1??????????????Soul Bound


    1.2????????????Taking Control


    1.2.1??????????An Icy Welcome


    1.2.1.23???????One straw too many


    Ok, alone, no guards, no streamers, and nobody bothering her. Good, she was free to take her time, and do what she wanted. Well no, what she wanted was to be reunited with her own Vessel. She felt tears threatening to leak from her eyes, and angrily wiped them away. So perhaps being alone with just her thoughts wasn’t such a good plan. Let’s go find Tomsk. Except he’d be watching the final, waiting to console Columbina or celebrate with her. She wasn’t going to get in the way of that.


    She felt dejected, and wandered aimlessly back towards the crowds near the amphitheatre. A pale skinned woman, whose raven hair was cut in a fringed bob with sharp bangs, held up a notepad like a journalist, quill poised, and asked what it felt like to be captured by Kullervo. She ignored her and walked on.


    An adventurer with gleaming teeth and a fancy leather jerkin (whose lack of sleeves did more to exhibit his bulging biceps than protect them), asked her for 50 platinum zecchi, to buy an epic sword of dragonslaying that some blacksmith had on special offer for just one more day. He promised to pay her back double within the week, as soon as he found a dragon to kill. She ignored him and tried to walk on. He grabbed her arm, yelling at her for being a rich snobbish bitch who should stay in her kitchen. A man dressed in green and white stripes removed the scrounger’s hand from her, but she didn’t stick around to talk to him. She walked on.


    [Kafana, you asked me to remind you “Consequences!”]


    A pair of players wanted her to listen to them singing and tell them why the magic wasn’t working. They started on a long rap song they’d composed in Cov’s honour about him “getting down” in the wheat fields. It was excruciating. The beatboxing sounded mainly like a cow farting. She directed them to have their attunements checked at the Mage Tower in Libri.


    Every encounter made her shrivel inside a little more. Some wanted selfies. Some asked questions. One adventurer, named HaseYuu and wearing an eyepatch held on by a scarf wrapped around his head, offered her a pot of special honey as a gift, and she thought her luck might have changed. But something seemed off about where his gaze was looking, and she used her Cook’s Sight to examine it. It contained a small but measurable amount of fluid that resonated with the adventurer’s body. Ewww. She resisted the temptation to throw it at him, put it on the ground and walked on.


    She felt a scream building up inside her. A man asked politely if she could show him how to detect poison as he was also a cook. She produced her purple mind-healing gem and moved to touch him.


    [You have taken 400 damage. You have 9,600/10,000 hp remaining.]


    A club had hit her hand, sending the gem flying. The man moved like lightning, catching it in mid-air and diving into the crowd.


    She felt totally cold and emotionless, like a robot, as she acted.


    {Sys, I’m going to use locate but substitute a sonic attack from above in place of a search beam of light. Please keep the focus narrow enough to avoid collateral.}


    The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    She took her time, putting on rings and gems, pouring more than half her mana into a giant version of her amplification spell positioned 100 meters up in the air. She was mentally sending to it anyway, she didn’t need to be there. She replenished from her mana ring.


    A minute had passed, that didn’t matter. It would take longer than that to escape her. Soon it would be time to let out the scream inside her. To feel. Bulgaria was talking, the finals had ended. Good, she wouldn’t interrupt them. She though of a song by Stirling about frozen feelings, but then changed a single crucial word before raising the bow to her violin, imagining an effect like that of a low orbit ion cannon.


    She poured her feelings into it, all the ones she’d bottled up. Let the deities judge her for it, but she felt ok with condemning this thief to death. Shatter he!


    There was a detonation off south near the Triumphal Arch. She walked on. On directly through the crowd who parted before her like the Red Sea. On until she reached the bus-sized crater. On until she picked up the stolen gem and held it up.


    She whispered in her mind:


    =Don’t steal from me. I don’t like it when people steal from me.=


    [Skill “Iron Fist” has reached level 11.]


    [Skill “Iron Fist” has reached level 12.]


    [Skill “Iron Fist” has reached level 13.]


    [Skill “Iron Fist” has reached level 14.]


    *ding* [Your reputation with Thieves has increased by 2000. Nobody under the rank of High Master Thief will attempt to steal from you.]


    Ooops. She was still linked to her massive speaker spell. She waved a hand to dismiss it.


    [Skill “Sonic Shock” has reached level 3.]


    [Skill “Sonic Shock” has reached level 4.]


    [Skill “Sonic Shock” has reached level 5.]


    [Skill “Sonic Magic” has reached level 4.]


    [Skill “Sonic Magic” has reached level 5.]


    [Skill “Locate” has reached level 9.]


    [Skill “Locate” has reached level 10.]


    [Skill “Locate” has upgraded to "Homing" - you can now buff items and spells to home in on targets, even if they can’t be directly seen.]