It was early morning still an hour or two before the sun would peep over the horizon. Akira was sleeping comfortably in his own bed still dreaming of all the tasty food he had eaten the other day.

Bam!Bam!Bam!

A loud banging on the houses front door woke Akira from his pleasant dreams.

“Grand elder! We need you, It's an emergency!” shouted a muffled voice from the front door.

Akira heard the door to Wulfric's room open and the creaking wooden floor as he walked over to the door and unlocked it.

“What's so important that you had to come and wake me and all the neighbors at such an early hour?” asked Wulfric.

“An emergency! The Head shaman sent me to get you. Yuki's Illness has gotten even worse!”

There was silence for a few seconds as Wulfric took in the information.

“Tell Hegir I'll be there soon I have to get dressed first,” said Wulfric.

“Yes, sir!”

The door closed with a click and his footsteps walked back to his room where they stopped.

“Akira, if you're up, get dressed. You are to come with me since Hegir might need help with whatever it is,” said Wulfric.

Akira who was now wide awake jumped out of bed and began shoving his legs into his pants and quickly pulling his shirt on. Grabbing everything else he exited his room and sat down on one of the chairs in the living room where he put on his boots and tightened his belt.

The door to Azura's room opened and a sleepy Azura walked out her hair a mess while rubbing her eyes trying to get the sleep out of them.

“Big brother whats with all the noise?” asked Azura.

“Ah, good your awake, go get dressed and when you're ready, come find us at Yuki's sick room,” said Wulfric exiting his room and walking to the front door with Akira right behind him.

“Huh? What's going on?” Azura asked herself as her sleepy head tilted to the side and tried to make sense of the early morning commotion.

***

Akira and Wulfric reached the ground floor and walked to a remote area before descending into an underground house.

There were many people milling around in the main room when they entered. To Akira, they all looked like the shaman that had been chanting over him when he had received his tattoo.

“You stay here while I go talk to Hegir,” said Wulfric.

“Akira you're here too?” the voice of his childhood friend Klyn called out to him from the side of the large room.

“I was dragged here by my grandfather,” said Akira turning to see Klyn walking over to him.

“Same.”

“Do you know what is going on?” asked Akira.

“Not much, but from what I heard from my grandfather it seems like whatever illness Yuki has caught it has taken a turn for the worse.”

Azura soon joined them and they chatted for a few minutes before Wulfric stuck his head out of the inner room looking for someone.

“Akira, Klyn, Azura get in here,” he ordered before ducking back into the room.

The trio quickly entered the damp dark room. The only light was from a few rare glow stones that were embedded into the stone bed in the middle of the room. They could not risk using any source of fire in or near the room.

Hegir and Wulfric stood next to the bed looking over a frail-looking girl Akira could barely recognize as Yuki due to her poor health.

Hearing their footsteps Hegir turned around.

“Akira, since it is such short notice we need you to take a small group and gather the herbs and other material on this list for a medicine that I need to make in order to cure Yuki's illness.

Klyn, you will go with him and be in charge of finding and extracting the herbs so that they are not damaged. Normally I have such things stocked, but we recently ran out of them and before we could gather more this happened,” said Hegir pointing at Yuki.

“Akira, this is a chance to show off your skills before you join a pack so do your best,” said Wulfric.

“What illness did she catch? Is it contagious?” asked Klyn.

“The illness is known as the Heatwave. It's where the person's body gradually continues to grow warmer and warmer until their body can no longer handle the heat anymore and they die.

It's not contagious...since it can only be found in the Yuki-onna demon race who normally live in cold places.

What might be a common cold for us turns into an even deadlier illness for them as their bodies temperature is always far colder than a normal person's and if it rises beyond a certain point it becomes deadly.

On the other hand, our own bodies are different in that we have a higher body temperature than normal.

This is a serious matter the herbs and other materials need to be found and brought back as soon as possible she does not have long to live.”

Ding!

New mission received: Save Yuki!

