What? Karen was bone tired. It was hard to pay attention.

The spear… It was in her hand. Of course, it was in her hand, she’d been using it to support her weight. A couple seconds as the gears turned and clicked into place. She complied, almost stumbling through black smoke as it disappeared.

The sword? She didn’t use a sword. The confusion passed after looking down at the sword that still stuck through her like a cheap magician’s trick. Illusion. Cheap magician’s illusion, dad. It disappeared into her ring.

Pulsing red liquid poured down her throat, cool and sweet. It stung, waking up her senses, and when she lifted up her shirt there wasn’t a scar to be seen.

Healing seemed to help some with her focus, but not completely. All she wanted to do was lie down and sleep. She’d spent all-nighters preparing for tests in college, but this felt like an all-weeker. Maybe an all-business-weeker. She liked having weekends off.

What do I do?

It made sense. She had no regrets for killing the little shits, but getting locked up, or worse, sounded about as appealing as letting them stab her again. She made blindly to leave, stepping off into toward the low wall.

Her eyes snapped over to the only one remaining in the trio. It said a lot about her mental state that she had been able to forget him.

He stood as calm and as confident as he had been when falling out with his now deceased companions, and waited as patiently while Karen pulled herself together as when A Man Destined For Glory had thrown the first stroke. Would that guy have to posthumously change his name to A Man Destined For Decomposing? There was no shame in it, all the greatest composers on Earth were doing it these days.

She stood and studied him for a moment as she mentally readied herself. She couldn’t even bother to be angry with the kid, she didn’t have the energy for it. She was over it. Over the whole thing. Done with it, and with him.

He looked similar to the other two. Slim build, neatly dressed, long straw-colored hair. The only difference she could see was he had fewer holes. When she got close enough, one of them opened.

“Good showing out there. Two against one, and a lower tier. Very impressive.”

“I did it for you. I’ve been in love with you all these years.”

He laughed. The difference between him and them might be this one has a sense of humor. “What will you do now, darling? If you were telling the truth and will truly be off to some fantastic place I’ve never heard of, it might be for the best.”

“I can’t say my plans have changed, but I think yours might have. What will you do?” She asked.

“I am only here because of my uncle Julian, and I’ve already done what he said I must, so I think I’ll be off as well. I doubt that’s what you’re asking though. To be truer to your question, I’ll collect my poor, slain cousins, contact my Uncle, and spend some time on their boat as I wait for him to take action.”

“That’s it? You’re not upset I killed them?”

He laughed again. “Don’t look so worried, if it wasn’t you it would have been someone else. Their ambition outweighed their sense many times over. I told them again and again to leave me out of their petty local politics, but everyone born here acts like it’s the only world that exists. It’s pathetic.”

That assessment felt about right. It was pathetic. Fucking elves.

“What will you tell them? When people ask what happened, I mean?”

“What do you think I would tell them? I’ll tell them the truth. They made some minor play for power and bungled it, got caught, and died. But since you’re asking about yourself, I’ll tell them the truth there too. Destined For Drinking defended herself and was superior to both of them.” He smiled like he’d just told a joke her was proud of.

She nodded, letting everything he said digest before turning to walk away.

“You’re leaving already?”

She paused to looked back. “I wasn’t lying when I told them I don’t care, and I still don’t. I’ll be gone tomorrow, like I said.”

Her walk resumed, not stopping as he yelled at her back. It didn’t seem strictly necessary, so she chalked it up to him being a little excited.

“My uncle, Julian Eluevi, might find you interesting! He’s always talking about needing people who possess a warrior’s spirit! If you’re needing an opportunity to advance, you might look him up on Elu Prime!”

Fuck Elu Prime. I hate the psychopath elves even more than I hate the fancy elves. I hate this fucking place more than both, and I hate you the most.

The spirit didn’t respond.

---

“Come on, it’s not that bad.” Karen’s suite had a balcony overlooking the lake. It also had room service, even if she had to schedule it in advance, which meant it had an absolute embarrassment of food that she was trying to stuff herself with in an attempt to recover her energy. It was only mildly successful.

“You’re working on a lecture, aren’t you?” Karen stuffed her mouth with another piece of fruit, by far her favorite of all that had come on the plate. It was segmented like an orange, but crisp and firm instead of pulpy in the flesh. Its thin skin allowed segments of sweet crunchiness to be ripped off the core wholesale.

And ‘the great wizard’ is a perfect example of that, by the way. He’s poisoned himself, and now you. In ways you definitely don’t fully understand. Your physical body is much more advanced than it should be, with physical strength that’s somehow already higher than someone that’s wood tier. Your spirit body too, actually, but I don’t consider that one to be a flaw. But your energy body is pathetically underdeveloped. How many of those bolts were you able to absorb? Four, when counting ones that didn’t get launched?

