The last girl in the world sat in her driveway, contemplating what to do next. Suddenly she had a world of choices. Which was a good thing! Sorta. She’d always struggled with decision paralysis and what was more, it seemed like the optimal choices were just… boring?

Okay, not boring really. But tedious beyond what might be tolerable. She had a lot of glyphs to run tests on. A lot. Counting radicals, nearly two hundred. She wasn’t even sure she got them all! So, now it was pretty clear what she needed to do. She could even test one of her prevailing magical theories in the process. But either way, she was going to be sitting here for probably the rest of the day and maybe even the day after just trying different glyphs and observing the results.

So, with a sigh she got started. The basic formation she wanted to create was simple, and she got to it with her chalk spear.

She was creating a modified version of her battery charging spell from earlier. Mana was gathered, flowed into one of the dragon balls, then flowed out into a capacitor. Any excess was channeled back into the dragon ball, and limited by one of her new gates . Excess from that would be expelled into a small flame. Easy.

The final touch was a circle coming off of that capacitor. It flowed to a three node circle, but the nodes were empty. At the end, it went back to the first circle, completing the circuit.

Now, she could add up to three glyphs to her test circle to see what they did, and they would be powered by the dragon ball if it had enough power. If it didn’t, then all she’d have to do is wait.

Which brought her to the brunt of her work. Meticulously testing every glyph and radical she found to figure out what they did. But first, the simplest thing she wanted to test. Actually, scratch that, two things! First she focused and felt her circle. She wrote just the two glyphs she wanted to test first into two of the empty nodes. And she did it with mana. It went off without a hitch!

Just like she thought, if she kept circles with empty nodes around, she could change just the glyphs on the fly by writing them in with mana! The downside though was also just as she thought.

Lily slumped forward, her hands on the concrete, gasping. The amount of effort that took compared to writing it in with chalk was literally staggering.

When she could, she glanced up. The nodes still appeared empty, at least to her eyes. But she could feel the two glyphs there, clearly in the way that she normally sensed mana.

Her first test was simple. She took the two radicals that made up the flame glyph, and split them. Normally the glyph looked like a little flame with lines coming off it, almost cupping it. So, in one node she had the little flame, and in the other she had drawn in the lines.

She could tell they were active, but neither of them appeared to be doing anything at first glance. Mana was flowing through them and definitely being expended though.

“Hmm. Great. How do I test this? Well, are they getting hot?”

When Lily could move she went and found a stick, then put it over the little flame node. Instantly it burst into flames. She yelped in fear and tossed it out into the road. Grabbing the Abolisher of Mistakes she sprayed it down vigorously. It went out like a normal fire would, thankfully.

So, Lily turned back to her work. Getting down on her hands and knees near the circle, she looked closely at the nodes. Oh. The air was warmer around the little flame one. She reached towards it, carefully. She wasn’t willing to put her hand above the node, but she wanted to make sure she was understanding correctly.

She was! There was just… heat. Just like her heat to mana glyph made it cold. She wasn’t sure how hot it was there, but she suspected she could turn it up or down by giving it more or less mana.

“Well, that settles that. What about the other one though?”

It was not heating up at all. Which made sense. It was another glyph. If they were two constituent parts of fire, what would that one be? A chemical reaction? Light?

“Oh duh! It IS light. But it’s already bright here. How can I double check?”

She looked around. Well, she couldn’t make it darker. But, she could turn up the light, right? So, she erased her newly discovered heat glyph, and turned up the capacitor to allow more mana through.

She turned to look at the suspected light glyph.

“Argh!”

She yelped in pain, and turned to look away.

“My eyes! Oww! Shit! Too bright!”

It was like she had looked directly into the sun! She closed her eyes and turned to face the circle. She could almost see it with her eyes closed.

“Way to blind yourself Lily. Good job. This is going great.”

She un-made the light glyph. It was like turning out a light bulb. Instantly, her closed eyes didn’t feel like she was facing the sun.