You must clear the path of any obstacles that may hinder Klyn from gathering all the materials needed to create a pill to cure Yuki's Heatwave illness. Time is very important!

Time limit: 2 days.

Difficulty: D

Will you accept?

[If you do not accept Yuki will die.]

Yes No

A timed mission? This was the first time he had seen something like that. Right now he had no thought of refusing the quest and accepted it, trying not to think about what would happen if he failed.

“Azura, we need you to gather two others to help bathe Yuki in the small river over there,” said Hegir pointing at the cold rushing underground river that passed through the room. “You must keep Yuki as cooled down as possible. I and the other shaman will set up a formation outside the room and start a chant to regulate the temperature inside this room. We'll make sure that no heat enters the room to help slow down the heatwave illness from worsening. Be sure to come back with warm clothes.”

“Who do you want me to take on the mission?” asked Akira.

“There is no time to form a pack so you should just take your companions and have them help,” said Wulfric.

“Ah! Wait for me big brother! I need you to help me get Maya and Mileena to help me take care of Yuki,” said Azura as she ran after Akira and Klyn.

***

The group of companions had split into two. With Akira, Varbu, Chack, and Klyn heading out to the search for the ingredients.

While Azura, Mileena, and Maya stayed and went to the dark underground room to constantly bathe and wipe down Yuki's body with the cold water in order to keep her temperature as low as possible.

The inside of the room was starting to get cold enough that they could see their breath whenever it escaped their mouth. Frost began to appear on the walls and the small river in the room was starting to gather small chunks of ice on top.

This was all due to the chanting shaman outside the room trying to keep it as cold as possible.

***

“What is a person like Yuki doing in the hot and humid place like the swamp continent?” asked Akira.

“I don't know. She has been staying with the clan as long as I can remember,” said Klyn with a shrug.

“She looks like someone tried to eat her,” said Chack joining the conversation.

Both Akira and Klyn ignored Chack and continued to talk.

“Okay, what else is left to get? We've already gathered the [Fert bark], [Poyt sap], and the [Limp but bendy firm blue shade grass]. Who came up with that name?” asked Akira.

The first three ingredients were rather easy to get without much trouble. The only hard part about it was that it took them a few hours to travel to where each of the items could be found.

“Let me check...It looks like only two more things. I saved them for last since there might be some problems with getting them. The easier of the two should be five [Acorns of the lizard bush] which are nearby, and then we need one [Chilled beetroot]. The problem with that is many monsters love eating this as a snack, so they are hard to find,” said Klyn.

“Lead the way!” said Varbu.

When they reached the area with the oddly named lizard bushes scattered everywhere they decided to split up to search for the acorns faster.

“They need to be green and undamaged,” Klyn reminded them before they split.

The ground near the lizard bushes was littered with acorns. The only problem was they were all either half-eaten or old and rotted acorns.

Akira moved from bush to bush searching for any green acorns but they were all empty until he reached the 13th bush.

“Jackpot!”

Hanging from a branch were three shiny green, fresh, and undamaged acorns.

He rushed over to the bush and reached for them only to see a blur shoot past and the acorns disappear.

The blur stopped a few paces away on top of another bush. It was a cute looking light brown squirrel and it was holding onto the there acorns. [Cheeky brown-tail squirrel lvl 41].

“Hey you damn squirrel give me back my nuts!” shouted Akira as he lunged at the squirrel trying to grab him only to miss as the speedy little demon jumped to another bush and continued to look at Akira.

It started to chatter at Akira as if mocking him and stuffed two of the acorns into its mouth one in each cheek.

“Don't eat them! I need those!” shouted Akira as he jumped towards the squirrel again.

Miss...Miss...Miss... Akira continued to chase after the squirrel but was always a few inches from catching it.

“Fine, I didn't want to have to do this but you leave me no choice!” said Akira as he transformed into his werewolf form.

Using the [Pounce] skill Akira was able to leap forward grab a hold of the squirrely squirrel.

“HaHa! Who's the boss now? Give me that,” said Akira taking the third acorn from Squirrel as it was trying to shove it into its mouth to join the other two acorns.

