“Blood is a fantastic essence,” Gary said enthusiastically. “You might get a health-drain power if you use all those feast stones. Then you can be your own healer.”

“Maybe,” Farrah said. “It could be almost anything with common stones, but blood, plus feast? The chances are decent.”

“Self-healing would be useful,” Rufus said, “given how hard it can be to get a healer on your team. We’ve struggled with that ourselves.”

“What about Anisa?” Jason asked.

“Anisa is a temporary addition,” Rufus said. “It’s usually just the three of us.”

“Self-healing is very common with the blood essence,” Farrah said. “Don’t expect much in the way of powerful attacks, though,” Farrah warned. “Blood essence abilities tend to be more insidious. Bleeding, poison, that kind of thing.”

“No lava cannon?” Jason asked.

“Sadly no,” Farrah said with a chuckle.

“But I want a lava cannon.”

20. By the Power of Grayskull

20

By the Power of Grayskull

“You probably want your essence abilities to be more well-rounded than Farrah’s,” Gary said.

“Hey,” Farrah complained.

“In terms of raw power, Farrah is easily the strongest of us,” Rufus said. “But that focus comes at the cost of versatility.”

“She’s great at blowing things up,” Gary said.

“It’s true,” Farrah said. “I am good at blowing things up.”

“Which, admittedly, solves the bulk of our problems,” Rufus said. “But when overwhelming, barely-contained annihilation isn’t the answer, it leaves her somewhat at a loss.”

“Power is always the answer,” Farrah said.

“Mass destruction sounds pretty good to me,” Jason said, “but it doesn’t seem like the blood essence would give me that. Should I use it, or hold out for something better?”

“That’s up to you,” Rufus said. “It’s best to consider what other essences you’ll have.”

“Well, I’ve already used the dark essence,” Jason said.

“That could work,” Farrah said. “A sneaky assassin type. A bit of poison here, exsanguination there.”

“Just make sure you avoid the death essence,” Rufus said, the others nodding in agreement.

“Death essence?” Jason asked.

“The death essence has some powerful abilities,” Gary said, “but they come with big drawbacks. Very few essences have side-effects, but death can produce some nasty ones.”

“Remember how we explained about confluence essences?” Rufus asked.

“That’s your buy three, get one free deal on essences, right?” Jason said.

“That’s right,” Rufus said. “More or less. Some confluence essences are produced by a wide variety of combinations. The death essence has a nasty habit of producing the confluence essence undeath. There are many combinations that produce it, almost all of which involve the death essence.”

“Take the blood essence you have here, for example,” Farrah said. “Add in a death essence and pretty much anything else and the undeath essence will pop right out.”

“Undeath is bad,” Gary said.

“The abilities in the undeath essence have a nasty habit of turning you into some kind of unliving monstrosity,” Rufus said.