IWUAaDNW: Growth 3.7

“Goodbye, my love,” Kamella whispered. “We’ll find each other in the stream.”

She pushed at the urn’s stopper, twisted, then pulled. The plug came off easily. She flipped the urn over, and ashes fell out.

They disappeared into my floor as soon as they touched it, like salt into warm water.

It tasted sweet, like honey or syrup. If I had a face, I would have grimaced. I would have preferred if it hadn’t tasted good.

She waited until no more ashes fell, then dropped the urn on the floor. I picked it up with one of my spiders to clear the way.

“Thank you, Taylor,” Kamella said. “Thanks to you, my husband is finally where he belongs now.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Maryll added, bowing with a clasped-fist salute that her mother copied. “I hope it helps you, too.”

It probably would.

They left, and I took the opportunity to look at my menus as soon as they were out of my stairs. My mana had not budged, which was unfortunate. I had gained no progression at all, which surprised me a little.

My impurity count had gone up to six. I’d gotten four impurities from that one urn.

How many people was this? Maybe a hundred? Was I going to get four hundred impurities from this? Never mind the sweetness, my metaphorical mouth was watering at the thought of all I could do with that.

Well, it turns out I was a bit wrong. Kamella’s husband gave me four, but he was on the high end. Most gave me just two or three. A few even gave me just one; those tended to be small urns. Children, then. An adult’s grandfather (“Go and give Grandma a hard time again, you grumpy old geezer.”) gave me two impurities. An older woman’s grandson (“Find your mom, and tell her her mother will want some answers.”) gave me three.

[...]

In the end, I came out of it with two-hundred and eighty-seven impurities.