Its not entirely clear what goes wrong with destroying the dungeon but something surely does, as the forest and ceiling thrum with multicolored energy, psychedelic hallucinations made real. Euclidean space twists and dissolves as the strange light reflects off the floor, giving way to a vision of reality that must be real, given that May can see it, but still is completely indescribable for several seconds.

The world returns to relative normalcy all at once, with May falling briefly in a dark room, knocking a robed individual over just as several voices finish the final syllable of a solemn chant. A jolt of strange electricity courses through her a moment later.

She didn't bring a big floodlight but she's never in a dungeon without a little one; she grabs it with quick practiced reflexes and clicks it on, while scrambling back to her feet.

It looks very much like she has dropped into the middle of a satanic ritual, as practiced by the least likely group of satanists imaginable. Most of them are wearing robes but that's about where there resemblance to each other stops - of the ones wearing the hoods down one looks like she could be in her first semester of college, just told off by a disgruntled professor, while another appears to be an elegant older woman. The room itself is underground, the walls made of stone bricks. In the center of the floor is some sort of elaborate chalk diagram containing a small pile of ashes. Each individual has their own small diagram adjoining to the main one. May stands in one such smaller diagram.

"The hell!" exclaims the previous owner of May's diagram, having been knocked to the floor beside her.

"Where the fuck am I and what in the world are you doing?"

Well, four of the individuals seem to be leaving, one after some hesitation.

"Somewhere you didn't expect to be, I'd venture," says the old woman.

"Abrogate your claim, now!" says the man, who apparently has a switch blade he is going to threaten her with about this.

"Put the knife down, you're more likely to hurt yourself than me." The mushroom dungeon had little myconid monsters that ignored her because she is magical, but she's still wearing a normal amount of body armor for a dungeon, it doesn't do to be completely unprotected against something you don't expect when you're walking into a novel theme park of a hostile pocket dimension. "I don't know what you're talking about and I get way less cooperative when people are waving knives around."

"Oh I like her," comments the woman.

"Is this even legal?" asks the one remaining individual with their hood concealing their face.

"Well, one way to find out," replies the woman, gesturing with a snap at the man with the knife.

The man's arm twitches, in a manner that muscles wouldn't ordinarily prefer, to throw the knife at May.

Only to be stopped in it's path by the sudden appearance, in a burst of yellow light, of a glowing young woman, clad in light scale armor, the switchblade bouncing harmlessly offer her sword.

"Well, that answers that." concludes the woman. 

Cloaked individual decides this is an appropriate time for him to vacate the premises.

"Who are you?" May asks.

"Lianelle of Kusheth,"

Knife man appears to be extremely nervous about this fact! The old woman just seems to think it's vaguely funny. 

"And... are you willing to explain to me what's going on?"

"You've summoned me to serve as your champion for the fight for the Spring of Solomon," she replies, without taking her eyes off dagger guy.

"And if we imagine for the sake of argument that none of that helped me orient to the situation at all how would you elaborate on that?"

The woman suppresses laughter so as not to interrupt this amazing conversation.

"Magic is real, every 25 years there is a tournament to determine who gets a very powerful magical gift. The only way to win is by being the last one alive."

"I did not volunteer to participate in a battle royale tournament. My magical powers are for saving people's lives, not murdering them over swag."

"Then abrogate your claim!"

"Doing so would kill you."

"How would it do that??"

"I think it's supposed to rip out your soul?"

"She's lying."

"She might be, but she doesn't obviously want anything from me and you clearly do!"

"I can't lie to you. I guess you don't have reason to believe that - you could read my mind?"

"I can't read minds."

"Summoners can read their champion's mind."

"Well, separately, even if I could read minds that would be a really fucked up thing to do!"

"I don't mind."

"Be that as it may! Any chance I can just go home and be too far away to have my soul ripped out?"

"I'm... not sure how far away you came from such that you have magical powers but have not heard of the Spring."

"You could abrogate your claim and I can resurrect you once I win with your champion," suggests the man.

(The older woman meanwhile continues to find this whole event very entertaining.)

"You seem so trustworthy, how could I possibly refuse," May tells the man. "I'm an esper," she tells Lianelle. "If you haven't heard of espers, then I'm apparently from an alternate universe or something."

"I have not heard of espers."

The man, having apparently decided to cut his losses, starts backing away from the gathering. 

"Do I need that guy for any magical reasons?" she asks Lianelle. The guy is not allowed to hear her.

"No."

"Uh, he's not a major threat without his servant and I don't think it's risky to let him go."

"He might try to seek vengeance," muses the old lady.

"With a knife, or with something scary? - I guess actually I should consider being scared of knives if I'm the only esper on the planet -"

"His family has some tricks up their sleeve I imagine, they've been preparing for the tournament for some time."

The man can only hear half this conversation but it's not a good half so he is going to ru-fall over, his feet planted to the spot as the woman gestures downwards with a dangerous glint in her eyes.

"It's rude to leave while we're still discussing what to do with you, Ivan."

