"Three shucks, 5 dreks."

Amber sighs, wondering how she's going to make it. She'd been struggling in her past life and this one was so much harder. She's not human, she has to find ways to leave this world to steal from another, and she still hasn't figured out how to afford a room, shower, and food in the same day.

It wouldn't be so bad if she could get the cost of the items she'd brought back. This spirit world supposedly runs off of energy from a living world. Despite what she's been told she doubts there's just one living world considering the current world she's in is full of weird mythical creatures. So down to the river to go through to a mortal realm. She has to run the gauntlet of more powerful creatures that demand tolls and tithes, bullies who rob you on your way to and from work, making an impossible task even less pleasant. Finally you have to have great luck or good instincts to jump into the World Pool at a time when there's something of value on the other side or be willing to risk banishment and dying again as your spirit dissipates, unable to hold itself together.

So far Amber's jumped into the river to find family's having picnics or fishing around the edges. This is considered good luck. All she'd have to do is drag one of them back through with her. True, they'd drown, but their spirits would be worth a fortune. Young children are worth more. She'd just have to shove something into their mouth as they drowned, collecting their spirits, run that through the gauntlet, get to the collection office and turn it in. Then she'd be able to live some semblance of a normal life in this strange world. But she can't.

Amber was barely able to pull off sales. If they didn't need it who was she to try to get them to spend their money on it? Now she's called Sprouting Garnet Coral and she's expected to murder children to live comfortably. She can't do it.

Usually she just steals something, mortal items have value, too. She got mocked for being squeamish, for not yet figuring out how the world worked or she'd have brought back more than some terrified child's shoe. But there'd been enough essence and fear soaked into the item that she'd gotten 3 Shuckles for it. She'd thought that had been enough, maybe 3 bucks? Rent for a hole in the wall was 10 a month. She'd thought she'd be fine. Then she found out that you could only visit the mortal realm once a month. She'd had to sleep outside.

Luckily she'd noticed others foraging for food. They'd thought she'd just gotten lost, given her tips and tricks on foraging and how to cook and preserve what she'd harvested, then given her a quick rundown on how to navigate the spiritual bamboo forest that she'd hidden in. That was good enough for food, her needs having dropped considerably. She'd hoped to save up her money, sleeping outside and foraging, maybe washing off in the river, but then she'd found out that the river wasn't water, it was a portal, which she could only access once a month.

A month without bathing, poor nutrition, and she'd only had 3 shucks, which she could only hold in her hands. She'd been robbed of it all when she'd gone to the World Pool to try her luck again. There'd been five different bullies exacting tolls on her way down. She'd only been able to pay three. So in she went, beaten when she couldn't pay the tolls of the last two, injured and afraid, how could she make someone else suffer the same pain and fear? And then to take their lives? No...

She'd come back with a cheap, wool shawl. It was thick, but very ugly, the wool had been cleaned, but the garment had seen extensive use and was barely cleaner than she was when she'd fought the poor woman for it. She hadn't gotten much for it, but it was enough to get a poor meal. That was something at least. She'd been weak and injured, but humans couldn't hurt spirits, and luckily for her the woman had been human, not a hunan or cultivator. Or worse, a spiritualist. That was something else to be on the lookout for.

Human's need special tools and abilities to harm spirits, if they can at all. They're the best bet for easy essence. Hunan's were a bit trickier. They're like spirits in the mortal realm. Cultivators were hunans who'd managed to refine or use their abilities. Spiritualists? Spiritualists were to the mortal realm what spirits were to the spirit realm. Spiritualists could trap and kill spirits, using their bodies for various things. Her luck had held out long enough for her not to have to encounter any of those yet, even if it wasn't enough to get the bullies to leave her alone. No. That had been her poor hauls.

There were other pools, or so she heard, but those were through gates with actual tolls on them. She was neither strong enough or rich enough to go through the gates. She couldn't even get into the gates of the city, poor and dirty as she was, the guards converge on her quick to toss her out. Which was more the pity. A cost of 10 shucks for renting a closet for a month, two for a bath, one for a meal. She'd gotten three shucks for a child's shoe. But that was from a collector inside the walls. Outside there were hawkers who'd only pay a fraction of what the collectors would pay, but she couldn't get in the walls. It was 3 shucks for a terrified child's shoe in the walls, but only 5 Dreckle outside the walls.

She'd been living in this hell for almost a year before she'd found a slightly more experience spirit that saw how she'd tried, saw how she'd failed, and didn't hate her for not being able to kill despite her hardship. She wasn't just not doing anything. She still went out and retrieved items, bringing them back. She'd kept trying. So they'd helped her.

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They hadn't done much. They'd bought her a meal as she'd gone back to her hiding place to dig up the money she'd saved. She'd almost had enough for a bath. They'd taken her to the pool halls, vouching for her so she couldn't be thrown out, and then paid the difference so she could get a bath. That had been enough. She hadn't turned in her catch yet, another child's shoe, but she was inside the walls now. And the child hadn't just been a child, they'd been a hunan child. Even better, a budding cultivator. The shoe had net her 14 shucks. She'd wept.

