Dark and only becoming darker, the air around was heavy and stuffy; it felt humid and moist yet hardly warm at all. Indeed, once again, the foreigner was well within that sunny-cavern, as if having found herself gravitating to its center.

  Over and over again, as if on cyclic repeat, she had been doing this one same quest; with each repeat, she had only become better; with each attempt, always learning new things to apply to the next attempt. She had become bolder, no longer restricting herself to one or even two copies of that quest; multiple being done at once. And now…only four of those duplicate collection quests remained, and this included recent restocking.

  It was now well passed the midpoint of the second month of this new year, and even after having paid this month’s rent—which in fact had risen—, she was left with quite the accumulated surplus of coin, nevertheless; more than she was used to having, frankly.

  However… When the rent collector had come to collect the property holder’s dues, it was the foreigner had made the naive mistake of…disclosing the truth of her now considerably higher income than previous dues. And…not long after, she ultimately received notice informing her of…quite a substantial increase in expected rent payments going forward.

  Consequently, it was now even more prudent for her that she completed these quests timely and efficiently, and only become more efficient, since she could infer that this pattern of her rent proportionately rising with her increased coin collection was only going to continue.

  Of course, such did not necessarily mean she needed to do this exact quest over and over again… However… Having done these duplicate quests so many times, they had become very familiar to her; predictable and consistent, both in their reward and methods of execution. Indeed, she had no problem with this ceaseless repetition; if anything, it was almost as if she…preferred it, in truth.

  Though, in the end, it was perhaps…preferable in general…to be given just be given any directives and objectives to do, no matter what they were; such was the purpose of her entire existence, after all… To be given directives needing to be executed proficiently.

  “…say, you really know where you’re going, lady?” thus abruptly interrogated the man so following her behind, strolling along as both wandered deeper into this sunny-cave; “I can’t see shit…”

  The foreigner sighed… “Yes,” she began to reply, “I know…to where I am going. I have followed this path before.”

  Indeed, it was that so-called ‘wagoneer’ fellow of sorts; a specialist of animal-drawn primitive transportation. She was and had been providing him with approximately fifty-percent of her total reward in exchange for his assistance, without which this entire process of repeatedly doing the same duplicate quest over and over again would have taken…considerably longer… For the amount of time saved by using his primitive mode of transportation was, indeed, considerable.

  However, lately it seemed that this wagoneer was more interested in assistance beyond merely his providing of transportation; indeed, he wanted to help directly and more ‘properly’, something with which she had no protests, although…she certainly would prefer that she did not have to be burdened by…being concerned for his safety and the insurances thereof.

  “I’ve gotta ask this again, but uhm… Why are you dragging me into this cave?” the wagoneer thus pondered aloud; “I know I said I was in the Imperial army, but…that was more than fifteen years ago! I haven’t…fought anything major since the war!”

  The foreigner yet again sighed… “I already told you…”

  “I know, but…I just need to hear it again…” he replied.

  “Yesterday was the slow and not good day. I did not collect too much; so, it is necessary that you follow me and help me carry the crystals.” she thus explained; “And since you can shoot, I also need you to provide support for me.”

  “I get that…” the wagoneer began to reply, still trailing behind, “But I’m still trying to…wrap my heart around how I can you support in this tight, close, and narrow space with a sharp-rifle! I was a sharpshooter; we weren’t trained in bayonets back then, you know?”

  Indeed, within the wagoneer’s hands was a so-called ‘marksman long-rifle’ of sorts. This firearm was a rather dated model; it did not utilize percussion ‘primer-caps’ like hers did, but rather an older ‘snap-lock’ mechanism that used a rather…vibrant and exotic crystal of sorts—thus a ‘crystal-lock’, as the locals called it. This crystal was materially tough yet highly reactive, apparently producing sparks even in humid air and wet weather conditions.

  However, the wagoneer had, as he put it, painstakingly and extensively modified this firearm of his—a process which he had described as taxing to both his mind and…pockets. Having initially been a firearm that required the shot to be shoved down the muzzle, the long-rifle had been retrofitted to be of a ‘breechloading’ variety. Likewise, affixed to the firearm was a primitive and rather improvised ‘scope’ of sorts, clearly custom-made.

  Indeed, judging from the enthusiastic and extensive modifications he had made to his long-rifle, it appeared that he was quite proficient with primitive firearms, being clearly one who preferred to shoot from large distances… Which was all foreigner frankly cared to know about him.

