Memories of the Fall

…Instead—our ancestors saw in this moment an opportunity to rise for themselves. To turn on their leaders, reject the old alliances they had wrought in favour of the more inward-looking philosophies of ‘Power’ and ‘Glory’. They saw the plight of those others, who had long frustrated their desire to expand, and rather than see the greater evil rising, chose to kick them while they were down. Believing that they were better than the Ur’Khal, our ancestors took from the Peoples of Sun and Sea even as Earth and Sky fell into their own ruin, consumed by their circumstances. They saw the strength of the Ur’Khal, made by the great shaper of lives we now call Keramos of Ur broken, and rejoiced—for again it gave them means to expand their own influence.

Excerpt from ‘On the Origins of Darkness’

By Menoc of Tyre

~ Ragash, Thunder Mountain Tribe—just glad to be alive. ~

Ragash fled as fast as her sealed limbs would allow her. She had expected more of the evil things to come, but those numbers were outside her expectation. Beside her, Jelas stumbled and she dragged the younger tribeswoman up. The Undren grabbed her other arm and they arrived back at the carts where the rest remained. Behind her, the shamaness from the small tribe to the west was dragging the hunter with her along—

There was a terrible detonation and a wave of mist rolled out. A heartbeat later the mist caught fire and the pressure wave picked all of them up and scattered them through the carts like gambler’s dice.

“By the ancestral gods!” She screamed as it burnt her back as badly as any spider ichor from the deeps had.

The shamaness rolled up and shook her head, dusting off corrosion with her own mana and then pointed towards the far carts. She nodded and grabbed Jelas and the Undren.

“What strength are they?” she asked her.

“Strong—” the shamaness emphasised, “You know Karoz of the Five Eyes?”

“Uh…” she had to admit she didn’t. The Five Eyes was another small tribe from the west, barely a subsidiary of the Gloomy Crags, who were themselves only middling in strength.

It was a moot point because another shockwave lifted them all up and crashed her down into the mud. She stumbled up as the shamaness grabbed the Undren while the Hunter grabbed Jelas. She hauled up the member of the Moon Waters Tribe whose name she had never gotten while the Ghoblan dragged two of their number and the other Undrenfolk.

“Ah, Ragash—what’s …?” a warrior of the Moon Waters Tribe, whose name she thought was Huljas, and who had survived so far by pure luck hauled himself out of the wreckage of their nearby cart.

“More Ubri’Khund. Less talk, more running,” she gasped.

“Fuck,” Huljas grimaced and grabbed the other survivor near him up and rushed after them. “Others?”

“It seems-” she flinched as a massive detonation swept through the forest, splintering trees followed by an enraged bellow that made her mind fuzz.

“Less-talks, more runs, unless also wants to die spell-cannon fodders?” the Undren who was being carried by the shamaness suggested.

“Do you want to run fur-ball?” the shamaness scowled.

There was a sense of everything growing turbulent and her legs were swept out from under her. The chaotic interference with her mana was… different somehow to the one she knew the Ubri’Khund to use.

“Told you they strong,” the shamaness panted. She hadn’t fallen, so those two were… part of her tribe?

They made it to the rocky outcropping and gorge beyond and she scrambled down into one. It was poor cover, but it would help with the shockwaves at—

There was an enraged bellow in the distance and her limbs went cold as something tried to grasp at her mind. She felt her mind blur… some of the weaker goblins collapsed bleeding from all their orifices, beyond help. The shamaness grimaced and the hunter with her stumbled but kept on running, carrying Jelas. Two of the other Undren and one of the other male warriors collapsed, vomiting blood. Pulling up an injured warrior, she pushed him ahead of her then jumped for the nearest gully in the outcropping only to feel a force suddenly pull the air backwards around her.

She crashed into the shallow gully as two male warriors dragging three injured apiece slipped in beside her. Looking back she could see the fire of the forest flowing backwards, spiralling inwards as something twisted it and drew everything a—

A thunderous cry rent the air, scattering everything and making her vision waver. The Great Hunter exerted his prestige, evidently 6th advancement.

“That’s a lot of fire,” the Undren muttered from nearby.

She could only agree, staring at the swirling vortexes. This was the first time she had gotten a good look at it, having been more focused on freeing people than running. That lightning spell had been comparable to the low 8th circle at best guess, and it had incinerated miles of forest it seemed.

“How strong do you think they are…?” one warrior gasped.

“Strong enough to save your hides,” the shamaness grimaced from nearby. “They are Ur’Sar, from across the ocean.”

“What happened to the others?” Huljas muttered, looking around.

“All who went surely die-burn,” the Undren muttered. “Better way to die at least, with lightning not see how die.”

She closed her eyes, still seeing spots from the bolts that descended. Their caravan had had several hundred in it. All those not in cages had been rushed off by the taskmasters… and then the lightning descended.

-At least it was brief.

She couldn’t blame the two, especially if they were Ur’Sar, for incinerating such a horde of attackers. She would do the same if she was that powerful.

They kept on, scrambling up through the gulley and finally took refuge further up where the second slab sloped back. The battle below was breath-taking in its ferocity. The momentary typhoon of wind had swept away the worst of the smoke, although it was rapidly returning. The Great Hunter stood at the back, sending death arrow after death arrow into the oncoming horde. The Ur’Sar wielding the spear was dancing through the Ubri’Khund massacring everything that came within ten yards of her.

The little evil ones, that had… tormented her and Jelas for days… done…

She closed her eyes and ground her teeth, before opening them to watch them flee like mad things, screaming in terror, just as Jelas had done as they… Their morale was weak when not led by the big ones. They were cruel and debasing but had no staying power in combat, relying on intimidation and psychological impact of just appearing vile to unnerve their opponents.

It made her heart fuzzy to see them burn. Her only regret was that she was not down there breaking them herself, shattering their skulls, ripping off their defiling organs… snapping their flabby limbs.

She was shaken from her reverie as another furious roar split the battlefield, two actually—a feminine one and a deep, grating bellow.

“They are very powerful,” Huljas muttered… “Even my soul shakes with the roar, at this distance… That close, I would bleed and need to use my Ancestors’ rage.”

The source was the other Ur’Sar, who fought with a metal sword. She watched her exchange blows with one of the Troll-kind, pressuring it with small fire spells as she tried to-

The woman blurred as the demon riding the Troll-kind over-egged its mount. She arrived above it, eviscerating the shocked rider and ripping out its mana core, which she then crushed in her fist and threw away. In the same instant, the spear-wielding Ur’Sar appeared before the recoiling troll-kind, cutting at it with a strange green-stone dagger blade—

“What in the Maker’s name!” the hunter from the Cloud Arrows tribe hissed.

“You didn’t know they had that?” the shamaness said dully.

“I heard them speak about it but…” the hunter grumbled.

She could only share his sentiments, honestly. Her hair on the back of her neck stood on end as the troll collapsed backwards, missing an arm… and its core. The green blade had opened up the Troll-kind like it was rotten wood.

Seconds later the other troll, who had already lost its controller, charged mindlessly in rage. Its speed so fast she only saw after images. The two women flitted back and then struck at the same time. The troll, trusting to its formidable physical power, had its belly opened up by the terrifying green knife. In response, it bellowed and tried to body slam its attacker. The howl of rage made her soul, such as she knew of it, shake, yet neither Ur’Sar was even slightly fazed.

Something, not a noise as such, rippled out from the spear-wielding Ur’Sar. It probably would have made her mana chaotic—had she had any left. As it was, it made her mind swim…

Beside her, Huljas shook his head and made a retching sound while the Undren groaned and held its head in its paws. Only the two from the Cloud Arrows tribe were largely unaffected, yet again.

Shaking her head, she managed to clear her vision and saw through the eddying smoke and flames of the forest that the battle was concluded in the moments they had all been disorientated. She could see the sword-wielding Ur’Sar was now cutting apart symbols on the Troll-kind, gouging them out and then destroying them with the green blade. Soon both Troll-kind were fully dead. The Great Hunter killed the last of the fleeing smaller Ubri’Khund who had been trying to take several of those vile banners with them. Each arrow he shot exploded with enough force to leave craters in the ground ten yards wide. A moment later all the rest collapsed, twitching like broken puppets, bleeding from every orifice just like their captors had.

The pair destroyed the banners quickly with the remarkable green dagger before—

She had to blink and look around because the Ur’Sar had vanished. It took her a moment to find her again, over by the edge of the escarpment, tossing the ruined banners at random over the cliff into the mists.

“I see you mostly survived,” the Great Hunter observed, appearing like the wind on the slope.

“Yes, Great Hunter,” she said with a bow.

The spear-wielding Ur’Sar appeared a second later and spoke in the relict tongue. “There are more coming, and the storm is…”

As if to remind everyone that they were basically perched on the storm wall, another huge peal of thunder and near-instant lightning surged across the sky above them, making everyone flinch.

“Yes, that is a problem,” the Great Hunter growled.

“Getting to the caverns will be impossible,” the shamaness sighed.

“Jumaki Chasm?” she asked.

“Yes,” the shamaness nodded.

“…”

She closed her eyes for a moment. “You will not find anything there. They have seized it, sealed it off.”