"If I win will I be able to resurrect everyone killed in this farcical nonsense or is it limited use?"

"You'd be able to do that, though the power is still limited and if there's a very large amount of collateral damage you won't be able to do much more than that."

"Limited how?"

"You'll get a big burst of power that's accumulated since the Spring was last acquired, which you can use to do a big miracle like resurrecting everyone who recently died due to a plague, or a number of smaller ones - resurrect a few people, or make yourself a more potent mage. You can push it a bit farther if you hold onto the fountain but that kills you eventually."

"How does it kill you?"

"It burns away your body when you use it past the first burst."

"And I assume this is irreparable."

"Probably enough magic could manage to fix it? But it would end up being a net loss."

"Are - alternate universes or anything like that - a known phenomenon here such that I have any prospect of ever going home."

"There's a spirit plane and an underplane but nothing that looks like like another Earth."

"Well, fuck."

"I've heard rumors of places beyond those," muses the old woman.

"Actionable rumors? I have a magical medical condition that will - admittedly not kill me but not being able to treat it means I can't use my powers."

"Maybe."

"...do elaborate."

The old woman smiles but doesn't otherwise respond.

Why are people from this world besides the one who is ambiguously her magical slave so unhelpful. You'd think they'd at least be trying to curry favor for the magical powers she might have soon.

"What's the nature of the tournament besides that people die in it?" she asks Lianelle.

"Everyone gets a champion - there's a lot of variety in what sort of magical fighter a champion is. Summoners and their champions try to kill the other summoners, with groups preparing beforehand and supporting who they want to win. Sometimes monsters are attracted by the high concentration of power and kill people - usually unrelated people. It is not a good tournament and tends to bring out the worst in people."

"Are you a volunteer?"

"No. I might have been if that was an option." 

She does not look proud of herself about this.

"Can I - let you go - possibly not until after I am no longer in lethal danger but like in principle -"

"I - I don't actually know. I'd prefer you don't unless you turn out to be evil which I think you are probably not."

"Why would you prefer I didn't?"

"Uh, you wouldn't be able to win the tournament without me and you winning seems probably good? Champions tend to be appropriate for their summoners and in this case I am thinking that the appropriateness is in the having similar values sort of way."

"Also, if you managed to let me go I'd return to the spirit plane and I can't do anything there." 

"I mean, even if I could just let you go straightforwardly and you preferred this I might conceivably put it off till I was no longer dealing with" the Goblet of Fire having spat out my name "a battle royale I didn't want to enter, but if you prefer not being in the spirit plane that's legit. What... is the nature... of the thing that is making you be here and my champion instead of there and not?"

"There's a bond that gives you a magical boost and binds me to you and you can then allow me to manifest physically."

"Gives me a magical boost?"

"Yes, though it might not be useful for whatever type of magic you have."

"Well, it doesn't seem to be guiding away my backlash or anything, I guess the powers themselves could be a little amped up without my having noticed yet."

"If you don't know spells it might not be useful."

"I don't know spells, just my powers. I don't suppose these are quick and easy to learn."

"They are rather rare and closely guarded secrets."

"I'll trade you one," offers the other woman.

Both Lianelle and the scared guy look very surprised about this.

"For what?"

"Killing Ivan here."

Ivan does not approve of this offer at all and is glaring at the old woman about this.

"...no thanks."

The old woman seems to find this answer amusing.

"Suit yourself." 

"I will, thanks. Ivan, what did you even want to enter the tournament for, it sounds like a kind of stupid thing to do."

"...to help people?" Ivan guesses.

".......how admirable."

"His family has been trying to get the Spring for centuries."

"Why?"

"Often it's to beat the other mage families and increase your influence, though sometimes it's something more interesting."

"Ugh." Sigh. "Okay, so I can't get home, I will get the Spring or die trying, I have a magical champion who is at least ostensibly content to remain that way, I am stuck at this level of backlash for the foreseeable future and should not make it worse - when does the tournament start and is there any obvious way to handle the, like, food and shelter type things?"

"I'm not sure how long it's been since I was last here or what locations we are in - both prior times I've been a champion have been in places I was unfamiliar with."

Would Murder Lady like to volunteer an opinion.

"I suspect it's been centuries since Lianelle was last summoned. You two are welcome to stay at my place."

"Thanks."

"Can I leave now?" asks Ivan.

"I fucking guess. Make better choices."

A gesture from the woman releases his feet and he books it.

"I wonder if we'll be seeing him again."

"I shall wait with bated breath. If you wanted him dead why didn't you kill him?"

"Oh, I didn't want to see him dead."

"You tried to hire me to kill him mere moments ago."

"Well yes, but that was about you, not him. And a little bit about Lianelle."

"Do you know what she's talking about?" May asks Lianelle.

"No I just find it very unnerving."

"Oh dears, I'm not trying to be particularly mysterious about this. I just thought I would enjoy watching you two kill someone."

"Maybe I can sell something for hotel money," May suggests to Lianelle.

"That sounds good to me."

"And this is where my honesty gets me," she says good naturedly. 