  She once again so sighed… “You will not be supporting me in spaces like here. I am…better in the close fighting, so you will not be doing that. The place that…I am trying to find is open and…wide; good for you to be helpful at the distance.”

  “…well, if you say so, little menace…” The wagoneer too thus sighed.

  They continued to make their way deeper into this darkening cavern. The foreigner lead whilst the wagoneer cautiously followed; she was retracing her steps, identifying markers she had carved into specific rocks just the day before—the last time she had traversed through here.

  Indeed, although her discovering of those crystalline arachnids’…peculiar reproductive rituals had streamlined the collection of those glow-crystals; for all she had to do was track their nesting grounds, wait for them to cull themselves, dispatch the survivors, and then scavenge the remains; there had nevertheless been a reoccurring issue: their mating procedure did not exactly leave behind quest-viable specimens to salvage.

  However, yesterday, she had discovered quite the arachnid nesting ground; one that had been full of glow-spider corpses along with so many preserved and viable glow-stones—they were all dead yet hardly torn or devoured. Although she had little clue as to what had befallen that arachnid chamber, it still provided plenty of fruit—too much fruit, in fact; more fruit than she was prepared for. She had to leave so much behind, no thanks to the fact she had perhaps taken only one collection sack by mistake instead of two.

  Nevertheless, now with an extra pair of hands—and more than one collection sack—, such should surely no longer be as much of an issue. Although she expected that chamber to be reinfested with arachnids feasting upon those corpses, she predicted that there should be still plenty left to recover—perhaps even more, if anything.

  Yet as they arrived at that entry hole to the edges of that very chamber, a different reality became immediately clear…

  ? … ? Indeed, the foreigner stood there at the edges of that ledge, staring down blankly as if her mind needed to process whilst the heckles of crystalline arachnids somewhere someplace else farther off within this cavern bounced about, as if taunting her; as if mocking her.

  Empty. This entire glistening chamber was empty; not a single corpse in sight; not a single drop of blood or piece of chimeric flesh… It was as if nothing had ever been here…at all.

  “I get it that you aren’t freezing ‘cause of the shiny beauty around, huh?” the wagoneer, staring off from behind, thus remarked.

  “You speak correctly.” the foreigner replied, bluntly… “The last time that I was here… Yesterday… There was many of the bodies; too many for me.”

  “Well, looks completely empty to me…” The wagoneer demonstrated impeccable observation, truly.

  “Precisely…” the foreigner mumbled.

  “Sure this’s the right spot, then?” he wondered…

  “Yes. It is.” There was no doubt to the foreigner; this was the correct chamber.

  “Uh…” the wagoneer mumbled… “Well, maybe the glow-spiders came and ate the rest…”

  “Hm… Perhaps…” The foreigner evaluated, cogitating… She remained unconvinced.

  Indeed, by now she had grown to…understand those alien chimeras on a rather…intimate level, so to speak. And those chimeras were the definition of chaotic apathy; they cared for little at all when they feasted, most especially ‘pleasantry’ and ‘cleanliness’. And this chamber was practically—hyperbolically—squeaky clean. It was as if all signs and traces had just…dematerialized from existence itself, frankly.

  “No… I do not think so…” she thus stated; “They are the messiest things; they always leave behind the…bloody pieces, and they do not abandon their feeding and mating places; but there is nothing here, dead or living; it is too clean… And I have never seen a place this empty in here.” Indeed, she could tell… “Something does not seem right…”

  “Uhuh… So… If not the glow-spiders, then…what did do this…then?” he asked.

  ? Nulla idéa’st méhi…qual?eùnqua… ? she muttered… “I have no idea.”

  “Ain’t that great…” The wagoneer was perhaps…disconcerted.

  “Let us…simply find the…different place.” she thus said, before…cautiously turning around and making way to depart… “Stay behind me; I will guide.” Indeed, she will…cogitate the implications of this…seemingly unnatural disappearance later; for now, her immediate priority remained fixed and static.

  “Rightly…” The wagoneer took one last gander at the empty chamber, pondering… Though, with a shake to his head, he quickly turned around and followed in kind, making sure to stay close to not get left behind.

  -||-

  The two once again stood at the edges of yet another ledge leading down into yet another chamber of crystalline luminance; this one, however, was fairly occupied…and preoccupied. Indeed, all kinds of abhorrent noises of cannibalistic chimeric-mating permeated throughout and about.