The potential for you to use your energy to make wonders is totally without limits, and if your only consideration is your strength of arm then you’ll miss out on world shaking powers.>

Karen chewed a pastry in careful consideration before politely answering with her mouth full. “How do you know being strong as fuck isn’t what is ‘truly mine.’ I’ve invested, what, four times since meeting the wizard king?”

Karen shrugged, applying her long-practiced skill of implicit disregard of anyone or anything that isn’t her.

“But I improved it though, like you said. You said his was triggered with a step, mine is triggered with a thought. See, I’m better.”

“All I’m hearing is we need to find more energy monsters. It’s free real estate, I’m telling you.”

“Rituals. Neat. Like a bathing in virgin blood type of thing? Do I get to pick the virgins or does it come out of a big vat like coffee beans?”

“You mean the getstabulary. Constabdbykary.”

“A couple months ago I couldn’t run a mile, and now I’m overcoming superior numbers in a sword fight to the fucking death. Excuse me, but I believe I have earned some time to feel like a badass. Which I am, fuck you very much.”

She capped off the sentiment with another pastry, but not before spinning her badge on the table. The newly minted green center looked good in the dying light. Victory green.

“I, well, was thinking of taking the morning. Until my energy recovers, I mean.” She was uncharacteristically sheepish, recognizing how bad an idea that was even if it was the more immediately comfortable option.

It was the ‘getting where she was going part’ that she was loathe to do. Energy drain felt like nursing a flu, and the walk was going to be miserable for a while before it started to get even a hair better. With a grumble she started to stash the remaining plates in storage. The food here really was very nice, far better than the lumberchumps up in the mountains ever had. Wasting it would be the real crime.

---

It’s called a monster pit; It should be a pit! I know what a pit is. A pit is a pit. This is a monster clearing or scouring or something.

You have the core radar, how am I in charge of finding it?

From her vantage, a few Pomeranian sized beetles could be seen actively clearing the flora and making off with it. They spread out in a circle, taking everything in their path like a wildfire, then lugging their gains off to parts unknown.

“Fucking hate bugs.” She stepped out like a fighter preparing to enter the ring. A little bit of last-minute limbering, a little bit of mental hyping, and a great deal of focus on the upcoming fight.

The first beetle she encountered didn’t even see it coming. It was effortlessly skewered, lifted into the air, then dropped from the unsummoned spear to be bent like Beckham off into the distance. It became a white streak before it could hit the naked caliche.

It wasn’t shocking how weak it was. The job was a green listing, and marked with three advancements that had nothing to do with the strength of the enemies. Once because of the sheer volume of the little buggers, once more because their territory was beginning to expand close to one of the base units that support and power the floating train tubes, and finally because of its advancement from a monster nest to a monster pit.

One thing that was shocking was how much of a relief it was to kill. Even the relatively miniscule enemy with its totally mundane attacks and physique provided enough energy through the spear to perk her up a touch. Her source absorb-o-meter, an exact and calculated measurement, put them about imp level. Not much, but a flood didn’t rain down in a single drop.

Karen went in expecting it to be a slaughter, and she got to work doing just that. With their small size the stalk beetles made for quick strikers, and the mandibles that did the striking were powerful enough to make short work of even the toughest scrubland tree, but even in groups of upwards of a dozen Karen mowed them down with ruthless efficiency. So businesslike was she in the reaping that it almost became boring. A slaughter tragically without laughter.

This continued for hours, becoming so rote an exercise that she needed a cartoonish double take when seeing the first of a new kind of enemy. It wasn’t the tiny air-cooled beetles she’d repo’d by the dozen; this was a four-door supercharged monster. The Pomeranian size was too small for the modern suburban market, so the pit core had introduced a larger labradoodle size. It boasted more power, thicker armor, and a powerful horn as an unsafety feature for those front impact collisions.

And front impact collisions were the name of the game. The small ones were zippy in the corners, but these were born to sprint. It kicked up a dust cloud as it closed in, forcing Karen to panic and jump to the side before it arrived. The edge scored down the side, failing to do any damage before the monster skidded to a halt and prepared for another charge.

She took a sterner stance for the second approach, couching her spear and bracing for impact. It still nearly took her off her feet, and just as nearly took the spear from her grip. Even skewered as it was, the head thrashed like an attack dog, attempting to jerk itself from her grip. Its vividly red blood spilled over the ground until it eventually petered out, stilled, and faded away.

The difficulty in facing the v8 hornmachine forced her to slow her pace, eventually breaking for lunch as she chewed on the problem. There were definitely going to be more of them. What happens when there were a swarm of little ones and one of the big ones? She couldn’t stare down a lance at one while receiving unplanned ankle surgery. She also couldn’t accurately take apart the pomeranians while the labradoodle was running charge after charge. It would be so much easier if she was working with someone else.

To top that off she could tell she was close to her goal. She didn’t need a core, she needed kills. Source. The decision became clear. It would be smarter to loop around, trying to clear in a ring around the core rather than push in toward it where the monsters were guaranteed to be more dangerous and tightly clustered.

