Liv reappeared back in their room. Luna was standing at the door, desperately holding it shut. Hearing something, Luna turned around, seeing Liv standing there. She immediately spoke, a garbled mess coming out of her mouth. "Therearepeopleoutsidehelp."

  Liv shook her head. "I didn't understand any of that."

  Luna, seeming to be relieved that she was here now, took a few deep breaths before speaking."There are people outside please help."

  A very loud 'thump' sounded as something hit the door. Luna's eyes widened as she fell forward, directly into Liv's arms. She put Luna on her feet before turning back to the door, tapping a foot. As the 'thump' sounded again, the door flew open, a group of people entering the room. "Hey, she doesn't have any jewelry!," one of the people said.

  The person sounded male, a hood obscuring their face, as it did all of theirs. "Why are you here?," Liv asked.

  "We don't need to tell you, just kill you! And it looks like you've misplaced your spirit artifact, seeing as you have no gems on you, little girl."

  Liv had a wood spirit pull a spike of wood out of the floor, which she held aloft with Will. "Why are you here?"

  The man stepped back for a moment before pulling out a dagger which he immediately whipped toward Liv's face. She easily deflected it off a Thoughtshield before asking one last time. "This is the last time I'll ask. Why are you here?"

  "We've killed hundreds of Spiritspeakers," the man sneered. "What makes you think you'll be different, just because you got lucky to have wood near you, and then to have a shield ready?"

  Liv shook her head. "That wasn't an answer." She strode towards the group, the spike floating along next to her. She waved her hand and it accelerated towards the leader, who dove aside. The wood simply curved at him, the spike's point hovering in front of his eye. "I know I said I'd only ask three times, and I did. This means you're going to die, whether you like it or not. Choose. Fast and painless, or a lot of torture."

  The man instantly broke. Torture seemed to be a sore spot. "Sorry ma'am. We're here to kill the girl and you and then steal all your stuff," he said primly, fear coating every inch of his voice.

  "Who sent you?"

  "I don't know. The Guild makes sure there's no communication between employers and their employees."

  Liv nodded. "That's good enough."

  The spike went into the man's eye without any warning, instantly piercing his brain. She turned to the rest of the crew, who hadn't yet spoken or drawn weapons, but simply looked at the scene. "I don't recommend standing around. I may think it's a good idea to kill you for some peace and quiet."

  The rest of the crew exited with the man's body. Liv had the blood spirits move the blood out of the room, walking down the stairs with it. Quickly, she found an empty jug the barkeep had left handy and filled it with the blood, using a few fake copper coins to pay for the jug. She whisked it back upstairs, where Luna stared at her for a few seconds. She seemed to be brimming with questions. Liv set the jug down, sitting on her bed. She lay down, closing her eyes. Immediately, she felt Luna sadly slink to her bed with unanswered questions, twisting and rolling. Then Liv sat up.

  "I may have time to answer a few questions," she said, smiling.

  Luna glared at her, sitting up. Good. Luna was already less formal than before, when she wouldn't dare to glare at Liv. "What was that energy holding the spike up?"

  Liv raised an eyebrow, summoning a pinch of Will. "You can see this?"

  Luna nodded. "It looks like part of your consciousness."

  Liv shook her head. "Close, but not quite. It's my Will. You can describe it with its name."

  Luna nodded. "How are you so strong? Your enemies won't be able to kill you, unless they're nobles."

  Liv smiled, patting Luna on the head. "I'm strong for you normal people, yes. However, the people I fight aren't exactly normal either. Frankly, I don't think the nobles you're thinking of would hold a candle to them."

  Luna nodded, obviously not being able to comprehend their power because she hadn't seen anything like it before. "Where did you go?"

  "To another world. I have a connection with a friend and we can go between each other's worlds. I don't know why or how it developed."

  Luna frowned. "Why are you willing to tell me this?"

  Liv smiled at her. "I told you. I want a partner, and that means revealing a lot of information."

  Luna gave her a disgruntled look before falling into bed, asleep instantly. Liv flopped into bed as well, though she was unable to sleep.

  The demon haunted her. Ever changing, and so utterly powerful.

  And then Jay had been able to kill it whenever he wanted, but he'd let it live for a little while to spare the world. He was strong enough to do that. Let his enemies live until he decided to kill them. Liv imagined almost nothing could hurt him. Why was he there? Why was the 'Strongest Force of Good' bothering with Vivian? She'd had contact with him before, definitely, given how she reacted.

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  The questions swirled in Liv's mind as she fell asleep, until she finally did, descending into blissful dream.

  Liv woke up to a slight pressure on her stomach. Looking down, she saw a stack of items sitting directly on top of it, Luna adding her sword to the top, as if it was some artifact on top of a pile of treasure. The tower abruptly started to topple, directly onto Luna, stopping only when Liv had a wind spirit catch it in midair. Carefully getting out of bed, she had the wind spirit set all the items on the floor, the tower mostly consisting of furniture.

  Luna had the decency to look abashed as Liv raised an eyebrow in her general direction. "I-I don't know what I was doing, it just seemed like a good idea at the time...," she said, maturity peeking through her earlier, more childish actions.

  Liv sat on her bed. "From what I've heard of you, the town doesn't like you. You most likely didn't have a good childhood, and I'll let you do these things. However, I'll also give you a talking to when you do especially dumb things," Liv said, with a pointed glare after Luna started to slowly smile.

  Luna adopted her previous abashment and Liv nodded smugly, continuing. "So. One. What do you think would have happened if I hadn't woken up?"

  "I would've moved aside and created a mess on the floor?"