  “Yeesh… Gods’ sacred, you weren’t kidding!” the wagoneer so remarked; “ ‘Messy’… Talk about the third understatement of this century!” Indeed, it was beyond simply messy…

  The foreigner, herself having cautiously kneeled down, glanced behind at the wagoneer standing back… “…third?” She tilted her head, somewhat curious; “What you mean?”

  The wagoneer stared blankly, as if confused… “Oh, right. Archaic and alien… Shit…” he realized, aheming; “Right, uhm… Third understatement of the century, because…the first one being the Demon-King’s premature ‘defeat’ by the Far West intervention, ‘cause he wasn’t just, you know, ‘defeated’… And the second one being the… ‘rise’ of the Empire, because, you know…” His reply was quite awkward… “It’s just, uhm… Imperial banter, I guess to say—don’t really think about it, you know… Just a phrase…” Truly, actually trying to explain the humor or…meaning of an idiomatic remark to those who did not understand was never an easy affair.

  “Uhuh…” The foreigner simply nodded away, having not understand any of that whatsoever—although considering she was the one who had asked, she could not protest. “I see… Interesting…” She simply returned her sight back to the scene in front and down below.

  The wagoneer kneeled down next to her, the both of them now watching and…monitoring, carefully and cautiously. Albeit none of the arachnids gave a focused fly.

  “Hm… Not a deep drop down, though won’t feel great… But getting back up is gonna be the problem…” the wagoneer remarked to himself, though…“Wait… Now that I think about…” he turned his eyes to the foreigner next and near… “How did you even get back up here all those other times you’ve done this? All the chambers are like this, right? A drop down...”

  “Most of them, yes. And I climbed, of course.” she flatly replied.

  “…yeah, I get that, but my question was how…” he was inquiring, yet his voice drifted to a pause…

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  The foreigner’s attention was utterly locked onto the sights at hand… It was clear she was not paying any attention to his words; so fixated and analyzing.

  The wagoneer sighed… “No wonder your old-fashion dress’s starting to get all messed up now… ‘Ve got only one focus, don’t ya? Little menace…” he quietly mumbled, speaking both to her yet also to himself, before simply going mute; he let her focus.

  A long yet short silence took hold. The wagoneer himself observed alongside the foreigner, although by no means analyzing as much as she, no doubt. Frankly, it was difficult to guess what could possibly be happening within that head of hers.

  Eventually, “Wow… Gods’ sacred…” he broke the silence; “They sure are into all that… Ech, nasty…” He grimaced… “But… Don’t think they’ve been noticing us… I mean, look!”—he pointed—“That’s one literally staring right at us! It’s seen us! But… Doesn’t have a single Demon-shit in it!”

  The foreigner glared at that man making rather the…noises; “And I would prefer that we retained it so…” she bluntly stated.

  “…” The wagoneer stared, realizing… “Oh, rightly right, sorry…” He ahemed, quieting his voice.

  The foreigner’s glare shifted back to the front… “But…” she began to speak, “yes… Whenever they are doing…this—or eating whatever, truly… They are blind to all of the other things, to say…figuratively. Not with the vigilance or with the notice.”

  “So… What we do now?” he quietly asked.

  “Wait for them to finish, then kill the remainder. Take whatever is left.” she thus replied, her voice rather cold.

  “Hmm…” Yet the wagoneer, his eyes staring at those glow-spiders in kind, began to…cogitate and wonder in mind… “Waiting, huh?” he mused, thinking… “So, you’re telling me that…every time you’ve done this, you’ve just…waited for them to finish? Never getting into it while they’re right in the middle of doing it?”

  “Yes?” The foreigner nodded… “What else was there for me to do besides to wait?” she replied… “I prefer to only do things when I know that I can win.” Usually, at least.

  “Hm… Good thing to stand by, but… I mean…” His eyes began to peer at that which was already equipt in her hand… “What gund you’ve got you? A fancy…customized revolver? Not even Far Western, no idea where that thing came from… Dwarven maybe?” he evaluated, pondering… “Whatever, but that thing sure can’t do much shit from up here, I reckon…”

  “…uhuh?” The foreigner failed to really see where this denizen was going with this.

  Yet the wagoneer began to so clearly count, a behavior the foreigner easily able to infer from the movement of his eyes.

  “There are fifty-nine of them, the last that I counted.” she told him.

