Jun scrambled away from the creator to the best of her abilities, which were a little greater than she’d expected. Her battery was almost dry, sure, but she barely felt it. All the aches and pains were from the fight itself, and not from overexertion. If this had been a few weeks ago, using the twice-eye on herself would’ve knocked her flat on her back for a good five minutes. She felt at the crack in her visor with grim knowledge of what she almost lost and newfound confidence in her abilities.

All she needed was a better weapon. The sword Okeria had made her was fine and all, but the more she swung it, the less she felt like it was the right weapon for her. Not just the fact that it was a sword, either; hand-to-hand combat felt wrong. Seeing Seb’s floating slashes and impacts had gotten her mind whirring with possibilities, but even that was too close for comfort.

“If I had a gun, my core function would work on the gun itself, the ammo, the gunpowder, and whatever enchantments I can get on it.” Jun muttered to herself, ducking a leg and parrying another in one clumsy motion that saved her life. “A sword’s just too… simple. My core thrives on complexity. I need more numbers in my gear.”

{Juniper! We have found out what our core does! Oh, but you are probably far too busy to reply. We will send messages with the assumption that you receive and are reading them.

-Mortician.}

With a grimace and a mighty leap, Jun made space between herself and the creator. Mortician’s core could change the tide of this fight, but from what she’d learned from Seb, almost all cores weren’t incredibly powerful from the get-go. They took years of experience, or auxiliary functions, or a mass of stats behind them to do much of anything. Mortician had none of those things. She had to be ready for absolutely no help in the fight.

{It’s not quite what we expected, since we are still so oily, but we will give it our best! Please don’t resist, Juniper!

-Mortician.}

//[MORTICIAN SLYK] HAS INITIATED [OILSEA’S BOUNTY] WITH TWO TARGETS: SEBASTIAN CORMIER PERESPHONIA AND JUNIPER PERSEPHONIA.

//INFORMATION ON FUNCTION INJECTING DIRECTLY INTO THE MEMORIES OF THE TARGETS… COMPLETE.

//ACCEPT [Y] OR [N]?

Jun didn’t miss a step as Mortician’s function suddenly appeared in her memories, non-invasively telling her everything she needed to know before she accepted. The way it was presented to her reminded her of how Seb’s function notifications showed up for her, and how The End communicated with her.

//OILSEA’S BOUNTY: CORE FUNCTION.

//One-time initialization effect: the bearer of Jewel of the Oilsea can designate up to [2] other people as their treasures. There exist ways to increase the number of treasures designated.

//The user can grant one of multiple consumable bounties to themselves or one of their treasures.

//Currently available bounties: (2)

Black Gold (2 available)

Pearl of Corruption (1 available).

Unfortunately, that was all the information Mortician had given her. Jun didn’t know what the ‘bounties’ the core spoke of could do for her, or if they’d do anything relevant with how low-level Mortician was, but any help was good help. She mentally accepted Mortician’s invitation, and somehow, felt that Seb had done the same.

{Thank you for trusting us, Juniper! Help is now on the way!

-Mortician.}

//CHOOSE ONE OF [BLACK GOLD, PEARL OF CORRUPTION].

//BLACK GOLD: ALLOWS THE USER’S OIL-BASED EXISTENCE TO GROW ALONG WITH THEM, ADDING AN ‘OIL QUALITY’ STAT TO THEIR SYSTEM.

//PEARL OF CORRUPTION: IF THE USER IS ON THE VERGE OF A CORE FUNCTION EVOLUTION, THEIR CORE FUNCTION WILL //EVOLVE//MODIFY//CORRUPT.

//THE OTHER WILL BE GRANTED TO [SEBASTIAN CORMIER PERSEPHONIA] WHEN ABLE.

Well, that didn’t leave much of a choice, now did it? Jun accepted the Pearl of Corruption with a single swipe, then felt a strange feeling overwhelm her. It felt as if something had just been removed from her core; something extremely vital, yet inexplicably bland, and replaced it with something new. She blinked in surprise and looked down at her hands, expecting some grandiose change, but couldn’t find anything. She took a step back, refocusing on the slyk creator, and saw what had changed.

But it didn’t come from looking at the creator. It came from that split second of seeing the ground in-between. A big four, plain and simple, plastered on the pebbles and oil like some kind of strange graffiti. Jun blinked once more and the four shimmered, changing into a three before her eyes as her foot touched down on the ground. Time was all wrong. The creator was completely frozen, along with the rest of the world, and another window popped up before her before she felt her body freeze along with everything else.

//CONGRATULATIONS, JUNIPER.

//I SEE MORTICIAN DID SOMETHING TO BRING YOU INTO OUR EXTENDED FAMILY.

//WELL, ONLY PHYSICALLY SPEAKING, AS YOU’RE ALREADY MARRIED INTO THE FAMILY.

//ENJOY YOUR NEW CORRUPTED FUNCTION AND MISUSE IT AS YOU PLEASE, HAHA.

