God of Trash

Rhys made his way over to the fountain, gently pushing the other trash out of his way. At the fountain, he surveyed the problem. The large trash was no issue. For the most part, he could fish it out with a few sticks, some shimmying, and a little Trash Intent. It was the smaller trash that was troublesome. He didn’t really know what he was going to do about the leaves and the papers floating around.

The ones nearest the edge weren’t too bad. He scooped them out like how he plucked out the big items. His hands got a little wet, but that wasn’t a big problem. The problem was, not all of them were within arm’s reach. Some of them were up against the central pillars and on the far side of the filthy water that filled the fountain, completely out of his reach. Wade in? He’d rather not. Build a net? A better idea, but it would be clumsy and hard to operate, especially with the sub-par materials he had to start out with. Trash Intent could only go so far. He could, at his most powerful operation, draw out the ideal state of the trash at its strongest possible moment, but if he was working with soft wire to start out with, there was no amount of Trash Intent that would make that wire stiff enough to hold the mounds of heavy, wet leaves that had accumulated in the fountain.

Rhys considered for a moment, then looked at Lira and her constantly-raining umbrella. “Would you mind standing in the fountain?”

“Yes. It’s filthy,” she said.

“How about standing by the edge of the fountain so the water pours into the fountain?” Rhys suggested.

She considered, then nodded. “I’m amenable to this.”

As per his instruction, she stood at the edge of the fountain and held her umbrella on that side, putting as much of it over the edge of the fountain as she could. Rain pattered down into the fountain. Thanks to the water being added, the still water of the fountain began to flow. A gentle current slowly began to push the leaves and papers floating in the water to the far side of the fountain. At the same time, the dirt in the fountain flowed out as fresh water flowed in.

Rhys put his hand in the water, testing it for impurities. There were some, but no more than would be found in average water or earth. By now, impurities at that level were meaningless to him. Didn’t spark any excitement. He called them to him anyways, and they responded, flowing through the water into his hand, where he stored them in his core until the next set of impurities he was going to burn. He could have thrown them into the furnace of currently-burning impurities, but he’d only be able to use them to reinforce his core right now, and they were far too weak to allow them to strengthen his core. Better to use them in a weaker, more delicate part of his body, where he could still use weak impurities.

Lira frowned. She looked at his hand. “Why?”

“Huh?”

“You called the impurities to yourself. Why? You’ll weaken yourself that way,” she said.

“Oh… not for me. Don’t worry about it!” Rhys smiled and gave her a thumbs-up.