I walk the edge of the forest alone. Stone took Said with him on his way to Intong. Seems I am too slow. I follow behind them as they get further away. Said will wait at the furthest part of the forest for me. And that will be where I will wait.

  I called myself an echo. I had felt it before I was eaten. That I was part of something more. I huff out a sigh. It's hard keeping track of myself.

  Soul lowered to 500

  The dryad wanted a new experience, though on her terms. My soul is mostly her and yet it's slowly peeling away. Is it innate to what I am? A devourer. I read stories. Mostly tales fantastical as they were scary. They never spoke of merging of memories though. Just of people who grew their own souls at the expense of others. How inevitably they would get dragged to hell. Some stories said the creatures originated there. So did I come from hell or am I destined to go there?

  I keep moving towards where Said has stopped. I wonder if she can see the city from where she is. Will Stone arrive with Rin before I reach Said? I hadn't told Stone but my physical stats have plummeted. It's like when I was training at the castle. No cores, no tail, no stats. I can at least shift my skin to blend with the foliage. As long as I don't think too hard about it. Seems the more I try to blend the more obvious I become. It did require me to discard my robe. More reason to blend. I clutch my pardon to myself.

  -----

  “Why are you naked and a wrinkled?”

  “Strange, I thought you desired me, Glindinal? Why balk now?”

  The words escape me without thinking about them. They wrap around the Elf's mind. I shouldn't have done that. Glindinal struggles with my words. Her desire warped from part of mine. I walked over and cupped her cheek with my hand. She looks up at me with glassy eyes. I pull the desire back out of her.

  “Sorry, I'm a bit out of sorts. A large part of my soul wishes to ruin relationships for me.”

  She gains control of herself and grasps my face. She steals another kiss. Her tongue risked my teeth. She nicks herself again. The mixture of both bliss and intimacy threaten to overwhelm me but I pull back. She has a traitorous smirk on her face. She is cutting herself on purpose. I frown.

  “Din, we are here to heal her, not mate her.”

  “No Rin, you're here to heal her, I'm just here to watch and provide company.”

  I grow exasperated by her words. Said lands on her head.

  “You started it, don't glower just cause I took you up on it.” Glindinal says with a bit of amusement.

  A cough comes from behind the Elves. Stone walks up.

  “A new robe girlie.” He tosses the bundle to me. I motion Rin to me.

  “Think you can restore me?”

  “I don't know, Aurora.”

  She cuts her hand and fills a cup. She then dabs it onto the wounds in my back. I can feel the flesh knit and spine realign. But I am no more alive than before. She hands me the cup and I drink. My chest cavity reforms better, my body gains more pliantness. But I'm not alive.

  “I feel it didn't work, girlie.” Stone replied

  “It did not.”

  “Sorry, I don't know how you revive yourself.” Rin says in stilted pauses.

  She has a bit of thirst now. I frown at that.

  Soul lowered to 499

  Another wince. I'll have to keep devouring to stay alive…stay undead. First her thirst. I go to stand and immediately fall over. Nooooo. I close my eyes trying not to see the truth. Rin picks me up and leans me back against the tree.

  “Sorry, Aurora…”

  The body was whole but I couldn't move my legs.

  “It's not your fault. I should be dead.” My emotions hitch.

  “You are dead.” Said says from Glindinal's head.

  I give an annoyed look at my tailless piece of soul. The vines wrap around my legs and squeeze again. Still painful. I walk towards the forest.

  “Where are you going?” Glindinal asked.

  “I need to take care of Rin's thirst."

  -----

  Her footsteps hurried behind me.

  “Hey.”

  I continue forward. Something.

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  “Hey.”

  I wish I had my ability to smell. Damn it. She touches my shoulder.

  “What?”

  Glindinal backs up a bit, “It's not safe to go alone.”

  She should be more worried about being alone with me. A part of me wishes to continue what she teased me with. I teased her with. My only experience with that was as a dryad and the harpies. The dryad ended with consuming the participant. I direct the desire to myself knowing it makes matters worse.

  “I'm not safe to be around Glindinal, even talking like this is causing me to have intrusive thoughts.”

  “Like what?”

  My eye winces. Where is Said? “My soul is mixed with a dryad…it's making me think of consuming you, first in passion then as meat.”

  “Are you sure it's the dryad part?”

  Why does she press me so much? “Do you want to be consumed?”

  “Better than being reborn as a [Princess], but I don't think you would.”

  She steps towards me. I stumble as I back away. I hit a tree. I look to the side, look for an escape. Her hand hits the tree next to my head blocking my view. I turn my head to which point she grabs my face and kisses me again. She is insane…I surrender myself for a moment. She cuts herself again on my teeth. I keep her blood for myself, sorry Rin, this is my bliss alone. She pulls back.

  “Aurora, dryad consume people cause they are bored. Are you bored with me yet?”

  “No.”

  She blinks for a moment then smiles. “Good. Now let's go find a rabbit or something.” She walks off, then turns back. “By the way, you need to figure out a way to get alive again. Cold is thrilling and all but I prefer to feel your heat.”

  I grouse at her unreasonableness.

  -----

  In the end we found a rabbit. I drained it dry. It soul broke apart even as I tried to take it in. Too young. But Rin's thirst was satisfied. Surprisingly, I didn't gain any new traits from it. I shrug with the thing in my hand. Then look back down. I turn it over in my rather sharp hand.

