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"Just raw energy. It enters your soul and floats around in it until you refine it."

Alex tilted his head to the side. "And how do I do that? I take it that refining the energy will somehow let me use it or the like?"

"Yeah. You refine it by meditating, and it\'ll let you improve your soul\'s strength, gaining levels and eventually going up Stages. That\'s how I\'m a Novice 3. Then you can use that refined energy to get or improve your Auxiliary Skills. You\'re Novice 1, so you have one of them, right?"

"Yeah. Do I get one every level or something?"

"You get one at Novice 2 and 3," Claire replied. "The strongest person I knew reached Novice 5, and he said that he got to upgrade them at 4 and 5. Apparently the upgrades were really useful, but I don\'t know much more than that. I guess we\'ll find out soon enough."

"Good to know. And I can only refine energy when I meditate?"

"Yep. It takes a while. At least it did for me. The System guided me through it my first time, so I\'m sure it\'ll do the same for you as well."

I\'m not so sure. It hasn\'t given me much of anything other than errors so far.

"Yeah, probably. I guess we\'ll see," Alex said. He felt a faint tingle at his side from his deck. He pulled Glint\'s card free to take a look at it.

Spatial Mirror

Stored Energy:

Low Novice Grade (Shaded Hauntling) – 1

Low-Mid Novice Grade (Shade) - 1

Bonded Creature: Shardwalker

"Ah. There we go," Alex said. He stretched his arms over his head, then rose to his feet and held a hand out to Claire. She took it, letting him pull her to her feet.

"Thanks," she said. "We didn\'t really rest that long. You sure you\'re ready?"

"I think it might be better if I\'m the one asking you that question." Alex glanced at the bandages wrapping her arm. "I\'m not the one that was injured."

Claire touched the wound gingerly. "I\'ll make it. This should be healed soon enough. I just don\'t want the weight of everything suddenly slamming down on you all at once, you know? It took me a little while to really register that my life was over and everything had gone to shit."

Alex didn\'t respond immediately. He still wasn\'t sure how he was meant to feel about the apocalypse. He\'d nearly died more times in the last two hours than he had in the entirety of his life leading up to them… and he\'d never felt more alive.

Not like I\'m going to mention that. I don\'t need Claire thinking I\'m completely insane.

"Did you have computers in your world?" Alex asked abruptly.

Claire blinked, then shook her head. "I haven\'t heard that word before."

"What about university? Jobs?"

"We had jobs. I don\'t know university either."

"School."

"Oh, yeah. We had academies," Claire said. "What\'s that got to do with anything?"

"Did you have a job?"

She shook her head and her eyes went distant as she slipped into memory. "I was in my last year of academy training. I was going to join the guard for my city."

"I take it you were looking forward to that."

"More than I can describe. I worked so bleeding hard for it. I never thought my whole life could just… evaporate. Poof." Claire flicked her fingers and shook her head as her shoulders slumped. "Nothing to do about it now. I can\'t complain as long as I\'m still kicking. What about you?"

"I was in school. Had no damn idea what I wanted to do."

"You were going to school for something without knowing if you wanted to do it?"

Alex gave her a wry grin and shrugged. "My world was a bit weird. Like you said, it doesn\'t matter much now. I\'m ready to get moving again if you are."

"Sure. It beats sitting around and waiting for the next spooky freak of nature to rock up and turn me into a fillet."

Alex flicked Glint\'s card. It transformed into a streamer of black smoke, returning to its deck, and small claws raked through the air beside him, leaving a thin rend in reality. Glint stepped out from within it and the portal snapped shut behind him.

"Bleeding hell." Claire\'s hand darted to the hilt of her sword and she took a surprised step back before catching herself. "Your hedgehog is back. I thought you were off your rocker. It actually can\'t die?"

"His name is Glint," Alex said. "And yes. I\'d be in dire straits if he didn\'t. Is that not common for Evokers?"

"Hell if I know," Claire said, releasing her sword and rubbing the back of her neck. "I\'ve never worked personally with one. I know about as much about it as I do about your backside."

Alex raised an eyebrow. "That\'s certainly an… odd turn of phrase. It\'s interesting, actually. You\'re from a whole different world, but we speak the same language."

"I assume the System must be automatically translating our words or something. I guess that doesn\'t carry through to idioms and the like," Claire said.

He nodded. That seemed like the most reasonable conclusion. It was surprisingly hard to keep in mind that Claire wasn\'t from Earth. Despite her appearance, her friendly demeanor made it easy to forget that she was, at the very least, a strong relative of a literal vampire.

"What to do. We might as well get moving," Alex said with a nod to the street. "I\'ll have Glint take up the front and find the monsters before we do. We\'ll follow a bit behind him and figure out if we\'re going to take fights or not. It might not be the fastest way to handle things, but I don\'t think we\'re in a rush."