Unbidden, the scenes of chaos re-emerged in her mind, of the different forces desperately trying to cut their way out… of the 7th and 8th advancement Ubri’Khund who had forced waves of slaves, bound creatures and actual abominations into there to bury them in death then flushed them out from above with spell plague.

“So the caverns are out,” the spear-wielding Ur’Sar said contemplatively.

“There are others coming from the direction we came from as well,” the sword-wielding Ur’Sar said, making her flinch again as she appeared like a ghost from nowhere.

“Clearly they are going to besiege us here before we can take cover from the storm.”

“You…” she had a moment of shock as she realised that this group didn’t actually… know…

“What?” the Great Hunter said turning to her, registering the shock in her voice.

“The Ubri’Khund as you call them have special totems that allow them to move during the storm. It is why they are able to capture and escape so freely and retreat to their tower holds,” she said softly. “It is also why they were able to take Jumaki chasm: they trapped everyone in there during a storm wave, attacking from below then driving us out into the storm before forcing us back inside.”

“…”

“Well that explains why they are just sat off, building up forces,” the Great Hunter growled. “This changes much.”

“They plan to wear us down, then ambush us when we expect them to back off and take cover from the storm,” the shamaness muttered.

“There is another problem as well,” the Great Hunter growled.

“Oh, their vitality,” the Ur’Sar with the spear muttered.

“We don’t need food,” the Ur’Sar with the sword mused, “neither do you, Pezvak.”

“I can also go without, as can Luz, although we will be weaker due to the way the storm changes the mana,” the shamaness noted.

She looked around at the dozen or so survivors, abruptly realising the problem. The storm wave would last for… seven or eight days at least, maybe ten.

“How did they feed you?” the spear Ur’Sar asked, frowning.

“The butchered remains of our brethren?” Huljas scowled.

“…”

The Cloud Arrows tribe trio and the two Ur’Sar all just looked at them.

“Yes… they are vile things, and you have no strength to resist,” one of the other warriors muttered darkly.

She could only agree, eating your own kin was a great shame, even if it was forced. Certain rites allowed for ritual consumption of key organs, or the refinement of mana cores, but to treat a fellow Ur’Inan as food was a taboo. To do so was to have all others treat you as something close to Orcnéas. A great shaman might absolve them of that crime against their ancestors, but they… she… everyone elsewhere would have to live with it even so.

“They will not survive in their current states without food,” the spear female mused, “and water… Such an unusual consideration, I had almost forgotten what it was like to need food and drink for actual sustenance.”

Pushing that slightly scary offhand comment away, she considered those around them, then spoke to the Great Hunter, “The strongest of us can probably survive, but those who are weak…”

“Cons-s-ume the meat of the fallen—?” one of the Undren suggested in their own tongue before being silenced by her smarter peers.

“We can always try that?” the spear Ur’Sar said after a moment’s pause. “If it’s a weak one it will not kill them.”

“Even if they can’t cultivate… excess mana should sustain them…” the sword female shrugged…

While she was still trying to work out what was off about that statement, because her knowledge of La’taan was… good, but she had to work to speak it fluently.

It was one reason why she was still alive and mostly unmolested she reckoned—the Ubri’Khund were as lazy as they were cruel and would much rather capture others to do their dirty work than do it themselves. As she was trying to collect her thoughts, the two apparently reached a decision and the sword Ur’Sar walked over to a rock outcropping and pulled a large slab effortlessly out of the way to expose one of the vertical fissures in the outcrop. It was about a metre wide and seemed to drop for 10 metres or so. She dropped into it.

“You should get clear of the fissure…” the other female spoke. A second later, a flickering spiritual figure rose up over the edge hauling two large slabs of rock.

“…”

There was a ripple of shock amongst those who were recovering. The goblins all backed away and started bowing and scraping and the Undren looked uneasy. She watched as the Auram Manifestation of the Ur’Sar’s inner self wedged a bunch of slabs into the fissure at opportune points and then pointed to some of them and then the slabs.

“If you want to live, start hauling rocks and stack them neatly over there,” the spear Ur’Sar suggested before also hopping down into the gully.

“Well, you heard the Ur’Sar Sana,” the Great Hunter growled, “Get hauling.”

~ Rusula, not hauling rocks, wondering what she got herself into ~

Watching those who they had rescued from their truly unfortunate fate shuffle over and start forming a chain to move rocks, Rusula could only shake her head in admiration. Both were remarkably good at getting people to just go along with things. It was almost a talent in its own right, and then you had moments like that massive circle of the God Runes they had wielded…

“If they are this strong now, how strong would they be if they actually accepted offerings on behalf of the Goddess Ishara?” Luz muttered nearby.

“…”

She eyed him dubiously, wondering if she should kick him down the hole after them. Maybe he would break his third leg on the way down and save them all some trouble.

“Probably you not live long enough to find out if you keep saying those things,” Pezvak said with a grin.

Luz was an old enough hunter to know not to apologize, so he just scrutinised the still-burning treeline harder.

“It seems that my father’s worries about this place are exceeded by the reality of what is occurring here,” Pezvak sighed.

“Yes…” she could only agree there.

Luz nodded and made a sacred sign for the Maker. “If they move any further south and west, times are going to become very hard.”

“Yes,” Pezvak said simply. “It is imperative that at least some of us escape here to follow after the others now.”

“Do you think this will actually work?” Luz muttered after a while, peering over the edge of the gorge.

“Hard to say,” Pezvak frowned, not looking in their direction. “It will keep us safe from the storm, but the defilers…”

“The speed with which they are tearing up rock is…” Luz muttered, as Sana and her manifestation both leapt back up and deposited more stone before dropping back down.

“Yes, it is certainly something,” she murmured, saying nothing more than that.

She had made quite a few enquiries about the events surrounding the Five Eyes—that Vaklash was dead was still something she couldn’t quite believe, along with Karoz and another Great Hunter who she didn’t care to learn a name for. That had been her dream for so long that she could barely recall a time when it was not. To see Arai refine his core and seize all of his accumulation was… Even she could not have brought herself to do that, she was simply too… weak. It hadn’t taken much effort to get most of the rest of the story out of Goglurz. It had been quite fun too; for all that he was an idiot, he was vigorous and very happy to talk when drunk.

Among his own tall tales of not dying, he had let on that the pair had been encountered coming from the direction of the geomancy maze that existed around the great ruin that the Five Eyes old shaman squatted in. Putting together that with what had transpired to end Vaklash and the others, it was hard not to conclude, once she had all the pieces, that the parties responsible for that were Arai and Sana. Her best guess was that they had gotten lost, or accidentally wandered into the valley seeking refuge or a quick way through the massif…

She could only laugh at that. Argor would find the events funny and see something in them no doubt. Chance was chance but in a weird way it could be relied on if you really understood what it was. The Five Eyes misfortune had been their fortune, and that was why people venerated Ur’Sar. They brought prosperity, not just in the obvious ways. That they had arrived at the Cloud Arrows was also chance, but it was also a sign in way she was sure.

“Have they come any closer?” Sana’s question to Pezvak stirred her from her musings.

“No,” Pezvak said. “They are just waiting, beyond my perception range.”

“Rusula, go ask Ragash what their force distribution is like,” Pezvak said, turning to her.

She eyed him and sighed, walking over to the edge of the chasm and swinging down. It didn’t take long to find Ragash, who was on the second of a series of shelves of stone passing them up.

“Great Hunter Pezvak wants to know what the forces of the defilers are like?” she asked the other woman.

Ragash paused and looked pensive for a moment. “I am not sure, what assailed us in Jumaki were mostly forces like what we saw here, but they were led by those of the 7th advancement. There were at least three on some big thrones with a lot of bound troll-kind. There was probably an 8th advancement one as well, but I didn’t get to see much of the battle.”

She nodded, and was about to head back up when the other woman grabbed her arm.

“We made a lot of noise here, we were being led inland, when the caravan turned aside and the slaves were…” Ragash trailed off looking distant for a minute, her hand trembling.

“I would not bet against a 7th advancement Ubri’Khund coming to look after that terrible lightning… and those two are… Ur’Sar right?”

“They are,” she nodded.

“They will come for them at the very least. Ur’Sar have a strong link to the origins of the spawn of Neron,” Ragash said more grimly.

“They do?” she blinked, surprised.

“Well?” Pezvak called down.

“7th advancement several, maybe 8th,” she called up as she scrambled back up.

“Luz, go down and help,” Pezvak said up above as she hauled herself back over the ledge.

Luz sighed and passed her on the way down muttering under his breath. Sana dropped down a moment later. Looking around, she saw that the pile of rock was mostly gone.

“She threw them over the edge,” Pezvak said, noting her looking around for them.

She was about to reply when Sana and Arai both jumped out, looking dusty. The thunder rumbled overhead almost continuously, making her hair frizz slightly with every fluctuation.

“Tunnel is done. You guys get in, the others are already inside,” Sana said.

“We will clean up, up here. The scouts are not approaching it seems so here is currently a blind spot,” Arai added.

