It was Wednesday, the third day of her new job. It was ONLY Wednesday. “When can I retire?” Nestra asked herself. Actually, forget retiring. She just wanted to get to the weekend so she could… ugh. See her family for some hurtful, pointless drama. “When will it enndddddd?” she bemoaned. “Patience, Palladian-san. We are next in queue.” Nestra glared at the office desk behind which a gaggle of admins shared the same black business suits and annoyed scowls. The official town hall of Fifteen had been repaired and refitted in record time but the result was a sterile office in fresh bruise blue and very light piss yellow (the healthy hydrated kind). Even the flower pots looked like they’d rather be somewhere else. There was some paint stains on the carpet. Really a rush job then. “Number twenty-seven please,” a recorded voice said. Nestra followed Shinoda past the desk and through a series of alleys lined by numbered offices, dodging workers and harried visitors on the way. A screen next to room two-oh-six displayed their names so Shinoda knocked and entered, finding a young blonde woman behind. She had deep pockets under her eyes though the tidy state of her desk showed she hadn’t given up yet. Her clothes were just a little frumpy. Many civil servants had to take a shuttle out of the district before they could even get to the subway so Nestra assumed they were overworked to hell. “It’s a stress test, isn’t it?” she asked the ceiling. Alas, there was no answer. Sighing, she first had a good look at the alley in front of her. It went on for ten meters then sharply veered right. She could already count two traps. One was a pressure-plate snare though she couldn’t see what would happen if it were triggered. The other was a knee-high thread, almost invisible. Tiny openings on the ceiling matched her knowledge of poisoned darts. Only a complete imbecile would assume that was it. Nestra decided to take it slow, testing the stones ahead of her for more pressure plates. Her eyes crossed and her vision blurred trying to find tiny wires across the way but there were none. After ten minutes of grueling efforts, she reached the end of the passage. There had only been two traps. The pressure plate triggered spears hidden nearby thanks to a trick of perspective. “Uuuuuugh I’m going to be here until 6 AM with NO FOOD!” Wait, she shouldn’t speak out loud. Nestra approached the side of the corridor and stabbed a spider-thing hiding on the ceiling in the middle of a pool of unnatural darkness. Completely useless against her. Her perception improved, which gave her the same feeling of satisfaction as ever. A new foe! This one wasn’t much but there were bound to be more exciting creatures around. The dying arachnid dissipated in a gust of malodorous gas. Nestra looked around the corner. Another passage extended for a dozen of meters. A mana ring at the end flared as she watched, the image of an open eye drawn in the middle. She pulled back. A roaring ball of flame rushed past her face before splattering harmlessly against a nearby wall. The temperature increased a bit. A sight-activated trap. Nasty! Maybe this world did present a challenge after all. Progressing slowly, Nestra killed another shadow spider with the same result. This corridor had a large pitfall right before a very obvious thread crossing the corridor in its middle. Naturally, the obvious thread was a decoy and, naturally, it was trapped anyway. Nestra just skipped under it rather than trying fancy stuff like deactivating the trap to recover the components. This was a nerd activity for people with too much time on their hands. She was here to loot stuff and eat monsters and she was all out of both. “This fucking place…” The next alley annoyingly turned right again. It was also larger and the entire ground was made out of pressure plates spread out in squares. Mana lined the wall, though she wasn’t good enough to say what would specifically try to ruin her day. Nestra was annoyed because she could just use momentum to cross the entire grid but… that would be cheating. Those types of traps usually used some sort of writing to mark a safe path. It wasn’t mana this time, so there was probably something that could only be seen by thermal or ultraviolet sights. She couldn’t tell, but a deeper examination revealed a difference in a grain of the stone, almost imperceptible. Only the most observant of scouts could have found those! She painstakingly followed the markings, finally identifying a recurring rune forming a single path across the grid. She didn’t know what that rune was because she had never studied them. Hell, she didn’t even recognize the writing system. It should be ok, however. Nestra took a deep breath and pushed the stone down with her exposed