“Good man.” the overseer who introduced himself as Robert said whiles slapping Dorian on the back and leading him towards a side entrance.

Such a simple gesture took Dorian back to times when the old guard, the older hunters flexed their might by doing something aggressive and making it come off as benign. They justified it by saying it was to toughen up the younger generation. A rather popular one was a friendly slap to the back that launched the receiver forward. Dorian had been on enough receiving ends of such 'friendly pats' to recognise the calloused hands.

And Robert was one such person. Or he used to be. It didn't matter now though. After the System left they were now equal and yet all somehow less for it. Focusing on what was important, Dorian brought his mind back to the present and was led to a changing room and given the same grey overalls, special rubber boots, a workers pass and a biometriacally keyed locker to store his stuff in.

Left alone, Dorian changed out of his suit and stored it in his locker, then slipped into the soft and comfortable material of the overalls. He squeezed his feet into the rubber boots and walked around to get used to them and was about to leave when he froze. He'd forgotten the depleted core and the only reason he was here in the first place. He debated getting it but decided to leave it, not on the first day. With that he strode out to start his first day.

Dorian exited the changing room to find Robert standing outside and waiting for him. The man was scrolling on his terminal and rapid firing orders. Dorian cleared his throat and smothered a smirk when the man turned to him without ever lifting his eyes from the terminal. A workaholic. “Ah yes Dorian, since it's your first day, I'll give you a tour of the facility and then we can assign you a position that best fits you.”

With that the overseer walked off still scrolling through his terminal and Dorian ran to catch up. With a distracted air Robert started pointing out different structures around the underground facility and what they did. Dorian tried to follow along as best as he could but soon found himself lost, plus he was never interested in the running of the power plant anyway. All he wanted to know was about the sphere housing the dragon core in the center of it all and the source of Echo powering the city above and charging the air.

After what felt like hours but was actually minutes, Robert run out of things to point and talk about and approached the centre where the sphere was.

'Finally!' Dorian thought.

Robert smiled like he knew what was going through his new workers mind. He gestured to the sphere and the blinding light pouring from it's glass panels, “This here is a modified Dyson Sphere, modified because we lack the materials to build a complete one that can harvest this particular cores energy. You must have heard about where this core came from.” Dorian nodded and the overseer continued.

“Well the beast it was harvested from was the only one in recorded history to weaponise echo itself and use it to such devastating effect. This core is a little special, it has a higher purity of echo meaning more energy and for longer, maybe forever. The one problem is, the way it was used previously gave it some rather odd characteristics— it periodically releases bursts of energy that slowly breaks down everything around it. Don't worry it's not lethal to us, but that's where we come in. The powers that be wanted to stick the core into a hole and have it generate infinite power. The core had other ideas and so we stick around to replace the parts that inevitably break down.”

Dorian nodded along interested despite himself, he'd seen monsters pull of physics defying abilities, hell he'd pulled off a few himself. But once they were killed, the cores harvested from said monsters had no special characteristics. The dragon core was different. Robert begun talking again and Dorian dragged his attention back.

“Oh and by the way, if you're planning to recharge a core from the excess energy of the dragon core— well do I have bad news for you. You are way too late for the best time to do it. ” Robert paused and laughed at the expression that his new worker had tried and failed to suppress.

“The best time to do it is when we replace the glass panels on the sphere since they're always breaking down. And that moment when we remove the panels is when this entire cavern gets flooded with Echo.”

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With a casual gesture, Robert sent Dorian the schedule for when the panels and other parts of the sphere were to be replaced. “That's all for today Dorian. And please come early for work tomorrow.” With that the man walked off chuckling to himself.

With manic energy, Dorian checked the schedule for the next replacement time and found out he'd missed it by a day. A damn day. The next was in a week. He could wait. With hope putting a spring in his step, Dorian nearly ran to the changing room and and was out of his overalls and topside in minutes. His suit back on. Dorian couldn't believe it but he was itching for work the next day, he had to practice siphoning echo if his plan was to succeed.