Scrambling down, she looked at the tunnel curiously. It was a tight squeeze but to her shock it turned out that they had cut it to a depth of almost 40 metres in that short time. Working her way down she found it took a sharp turn down and then sloped away parallel to the escarpment for some reason. Just as she found Luz, who was dusty and still grumbling she felt the mana above them shift and then there was a shuddering sense of rock splintering and a soundless shockwave. A wall of heat washed down the tunnel, turning the already unpleasantly hot atmosphere even more stifling.

“What are they doing?” she asked Ragash, who arrived a moment later, crouching down opposite her.

“Closing up the tunnel,” Ragash replied.

The last light in the tunnel abruptly vanished and a moment later she felt the mana of the tunnel and the mana in the rock around them constrict subtly. There was absolute darkness for a moment until she conjured a tiny flame in her palm to see by. A moment later there was a second sensation of constriction, then a third.

Peering back up the tunnel, she saw Arai and Sana, drawing another set of symbols on a set of stacked blocks. Sana pushed her mana into it and the space… shifted. She watched the rock flow together as if it was melted fat and then solidify into a natural plane.

“Ah, so it was like that,” Pezvak nodded, while Luz just muttered under his breath about not wanting to die breathing Ghoblan farts and Undren fur.

Shaking her head, she turned to see what they were doing more clearly. Arai and Sana had, by her count, used 23 God Runes today that their tribe had never even heard of—and that was just what she had seen. Maker only knew what they had put down in those thousands of traps that exploded half the forest before the defilers caught up with them. If she survived this, which Maker willing she would, she was sure she could remember at least five of these runes, and had a good grasp of the layouts they went into, on top of the three they had been more than happy to teach her in exchange for various bits and pieces up to now.

-That harvest alone is enough to revolutionize the fortunes of our tribe, she thought with a sigh. Assuming we get out of here alive of course.

~ Arai, whereupon our heroine continues to accrue karma with cutting rocks. ~

Arai made her way back past the still rather confused survivors to find the trio from the Cloud Arrows hold and the most talkative of the rescued Ur’Inan, whose name she realised she still hadn’t gotten.

“What’s your name,” she asked her as they crouched in the narrow passage.

“I... am Ragash, Thunder Mountain tribe, from south-east of here,” the Ur’Inan woman said slowly.

“Jun Arai of West-Flower Picking… town-hold I guess,” she replied by way of introduction then made her way on past.

“You think this will work?” Pezvak asked from ahead of her.

“This rock is hard, I can barely cut it with my sword,” she said, pointing to the swords that were across her back.

“The real question,” Sana said arriving behind her, “is whether or not this weird ‘it’s longer going than coming,’ thing also works going down.”

“It do-not,” the Undren female chittered nearby in her choppy Easten. “Not much anyway, that thing of going towards great working of ‘all defilers’.”

“To clarify there, are we talking about the pig heads up there or the people who made this place…” she asked it.

“Pig heads… is ‘pig’?” the Undren asked looking confused. That got some chuckles from the other Ur’Inan.

“Uhuh,” she sighed, realising that the Undren certainly didn’t have pigs. She had only seen them in the Cloud Arrows hold and a few wild ones here and there in the forest. The Cloud Arrows younger generation actually rode them, claiming they were easier to raise if not as durable as spiders.

“The Ubri’Khund,” Ragash supplied helpfully. “‘Pig’ is… tork a ritheann zan fhor’aoiz a dhéanaimid le haghaidh biah.”

“Ohh,” the Undren tilted her head to one side for a moment then cackled, “Is good name, ‘Pig-Head Demon’—seem better than use name of ‘Defiler-Despoiler-of-all Great-enemy’ old things.”

“So what, we mine down?” Luz frowned. “The tunnels below also very dangerous. Not to mention, we are sealed in.”

“The death below much more amenable than death up here,” Rusula pointed out very reasonably as they both nodded—even Pezvak and the Undren nodded.

“Food is main issue,” Ragash grimaced. “We survive without much water for a week, not breathing less so, can meditate-sleep, but food needed. Injury difficult, storm oppress, lose mana faster, make other issues bigger.”

“Supplying a steady amount of mana-qi will fix that,” Sana said absently.

“Yes, but how?” Ragash muttered, which was matched by the others muttering.

“We have a way, but first let me get on with this,” she said, making her way past Pezvak. It was a tight squeeze because the Ur’Inan was not small.

Arriving back at the face of their tunnel she started cutting rock again. The process was quite therapeutic so long as she focused inwards for the most part. Her Nascent Soul was acting on their desire to try and further optimise the feng shui of her dantian while she recovered qi—experience was showing her now that it was much better to do that while she was absorbing qi and her Qi Sea was lowered, that way she could test the refinement and aggregation dynamics as they occurred. It also gave her a chance to check out how some of the other spirit herbs like the ‘Waving Hair’ spirit grass they had gotten in the Cloud Arrows tribe and a few others besides were sorting themselves out in the now much shallower waters of her inner region.

It took an hour to work open a room big enough for all of them to occupy it comfortably. They soon got a system going whereby she mined, those behind her passed rocks back and Sana, and then Rusula as well, who was a disturbingly fast study, fused them with three-symbol arrays, closing the tunnel up behind them. The question of whether she should attempt unsealing the rescued captives also rattled around in her head. It was something she felt she should be able to do with her Sundering Intent, but at the same time there was quite a bit that could go wrong with it. In the end, she decided to only worry about it if it turned out that they couldn’t handle the higher ambient qi from the late and unlamented Vaklash’s core.

When they had finally got everyone into the room, she considered the cores she wrapped up in serpent skin—covered in an isolate array to stop it being distracting to others, before deciding against using Vaklash’s core. That might cause difficulties. Instead she hauled out a shard of the second three-headed serpent and put it in the middle of the floor. The other cores, the troll-kind ones were… unsuitable, at least in the short term.

The three from the Cloud Arrows tribe were quite prosaic about the cores by now, but the others, including Ragash, muttered in shock, looking at it.

“That… is… Hydra core?” one of the bigger warriors, whose name seemed to be Huljas, asked, half reaching out for it.

“Yep,” she nodded.

“It made a bad life choice and thought we were food,” her sister said blandly, which got quite a few nervous laughs from the Ur’Inan even the Ghoblan.

“Can this sustain you?” she asked, looking around at the various survivors.

“…”

Ragash was looking at it glimmering in the darkness, with undisguised surprise. “Yes… It will help balance effects of storm.”

“Those who cannot absorb because they are too injured, I can give mana to,” Rusula added after a contemplative pause.

“Good,” she said, sighing with relief, because that basically solved the main problem in the short term.

“Aiie!?!—what was that for?” she asked, looking around as Sana elbowed her in the back.

She found a lump of bread the size of her hand being held out by her sister and felt a bit stupid having forgotten about that in the mess of everything else. She sighed and passed it to one of the Undren, who nibbled it dubiously then chittered.

“They say it tastes like rock-rock,” Rusula helpfully supplied, looking at the bread dubiously.

“It’s a…” she hesitated to say flaw, so settled on “…quirk” instead. “—of how it’s made.”

“It is perfectly edible though, and about as rich in qi as what you made it out of… give or take,” Sana added.

Pezvak took a bite and chewed it speculatively. “Could be worse, and it has nutrition comparable to what good cook can achieve. Just leaves the issue of air and water.”

“…”

Looking around, she considered the question of water as well. Most of those down here were around Golden Core, in terms of their qi strength at the very least; however, the question of their body’s vitality was another matter.

“How does the seal put on them work?” she asked.

“It not seal like seal,” Ragash said. “There is seal, but worst of damage done by…” She trailed off, the memories clearly painful. “It recover eventually. Ur’Inan strong, but scars never leave.”

Pezvak nodded and asked a few more question before adding: “Basically, this is another way those horrible banners work. Their explanations are a bit mixed up.”

“Understandable,” Sana nodded. “Well, we need to take some precautions against that as well.”

“We do,” she agreed.

“Precautions?” Rusula and Ragash both asked at about the same time.

“We need to hide from their soul sense at the very least,” she said, eyeing the Ur’Inan, wondering how that was not obvious.

They looked dubious at that, staring at the rock ceiling occasionally, but said nothing further so she left it at that. Perhaps the Defilers couldn’t reach through there. A Nascent Soul one could not, but she could penetrate maybe ten metres, Pezvak could likely do better, and whatever the equivalent of an Immortal Defiler was?

Thinking back to the Undrenfolk who had been able to grasp at them even with vast amounts of the qi-repelling rock around, she found she didn’t want to gamble with that. These demons had sideways means.

Her plan now was to inscribe a bunch of Isolate arrays on the walls and floor of the room that should disperse any investigating soul sense. If it worked the same way that the isolate symbol on the cloth worked, it should be fit for what they needed. That was a happy discovery from the Cloud Arrows tribe—the older, male shaman had had a variant of that symbol and the tribe used it in conjunction with their strange feng shui that she couldn’t quite grasp to make a wide variety of soul sense arrays.

“We can only hope it works on immortal sense,” Sana agreed.

“We can only hope,” she agreed. She couldn’t push her own soul sense more than ten metres into this rock, and they were easily 50 metres down now and not in a very obvious place in relation to where the outcropping itself was.

She was still working on that, when a strange shifting in the ambient qi made her pause. The others in the room all looked around uneasily and eventually Rusula spoke, “The storm has arrived.”

