Chương 22: You want to win

"Oh. That's, uh, a quest. I didn't know you could just hand those out."

"I am a certified quest giver. It's part of how I get my investment into all this high-tech gear back. Many thanks for buying my intel on the tumbleweeds, by the by." I was briefly flashbanged by the left-right hook of revelations, stunned by her audacity, and outraged by the gall this woman had to insult Addy to my face and play it off like we were best friends all of a sudden. That was a class A manipulation tactic. I'd seen enough to recognize those by now. I gave her my best 'get me out of here right now' grin.

"Well, it was great meeting you, but I gotta get back on the grind. Coins to get, people to save, cats to feed; you probably know best how stressful being new to this is."

"Miss Dusa always knows best. Now go, and get me that footage, newbie." You wish. A whole slew of required social niceties were said. I didn't drop my charade until we walked inside a larger medical tent. Drones with a distinct medusa logo were buzzing around everywhere but here. I spied a familiar face among the moaning and sleeping patients.

"Ted?" [Associate Ted] Oh wow, the system decided to raise his rank. Still not a Custodian though. Do you have to die for that? Is he just too old? Ted cracked an eye open. He was reclined in a cot with a bunch of medical doodads strewn about, watching what sounded like a news broadcast on his phone.

"Finally decided to show your face, eh?"

"I, uh, was busy being puppeted around by a mimic."

"Bad time?" I nodded.

"Well," he said.

"It's rarely a good time when you're using a gun outside a shooting range. Find someone to talk to, is my advice." He was talking about therapy, or the type of get-together organized for war veterans. Yikes. Did I look that bad? More importantly, I dragged him into this. He was my associate. My responsibility.

"Will you be alright?"

"Well, my spine is shattered and fused in three separate places, so walking isn't in the cards anymore. For five days they said I was in too critical a condition to be moved; the vibrations during teleportation might've opened old wounds. But I'm scheduled to get wheeled out within the hour. Not that I get any say in the matter. I can still hold a gun like this." Throughout his rant, I felt an incredulous grin rising.

"What, so they can use you like a turret? An angry area denial tool?" He chuckled.

"Get the fucker that did this for me too, will yah?"

"Sure, I—" I paused.

"I can't make any promises. It's a slippery one." But I can promise that I'll heal your spine. All I need is a healing potion, right? [Average healing potions are intended to be consumed slowly over weeks to stave off the loss of a life, and contain potent active components that are lethal to the average human. Would you like to search the shop for a mundane-compatible alternative?] Absolutely.

[Regeneration potion: Regenerates any injury and congenital effect, cures all diseases, and supplies all necessary vitamins within one minute. Price: 1200 Soulcoins. In stock: 0.] I clenched my fist. Dammit. Dammit! Ted interpreted my evident anger as something else.

"Well, don't go selling your life for the sake of this old fart. Now git."

"I won't," I promised.

"But I will fix this."

"Good luck." I left the tent feeling… entirely too much at once. The private medical tent Addy and I had been sleeping in was just up ahead. I zipped the tent flap shut then turned to Addy, who in the meantime had already turned back into her big weretanuki form, the one with all the muscle. Maybe she felt safer this way.

"Sooo," I started.

"Apparently regeneration potions are ludicrously expensive and also, magical girl hazing is real." Addy leaned against a medical cot that immediately folded under her weight.

"Soulcoins aren't easy to get. Convergence events happen infrequently. You have to be high level with a great track record if you want to be assigned to a county with a high convergence risk."

"Seems awfully competitive."

"Competition drives innovation."

"It also drives a whole lot of businesses into the ground. Except in this case, the businesses are magical girls who have literally morphed their body with monster bits to be able to work." Addy shrugged dispassionately. Ok Sam, this is part of a different big problem. Too big. Break it up into parts. Every problem has a solution. I sat down with my back to Addy's fur and rubbed my brain cells together so hard they almost created static electricity. There was an answer in there somewhere, I just couldn't find it.

"I dreamt about home," Addy mumbled.

"Amazing what a bit of sleep does to you. I want to say that I miss it, but it's been so long."

"Home… oh my god, my parents!" My phone was failing to connect yet again. Had they not been inside the mall after all? If so, where the heck were they?

