Emily forced her body to keep moving. She knew merit points would be important so she had to pick up all the left behind loot on her bathroom floor and in her shower. She wondered how many pieces of loot were washed down the shower drain when the water was running. It’s okay, it doesn’t matter. She didn’t have to be perfect. Today was more about survival than loot, but she would do the best she could to have something to show for that battle.

Besides four levels and a title of course, she thought to herself. A small smile came to her lips. It was nice to get rewarded for not dying on top of not being dead.

She hurried into her room and searched for one of her drawstring bags. That would have to do for now. She also grabbed a change of clothes, socks and shoes included, and placed them in the hallway bathroom.

The bathrooms were the only rooms without windows. After the bees, she really didn’t want to stand next to any windows while she recovered from that last fight.

She didn’t trust that more monsters wouldn’t fly in through her already broken window so she worked as fast as she could. She would change into a new set of clothes after gathering as many bees as she could in a few moments. The horrifying noises outside made her rush even quicker.

I don’t have to grab every one of them, she reminded her perfectionist mind, just enough to not be wasteful.

A few minutes later Emily slammed the door shut in the hallway bathroom. It was slightly larger and had the most walls between her and the outside. Finally she felt a modicum of safety. The noises outside alarmed her. It was absolute chaos out in the world, but she still needed to lick her wounds before she could face any other monsters.

Lick my wounds? I shouldn’t say that now that I have a tail, she mused.

Emily flipped on the light and finally allowed a look at herself in the mirror. Her wounds were far more bloody than she had expected. Her pajama shirt was stained red in several places. It made the pain she was in feel more justified.

Lots of people said that women had a high pain tolerance. Emily was not one of those women. She was quite intolerant of any sort of pain. However, she didn’t feel nearly as hurt as she felt she should.

“How many points do I have in Vitality?” She asked Strai’Ze. That must be what was helping to dull the pain.

“Nine with the Punching Bag title active,” the spore responded. “I made quite a few changes so let me show you your updated Character Screen.”

Name: "Royal" Emily Strai'Ze “Punching Bag”

Spore Suit: Locked

Titles: Dream Crusher, Punching Bag, Royal Slayer

Renown: Tier 0

Merit Points: 0

Myst Connections:

Sleep Low Mastery

Abilities:

Induce Sleep Low Mastery

Light Sleeper Low Mastery

Skills:

Stats: Level 5

Body: Tier 1

Strength: 3

Dexterity: 3

Vitality: 9 (+3 Punching Bag)

Mind Tier 1

Cognition: 2

Processing: 2

Imagination: 2

Spirit Tier 1

Might: 3 (+1 Royal Slayer)

Sense: 4 (+1 Royal Slayer)

*Depth: 4 (+1 Royal Slayer)

Available Points: 0

Seriously, what was up with these titles? Dream Crusher, Punching Bag? The effects were worthwhile, but she really didn't want to be wearing those banners proudly.

Emily was surprised by how far along she had gotten already. Jeff had taken quite a while to get to Level 5. She had done it in two fights. She had killed 47 monsters between those two fights alone.

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Killing a swarm of monsters clearly provided a lot of Myst, but it was also extremely dangerous. She got very lucky that those bee monsters hadn't killed even one more thing before coming after her. If they had one more level worth of stats it would have felt like getting hit by rocks instead of paintballs. She really needed some sort of armor. For now she would have to settle for the extra hoodie she grabbed.

Would the Pillar Shop be available to her? Could she even make it to the System Pillar a few blocks away? She would need far more abilities and levels to do so safely.

Alright, time to do the next most important thing. First, dress her wounds and get dressed. Emily peeled the bloody clothes off. Her skin was covered with welts and the occasional bleeding wound. The faintly glowing freckles made her now colorfully bruised body look like a tapestry. A very painful tapestry.

She went to take off her pajama bottoms and noticed her tail again. It felt so natural to her already. But she noticed something that she hadn't thought of before. The ghostly tail didn't create a hole through her pajamas. The glowing and mostly transparent tail didn't seem to be hindered by her clothes at all.

Thank goodness, she thought, having to cut a hole in all of her clothes sounded like a nightmare.

She reached back behind her and grabbed the tail. She could feel the touch of her hand on the tail and the tail responded to her grasp like a physical thing. But she could see her hand through the ghostly tail. The tail was more feline in nature than anything else she could compare it to. It was sleek with a type of fur that she only had her sense of touch to identify. The fur was surprisingly the most alarming part. It made her feel less human.

“It’s the fur and not the light shining out of my skin that makes me feel less human?” She muttered to herself. “All of this is so messed up!”

If this was the only thing that had happened to her this week then she probably would be freaking out about it. As it was, it was mostly just a ‘cool feature’ of all the changes that have happened to her world. Her only concern right now was that it might get cut off in battle or that she may have to relearn how to close doors without getting it jammed inside.

On to the next important thing, she let the mantra ring bring clarity to her situation as she finished changing into her new clothes.

Next she needed to try and achieve the same ‘sense field’ that Jeff and some other Chosen had mentioned.