"Honesty alone gets you very different places than this, lady."

"Well, I can hardly be honest unless I have other traits to be honest about."

Wow, she doesn't want to have this conversation, or, she does but only for backlash reasons and she'd rather talk to Lianelle! "Bye!" There's an exit, Ivan just went out of it, let's go that way.

"I'll see you later!" the old lady calls after her.

Lianelle follows her summoner out.

It transpires that they are underground and the way Ivan went up involved climbing a rather minimal looking ladder built into the side of a stone shaft.

"Wow, good thing I don't have dyspraxia any more. Since under the circumstances I'm not gonna fly. So - what does being bound to me do exactly, besides cause you to not be in the spirit world and let me read your mind if I wanted to which I don't 'cause of that being fucked up?"

"I also can't lie to you, you can project things at me, and uh, you can discorporate and recorporate me but I would rather not spend much time discorporated if you don't mind."

"I am not aware of any reason to discorporate you! Project things?"

"Thoughts, messages, emotions. That sort of thing."

"And this doesn't have backlash or any side effects?"

"No - it might technically cost magic but if so it's a very very small amount."

"What does it mean for something to cost magic?"

"You have a well of magic which replenishes naturally over time, I don't think any of the bond powers will put a dent in it at all - unless I were far away, though that would drain your magic significantly all by itself. Oh and healing me, that'll cost magic."

"Are you sure that I in fact have this thing?"

"You would not have managed to summon me if you didn't have any, I'm pretty sure. And having summoned me would give you more. You could try projecting at me?"

[Testing]

"Works! You'll have to intentionally try to pick up a response or leave it open or something like that if you want me to be able to reply. Normally that isn't required but you're doing a lot of automatic filtering of the bond I think - lots of summoners would also be instinctively reading emotions or projecting."

"I don't have any instincts about this!"

"Typically bonds act conveniently for their summoners?"

"I guess maybe that's why, I wouldn't find it convenient if I were reading your mind at all."

"I really wouldn't mind but you don't have to if you don't want to."

"Is it even useful in any way besides the telepathy thing which we can apparently do separately?"

"I think the telepathy isn't separate? You are picking the words out of my head that I'm attempting to draw your attention to, is what it feels like on my end."

"Oh. Huh. Well, I guess that part's useful then."

Oh look here is the top of the shaft, it's a large metal disc of some sort.  Lianelle can move it out of the way to reveal a rather empty city street - the sun is just peeking over the horizon. 

"Oh."

Out hops May. "- first sunrise? Or sunset, I guess I don't know which way is east."

"Sunrise, the ritual would have been at night - that's not it. It's the buildings."

What is there to note about the buildings?

There are modern sky scrapers visible in the distance! Well, slightly less modern than the ones May is used to.

"Oh, we have those on my world too. But I guess if it's been a couple hundred years they'd be new."

"I really like them!"

"I'm surprised you don't sound more old-timey if you last visited the - regular? world hundreds of years ago. ...I hope people aren't freaked out about me having guns, I assume my esper ID isn't any good for it here..."

"Languages typically come with the ritual. Material world works, or regular. I know what guns are but not the local rules about them and wouldn't expect your ID to work."

"I'd just be invisible but I can't reach my partner from here to do anything about the backlash, ugh."

"If we had a specific place to be I could probably get us there before anyone has a chance to ask questions?"

"But we don't. They speak English here so it's possible I'll recognize a hotel chain and be able to explain, I guess."

"We could stick to rooftops while you look? The not insanely high up ones."

"I can't fly right now for the same reason I can't be invisible."

"I can carry you."

"You can fly?"

"No, but I can jump real good."

"...I will bear this in mind as an escape option if someone does confront us but as long as nobody does we can just walk."

"Okay."

Any obvious hotels? (Anybody obviously reacting to a woman in dungeon tac gear walking down the street?)

It's pretty empty but eventually someone complements the two of them on their (obviously from different genres) cosplay.

.......okay. "Thanks! Hey, can you point us to the nearest hotel?"

Sure, most have been a wild convention. Is that sword real?

"Yeah!"

Well this random person thinks that's cool.

"Delighted you think so. Which way?"

He can point them!

The hotel has a couple of front desk people even at this hour, who do their best to conceal any surprise at the state of their potential guests.

"Hey, I've lost my wallet," it's in another dimension, "is there any chance we could get a room with collateral or something while I sort that out?"

"I don't think -" "What sort of collateral?" interrupts another staff member.

"All I have is what's on me, but, uh, this one isn't loaded?" She indicates a rifle.

"...Those are real?"

"It's a really really long story."

".... You know what I have a license and they look neat, I'll buy some of them off you if you'd like."

"The one I just offered to put up as collateral cost me $2,800 in American dollars."

He is going to try to haggle her down, but if she insists at sticking near that price he's eventually willing to except it as collateral instead.

She bought it new, which it no longer is, and doubts he'll be able to get ammo for it in this universe economy? area? prevailing legal regime? so she'll go down a fair bit.

