The people of the valley both loved and feared the forest that surrounded them.

For as far back as their history extended, until just a scant few hundred years ago when the valleys had first been conquered by the Lao-Hain, the mountains and their wilds had protected the blood of the valley from encroaching empires. But unlike the tame forests of earth, where man had walked for thousands of years and slowly terraformed even what appeared to be ‘wild’ – this was true wilderness. A dense tangle of vines, grasses, thorns, and towering pine trees, interwoven into messy knots as one growing life tried to strangle another and secure a place in the sun for itself. The precious spots of sunshine that drove through the interlocked boughs overhead gave life, but it was a life of constant struggle.

In the night, Rain slept on a reed mat by a small fireplace. His pet cricket, an enormous specimen bigger than a grown man’s palm, quietly chewed on the leaves in its cage. Nearby his bed snored Moonshepherd, one of his father’s enormous snow-white and mountain-gray dogs that had more than a drop of wolf in their blood. The whole village was sound asleep.

And then…

A howl came from the forest, a forceful wave that seemed to make the light of the moon ripple and distort. The cries of animals and the hunting calls of wolves were no stranger to the people of this village, but this…

This was different.

It swept out like a pulse of terror, ripping people from their sleep in a cold sweat. The black trees of the forest bent low as a fell wind carried across the sky. Clouds that had hung in front of the moon were chased away, and silver light laid the little settlement bare under its eyes as thousands of birds went into flight, wheeling over the forest in a spiral storm of feathers.

Rain screamed, feeling his heart constrict painfully in his chest as he was torn out of his dreams. For a moment he was paralyzed, completely unable to control his own muscles as he simply curled into a ball and let the certainty he was about to die flood his mind. Cold sweat dripped from his face, his eyes wide open, his arms shivering as he hugged himself and whimpered.

Moonshepherd whimpered with him, coming to put his big, drooly-jawed head atop Rain’s shoulder, comforting the boy with the warmth of his body and the softness of his fur.

This was the first time Rain had encountered the true force of killing intent. Although his grandfather nearly drowned the world around him with overbearing aura, Valley Rain doted on the grandson who shared his name, and there was simply no bite to his presence for Little Rain. It was like being held in your parents arms as a child – a strength that created safety rather than fear.

This was so different – and he was only six at the time. Little Valley Rain had lived his entire life, not exactly in the lap of luxury, but in the comfortable knowledge he would someday follow in his father and grandfather’s path to inherit the village, which to him was the whole of the known world.

He simply had no response to the terrors of the deep forest.

For what felt like eternity but was likely less than the time it would take a spark to leap off a flint and dwindle to nothing, Rain waited to die, unable to move, barely able to breathe…

Until his mother was there, lifting him into her arms. Her face was pinched with worry, drawing out the thin wrinkles around her eyes. “Shhh, Little Rain. Be brave.” She asked, although he could feel her trembling as his head rested on her shoulder. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. Your grandfather is on his way, and soon, all this will be over.”

Outside, he could hear the forest. What had began as a singular, all-powerful howl had broken into a chorus of lesser voices, the warcries of countless beasts lifting to the sky as the first call of battle echoed and dwindled.

“Where’s father?” Rain asked weakly, but his mother only shook her head, running her fingers through his hair and putting him down.

“I’ll explain later. Put on your best traveling clothes. Gather what you want to keep, but no more than you can carry.” She said, avoiding his question.

“He’s gone to face the infection.” She said, and Rain could hear in her voice what she wasn’t saying.

None who faced the Red-Eyed Plague could ever return to mortal life.

Still sniffling, Rain began to drag on his robes, clumsily tying them shut. He shoved his few possessions into a burlap bag, but what did he own? Toys and trinkets. The happiness of his life wasn’t in these small objects his father had carved, but at the same time, he was leaving behind his house, his village, his family…

They were the only thing he could take with him, and he clutched at them desperately.

In its cage, the massive cricket had started to chirrup and whirr, filling the room with strange noises it had never made before. Rain approached the cage, squinting, seeing something had changed but not being able to put a conscious finger on the shift…

The eyes.