Nodding, she finished off the array and surveyed their work.

“If we keep digging we will get into the first layer of the ancient mines below,” Ragash said after a short while. “The tunnels down there are mostly full of spiders and fungi…”

“Uggh, I’d nearly forgotten about those accursed things,” Sana muttered.

“You know spiders?” the Undren frowned.

“We had plenty of run-ins with them below, travelling under the ocean,” her sister supplied.

“You come under depths? Surprised, you not look that strong,” the Undren muttered.

There was some more back and forth between the various Ur’Inan and Pezvak while Rusula watched on. Eventually, she turned to her and summarised the discussion.

“Basically, they say that there are two routes: we can either go the way they came, which is probably not good now, and head north-west through the upper level of the mines; or we can go down to the layer below the swamp. However, they don’t want to do that.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Soul-stealing white mushrooms live down there and it’s all flooded. We would have to swim…” she paused to ask the others something that she only got enough of to gather that it was about distance.

“We would have to swim for hundreds of yards at a time, through dangerous waters where there may be spores of mushrooms—”

A formidable and skin-crawling feeling swept through the place and everyone froze, eyes travelling to the ceiling. The symbols on the floor that were acting as a sort of bubble diffusing anything that entered this space shifted and the qi in them depleted a little. She held her breath, but they didn’t fail.

“They come, looking for us,” Pezvak muttered, making a holy sign to the ‘Maker’ that many of the others also mirrored.

“We take other steps—here,” Pezvak rummaged in his own pack and produced a jar.

Without comment, Rusula took it and started to daub symbols in deep purple dye across her body in the shape of eyes that were closed. It was one of the sub-variants of the isolate symbol—she recognised them from the various wards and totems that had been deployed around the Cloud Arrows hold. They were also used for their suppressing feng shui formations on occasion, both in purple and gold. Without comment, Rusula also daubed the runes that were some kind of stealth charm on her and then Sana then made her way to the others who also accepted them.

Pezvak’s paranoia paid off as it turned out, because a short while later a massively more powerful intent scoured the whole area, trying to dislodge its secrets. This one felt vile and horrible; her skin crawled as it swept past them even though it never touched them. She was again treated to the same sense of communal awareness as the Ur’Inan all crouched in the darkness, still as mice. The sense of ‘hiding’ was almost tangible. Not for the first time she really wished she was in a position to ask about that without causing a problem, because it was bizarre.

Eventually, it passed and everyone exhaled.

“Yes, the surface passages are not going to work,” she said weakly.

“But depths-s still very dangerous-s as dangerous-ss as up-s there. Green-white mushroom death—” the Undren muttered, her accent returning from the stress she guessed.

“Wait…” her brain caught up with the things they were saying… “Green and white mushrooms..?”

“Yes, you know?”

“With a miasma field, grow like this and that?” she rapidly sketched out a picture of an Eldritch Moon Mushroom in the field around it.

“Do they grow in big colonies and glow a bit in the dark, and have a strange field around them which makes things turn into fungi zombies?” Sana added to her explanation. It was possible that there were other variants of soul-devouring hive-sentience mushrooms than ‘Eldritch Moon Mushrooms’ after all.

There was a lot of muttering among the onlookers as Pezvak made some inquiries before saying, “Those are the mushrooms,”

“Yes… they are very dangerous. Nothing goes near them or it dies…” the Undren nodded vigorously. “Very dangerous… even old ancestors of ancient clans from deep cities who travel sideways through darkness avoid like spell plague.”

“And they are likely to be blocking the lower levels, stopping us getting out below the level of the marsh?” she clarified, the beginnings of an idea emerging in her mind.

“Yes,” Rusula confirmed for her as there was a lot of worried nodding.

“Do they work on pig demons?” she asked blandly, thinking back to how they had been able to resist the worst of that miasma and the spores.

“Probably… they don’t go that deep, usually. Rather send bound slaves and a few leaders,” the orc female, who was called Ragash apparently, added.

“What are you thinking?” Sana asked narrowing her eyes.

“Well, we ruined that spider nest with them,” she pointed out, staying in Easten just so the Ur’Inan wouldn’t get jumpy. “That spider was probably the strongest thing we have ever encountered in here, excepting maybe the Sar’katush-Unchained.”

“They will not be protected though,” Sana pointed out reasonably.

“We will not be protected?” Rusula frowned.

She nodded. That was the problem: the others would not be protected, and while getting spores would not be a problem, transporting them could be a headache.

“We can probably bypass the moon mushrooms. The flooded corridors are more of a problem,” Sana said to them.

“You can?” Pezvak said dubiously.

“We have a means to do so,” she confirmed… “Probably. We will have to work out the details when we get down there.”

Her sister looked at her a trifle dubiously in the darkness but she just shook her head for now. It would require a few other things, and an idea as mad as using those terrifying things against the pig demons might not even be necessary, but as a last resort she was under no uncertain terms that she would rather risk those mushrooms a second time than anything the demons up there might offer.

~ Jun Han, West Flower Picking Town ~

Sat on the veranda of his now repaired house, Jun Han drank from the bottle of spirit wine beside him while he turned over the two ruined talismans in his hand. One was made of blood-red jasper, the other pale, pearly jade, belonging to the 'Blood Eclipse' and 'Moon Dream' cults, respectively. Both were names from over a century ago, and ones buried by many parties lest they raise awkward questions and even more awkward answers.

Carved into the blood red talisman, was ‘Mo’kra-tha rises, His-Blood is All’, while on the back of the Moon Talisman, what had been there before had been altered beyond all original recognition to now read -‘Seize Bright Fortune, True-Blood is All’. Two riddles of phrases, separated by the gulf of almost a century. The latter talisman also came from that same incident. The nightmare of hundred and fifty years ago when a bunch of bandits, forced out of the east, had stumbled across such a talisman and a strange ruin in the fissure flats.

The matters with Di Ji and the Iron Crown Duke’s ‘mission’ that came after, to subjugate those bandits in the name of seizing that ruin for the Imperial Court, had overshadowed those original events in the end. However the reality, known only to a very small number, was that the real darkness, the Moon Dream cult, had been ruined there.

Since then, there had been precious little sign of either. He had accepted Cao Hongjun’s request to watch this region quietly in its aftermath, settling down with Ruliu to start a family, but…

He stared at the talismans a moment longer then dropped them back on the table. Where they showed up, they brought nothing but misery. They had no power, but at the same time they somehow did, and since then the Moon Dream Cult had become a byword for inexplicable evil and subversion. That the Ruan clan had planted such a talisman here meant that they intended to make more of this in due time, he was certain. That this blood eclipse talisman had been seized by the Military Authority this very day, off a caravan of goods that had come in from the Southern Continent was totally a testament to how bad things always came along in little clusters.

“You are still pondering on that?” a gentle voice whispered in his ear.

He looked around, but there was nobody there—Ruliu was gone nearly six years, yet he could still hear her voice and feel that she was here in this place sometimes.

While his daughters had been here… it had somehow been easier. She was so visible in both of them, in different ways, yet now they were also gone, maybe truly gone.

“Cao Hongjun…” he sighed…

It was because of that old man that he was here, because of what he'd all but promised. He had tried to get Cao Leyang to ask his father if he would look for the two talismans and the Duke had indeed promised he would relay the message. However, Shan Lai was Shan Lai and other eyes within the Azure Astral Authority had turned their eyes this way before the old Duke’s—and they were also asking questions about the Blood Eclipse talisman.

That put him back in mind of the bad business of that morning—well, yesterday night. The Hunter and Astrology Bureaus were now totally overturned.

He was stirred up by a hammering on the door. Its enchantment made the sound echo tastefully through the whole house, but not loud enough that it would disrupt anything. Getting up, he walked through the dark, unlit hall and into the front courtyard, still mostly strewn with rubble. Opening the door, he found, rather surprisingly, Yuan Mai standing there, veiled and cloaked against the evening humidity.

“Will you come in?” he asked, stepping aside and ushering her past.

“My Mother asks for you to come see her, now if possible.” Yuan Mai murmured softly.

He paused, it was rare that Mrs Leng ever asked anyone to come visit her. Usually, she arranged to drop by others at their convenience. She was very polite like that. It was a formality few others bothered with.

“Now?” he frowned, wondering what was so important that she would actually send Mai out as a messenger, especially with the town as turbulent as it currently was.

“If it is not an inconvenience. It is a matter regarding the garden and the damage that was done,” Mai said softly.

“Ah.” He closed his eyes and nodded. “I will lock up, give me a moment,” he murmured.

Heading back into the house, he waved a hand as he walked through the rooms and set all the wards to their maximum states, finishing the garden itself where he shifted the alignments of a few jars and other such things randomly dotted around to make matters remarkably inhospitable for anyone who might enter. Feng shui was a remarkable defensive tool if you had the knowledge, and his old homeland had had several excellent masters in it. Eventually, he had intended to pass on those texts to his daughters when they made it to Mantra Seed, but what had happened to Ruliu had…

Considering the two talismans, he put them back in his storage ring with a sigh and made his way back to the gate, closing it and following Mai back through the streets.