They can make a deal then. Do they want to spend their money on a single or a double or two separate rooms or what?

Is a room with one bed large enough to share discounted significantly relative to a room with two beds?

It's about 50% cheaper - this hotel doesn't do smaller than queen sized beds.

"Is sharing okay with you?"

"Yep."

Then they will get a single.

There room is on the 20th floor, and for some reason this means they end up in a small room with a bunch of buttons on their way there.

"What is this-oh." the elevator starts accelerating upwards.

Lianelle bounces experimentally.

"That's really cool."

"- the elevator? Yeah, elevators are neat. Most efficient form of public transportation, I read once, though I haven't fact checked that."

"It changed how much I weigh! Or well, it did for a bit. It would be neater if it kept doing that."

"Perhaps what you really want is to go to space. There you would weigh nothing."

"People can do that?"

"I'm not sure what the state of the art is on this planet but on mine occasionally, yeah. ...returning to more immediate concerns, when does the tournament start? How many people are in it?"

"The tournament starts twelve hours after the ritual you showed up during, and there are seven competitors - the people who were at that ritual except the guy you replaced."

"They can all cooperate on a ritual to summon champions for all the people they plan to kill the following day but they can't just, like, roll a die?"

"Yeah. They can't get the Spring without the ritual so people are at least willing to cooperate on that, but not much else. Sometimes there are alliances but people tend to betray each other eventually."

"...obviously, if only one person can survive! Extra glad I didn't accept that one lady's hospitality, what the fuck."

"Yeah I am confused about her and am happy I do not have to be in her house."

"You could've said something when she offered."

"I would have but you changed your mind pretty fast."

"Fair enough." Here is their room. "Any chance they assassinate me before the tournament officially starts?" May inquires, starting to divest herself of surplus gear that she won't need if the answer is no.

"It would badly weaken their connection to their champion to do so - I've heard of fights going on immediately after the ritual but not of people hunting someone down and attacking before the tournament proper starts. The Spring would also need a new competitor if someone was killed that early, I think." 

"Does it not show up if there's not enough people fighting over it?"

"Yeah."

"How does it leave the possession of whoever won it last time?"

"Usually people let it go right after they use it. Some people keep it but they either die from using it soon after or get hunted down and killed to power one magic ritual or another."

"...are they especially good at powering magical rituals?"

"Yeah, since they have a reservoir of magical energy building up in them from the Spring."

"Is that the thing that burns them up or is it the active use of the Spring that does it?"

"Active use."

"So if they also know spells and nobody murders them they could just be an extra powerful wizard for a while? ...what sorts of things do spells do, I didn't see any obvious evidence of magic out walking around and don't know if that's rarity or impracticality."

"That would basically work, until it burns them up which can happen pretty quickly if you are using it a lot. Mages are pretty rare and usually only know a couple of spells - the thing that woman did with gestures that controlled Ivan's body were from her knowing a spell to do that sort of thing - you could also know a spell that lets you do something like manipulate fire or one that lets you manipulate your body to push yourself harder than normal."

"I mean using the magical energy on regular spells, not using the Spring itself, or are those the same thing?"

"They sort of are - with large enough quantities of magic you don't need specific spells, which is how the Spring is so flexible. Normally people don't get enough magic to do anything without a spell."

"I don't suppose you have any way to speculate on how this might interact with my esper powers and backlash."

"I don't know what those are?"

"Well, I can explain them, just, would this be useful or not - on my Earth there aren't mages, there's espers, have been for about sixty years now. One in fifty thousand people, late teens to early twenties, awakens as an esper. Everybody gets an individual power or set of powers and an equally individual backlash that hits them harder the more they use those powers. I am carrying some backlash right now, because I was in a dungeon rescuing people from it. Dungeons are also a thing on my Earth which started happening at the same time but less germane to the present situation. Normally what I would do about this is I would go meet up with my partner June. Her backlash is the opposite of mine and if we hang out near each other, especially touching - for most pairs it's only touching - then our backlashes kind of mutually annihilate each other. This process is called guiding for etymologically disputed reasons. But if I can't make it to, not even just June but to any remotely compatible esper, then instead the backlash I have right now will metabolize from its acute form into a 'chronic' form which will give me chronic pain and organ functioning problems and stuff like that. Which I'm not excited about but honestly it's probably better than never being able to read a book again, I can't concentrate on reading well enough when I'm backlashed. Mine makes me lonely."

"Oh that backlash sounds awful - I would guess the Spring could remove the backlash you have but I don't know how much that would cost."

"And just removing it would probably not be an amazing use of a one time magical power even if it were cheap, because I still couldn't use my powers without racking up more, it only works if I have routine access to guiding."

"What are your powers?"

"I am selectively imperceptible and intangible including to psychic senses and effects, and I can also fly, which if you're trying to explain it as part of a complete package is so that I don't have to touch the floor if I don't want. I am pretty confident this makes me knifeproof - at the cost of backlash - and expect it would also make me bulletproof, possibly more cheaply because a bullet would spend very little time trying to intersect me before coming out the other side, but that I haven't tested anything quite like it"

"Would it make you magic proof?"