toe. Nothing happened. She stepped more confidently. The mana in the walls remained quiescent. Encouraged by her success, Nestra moved on the path with determination, keeping her eyes peeled for… There was an opening in the shape of a door set in a nearby wall. Excitement filled her veins. Traps and enigmas sometimes had an easy, safe option and a subtler one. The runes of the grid could probably be followed to form a secret sentence that would open the nearby passage, an option closed to Nestra, except, she didn’t need it, did she? A jump, and she slipped through the opening and into an unlit room. There was a chest in the middle. It was locked. There was also something in the air she didn’t like. Not exactly poison, more like a presence. A shift in the air. Nestra came closer to the chest and realized it was most likely trapped. She removed a small vial from her gear and poured half of it in the lock. It was a basic chest so this kind of measure might work. An acidic stench soon filled the room which helped Nestra realize the uncomfortable sensation wasn’t smell, or magic. It was… space. She unsheathed her blade. The fabric of the world shifted ever so slightly. Breathe in, breathe out. Feel the ubiquitous pavement under her sole. It was a bare room. Would it help? She didn’t know. Nestra turned on herself and struck. Her blade landed on a set of dark teeth, not the same as hers but close. Beady dark eyes glared with utter malice. When the void shark passed by her, its power pushed her back and the raspy skin ground against hers like a peeler. She twisted on herself and struck down but her attack was too hasty. It bounced against its muscular tail. “I knew it! You little shit.” Nestra dove to the side then struck up, drawing blood. The beast was fast, faster than her, but it could only move forward and with a lower range of lateral motion. Blood on her blade. Good. The void shark screeched strangely. Nestra winced at the deafening, alien sound that twisted her mind like a physical presence. It stopped her from reacting on time to dodge the next lunge. No time. Place the blade in front. The teeth closed on the manablade with a dreadful shriek. Very, very strong. She was pushed back painfully against the wall but managed to keep the creature at bay. Her arms screamed. So close, the beast’s face gained a wolfish appearance that woke up ancestral instincts of panic in the human recesses of her mind. If those tenebrous jaws closed on her, she was finished. She let go with her left arm. The blade’s tip clanged against the wall, close to her throat but only for the moment it took to smash the shark on the eye, again. Her foe shrieked and swerved sharply. Nestra stared at her sword with disbelief while the creature sped away for another pass. There were teeth marks on it! The shark disappeared behind a wall but she could feel it, swimming just under the fabric of reality. It thought it was smart. When it surged out again she was ready. She used momentum to place herself above the emerging creature as it swam in head first. Her arms grabbed its sandpaper skin with all the strength she could muster. Harsh. Cold. The shark struggled against the demon on its back. She pushed herself forward, grabbed its fin. This was it. Revenge would be hers! Despite the shark’s best efforts, Nestra would not relent in her quest for justice. She grabbed the precious appendage and, with a supreme effort, bit down hard. Her teeth pierced through skin and cartilage like butter. It… didn’t taste very good. Too fishy, the mana too acid but… what power! It was very filling. Needled by the pain, the shark finally managed to push her off by slamming her against a nearby wall. Nestra gasped in pain as it retreated at the end of the room. Only her endurance allowed her to jump to the side on time to avoid a flying chest tossed at her by a furious tail swing. She stared the maddened beast down while swallowing the unsavory lump of its flesh. A matter of principle. The half moon crescent of the fin’s wound bled a silvery liquid. Her prey screeched mournfully from the atrocious pain but Nestra didn’t care. For a second, the two adversaries circled each other, then the shark relented. The last Nestra saw of it this time was the flash of malicious outrage on its predatory head. “Serves you right,” she accused. “Bothering me while I’m hunting myself! I hope you get jumped by a pack of rabid void dolphins you nasty spoilsport.” Nestra kept screaming at the brick wall for the better part of a minute. It was a necessary cathartic experience after that whole trap session. Her elation doubled when she realized the chest was now open. What the vial of acid had started was finished by the void shark’s mighty tail strike, and the