“Spit out the other ones,” ordered Akira.

Instead of spitting them out the squirrel began to furiously chew.

“You damn squirrel I said not to eat them!” shouted Akira.

“Is everything okay? We heard shouting and ...” Klyn stopped talking when he saw the transformed Akira.

“What are you doing?” asked Varbu looking at Akira who was holding onto a squirrel that was now slowly chewing something while staring at the three newcomers.

“Looks like he is trying to make a new friend,” said Chack, “I lie! It's probably dinner!”

At the word dinner, the startled squirrel escaped from Akira's grasp while he was distracted and ran away. In the distance, he stopped and chattered a few choice words at Akira for interrupting him while he was trying to eat.

“Here is an acorn!” said Akira handing Klyn the prize that he had fought so hard for.

He ignored their questions and reverted back to his normal form.

“With this one, we have five. All that is left is the [Chilled beetroots],” said Klyn after giving up on questioning Akira.

They continued their search for the last ingredient and were successful in finding one that was not eaten by the local monster population.

With the last of the ingredients found they were able to head back to Bluemoon city.

***

It was just after dinner time when they returned to the underground building.

The chanting shaman looked exhausted as they continued with their task of regulating the room where Yuki was staying.

“Were back! Grandfather here are the ingredients!” said Klyn.

“Good you guys did well! Klyn, I'm sorry but I am in no shape to make the medicine right now and I can not leave the formation for long or it will collapse.

You will need to do it yourself. You already know the recipe and have practiced it several times, you can do it. Akira please give him a hand with anything he needs,” said Hegir.

“I...I will do my best and not shame you,” said Klyn as he got ready to start a fire to start working on creating the medicine.

“Not in here! Go outside and do it. We can't have a fire anywhere near the room,” ordered Hegir.

“Yes!” said Klyn hurriedly stumbling out of the underground building and back outside.

Akira watched as Klyn started a fire and pulled a small cup-sized metal pot that had four stubby legs out of his own bag.

When the pot was filled with water it was placed onto the fire to let the water come to a boil.

While the water heated up he began to rinse the [Fert bark] and then crumble it into small pieces when the water was bubbling the [Fert bark] was thrown into the boiling pot and a small lid was placed on top.

“Can you please mince the [Limp but bendy firm blue shade grass] while I chop up the [Acorns of the lizard bush]?” asked Klyn.

While Akira had no experience yet in creating herbal medicine he had experience in making food out of all kinds of odd plants. So he just chopped it up the way he would normally do it before handing it to Klyn who looked over his handiwork.

“Ehhh...not the worst but you could have done a better job,” said Klyn as he set it aside and started to fish out the soggy bark bits with a ladle.

The clear water inside the pot had turned to a dark black that blocked the view of the bottom of the small pot.

Plop!

After removing the bark Klyn placed the minced grass and chopped acorns into the pot.

Several minutes of boiling the water was slowly evaporating and leaving behind a substance that was turning into a darker blue-green solid.

Klyn added the sticky [Poyt sap] to the mixture when the water had evaporated and all that was left was a bunch of goop, he thoroughly stirred it and let the sap caramelize before taking the pot off the fire and letting it cool down.

Klyn carefully cut the [Chilled beetroots] into three small portions and then scooped out the blue-green goop from inside the pot that was now moldable.

Separating it into three small portions he then separately wrapped each of them around one of the three [Chilled beetroots] pieces which immediately cooled the rest of the goop and created a small pinkie sized pill three in all.

“Done!” said Klyn wiping the sweat from his head.

“Let's go give it to Hegir,” said Akira heading back into the underground building.

“Good work. With this, she'll be able to make a full recovery and the pill should last for several months,” said Hegir.

Ding!

Quest complete!

Yuki will make a full recovery thanks to your speedy actions in retrieving and making the pills within the time limit.

Reward: 10% towards learning the skill herbal pill making.

Continue to watch and learn from a shaman to fully unlock the skill.