West Flower Picking by dusk was not a happy town. It had two faces now, the one of the river districts which was dark, gloomy and cruel and the one of the area around the central plaza where young nobles held court and all manner of vices were re-emerging. As they skirted through streets, he saw new gambling dens, courtesans, beggars and thieves everywhere. People forced to make money now that the twin pillars of the town—the Hunter Pavilion and the Valley Master’s House were thoroughly abandoned to local control. The Military Authority was just about keeping the peace.

“The events of this morning have not made your job easier,” Mai murmured as they watched a group of youths from some southern sect laughing and plying three local girls with drink in a Winehouse as they went past.

“No, they have not,” he agreed, surprised that she was volunteering to talk about anything much.

“The Authority will move against its own, but does not care for them, or the people,” Mai sighed.

“Just like the Imperial Court only cares for its own face and pushes its words on others while rarely doing as it advises,” he nodded.

“That is the way the world works; we are little and the sky is big,” Mai murmured. “It decides and we can only accept the rain.”

-And if it floods or nourishes is only barely in our hands, he thought silently to himself as he watched two more groups having some argument in a concourse off to their left.

The worst part of it was that most of these were Chosen Immortals. There were even Golden Immortals in there. All from big sects as well. Why the Azure Astral Authority was not also sweeping them out of the town was a mystery, even to him, and that was worrying.

The river concourse and gardens were quiet and dark, lit only by the occasional lantern. In the distance, it was possible to hear the sounds of those working to repair the bridge as well, but otherwise, there was nobody around here. Everything was shut up, their owners still wary or the estates seized. Mrs Leng’s estate by the river was somewhat unassuming for its actual size. Her household was wealthy off the back of her spirit food business, and her popularity within the town as a personable old lady brought her a remarkable amount of privacy compared to some. Nobody was interested in looting the people who made the food—unlike the Alchemy Pavilion or the Formations Grand Masters. Even so, he was quietly impressed by the wards that he passed on the gates.

“Please, wait in the red guest room,” Mai said with her usual tone. “I’ll bring you some tea and food. Mistress Yuan will be with you presently.”

He nodded and made his way across the outer court and through the entrance hall, turning left into the ‘red guest room’, so called because of the wall panels depicting phoenixes and fire qilin dancing across sunset skies. It was odd to hear Mrs Leng called by her family name, a subtle reminder than for all her kindly smiles she was also someone with backing, a member of the Yuan Clan who ruled several cities out east.

Mai appeared a few minutes later, bearing tea and a plate of steaming rolls and buns.

“Mistress will be with you in a few minutes. She has another guest, who also wishes to speak with you.”

He resisted raising an eyebrow and quashed his curiosity, accepting the poured cup of tea that Mai offered him instead.

“How are you keeping?” he asked Mai after a few moments…

His association with her had been very vague over the years. She had come to speak with Ruliu a few times and they had been friends, but she was never someone who had been very sociable outside her own circle, and was deeply proper, preferring not to even talk to men unless prompted. That they had had one conversation today already was bordering on properly auspicious.

“Well, I guess… You?” the younger woman murmured demurely.

“It is difficult,” he conceded.

“We can only try the best we can, with what we have,” she nodded. “I will go tell Mistress you are waiting.”

Without a further word she bowed politely and left, leaving him to his thoughts in the gently lit room.

-So not everything has changed, he mused wryly to himself, watching her depart.

Probably only a few minutes had passed—he was barely on his second cup of the excellent tea—when Mrs Leng bustled into the room.

He stood politely and nodded to her, and the woman who walked in behind her. His first impression of her was ‘nondescript’ with dark purple-black hair bunched in a fairly common style and slightly stronger eyebrows than many woman might have liked. Her face was plain, but there was a slight focus to her neutral expression that made him feel like he was being quietly examined. Her garb was equally uninteresting, a travelling gown such as a wandering scholar might wear. She was also stronger than he was.

“Good evening, Mrs Leng, good evening, Senior,” he bowed again to both of them politely.

“You look well, all things considered,” Mrs Leng said with a kindly smile. “Please do not stand on ceremony. You are an old friend, so sit.”

He nodded and resumed his seat. Mrs Leng sat opposite him while the other woman took a seat between them and took one of the rolls without any ceremony. He couldn’t help but notice as well, that where before he had been able to see that Mrs Leng had been at Dao Seeking, now her foundation was totally obscure—as was the other woman’s for that matter.

“First of all, let me extend my condolences,” Mrs Leng said simply. “These have been trying times for everyone and while others have made their way to your door, I was remiss and could only send the small tokens I did.”

“Please, think nothing of it,” he said politely. “The town is dangerous of late, and your tokens were more than enough.”

She had in fact sent him two wonderful engraved jades which projected scenes of Arai and Sana playing in the garden with Ruliu, both of which were sat in his cultivation chamber in the house behind some of the heaviest wards.

“Funny, that the Legion Envoy in charge of town security should say that ‘the town is dangerous’,” the other woman chuckled.

“…”

“Qiuyue,” Mrs Leng said, in a tone that held a tiny hint of reproach.

“You are quite right,” he said with a sad smile, choosing to ignore that she had spoken out of turn as a guest in another’s house, “I am that Envoy, but I am not affiliated with the Azure Astral Authority beyond some personal affiliation with the Blue Duke’s family.”

“I see,” Qiuyue said, neutrally, making no sign that she was concerned by Mrs Leng’s tone either.

-So she probably outranks Mrs Leng in some way, he thought.

“So, why did you want to see me?” he asked turning back to her.

Mrs Leng sighed deeply and took a sip of her tea before continuing. “It is about the matter surrounding what has happened to Arai and Sana and the others who went out on that mission three weeks ago. I have something show you that may be difficult…”

She withdrew a jade recording slip and two talismans and put them on the table, sliding the jade slip across to him. Frowning, he took it and scanned what was inside. And then kept watching.

When the images had finished, he put it down, glad he was good at controlling his emotions.

“How… did…?”

“I come by this?” Mrs Leng asked. “Another has an interest in this.”

“Another?” he frowned, thinking of the scenes of the five on the ridge top… of Arai and Sana falling into the mists… of Di Ji…

“The Ha Family is not happy,” Qiuyue said. “Ha Yun was someone who… was an opportunity for a fresh start. That has been compromised.”

“Another has also approached me,” Mrs Leng said softly. “Kun Zheng.”

He turned to look at her, wondering if she was also someone from the Ha Clan or the Kun Clan in that case. The old ancestor of the Kun’s Earthly Branch in Blue Water province if he recalled rightly. Odd that that old recluse, who didn’t even live in this province now, should also be involved in this. He had always thought that the Kun Clan had given up on Kun Juni after it transpired that her spirit root was so bad.

“Then… Kun Juni also?”

“Is presumed dead?” Mrs Leng frowned. “It is hard to say. That place is not simple and keeps its secrets very close. Certainly, that old man has had some bad premonitions and they came through various means to me. What is transpiring is much less coherent to unpick, even with the cursed blessings of hindsight.”

He got his emotions back under control, still wondering where this was going.

“Qiuyue is here because those responsible have offended several people who should not, ever, be crossed.” Mrs Leng said simply. “You, as an aggrieved party, have a right to be involved in this… This is how we handle matters.”

“We…?” he stared at her, his brain working quickly now—it was plain that Mrs Leng was not as simple as she appeared to be, yet it was like he was now sitting opposite an entirely different person to the one he had known for over a century and a half.

He tried to work out who she might be talking about. Was it the Yuan Clan? They supported neither the Azure Authority nor the Imperial Court and its backers. Their strength was from a different era entirely from what he recalled Ruliu telling him. They might not be as monolithic, or famous, as the Shu Pavilion, but the Yuan Clan were a group who could stand in the same room as the Heavenly Clans and not have to step aside. That much he knew. He also knew, however, that they kept a low profile and didn’t meddle as well.

“As I see it, there are two possibilities here,” Mrs Leng said, sipping her own tea. “The first is that you leave this recording with us, and one way or another, justice will be achieved for Arai and Sana. It is unclear to me if they are alive or dead, the empirical evidence is not good, and yet…”

“Wait… what?” he hissed, nearly dropping his teacup.

Gulping, he got his shaking hand under control. “Do you mean…?”

“I know very little, but can guess a lot,” Mrs Leng said with a sigh. “But there is a procedure to this…”

“Your connection to Cao Hongjun, how much do you value it,” Qiuyue said abruptly.

“My… connection?” he blinked, caught off guard by that. “How does Senior…”

“You ascended to here from Ba Yan Tai Mortal World’s Feilin continent and did so with commendable speed and an excellent foundation,” Tai Qiuyue said simply. “Because you arrived here, you fell in with the Cao Clan, who snapped you up because of what you represent, but they wasted you I see; your talent is more than what you have become: a running dog of Cao Hongjun, bought for a few paltry promises and some protection that came to naught.”

“…”

He managed not to gawp, because she was right and because there was almost no way someone should have known that. His status as an Immortal who rose from a lower world was not necessarily a secret although he had not spoken of it to many, not even Mrs Leng, but to know the latter things…

“Perhaps you might have risen in the Azure Astral Authority, but those higher up do not lack for seedlings such as you, and while Cao Hongjun could have taken you to Shan Lai with him, you and Ruan Ruliu… he did not,” Qiuyue said staring at him deeply now.