  “Yeah… But they’re eat-fucking each other, so probably even less now… Hm… Well, I’ve got about eighty shots on me…” he remarked, before double checking one of his two rather large cartridge carry-boxes equipt on his figure.

  “Eighty shots?” The foreigner glanced at him… “But your…ehm… Gun, it is like mine, no? It uses that same…powder, rightly? Thus even if you could shoot so many of the shots, the…ehm…” She paused a little… “Stuff… that stuff, I do not know the word, but it will—”

  “Little menace, don’t lecture me.” the wagoneer frankly interjected, “Soot, that’s word, and I know it’d foul my shit after thirty shots, but it ain’t like I’m gonna shoot that many so fast… And besides, I’ve got Far West enchanted powder; shit dissolves thoroughly and don’t even leave much behind, not even the paper” he explained, before loading a strange…blue-colored paper cartridge into his firearm’s breech.

  The foreigner knew exactly what he was thinking. “I would prefer that you simply stand back and not frustrate the blob of the spiders and to save your shots; there are too many to risk making the problems… They can quickly overwhelm us.” She was frank.

  “Relax… I just wanna test something is all” yet the wagoneer remained focused… “I mean, ya know, they clearly don’t give a single demonized ass about us being here, or else they’d already’ve gobbled us up from our talking…” He positioned himself, raising his firearm’s sights… “And my hunches are telling me they won’t give fuck about this either; worst come to worst, we run away…”

  Hm… The foreigner had to admit, he raised an…interesting point. Although, them not caring about their passive presence was…different than engaging in open aggression… Yet, nevertheless, she moved herself out of the way of that ear-piercing firearm’s targeting, repositioning herself behind him, gazing over his hunched shoulders.

  “Ahh! Coming along, aye? Thanks…” he said to the foreigner, thrilled that she seemed to be…trusting his instincts. “Now, let’s see here, which one to test…” he mumbled, his eyes scouting…targeting…

  The foreigner, however, identified; “Do you see that big one?” She immediately pointed her finger from behind his shoulder; “The one with the wild flashing colors…”

  “Hard not to spot that Demon-spawn of an abortion” the wagoneer replied. “That one’s special, huh?”

  “Yes… Kind of. She is very old, and I think…uhm…” What even was the…word for that? “Carrying? Yes, that… And she is very late with it, so is close to…laying?” She did not know the word, but she knew from confirmation that these things did not lay eggs.

  “Alrightly…” The wagoneer was not too sure what the foreigner was trying to convey, but he rolled with it, nevertheless.

  “Regardless,” the foreigner ahemed… “Shoot that one. She is dangerous and has these…spike-things that can be shot at us; they…poof violently.”

  “Uhuh, got it…” The wagoneer thus took his aim, focusing…

  “These…ehm… Glow-spiders, they have this…small neck—there is the gap between their head and their body, which is part of their…spine…like thing, but it should paralyze or kill it if struck, in any case.” she instructed.

  “Got it, got it…” He nodded his head… “But uhm… Why their spine? Didn’t even know these things had spines, but… Still, why not, you know, their heads?” he frankly questioned.

  ? … ? Yet the foreigner did not have an immediate answer; she stared rather blankly as if bemused, bewildered even… This had to be the most obvious…thing to even know, surely… “You…never aim for the…head?” Her response was more of a mumble.

  “…‘you never aim for the head’?” he so repeated her words, as if dumbfounded; “What are you talking about? I always aim for the head—and if not that, then the heart or anything that kills in one decisive shot!”

  The foreigner tilted her head… “Huh?” Right… This was…not necessarily a universal…principle, was it then? Right… It was not… “Well, to aim and shoot the head, at least for…the people and the things like…those spiders…” Or anything with a complex CNS. “…I do not…do that. It is not what is…supposed to be done, unless there is no alternative… But here, there…is the alternative…” She was a little awkward frankly.

  “…” The wagoneer glanced blankly… “Alrightly, but why? That’s kind of…stupid, don’t ya think? And I don’t mean no offense or anything, it’s just… Why make shit arbitrarily harder? How do you even…aim at a spine, huh? The head’s the easiest way to kill most things with heads!” he bluntly remarked, still dumbfounded; “I mean, just look at those things! I can barely see their necks! They’re giant spiders!”

  The foreigner’s sight drifted down and away, her posture flustering a little… She had no real answer to this—or rather, it was difficult to answer it… Indeed, much of this was…purely…entrenched convictions and feelings… A presumption that required no explanation, truly…

  Never aim for the head, if it could be helped.