The elevated train tube far in the distance, combined with the stalk beetles’ relentless march to and from the center of their carefully crafted wasteland, helped orient her. The slaughter carried on, and from either good fortune, excess caution, or the nature of the monsters, she did not encounter the two types at once.

The time passed uneventfully, as uneventful as frequent combat can be, until the time came. It started as a tightness in the chest and a difficulty to breath. Waiting for other heart attack symptoms was difficult, but the spirit assured her that her stint with wizard steroids wasn’t coming back to haunt her.

The next panic was about location, as the process was reported to be grueling, and a naked hill literally crawling with violent beetles might harsh her vibe. The spirit had thought of that too. All train base stations also functioned as waystations, both for travel in case they go down and for crews to stay during regular maintenance. Crafty elves.

By the time Karen was cleared from the beetlezone she was flush and trembling. Her knees weak and her arms were heavy. The tightness in her chest had become vicelike already; breathing unsteady. The gate opened to a simple tap of her badge, not unlike how the train had worked. The ugly concrete cube inside the walls functioned in the same way, opening without issue.

“Fuck fuck fuck, what do I do, what do I do, what do I do?” She sank down on the hard floor immediately, not bothering to take in any details about the interior. Her knees pulled up to her chest as she rocked back and forth in slow agony.

Shut the fuck up and tell me how!

His voiced picked up some panic as he felt her jumping the gun on his instructions.

The method isn’t important, and you need to try until you find something that works for you, but the result must be the same. You have to use that source to violently expand your soul in a dramatic way instead of peacefully integrating it into your bodies.>

Violent. That was easy. She could do violent. Violent had become her bread and butter. Maybe it always was and breaking into the field had too many barriers to entry. It just hurt so fucking much. Her chest was going numb from the relentless ache. Her muscles were cramping from the clenched spasming the pain was causing, creating a loop of more pain and more cramping. It was beginning to cross the threshold of unbearably intense. Magic kidney stone: zero of ten, do not recommend.

What was it he’d said? Discordant vibration. Discordant vibration... She imagined her spirit body, easy enough to pinpoint as the source of pain, vibrating like a plucked guitar string. The entire thing thrumming, the edges blurry from the speed of it. Nothing happened. She pushed mentally, forcing her all concentration down on it. It did… something? It felt strange. Not dramatic expansion strange, but strange.

Several painful, miserable failures later, there was no effect. The pain was still building as well, which made an excellent argument for changing tack. None of the greatest vibration hits were spared: soul on a motorcycle, soul using a hitachi, soul receiving a text. Nothing was more effective than the first attempts.

The balloon strategy was bearing fruit right out of the box. They were baby fruit, not yet ripe, but they were hanging on the branch so full of succulent promise. The visualized walls yielded and stretched against the weight of her focus. The expansion was quick, but it slowed and quickly stopped as the effort required grew at a faster rate than the expansion. Eventually it was too much, and she was forced to relent. Her spirit body deflated like one of those things that deflate, whatever they’re called.

She rested a moment, gathering herself for another attempt. Becoming balloon boy was the method that was getting the most traction, even if it wasn’t exactly a one hit K.O. Her body was sweating buckets and shaking like a leaf on the floor of the way station. If the next one failed, there likely wouldn’t be anything left in the tank for tweaking the method or trying to feel out something better.

I don’t think this is going to work. Anything you can tell me with your thousand trillion years of spiriting experience?

When you fail. As if there were no chance. But worse than that was the stupid fucking platitude. A lifetime full of polite cliches will turn a person off of the genre, and just a whiff of it made her want to tell him to keep his own chin up so she could stave it the fuck in. She’d rather burn the whole thing down than listen to one more second of that store brand bullshit.

She grabbed a mental handful of soul stuff and started to yank. Not like before where she’d tried to overinflate her get well soon soulballoon, but more like she’d taken the uninflated latex in two hands to see how far it could go. The answer was far. Shockingly far. Nevertheless, she persisted. Just like before the resistance ramped up sharply. Unlike before, she kept at it in a mindless rage, jerking and tugging and wrenching with everything she had. She was screaming. Screaming at it raggedly from aching lungs. Screaming it at mentally through the numbing fatigue. She would scream it into vapor and be done with it.

The point came where it could give no more. Karen still had more to give. For a moment it was like tearing coconut fibers. A dry, brittle separation where every little snap was a tiny electric shock through her body. The sensation passed in moments, replaced by a sharp pop, then relief. It was over. The pressure was gone. Whatever had happened, whatever she had done, at least she wouldn’t have to live with that awful building pressure.

Her body was a wrung-out rag, limp on the floor except for the relieved laughter. It bounced off the bare walls of the spartan cube, sounding tinny and distant in her own ears. The laughter soon guttered out, leaving her to fade away into exhausted sleep.

The spirit sounded wistful, then faded away.