It has red eyes.

He realized that just as he came close enough to the cage for the cricket to flick out its wings, lunging for him in a sudden burst of violence that sent Little Rain toppling back in fear, covering his face – and the cricket rebounded off the walls of its cage, going bouncing back as the whole cage toppled to the ground and spilt open.

Rain watched with bleary eyes as the cricket pushed its way out through the open door, spread its wings, and…

Moonshepherd was there, between him and the beast. The old hound – far too old to hunt with his father these days – bared ancient yellow teeth and growled from the bottom of his throat. The cricket lunged, and Moonshepherd’s massive jaws snapped it out of the air with a slobbering crunch.

This can’t be real.

This has to be a dream.

Then his mother screamed. “Song!”

By the time he made it out into the main room of the house, Moonshepherd padding behind him, his mother was frantic. “Little Rain? Have you seen your sister?” She asked him, with such intensity that Rain stepped back, seeing his own fear reflected and magnified in his mother’s eyes.

“N-no.” He said.

His mother shrank. It wasn’t actually a motion. It was simply – the life leaving her, as the blood ran out of her face.

Little Rain saw past her into the room. The window was open, and his sister was never known for doing anything but running towards danger full tilt.

She couldn’t have…

Nobody could have…

That sound…

Nobody could have chosen to run towards that.

He shook his head. “She- she’ll be fine. She probably went to find grandpa.”

“Mhm.” His mother was holding back tears now, trying to not show how afraid she was. Rain knew. The knowledge soaked through him like winter cold, reaching his bones. “Little Rain…” She said in a small voice. “Will you be okay… if you go on ahead with everyone else… and I stay here, to look for your sister? Will you really be okay?”

Rain didn’t know what she meant, back then. But he knew she was trying to show him a brave face, and he tried to follow in her footsteps, wiping the tears away from his eyes and steadying his shaking lower lip.

“I can take care of myself.” He promised.

In the distance the howls were growing louder – or closer.

The door swung open, making both of them flinch. Valley Tiger stood in the dark, a blade drawn and dripping something red, nearly black. Deep tears and gashes had been carved across his armor and the flesh below, and he walked with a limp, struggling to keep his right leg under him despite a deep wound that clawed across the thigh and hip.

“Tiger!” His mother cried out. “Song is missing!”

Valley Tiger said nothing for a moment, closing his eyes and breathing heavily. But his grip on the doorframe tightened until splinters pressed out around his fingertips, the wood cracking. “Alright…” He finally said. “I’ll find her. The two of you must leave immediately, with the rest of the village.”

“No…” His mother shook her head, voice threatening true, unrestrained I panic. “I can’t leave without Song!”

“She’ll be in my care.” Valley Tiger promised, moving to his sister-in-law and wrapping her in a protective hug, one that left blood clinging to her dress. “Don’t cry so. Everything will be alright. The plague will break before it truly begins – Grandfather and Law are on their way to purge the corruption at its source. By dawn, it will all be over. But the village is too close and they cannot spare themselves to defend it. We must leave.”

When they broke apart, Valley Tiger kneeled down in front of Rain, taking the boy by the shoulders. “Listen to me, Little Rain. I need you to watch out for your mother. You’ll both be heading east, and you can’t stop until you see the wall of the Mantis Sect. Don’t trust anyone until you make it there. In the best times, every stranger could be a thief or a bandit, but in times like these, even people you used to trust can turn against you.”

Reaching into his robes, he took out a pendant of jade, holding onto it for a moment with a look of regret and pain on his face. Finally, he lifted the leather cord it hung from and placed it around Rain’s neck.

“This is from your grandfather. He, and your father, believe that someday you’ll return to this place and rebuild what was lost. You are the next generation of the Valley clan, so listen carefully: Never show it to anyone. Protect it with your life.” Valley Tiger said with such solemn fierceness that Rain felt the bite of martial intent behind every word.

He nodded slowly.