  Liv shook her head. "If you'd moved aside, you would have broken the floor. The stuff on top was falling from quite a height."

  Luna nodded. "And if you weren't as sturdy as you are, you wouldn't have been able to breathe. And if something useful had broken we would've had to get a new one. And the less fake coins you use the better." She looked down at the ground. "Sorry."

  "It all turned out okay in the end." Liv shrugged. "At least this time. Just try not to do it again. A single mistake repeated twice is not something I'd like, but different stupidities are okay."

  Luna nodded. Liv gathered their stuff, handing Luna a knife she found in her belongings, though she didn't remember putting it there. They walked out of the room, heading downstairs. The innkeeper handed them breakfast, which consisted of a pair of sandwiches they would eat while walking. Liv and Luna exited the room, walking through the already crowded streets. "Luna, where's the noble district?"

  Luna abruptly pointed down a road, and they continued, with Luna leading the way now. Soon, they reached a point where the crowd abruptly thinned, less people walking the streets, all of these new people wearing gaudy clothes and lots of rings. Liv stopped one of them. "Do you know anything about a hooded man?"

  The person she stopped looked at her, surprised, before shaking their head and walking away. Luna tugged on her arm, and Liv turned to her. "A hooded man? I think I may have heard of him before."

  Liv quirked an eyebrow, waiting for Luna to explain. "The lord of this place's spymasters always wear hoods and never take them off in public."

  Liv nodded. "Where can I find them?"

  "Well, the current one is off on vacation right now."

  Liv's eyes widened. "Their movements are public?"

  Luna nodded. "The lord's not very smart about this. He tells everyone what the spymaster does, at all times, just barely comng short of confidential matters."

  Liv shrugged. "Well, his idiocy is the better for us, then. Where is he off on vacation to?"

  Luna frowned. "I don't know. Never followed his movements myself, I was getting bea-" she abruptly cut off.

  Liv looked at her concernedly. "If you want to tell me what happened, do it whenever you want. I'm not going to ask past this."

  Luna didn't respond, and they continued on their way. Liv stopped a random passerby, asking them the question. Luckily, they were amenable enough to respond before leaving. "The Crystal Downpour. Where's that?," she asked Luna.

  Luna shrugged. "Find a map?"

  They quickly found a mapstore, grabbing a map of the surrounding area. The Crystal Downpour wasn't on it. She looked at a few other maps in the store, but found none detailing the area. Finally, she gave up, asking the salesman. "It's on an island," the salesman said. "A particularly pretty region of the island.

  He grabbed a map from under his desk, rolling it out. Pointing at an arbitrary island, he continued. "Right here. It's also a particularly dangerous island, so there's no transport there. Unless you're strong enough to get there yourself, whether by swimming, flying, or something else, you're not going there."

  The salesman shrugged. "You at least need a core to attempt the journey."

  Liv scowled. The stories said that a core would come eventually, but only after her pool stopped growing. She didn't even know if it would work with Will. "No one at all will grant passage?"

  The salesman shook his head and Liv walked out of the room, grumbling. Luna followed her. "So we need to get stronger?," Luna asked as they walked.

  Liv nodded. "Yes. For that, we can do the other thing I've been doing, and a bit of something for you afterwards."

  Luna bounced along next to her, asking "What are those?"

  "The first one? Searching out the altars. Then I can activate them and use the power of more types of spirits. As for the other one?," Liv's lips curled into a smile. "You'll see."

  Luna sighed. "So you'll tease me with the secret until you reveal it?"

  Liv's smile widened. "Basically, yes."

  Luna's bouncing ceased to be so 'bouncy'. They continued through the city, Liv eventually admitting she was lost. "All the streets are the same," she complained as Luna led them towards the exit.

  Luna made no comment, quickly getting them to the gates before they exited, walking out. The crowd here was divided into two halves, just as all the crowds were after you got used to them, and they simply followed the part of the crowd leaving. She paid no attention to the soldiers. If they hadn't stopped her once, they wouldn't this-

  A soldier stopped her. "Ma'am. Why do you have this..." he spouted a foul string of curses at Luna. "With you? A high-ranking noble has asked for your presence as well. Just come with us and we can kill her right now and everything will be fine."

  Liv stepped into his face. "Are you threatening me?"

  "I sure as God's beard am not. Doing ya a favor, actually. That girl right there is someone you don't want around you, a" he spouted off another string of curses. "We can take her off your hands."

  "So, you're threatening the girl."

  The soldier nodded, waving his spear at Luna, who was behind Liv. "Who's with me."

  Realization appeared in the soldier's eyes. "So are you threatening me?"

  The soldier set a stance, pointing his spear at Liv. "I need to get ya to the noble anyways, and they didn't say I couldn't knock you out before doing so, so if you" he glared at Luna. "Keep her safe, I'll resort to more heavy handed measures."

  Liv shook her head. "After those things you called her, you're lucky I'm letting you live," she hissed into the soldier's face.

  Liv flickered backwards slightly, moving with immense speed. She gathered Luna up, hugging the girl tightly to her front. "Goodbye," she told the soldier before activating lightning and moving fast enough that Luna would simply be inconvenienced and not experience anything worse, but fast enough that she moved past the crowd relatively quickly.

  They quickly reached the town outside the city, but quickly moved around it before Liv put Luna down. "I came from that way," she said, pointing at the forest," so we're going to go that way."

  Liv pointed down a random path. Luna's eyes widened. "That goes to Smoke. I've always wanted to go there!"

  "Smoke?," Liv asked.

  "It's what that place is called. You'll understand when you see it."

  Liv shrugged as Luna started her full bounce movement up once again, this time down the road. Time to get stronger.