She tried to reach out with her senses, but she couldn’t pinpoint exactly what part of her spirit was her senses. For a moment she thought she could sense something on the other side of the bathroom wall where there was another apartment. She couldn’t tell if her imagination was just running wild or if she could actually sense two people huddling up in the bathroom like she was.

She felt like a baby trying to learn how their fingers worked. She was reaching out without coordination and unable to confirm if the feedback she was getting was accurate or not. She would have to test it more later when she could actually see what she was trying to sense.

Okay, next thing.

“Strai’Ze, how do I get another connection? All of the Chosen’s feed got cut off during their connection visions and most didn’t talk their way through their thoughts.”

“Well, what type of connection do you want to build?” her companion asked. “When we build a connection to the Myst it is like choosing where we want great power. Do you want power to fight or power to avoid a fight? Both choices will help you survive. You could also seek to connect with powers in utility. You could-”

“I get it,” Emily interrupted. “I need to decide my direction first.” She thought about that for a moment before adding, “I also need it to be in something that I already have an affinity for, right?”

“Yes,” Strai’Ze stated.

“Alright, let’s give this a shot,” she said, closing her eyes. “I’ll do the meditating part and you do whatever you do…” Emily realized she hadn’t been very nice to the spore yet. “And thank you, by the way, for helping me survive.” It was a lame remark, but she hoped it would show her appreciation. She truly was grateful, it was just too crazy of a day to focus on anything besides survival.

A jumble of emotions came from the Spore before it said simply, “You’re welcome.”

With that Emily began thinking of all the things that she already felt a connection to. For a moment she thought about getting the Disc connection like Jeff had. They had played Ultimate Frisbee a few times while dating and they would go to a park and toss a disc back and forth pretty often. She knew she didn’t have the same affinity that Jeff had for it, but she at least had the visualization of how the abilities could look. Emily wanted something that felt familiar to her.

“That only has a 53% affinity.” Strai’Ze said. “Try something else.”

Emily then thought about dancing. She had been on a ballroom team in college. She thought could feel her spirit reach out to the idea, but then shy away. She always loved dancing. She just hadn’t done anything with dancing for almost a decade. She could probably force a connection there, but she didn’t feel that abilities around dancing would be as helpful for her today. She wanted to be able to give herself the best shot of survival now, and then she could build a dancing connection later.

“I agree with your thoughts,” the spore said. “Your affinity for dancing is 81%, it’s strong, but we can do better.”

Emily thought about her decades of singing as well and came to the same conclusion as dancing. She loved singing, but now wasn’t the time. She tried thinking of anything that could help her fight more. She liked the idea of avoiding fights, but she couldn’t really decide when it worked or didn’t. If an ability helped her avoid a fight, that was great, but what if it didn’t? Then all of her power would be in the thing that had already failed. It would hurt her chances of surviving the encounters she was actually worried about.

She began scouring her mind and spirit for anything she could count as an offensive ability. She was mostly drawing a blank. Then her mind lighted on a memory she hadn’t thought about in a long time.

Emily was the second youngest in a family with nine kids. Naturally, she didn’t get as much attention as some other kids may have gotten. She didn’t fault her parents for that, or at least she hadn’t before becoming a parent herself, but she had been emotionally neglected much of the time. Still there was the one summer when her father went out of his way to make her feel special.

When she was 10 years old her father decided to take a summer to teach her archery. He had been a bit old fashioned and wanted all of his kids to know how to fend for themselves. She could also tell that her dad wanted to give her a chance to do something with just the two of them.

It meant the world to her. He had taken her out to the field by their house and set up a target on some bales of hay. There they had practiced archery one day a week for a whole summer.

“Keep going. This is good,” Strai’Ze encouraged.

Emily felt her spirit reach out to the idea as she remembered the archery lessons her dad taught her. She put so much effort into each shot. She wanted the moments she had with her father to be perfect. With archery, hitting a bullseye was perfect. That sense of accomplishment she felt whenever she controlled her breathing and controlled her form enough to achieve the perfect result.

Suddenly Emily felt her spirit split down two paths. She wasn’t sure what was going on, but she tried desperately to maintain her train of thought. She wanted this to go perfectly.

“Don’t stop, Emily.” Strai’ze said.

Emily ignored what was happening in her spirit and focused on what she could control…

Then she finally recognized it. It was all about control. She wanted to go for the Disc connection at first because she knew what the results would look like. She wanted to control the situation. Then she avoided dancing and singing, despite her strong affinity, because it wouldn’t be perfect. Emily knew she was a perfectionist…but was she enough of one to gain a Myst Connection based on that? Maybe.

Her spirit was beginning to feel very strained at this point. She felt a shift in her body as Strai’Ze must have shifted her titles around. Her mind seemed to clear and she felt she could finish the last push.

She thought about why she liked archery and how everything with it had to do with control. Each movement controlled, each breath controlled, each release of the arrow a result of her control. Emily visuallied the arrow as she released it perfectly and how it flew on the path she had wanted it to.

She was in complete control of the arrow.

Finally, Emily felt like she could breathe again and the strain on her spirit vanished and she was left with a dull aching from the strain connecting to the Myst put on it. Emily opened her eyes and saw several screens had popped into her vision.

Emily smiled.

For the first time this week, Emily felt like she was finally in control.