Days of driving down long dreary roads, unscrewing panels he'd screwed in the previous day then screwing in a new one. Days of welding cracks that only seemed to appear when his back was turned, and carrying giant cables that always had something wrong with them. Dorian's time at the Kowloon City power plant blurred together into a cascade of exhaustion and regret. The only saving grace and the one thing that kept him going were the moments he sat in front of the sphere and coaxed Echo into the fitfully glowing cores in his lap.

Moments where he could turn off his brain and simply do something simple. Something that made him feel he was working towards something. To maximise the time gathering echo, Dorian stayed before the sphere and the dragon core during work breaks to maximise the time he could gather echo. And it was paying off.

Dan had pulled through for him and gotten him two more depleted cores which were now glowing fitfully in Dorian's lap —though Dan had had to empty his account to do it. When a hunter was caught up doing something that didn't hurt them or anybody else, their fellow hunters broke their backs to help them do it. Dorian saw the looks his friends gave him and he assured them as best as he could that he was okay.

Those moments were the worst for Dorian because he had to stop himself from blurting out something that would worry them even more. He didn't have proof yet and saying something now would make him appear crazy. Plus the thing he'd absorbed from the essence stone had settled into him, just below his navel and it hadn't moved or done anything since. Neither benign nor malign.

It was just there and Dorian didn't know how to feel about that.

A deep breath pulled more echo from the air and flexing a new skill he'd recently developed, Dorian split the energy into three different streams and directed it towards the glowing cores. The cores glowed just a fraction brighter. After hours of being constantly doused in echo energy, it was no wonder his control over the energy had improved.

Dorian breathed deeper to coax more energy out of the air when the snap of a camera intruded into his thoughts. He opened heavy-lidded eyes to see a frowning Robert. The man flicked a message to him and growled, “You're not looking good son.”

Dorian was about to argue when Robert stopped him with a gesture to his terminal. With a restrained sigh, he pulled up the message and froze. It was a picture of himself just minutes ago. Dorian looked horrible with bloodshot eyes with heavy bags underneath them. His pale skin and slightly gaunt face painted a picture of someone who wasn't taking care of themselves.

Wordlessly Dorian got back to his feet and pocketed the cores, forcing a grin on his face. And for the first time noticed how empty the cavern was. He tried to play it off, “Uh let's go get breakfast before those gluttons finish everything.”

Robert shook his head and made his way to the cafeteria whiles saying over his shoulder, “It's lunch.”

Dorian had been sitting for hours and he hadn't even noticed. Sighing heavily he followed after his boss.

The instant Dorian entered the bustling cafeteria all conversation stopped and all heads turned as one to stare at him. He was about to duck out of the place when thunderous applause jolted him and what looked like credits changed hands. Damn bastards had been betting on him.

Surprisingly the joviality of the whole thing made it less awkward for Dorian and he was soon joking around and ribbing with his fellow hunters. Maybe the Lodge could learn a thing or two from the hunters of the Kowloon city power plant. After stacking his plate high with anything his hand could reach and his plate could hold. Dorian sat at the only empty seat and dug into his mini mountain of monster steak and potatoes with a sauce-heavy pasta.

He looked up after a few minutes of shovelling food down his throat and a particularly nasty belch to find Robert staring disgustingly at him. Robert shook his head and pushed his untouched plate towards Dorian and pulled up his terminal to block the site of his worker savagely descending on the offered plate. Suitably sated of hunger he hadn't noticed till he was presented with all that food, Dorian leaned back and sighed in contentment.

After minutes of silence with Robert focused on his terminal and Dorian trying and failing to start up a conversation so he could thank the man, Dorian gathered his courage and decided to wing it. He cleared his throat and began, “Either I was way too stuck in my head or you haven't been around as much for the past day or two. ”

Robert lifted an eyebrow over the top of his projected screen, “Oh so you did notice.”

The words delivered casually and with no malice behind them somehow made Dorian more embarrassed of how he'd nearly lost himself. Trying to deflect the conversation from himself he eagerly asked, “So where were you if you don't mind me asking? ”

Robert continued typing away at his terminal like he hadn't heard the question. Fearing he'd overstepped, Dorian was about to apologize when Robert looked around furtively and leaned forward, gesturing for Dorian to do the same. In a quiet voice, he whispered, “A second sphere. ”

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It took a minute of thinking for Dorian to get it but when he did his eyes widened in alarm. A second sphere meant another dragon core. And hopefully not a live dragon. With a shaky quiet voice, Dorian began, “I'm guessing you saw the new core.”

Robert shook his head and Dorian's heart fell. Robert suddenly leaned back as if they were having a casual conversation, “I was there to cannibalize parts for our sphere. It took me a lot of snooping to find this out, but from what I heard — it appears the Stewards royally dropped the ball on this one. A dragon was discovered nesting in terra alta, the highlands. The stewards wanting to equal their predecessors, strong-armed the GDF into starting another sphere project before they even harvested the core. ” Robert paused and looked up when he heard a worker approaching their table and asking about some work detail.