  Even though there was a clear logic and rational motive for why this was…standard protocol, it was often applied in instances where…that logic did not necessarily follow. As if just the respectable thing to do; a sign that…there was never true malleus or hatred in the act, merely tragedy or…

  Indeed, it was abstract; this was…an abstraction—moral principles or…something. One belonging to her and those like her; a holdover from bygone ages when such had mattered, yet nevertheless still entrenched and holding firm despite everything else having been lost…eroded and rusted.

  Never aim for the head with intention, unless necessary.

  It was…just that simple.

  Yet she struggled to define or explain it, for again it simply was so; universal and always. But even if she could explain the logical reasoning, it was likely well beyond the…understanding of this denizen… Indeed, even if the denizens wanted to, they would…simply not understand.

  Yet, she wanted to explain it; she wanted to justify it; even if this urge was restricted to her mind’s shadow, frustrated within. Yet…how…could she even explain it?

  Sighing with slight tense breaths… “Do you…believe in the ‘souls’, by chance?” the foreigner abruptly asked.

  “Duh, of course?” the wagoneer replied with a no-duh. “The Goddess of Life instills into all mortal beings souls forged from divine presence, connecting us to the Gods, with man being the purest of them all compared to monsters, demi-folk, and other races—no offense to elves…”

  “Alrightly… Thus, uhm… Do you believe that…when the things die, that their souls might persist? With all of their…memories and…stuff?” she inquired.

  “Kinda?” The wagoneer shrugged… “I mean, when someone dies, their souls are collected and sent off to the nether planes; they either join with the divine, get sent off to another world beyond ours, or their souls get reused, tossed back into this world as something else, giving life to someone new… But it all depends, I guess. Some people speak of ghosts lingering, but I don’t believe that…” he thus remarked. “Trinitarians believe their souls go up to their Heaven when they die, where they’re judged; either get sent down to an abyss if they’re wicked or join among paradise if they’re good, some even becoming angels.”

  The foreigner nodded along… “Alrightly, thus… Following with this, uhm… If you had the knowing, would you with…the intention, destroy the…source of the soul of someone? Erasing everything…that person had been, destroying the soul and…any ability to retrieve anything left…behind? Their memories and…who they were?” she thus…asked, her own voice…not necessarily comfortable. “To reduce them…into total nothingness, without the trace of existence recoverable or…preservable…”

  “…” The wagoneer stinted in thought, his eyes evading in sudden contemplation… He was not expecting things to suddenly take such a morbidly odd…philosophical turn. “I mean, that’s a Gods’ fucked question alright… What’s that gotta do with anything? None of that’s even the case! You can’t destroy a soul, it’s beyond the material realm!”

  “Just assume that it is so…” the foreigner mumbled, blunt.

  The wagoneer exhaled a slight uncomfortable ugh, thinking… “I mean, probably, yeah. What does it matter? Dead is dead, don’t matter what you do unless some…wicked profane magic.” he bluntly answered. “See, despite my words, I’m not one to really care about post-death shit. Everything I’ve seen, you’ve only got one life and one life alone. You kill someone, you take away their one and only life… Don’t matter what happens after…” He shook his head… “ ‘Erased’, stupid… Yeah, soon as you pull that trigger, they cease to exist; that person’s gone, dead. The least you could do is make it so quick they don’t know what happened, instead of shooting their spine and getting a bullet stuck in their neck or paralyzing them…”

  His voice seemed agitated slightly; it was evident that he was not…necessarily appreciating what felt like esoteric moralisms that almost seemed ‘high and mighty’—naive, if anything.

  Yet the foreigner sighed… Truly, even when trying to explain using primitive terminologies, they still would not just understand what she was trying to get at… It was simply one of those things that one understood only if they understood.

  ? Verba ga?paellant tempor, phí… ? For as much as she could critique the endless abstractions of the denizens, she certainly felt…irritated deep down within when confronted with her own. “These words were the waste of time…”

  “Yeah… Bigly…” The wagoneer refocused at the task at hand, his eyes needing to retarget that wild glow-spider for it had move itself away.

  The glow-spider itself did not seem to be participating in this mating crucible; it was seemingly feasting away upon the leftovers, quite happily so.