"They're fine," Addy muttered.

"Already checked on them. There's an old ward around your neighborhood keeping the mimics out. Ancient-old. I also collected the essence you got in the mall. It's in your backpack." The way she muttered it offhandedly, she didn't seem to realize how much this meant to me. I turned around and gave my fluffy friend a four-armed hug.

"You're a great friend, Addy."

"Not the best?"

"That spot's already taken. You'll have to fight Clem for it. Speaking of, she made us something. One second." My spider backpack was lying right next to my bed, the distant sound of a pickaxe hitting stone coming from inside. It grew louder when I opened it. A dusty-eyed Moe peeked up to look at me, carrying a gnome sized pickaxe and utility belt. His time-bandaid was missing, replaced with mundane stitches and gauze that didn't at all seem to prevent him from, what, mining the insides of my backpack?

Was that how this thing expanded? He wiped non-existent sweat off of his brow and gave me a look that said 'well, what'd'ya need?'

"Can I have my essence and the brownies, pretty please?" I asked before whispering into his ear.

"I'll make Clem bake you some more later." He made a satisfied gnome sound, disappearing into an internal magazine pouch that hadn't been there before. The gemstone landed right in my waiting hands. He parted with the brownies more reluctantly. They had a few corners neatly trimmed off, but I wasn't going to begrudge my hard worker some snacks. Also soulcoins. He was literally risking his life together with me despite being built for exactly the opposite of violence.

Apparently I could make silver soulcoins materialize out of thin air for paying people like him out. By the time I'd counted out ten soulcoins his eyes were bulging so much that I was afraid they might pop if I gave him any more. [Soulcoins: 471->461] I turned to Addy.

"Ta-da! Instant brownies! They're a bit crumbly… and five days old. But better than nothing, right?" Addy gave one a whiff, then changed shape back to her short human form.

"Chocolate is toxic to my canine half," she said as she munched on them.

"What happens to your stomach contents when you shapeshift?"

"No clue. Maybe I just have enough Body to prevent a tummy ache. Chocolate tastes weird in my other forms. I prefer this one for snacking."

"The snack form. I understand. Everyone needs a snack form." I nodded wisely before patting the cot beside me.

"Lie down. On your stomach."

"Why?"

"Because what you need is to relax. So relax. I'm going to make you feel good." And the best way I can distract her while I think up a solution to the Medusahead situation is by making her happy. With a massage! Mom loved my massages when I was normal-ish, and now I have twice the normal number of arms. She will be like putty in my hands. She was a sputtering, cramped-up mess when I gently, yet forcefully pushed her onto the nearby cot. Her small human body was a tightly wound bundle of muscles.

I could see the contours of her brachiales, deltoids, and triceps. Down her back, the trapezius, rhomboid, infraspinatus, teres major and minor, latissimus dorsi and erector spinae roiled like a biological clockwork carpet under every move. Her upper body strength looked as solid as her lower body strength. It was a body that spoke of a near single-minded dedication to self-improvement. Her back was as hard as iron.

I didn't think she was feeling anything under my increasingly rough ministrations until the first of many sighs and quiet Addy-noises filled the tent. Alright. You have her where you want her. She can't escape. Time to carefully approach some important, yet sensitive topics.

"So. Addy. Why does Medusahead hate you?" Jeezus, I said carefully! Her brows furrowed.

"Hate is a strong word. She was assigned to my team after I lost my old one. I think she's trying to find enough proof to force a reassignment. I ignored her. I… haven't been the best team leader."

"Because of what happened in Capua?" She nodded mutely.

"Want to talk about it?" I offered.

"Absolutely not." Fair enough. Boundary established.

"The quest wasn't even her trying her best," Addy muttered between a sigh.

"Her Mind is over 200. She could make my life hell as a funny distraction if she wanted to."

"But she hasn't tried to?"

"... I like to think that I deserve most of the shit she's flinging my way. But an angry part of me still thinks she's a judgmental bitch." So, a competitive environment plus Addy the perfectionist plus a jilted ally equals… rivals, of a sort?

"Do you want to win against her, Addy?"

"Do I? Do I!?" Addy shot up.

