In high school Karen had the distinct honor of losing at the state tournament for softball in the semifinal round. She had an arm then, but thanks to the magic of actual magic, she was swinging a legit cannon now. The stone she threw didn’t just get sent, it was yeeted through the branches, clapping through leaf after leaf until it bonked into a trunk somewhere in the distance.

To a reasonable observer, or even to an unreasonable observer who’d heard a stone thrown at a tree before, it was clear where the throw originated from. But to a rage imp, there was ruckus moving loud and fast in the distance and it needed to be fucked up with some kind of quickness.

Every red face in the clearing turned toward the noise, then with a gleeful screech, they closed in on the rock. A symphony of answering calls sounded all around.

The spirit sounded almost smug that its idea had panned out so well.

Shockingly well. Makes me feel like something is about to go wrong.

Moment of hesitation over, she started booking it away from the distraction and back toward the opposite side of the lake.

I’m a realist, thank you very much. Still it feels wrong. Why would they all gather in that particular clearing after it had been empty when we crossed it?

See? I don’t like it when you–

The farther away she’d gotten from where she’d left, the more comfortable Karen felt with booking it instead of moving cautiously. That was exactly how she’d ended up booking it over an imp mid thought. It had jumped right out from a bush, and not a ‘Slow, Imps at Play’ sign in sight.

Karen had the kind of yard sale one can only have when moving near full tilt, sending the spear out on a journey as she stayed to have a snuggle with a monster. Imps are not heavy, and she plowed through it like a train through a bike, though she still went off the rails and ate dirt.

Stunned from the fall, she couldn’t even manage a groan as she attempted to find her stolen breath, maybe it had skipped off in the same direction as her spear. The squirmy monster she had pinned wasn’t doing any favors, she pushed off trying to get away from it, earning a big chomp on the forearm in the process.

Needle teeth sank down in what felt like slow motion. There was a surreal horror to it. She was meat, a karenburger for this monster to consume. Blood welled up between the needles. She could feel its tongue on her skin. Could feel its vibrating cackle through its teeth. It was laughing. Giggling with joy at the chance to chomp on her.

The horror faded. All that was left was rage. Fuck no. This burger was undercooked and she was sending it back to the kitchen.

She roared. A wordless, primal, deep throated scream that dyed her vision as red as her forearm. The rage she always carried, that anger that always had its pilot light lit and ready for the knob to be cranked was now a fire that could burn that entire forest. Unrestrained. Unrelenting.

Her knife was in her hand and plunging down in an instant. The skull offered no resistance to each downward stroke.

“MOTHER. FUCKING. BITCH. FUCKING. DIE.” Five strokes and five words for five wounds, though it had stopped moving on the first.

Killing hadn’t calmed her, and she imagined ripping the monster’s jaw off to free her arm from its grip. Before that could happen, she was hit with a flash of new source and the head thrillerfogged straight into the ground, leaving nothing but bloody, dripping bitemarks.

It didn’t seem that bad, all told. The creature had a little mouth and appropriately little teeth had filled it up. It was bloody but not in a Carrie at prom way. Mostly, it felt weird. It was the imminent car crash moments before impact kind of feeling. A ‘this can’t be real.’

The firm voice snapped her out of the moment and she gained her feet.

“No. I don’t think I am. What the fuck am I doing?” She said. The anger was still heavy in her voice.

“Shut up.” Karen interrupted. “What am I doing running away from these worthless fucks? They pathetic. And weak.” Her hands squeezed into a white knuckled clench as she carried on. “They’re food. Food for me. They only exist so they can be killed.”

The spirit didn’t respond, and Karen didn’t want him to. She didn’t need advice or words of encouragement for what she was about to do. All she needed was what she already carried in her gut and what she had thrown off into the woods. If she could find it.

A solid minute of poking around where she thought was the direction it had traveled yielded results. Her spear, battered tip and worn shaft in all its stained glory, being held by an imp. Not effectively, the imp might as well have been holding a street lamp. It was almost cute if you ignored that the thing claiming rights of salvage was a bloodthirsty killer. Like a feral cat with a homemade shiv. Your tuna or your life.

Karen stepped close, almost not needing to dodge the incoming thrust. A quick grab and a yank pulled the weapon free, sending the monster sprawling. Karen tossed it aside. It wasn’t needed.

Before the thing could rise, she delivered a kick, and it took a spill once more. This time a hand pinched its neck like a vice, pinning it to the forest floor. Clawed fingers raked at the skin of its captor, but the blade still fell. As imminent as the crash, moments before impact. The imp turned to mist.

“Worthless.”

---

Imps twenty-one and twenty-two were the hardest to find yet. The rage imp moniker should really be bluster imp. As soon as an imp discovered they were the one helpless and hunted it engaged in some iron maiden style running to the hills. Already the hunt had devolved from a one-versus-many melee into wandering around until the spirit was close enough to sense something, an event that was happening less and less.

This pair were definitely not ones that had received the danger memo, and the instant she passed into view they broke out in howling, cackling fury. The charge was as immediate as it was graceless, with the two coming at her almost in as much of a battle with each other as they were with her. Karen leveled her spear, ready to receive them.

The imps were nearly shoulder to shoulder finishing the race, but instead of breaking the finish line tape, the one with the slight edge found that the finish line tape broke through its chest instead. Karen yanked back hard from her thrust, finding the shish ka-imp too light to be dislodged.

This was not her first imp skewering rodeo. Karen pulled hard on the shaft; the extra imp weight was now a bludgeon catching its former compatriot in the side. Unable to correct course, it missed its mark, finding the only prize for second place was a thrust delivered with an overhand grip. The tip passed all the way through and into the dirt.