Together with his mother, he left their home, their fields, their village. They joined the long chain of people gathering their possessions and retreating, hearing the cries of the animals come closer and closer as the forest seethed with barely-hidden violence. First the beasts infected with the Red-Eyed Plague would devour and infect each other, growing to full strength. And then…

Then they would follow wherever the humans ran.

Looking back from the rising slope of the valley, fire was already burning in the forest, tongues of red licking the green needles from the trees and turning all to black shadows within the blaze.

Time and time again, Rain glanced over his shoulder, hoping that any moment now, he’d see his family making their way up behind him. In time, Valley Tiger did indeed arrive carrying a struggling Valley Song under his arm. He threw the girl into her mother’s hands and collapsed three steps later, sinking onto one knee and slowly pitching forward into the mud facefirst. His body was so heavy with the weight of reinforcement qi that it took three men to load him onto a cart, and the oxen struggled to drag him forward.

But his father, his grandfather….

They were gone, and as the village dwindled into a burning, distant shadow, he felt his life vanishing behind him. But there was one more moment to remember…

As they reached the crest of the slope, and Rain turned back one last time, the aura of his ancestors flared out across the valley. It was a tide of martial intent, a boundless fury that filled the skies. The stars shone cold and sharp like swords. For a moment Rain felt hope rise in his chest – this was his father and grandfather’s power, as familiar as the creek of their footsteps on the floorboards when they came from the hunt, their dogs padding along behind them.

But there was something wrong.

The familiar aura was flickering, sometimes strong and sometimes weak, fluttering like an erratic pulse.

Stars began to vanish from the sky, hidden by an accumulating spiral of clouds: arms of night-black storm reached in from all directions, forming a spiral maelstrom that hung above the village. Storming threads of lightning wove through the clouds, spelling runes that flickered and vanished, only to return moments later, stronger and brighter than before.

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Then with a thunderous cry, the martial intent flared – and a blue-and-scarlet helix of lightning struck down from the center of the maelstrom, a heaven-sent spear piercing down into the forest and bending every tree low in a rush of unbridled fury, like courtiers bowing to an angry king.

The cold terror of the night was broken, as the sky was illuminated with flashing arcs of storm. The blood-chilling howls were drowned by the roar of thunder.

But while the power of the Red-Eyed Plague was suppressed that day…

The runes in the storm were fading and breaking apart on the wind. The martial intent in the air faded, and when it was gone, Rain began to weep for his father.

The next day they burned the fields for fear of infection.

They walked through the night and day to the next village after that, counting themselves lucky to only lose a few villagers along the mountain paths. When they were safe, hosted in the home of a friendly chieftain, they made plans to seek sanctuary in Mantis City. Their family had been rich, and a place in the Mantis Sect wasn’t impossible to secure on that account and with their lingering reputation as the descendants of a City Lord.

That was how Rain left one life and began another, carrying a mysterious inheritance and a shaken, desperate need to find his own power as a cultivator…

— — —

Booker opened his eyes and rolled over in bed, reaching for his tablet and parchment, his quill and ink. The infirmary was quiet and he had plenty of time to think as he slowly drew the strange runes he’d seen in the storm.

Rain’s memory was both familiar and foreign to him, and that showed no signs of changing. In the immediate moment he could always recall the details and context Rain had on any given subject, and even analyze that knowledge from a distance through his own lens. But actively digging into the memories and exploring them took time…

This particular memory was so densely packed with horror, so deeply imprinted onto young Rain, that it was almost impossible to divide into its useful parts. Every time he began it, Booker could only watch all the way through.

Until he saw what he needed.

In the moment before the twin-colored lightning descended from the sky, the storm was full of runes spelled out in electric light. The runes of a talisman, spelled out across the sky, drawing lightning from heaven.

It was an incredible display of power.

But what interested Booker most was, none of the runes used in that massive attack were anywhere within the talisman passed down from the first Valley Rain.

So he learned them somewhere else… but where? His whole life is really a mystery to me, but since he used talismans, I have to assume he unlocked the pendant’s power… It’s too much of a coincidence to believe otherwise, unless maybe the talisman was unlocked by someone who taught him, and then passed it down?

