Swirling Breeze sighs, satisfied. He looks around to see that his desk is neatly organized, his notes are not spread across the desk top, the drawers are closed, sealed, and trapped. He’s finished crafting his antidotes to leave the valley untouched by the Swarm, move through the fields, and a special cleansing powder to wash off any trace of the various poisons that he makes once he gets to Miller’s Crossing.
He double checks that he’s set the traps properly, just simple antidotes that react violently with the most commonly used enhancement poisons. Any trained students will suffer from their own training, any untrained students will be inoculated with powerful toxins. Simple. Efficient. And easily hidden as mishandling or poor storage.
He gets up from his desk, a simple slab of Green Sickle nest. He snorts, more than aware that the Green Sickle name is misleading considering that only the warriors and harvesters have sickle-like appendages, either around their mouths or on their forelimbs. Imagine a whole race wrongly classified by rumor and conjecture. If he got a chance he’d rather like to study the other Green Sickle roles.
He leaves his small cell, locking his door behind him, well-knowing that the flimsy lock can be broken by a proper physical cultivator, or melted or rusted by a sorceror. Hells, he’s picked the lock himself when someone would change or warp it as a “joke”. He’s got nothing else other than clever traps and simple tricks to deter anyone from vandalising his room or running off with his reagents. Simple tricks like his desk.
He chuckles as he heads to the Tunnels, an underground maze that connects to various exits inside and out of Renegade Canyon. While he walks down the paths, pattern memorized for this day, he passes the time by reviewing his lessons. He’s got a few hours before he even makes it out past the Stirring Mountains, much less out of Gentle Valley on the opposite side.
He’s sure that there’s more to making a Green Sickle nest than just their venom and sand, but no one he’s mentioned this to can verify if they produce a secondary saliva much less that they use it as a binding agent. His desk frame is made of this toxic compressed sand, but he’s never been able to reproduce it in a lab.
He’d been very lucky that someone had retrieved it as a trophy on one of the many harvest runs. He has no idea why no shop would buy it when such a large intact piece was a treasure. Heavy, yes, but any stone slab would be, and by constantly using it he’d developed a natural resistance to the venom, enough that he could buy some from the shop and craft poisons from it with a higher chance of remaining unscathed by its cytotoxic properties.
He sighs, staring at the ceiling instead of the path ahead of him. He knows the steps he has to take, the distance he has to travel, the turns he has to make. There is a bit of a tricky section where he’ll have to determine if the hole he has to find is a drop or a climb, but he’ll only be able to pass it once he gets there. For now he can continue to go over his mental notes.
Two years gone, but Swirling Breeze’s earned enough merit to take a month off outside of the Sect. Normally he wouldn’t have been allowed off the grounds for another 3 years, minimum, but he’d always been a very diligent worker. His ability to detect and memorize certain patterns didn’t hurt. His scores and ability to network had only been a boon. If he didn’t have such a weak cultivation potential he’d surely be touted as a genius.
To be fair he was still considered a genius. His willingness to test and create poisons with previously unused ingredients, duplicating common effects, but there were no antidotes for his mixtures besides the ones he produced. A very lucrative study in a sect that values its poisons. Not to mention he’d learned different ways to turn poisons into antidotes for other poisons. Yes, he was a genius. A glass encyclopedia as it were. Sure he can kill with poisons, but without them he’s harmless.
Tch. He shakes his head as he walks through exit to the Bane Plain. He flinches, shielding his eyes from the brightness of the sun washing through the trapdoor. He’d gotten so used to the dark places underground. When was the last time he’d seen the sun? Surely he’d been outside at least once in the last two years?
Swirling Breeze sighs, taking a poison that cleanses the poisons of his sect’s cultivation poison, then taking a poison to act as an antidote to the many Banes of the Plain. He needs to keep his eyes open for a few of the more helpful toxic blooms. He’ll craft a poison out of their poison to counter their poisons. So many poisons could be used as antidotes and vice versa, but people were more wary of one word than the other. He supposes it can’t be helped.
When his eyes finally adjust he notes that things are… different. The place has been completely transformed. He knows that there were bushes interspersed throughout the rocky plain leading to the mountains, but it looks like they’ve expanded the number of plants dramatically. There used to be one antidote for every five poison bushes, the antidotes marked by the scraggly grasses growing around them, but now there’s no ground to be seen. Just plants. So many varieties, so many look-alikes. Will he even be able to determine if he’s found the right plants. Better not to risk it. On the way back he’ll grab some samples to experiment with. He might even have to put in a few harvest requests.
