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--donation bonus (day #17, post 1/5)--
‘Dangerous?’ said Bohwanox. ‘What do you mean?’

‘We shouldn’t try to measure the worth of our servants by the abilities they possess. I despise reapers who discard their servants because they think the ability isn’t good enough.’

“What about the other type mentioned?” said Hector. “What was it? Integration?”

‘Hold on,’ said Bohwanox. ‘I’d still like to know more about why people think alteration is the strongest.’

Garovel hesitated, looking between the two. ‘Well, um. Alteration allows the user to employ a specific force to essentially anything. Depending on what that force is, the results can be quite intimidating. As for integration, that involves the combining of materials. People with integration are very highly valued among the big factions, because they tend to provide support as weapon makers and so forth. They’re generally protected from having to see combat, but I’m sure their abilities could be useful in a fight, too.’

Hector tilted his head. “So... someone like that could be a really useful ally, then.”

‘Yep.’

Abruptly, Colt realized that Stephanie had stopped crying a while ago. She just seemed to be looking up at Hector as he cradled her in his arms.

“Hey, kid. You’re pretty good at that.”

“At what?”

“That. Look how calm she is.”

Hector looked at her. He winced as she started screaming again, right into his face this time.

Colt squinted against the noise. “Could be wrong, I s’pose.”

They moved on to meditation together. Garovel advised him to focus on imagining a kind of “tunnel,” supposedly representative of whatever his “path” of destruction would be.

‘It’d be helpful to imagine your geometric shape digging the tunnel,’ said Garovel. ‘And since we don’t know what yours is yet, just go through a variety of them in your head.’

“Spray ‘n pray, huh?”

‘Pretty much, yeah.’

His hands still throbbed. If anything, they felt even worse. And when he opened his eyes again, he found his palms covered in blood. The skin was practically shredded.