She sighed loudly.

“Well. That’s not what I expected. I thought I’d have a little glow ball or something. Like a will-o-wisp! That’s how the [Light] spell always works in games!”

She laid on her back and inhaled deeply. When she opened her eyes, she could still see some spots, but it wasn’t so bad.

“There’s so much to do. At least erasing glyphs isn’t nearly as tiring as writing them. I do have one more thing to test before I really get into it though. Time to experiment on myself. I haven’t been looking forward to this.”

But, there was no sense putting it off forever. Besides, if it worked, it’d help her a lot while she did the rest of her work. The idea was simple enough. She had a spell now that could charge a mana battery without letting it overcharge. So, what would happen if she did that again, but she was the battery?

She’d been thinking about it for a while now. Her gut was telling her a simple truth. Why couldn’t she channel mana from herself in more than a pathetic little amount? Because it was probably like discovering a muscle she’d never used. It was pathetic right now. But if she did it more, she ought to be able to do more and more in the future.

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Admittedly, it was a theory. But it just made too much sense when she thought about it like that. And she was pretty sure that she could already do a little more than the first night she’d tried it.

So, if she sat in a circle that charged her up without making her sick, and wrote out her glyphs today like that, it’d be like working out!

But, she suspected it’d be like working out. As in, super tiring! Still, she was going to be doing a lot of magic moving forward. So, she had to start somewhere, right?

“Assuming it doesn’t kill me.”

With optimism like that, who needed challenges? Lily grimaced, and started writing the circle. It was a simple modification of her circle from earlier. Instead of gathering ambient mana, she had it using heat to mana. She figured the cool air might help her, and put it far enough away from her on the circle that she wasn’t in any real danger of accidentally putting a hand into it or anything.

“Okay. Now I just have to set the capacitor to send me only one mana at a time, and complete the circle. Come on Lily. You got this. If it makes you sick, you can just roll out of the circle, and spray it down with the hose. It’s just chalk! Chalk can’t hurt you!”

She was very aware that chalk could hurt her. But, she completed the circle anyway. Mana filled the circle, and flowed into her. At first, she thought she had made a big mistake. It was uncomfortable. She felt like a garbage bag that was so full it was about to tear at the seams. But just when it was about to become too much to bear, it stopped. She watched it flow into her overflow. She closed her eyes and tried to endure it.

“Owww. Okay. Okay. Deep breaths. Oh this sucks. Okay. I’ve got this. I just need to focus on science through this. Testing. Testing. Wait, what was I testing next?”

Her veins felt like they were full of electric fire. It was so hard to focus. She tried to imagine what she wanted to do next, but it wouldn’t come at all. Then she had an idea.

Similar to what she’d done when she was overcharged in the pit, she focused on creating a spell in her palm. But instead of fire, she created light. Only a little. She pulled just enough mana out of her to take the edge off, and channeled it into the light spell. She opened her eyes and looked. It was too bright to see how much light she was conjuring. But it really did take the edge off.

Only now she had to focus on keeping the light spell going, and whatever she was doing. It was a little easier than with the sheer discomfort of being overfull with mana. But, it was still very difficult.

“This is harder than I expected. So, so much harder. But, it’s practice right? I have to get better at this. I have to. This is important for my future. So, I’ll just do it as long as I can. Every day. Until I know all the glyphs. Yeah. Let’s try that.”

Lily focused on maintaining her breathing, and glanced over her notes. What was next?

“I wish Star would come back.”

The dog had been playing in the nearby woods since about half an hour before Lily had come outside. He wasn’t normally gone this long, and it’d be comforting to have him here with her. But, he was an intelligent being. At least, she thought he was. So, she should let him have his freedom. When he came back, she’d tell him how much she’d missed him. In the meantime, Lily had work to do. So much work.

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Star had gone out to check his markings again when he and his Master had left the den. What he had found was unacceptable. He’d stood frozen, as the smells washed over him.

