[Your Strength has been noted. +2 Strength. Feat of Endurance achieved. +1 Endurance.] [One step, then another, you slowly walk the Path chosen for you. Complete your Path to advance further.]

“Ffffffuuuuuuu-” I groan the word from my comfortable place on the stone floor. Everything hurts. Everything hurts so much.

“Ah, you still have fight in you? Then we shall-”

“NO. NOPE. WE’RE GOOD. NICE AND TIRED, RIGHT KAYTHE?” I shoot to my feet, stumbling slightly as my fatigued muscles struggle with the rapid maneuver.

“Kaythe was not training with us-”

“YEP, TOTALLY EXHAUSTED. GOOD DAY, ZATHIS.” Let me go you madman!

“I believe it is nearing night.”

“I SAID GOOD DAY.”

He looks slightly confused at first, but breaks into a broad grin as I limp away, scowling.

“Good luck against my brethren, young warrior. Oh, do not forget your blade!”

I sense the blade launch toward me, but pretend I don’t notice it until the last possible moment, when I snatch it out of the air without looking. The giant’s laughter shows what he thinks of my showmanship. Everybody’s a critic.

The clashing and raining stone shards of Lauren and Lynn’s ongoing training continues behind me as I leave. It’s understandable that Zathis was confused, and the others will probably give me shit, but all this regimented time has made sure I have no chance to experiment. There are still a ton of runes I haven’t made yet, and I haven’t gotten the chance to raise my max Energy through using the orange Energy yet. Part of me considers just plunging into the icy depths of the underground lake and destroying all the hostile plant things that live there… but it would be very cold, deeply unpleasant, and they only ended up giving one Power and no Energy if I remember correctly. I shake my head. Fuck that.

Wait- shit! I forgot to loot the pile. Ugh, too many things in my head, something is bound to get left by the wayside… like the dungeon continuation Zathis mentioned, experiments with a Mana rune, or just runes in general, and my freaking worthless Path! God forbid I actually get to perform more Alchemy! I sigh, sadly. This is the problem with priorities: I can’t just do what I want. It’s a fight for survival, after all, so I have to prioritize that above all, and I think the best way to do that is to sleep, guard, train, repeat. No room in there for possibly incapacitating myself with a wrong rune (or having my fucking sword broken) or getting lost or killed while loot hunting in a dungeon. The only thing that might be worth my time that breaks the mold is returning to Calminus’ tower and opening the armory there. I can just imagine what kind of stuff is in there. Energy weapons that come filled with an Energy core, so binding them is really fast? Or maybe armor pieces I can bind that heal automatically, using my soul as fuel. An Energy launcher? The possibilities are tremendous and very promising. Which means… no experimenting with runes until I get that door open, no taking unnecessary risks, and actually get some Energy kills instead of just slicing up everything! I should probably also talk to Tom about the stupid crown I found all that time ago. Maybe it does something useful? But he’s asleep right now. Maybe tonight.

When I reach the pile of corpses, which looks disgusting after around two days of sitting out in the open sun. Carnines, Lieutenants, and the odd unidentifiable mass… there must be forty or fifty bodies. That wouldn’t be very special if they were mostly Carnines, but… gray fur dominates the pile. He took down all that by himself?! What the hell did he do, sell his soul?

…

I really hope that isn’t even an option. You have to sell a soul to something, and you get something less valuable, generally, in deals like that… so what exactly can offer this kind of power in exchange for a soul? And why? I shake my head. Stupid theorizing, it might not be that at all. I don’t know he sold his soul, just that he was emotionally broken with only rage left in his heart, and that people with damaged Energy tend to act the same way. An idle guess, nothing more.

The mortifying process of picking through the stack of bodies makes me acutely aware that I’m going to need to bathe. Not that any of us smell great, because nobody has time to mess around with making soap, but… I can probably do better than smelling like rotting corpses. But, for the trouble, I’m rewarded with: (3) copper rings, (1) copper ring (unidentified), (50) copper coins, (6) silver coins, gloves (unidentified), and a mother fucking Apprentice’s Stone! That last one’s fortunate, because unless those unidentified items are pretty good, it’s the only thing of immediate value here. A bunch of coins? Useless. Not even a waterskin… I don’t think anyone took Rav’s after he… yeah.