  “Aurora?”

  I bite an ear off. There was no real taste. Perhaps being undead removes that from me. I snap the bone and feel a shiver inside me. It's indescribable how satisfying the crunch is.

  “That good, huh?”

  I look up, realizing I have an audience and hide the bunny behind myself. I give a rather shaky, toothy smile.

  “Like yes and no, I was curious about the meat but I felt nothing. The sensation of taste is pretty muted for all things that aren't living blood. But snapping the bone itself gave me a thrill. I don't really understand it.” I look away while saying it.

  “I mean it's just a corpse, what's wrong with eating it.”

  I look back, she has a wry grin. My shaky smile becomes a little sturdier. I reach up to take another ear but she snatches it from me. I give her an annoyed look.

  “If it's just the bones, don't begrudge the rest of us its meat.”

  Fine.

  -----

  The fire snaps at the night. I sit opposite of Stone. Both Rin and Glindinal are sleeping under a canopy of twisted vegetation.

  “So how come you're still…”

  “Undead? My blood core was ripped out. I put it into myself but I just rotted away. Then I shot my chest out with a light ray which vaporized the core. I ate myself afterwards.” I murmur the last part.

  “Mourns, that made not a lick of sense.”

  I grimace, Said floats over “What the idiot is saying is she fought a dryad, who stole her core. She killed the dryad and ate her soul. Now we are having a hard time telling the differences in her memory. Cause now they're all hers.”

  “Fark, Mourns.” Stone huffs out. “Only heard of dungeon core bosses having physical cores.”

  “Doesn't matter now, it's gone now.”

  “I mean cores grow back if you shatter them. Why not this one?”

  I look at the dwarf. “A lot of my magics are greyed out on my [Status Screen]. I just assumed it means I've lost multiple cores.”

  He scrunches his nose, “I mean I heard breaking a core multiple times can cripple a person but you had this one since before you met me. How big was it?” I make a space in my grip demonstrating the size, “Definitely comparable to a dungeon core then.”

  “How long do they usually take to come back?”

  He shrugs. Damn. I won't know when to give up hope. The fire burns in front of me.

  Soul lowered to 496

  I wince. He catches it. He raises a brow.

  “My soul is burning away to keep my body moving. I could keep devouring souls but at some point I fear I won't be me anymore. Like I don't know what part of my soul is burning away till it does. I don't think I have a lot of memories of being me. Fark, I almost was just the dryad in a new body. There are so many harpies in me. I just feel lost.”

  He stares at me stunned. Another crack of the fire, and he speaks again, “Yet you still retain your sense of self?”

  I look up at the sky. Cloud cover. No stars. “I don't know. I feel like there is a mind that is me. That is fundamentally me, Aurora.” My soul thrum at that.

  “I keep hearing you bein’ called that. It wasn't one of the names listed for ya, Mourns.”

  Shit, I keep giving that name out. I should at least keep the second part to myself. I shrug, “I don't know what to tell you. The [Baron] said I had a sister.”

  “Sure, but your blood identified you as Sara Maxwell Magdeline.”

  “Which I don't think is wrong. I just hope Kargnia has answers.” Another snap of fire, “How are we even going to traverse these plains though. You were worried about me being spotted.”

  He thinks on that, “Well, ya don't exactly breathe, do ya?”

  -----

  This is a daily reminder: You have 384 unallocated stat points

  I'm completely scrunched up. The only thing I can see is my mother working on some reports. None are ever about me. I suspect she only takes verbal reports for that. I've been seeing her with more of her troops recently. It gives me a bad feeling.

  Another bump. I feel my whole body heave inside this box. I can't believe Stone's idea was to stuff me in a box and drag a cart. This is just awful. But worse, it's boring. Just darkness and Cea vision. I hope she doesn't go to sleep.

  “Oy, you a merchant. You don't got much for wares there, Dwarf. Or do you traffic in these Elves?”

  “Who traffic in what?” Glindinal says in stilted [Common].

  “Step aside fools, plenty room in the cart for bounties.” Stone shouts.

  Are we? Are we being robbed?

  “You're quite intimidating there but can you protect those two as well. Come now, you just need to leave the cart behind and be on your way. We ain't monsters after all.”

  I push my mana aura out. I gloss over my friends' mana aura and find seven auras trying to resist me.

  “Oh what's goin’ on.” He titters, “Boss, something feels wrong. I feel cold.”

  “Ah laddie, you woke the dead. I be moving a corpse for a funeral ya see, some important Elf daughter and well she keeps gettin’ back up.”

  Maybe I don't need to end them. Stone's idea is pretty funny. I thump the chest. The souls quiver. I thump again, then push it open. I grip the lip of the cart and pull myself up. I look at the arrayed bandits with my sharp teeth on display. I can see it further unnerves them.

  “Blood.”

  The mere mention causes it to flee their faces. I flex my aura a bit more. I start laughing. They start laughing. When one pulls out a knife aiming at himself, I pull back my aura on them. He saw what he was about to do. A whimper and he ran away, his Drakenoid tail wagging back and forth. It causes the others to follow suit. I wince as I see black lesions form on their bodies.

  “Surpised you didn't actually want their blood.” Glindinal says.

  Said spoke as I returned to my chest, “Not worth the memories.”