Cobalt had a lot of mixed feelings seeing the dense sea of spikes around her grow thicker and thicker. She had been here before, on this very road, but at that time it was in the middle of a dense entourage. Her father had been at the head of it, herself at his side. He had insisted he would speak to her mother when the time came alone, and that she didn’t want to meet her. She knew he was not lying, of course, her father was many things, but a liar never. And it did sting, of course, it stung, to know the woman who birthed you was here and did not even want to see her own blood. She was sure she had her reasons of course but… was it wrong for it to hurt?

The scenery continued to change. Eventually reaching a place where the spikes were so dense they seemed to make almost a fortress wall, at the centre of which she knew to be the core of the Spiked Shore Sect. Located at the edge of an inland sea particularly rich in artefacts, they made themselves famous for dredging efforts and recovery of precious Relics. If she remembered correctly they even had a tech cache deep underground like that hidden deep beneath the Lead Cave… though she was not allowed there in person. In another life would this place have been home? In another life would she be such a stranger at these gates?

“Hey, you ok Col?” John had asked, extending his human arm in a gesture of well-meaning comfort. He knew she did not trust the parasite on his right arm, especially with it encroaching onto his chest and speckled with eyes glimmering with too much intelligence to discount as blind. It was genuinely a very thoughtful gesture, but her mind was not in the right place to appreciate it, at least not at the moment.

“I am fine.” She insisted. Perhaps a bit too harshly.

Faith and Gorekin, they didn’t know her as much as John did, but she could sense they knew something was off too. Their ignorance of the situation however seemed to win over their judgement and compelled them to remain silent. A blessing part of her thought, a true relief.

Another part was slightly disappointed for reasons she did not wish to dwell upon.

Eventually, they came to a stop between two towering pillars of scorched iron that seemed to double as some form of gate by a portly man. Probably not a Cultivator in full, at most an Outer Disciple but far more likely a mortal servant of the Sect. Like the many staff members of the Lead Cave… she hoped most of them made it out safely, it bothered her she could not truly say for certain she knew. Given the fact he was hiding a hand in a sleeve he probably held some sort of alarm he could quickly and secretly trigger in the case of any actual danger, but very rarely did anyone so foolish come along to make that role anything other than a formality.

“State your business and relevant papers.” He said simply.

“We are… Pilgrims, I and Cobalt come from the Lead Cave.” John introduced.

“Then you must have heard the news then… terribly sorry for your loss.” The man replied, having seen the prominently displayed crescent-shaped pins they had on their frankly rather unwashed clothing. “And the other two?”

“We are from further Northwest from here.” Faith explained, a technical truth.

“Curious about lands east!” Gorekin grunted.

Against her better judgement, Cobalt spoke as well. “I have… a connection with a member of your Sect. My mother.”

“There are no adoption records for a member of the Lead Cave amongst our members.” The man noted with a raised eyebrow.

“Not adopted… biological.”

“Strong claim you are making. Do you have any evidence?” The man asked curiously.

She took a deep breath. “Not directly, and I know, I kracking know it is impossible to believe… but I have another thing that might show you my words can be believed.”

She rummaged through her pockets for the Prince’s Gift, and flooded it with Si, causing a unique seal to glow in the air in front of her. An animated image of a bird crackling with lightning flew into the air, the illusion even doing a spin before setting in place above the ornate flag of the Jackalope Sect complete with the beast sharing its name proudly emblazoned in the centre. The man at the gate gulped and she heard something crack hidden in his sleeve, probably a vial of radioactive material used to trigger some sort of communication Formation.

“Excuse me please… this may take some time.”

----------------------------------------

The Spiked Shore Sect stood proudly along the shores of the Heron Sea, the heart of the Cyan Mist Province, right at the border of the autonomous zone ruled over by the Jackalopes in the Capital. The history of this place was, of course, profound. Knowledge descending practically from the last embers of the Golden Age, old even by the reckoning of the Imperial Core.