Her mentor had shown her where she could get a cheap room, even cheaper than 10 shucks a month, being clean was enough to grant her access to more spots deeper in the city, although she still didn't have gate money. A decent room for 5 shucks a month. Only two if she was willing to go in with flatmates. She'd been willing. Two shucks a month to share a room with four other spirits, low spirits like her, only one of them actually having scales to protect their soft body. Meals could be found for 3 drecks if you knew where to look, and they'd shown her.

In the city there was a work board, requests for odd jobs, that were much more straight forward, and less child murdery, than what she'd been trying to do. Apparently the World Pool was something more advanced spirits could do for a quick payday, and here she was with her scale-less tail trying to do it as her only source of income when she was incredibly squeamish about what it entailed. Her new friends had laughed at her, and for good reason.

Eight months of failed Pool runs, two weeks of just learning the outer city, and now she was going to attempt her first request job. Something simple to start off with, just finding one person in the city, they'd be in there shop, she just had to find the shop then find them, then ask them what they needed. Usually it was a message they wanted to tell someone, but they'd forget so they had a permanent spot for the bulletin board for anyone willing to go to them as a reminder.

An infinite "Gossip Quest". Or at least that's how the others describe it. Just go to this shop, they'll tell you who you need to talk to and where that person is, just relay the message to them. Sometimes they might send you back with a response. Seeing how you had to go back to tell the old man you delivered his message to get paid, might as well. Sometimes replies got you paid extra.

"'Feeding. Help me'?"

Amber still doesn't have full scales, but with these last months of steady growth they've sprouted a few. Mostly the biggest sign of their advancements are the whiskers that have sprouted over their wide mouth and the tail swishing from side to side behind them. The quest doesn't have a start or end, doesn't have a payment, is incredibly vague, and it's S-Tier. And it's not local.

"Three shucks, 5 dreks," she sighs after checking her money pouch.

She'd been doing quests, but she'd also been buying useful items. She's still sharing a flat, although she's been wanting to move out for a few months now. While taking on a non-local quest can be quite lucrative, some of them were traps set up by spiritualists, binding rituals. But sometimes they were prayers by hunans who hadn't realized their potential. You could get so much essence out of them! It was insane. So... Trap or no trap, and how much was she willing to bet on it? She doesn't have much money, but she's got a home, bed, accessories since she couldn't really wear clothes yet, and a nearly empty wallet.

"Risk it for the biscuit!" she says playfully, reaching for the flyer.

When she touches it, sending a little essence out to accept, the world doesn't go dark. The world goes away. She's left in a swirling vortex, black with rainbow sparkles and streaks, spinning along with two other people. They laugh, forget who they are, somehow remember each other, vow to stay together no matter what seeing how they're now all any of them have, and then they're blind and squirming. But they're still together. And there's food. So they feed.

There's surprise, concern, fear, elation, and food. They eat their fill, they eat more than their fill, they keep eating but the food's out of reach now, and they're still not hungry. They are hunger. They are three and there's something massive nearby, but it's not foo--. Oh, yes it is. But how to eat it... The other things touch them and are consumed, absorbed, made them. This one? This one they can't just absorb. They're absorbing something but not this thing. They continue discussing everything, keeping in touch, updated, connected, feeling more and more of something, but they don't know what. Then they're feeding again.

" ♪ Jennu, you naughty bastard... ♪ " The not them squeals while spinning everyone around. "Oh, shit! Wait. My babies have stats? Fuck yes! Wait, name is--? Nuh nuh nuh... Uh-uh. Fuck off!

"Adonia!" Merging Reds has been renamed. They are still them, but they feel more.

"Heran!" The one who was Amber then Sprouting Garnet Coral feels the world shift. They have become more.

"Maru!" Elastic Memories is now other. They are still them, but they have also become more.

"Get some! Fuck, I'm thirsty... Mother's job is sacrifice! Can I drink wine? I need wine... Let's do this! Imma teach them stuff..."

Heran doesn't know how to laugh to laugh. Whatever this is, whoever this is, their thoughts and their actions don't quite line up. They're like a broken puppet and they're hilarious to watch. Wait. Is this her new boss? Oh no, was this a trap? If so they didn't do it right. They should feel absolute obedience but Heran just feels hungry. And curious. And excited! A whole new world! Free food, there's more now, little fizzy bits they can absorb. Growth here is so much faster. And this whoever keeps giving them a steady stream of essence. Essences. Gods bless... From nothing to doing okay to rich! There's so much that they're not absorbing, that all of them can't absorb, and there's fizzies!

Knowledge and food. So much growth. Too much? How bad is this world that --. No. Better not to jinx it. Just... Keep watching, keep eating. They're going to enjoy this time of plenty while they can.