contents had spilled from the spike-covered remains of the precious container. Nestra was suddenly very glad she’d dodged the chest before its defenses could trigger. As for the contents, well, there were two… but that was all she needed. “Arm guards! It’s perfect!” Her second artifact. Truly, raiding temporary portal worlds really yielded the best results. The armbands were a dull silver with serpentine patterns, clearly not designed by humans or, indeed, for them. Some of the shapes seemed distorted to accommodate a larger wrist. She had a good look at them for anomalies but contrary to the spear she’d found, there were no strange mana signatures to spoil her fun. Only reinforcement and size adjustment enchantments. Nestra tried them on. Clasps encircled her forearm to adjust the size while the silvery sheen took on life of its own. And then, the skin expanded, inky tendrils covering the artifact. Snaking lines spread over every piece of the defensive gear on both sides. Nestra just stared on, paralyzed with surprise. The metal bubbled ominously. In less than ten seconds, her skin armor dissolved and digested the artifact until nothing was left. When the lines retreated, the skin could now cover up to her ankles. It had expanded. “What? How can my fucking dress eat before me! Nooooo.” Her precious artifact. Nestra bounced her head against the nearest wall, wailing in frustration at the unfairness of it all. Her horns got in the way of her broody display which ruined the moment. That led to another moment of frustration. It was weird to say so but the demon formed felt flightier and more easily annoyed than her human one. It also tired faster. She made a checklist. Outgrowing her clothes with annoying regularity. Significant body changes. The natural conclusion dawned on her. “Fuck. Am I a teenager?” The only thing missing was constantly horny, except that had never been the case for her. Was she abnormal even for a demon? She wasn’t sure. She couldn’t be sure, in fact, since there was no one around to ask the fucking questions. The benefactor better have a lot of answers when she finally cornered them. After ‘coping and seething’ for a while, as Aunt Claire tended to say, she decided it was time to finish that damn world. She slipped back through the wall. Her feet depressed the tile directly below her. The tile she had specifically used momentum to avoid. Spears from the ceiling. Sidestep and move back. Whistling darts. Crouch and pass below. Another click. Spears, from the side. Grab one and twist, pushing her feet towards the wall. Jump forward after another rain of darts. Use momentum and land on a safe tile. The room returned to normal. Nestra massaged her horns, which were painful right now. Another mistake. Another stupid mistake. Had to do better. “Ok, ok. Calm down and move on. Slowly.” There was nothing else to do. Maybe it was exhaustion, maybe demon hormones or something. That wasn’t important. What was important was playing the deck she’d been dealt and stop acting stupid. With a refreshed hatred for life, Nestra faced the next bend in the path, which went left. This one went back to basics with the corridor being wider and crossed by the thinnest threads she’d seen yet. It was a maze of spider-like extensions. Magical traps lined the place, showing the common runes for sound and tension but fortunately, she was really quiet this time. Even the two ambushing spiders she killed next were dealt with quietly. The symbols would have triggered if she had used something to sever the threads, perhaps like the pruners scouts were so fond of. It was a pretty nasty place for one supposedly so easy. The shadow spiders were probably the worst of it. If the portal had breached, those creatures would have spread and killed dozens of civilians before they were all found. This was what the world looked like outside of the walls. One last corridor remained. It led to a wide, open entrance beyond which a cave waited. This one had the entire floor trapped with only a dozen or so tiles safe for passage. The key was to watch for the tiles that were irregular, rather than split into geometric patterns. She crossed that one easily, then slaughtered the three spiders by the door. Her perception was visibly improving. It was an amazing change. “I could have just finished this in five minutes by using momentum,” she bemoaned. But that would have been lazy. Now she was stronger and more experienced, she told herself as a coping mechanism. The last cave showed the expected treasure pedestal and nothing else at the ground level. Her gaze traveled up because that was almost always where the guardian hid, appearing from above like a cheap trope. And here it was. She beheld her final prey as it waited within