“You could use many words. Life force? Chi? Psychic energy? Soul? Choose the religious or philosophical term you prefer. You would probably perceive it as magical strength. But we call it Spirit. We suck it out of people, refine it, then pipe it off through the Portal. Millions of barrels of it every year.”
Another portal. She should have realised. It explained what they were doing here, wherever here was. It explained the goblin. Another portal and not one going anywhere good, that was clear.
“The machine … sucked out people"s souls?”
“It did. A percentage of their souls, anyway. These days we have perfected the technology. Miniaturised and fine-tuned it. Now there are billions of tiny Extraction Engines embedded in electronic devices the world over. You"re in range of any number of th
