Unintended Cultivator

To the west of Tide’s Reach, in what was normally a quiet little town that no one cared overly much about, a story was spreading. As so many such stories begin, this tale started with a wandering cultivator. In some tellings, this cultivator was a figure of legendary size, driving other men to their knees with the implacable strength of his arms. In other versions, the cultivator was a youth so handsome that he stole the heart of every woman he met. Yet, he was also of such profound virtue that he did not take advantage of even one. Still others claimed that his very eyes were touched by the gods, and the wicked would weep blood when they faced his baleful gaze.

For reasons no one understood, the mayor, a minor noble rumored to have committed many dark deeds, sent scores of men after the cultivator. The cultivator, kind and virtuous though he was, had honed his martial prowess on some distant field of war. He cut those villains down like a scythe in a field of ripe wheat. Some said that he carried a jian of a make so fine no other blade could hope to stand against it. Others claimed he bore a great spear forged of a thunderstorm’s own might and fury. A bold few claimed that he carried both, wielding stormy death in one hand and cutting vengeance in the other as he struck down the wicked and defended the elderly.

The story grew and changed, as all such stories will, but a few facts held, complete and unvarnished, in every telling. Corruption had taken root in Orchard’s Reach. Fell deeds were committed in the night, on orders from the wicked mayor. Finally, judgment had sent its emissary, robed in blue, to scour the town clean. And, when his work was done and the guilty punished, the cultivator vanished. Some believed he had been a true divine spirit, tasked with the singular goal of redeeming this one town. Others believed that he was sent elsewhere, like a swift and terrible wind, to bring the rebuke of the heavens down on those who strayed from the righteous path. A very few, possessed perhaps of less imagination than their neighbors, said that he simply moved on, as all wandering cultivators do.

So, the story spread from caravan driver to city guard, from city guard to winehouse attendant, from winehouse attendant to noble servant, and finally, into the ears of the very cream of society itself. Most scoffed at this tale of divine retribution, saying it was nothing but a wandering cultivator’s vengeance. Yet, a few, the young, the imaginative, the hopeful, seized on this tale of a blue-clad servant of the heavens. And so, a new hero was born, softly, quietly, in the hearts and minds of the people. A cultivator with the mandate of the heavens, who would come when the corrupt had gone too far. A man with no known name or family, only a whispered title. Judgment’s Gale.