“Haha?” Jun mumbled through numb lips as the message faded away to nothing. What had Mortician’s function done to her? She waited a second, hoping to feel her battery and integrity recharging in the frozen world, but only half of that came true. Fully true.

In the wake of the messages Jun expected were from The End, new information came.

//DREAMSCAPE PREDATOR

//ALL ASPECTS OF HOLOGRAPHIC PARASITE REMAIN.

//ALL THINGS ARE NOW NUMBERED.

//THE BEARER MUST SPEND BATTERY TO AFFECT ANOTHER ENTITY.

Jun barely had a chance to read the few lines of text before the world abruptly returned to normal. She yelped in surprise and scrambled back, the ‘3’ on the ground following her wherever she looked. Was that supposed to be how difficult the ground was to walk on? And if that was true, then what scale was it on? 1-10? 1-100? It didn’t seem to get any less pebbly or oily when she put her foot down, but it definitely felt a lot more solid than it appeared, even before her core corrupted. Was that the ‘verge of evolution’ the pearl had alluded to?

The creator kept trying to close in, but for some reason, it couldn’t gain on Jun any more. Even when she was backpedaling. There was more to this ‘corruption’ than the description said. Jun pursed her lips and activated the compressed moon and the strangling sprout on herself, feeling their effects soak into her as she got lighter and everything else got slower. The drain on her battery didn’t seem to be as harsh as it had been just moments ago. Everything was so… so much…

Jun shifted her stance with a malicious grin. She didn’t know why everything was so much easier now, but she wasn’t going to squander this opportunity. Her sword was a five. She didn’t know what that meant, but it was a five. She needed more than a five.

It became a six.

She pushed battery into it, feeling her core swipe away more and more as she tried to push that number further. It wasn’t a flat curve, but an exponential one. And it was unbearably steep.

It became a nine.

Even still, she knew it wasn’t enough. Whatever Mortician had done had completely refilled her battery while leaving her integrity at near zero, and she wasn’t going to waste a single drop. Her sword wasn’t getting any stronger, so she shifted to something she hadn’t been able to influence ever before.

Her power nodes became worth four. Her battery dipped down to almost nothing, but almost nothing was still something. She felt so unbelievably powerful. Yet it was also unbelievably unsustainable. It didn’t just cost battery to amplify her core’s effects on numbers; it cost battery to maintain that amplification. She’d have two, maybe three seconds of real-time to do as much damage to the creator as she could.

It would probably have been a better idea to amplify the parts of her that let her run away. Jun recognized that. But the desire to help Seb, even if he’d claimed he was fine, was too strong. She squared up even as she felt her sword straining to contain the alterations she’d put on it, solidifying her desire to get something better once she had a chance.

Jun’s lips curled into a crooked smile. “Really hope this works.”

She rushed the creator with her newfound strength, pushing off in a shotgun blast of oil and shards of rock that impacted a ruined building far behind her hard enough to powder the shards. The creator reacted to the sudden shift in motion, but not quickly enough. The curled form was still far too huge to take out in one hit, but that wasn’t what Jun was aiming for. It didn’t have a visible head, but part of it had to be in control of the body. If she could separate it, the scrambling chaos could buy her enough time for Okeria’s teleportation.

Jun flowed through the striking limbs without slowing. They were simply too slow to harm her while she was under the effects of the strangling sprout. A light brush of her sword against two of the claws slowed just those parts down enough to trip up the creator, turning its whirl of death into a rolling disaster. She jumped a limb that aimed to take out her legs, oily body taking up more and more of her vision, and then she was there.

She raised her sword to the sky, feeling it break apart from the strain of her function, and let fall the executioner’s blade. The creator let out its first real shriek of pain, a piercing thing that seemed to bypass her ears completely to directly strike her mind. Jun grit her teeth and tried to jump away, but her battery chose that moment to die out. It simply couldn’t support all the drains she’d put on it.

A limb smashed into Jun’s side, but instead of tearing her in two or launching her into the sunset, it just knocked her off balance. The creator’s cry died off into a pathetic warble, oil and rock sloughing off of its mutilated body until nothing that remained could be even remotely identified as ‘alive’. The creator’s avatar drained down into the ground, its claws broke apart into pebbles, and it rejoined the landscape without giving Jun anything to show for her accomplishment.

“Oh, come on.” Jun huffed as she fell to her knees, exhaustion finally taking her. “Not even one node? What a rip off.”

{Hey, Juniper, warning ya that your battery and integrity levels are dangerously low. I’m teleporting the three of ya back now. Congrats on getting Mortician ta be real, by the way. Can’t wait ta meet ‘em}

Jun stared at the message for a few seconds as Okeria’s teleportation function spooled up from his tracking device. “Right. All this time I could’ve just messaged Okera to teleport us. What would Seb say here…”

She laughed and shook her head. “Fuck me.”

//THE CREATOR’S INFLUENCE HAS DULLED.

//PERSPECTIVE RETURNING TO [SEBASTIAN CORMIER].

//INITIATING…