"Dunno. Maybe. But if I wind up using my powers too much I don't really get to live to enjoy it, is the thing. I'm going to continue to have myself passively proof against stuff that could kill me because it doesn't cost anything till it happens and maybe I wind up with a backlash level I can metabolize and limp along with for a little while longer, but if I get too lonely I start rationalizing about why it is that nothing that feels like it should work to make me less lonely actually does, and some of the explanations I can wind up deluding myself about make me suicidal. I don't routinely approach this level in my daily life but awakening as an esper involves hanging out at a really high level of acute backlash for a week so I got acquainted with it then."

Oh no. 

"I'm um, going to try really hard to make sure you don't have to use your powers at all but it might turn out that in order to win we'll have to depend on the fact that you can survive an attack from something when people wouldn't expect you to. It doesn't have to be a plan but... Most summoners don't win, and any advantage can make a difference."

"Yeah, that's about where I landed too. I also don't super want to go around killing anyone but people who signed up on purpose for a battle royale and will try to murder me about it are as close as it gets to deserving targets, at least. - I'm really strong and healthy and stuff, compared to a normal person, that doesn't cost anything, free with awakening."

"Are the guns deadly from a distance?"

"Yeah. The one I sold was best for range but I wasn't carrying any more ammo for it, the littler ones I can hit stuff at 50 yards or so. I have never killed a person, just dungeon monsters."

Nod nod.

"I can try to avoid you having to kill someone yourself if it's important to you."

"It's not intrinsically but like it's possible I'll flinch."

Nod nod.

"I did. Some of the first few times." And cried afterwards, though that bit hasn't entirely stopped. 

"How vulnerable are you directly, are they mostly going to come after me or do they likely want to go through you first?"

"They will mostly try to come after you if they can but it's likely I can keep any single champion busy enough that they won't be able to come after you. The summoner might though, and they'll have magic."

"I mean like - do you die and stay dead or do you go back to the spirit world such that I can promptly recorporate you or what. I ask because you've done this before and it'd be a heck of a coincidence if you'd been attached to the winner every time."

"I discorporate, you can recorporate me but it will be costly, though I suppose if you havn't additionally healed me you don't have much use for your magic. Overuse of your magic will fatigue you. If you die I get released back to the spirit plane."

"How much use is overuse?"

"You'll feel a strain when you start getting close - if I'm killed and you need to fully reincorporate me twice in quick succession that would probably do it, but once is less likely to. Healing me, or giving more energy after I've exhausted myself, can build up to a large amount of use if you have to do it constantly. I'm not sure how deep your reserves are - but if I get stabbed a bunch by something nasty it might tire you out to fully fix."

"Is there a way to tell how much I have?"

"You might get a vague sense for it if you use magic - I could try tiring myself out a bit and you can fix that?" 

"Sure."

"Mind if I practice moves with my sword in here to tire myself out? I won't hit anything."

"...I'm backlashed enough to want to be carrying on a conversation pretty continuously, can you talk while you do that?"

"It shouldn't take long - you can talk to me via our bond during it? Might be hard to hear or respond aloud." 

"Yeah, that works I guess." [I don't remember if I introduced myself, I'm May.]

Is May checking for a response? There's a sensation to being read that she'd feel if May was.

Yes, she has absorbed the explanation of how the telepathy works.

[Oh, you didn't did you. Well, I'd say nice to meet you except I'm not sure whether the circumstances are all that nice. I'm happy I got summoned by you rather than someone else, at least.]

She is going to start stepping through a fairly short series of moves - footwork punctuated by swings and strikes.

[Would you have shown up for Ivan or would he have gotten somebody else?]

[I don't actually know.]

And now she can repeat the same steps, but faster.

[What other kinds of appropriateness are there besides the similar set of values kind?]

[People who might be friends, a champion who fulfills some need of the summoner, someone the summoner would like to be in control of.]

Another repetition, much faster than the last two.

[I don't think very highly of this system.]

[Neither do I.]

The repetitions are now beyond the speed a human could do - it's hard to track what she's doing all that closely.

[That's really cool looking.]

[Thanks!]

She can go faster! At a certain point she's a blur and May can feel the occasional breeze and hear a quiet humming.

[Can all spirits or champions or whatever you are do this?]

[Nope!]

The humming getting a bit louder is the only sign Lianelle has gotten even faster before she stops, sweaty and breathing heavily. 

[Can they do other similarly impressive things? - how do I un-tire you?]

[Yeah - well, I prefer what I can do but they often have their own tricks. Champions vary a lot - they don't have to look human, for example. Try intending to untire me with your bond? I'm not sure.]

...abracadabra???

Apparently that can do the trick! May can feel a small portion of her magic, which she apparently has a new sense for, draining away. She could do this more than a dozen times probably, but less than a hundred.

"I think that was less than ten percent of my magic but not by much."

"Seems a bit on the low side but still a lot more than someone who wasn't a summoner would have."