To Saha Crane, this could not matter less. She knew her role well, and the ancient history of the Sect was hardly relevant to the politics of the now in the vast majority of circumstances. Barring a few, rare, edge cases she had more important things to draw her attention to. For example…

With a crescent-shaped arc of her bladed tail, moving faster than a mortal could swing a bullwhip, the Lake Lurker easily eight or nine times her own mass fell lifelessly to the ground where it had attempted to leap at her in its usual hunting strategy, head bisected clean in two. Beasts of this calibre rarely strayed close to the relative shallows, but this one had clearly gained a taste for Wretch flesh and learned where best to hunt for its preferred prey. She looked down upon its ugly skull, the barbed whiskers in the front of its face looking almost like the whiskers of the Sectmaster. It probably could have made a good trophy, in hindsight, she should have aimed for a beheading… in any case.

She made sure to ensure the kill by placing a few dainty fingers into its still-warm corpse and allowing a tree-like array of antlers to burst from her skin turning whatever was left of its brainstem into a paste. After removing the bloodied mass of grey matter from her hands she sliced its gut surgically with her tail and extracted its core, the organ still glowing with heat and power. It would take much to temper this for consumption, and the scent was far from pleasant, but a good quality Spirit Beast core like this was exactly what she needed to progress. That was not to even mention the main reason she departed for this regular hunting mission.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Oh, great sister! Thank you so much for felling the beast! How could we thank you enough!” A fisherman emerging from hiding gasped in naked awe. As far as Wretches go, the man was muscular, well built as Fishermen need to be to brave the beasts in this inland sea. He was no true Cultivator of course, and the recent scores of death around this area and how close he had come to death himself illustrated quite plainly the gap between herself and even the upper tier of Wretches.

“Please, it was only my duty.” She told the man. And it was true. With so much of the Sect off fighting in the East only a relative skeleton crew stayed around to do the tasks like culling powerful Spirit Beasts and keeping the Sect running. If it wasn’t for those like her, well the fresh-faced Initiates certainly couldn’t take down a full-grown Lake Lurker. Indeed this was exactly why she was here.

“Still, how could we ever repay you?” A member of his crew, who had emerged from her own hiding a further and perhaps safer distance away, asked.

With a sweet smile, she told her. “Please, there is no need.”

There was nothing they could offer her of any value after all. It had been a long time indeed since she had used mortal currency, and fishermen rarely had any Spirit Stones of great value. Even if they had dredged up an interesting Relic or two… they wouldn’t have stayed fishermen for much longer if it was truly of any interest to her.

No, she would do her duty, collect more material for her Cultivation, and leave. With most of the Sect off at war, and only her careful manoeuvring allowing her to remain, in time she could rise to be among the most powerful Cultivators still present. While things would return to normal in short order once the rest returned from war, if all went well she would have been able to pull enough strings to secure a permanently elevated position. If she was careful and progressed far enough in her Cultivation, perhaps she could even qualify for a position as an Elder.

It had been an unexpected turn of fortune that saw her somehow pregnant, a feat that she believed impossible, and what’s more to a brute of a man who she had only entertained for the resources he had available to lavish upon her as gifts. The child had ensured a steady stream of resources and support ever since, though hiding where the source of these resources truly was made for a headache at times. The last thing she needed was to catch the unsavory attention of types who believed the one thing she was good for was a hypothetically fertile womb after all. She had gone into lengthy ‘closed door’ cultivation the moment she found out, and handed the girl to her father the first opportunity she got. Even so, it was a miracle things turned out so well.

She idly wondered how the girl was doing. She had heard the whole Sect had burned, taken down by a particularly nasty warlord. In all likelihood, she was dead, as was her father. On one hand that meant no more free handouts, on the other, it might have worked out better for her to be this way. She never really knew the girl so the sense of loss wasn’t exactly profound, did that make her a bad person? Maybe.

But you didn’t make it far in this world without looking out for yourself first and foremost. Compassion could always come later, those who forgot who really mattered in this world never made it far enough for it to be relevant. What good was kindness if it didn’t serve her interests?