And that means the other runes either come from a distant mentor or Sect he received training from, or maybe, more alluringly… there’s a level of the talisman I don’t have access to yet.

While the pendant was clearly created using another book like the green-bound tome in Booker’s mind, it was at best a fragmented or incomplete copy. Where the book existed in his mind and could not be stolen, he’d come close to losing the pendant before, and using it required gazing into the translucent green stone and waiting for runes to drift up to the surface, revealing themselves one by one.

Rather than an infinite library, it ‘only’ held a few hundred talismanic runes, and while that would have been more than enough, many of those were simply beyond Booker’s ability to create. They either required the skill of a thousand years or a condensed cultivation base.

The final issue was, unlike the green tome, it couldn’t innately grant him skill at the craft. While Furnace and Dialyze had saved his life and freed him from needing to rely on tools or techniques other alchemists were tied to, it was the skillful knifework, the instant recognition of medicines, and the many supplementary alchemy techniques within the book that had truly allowed Booker to vault forward.

As a result, Booker had spent the last five days of his confinement and bed rest drawing and discarding half-formed runes, trying to master the simplest talisman he could.

Unfortunately, there were roadblocks. The true ‘simple’ talismans were very close to explosives, using a compressed burst of qi instead of black powder to reap the same effects. But Booker lacked any qi of his own for at least the next few days.

As soon as I leave this hospital bed… I’ll collect the medicine I half-bought from the Lao-Hain, follow up on Fen’s promise of another, and buy out all the ingredients for the Seven-Times Refined Charcoal Pill the Sect can provide.

And if that’s somehow still not enough to make the pill, I’ll break out the authority seal and have the Upper Sect lend aid. The only reason I’m hesitating is, doing that will naturally bring huge attention.

One way or the other – a cultivator within a week.

Until then, his only path was to practice the talismans that didn’t require cultivation. These were spirit talismans, which relied on the power of soul in the same way his Furnace and Dialyze did.

Although… they’re nowhere near as flashy.

This was a ‘detection’ talisman. Once it was finished, it would be like a trigger that could be connected to other talisman designs. The sensitivity and range could be adjusted, it would ‘fire’ any connected talismans and alert him whenever qi was used nearby.

It was almost nothing but a simple sensor when left on its own, but was a bedrock design integrated into numerous larger designs.

Sighing, Booker shifted closer to the lamp and let the warm glow shine over the page. Closing his eyes, he emptied himself of thought, allowing the memories of Rain’s hometown to wash away. Letting all thought, all memory follow, leaving his mind as a blank canvas.

He lifted the calligraphy brush in his left hand, posing it above the paper.

With every breath his goal was to focus on a single image. Each talisman design had an intent, an inner image that the creator had to hold in mind. For the spirit detection talisman, it was the image of an ancient statue of a forgotten god, eight-armed and eight-eyed.

When the image was fully formed in his mind, details crystal clear, he lowered his brush to the page and drew the first stroke of the actual talisman. From the core of his being, a thin thread of energy flowed down his arm, the same spiritual power that fueled both Furnace and Dialyze…

As it entered the brush, there was a crude resistance. This was the second hurdle. The brush wasn’t a part of his body or a rare spiritual tool, so it naturally didn’t hold his spirit well. Instead there was a resistance, a shaking and distortion that threatened to rip the delicate thread of energy apart. Booker had to furrow his eyes and constrain his breathing, taking absolute and delicate control of the stream of energy flowing down through the brush to ensure as little as possible went to waste.

Still…

It was like trying to control the course of a stream with your hands. A slight mistake, and suddenly water was slipping through your fingers. But pivot your full attention to it, and the image in mind would vanish.

His brush descended to touch the page, drawing swiftly. Since it was impossible to hold the talisman-state for long, he had to be quick, channeling the spiritual energy cycling in the brush down into clean, dark lines of ink across the paper. Each brushstroke cemented a part of the final spell, slashing across the parchment with determination until –

Until he thought of the fight with Zheng Bai.