"Fortunately it didn't do anything to my backlash. Or, well, fortunately it didn't make my backlash worse, I guess if it had somehow made it better that would have been cool."

"Yeah, I wish there was a way to help with that."

"I'm trying to get a sense of how fast it's refilling... it took practice with backlash and I guess this might too..."

"Yeah, I think it usually is slow enough that it's not easy to sense it happening without practice."

May nods. "...usually what I'd be doing right after a dungeon would be sitting with June for a while to take the edge off while on the phone with whoever was handy or talking to my cat but obviously that's not happening. And then I'd take a shower, which I guess I can do without needing to ask you to hang out on the other side of the shower curtain since we can have telepathic conversations. And then I'd change clothes, which I can't do at the moment so maybe the shower can wait... how long does the tournament usually last? Is there a specific location for it or is it just wherever one finds oneself?"

"They last days to weeks. You can't get too far away from the Spring when the tournament is ongoing but other than that it's wherever one finds themselves."

"What happens if I try to go out of bounds? Does everyone know this is going on so they don't bother calling the cops?"

"You'll feel strain on your bond and it will eventually rip your soul out, I think."

"Uh, non-magic people can't notice magic and will come up with other reasons for anything they notice. Sometimes those other reasons cause them to try getting involved but this doesn't usually go well for them since they can't notice all the ways things aren't normal. Also uh. People dying from that and from mages not caring is very common."

"...and they can totally notice me shooting people with guns, and probably also esper powers unless the problem with them noticing magic is in them and not in the magic."

"Yeah, I think so?"

"How far from the Spring is too far?"

"I don't know exactly - the last place I was in was a pretty big city and it was all within range of the Spring and you could walk at least an hour into the country side, I think?"

"Okay, so I maybe want camping supplies and to get away from bystanders. ...I should tell you that I'm pretty sure I can't sleep, backlashed, without anybody, uh, with me? When I was awakening it was my parents. June can't handle much human contact when she's backlashed so I just don't try to sleep at all till I'm zeroed, I do my dungeons in the morning whenever I can for this reason. I could maybe do it at this level because it's way lower than awakening levels but I think it would make it really hard to relax by myself enough."

"I am happy to hang out with you while you fall asleep, or whatever it is you want."

"I am not sure I will be able to sleep if I am not physically holding someone."

"Fine by me."

"Okay. Thanks. Sorry."

"It is really completely fine."

"If people are going to start trying to kill me twelve hours after the ritual and it's early morning here I should take a nap before then, and then go shopping and get out of town."

"I think this seems like a reasonable plan."

May's already taken most of her gear off. She gets out her shoes and peels back the bedspread.

Lianelle is sort of excited about having a good reason to cuddle during a tournament, though she is doing her very best to not make this weird for her summoner. She can lose her scale mail and the sword can be leaned against the side of the bed and her body can flopped onto the mattress.

Snug-

-gle. "What the -" And then she's wrapped very urgently around Lianelle and slightly struggling to breathe. "What the fuck -"

Lianelle feels some sort of slight buzz from the contact - it's hard to place.

"-what? Are you okay?" 

She scans around the room for attackers, listening closely for anything she can't see... but nothing's apparent... 

"You feel like a compatible esper but it's - you feel more compatible than June and I can feel her from a meter away and I didn't notice anything till I touched you!"

"Oh, it could be the bond being helpful?"

"I guess so! Mmmmmmmmm..." Snugglesnugglesnuggle.

Lianelle can be so snuggly with her summoner! 

"I should probably not assume I'm invincible just because you can debacklash me if I need to throw off a bunch of attempts to stab me but I'm so much more optimistic now!!"

"That's really helpful!"

"Mm-hm. - uh, guiding 101, I don't want to make it weird, you're being extremely helpful just like this, but in case there is ever an emergency, the efficiency usually scales with amount of skin contact and fluid exchange - skin contact may or may not itself work by exchanging, like, skin oil and sweat, tests are inconclusive."

"Would you like to have sex?"

"I am at all concerned about your ability to give uncoerced consent here considering!"

"I ... probably I should also be worried about the other end of this? You could read my mind about my end if you'd like. But I am almost always happy about having sex. It is possible to be terrible enough that that stops being completely true but that requires trying really hard at that."

"I still think reading your mind would be kind of fucked up for the record," but then she's going to kiss her.

Kiss! Kissing is great.

[I am going to assume you are making reasonable decisions for yourself about this! And I think you reading my mind would be fun but you do not have to if you don't want to.]

[If you think it would be ACTIVELY FUN then maybe.] Lianelle is wearing a shirt and should stop that.

Lianelle doesn't feel all that much guiding but May's body on her own feels really good for entirely mundane reasons! Which she is wiggling about!

[Yes I do! Well - if you don't want to hear me occasionally thinking of the time where someone managed to be terrible than maybe the thing to do would be for you to let me send you my thoughts from my head, rather than doing a full read. Though I would find both actively fun.]

[It sounds like sort of a moodkiller! How do I let you do that?]