"It's not my fault the System assigned me to be her team leader when she has the better build and better mentality for the job. I'm just trying to catch the one bastard that took everything from me, and she's treating me like I'm only ever doing myself a service, not literally everyone else. Without that stupid piece of the Ur-mimic, even factoring in everything else, this Convergence event should have been done and over with.

It is making people suffer, and if to catch it all I have to do is suffer a bit myself, then I will do that, no questions asked." A hardcore philosophy. Also, monstrously self-destructive.

"So you've been chasing this Ur-mimic piece for…"

"Two years, seven months, twenty-three days." She looked to the side.

"... Twenty-two hours, fourteen minutes, fifty-six seconds." Well. That was dedication of a sort. Some might call it obsession. The beginnings of a plan were taking hold in my mind. Addy was a physical-focused Custodian with zero social skills. Medusahead literally controls people with the cold logic of a reptile. Physical violence was not a good way to retaliate against someone who could control the narrative. In fact, retaliating meant Addy could very well be framed to look like the villain.

But doing nothing meant giving Medusahead free reign. This meant we had to do something that didn't involve beating up the person who'd essentially put out a social hit on her. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. I still needed to check on my parents in person too, if only to assure myself that this barrier was more reliable than Clem's one.

And the ur-mimic was also still out there, though it should have quite a lot less elite mimics to protect it or divert attention. Alright. I think I have a rough idea of what to do.

"We are going to win, Addy," I said.

"We aren't just going to win, we are going to annihilate her with the power of our friendship."

"We met five days ago. You hit me with your car."

"And you ran your sword through my heart. All good friendships start with an accident." I nodded wisely.

"Also, it was my friend's car." Somehow, Addy didn't look convinced.

"Maybe I should just run Medusahead over and be done with it." I spluttered in indignance.

"Addy. Did you just make a joke?"

"... no?" She blinked at me. I blinked back at her.

"Right. Let's call that plan a last resort. I've got more than one scheme we can enact before that, but the first step is the same for everyone: We have to get some powerups." +++ Addy was practically glowing with satisfaction once the massage was over. Happy to help, magical tanuki girl. It's what these arms were made for. I stared at the essence glinting orange in the dim light inside the tent. The gem looked like a miniature version of the giant spellcaster that I'd beaten just the other, er, just five days ago.

"It's another spider-looking essence," I said.

"A radially symmetrical, many limbed and many spiked spider."

"Looks more like C'thulhu's beard to me," Addy muttered. I paused.

"Is he—""No, he is not real."

"Oh thank god, I had a minor heart attack there."

"Oberon is, though, and his wife Titania too. They're incredibly fae. Don't ask for help in old-growth forests, especially if you're alone.

""Fae. You've used that description multiple times now." She blinked at me.

"Right. I forgot that you weren't part of all this until… but you can see ghosts."

"Yup."

"You shouldn't be able to, not without 300 Soul. Not even I can see ghosts."

"Guess these eyes are just that sharp." She looked at me while I made a smug face of four unblinking eyes at her.

"You're weird." She muttered.

"You even took another body-modifying essence.

""Hey. Rude."

"Sorry." Addy rolled her shoulders.

"So, fae. The fae are creatures from a sister planet, like the mimics. In their world, speech is a physical power that can change the world as much as gravity. They used magical pacts and promises so much the magic changed the physics of their world down to the subatomic level. If you promise an arm and a leg in exchange for anything at all…"

"Then you'll lose an arm, and a leg." I stared at Addy's missing arm. She nodded.

"They're capricious, but bound by their word. Thus, if something acts on rules that are vaguely similar to their planet's magi-physics, we describe that creature as 'fae'."

"Have they tried to invade earth?"

"Oh, plenty of times. But after the phony war of 1978, they can't declare another war for a hundred years after. And now The Society has loads of mutually beneficial contracts running between our two species." Which, since they were literally bound by their word, meant that even after those hundred years were up, there would be a bunch of fae heavily invested in keeping the peace. Yay politics?

"But sometimes rogue fae — what we call the criminals they literally banish from their planet — can muck things up for us. Sometimes a Custodian is sent to deal with them if they, say, start a dancing plague. Depending on the power and disposition of the fae, they will either be recruited or eliminated."