Not only had the strange pack of invaders covered his own marks, they’d made marks inside of his territory rather than just on the border. He could tell which one was the leader too. A large female dog. Her scent was not only past his territory line, but apart from her marking he could follow the trail of where she had been, and it extended right up to the fence of his backyard. There, he found a hole in the fence, and worse–

She had eaten some of his eggs! His eggs! His Master’s gift to him, crafted by the egg layers! This was unacceptable. The message was clear.

“Fall in line. You don’t have territory.”

Unacceptable. Unacceptable. Unacceptable! Star had wanted to put off the conflict, but he couldn’t allow this for even a moment longer.

If these intruders wouldn’t respect even a physical barrier, it was only a matter of time until they struck first. If they attacked while he was with his Master, she would not be able to defend herself from the wild pack. She was… squishy.

No, now was the time. He would take the fight to them rather than sit here and be humiliated.

But first, he hopped the wall again. He wouldn’t justify the hole the great foe had made by using it himself. Once inside his inner domain, he sniffed out the remaining eggs, and consumed them all. Even if he were to fall, not a single one of his remaining gifts would go to these wild wretches.

Once he’d consumed his Master’s great bounty, he set off on his new quest. He wasn’t sure how long he would be gone, but he did not want to worry his Master by saying goodbye. With any luck, he would return before the sun fell.

So, with that he left. He began his hunt by sniffing out the leader’s trail again. He was hopeful he could end this in a confrontation with her alone. Other members of her pack were likely not to blame. Although, he had no intention of claiming dominance and taking over leadership.

No, he had his Master to consider. Without him, she would surely perish. Taking on other responsibilities was out of the question, but this quest was part of defending his Master.

The trail led into the treeline, and then continued down along the coast. He had never been this far in this direction before. For that matter, ever since he had started being aware, he had not been so far from his Master.

For a moment, he wondered if his awareness might fade? It had begun while he had been with her. But, the further he traveled the less concerned he was. He still felt like himself after all, and he had bigger things to worry about.

As he continued, the smell of other dogs became stronger. It started to become more difficult to follow the leader’s scent amid all of the different dog smells. Particularly when different scents caught his attention. He was able to learn more about the pack. They were hungry. Some smelled malnourished and stressed. This changed his perspective somewhat. He had thought they were coming to invade his territory from a position of power, but he was beginning to think it was a position of desperation and aggression over resources instead.

Still, aggression was still aggression. He must not let his empathy shake his resolve. If they were desperate, they may be even more eager to attack. After all, his Master’s bounty was great. She controlled the duck feet, and the flow of kibble.

Perhaps he could entreat her on behalf of these intruders? Well, that would depend on how this conflict went. If they were determined to solve this situation with violence, then he would have to solve it with violence.

Just as he made that decision, he came to a clearing. He was on a cliff overlooking the sea. Below him was a cove where the sea had carved a small beach into the stone cliffs. The wind blew, and he could smell the stench of dogs. More than ten, at least.

As he followed the scent further, he found it led to a small path that would lead him down the cliff and onto the sand. But rather than following it immediately, he lay down and observed.

The wind was blowing up out of the cove and into his face, so he was certain his smell wouldn’t give him away to any of the dogs below, so he waited to see what he was up against.

Below, most of the dogs were resting. A few were huddled together, but most had simply found their own spots by digging slightly into the sand. Two of them were gnawing on bones from what seemed to be a fresh kill.

Then his eyes found her. The leader. A large black and white wolf shaped dog with glacial sapphire eyes. She was the only dog in the cove eating an actual meal. Her coat was glossy with a sort of radiance that the others didn’t have. He knew instantly it was her. She hadn’t spotted him yet.

It was time to make himself known. He proceeded up to the edge of the cliff, and howled. There was a sudden rush of activity from below as all of the dogs shot to attention.

She however, continued chewing while staring up at him. And when his howl was over, it was her turn.

At that moment, Star heard the howling of a demon.