Trudging towards Miller’s Crossing he yawns, tired and energized at the same time. Swirling Breeze smiles as he takes in the plethora of beautiful scents until he catches a whiff of something unpleasant and familiar. His carefree smile collapses, his lips pressed together as he stills himself, cycling as best he can as he searches for the source of his unease. He can’t see the ground and he’s not about to start running his hands over the beautiful death traps. He freezes as he realizes that he’d made his plans, set his steps, did his preparations to the best of his abilities and knowledge, but the Bane Plain had changed.
“Shit.”
He sprints across the plain as fast as he can, his rucksack over his shoulder, a cloth over his mouth, his breathing labored as he hopes he can make it to town. He knows he can’t but what choice does he have. He has an antidote for Banes, but only 2 or 3, and, based on the mutations and the full coverage, he’s sure there must be dozens. Gods! What if they interact with his antidote poison? So many tests to run. If he survives this passing.
To avoid thinking about the laboring of his lungs he reminds himself that he’s got more things to test once he gets back. To distract himself from the burning of his legs he tries to track how many variations of False Slumber Blossom there may be. He shudders as he notices that there are things that look like False Slumber Blossom growing in a tall tower nearly his height. The plant is a bushel of flowers that barely reach knee height.
He mentally chants “I’m not going to die,” as his vision turns spotty, fading before he notices trees. Trees? There are no trees in the Bane Plain! He tries to shout, barely making a sound louder than his own wheezing as he staggers towards the trees. There are too many toxins here. How are all these plants surviving? What are they feeding on? He curses himself as an idiot when he knows that he knows that there are numerous corpses, insect and otherwise, providing more than enough nutrients. But shouldn’t these plants be killing one another? How did this happen? This is madness!
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Swirling Breeze lets out a mournful groan as he tumbles into a shallow creek. He’s nearly blind, as he splashes around on hands and knees, trying to process if he’s fallen in the Plain or found a pool of --. There’s no river in the plains. He panics, trying to stagger to his feet, but his equilibrium is off.
How embarrassing. A poison cultivator dying to flowers. Nevermind the countless lives these pretty perils have claimed. Nevermind the piles of rot and root that make the formerly rocky ground bounce you with every step.
He took an antidote didn’t he? A quick counter to suppress all signs of his poison cultivation. No. Gods. Now he’s just some idiot who wandered onto the Plain and died. Nevermind the humiliation of dying to poisons. No. Much worse is it to die unknown. And he’d already done so much. What will they think happened to him?
Swirling Breeze rolls to the side, nearly toppling down a drop, barely managing to catch himself even as he empties his stomach contents all over the floor. Did he fail to take the proper precautions during testing? Did he miscalculate? Where is he? He flails to right himself, but his limbs, with reflexes which had just saved him, now betray him, somehow ignorant of his wants and desires. It might help if he could determine which was is up.
He wakes, more relaxed, tired, sore. Mouth dry and stomach clenching around his hunger. A slow, deep, shaky breath and he tries to recall his itinerary for today. What is today? Poisons have shelf life, his tests need to be maintained, he’d created so many variations on poisons using what some would consider fairly harmless ingredients. He’s not a top tier physiker or dispenser, but he’d earned enough merit to at least afford a time keeper. His inner clock is still functioning, although he’d need to find, identify, study, and use some of the variants that he’d run into in order to increase his ranking and make up for his embarrassing failure.
“Hmm…” Swirling Breeze groans, throat making a clicking sound as he raises his hand to his head, still prone, eyes still closed, and he remembers.
He exhales through his nose as he finally opens his eyes. He’d fallen on the Plain. Either a hallucination or irrigation, there’d been water. He’d been blind at the time, either from lack of oxygen or poison, although, to be fair, they weren’t mutually exclusive.
He slowly looks around, trying to find any sign or clue to where he is. Bright sun, but his eyes feel dry. He’s been here long enough to adapt to the light? The room is bright and airy. The bed soft and made of some kind of grass. An antidote to the toxins in the Plain, no doubt. He’s not in a prison. There is a jug and bowl at his bedside, so they were attempting to hydrate him. He was on his way to meet someone. One of the managers.
He smiles as he remembers. He had a friend who needed his expertise. Ways to increase yield without destroying quality. So many poisons to kill, to promote. So many different samples. They’d started out small, one failing farm, he was just a worker, but he’d proved himself. He always proves himself. He always has to prove himself.
Swirling Breeze’s smile falters as he remembers the driven girl given a mediocre task, and how she’d elevated the both of them. Willing to listen. Willing to learn. He could love her if his cultivation potential wasn’t so weak. She would accept him if he was stronger… Even if they were just sorceror’s tricks, magick, she’d valued intelligence. Luckily for her she’d been so capable that it had mattered. But it hadn’t had it? That’s why she’d been exiled. That’s why they’d been able to meet at all.
