"It does, but not anything you'd want to taste. Alone, it's like... It has a taste I can only describe as like drinking salty chilis with an aftertaste of MSG. But worse. It's just way too intense to be pleasant."

"I see. I'll use it in things I think it'll be interesting in, I think... Strong, varied flavors."

"A good way to stretch it is to add a grind to a two-liter bottle of something - pop, milk, juice, whatever. Soup. It'll mix and permeate all of the liquid quite well. You can even stretch as far as four litres though you'll definitely lose some potency that way. Your call."

"They do Ambrosia - apple-orange-peach juice with Immortal Spice - as a standard drink at cultivator restaurants."

"Not gonna lie, sounds like it deserves the name. Where does this stuff come from? Same place as qi pills?"

"Fewer exotic ingredients and more refining - to get this much immortal spice you need like a pound of saffron among other items - but the general idea is the same."

"I see. Hmm.

Anything else that needs doing before 2:30?"

Butterfly Dancer shakes her head. 

She looks at Cocoa. "Want to spar?"

"Only if - No, sorry."

"That's alright."

"I'm a bit too tuckered out to spar some more, myself. I don't suppose you play video games, Butterfly Dancer?"

"I do! Do you have Smash?"

"Of course we have smash, we're not philistines."

"Let's play then!"

She's getting better at this game! And maybe with two mutual opponents they'll mostly worry about each other and not her...

Butterfly Dancer proves to be on Black Claw's level...

... and they're treating Trys as basically a stage hazard.

There's a grueling fight. Audrey wins.

And then she realizes she's at high percentage on her last life against Trys with three stocks left.

"Come at me," she says.

Those two are buzzsaws.

Okay, so-

What can she do to hit despite being slow and stupid, in comparison?

Try to herd or nudge Audrey towards the edge, where she has fewer movement options. Pay close attention to the patterns of both characters. (She's Falco.) Try to predict what she'll do next and put the birdman's fist or foot there.

Smash isn't really a game where you can accept a hit to get a hit off of your own, either you hit and interrupt the enemy or they dodge and hit you back. Too bad.

Audrey... loses. 

It takes all three of Trys' stocks and it's basically a lucky hit in the end, but Trys has been getting better.

"I can't believe you just lost to somebody still in their zeroth realm."

"I had handicaps!"

Cocoa just grins.

"It's mad just how - much you two are and you're not even that far off from me. Does it get frustrating being around ordinary people? ...Anyway, waiting for the other two to finish beating each other up and finishing off the winner is a time-honored strategy, isn't it?"

"A little. It's easy to get used to the food and the wealth and the glorious body and... drift away, a little. I try hard not to."