a pool of unnatural darkness, and she weeped. “Yes. Yeesssssss. Finally!” A very big crab with large pincers. Nestra couldn’t wait, so she grabbed her gun and shot one of its fucking legs off so it would hurry down. The creature screeched and fell in a thunderous crash that sent shards of stones raining on Nestra’s uncaring body. The demon was already charging before the tremors could stop. She recognized her prey. Manastacea Cancer Irrotatus. It was well known across the city for its nature. In fact, it was considered to be… She sought the thinner section behind the claw before the crab could recover. Nestra used precision to guide her strike to that weak spot. Infused steel carved through the shell in a cataclysmic shock before she retreated to avoid a side claw sweep. The rock crab gurgled and grabbed its useless flopping claw with the other one. Nestra closed the distance, intending to use the distraction. The crab tore the wounded claw off and threw it at her. It was too late to use momentum. All she could do was block, but the beast’s strength sent her rolling against the ground. Guided by the Scornful Crescent, Nestra jumped to her feet just as the crab charged her sideways. She used momentum to slide out of the way of the charge which hit the nearest wall and sent tremor throughout the cavern. Stalactites fell, though Nestra managed to weave between them. A sword strike crushed a second leg just as the crab freed itself. She realized it was slow to turn. Staying on the side with the missing claw, Nestra went to town on her victim. It tried to strike her but she managed to stay one step ahead. At some point, the crab stood on the remaining legs to spit something at her. The spray wasn’t even close and since it was stationary during the attack. she cut off its two remaining legs on that side. The crab collapsed, alive but disabled. All of the limbs on one side had been smashed. It took her thirty seconds to safely cut off the other claw, then to execute it by stabbing through its mouth. A rush of power came to her, tasting like resilience and hardened skin which was always useful. She’d picked the safe option and it was fine, but other worlds may have hordes of those creatures and they would need to be killed quickly. She made a note of their weak point. Nestra ignored the reward on the altar next to the exit portal. It was time…. to harvest! Sadly, the rock crab was male so there were no eggs to be found but she packed the legs and both claws before dragging them out. She pocketed the two mana crystals and the other reward which turned out to be magnetic stones useful for geomancers. They would fetch a decent price. Finally, she was out and back into the maze. There was a congratulatory message along with a promise that the benefactor was working on something to help her soon. It was time for her to gamble. “Look, I know you’re out there, so I have a request. I can’t take the claws with me since they’re too big, but since you seem to be able to move around freely, well, let’s just say that if I arrive at the Nestracave and the claws happened to be there, I’d be super grateful.” With only a couple of cut legs with her, Nestra left for her motorcycle. The trip home was filled with anxiety but when she arrived at her base, there was a pile of crab parts waiting for her on the table. She almost squealed until she realized… there was only one claw. A message was stuck to the lone survivor. It just said: 50% taken as charge ;) “I will never need a sex life because taxes fuck me every day.” Nestra watched the spheres of power gravitate around the deepening lake that was her mana pool, its waters a deep cobalt. While most had erred across the room as dead orbs when she’d first come here, now they formed a harmonious planetarium. The three radiant gray orbs representing her mana control, might, and regeneration lagged behind though they still felt unreasonably strong for D-class, much like the rest of her. Her awareness and mind speed rushed at the periphery as vigilant guardians. The mightiest remained pure strength, and now because of the rock crab, resilience, with celerity slightly lower. Resilience was also unbound and now it was time to use it. Momentum came from binding power and celerity, precision from binding awareness and celerity. The wall slip came from awareness and magical control but now she felt she needed battle options more than utility. With a gesture, she bound power and resilience. A new concept bloomed in her mind. At first, it struggled with the part of her that followed the Stalk of the Scornful Crescent. After all, that style relied on breaking the enemy’s rhythm and the new concept would, in theory, slow her down. It was wrong, however, and she saw it immediately.