"... well, that's good to know. Also, full of terrifying implications." Like the fact that if I saw a fae working for The Society, there was a high chance it wasn't an exchange student, but a friggin' criminal.

"I elect to ignore all of that. Here comes the cool power stuff." I flicked the essence. It bared its secrets for all to see. [Mimic Caster Essence] Tier 1 Rarity: Uncommon Growth: +1 Mind, +1 Soul Choice: (1) of (3) Abilities"Ooh, neat, Mind and Soul." Just what I needed. I'd loved to have more than only a single point of growth per level, but alas, 'twas but an uncommon bauble.

"That means better concentration and better emotion conversion."

"Among other things."

"True. I've had the feeling for a while now that I'm running out of headspace for using multiple arms and eyes at the same time." Addy nodded.

"Listen to that feeling, especially since you already have extra Sense. We Custodians usually understand our magic without thinking too much about it. Gut instinct is good instinct."

"Wise words you could put on a t-shirt," I said and placed the essence on my tongue. Addy yoinked it out almost immediately.

"—except when it comes to making builds. Building builds is a brainial activity—""— cranial —""— what I said, yes. Have you seriously just been eating essences the moment you get them?"

"That's… what they're for, right? They look like spiders, I am a spider, that's thematic spider synergy right there." Addy gave me a look as if I was a toddler who had just tried to explain that of course I had to put a fork in an electric socket because the fork was just such a darn perfect fit. She took the essence, placed it down on a side table, then made sure I was looking her in the eyes.

"What kind of Custodian do you want to be?" I stared right back at her, eyes unblinking.

"Gee, that's a bit of a loaded question, isn't it? I never considered it, really." Considering the last few days… I don't want to be the helpless kind. I just want to make people happy.

"The fact that you haven't even considered it means you shouldn't be eating essences at all," Addy said.

"These things are permanent. You can upgrade their tier every thirty levels, but if you fill yourself with a bunch of trashy common essences, or with ones without synergy, you're going to hit a wall around lvl 30-40."

"I'm assuming you're speaking out of experience?" Addy tensed.

"I wasn't running after the Ur-mimic for entirely selfless reasons." Translation: She wanted its essence because she thought it would be good for her build. Also, revenge. But the essence was not something to scoff at.

"Do you want my essence?" I offered. If fixing her problems was as simple as giving her this, then I was fully willing to let it go. I could get more essences later, assuming I had a later.

"Are you insane!?" Addy cried before shrinking back in on herself.

"No. Sorry. It's your essence. I already traded the ones I found for one I wanted. I was hoping to find a rare. Something with a movement ability." Because you were always just one step behind salvation, weren't you? You're telling me to build for the future, but are you truly looking far ahead yourself, Addy? What happens to you once you kill the shard of the Ur-mimic? Without purpose, without your zealous drive, who or what are you? Unnerving thoughts. Something to ruminate on.

"Say, what am I supposed to do with this if I shouldn't eat it? Sell it for soulcoins?" Addy shook her head.

"First off, I didn't say you shouldn't eat it, I said you needed a better justification than 'it's a spider essence'. Think about your future, because that's what these are. Let the system do the math for you if you can, see what you look like in twenty or thirty levels." That was pretty easy. If I took this essence I'd have about thirty points in both Mind and Soul at level thirty. Up until that point I'd still get another essence at lvl 15, 20, and 30.

The system helpfully pointed out that every point in Soul would increase my average emotion conversion efficiency by one percent across the board, flat, not multiplied. That meant if I took it now, I'd nearly double my joy conversion efficiency, which would hopefully allow me to run [Arms & Arms proficiency] nearly all the time, assuming I was channeling some amount of joy consistently.

[More Spider Eyes] didn't benefit nearly as much unless I was constantly swapping where my eyes were on my body, which was too disorienting to do in stressful situations without sufficient Mind. But Mind would allow me to field more eyes, permanently. So, Mind and Soul were exactly the combo I needed, which brought me to the other parts of the essence I'd ignored so far because they hadn't been relevant.

"So, what does it mean if an essence is Tier 1?"

"It means it's unupgraded. When you reach certain level thresholds you can upgrade one essence of choice, adding a stat point to its scaling, modifying an spell or passive, or gaining an additional spell from the essence's spell pool."