She left them there, writhing in agony, pinned to the ground and to each other. Minutes passed. It was both boring and satisfying, but there was no need to intervene. She felt no sympathy for the bloodthirsty bastards, and the squealing and moaning sometimes produced bonus imps.

Can’t believe I was so scared of these things. Karen was considering meditating to see if she could invest the source she’d collected. She was Christmas dinner full and had time to burn.

Karen closed her eyes, waiting for the quieting imps to turn to mist.

---

Twenty-nine. It seemed likely it would be the last one she killed today. It took a half hour to find it, another half hour and visibility might be too poor to fight effectively. The sunsets may be beautiful here, but it seemed like they came on early and fast. Cities back home being perpetually lit regardless of the time of day prevented a person from truly understanding how dark an overcast night is.

For the imp, it was time to say goodnight. It put up as much of a fight as any of the others, which is to say it charged directly at her and was impaled. The second strike to the supine, bleeding form misted it immediately. Its source joined its comrades, and as far as Karen was concerned the entire nest was wiped out.

“You think we could make it back before morning?” Karen asked. She knelt down to her meditative position and released a deep breath, sending a puff of white off into the evening air. She could feel the cold, or rather she could feel it was there, but it didn’t actually feel cold. What it felt was strange. A strange changing of old sensations courtesy of her changing body.

“Still have a bunch of these.” Karen produced a vial of red liquid, pulsing in time with her heart. She compulsively pinched the top of the cork. She’d been told by the herbalist pict that it was made from the stalks of fibrous mushrooms. Later, she’d been able to confirm by pulling them out with her teeth that they taste as disgusting as that sounds.

The spirit said, responding to her meditative posture.

“Uh, kind of? It strange, like I should be able to but I don’t think I can. I don’t really know how to describe it.”

She pondered for a moment, trying to feel out the strangeness of it.

“If being prepared to level is an anger you feel for someone in the moment, this feels more like a grudge you’ve been holding for a long time. Against someone who has hurt you in a way you can’t forget.”

“What is it?” Karen rose as she asked the question, giving up on the attempt to level and fetching her spear from where it rested in the grass. She set off in an easy, loping jog, chasing her lengthening shadow back toward the village.

Where do I get the other two? I bet I could convince the attendants at bountycube to volunteer. They love me.

Shush, don’t shush me.

Wood tier? Did you name these?

The spirit continued as if she hadn’t said anything.

Your energy body exists between your physical body and your spirit body, and it uses your connection to source to manifest things in the physical plane. It’s fragile, hard to develop, and probably the most crucial in being powerful in the early tiers. I can’t stress enough that there is no limit to what you’ll be able to do if you put in the effort to learn it, but the abilities that come to you naturally will be the most powerful and the easiest to develop.

The spirit body is a little different from the other two. With a strong physical body and energy body you’ll be able to win a fight. You can kill or heal or fly, walk on water, move through the vacuum of space, or withstand the heat and pressure of the earth’s core. You can make fire or lightning or make a field of gravity so strong you could compress your enemies to nothing.

The spirit body isn’t so flashy. It is your connection to source, and its strength is what you’ve collected and invested, and how thoroughly you’ve expanded it. It’s the foundation you build your house of power on, and I cannot tell you enough that it is impossible to spend too much time developing your spirit body.

There’s so much more to it than that. The synopsis version is fine to start with because you’ll only need the most basic knowledge to expand to the first tier, but understand you’ll need to expand on this greatly if you want to make something of yourself.>

The basics are fine. Just tell me what to do. You said mortal peak something yada yada. Karen stopped running to listen more intently, not even close to breathing heavily after minutes running at a solid pace.

Couldn’t I do it today? If it gets harder later, I mean. She’d moved on once more, opting to walk at a sedate pace.

Also, you need to stop thinking of time as something limited. There’s no limit to the time you’ll have to achieve wonders. When you reach the gold tier the only limit to your lifespan will be a violent death.>

You keep talking about absolute peak this and expanding that, what is it I actually need to do? So obnoxiously vague, just give me some specific directions.

“Hello there.”

Karen nearly jumped out of her skin. One moment her way had been clear and the next the path was blocked by a bearded elf in cream colored robes.

“Umm, hello. Do I know you?” Karen took a reflexive step back, getting ready to stab if the man needed stabbing.

“You were so close! Only four of the little demons remained, why did you give up?” The man took a step forward. With his shaqlike size it was a very big step.

“I didn’t ‘give up.’ I was done with them. You’ve been following me?” Karen took a step back to match the one he took forward.

“Nonsense, I was visiting my dearest niece. Nowhere near here, I’ll have you know. I hadn’t expected it would be a human, of all things, to have her soul resonate so strongly in little Eugenie’s vanity project. Remarkable.”

That must have been earthshaking news, because the moment he remarked on how remarkable it was the ground started shaking. Not just the ground, everything shook. The air was shaking. Karen’s entire body was shaking. She fell to the quaking dirt, riding out waves of nausea while occasionally getting tossed in the air like dough being stretched.

The vibrations lasted only a few seconds, but they thoroughly killed her vibe. It would take much longer than a few seconds to overcome the effect. It certainly didn’t help that some titanically powerful presence was pressing down on her like the weight of a planet.

And all the while she was rolling on the floor the stranger was rolling out belly laughs, though he seemed able to compose himself well before she could.

“Don’t worry yourself overmuch, young lady. You’re far too lowly to gain any of her attention. Hah, thankfully not too lowly for…”

The spirit started talking in a rush, drowning out the stranger in its panic.

“Show respect, young man, I am speaking.”

At least what?

…

Hello?