!" Yvlena cheered, she had her hesitations about letting her summons handle the battle without her, but this freed her up to work on her Alchemy.
It reminded her of how she wanted to play in the first place, letting her summons do the fighting while she looked for resources.
Yvlena wondered if any other Harvest Guardian had been a summoner and if she could access their past summons. She shook her head, concentrating on taking out her last Freeze potion and throwing it at the Miasmic Beast's head.
The glass cracked open upon the creature's head, freezing it instantly before it could launch another Miasmic beam. The beam froze within the block of ice, allowing Sprite and Rabbit Knight to attack the Miasmic being until it collapsed to the floor.
The ice melted away, freeing the creature to spring up and launch a vicious attack at its nearest opponent. It lunged, trapping Rabbit Knight underneath its large paws.
The Miasmic Beast roared, lowering its face towards the stranded rabbit. It opened its large maw about to take a bite when another bottle smashed against its head.
Large vines, wriggled to life, wrapping the Miasmic Beast's paws and body in a series of coiling vines. Rabbit Knight wriggled out, narrowly avoiding being chomped by the massive teeth of the Miasmic Beast.
Sprite attacked, casting bind on the Beast's muzzle and shutting it as Rabbit Knight sent a volley of thrusts towards the beast.
With a final howl of pain, the beast collapsed, melting away in flakes of light.
[Yvlena Acquired
EXP: 974/1300
***
Shadow Essence x2
Shadow Fang x2
Beast Claw x1
***
Moon Points x500]
"Finally," Yvlena sighed, dismissing her cauldron. At the end of the battle, her alchemy skill had risen to Level 3.
"Now I can start O'Leary's memento quest," Yvlena said, resting tiredly against the wall. She hoped she wouldn't encounter any more Miasmic beings as she walked through the manor for the time being.
With the disrepair the Rose Manor had fallen into, the inhabitants would keep appearing until she cleared them all out. Who knew what was waiting for her next?
"Let's check out the other rooms," she says to her summons. They nodded at her following closely behind her as she walked towards the room the Miasmic Beast had come from.
To Yvlena it had to be guarding something as the creature was too high level to simply be there by chance. Many of the manor rooms would have secrets and Yvlena was determined to figure it out.
Pushing the door open, she's surprised at what she finds.
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