There are also a bunch of weird cube like things that look more like rocks than anything, but they’re oddly textured. On a whim, I try the system to see if it has any info.

[Compressed Resource: stone]

WHAT?! Compressed is right! They’re no larger than modest pebbles. I gather as many as I can see and stuff them in my satchel, which is now heavily burdened by the weight of metal, little rocks, and new equipment. I heft it, and drop it off in Tom’s empty forge as I pass by, letting Marie know about the resource blocks in the process. Her eyes light up, and I see her shift uncomfortably, tempted to go check them out, but she's on guard and ultimately resists. I take the leather gloves, however, because I doubt he’d be able to identify them… but I know somebody who might be able to.

---

“Give.”

“So they’re good?”

“Give.”

“I’m not hearing an answer here. I’m the leader, you know, you should respect me.”

Lauren scrunches her face, frowning. “Give or I’m stabbing you. I might just stab you anyway for that comment.”

I smirk at her and toss the gloves to her, letting her snatch them greedily out of the air. ‘You like me too much to do that.”

“Wrong~ I hate your guts, and you can heal nonlethal wounds. That means I can stab and stab and-” The sing-song way in which she says all that, while hugging the gloves close, as one would a teddy bear, terrifies me more than a little.

“You’ve… put some thought into this.”

“I would never, oh great leader~ But I think your offering should be sufficient to save you for now. Be sure to keep them coming!”

“Don’t push your luck.”

“Oh, would you rather I earn your tokens in some… other way?” She bats her eyes at me, smiling like an animal that just cornered its prey.

“Yeah I’m never getting you anything again, goodbye.”

“No wait!” She giggles, as if she didn’t just follow torture threats with romantic advances. “Sorry, sorry. I got a little excited is all. Thanks Amadeus. They’re gloves of Dexterity… not particularly powerful ones, to be fair, but I appreciate the small boost.”

“As if you really need it. What if I wanted them?”

She bares her teeth in a sinister smile, as I wonder to myself why I insist on teasing her. “I’ll fight you for them~”

I shudder. “Pass. You’d probably try to use the outcome as proof that you should be the leader.”

“Oh? So you do think I’d win? Well, in that case…”

“Take your gloves and be happy.”

She hums happily and turns away, flashing a genuine smile as she does so. I start to ask where Lynn is, but honestly, I think she’s probably still training. Lauren, seeing me duck out early, obviously chose a similar path, but Lynn has a better work ethic.

“Oh. Bathe, you stink.”

“Fuck you.”

“Not smelling like that you’re not.”

“Ugh.”

---

On my way to the river, sprinting across the hills at full bore and barely feeling any strain on my muscles, I notice a scouting group of Carnine. The distance is large enough that I’m sure they don’t notice me. I change course, draw my sword, and start burning Energy. Where, in the past, I was fairly limited in how long I could Fortify myself, now I find myself with an almost sustainable regeneration/burn rate. I have to wonder if I could burn brighter… but for now, I’m content to fly through the air, covering meters with every step, and close on the unwary Carnine. Well, they’re unwary until I get close, at which point the one that spots me yelps in fear and they all take off running in the opposite direction.

Fat lot of good it does them.

I cleave off the hind legs of the first monster, flowing easily into a follow-up on the second. The third doesn’t even pause at the incapacitation of its comrades… just like a monster.

Maybe it’s afraid? Why should they be allowed to feel fear? They started this. They didn’t, the one who made this system did. They’re victims too. Victims that hunted us. Maybe they had no choice? Maybe so, but they have left us with none as well. I hurl my sword, and even though I have very little talent and certainly not system assistance, my sword pins the final Carnine to the ground. Its terrified whimpers only increase in volume as I test out the effects of orange Energy on its comrades.

[Target resists; Engage?]

We’ll see about that resistance.

[Success! Dominate (-20 max E) OR Eliminate (+20 fragment, +40 Power, +5 Max E)]

Holy- I get all that? From one Carnine?