Whistling some tune most Mortals probably didn’t even remember by now, she slithered with speed that most could hardly imagine a legless woman could move back to the Sect. But before she made it all the way back, she had something to deposit, didn’t she?

Hidden in a little enclave where the arrangement of the ancient towers of molten metal fashioned into spikes carved into the ground for reasons long since lost to time, were particularly favourable conditions for carving a Formation, she quickly unearthed her private stash. She was no psychic, the crude formation did little but disguise the Si signature that would be otherwise blatantly obvious to would-be thieves and inspectors. Under normal circumstances, there would be no way for her to get away with stashing away so much beneath the watchful gaze of the Sect in one place at least. And indeed, beforehand when she was just managing the various gifts and payments that Lead Cave brute shoved her way there was no way she would be brazen enough to cut a bit off the top of the usual Sect duties of course. But with the staff gutted as it was, it was an open secret nobody was going to notice or care.

In some ways, the war had been fortuitous indeed. Pumping some of her Si into the formation and feeling the power come alight, signified by the distinct drop in the background Si levels, she buried the core alongside some other materials she had hidden for a rainy day.

Her little surreptitious activity over, she returned on her usual route as calm as ever. After all, the trick to never getting caught out is to never once doubt your own righteousness. If one wanted to survive and thrive in this world, any measure could be justified.

Surprisingly there was some sort of commotion at the edge of the front gates, despite the majority of the Sect having been drafted to assist in the efforts in the East it appeared there was somehow a small crowd of people gathered at the precipice of where the spikes were densest. And the reason for that soon became apparent, a group of four travellers, Cultivators. War Pilgrims perhaps, seeking shelter for the night on their path eastward? Wouldn’t be the first time, and sacred hospitality was always important. Some of her actions may be considered foolish by others, but she was not so great an idiot to risk the ire of the Spirits, the very Atomos that breathed Si and gave them power.

Coming closer to the outskirts of the scene, she spotted a familiar face. Tom Sludge, a junior brother with a rather unfortunate surname and one of the exceedingly few people she would consider a true friend. Sneaking up on the rodent-eared man with practiced silence, she grabbed his horned shoulders prompting a sudden squeak and a hilarious whipping of his lengthy, bald tail.

“You have to stop doing that Crane.” He hissed at her.

“Aw, you know me, Tom!” She laughed. “So what’s the occasion?”

“Group of pilgrims come bearing the personal seal of the Crown Prince, not a forgery either.” He answered, suddenly making the situation perhaps a hundred times more serious.

“What? And none of you could have sent a psychic message to me beforehand?” She hissed.

“The claim was only just verified now… alongside another possibly more troubling claim.” He whispered.

“What’s that?” She asked, starting to feel concern creeping up her spine. An Imperial Audit? No way her actions could have actually attracted that much attention… unless…

Her eyes locked onto the crimson orbs of a familiar woman at the head of the group, though from where that familiarity arose was a true mystery at the moment. Pale scales shimmering with different colours and textures possibly signaling Shapeshifting capability, loose robes that probably would be tailored for a transformation of sorts, snow white hair that almost resembled her own. Just where had she seen it before?

“Mother?” The stranger suddenly asked, their voice carrying clear as day through the air. She froze in place, as though someone stuck a blade of ice up her spine.

“You?” Tom asked incredulously.

The last time the girl had visited her Sect she had just managed to dodge any real confrontation with her, and now years later she survived the downfall of her Sect and arrived here with speed ridiculous even for a prodigy of her age? She wanted to say it was preposterous, to laugh it off as some sort of cleverly constructed ruse. But she knew it was not so easy to fake an Imperial Seal from someone of arguably equal importance as a Jackalope Elder. And she knew that familiarity she felt did not simply spawn from the aether.

She restrained the urge to curl up in a ball and scream. “We shall discuss this later.”

Perhaps the Great Spirit did have a sense of humour.