“I… didn’t—”

He was about to say ‘I didn’t ask,’ but that was wrong—it was not a thing that was promised, but Cao Hongjun had implied it, that they would come as members of his household. He had left after the events of thirty years ago, taking almost no one in fact when he crossed to World Venerate, except for several old companions, and then took up an exalted position. His status as a retainer for the Cao Clan’s household had vanished and while Cao Leyang had always treated him as a friend, and he had kept the connections through his martial teacher, it had been made quietly clear that this was this and that was that, It had gnawed at him in truth, in the long nights, but they had had happiness to distract him from those worries. Then Ruliu had died…

“Cao Hongjun did not value his connection to you, even though you bowed thrice and entered his household. You tell yourself that he was a great man, a man with lofty ideals, yet he left this world behind so easily and even his blood son cannot easily speak with him now. You did everything he asked of you and yet still you are here. So I say again, your connection to Cao Hongjun, how much do you value it?” Qiuyue said with a half-smile.

“You are saying that this… is conditional on me repudiating my bows to Cao Hongjun?” he said.

“You repudiated those a long time ago, on the same day little Ruliu died,” Qiuyue said softly.

“How…” he didn’t dare move against her, but there was no way she could have known that. Maybe Arai and Sana knew, but they didn’t know what they knew.

He froze, realising what had just happened...

“My apologies, Honoured Senior, my thoughts…” he bit back his annoyance and frustration. This woman Qiuyue was clearly someone close to the apex of this world if she could easily overcome the treasure he had on him to prevent just this. It was also…

“Do not read my guests’ minds, Tai Qiuyue,” Mrs Leng said with an actual sniff and formally rebuking her. “Jun Han is someone I have known for 153 years and you are a guest in my house, or have you spent so long walking around that you have forgotten common courtesy.”

“Apologies, Madam Yuan,” Qiuyue said, although she didn’t even bother to lower her head.

“…”

Mrs Leng eyed her dubiously and he was treated to the two just staring impassively at each other for almost ten seconds before Tai Qiuyue just sighed and then looked at him as well.

“Sorry,” she said with the merest fraction of a bow.

Mrs Leng just sighed, still looking dissatisfied.

“This is this and that is that,” Qiuyue said with a hint of steel in her voice at last.

“He has never been false in his sentiments in my eyes.” Mrs Leng added, narrowing her gaze ever so slightly for a moment.

“Your word counts for much, Yuan Leng, but—” Qiuyue said with the same faintly obstinate tone.

“...”

Mrs Leng sighed softly and shook her head, looking annoyed still. He could only assume that this Tai Qiuyue was of a higher realm than her. “Okay, this is this and that is that, just do not read his mind again.”

“…”

The silence between the pair stretched on awkwardly for several more moments before, surprisingly, it was Tai Qiuyue who looked away and took a sip of her own tea.

“You... said there were two possibilities?” he asked, grasping for some ground and understanding here and trying to divert the conversation back to something less problematic.

“Sort of,” Mrs Leng said with a sigh, giving Tai Qiuyue another sideways glance. “The usual way would be that you leave matters here. Di Ji and those who put him on this path, and a few others will be dealt with. The how, you will never know, but you will be assured that their backing cannot save them.”

“That would be best,” Tai Qiuyue said softly.

“Perhaps, but this is not your matter,” Mrs Leng said blandly.

“Cao Hongjun failed his responsibilities to Jun Han, among quite a few others, thirty years ago. That that culminated in the events it did for the Jun Household six years ago is on Cao Hongjun and the Ruan Clan, not Jun Han. He was right to step away.”

He avoided spitting his tea, because the implication there was that Mrs Leng had also known of that action made in anger and grief.

“He may have renounced his connection, but the Azure Astral Authority is not so caring of face when it suits them,” Tai Qiuyue said. “He had an affiliation with the Cao Clan, even if he renounced it as you say. Yet they have not necessarily renounced him, and even if the Cao Clan have been proper since then and maybe made some redress, Black Jade is a scheming bitch who only cares that others do as she says and rarely tolerates others doing as she does.”

“You do not need to tell me of Black Jade. Her name is not well known in these heavens, but it is known to me. That is why we are here, having this talk.” Mrs Leng said, narrowing her eyes again before sighing.

“Sorry, this is unseemly. You are my guest and here I am talking to this one as if you are not here,” Mrs Leng said, turning back towards him resolutely.

“…”

Tai Qiuyue actually flinched slightly at that, which gave him a little bit of pleasure, because her arrogance which put him in mind of a preening bird of prey, while perhaps justified, was rather at odds with her status as a fellow guest here.

“Please, think nothing of it,” he said as blankly as he was able. As someone who had sat in on any number of meetings between others over the years, this was… not as unusual as it might have been, he had to reflect.

“Anyway,” Mrs Leng went on, a touch more assertively. “Arai and Sana were lovely girls who delighted me as if they were my own granddaughters.”

“I…” he wasn’t sure what to say to that, beyond being glad that he was good at controlling his emotions at this point.

“So, this second option?” he asked again.

“Firstly, it has been a busy day—are you aware that hidden behind the façade of what has happened to the Blue Water Province Astrology Bureau, that the Hunter Pavilion has in fact also died with a whimper?”

“…”

He stared at her. That was news to him.

“The Azure Astral Authority has, in effect changed the Head of the Hunter Bureau in Blue Water Province to a scion of the Sheng Clan: Sheng Dian,” Mrs Leng said, taking another sip of her tea. “You know of the Sheng Clan.”

He did, he had to admit. Their main base of influence was Shan Lai where they controlled large swathes of the ruling bureacracy within the Azure Astral Emperor's Court, however, they also had significant influence in Northern Azure, where the Empress came from their clan. They also controlled several arms of the Hunter Bureau through the four Azures.

"Sheng Dian is young and forceful," Mrs Leng continued, sounding a bit tired. "He does not care for the accommodations that have had to be made with politics in this place. I understand that two cadres of hunters from the Sheng Clan will arrive here directly with a Dao Sovereign Elder to establish a new pavilion. Everyone over three silver stars or with any kind of authority not associated with the Azure Astral Authority is either dead or fleeing.”

“—that is how they do things,” Tai Qiuyue murmured. “Authority is not to be questioned and their decisions are absolute.”

“Yes, the powers that be have seized the opportunity to re-establish what they feel is some much-needed order,” Mrs Leng sighed. “It was a slight provocation that was required…”

“The Fan and Sheng clans have long eyed this garden of plenty that they consider Yin Eclipse to be,” he nodded, being familiar with this problem from many years ago. “I assume that Cao Hongjun has been outmanoeuvred in some way?”

“Not even that,” Tai Qiuyue added drily, “Just consider the recent events regarding Crown Prince Sheng Tian Feihuang and that pill that the Empress was preparing for her favoured son. Black Jade's arrival can be seen as them... forcing matters, but really that is just a convenient excuse. I almost suspect that they intended something like this, in some manner, irrespective of the outcome.”

“Ah,” he grimaced.

“They don’t think that this trial is an attempt by the Kong Clan to cause problems?” he said carefully.

“I imagine they have many thoughts," Mrs Leng replied with a wry sigh. "However, that is not really important on the ground. What matters here is that circumstances are conspiring quite remarkably to put this whole region in a vice.”

“—The Jade Gate Court’s proclamation that a bunch of senior hunters from this pavilion engaged in rebellion,” he interjected grimly.

“Yes, Indeed," Mrs Yeng agreed. "For all that it is bunkum, it is bunkum with good optics on both sides right now.”

“And Azure Astral Authority doesn’t want a war with the Supreme Sovereignty alliance, so they proactively purged the province,” he concluded, quietly.

“—and in the process cut off the root of rot that might have cost them control over Yin Eclipse for a short while,” Tai Qiuyue nodded. “You have a good eye for the bigger picture for someone who has been sat here in this little town for almost a century.”

“Thank you for your appraisal, honoured senior,” he murmured, trotting out the rote phrase, which he noted made Mrs Leng look sideways as if she were trying not to roll her eyes.

He thought about what they had said so far. “If the Hunter Pavilion is under new management, what about Old Ling and Ren Anzu?” he asked.

“Done a runner,” Mrs Leng answered with a deeper sigh. “Both are excellent at seeing how the wind blows—they may also have gotten some forewarning through an… interesting channel.”

“And the others?” he asked, thinking about Ren Kalis, Duan Mu and Mu Shi.

"The other 'party' sent out at the same time as Kun Lianmei's is still in the wind," Mrs Leng shrugged. "Those who were brought back from Misty Jasmine with you—Duan Mu and Mu Shi—have both been sheltered by the Cherry Wine Pagoda, somewhat surprisingly. A few others have fled with Ren Anzu. Of the others, most who 'disappeared' were in mid-level positions and got there through the interference of Ha Feirong or others.”

