Convert, obviously.

Yes, she could have theoretically benefited from absorbing all of these men’s memories and all the powers they might have had, but she didn’t think they would be worth the mana loss. Plus, her girlfriend warned her about incorporating too many souls into her single gem. She could lose bits of her identity until suddenly she wasn’t even the same woman anymore. If Ed saw her like that, she would...

There was no risk of that, because Amelia converted one of the soul gems into mana and refilled her own power. No identity sapping involved this time, even if it really could have helped.

This extra bit of energy was exactly what her systems needed, it seemed, because right at that moment, the diagnostic scan completed:

The right shoulder. She must have gotten hit there in the time since she last activated her modules, something to bump out a rock and break everything. Maybe bumping into that orc on the sidewalk did the trick?

Or maybe her body was simply a broken shell with no one to repair it.

Amelia sat back down and took off her jacket just minutes after she put it back on. Cold as hell in just a shirt, but it had to be done. She felt at her back for any chipped chunks or other places where the stone could be weak and leaking. But that was not how it actually worked, she realized after a few fruitless moments.

That was the problem with being a golem. Or half-golem. Or whatever she counted as. A broken, discarded prototype like nothing else ever created.

Most of her body was human flesh, animated through the soul-powered engine in her chest. Her artificial soul flowed through the organs and pumped them to life, or filled in for their functions where the body parts were missing—she had no brain, for example, so her whole nervous system was controlled by a meticulously crafted space in her own empty head. Incomprehensibly complex, but workable.

But it was a more tenuous situation for the parts of her created from rock. The mana alone held everything together, but it had to be controlled and distilled or else it would be just a group of rocks floating loosely around her soul. To make her arm and leg and half of her face, she needed her lower-level systems—her Access Core—to guide her soul around. Remove the stone, and the limbs would still be there—they would just be purple glowing beams of energy desperately seeking a substance to cover them up.

The leak in her right shoulder was not from the stone itself; it was from something in her systems that worked improperly for whatever reason in the millions of minute details in her system and its modules.

She really needed a tune-up. And, unfortunately, the only golemancer she knew had left her behind—her girlfriend Ed.

But she was here in Fleettwixt, and Amelia was going to find her... Just as soon as she plugged the hole that was quickly killing her.

The overflow in mana from the soul absorption would be enough. She activated the Repair Module in her higher-level systems—basically, the only direct control she had over her body—and began searching for whatever tiny malfunction had caused this leak.

A 3D model of her body—the real one, made purely of energy—appeared on her HUD. It showed her mana flow in a humanoid shape, with one tiny cone jutting out as if she had a single spike on her back. Mana would flow to this section, then with too much distance from the soul core, dissipate into the atmosphere like a misting humidifier. Useful to the mana batteries around her, but very deadly for her.

“Take your sweet time,” she muttered. The system did not respond snarkily, because unfortunately her girlfriend had not programmed it for extended conversation. Would have saved her a bit of loneliness if she had.

A spiked back was not a bad idea for fights, she thought. It would have been nice to have extra defense in close-combat situations, especially considering that human with a crowbar who was able to send her body spinning with just one well-placed blow. But this one mana cone was too small and too off-center to work even if she built stone onto it. It was merely a useless glitch. She would need to intentionally create spikes—dozens of them—and design her lower-level systems to flow like this. Unfortunately, she had neither the souls nor the experience with golemancy to implement any of this yet. Emphasis on “yet,” she thought to herself.

In a few moments, the mana recirculated around her body and the leak was eradicated. Her systems returned to normal function, and the perilous alerts on her HUD went away.

Whew.

She leaned her head back and looked at the snowy skies above her. If not for that giant force field bubble around the city, she’d be near-death and freezing cold to boot. At least it was only one of the two.

Amelia was broken.

Mentally, physically, spiritually—you name it, Amelia suffered in it. She was at the very end of the line and coming to Fleettwixt made it worse.

But.

Somehow, despite everything, she felt ecstatic. She was finally making progress in her life. She had just begun a valiant path towards vengeance and justice. Her girlfriend was somewhere in this city, and she was about to find her, no matter what it took. No matter how many people got in her way.

Her body was slowly breaking down, her higher-level systems barely worked, and she was about to be made a target for one of the biggest agriculture syndicates in all of Sunwell. All that meant was that she was in for much a tougher challenge than just a few hours ago.

Good. Amelia enjoyed a challenge.