"Sounds neat. So theoretically, I could modify [More arms] to give me even more arms?"

"You're already overwhelmed with four."

"Not in the future I won't be! Hopefully. I just want to find a way to shoot as many guns as possible at once." Addy paused.

"You're serious about the gun route?"

"Duh, I'm not running up into point-blank range and getting myself splattered with mimic blood if I can't help it. I'm weak sauce, I'll just get bodied."

"… bodied?"

"I'll die, horrendously. Guns seem like they have a lot of variety and they scale well the higher you go. Come to think of it, why do you almost exclusively use katanas?"

"Because they're cool," Addy said, the little hypocrite. I was about to open my mouth when I remembered how having weapons you enjoyed using actually made a Custodian more powerful thanks to channeling emotions. Dang Addy, so deep.

"Guns are cooler." Addy snorted.

"If you think so." I smiled and stuck out my tongue at her.

"Next question: How much of a difference does rarity make?"

"A lot. An uncommon rarity essence has exactly two growth statpoints and one choice of up to three abilities. Some have two choices of abilities and only one growth statpoint. Every rarity above uncommon adds either one statpoint or one ability."

"And the higher level you go, the more every point matters, since it's multiplied by your level." Addy nodded.

"Generally, you never want to use commons unless you're a crafter or noncombatant, and only two or three uncommons. You have two already, but since you started with a free slot, taking this third uncommon essence should be fine."

"So, I have the tanuki seal of approval." Addy stared at me for a moment before turning away with a huff.

"If it makes you feel better." I put the essence on my tongue, teasing Addy to see if she would finally let me eat the thing. Yummy essence, yum yum yum.

"—At least check the shop to see if anyone wants to trade for it."

"Even after I've licked it twice?"

"You pulled it from the acid blood of an eldritch alien mimic. People won't care."

"Fair." I pulled up the system shop, dodged a couple ads trying to sell me skin cream remedies for acid burns, then zipped here and there until I was looking at the essence corner. It was a warzone. New essences popped up and were snatched up just as quickly. A forum was filled with millions of messages, newbies being helped, hindered, and hazed for stupid questions while experienced number-crunchers debated each other over which build was the most optimal.

Every slur was used, apologies were scarce, and what few moderators there were were either overwhelmed, or 'currently engaged at the bottom of the pacific', which was probably the Custodian way of saying they were AFK. Welcome to the magical girl internet. It wasn't much better or worse than the normal one. As an experienced online shopper, I noticed some trends. Everyone was trying to get rid of their commons, which were the most commonly traded essences. Go figure. Some of them were traded in bulk.

Then came the uncommons. Uncommons were everywhere, heralded as cornerstones for builds or as new Custodian friendly stat sticks. The variety was intoxicating. However, I could barely find any public listings for the three higher level essences, namely rare, extraordinary, and unique. Further investigation revealed that everything at or above rare was either put up for auctions or only traded privately.

And the number of uniques that had been traded in the entire forty-year history of the shop's records were literally as few as I could count on my free hands. I watched a Tier 1 Rare Colorless Blob essence go up with +1 to every stat. It seemed atrocious, since it didn't have an ability and wouldn't help you at all if you wanted to specialize. When I checked a minute later it was gone, leaving only a temporary page with two hundred replies in its wake. Some of these Custodians typed hella quick.

Probably a mix of Mind stats plus mental texting. Texting with my mind still felt like I was using my pinkie to type on a too small phone screen. There was zero chance I was sniping a rare essence, doubly so since I had nothing to trade for. Well dang.

"It's all traded essence for essence if I'm seeing this right," I muttered.

"Only the commons and uncommons go for silver soulcoins. And there's a lot of trading going on."

"Since convergence zones are localized, normally infrequent, and limited in scope, people have a lot of downtime on their hands. Essences are also changing in worth constantly, with new builds being theorycrafted and threats emerging that counter old ones. I've seen people buy particular essences in bulk, hoping that the build they fit will become popular enough that they can trade up."

"Like a stock market for superpowers." Whack. Also, moderately dystopian.