He sent a message to Dan and found a quaint coffee shop to sit and wait for his ride. Dorian looked around at the City of Kowloon and not for the first time was hit by how different it was from the lodge. The smooth garbage free streets, the inviting store fronts and the people with life in their eyes who were actually living. He sipped on his coffee and decided to do something productive instead of obsess over something he couldn't change. Fixing and strengthening the security on his terminal to make sure he would never be caught flat footed again.

Hours later, Dan pulled up and Dorian got in. The man looked happier and cheerier which clued in Dorian to what he'd been up to. Though Dorian really didn't want to think about that.

“So did you get the job?” Dan asked.

“Yeah I did.”

“Cool, I thought they kicked you out or something. Well because you're you.”

Dorian flipped him off and they both laughed and started the long drive back to the lodge. In the middle of their drive Dorian had a thought and asked Dan, “Think you can get me any depleted core.”

Dan looked over confused and simply nodded. “I'll see what I can do.”

The next day Dorian was bright and early before the power plant, though a pissed off Dan grumbled at the early start and promised to give Dorian his own spare key to the van. With butterflies in his stomach, Dorian descended the elevator to start his new job.

The butterflies quickly shriveled away and died. The work was back breaking and involved a lot of running and carrying a lot of things that broke down and then carrying new things to replace said things that broke down. At lunch time, Dorian was seriously contemplating quitting when a few fellow hunters sat around the sphere in a meditation pose with depleted cores in their laps.

Dorian jumped when a voice behind him begun, “We don't know why but that pose helps to absorb the echo faster. Go on try it. ” Dorian turned to find Robert smiling and gesturing to an open spot. Dorian nodded and moved to it.

He sat on the metal floor and made little corrections Robert suggested, like straighten his spine and neck and have his hands rest on his knees. Dorian made the corrections and felt surprisingly relaxed and 'opened'. “Now”, Robert continued “Feel the energy of the world and the magnificity of where you are. The divine souls surrounding you and the power the speaker evokes.”

Dorian opened one eye and deadpanned. “You're messing with me aren't you.” The boisterous laughter around the cavern was answer enough. Dorian closed his eyes and held the pose, slowly beginning to siphon the excess echo from the air and into the depleted core in his lap. Dorian had no benchmark to judge it but he felt the energy move quicker into the depleted core. He was never going to tell the still laughing dick heads that.

That night Dorian stumbled to his bed, peeling his clothes off as he went, bone tired. A flash of light made him turn his tired head to the flickering crystal in his pocket. He pulled it out and gauged his progress through tired eyes, it was barely full. It would take months of work to suitably fill it up. Knowing it was stupid and would probably derail the work he'd already started but too tired to care, Dorian pulled out his necklace with the essence stone.

With a barely filled core in one hand and an essence stone in the other, Dorian pulled the meagre energy out and passed it through his body and into the essence stone in his hand. The energy hit the stone and was rebuffed. Despair threatened to crush him till he remembered the blood he'd shed on the stone the previous time he'd done this. With a savage bite, Dorian cut his finger and squeezed the blood onto the stone.

With manic energy, he directed the quickly dispersing energy back towards the stone and this time it seamlessly sunk into the stone. With bated breath, Dorian felt as the echo coaxed out whatever energy or thing was in the stone and into his palm which he mindlessly pulled into his body.

The mysterious thing and the echo it rode slipped Dorians control and run through his body. Dorian attempted to reign it in but was powerless to do anything but sit and feel the thing travel through his body. The thing descended to just below his navel and with a click that shock his body it fit into an opening there.

Dorian was breathing hard at this point and wondered if maybe he'd been too eager without really understanding what he was doing. He closed his eyes to wait for the inevitable end only to see something in his minds eye. Whatever the thing was, it'd settled just below his navel and was now inert. The view was confusing but not more confusing than the knowledge that shined in his thoughts that he had to feed it echo.

Feed was the wrong word since it didn't appear alive. Maybe grow it was a better one.

Dorian sighed relieved that he was still alive and pissed that he'd have to go back to work tomorrow.