His left hand awkwardly stumbled, a line stretching farther than it should have.

Booker restrained a snarl of frustration, but it was too late. The spiritual thread had snapped. The half-formed design began to sizzle and sear against the material underneath it, eating away until it looked charred into the parchment. At the same time the whole page started to dissolve, first shredding into tiny flakes and then dissolving further into ash. Booker tilted the tablet he was using to support the paper and let it pour off to the side, keeping the gritty dust from getting into his hospital bed.

It's this hand…

On top of everything else, I’m simply not used to using my left, and I don’t know if that’s ever really going to change.

Sighing, he leaned back against his pillow.

The fight had taken everything he’d had. For the next two days, he’d been completely unconscious except for a few hours here and there of blinking awake, groggily working at his talismans as his thoughts drifted, and passing out again soon after.

In a way it was nice. It gave him a comforting layer of half-sleep dream logic to process the damage done by his duel with Zheng Bai. His left arm had been healed, the bone set and applied with herbs that sealed the brutal fracture, the shards that had splintered off removed by surgery. His ribs had been set as well, and they no longer shifted painfully when he tried to straighten up. But his right hand was missing a thumb, and if the Sect had the medicine necessary to fix that, they were certainly not going to spend it on him.

But when have they ever? I’m not expecting to win over the Sect at this point. I think it was probably over as soon as I was branded a cripple – now, even if I ‘fix’ myself, they’ll just see my growth as a challenge to the judgment they tattooed on my face.

You don’t find strength seeking the approval of those who cast you aside. You prove your strength, by refusing to let them keep you down.

I might want peace…

But my goals can only be reached through conflict.

Since killing Zheng Bai, his thoughts on the Sect had hardened and solidified. He’d become more like them, in a way, by striking down Zheng Bai for her crimes. But he’d also overcome his own fear – fear of letting power shape him into another cultivator who swaggered through life insulated from any consequence or empathy by their own absolute power.

The idea that power can only serve the evil – it’s a fear born from powerlessness; from being someone who at once hates cultivators, and dreams of becoming one of them. The implication, hanging overhead, was that the only thing dividing them from me was the power not to answer for my own actions…

And I don’t think that’s true.

No, it’s a lie that serves those already in power.

I’ve met plenty of good cultivators. And I’ve met plenty who want to be good, at the very least, but don’t have the strength to go against the Sect’s constant pressure.

Absolute pacifism, the refusal to fight… it might free your soul from any lingering shred of guilt, but it’s still a selfish path. It means cutting yourself off from defending the weak, from standing up for others. It might spare you the pain of questioning your own actions, because you’re never forced to take questionable ones…

But questioning yourself and looking back on things you could have done better is how you keep on the good path.

Absolute pacifism might not lead you down the wrong path, exactly – but only because you’ve stopped moving.

Outside the door to his room, he could hear chatter and laughter from the crippled nursing staff, and a familiar voice speaking with them. It was amiable, raspy with age but still distinctly deep and soft. When Chen Jie opened the door and stepped inside, he wasn’t at all surprised.

“Ooo,” The old man chuckled. “I feel like I’m in the presence of greatness. Could it be that I’m looking at the Iron Cripple? The man who killed ten cultivators bare fisted, ate their hearts, and pissed on their graves? Some whisper he’s a hidden master of a secret art, and I have to say, my old knees are trembling from the weight of my fear…”

“Oh fuck off.” Booker grinned. “Last I checked I’m more crippled than ever, and with more people breathing down my neck.” He held up his ruined hand.

“Ahhh, is that any way to speak to an elder? Here I was concerned for you – and I’m not the only one.” Even before he finished, the old man’s robes had begun to rustle. Out of his pocket shot a purple-pink blur, flying out to land on the bedside table.

Snips had grown slightly in the time since Booker had ‘hatched’ him. The purple-shelled mantis was now as big as Booker’s palm, with a much more vibrant blue color to his scythe-like claws.

