“Undeath is bad,” Gary said.
“The abilities in the undeath essence have a nasty habit of turning you into some kind of unliving monstrosity,” Rufus said.
“If it came along with the blood essence,” Farrah said, “you’d almost certainly get an ability that turns you into a vampire.”
“Vampires are a thing?” Jason asked.
“They are,” Rufus said, “and they’re bad. For one thing, they can’t sustain themselves with spirit coins or even regular food anymore.”
“They drink blood,” Jason said.
“They do,” Rufus confirmed. “Imagine having vast magical powers and an unquenchable thirst for blood.”
“Not a combination good for public safety,” Jason said.
Rufus nodded.
“People with the undeath essence almost always awaken a power that changes them like that,” he said. “Such powers are very strong, but they all bring with them unnatural appetites.”
“If that wasn’t enough,” Farrah added, “they can often turn normal people into monsters like them. Not with the essence powers of the original, but dangerous enough.”
“Vampires turning other people into vampires,” Jason said. “Can’t beat the classics.”
“Even if the undeath essence doesn’t turn you into a monster,” Farrah added, “it tends to give out less than palatable abilities.”
“You already said the blood essence has life-draining powers,” Jason said. “Less palatable than that?”
“Yes,” Gary growled. “No one will mind if you drain some health out of a guy that stabbed you. As long as you don’t drink his blood to do it, anyway. When you raid the local cemetery, though? No one wants their dead family members shambling into town as part of your undead army.”
“And that’s one of the lesser evils,” Farrah said. “We actually all met fighting a zombie plague.”
“A proper zombie plague?” Jason asked. “Zombies turning other people into zombies, the whole deal?”
“The whole deal,” Gary said. “Entire towns were burned out just to contain it. Bad business.”
“None of us want to see something like that again,” Farrah said. “If you get the undeath essence we’ll kill you ourselves.”
Jason looked at the expression on the faces of the others and saw they weren’t joking.
“Avoiding the death essence then,” he said.
“On top of everything else,” Rufus said, “the Adventure Society has a list of restricted essences that pose an inherent threat to ordinary people.”
“The death essence sitting at the top of that list,” Gary said.
“Mostly it’s combinations of essences,” Rufus explained, “since the confluence essence is usually the bad one. The death essence is on the list by itself, though, because it always seems to go wrong. You need to pay attention to the restricted essences. It’s impossible to get membership in the Adventure Society if you have one of them.”
“And I want to be a member of this Adventure Society?” Jason asked.
“You do,” Rufus said emphatically.
“Well,” Jason said, “I don’t have a death essence, but I’m a little wary of the one I do have.”
Jason took a second cube from his inventory. This one looked like white jade flecked with gold.
Item: [Sin Essence] (unranked, legendary)
Manifested essence of transgression (consumable, essence).
Requirements: Less than 4 absorbed essences.
Effect: Imbues 1 awakened sin essence ability and 4 unawakened sin essence abilities.
You have absorbed 1/4 essences. Once absorbed, an essence cannot be relinquished or replaced.
You are able to absorb [Sin Essence]
Absorb Y/N?
“May I?” Farrah asked, reaching for the essence. Jason nodded and she picked it up, turning it over in her hands.
“Pretty,” she said. “I don’t recognise it.”
“It’s a sin essence,” Jason said.
“Are you sure?” Farrah asked, examining the white and gold cube. “It looks more like the holy type.”
Rufus looked at Jason with a thoughtful expression. “You have an ability to identify items, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” Jason said. “It’s one of my outworlder things.”
“I’ve seen it before from other outworlders,” Rufus said.
Farrah placed the cube back on the table.
“I’ve never heard of the sin essence before,” she said. “It must be one of the really rare ones. I would have thought a sin essence would be all dark colours.”
“You have a problem with dark colours?” the midnight-skinned Rufus asked.
“I knew a guy with the sin essence,” Gary said. “Back when I was growing up there was this priest in my home town who had it.”
“A priest had the sin essence?” Farrah said. “Who was he a priest of?”
“God of Justice,” Gary said.
“Seems a little odd,” Rufus said. “What kind of powers did he have?”
“I was just a kid and it was a long time ago,” Gary said. “He was bit of a hard man, the way those Justice guys can be. I seem to recall a lot of smiting going on.”
“I could get behind some smiting,” Jason said. “Hold up; you guys have gods here?”
“Of course,” Gary said. “You don’t have gods in your world?”
“We have religions,” Jason said.
“Isn’t that the same thing?” Gary asked.
“No,” Jason said. “No, it is not. Do your gods turn up and do things? Where people can see them?”
“Of course they do,” Farrah said. “Anisa’s a priestess. We’ve seen her god show up in person. Spend some time in the worship square of any good-sized city. You’ll see one sooner or later.”
“That must forestall a lot of theological debate,” Jason said.
“If you decide to use that sin essence,” Gary said, “you might not want to tell Anisa about it.”
“Why not?” Jason asked.
“She’s a priestess of the God of Purity,” Farrah explained.
“That’s not good,” Jason said.
“You have a problem with purity?” Gary asked.
“In my world, you have to keep an eye on the ones who talk about purity all the time. Leave them be and they start rounding people up into camps, getting all enthusiastic about purging the unclean.”
“That does sound like something Anisa would get behind,” Farrah said. “Her church has this idea that the essences we use change who we are, so they only like the ones they see as holy or pure. They claim other essences taint the soul.”
“You say that like you think she’s wrong,” Jason said.
“She is,” Rufus said. “Essence abilities aren’t inherently good or bad. Like a sword, they can be used to oppress or protect. The accountability isn’t with the tool, but the one wielding it. The only people who advocate that essences guide our actions, instead of the other way around, are religious zealots and people looking to abdicate the responsibility for their actions.”
It was clear Rufus was speaking from experience, and not a good one.
“Didn’t you all just finish explaining that I need to be careful of essences changing me?” Jason asked.
“That was a warning about rare and extreme cases,” Rufus said. “That’s what the restricted list is for. But people try and claim that extends to all essences, when it simply doesn’t.”
“Not that Anisa would agree,” Farrah said.
“Anisa is wrong,” Rufus said.
“I’m going to pull out the restricted list,” Farrah said, getting up. “See if the sin essence is on it before Jason decides what he’s going to do.”
“Good idea,” Rufus said.
Farrah caused her stone storage chest to rise out of the ground. It rose up through the terrace without breaking through the tiles, like it wasn’t truly substantial until it had completely emerged.
She took out a stone tablet from inside the chest. It looked to be made of swirling blue and white marble, with script written across it in what looked like actual gold. Farrah touched a finger to the script and it started shifting about, the text changing in front of their eyes.