He sat back, and thought through what they had said so far trying to fit what they were presenting here into what he already knew. Both the eyes of the Azure Astral Authority and the Supreme Sovereignty alliance had turned to this place for superficially disparate reasons that intersected disturbingly. A mediocre end to the Ha Clan's ambitions to exert more control over the wealth flowing in and out of the province. The Jade Gate Court’s exceptionally damaging declaration of rebellion might have been an attempt by the Din Clan to aid that. That was the working theory of the Duke at this point and it was certainly why his house and much of West Flower Picking was now in the state it was. As to why someone had tweaked the nose of a hegemonic entity like the Seven Sovereigns School as well…

However…

He stared at both of them. Tai Qiuyue just sipped her tea, while Mrs Leng—that is, Yuan Leng—sat there looking composed, clearly just happy to let him work through the implications on his own. The feeling that he was being subtly tested was… unnerving, and also made him annoyed, given what they were implying. He had thought more of Mrs Leng than this. She should just come out and say it directly.

“You are saying that if my daughters are dead, I can just walk away and know that someone I’ve never met or heard of will avenge them?”

“That is one path, yes,” Tai Qiuyue answered simply. “It is the better path for you.”

The slight emphasis she put on that just made the annoyance and frustration that was bubbling away increase, really.

“But, you are also saying that there is a very slight chance they are alive. But what does this have to do with my connection to Cao Hongjun? The Jade Gate Court I can see, but they were just pawns in that. If they hide, if we leave to somewhere like the Western Shu continent, they will not bother over the three of us? What else are you not telling me?”

“It’s not that I am not telling you,” Mrs Leng said, a touch testily. “It is that this one here has kept changing the topic.”

She passed him the second of the two talismans, which, as he took it, he realised was a Pavilion Core Jade.

“This is what I was going to show you before Tai Qiuyue went off on a tangent,” Mrs Leng muttered.

Tai Qiuyue opened and shut her mouth at that, but curiously said nothing.

Examining the Core Jade—which was the one from the Hunter Pavilion in fact, and related to the talisman network for all the hunters issued a talisman in the region—he saw that five entries, all familiar, had been pulled up to the surface. Flipping through them, however…

“What… what in the fates is this?” he asked dully, staring at them, confused.

“The Astrology Bureau in the province died because of that,” Mrs Leng said simply.

“—they subverted the bureau’s talisman network, or someone opened the door for it to be possible. Nobody has any idea who at this point,” Tai Qiuyue added blandly.

Staring at the scores, which were clearly for the trial, the pieces finally slotted into place.

Place

last shift

Name

Influence

Score

1

+9901 > X/?

Lin Ling

Hunter Bureau

eq15,021,621 > 920,021 > F/Oa

~ ~r+120,240 >

a+1kk; e+300k; ~r+160,621;

eq+13,500,000; ar^61,000

2

+8981> X/?

Kun Juni

Hunter Bureau

e1,508,900 > ODR

~r99,001 > a+1kk; e+300k; eq+109,899

3

+8980 > X/?

Han Shu

Hunter Bureau

e1,502,219 > ODR

~r92,063 > a+1kk, e+300k

~r150,102; ar^52,117

~

X/~?

Jun Arai

Hunter Bureau

~r93,290 > e1,093,290 > ODR

~r93,290 > a+1kk

~

X/~?

Jun Sana

Hunter Bureau

~r90,021 > e1,090,021 > ODR

~r90,021 > a+1kk

“If you have this…?” he asked, the chill in his heart deepening by the second.

“Tai Ling happened to be in a position to get this, and nobody else outside of us has seen it,” Mrs Leng said softly. “The link was already severed to the Blue Water Jade courtesy of that core jade being taken, presumably by Ling Luo. The re-established links were not yet synchronised up to the old one in our town's pavilion as happenstance would have it.”

“When they realise that, there will be a lot of blood spat,” Tai Qiuyue murmured with a smug smile.

He stared at the breakdown of the scores; ‘e+’ was environmental contextualisation, Juni had found an artefact, as noted by the ‘eq+’, as had Lin Ling, with that massive adjustment. ‘a+’ was the spatially anomalous code, while he had no idea what ‘ar^’ was. All of them had had resources, ‘~r’ worth what was a reasonable amount, likely due to the gathering their groups has been doing before everything went to shit.

“The last updates on these counts are all at the same time,” he said, looking at them, trying to match them up with his own memories of that day, and the chaos that had come immediatly after.

“And far, far later than your daughters are believed to have perished falling off that cliff,” Mrs Leng said softly.

“—and that was also exactly seven days after that moment, give or take a few hours,” Tai Qiuyue added, confirming what he had just calculated in his own head. “All of them vanished about the time that that calamitous thunderbolt ripped the realm wall and came seeking answers to questions nobody seems to have worked out yet.”

He stared at them, blankly.

-Seven Days...

This pit, he could already see it opening up, built of happenstance and circumstance, to paint a picture that was a beautiful, fraudulent work of art. His connection to Cao Hongjun, the involvement of the Jade Gate Court, the team of hunters going in early, ostensibly due to gather materials for the Emperors 'Gift'. Those who would look at this, seeking power and glory, in trying to make sense of it would read those connections and conclude that Cao Hongjun had planted him here to further build upon…

“This is more dangerous than you realise,” Mrs Leng said softly, sitting back and fixing him with a pensive look. “There are as many eyes that do not want things crawling out of that place, as there are those that believe that there are miraculous opportunities hidden within it.

“You think the Azure Astral Authority and the Supreme Sovereignty alliance are all that will pivot on those five scores? The aftermath of what happened to the Seven Sovereigns School is far more important there. The Jasmine Gate is a monster that should not be poked, and what transpired there, near as i can tell, is nothing short of a declaration of war.”

“…”

“—don’t forget that old turtle dragon Jiao, from the Moon Tomb, popped out like a cursed copper talisman,” Tai Qiuyue added with a sigh.

"Mmm... yes," Mrs Leng agreed with a further sigh. "It is completely unintentional, but far too many eyes converge on that scene on the ridgeline. For now, they are focused on the Seven Sovereigns who got a bloody nose out of it, but the dust is already settling there. The Hunter Authority has somehow got the highest scores in that trial—”

“They didn’t enter the same anomalies,” he interjected softly. “Kun Juni, Lin Ling and Han Shu fled in the recording. Arai, Sana and Ha Huang fell into the mists and vanished. Both of them immediately got that huge score, while the others update sporadically and at different points over the following few days. My daughters fell into an anomaly somehow… but their scores didn’t update with the talisman network until the lightning struck.”

He stared back at the recording, his mind racing. Something about it bugging him especially after seeing the scores. The quality of the imaging was exceptional, given this was Yin Eclipse. Whoever had supplied these final moments had access to a truly remarkable artefact, that much was certain. As they watched, he pulled up the images and shifted through the moments before his daughters and Ha Huang fell, looking for their talismans. This was the last known point of their recordings and then they had mirrored Lin Ling's?

-Ah, he sighed and focused on the young scion of the Lin family who had been seated on a rock, sorting out herbs from various bags, and was now frozen in shock.

There, sure enough were the two bags that Ruliu had made for them one year—which they had later taken to using as carry packs for things not suited for talismans. Sure enough, tied to Sana’s was her talisman.

“They didn’t have their talismans on them,” he observed, pulling that image to the fore for them to see.

“That does seem to be the case. One of the others has them at this point,” Mrs Leng mused. “And when the lightning arrived, it made enough of a disturbance that everything in the mountain range was a little bit more connected for a brief moment.”

“Proving that they fell into an anomaly and survived, and then vanished with everyone else,” he said grimly.

“Yes. It is not irrefutable proof that they are alive. In truth, the odds are really not in their favour—But that is less important, sadly, than how this looks to others. There is a mercy here: those two updates are buried with this jade. Old Ling saw to that,” Mrs Leng nodded, looking sad. “He was willing to sit on it until his dying day I’d suspect, had I not sought him out earlier.”

He could only thank Old Ling in his heart for that, wherever he was currently. “And as you said, the new ‘management’ has not retained any of the new herb hunters–”

“Not any over three-star silver, or so it appears,” Mrs Leng nodded.

“They will regret that in due course no doubt,” Tai Qiuyue said.

“Indeed,” Mrs Leng nodded. “Sheng Dian was unimpressed with the promotion policies of the last few decades and quite a few heads rolled in the Blue Water Bureau, I am led to understand. That cretin Fang Hai even stood by and held the blade, or as good as. As I said, Old Ling and a few others scuttled fast. The new elder hasn’t been announced yet.”

“And it didn’t leak to the Military Bureau, which means that the Sheng Clan really wants to seize the whole province,” he concluded, wondering what was about to happen to Cao Leyang, or if they would just totally circumvent that bit of influence rather than tangle with the awkward question of Western Azure’s Ling Clan.

“Probably there are some in the Military Authority who do know, but the Sheng Clan see themselves as above most others in the Azure Authority, on account of their big miss being the Shan Empress,” Qiuyue added.

That was very true, he had to concede, politics from on high. In any case, the implication was pretty clear—he was just about to speak to confirm his interpretation, when Mrs Leng spoke again.

“So all these scores are buried for–” he was cut off by Mrs Leng’s bitter laugh.

“Only the talismans of your daughters, because they routed exclusively through the West Flower Picking Pavilion—the other three are known far and wide, because they went through the relay network and their talismans relinked to Blue Water City.”