[Intend it?]

[Done.]

Makeouts really 80/20 the fluid exchange and skin contact benefits of guiding and will probably be enough to zero May out but as long as she has a free pass she's going to investigate the boob situation.

Lianelle has firm breasts on her overall toned and athletic body. Investigating them will also cause her to start wrapping her legs around Mays legs and making sounds into the kisses.

Lianelle's thoughts, meanwhile... Lianelle thinks May is extremely hot and also, importantly to Lianelle right now, good. She would have been interested in sex with May before that became clear - she wants to have sex with lots of people and also champions and monsters and this is almost never a good idea. Outside of the precious days she spends with a real body she can't have sex at all, can't even feel horny, and she hates that so much. Lianelle learned from personal experience that people mind if you just ask them to have sex casually when you first meet, and sometimes they will say yes even though they don't actually want to, so she doesn't do that anymore.

In this moment she is very much enjoying May exploring her boobs which should be explored that's great and feels great, and also she is hoping May enjoys her body in general since she's quite proud of it. She's also jealous of whatever May is feeling from the guiding and is planning on asking her to try projecting the feeling at Lianelle sometime.

And lastly, as she sends all this, she feels... free, to just be able to share her thoughts in this form. It's one of the best parts of the bond.

Oh, can she project guiding - it's awesome and it's so sad that most people never get to try it - it's like this -

... What if Lianelle has an orgasm about this like right now.

Mood. (Also, hot.) May is habituated to non-sexual guiding, thanks June, but if that were not the case she'd probably have been in the same boat. She is kind of grinding on Lianelle's leg and will be along any moment now.

If Lianelle moves her leg like this will it help? She can also help with her hands if May wants, that sounds fun.

The leg's got her covered. She needs to be kissing Lianelle a lot right now actually.

She can be kissing Lianelle so much! Lianelle loves kissing May, it's so good.

It is! Who knew! Not Sparkler, he's kind of lousy in bed and until this exact hour in her life May was kind of feeling ripped off about self-modifying to be able to enjoy casual guiding nookie only to find a) June and b) Sparkler. As of right now though SUPER WORTH IT.

It's true, Lianelle is great at sex.

She is very pretty and kissable and soft and warm and C O M P A T I B L E.

And she has a corporeal body and can feel horny and be touched and be sent positive bursts of emotion that are entirely new to her and it's all thanks to May!

The compatibility is such that May zeroes out before she gets around to removing anyone's pants. "Well," she says, "I no longer strictly need to be holding you to take a nap, but I could anyway."

"Hm, I would like to keep cuddling you so if you want to nap with me I would be happy about that."

"Mmmmgood." It has been a stressful and emotionally rollercoastery and exhausting timzeone-straddling period of several hours. She finds a good static cuddle position and settles in and goes to sleep. And mumbles random nouns.

Cuuute. Lia won't quite sleep but she will chill out and sort of drift happily while cuddling the cute nouns girl.

Cute nouns girl takes a 3.5 hour nap,

...and then remembers that she has been involuntarily entered in a battle royale!

She sits up, gets out of bed, starts looking for hotel stationery to write on because she doesn't bring notebooks into dungeons.

She can find some pen and paper near the minifridge. 

Lianelle experimentally bounces and then flips out of bed and starts stretching.

Oh good, she won't be bored while May writes up her emotional journey and also a shopping list.

Correct, instead of being bored she will be doing handstand push-ups, and trying to figure out if there's a way to do them much faster than normal. The difficult bit is speeding up the down section faster than gravity will let her do it - she needs to figure out a way to push herself towards the ground... without just gripping the floor in her hands since that would probably damage the floor.

Eventually: "Do you eat? Because I do and should probably have - what time is it - brunch."

"You can remove my hunger like the fatigue but I'd love to eat."

"Probably what I got for the gun will be enough for us to live on till the tournament's over one way or another whether you eat or not, so sure. Do you eat like whatever or do you have preferences about it?" She puts more of her objects back on her person.

"Whatever is good - I doubt I'm familiar with modern food anyways."

Then they are going to go out and find a fast food place where she can put protein and grease and sugar in herself efficiently.

In-N-Out exists! Lianelle has no idea what any of these options are but can pick some things at near random.

May has never seen this chain before but it sells burgers and fries and shakes and she wants all those things.

"Oh wow this food is really weird!" Lianelle says after having taken bite of her double-double immediately after figuring out how the straw in her milkshake worked.

"Weird how? It's ground meat and melted cheese on bread. With condiments."

"I don't think I've had that combination of things before! Also the meat has a very consistent texture and the bread has the thinnest crust and the milkshake tastes like a sweet fruit and has bubbles!"

"What year was it last time you were around?"

"Uh, Xinwei, I think? But I don't think that's how they do years other places." 

"It's not, I'd need to look that up."

"They didn't have giant buildings or elevators but they did have guns."

"Xinwei sounds maybe Chinese and I think they had guns pretty early, or maybe it's just gunpowder they had early and they didn't turn it into guns till closer to when Europe was doing it."