'Fireball is up two percent, but the DowBones is in freefall after regulators declare necromancy a felony', or something along those lines. That could be a real future headline if magic ever becomes a public good.

"Something tells me that leaves them with a lot of unsellable merch." That was a workable angle if I wanted a good deal. If I were to trade my essence for something nobody but me wants, then everyone would be happy and net positivity in the world goes up. The power of trade and capitalism, except used for good. I chewed on my lip before finally deciding to just list my essence under the price 'negotiable' and see what I could get.

Now since that was going to take some time to get any responses I could go and spend some coins on defensive gear and weapons and — oh hey, I already got a response. That was quick. Then there was another one. And another one. And another.

"Umm, Addy? Is it normal to get twenty responses in a minute for an uncommon essence?" The pings were still coming in fast — god that was annoying — and the more I read the more I regretted having a magical crystal-computer fused to my cranium. Addy blinked at me.

"I mean, it's a mage essence and it gives a point in Soul. Soul increases ECC efficiency. The most popular builds these days are all some form of mage. Having a high ECC efficiency means many Custodians reach the point where they can just fly indefinitely while shooting lasers everywhere," Addy said.

"Also, against mimics, flying seems to be a really good way to not lose a life."

"You're telling me… Soul-stacking is meta?"

"All bling and boom, no accuracy, no respect for the basics," Addy grumbled.

"I don't like it. More importantly, when you increase your essence's tier, it can only upgrade stats it already delivers." Oh. Oh! I get it! My essence had a high chance of giving a magical ability on top of scaling the most important stat for it, a stat which it could grow. That was also why the rare blob essence was snatched up so quickly. It had every stat, meaning while it wasn't specialized at the start, it could grow in literally any direction.

Meanwhile, a caster essence was probably the least useful to me considering I didn't even have a single point in Soul yet. I didn't even know what putting a point in that would feel like. Actually, I did have a few free stat points, so I could experiment a bit.

"System, one free stat point into Soul please." The change was wholly unlike any previous one. My hands didn't tingle, my brain didn't feel like I was giving it a deep clean, and the world didn't look, sound, or smell any more real than it had moments before. Instead, I felt a vivid sense of nostalgia. A day at the beach where the anticipation of showing Mom and Dad the tiny crab I'd found turned into surprise as he pinched my soft kid fingers.

The memory of my first kiss, the joy of the moment mixed with the sadness as Becca left me. There was some anger there too, at her, at myself, but mostly sadness. For a moment, every memory was amplified and every experience felt like it moved just one step closer to the present. This was… wow. No wonder some of the Custodians didn't have the best mental state.

The sharpness of these memories was already fading, but I could only imagine what it was like to experience the world with literal hundreds of points in Soul. It must be awfully alien, awfully lonely. Then again, the same could be said when you had enough points in Body to walk on lava, or enough in Sense to hear your significant other's bowel movements. There was of course a practical side to it as well. With memory came emotions, and with emotions came ECC efficiency.

Average Emotion-Crystal-Core efficiency: 11->12% (Expand List)"One point of Soul translates to one point of efficiency." Maybe getting at least a bit of Soul wouldn't be so bad, if only to allow me to run [Arms & Arms proficiency] permanently. The pings of people trying to trade for my essence were still coming in, but over half of them just didn't seem serious at all. Sure man, I could totally trade this for five common essences that nobody would want to trade for. Not.

Another half were soulcoin low-balls, opportunists evidently trying to see if I knew how valuable this essence exactly was. Those were also not interesting. Maybe there were one or two intriguing offers, but those would take work to find.

"Welp, nothing to it. I gotta sort through it manually." It took forever. Subjectively, of course. I wasn't spending literal hours of the possibly last days of my life haggling with people on magical girl Ebay. But between people not responding when I had questions about their offers, others retracting theirs once they felt like I was getting too good of a deal, and yet more just being flat out rude, I was done for the day. I had my three choices. As far as I could tell, they were the best ones.

Offer #1: 700 Soulcoins. Offer #2: Hellrazor Essence, Tier 1, uncommon, +3 Body, no abilities Offer #3: Lesser Ur-mimic Essence, Tier 2, uncommon, +1 Soul, +2 Mind, [1] choice of [3] abilities.