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A Soulfire-native Diana-predominant mélange strikes out into the world of magical girling.
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Prrrrrobably?  She's at least checking in on the darn thing to make sure it doesn't menace any little old ladies.

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Well, animal control has shown up in a golf cart, carrying their actual sharp spears and long nets and so on, and would like her to clear out while they hunt for the nasty.

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"Yeah, I called this in.  It's over in that bush, I'm pretty sure.  Also there was a monster bat, but that's dead now."  She wrapped up the corpse in a couple of plastic grocery bags (which she usually carries around for making dog owners clean up after themselves, but that's another story).  "...Honestly I'm kind of invested in seeing how this goes, if you don't mind?  I can handle myself, at least against the little shit.  ...And if it's bigger shit, more people running away means more potential survivors to pass the message on."

She has never really understood where her mixture of cavalier attitude towards and burning resentment of the existence of death came from, but it's there anyway.

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The first guy peers at the dead bat in plastic bags. "They vanish eventually, by the way. Damn. It's just a goblin, they said. Where there's one there might just be one but where there's two there's a dozen."

"We're really not supposed to involve bystanders," the other one comments.

"He got the bat."

"Point. But look, monsters are serious business. I don't want to explain how you got hurt or killed because you were too cocky."

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"I know my limits, and I'll stick in the back."

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"Ugh."

"C'mon, Jeb. Don't all teens just want to stab something occasionally?"

"That doesn't mean I should let them. We're here to do a job, not fuck around. No."

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"You're here to do a job, I left this specific job undone for you solely because tromping through the woods on my own after a goblin is bloody stupid considering how fast they move, and I'm not a magical girl who can bullshit out some swanky magic solution to that sort of problem."  Yet, she doesn't say.  "I want to finish this job I undertook.  No more, no less.  But I understand your point, Jeb.  Good hunting."  She'll just, go, then.  Probably ought to look up the local spirits in more detail; Lilith was leading her on very specifically, but having more options is better.

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Teenagers. What are you gonna do. 

"Have a nice day," Not Jeb calls after her.

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"Thanks."  She smiles, though it's...strained.

Anyway, it's continuing-research time.  Unless a goblin suddenly jumps her.

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She can reach the library peacefully.

New England doesn't have as many nature spirits as it used to. But the state parks have a few, there's a few river spirits, some lake spirits, a bunch of mountain spirits who are suspected in suspicious coal mining accidents by some, an apparently very ornery winter spirit and a harbor spirit of Chesapeake Bay who demands a wooden ship be sunk in the bay annually for some reason and it became a miniature festival, a famous waterfall spirit on the James River in Virginia who is apparently chattier than most, and the Mt. Marcy Killer, who is really not a very agreeable spirit at all.

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Maybe she'll talk to the boat one next time she visits; she thought it was some sort of historic record thing, not a spirit thing.

Well.

...What's the character of the coal mining accidents in question?

 

...annnd the Mt. Marcy Killer.

Yeah, she's heard about that one alright...racking her memory to figure out what, though, is probably more effort than a search query.

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Rockslides, floods, elevated monster activity above what people expected, and one time a wildfire.

Why, the Mt. Marcy Killer kills everyone who goes to Mt. Marcy. Even magical girls pursuing monsters.

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...Yeah, the mountain spirits are right out, as much as global warming must stop.

...What the heck is with the spirits around here and unusual amounts of violence?  It's really fucking weird!

 

Probably explains the genies.

 

Alright, time to go map a quest.  Let's start with the one in Virginia and work her way back...

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Well to be fair, the agreeable and peaceful ones get much less scary news written about them. She can find some regions said to belong to two forest spirits, an odd prairie spirit known as Culpeper Cut, a spot on the upper Potomac that might be a good place to talk to one called Washington Snowmelt, all on the way back from old James Falls.

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Alright, those go on the list.

And tomorrow, she'll set out in search of them.

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There's a smudge of black lipstick in the shape of a pair of lips on the car's driver-side window when she heads back for the night.

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"Well hello there."  That's honestly the most surprising thing about all this.  "Hope you haven't been waiting long," she drawls out on general principle, despite not expecting Lilith to actually be present.  (Should she show up, however...she has a few lines.)

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Lilith is not in evidence!

 

The drive down into Virginia the next day is uneventful and boring. It takes two and a half hours to get down to James Falls.

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She arrives, then, at the Falls, and...presumably has instructions for treating with the spirit?

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There's a little tourist trap park sort of place with a kitschy souvenir store and a stone ampitheater where what looks like a 12-foot-long dragon made of foamy water is lounging and chatting with a hiker about local bird species!

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She'll wait, then.  She has time enough.

(And it's neat to hear someone talk about something they're interested in.)

"Hello.  I'm planning on trying to become a spirit bearer, and thought I'd ask you about the process, especially from the patron's side."

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"Oh? I get a lot of those. I'm quite happy with my Citronella right now, I'm afraid you're out of luck."

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"I wasn't realistically expecting you to give me magic, especially not for the merest asking, but I would like 'interview tips', if you'd be so kind.  You do a lot more talking with humans than some, but still have perspective I lack."

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"Oh, alright, alright. Yes, I'm very 'well socialized'." Scoff. The foamy water flows into a new position. "My sensory modality is almost totally untranslatable, but most things humans and monsters get up to are painful. Ranging from an itchy zit to the burning agony of a spear in the gut. The amphitheater? It's itchy. Like beard stubble or so I'm told. But as long as the whole state park thing holds strong I'm safe, and part of that is having a spirit bearer or two who's in my corner, so to speak. Well, and making sure it's inconvenient for people if I stop cooperating," a gesture to the souvenir shop. "I can't kill monsters nearly so well as you lot. You're very good at murder. Like those shark-sucker fish, I pour the energy of the land down into you to ignite your soul and you keep me clean after. But what separates a good bearer from a poor one is how much I can trust you to be reliable after the fact, and most of my kind are really damn bad at judging that and accordingly picky."

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"Mm-hmm.  So prior action in the spirit's interest would be useful?  Showing alignment by what I've actually done, and then making the case that I could do more of it with power?"

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