“If it came along with the blood essence,” Farrah said, “you’d almost certainly get an ability that turns you into a vampire.”

“Vampires are a thing?” Jason asked.

“They are,” Rufus said, “and they’re bad. For one thing, they can’t sustain themselves with spirit coins or even regular food anymore.”

“They drink blood,” Jason said.

“They do,” Rufus confirmed. “Imagine having vast magical powers and an unquenchable thirst for blood.”

“Not a combination good for public safety,” Jason said.

Rufus nodded.

“People with the undeath essence almost always awaken a power that changes them like that,” he said. “Such powers are very strong, but they all bring with them unnatural appetites.”

“If that wasn’t enough,” Farrah added, “they can often turn normal people into monsters like them. Not with the essence powers of the original, but dangerous enough.”

“Vampires turning other people into vampires,” Jason said. “Can’t beat the classics.”

“Even if the undeath essence doesn’t turn you into a monster,” Farrah added, “it tends to give out less than palatable abilities.”

“You already said the blood essence has life-draining powers,” Jason said. “Less palatable than that?”

“Yes,” Gary growled. “No one will mind if you drain some health out of a guy that stabbed you. As long as you don’t drink his blood to do it, anyway. When you raid the local cemetery, though? No one wants their dead family members shambling into town as part of your undead army.”

“And that’s one of the lesser evils,” Farrah said. “We actually all met fighting a zombie plague.”

“A proper zombie plague?” Jason asked. “Zombies turning other people into zombies, the whole deal?”

“The whole deal,” Gary said. “Entire towns were burned out just to contain it. Bad business.”

“None of us want to see something like that again,” Farrah said. “If you get the undeath essence we’ll kill you ourselves.”

Jason looked at the expression on the faces of the others and saw they weren’t joking.

“Avoiding the death essence then,” he said.

“On top of everything else,” Rufus said, “the Adventure Society has a list of restricted essences that pose an inherent threat to ordinary people.”

“The death essence sitting at the top of that list,” Gary said.

“Mostly it’s combinations of essences,” Rufus explained, “since the confluence essence is usually the bad one. The death essence is on the list by itself, though, because it always seems to go wrong. You need to pay attention to the restricted essences. It’s impossible to get membership in the Adventure Society if you have one of them.”

“And I want to be a member of this Adventure Society?” Jason asked.

“You do,” Rufus said emphatically.

“Well,” Jason said, “I don’t have a death essence, but I’m a little wary of the one I do have.”

Jason took a second cube from his inventory. This one looked like white jade flecked with gold.