His hand drops back onto the bed beside him as he hears sharp footsteps. Quick, driven, firm, he smiles as he wonders if it’s her. They were supposed to meet in Miller's Crossing, but his collapse would have been unreported if no one knew who he was.
“You’re awake.” Swirling Breeze stares in disbelief as Shimmering Steel, his old boss, strides into the room, looking around, noting and filing away everything with one quick scan. “You fell into a feeding channel used to move water between Miller’s Crossing, through Gentle Vallen and into my Box Fruit holding.” She just her chin at him, simmering and dispassionate all at once. “Get up. We’ve wasted enough time.”
He flushes in shame. Of course she’d be able to recover from the toxins in the field. Any strong cultivator with a good foundation could probably cycle the poisons if given time and allowed to concentrate. But he’s not a good physical cultivator, is he? His core isn’t weak, but he didn’t have a family breathing technique or farmily core strengthening exercise. He was a commoner with a good mind. She’d seen that, but why would she remember his limitations when she found them so easy to conquer.
“Drink.”
He looks up, shaking as he fights not to let his tears fall. His eyes wide from concentrating widen more in surprise as he sees Shimmering Steel holding the small bowl, the cup, for him to drink from.
“I will help you dress. You will have to walk on your own, but there is a carriage outside,” she continues as he sputters and coughs, choking on the water. “I cannot boost your Qi, my Molten Steel essence would cook and roll your organs, but we can move slower. But you will move.”
He lets the tears fall, thankful beyond words that she’d give him a chance to recover any face at all. But she’d always been that way. As long as you were willing to try and capable of something she could find a place for you. She’s one of the few people he’s ever heard of to employ commoners in essence harvesting, training them to use tools to do so efficiently. Sure, cultivators would be faster, but what cultivator could take the time out of practicing and cultivating to work full-time on a farm or in a mill? And she had no power in her exile. None that she did not gather on her own.
She helps him dress, using pressure points to get him to move with some competence, reinforcing his attempts to assist. They walk down the hall, a slow solemn affair reminiscent of a meditative march or contemplative ceremony. By the time they get to the carriage, a simple affair drawn by sacred lion-like unicorns, he’s shaking and sweating, but his head is up, and his back is straight.
Once inside Swirling Breeze doesn’t collapse, instead meditating, the closest thing he has to a breathing technique. He grounds himself, centers himself, steadies his breathing, focuses his mind while emptying his thoughts, and attempts to recover.
The trip is short, which initially confuses him until he realizes that the carriage was never for Shimmering Steel. He wonders if she already knew that he’d fail to cross the Field. But she’d been expecting him anyway. He’s grateful for her foresight to give him face by allowing him time to recover. He’s in awe of her ability to help him retain face when he was no one important.
“My nephew is going to be announced as the family heir,” she says bluntly, her face set as always in a light frown of concentration.
It takes him a while to register that she’s being passed over. She was exiled, true, but from his understanding she’d done an amazing job of turning the family’s fortunes around after years of mismanagement. To be passed over like this is a slap in the face.
“While we are going over new field techniques I would be honored if you could help me find him a gift that might help with his cultivation,” she says, staring with a constant look of mild disappointment, but he knows it’s in her inability to live up to her family’s impossible expectations. Even he knows that she, as a descendant of the former main branch, will not be allowed to advance.
“Nephew?” Even while recovering Swirling Breeze is still capable of analytical thought. “Which one? What kind of core did he develop?”
“Golden Blade God,” Shimmering Steel smiles thinly and Swirling Breeze winces in sympathy.
Only the most spiteful branches of the family still try to hang on to their old ways despite how far they’ve fallen. They were also the cruelest to those closer to the True Bloodline.
“There is an old man who appears in the markets. We’ve managed to get a few strange starters from him, he has a talent for finding strange treasures in his travels. He might have something you can use to test your poisons on,” Shimmering Steels eyes shine in amusement as her smile turns more mischievous.
“That would be an excellent payment,” Swirling Breeze laughs lightly in amusement.
He climbs out of the carriage expecting them to be at one of her many farms or compounds. A transfer script from Gentle Valley to somewhere else, a quick carriage ride of only a few hours, but now they’re in a place he couldn’t possibly tie to her. The chaos and disorder on display would never be allowed.
“Come,” Shimmering Steel says, walking past him before turning to wait for him. “Let us catch up as we shop.”