"Seems possible - the prior time was in Europe and didn't have guns and my memories of my life before that - which might not be accurate - also don't have guns."

"How is the Spring - placed? What determines where it is? I think this is America based on people's accents and the lack of French on the signs."

"I'm not sure - I think it does prefer cities."

"Like a dungeon."

"What is a dungeon, exactly?"

"Hostile pocket dimension that kidnaps people. They started happening on my world about six decades ago, espers started happening then too."

"Do you get the people back?"

"Usually."

Nod.

"I wish there could be a world where all the magic was just... good."

"That'd be nice."

Lia demolishes her meal rather quickly.

May's not quite that fast but still brisk about it. Then she asks an employee if they can direct her to a camping supply type store.

There's one nearby as it turns out!

Good. She wants to get away from civilization and stay there and make people come to her so they aren't fighting in a CITY. Tent, air mattress thing, sleeping bags they can zip together if they wish, water containers, similar such conveniences for sleeping rough for a while. She's already got a knife. Do they sell ammo here, one of her guns takes sufficiently generic rounds that they might have them in this other universe.

They do sell ammo though they'll need to see ID for it. 

Lia would like to get this fuzzy sweater, some neat knives, a first aid kit, and this slightly more expensive LED lantern which can change colors.

.......does her Traceless ID work for this, she's got that in her boot pocket.

"You realize I don't have a lot of other stuff to hock and we still need to buy food, a change of clothes, and maybe if there's cash left a phone and a charger to kill time with," May tells Lianelle.

It does not work.

"Oh should I put it back?"

She doesn't have her regular ID so she puts the ammo back. She'll just have to aim real good. "Probably. If I win you stick around, right, we can figure out some longer term situation involving nonessential spending then."

"Yeah, it can wait till then."

"Any guesses if the Spring'll work to bring me home and then work once I get there? I think maybe the mages here are not responsible with it."

"I think it'll get you home but I'm not sure if it'll come with."

"Dang. ...is there a way to tell in advance how much juice it'll cost to get me home so I can use up the rest of it first?" They are having this conversation while they walk to a Target. May has most of their new stuff in her dungeoneering backpack but gave Lianelle the tent to carry.

"Once you have the Spring you'll be able to tell before using it to do things how much those things will cost. You know I could definitely carry that backpack for you."

"Are you a lot stronger than I am?"

"Yes."

"Sure, then." Backpack transfer.

Lia hefts it onto her back without any apparent difficulty.

And they can continue their tromp to Target. May has a watch and checks it occasionally. They are making acceptable time.

At the Target she gets no-cooking-required food that she can live on for a week with a little slack for Lianelle to have some. She doesn't want to overload their carrying capacity to the point that they're mind-controlling people who watch them walk down the street to not notice how heavy all their shit is (she explains). Bread, peanut butter, jam, pull-tab canned tuna and soup she's willing to eat cold, Goldfish crackers, pop tarts and protein bars, a bag of baby carrots and a bag of apples so the imaginary voice of her mother will shush, beef jerky, and a tiny spatula to dispense peanut butter and jam with. If this takes more than a week she'll need to go shopping again but she's paying cash so hopefully that will make it hard to guess exactly when she'll need to return to town and mages bent on murder will come find her in the sticks.

Lianelle feels one of the cheap polyester fluffy blankets and isn't going to so to buy it but will pet it for rather a long time and make a face.

[Sorry. I'm plenty rich at home for blankets and sweaters and lamps that change color, just.] She's going to buy a cheap pack each of T-shirts and underpants and socks to cycle through, she'll deal with being in the same pants and bra all week.

[Yeah, it makes sense and the blankets aren't as important.] 

Lianelle can stop petting them... now.

This all adds up. She does some mental arithmetic. [I thiiiiiiink I have enough for a phone and a charger but this would be basically just for entertainment purposes and is arguably not worth it and it would be more expensive than any of the things you wanted, what do you think.]

[I don't really know what that is?]

[A phone will let us read and listen to and watch stuff that people decide to make available for that, which is a lot of stuff.]

[Will it let us follow what's happening with the rest of the tournament?]

[...if somebody posts it sure. But I doubt they will if the normal people can't notice it.]

[A lot of the times fights are big enough people will notice something is going on, they'll just come up with different explanations for what it is, like a small earthquake or something.]

[Well, then I guess we'd see hints in the news, though they'd be iffy to interpret.]

[It still might be a good idea to keep track of.]

Okay, can she get a month of unlimited data (free trial is fine if she can get it without a card on file) and a solar charger with her remaining money?

Sure, that can fit in their budget. Lianelle didn't really need the blanket - May is already very soft and warm 

One does one's humble best.

They and their shopping can go collect what they left behind in the hotel and get some initial app setup and downloads done on the wifi there and get a map to see where a good place to camp out might be.

It turns out they are in San Angeles, a city in roughly the same place as the Los Angeles May is familiar with, but with a different layout and some additional land. There's a state park bordering the city not too far from where they are - maybe 25 minutes by car.