"I\'m not so sure I\'d say that. I don\'t know about you, but I need to eat," Claire said.

Alex paused. "I… kind of thought that hunger and thirst paused here or something."

Claire shook her head. "Nope. I had some rations, but they\'re gone. Have been for a day. I\'d gut someone for a drink of water. You don\'t have any, do you?"

That complicates things. Even if there\'s water anywhere in the area, I\'ve got no clue if we can actually drink it. Then again, doesn\'t that mean the challenge of surviving is even harder? According to Claire, that means the reward should be way better too.

"I don\'t have anything other than Glint and the clothes on my back," Alex said apologetically. "But I suppose that means we should get moving faster rather than slower."

Claire nodded and they stepped out onto the street. Glint took the lead as they started toward the mountain looming over them, keeping to the shadows of the buildings to avoid the enormous monsters in the air.

They didn\'t make good time, but they moved along, nonetheless. Minutes ground by at an agonizingly slow speed. Every errant noise and gust of wind set Alex\'s hair on end. The adrenaline pumping through his veins mixed with fear and excitement in a cocktail that definitely wasn\'t good for his heart.

A purple ripple of energy washed over the street just a few dozen feet above them. Alex and Claire pressed themselves to the wall of a cracked building and hid beneath a thick, twisting root as an enormous City-Eater Centipede spiraled out from the disk of energy. Its legs swam as it passed through the sky.

Alex stared up at it in mute awe. Even though he was seeing it with his own eyes, the monster was unbelievably large. It was difficult to register just how large the City-Eaters could get until one was passing just above the tops of the buildings overhead.

He didn\'t so much as dare to to draw in a breath. There was no way something as huge as a City-Eater Centipede would even want to eat him, but he wasn\'t about to tempt fate. There was challenge and there was suicide — and the massive bugs were undoubtedly the latter.

A portal yawned open before the City-Eater Centipede and it swam in its direction — but it didn\'t quite make it. Pink light lit the street as another portal carved open above the centipede. An enormous, three fingered hand stretched out from it and wrapped around the centipede.

??? (???)

Then the towering monster vanished, yanked through the portal like a piece of popcorn plucked from a bucket during a movie. The centipede didn\'t even get a chance to struggle. Loud cracks rang out as its body shattered under the force of the hand and it was pulled into the rippling pink energy.

The portal snapped shut behind it, leaving the street in silence once more. The golden letters that had "identified" the hand disappeared as well. Alex and Claire exchanged a wide-eyed look.

The Centipedes aren\'t at the top of the food chain?

A shiver ran down Alex\'s spine as a thought, equal parts horrifying and electrifying, ran through his head.

What if they\'re actually just centipedes? Are those massive things literally nothing but bugs in the grand scheme of things? And if they are… what does that make us?

"That made a lot of noise," Claire whispered. "We should get moving before something comes to check it out and finds us."

"Good idea," Alex muttered back. They set back off, moving a little faster than they had before.

They made it all the way down the street and turned the corner, only to find that their luck had run out. A humanoid figure knelt by a warped house, scooping large handfuls of a torn-up root into its mouth. Curls of shadow rolled off its body, wafting away from brownish-grey flesh. It was difficult to tell exactly where the shadows ended and body began.

The monster\'s gaze, two motes of dull red, snapped over to them and it rose to its feet in a smooth motion.

Wight (Novice 3)

Claire drew her sword. "I\'ve got this one. I\'ve fought them before. Just stay back. It won\'t be too hard to take out."

"Hold on," Alex said, catching Claire by the shoulder before she could step forward. "You\'re injured. I\'ll take it myself."

"You\'re a Novice 1," Claire pointed out, keeping her eyes on the Wight as it sized them up. "It\'s dangerous."

"Exactly," Alex said. A smile pulled across his lips and Glint flexed his talons. "Which means I\'m going to get a better reward if I take this out myself. It\'s not as strong as the Shade, so I should be able to handle it."

"You\'re a bit insane, aren\'t you?"

"If we want to get strong enough to survive this place, then I think a little insanity isn\'t misplaced," Alex replied.

The Wight groaned and took a hesitant step toward them. It seemed confused by their lack of action, but Alex didn\'t mind. If it was going to let them set the terms of the fight, he certainly wouldn\'t complain.

"If you\'re sure," Claire said doubtfully. "Just be careful. The System isn\'t going to register as much of a challenge if it knows I\'m sitting around to back you up, so I\'ll actually have to stay away if you want to handle it without help. Just be careful."

"Thanks." Alex nodded his appreciation, then nodded to the Wight. "Glint, come on. Let\'s go kill this thing."