Dreading where the story was going and itching to find out, Dorian didn't know whether to curse the man for interrupting the telling or run away before Robert could finish delivering what he knew was gearing up to be bad news. He was contemplating his decision when the worker left and Robert continued. “So there was a massive movement of Stewards from all around the reclaimed lands to attempt to put down the dragon and harvest its core. Obviously, they failed.”

Dorian's breath whooshed out of his chest at the idea that a dragon with a score to settle was somewhere out there, bidding its time. But Robert had more bad news. “The entire endeavour was a failure, yes, but they heavily damaged the beast enough that it should have succumbed to its injuries. And the area it was last seen flying over was the wildlands. ”

And just like that it clicked in Dorian's head, the weird interaction with the Stewards days ago. The Stewards didn't care about some two-bit gangsters, they wanted to question the inhabitants of the two settlements that were closest to the wildlands. Kowloon City and The Lodge.

Dorian forced his attention back to Rober who was still speaking. “So yeah watch your back out there and expect increased Steward activity. ” Dorian nodded numbly along to the advice, knowing it was already too late.

The rest of Dorian's day was characterised by him making multiple mistakes on the simplest task and having to be sent home early for recovery. Robert walked him out with a guilty expression on his face. “Sorry son, didn't mean to lay all that heavy stuff on you. ” Dorian assured him he was okay and promised to take a lot of rest before he showed back up in two days, just in time for the panel replacement.

As Dorian moved to enter his van, he heard his name being called and turned. With reactions trained on the field of battle, he snatched out of the air whatever it was Robert had thrown.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Robert said and strode back into the plant.

Dorian opened his hand to find a full monster core shining brightly. The first he'd seen and held in years. Dorian pocketed it and drove back home, keeping his eyes peeled for any armour-wearing loons.

The instant Dorian felt the van transition from the smooth road to the bumpy one of the Lodge, he breathed out a sigh of relief. He was safe. The moment he opened the door to his home, Dorian stumbled to his bed and promptly passed out.

He woke up hours later in the middle of the night hungry. Dorian prepared the last noodle pack in his house and sat down for a very late dinner. One of the things that had fallen on the wayside during his mindless pursuit was the state of his finances. Dorian pulled up his account and nearly spat out his mouthful of noodle soup. He was rich.

It seemed the power plant paid their workers on the hourly and Dorian had accrued a lot of credits, almost enough for a monster core. He was already opening the page for the monster core sale when the image of himself from earlier today flashed before his eyes. He was doing it again. Dorian quickly shut down his terminal and breathed deeply, centring himself.

Once he felt the obsession that had been haunting him pass, Dorian pulled up his terminal and quickly forwarded some credits to Dan, for the depleted cores. He looked around the sorry state of his house and decided to put it in an order for some basic amenities. Food was next on the list, real food, not the noodles he'd been slurping for months. And lastly he put aside some credits to fix the motorcycle parked out front. He needed his means of transportation.

With that done and after polishing off his noodle soup, Dorian finally allowed himself to bring out the thing that had been burning in his mind since he woke. The monster core. A fully filled core. Dorian pulled out the three he'd been working on and laughed at the difference. Where one was filling Dorian's dingy home with its brilliance, the others barely glowed. And come to think of it, cores didn't normally glow this bright. Dorian scrutinised the core and knew without a doubt he was looking at months of painstaking work.

It was a core filled with pure echo from a dragon's core. A special core and most likely highly sought after on the market, and Robert had simply given it away. The thought put a smile on Dorian's face and tears in his eyes. Hunters were always giving and people were always taking.

Once Dorian would have contemplated selling it, but now the thought didn't even enter his head. Spurred on by the emotions that had been stirred by receiving such a priceless gift, Dorian pulled the echo from the core and into his body. And like a starving person, the thing within his body jumped on the echo and began to absorb it.

Dorian attempted to stop the absorption but was firmly rebuffed. He closed his eyes and focused on the thing in his mind's eye and was surprised to see it growing, enlarging into a sphere. A second and third stream of Echo joining the first made him open his eyes to see the cores floating and spinning around his body.

Dorian's jaw dropped at the sight and his surprise only grew when the brightly glowing core began to dim. How much echo did the damn thing need? He closed his eyes to find out what was going on in his body only to suffer another surprise. The thing had grown to a perfect dark sphere which was slowly spinning and continuing to absorb more echo.

With a clatter that brought his attention back, Dorian opened his eyes to find all three fully empty cores had dropped. Breathing heavily at the rapid-fire strange occurrences that had befallen him, Dorian made to get up and call for assistance when the sphere in his body pulsed once and pain as he'd never felt before landed through his body and locked his limbs up, making him fall.

A second pulse was too much and Dorian's mind slipped into sweet oblivion.