Froggie lifted his head out of Chen Jie’s pockets, croaked, and leapt over to the night stand…

“Ah, where’s the third one gotten to…” The old man began to pat his pockets down, but Booker didn’t bother.

He just glanced over to the opposite side of the room, where a pitcher of medicinal flowers soaked in herbs sat nearby, a dilute remedy that was served out twice a day. Zhi-Zhi’s nose was just beginning to emerge over the top of the pitcher, sniffing at the fragrant medical aroma.

Booker rolled his eyes, petting Snips and Froggie as they clambered onto his hands. “Don’t mind Zhi-Zhi vanishing. He’s just out on his own adventures..”

“You know, you seem quite lively. And that’s odd…” Chen Jie tapped his cheek. “Because going by the rumors spreading around the Sect, you’ve been in lingering in a state between life and death. In fact, I heard you were so delicate that they were keeping visitors out…”

Booker frowned. He’d definitely noticed the lack of visitors, but he’d assumed that was because he himself had asked the nurses to let him have some privacy. This sounded… “You seem to have gotten in alright.”

“Well, I know the nurses.” Chen Jie said with a mysterious smile. “Heard about your condition right from the people who knew. And then I thought to myself, hmm, if the nurses aren’t spreading this rumor, who is? It’s an awfully strange rumor to spread, a man being on the verge of death…”

“Maybe it’s more like wishful thinking, then?” Booker asked, catching on to what the old man meant. It is a strange rumor, but it’s easy to make it true…

Booker slid out of his bed, feet padding on the floor. He crossed to the dresser and put on his robes, dropping his spirit beasts into the pockets, pinning the Grasshopper Badge to his chest, and tying the outer robe with a red sash. He was an alchemist now, superceding his status within the Sect as a mere cripple.

“Maybe, maybe. But with the way you’ve been pissing people off, perhaps that’s not surprising. What did surprise me was when I checked in with those fine nurses again, and discovered there was a day the shifts coming in and out didn’t match up. There was a whole bell where nobody would be watching this wing.”

“Today?” Booker asked. Making his way over to the pitcher of medical tincture, he fished Zhi-Zhi back out, holding the mole upside down for a moment as the water dripped off his black fur. There was no regret on the mole’s face – in fact the greedy fellow tried to squirm out and drop back down into the pitcher.

“Today.” Chen Jie confirmed. “The last of the girls on duty will be leaving soon, and anybody could come or go without being seen…”

Fuck. I’d hoped beating down Zheng Bai would give me some time to breathe…

But it looks like I’ve got all the rest I’m going to get.

“Then I’d better go.” Booker cracked the window open, hoisting one leg over and preparing to drop down from the sill. “Will you be alright?”

“Ha, none of those girls are going to mention my visit. It would be bad for them as well as me.”

“Then thank you.” Booker said. “You truly can’t get far in this world without trustworthy friends.” Dropping down, he landed in the bushes with a crash, feeling thorns rip at his robes and legs. But it was better than hitting the ground directly. As soon as he disentangled himself, Booker made his way carefully across the green courtyard, keeping his eyes open for anyone watching from the shadows.

But by the time he made it to the row of trees that offered him so cover from anyone looking at the window, he was obliged to stop, lean against a trunk, and pant for breath. Even after five days, he was still struggling to keep from getting exhausted after even short bursts – too many healing pills too quickly could have a sapping effect that lingered on, especially when the pills were made with a process that focused on efficiency, not combing out every trace of toxicity.

Looking back at the light flooding from the open window, he asked, “Snips, can you fly back up and perch on the windowsill for a bit? Don’t endanger yourself, just get a look at who comes in…”

Waving a claw, Snips buzzed into action, flying away.

Zheng Bai is dead and gone, so good riddance. I don’t feel half the guilt I expected to feel. But she had backers in the Sect for sure, and not ones at a low level. It’s time to find out who I’ve offended – and how I can get myself out of this.

One thing was true about the path of war…

Once you set foot on it, you would wake up each day to see it continued on towards tomorrow, and had ever higher mountains to climb.