“Ah,” he nodded. “Because of the different way that my daughters talismans were linked into the pavilion’s talisman core.”

“Exactly,” Mrs Leng said. “The only people who know that are the person who entered them, you, Old Ling, your daughters and the two of us?”

“And who entered the data?” he asked, narrowing his eyes, suddenly worried.

“Kun Juni,” Mrs Leng said blandly, allowing his heart to drop again.

“The fact that those other three scores were transmitted out in the usual way, because the Hunter Pavilion’s talisman network was co-opted into their trial talismans, is why Kun Zheng got involved–”

“–And why the Astrology Bureau in the province died,” he concluded grimly.

“In part, yes,” Qiuyue nodded. “Although that’s more a ‘convenient excuse’ than anything else.”

“In any case, it will not take the Sheng and Fan clan brats and their helpers long to look at who else went in there with those three and start chasing down leads,” Mrs Leng observed. “This entire thing is basically one huge scam on a certain level—what those old ghosts in the Supreme Sovereignty alliance are after with it… they are basically sending in a bunch of juniors as chum in the water to see what comes up.”

“Shit,” he muttered, forgetting himself for a moment.

“That is a very accurate summation of it, yes,” Mrs Leng said with sour look.

“And that means they will come straight to me, because of my connection with Cao Hongjun,” he said grimly.

“Exactly. It is not exactly unknown that Cao Hongjun went into the Yin Eclipse mountains 30 years ago and came back out a World Venerate, even if those two girls scores just from their resource contribution are lost in the mess of everything else, it will not take long for someone do some digging about who was associated with these three and realised they are your daughters, and their link to Cao Hongjun through you.” Qiuyue mused.

He nodded mutely. It was only possible to agree there. The actual answer was far more mundane, but that would not bother the prying eyes who would come seeking answers where none existed. Lack of a connection would just be seen as proof that Cao Hongjun or someone else was meddling and provoke the Sheng Clan or some other big hegemony to poke all the harder. One World Venerate was not something that would give them much pause.

“So, if they live, I have to flee, but if I flee… they will be seized,” he replied eventually, setting the talisman back down.

“They will be seized anyway, whether you flee or not, assuming they yet live,” Tai Qiuyue judged.

“On the off chance that your daughters are alive, they will not remain free for more than a few moments after leaving wherever it is they are. However, before that, there is a bigger danger,” Mrs Leng said, narrowing her eyes.

-A bigger danger? He frowned.

“Oh, nameless fates,” he groaned. “The talismans, which are not in their possession, but in the possession of the other three.”

“Exactly,” Mrs Leng confirmed, with a grimace. “If I can work that out in an afternoon, prying eyes from Shan Lai will be able to do so just as fast.”

He sighed, again. To think that the talismans he had gotten them would work out to have such a hidden danger. Cao Hongjun had given them to him when Arai and Sana were born, and he had kept them all that time before finally seeing the opportunity to use them as a little bit of extra insurance against Ruliu’s awful family. The Ruan clan of today did not have a very good relationship with the Azure Astral Authority.

“So… what can I do?” he said, staring at them. “Is this the second option you have been leading towards? Either I trust that they have died, cut my losses and run, leaving everything behind, or…”

He trailed off… “What kind of father could do that?”

"You would be surprised," Tai Qiuyue replied, rolling her eyes.

“—Or you need to find an influence that will actually value you,” Mrs Leng said softly, leaning forward. “You have a lot to offer, Jun Han, son of Jun Wen and Fa Qiuo. Do you know why the Sovereignty and the Authority snap up all the ascended immortals who end up here?”

"..."

He stared back at her, glad he was able to control his emotions well.

He did, somewhat, know the answer to her question. It was something Cao Hongjun had explained albeit in somewhat biased terms 300 years ago. You either picked a side or you ran for as long as you could, ending up in a provincial prison, or much worse, the Black Cage, until you either went insane or agreed to pick a side, under much less favourable terms. As to why they did it, he knew it had to do with them not being connected to Eastern Azure's 'fate' and that that made such cultivators harder to control in the long term, but…

“While they believe you are tied to Cao Hongjun, you will just become a useful pawn to capture your daughters. When they realise that you are not really tied to anyone, you will become potentially dangerous,” Tai Qiuyue said softly. "Especially to those who consider events and their unexpected repercussions."

The suggestion in her words was unequivocal there.

-Someone would look at me, and wonder how much of a grudge i might hold... and just decide to crush me on the off chance.

It was not a plesant thought, not at all.

“—And you know of an influence who can protect me, Arai and Sana from those two hegemonic powers turning their greedy eyes on them?” he asked, unable to hide his grimace.

“Yes, because when all is said and done, what Ruan Ruliu did will be noticed by someone,” Mrs Leng replied with a grim tone. “And while the way those events panned out was sufficient to stop local scrutiny, some old eyes prying from afar will discern the matter very clearly, and then your daughters will suffer a truly miserable end.”

“Mantras cannot be stolen,” he said dully.

Mrs Leng stared at him for a long moment, then just laughed, rather bitterly, he felt.

“The words in the heart cannot be taken, Jun Han," she replied at last. "—But the heart and the body can be.”

"Oh..." he stared at her, processing that.

“So… you are offering me protection… under the auspice of the Yuan Clan?” he asked eventually.

“The Yuan Clan cannot protect you," Mrs Leng sighed, sounding rather sad now. "Not alone. In truth, I was minded to make this offer to you when the time came to have Arai and Sana advance to Mantra Seed, but time is not working to the favour of anyone right now.”

“—An influence that can protect…?”

“Exactly,” Mrs Leng nodded.

“Which influence?” he asked, frowning, looking at Tai Qiuyue. “You are asking me to commit a choice…”

Not that there was much choice, he had to concede. Either he could run as soon as he left here, and hope that nobody noticed, until he could get to a transfer point and leave for the Western or South Western Continents, or… take what Mrs Leng seemed to be offering him.

“And how can I be sure you can guarantee my daughters’ safety?” he asked at last, because really, that was the key thing now.

“Guarantee is a strong word," Tai Qiuyue murmured softly. "If…”

“—They are like my own granddaughters,” Mrs Leng interjected, flatly. “If someone like you cannot guarantee their protection in this world, then you should abolish your cultivation, shave your head and go to Erlang Shang so you can bow to Buddha.”

“Ha—!” Tai Qiuyue shook her head in amusement. “I suppose I probably should at that.”

“And if I were to refuse?” he asked carefully.

“You will leave here having had a nice conversation with me and that is that,” Mrs Leng said. “Those who did these things will not survive to see this to the end, but at the same time, whether Arai and Sana survive will truly be in the lap of fate.”

-And fate doesn't seem to be playing particularly nice games of late, he reflected sourly, before asking; “—And if… I agree to your protection?”

“We will do our utmost to protect you, because I see something worth nurturing in you, and in those two daughters of yours," Mrs Leng replied. "Because you saved Ruliu when most others would have walked away, and because you kept those talismans and said nothing about either of them.”

"..."

He stared at her for a long moment, then just sighed.

“There is no choice,” he replied because really there wasn’t, he knew enough of how this world worked to see that at least. “So, which organisation is it that can protect me from both the Azure Astral Alliance, the Supreme Sovereignty and—”

He trailed off as Mrs Leng handed a wooden talisman to him. Taking it, he stared at the design on it. A line that could be read in seven different ways. Each and every one of them meaning Slaughter. It took a supreme effort not to actually drop it, because the symbol was known to him—Solitary Slaughter.

Unbidden, he saw that figure standing in the midst of the ruins of the Blood Eclipse Cult’s headquarters… holding the ruined artefact that evil cult had made… hooded and masked except for the symbol of a Red Lotus Flower on his back and the word ‘Slaughter’.

“You’re…” he mumbled, staring at them, then back at the talisman.

Now he could see why they had been so cagy, Solitary Slaughter was infamous. They were not an 'evil' society, not by any means, but they were a ghostly menace on all sides and never failed, publically at least, at what they did, which was usually killing people who needed killing. They had operated for as long as anyone has cared to keep track as far as he was aware. What he did know was that the sept had seven principle members—the Flower of Slaughter, Rage of Slaughter, Sword of Slaughter, Grief of Slaughter, Star of Slaughter, Song of Slaughter and their founder… the terrifying Heavens of Slaughter.

Each of those was famous in their own right—the Flower of Slaughter was a wandering disaster that ruined those who ruined others. The Heaven, Rage and Sword of Slaughter had all killed World Emperors according to the stories, while the Grief of Slaughter was said to know every secret worth knowing and the Song of Slaughter was someone who wandered the world redressing balance in inequality as some kind of wandering folk hero or scholar. Star of Slaughter was—

Tai Qiuyue eyed him for a moment then just sighed softly—“I am Tai Qiuyue, the North Star of Solitary Slaughter.”

His mind went blank and he mechanically turned towards Mrs Leng, who just smiled and sat back, pouring them all another cup of tea.

“I am Yuan Leng, the Grief of Solitary Slaughter,” she mumured, as if she had just remarked on the weather being a bit good. “So… now that the easy bit is out of the way, why we don’t have a proper talk about what exactly it is that needs done?”