  Nevertheless, he took a deep concentrating breath, his grip tightening as him aim sharpened. He changed his stance likewise, positioning himself more suitably for the task needing to be done…

  Silence. His breaths turned utterly silent, his fixation absolute… As he waited and waited…for the right…

  Click, snap, zap, boom.

  He pulled the triggher as that snapping hammer came striking down upon the affixed crystal, a violent spark zapping as the firearm fired in an odd bluish fiery flash. A large cloud of bluish sparkly smoke was created yet it quickly dissipated away. Indeed, the differences between this so-called ‘enchanted’ powder and ordinary black powder were as clear as this luminant space.

  The lancing bullet whistled in the air at speeds unprocessable to the eye, piercing straight into that wild crystalline arachnid’s feasting head, penetrating through the skull and into its chimeric brain from the back occipital lobe; exiting through the frontal cortex, the bullet ricocheted throughout the rest of the creature’s skull interior, thoroughly pulpifying the brain and only the brain…to a specific extent; to a certain degree; and at a rather certain and particular…critical speed. Many factors and many variables compounded into many probabilities within an instant to facilitate an almost unavoidable outcome from these accumulated effects.

  Within these few seconds, the chimera had gone from feasting happily…to slumping down, motionless; dead on the spot, exactly as he had wanted. And, exactly as he had hoped, nothing happened… No reaction whatsoever from any of the glow-spiders around, not even to the ear-piercing gunshot that could startle whole armies.

  The wagoneer’s hunches turned out to be correct.

  “Haha!” He smiled with a near upwards lunge; “See? How’s that for aim! Haven’t lost any of it, wow! Clean, dead, and no problems at all.” he remarked with a satiated smirk; “Can’t tell you know, would’ve taken me forever to actually line up a shot at its ‘spine’ or neck whatever…”

  ? Síc vidatùr. ? the foreigner replied, quite coldly.

  “And guess I was right, though…” The wagoneer so observed the rest… “Yeah, those things are way too invested in their eat-fucking; they don’t care about the fact I just shot one of them… In fact, they probably just wanna eat it now…”

  “Hmm, so it may seem.” Yet the foreigner’s mask-obscured eyes remained fixated on the corpse of that wild glow-spider so recently shot, pulpified brain matter and flickering blood oozing from the entry hole.

  Yet… So very quickly, something strange was beginning to happen. Despite their now being a fresh corpse ripe for consumption, none of the crystalline arachnids seemed particularly interested, even though they absolutely should be. And the foreigner already knew why.

  “Look.”

  “W-what?” The wagoneer immediately relooked at his kill. “What about it? It’s a nice clean shot, I know” he remarked rather humorously.

  “No, look.” she stressed.

  And thus he looked…and then looked. “…what… What?”

  Something was not right. Its mana, he observed. The monster’s mana was…radiating and dusting off in ways that…mana was not supposed to. Sparking and throbbing, flickering as if…falling apart, spontaneously and rapidly decaying at speeds beyond abnormal, flaring in ways unnaturally visible…

  It was as if its very essence was deleting itself.

  “…is… Is that usually what’s supposed to happen?” he asked, despite knowing what her answer was going to be…

  “No.” she replied bluntly; “The brain was destroyed the bad way.”

  The radiant crystalline growths visually wheezed, the chimera’s glow-crystal flickering violently and unstably as the radiance rapidly dimmed, dulling and withering; the crystalline compounds themselves began to die and melt almost, dissolving and disintegrating as the wisp-dust sparked and wailed, popping and bursting as if, decaying into nothing. The creature’s very blood, infested with exoticism, lost its radiant glow.

  Left behind in the end was essentially a squishy chimeric mess of a fleshy corpse, devoid of all of its exoticisms and prior arcane composites, its once vibrantly wild glow-stone now nothing more than dissolved fragments of an empty husk.

  This result that came to no surprise to the foreigner, indeed; owing to the type of essence chimeras ultimately had, even if having been altered and made more peculiar, this one particular…quirk and…inconsistent tendency persisted, nevertheless. And now there was not even a glint of that essence left behind, besides free-floating residuals and associated radiation.

  The wagoneer stared down at the corpse afar, stunned and confused… “So, uh… Why… Why did its glow-stone just…poof and scatter away like that??” His eyes flung their sight to her; “Seriously?? What the demonic fuck just happened??”

  “Exactly what I did not want to happen; that is what happened.” The foreigner so simply sighed… “You shot the head, destroyed the source, and erased the soul.” Her voice was so very blunt…and cold.