Silence filled the hall following this horrifying pronouncement. A project? Xian thought in worry. She shivered as she contemplated what foul experiments they were wreaking, here in these tormented halls.

Evidently this was not her concern alone, for Yuan smacked dry lips and said, “Cultivators to help with your project? But why must we be cultivators?”

He had intended this merely as a question as to why, exactly, the nightmarish entity needed cultivators for its vile experiments; but the monster took the question in quite a different light.

“Well,” it said, scratching its biggest chin, “I don’t know, to be honest. I just sort of assumed you were - cultivators, that is. You sort of seemed like the types of folks to be cultivators. But now that I look again you’re rather reasonable fellows, so perchance I was wrong.”

Then a spark flickered in its eyes, falling onto the floor. It looked straight at Yuan. “Would you happen to know where I might find any?”

The cultivators stared in shock. Obviously, as a question of identity Yuan’s remark was singularly nonsensical: what would a bunch of qi users be, if not cultivators? Yet the monster was entirely sincere in its confusion, its question made honestly. Yuan coughed a couple of times in embarrassment, and corrected the misunderstanding (his old man had taught him that you never allowed any dishonesties to perpetuate on your account, even if they were to your advantage).

“My apologies, it seems my remark was misunderstood. We are cultivators; what I’m asking is why we need to be cultivators to help you with your… project. Is it our cores, our qi… do you need us for resources, for pill furnaces, for really creepy dual cultivation, etcetera?”

Mu snorted at the words ‘really creepy dual cultivation.’ The skeletal goliath also let out a wry chuckle.

“None of that. We needed cultivators for the project because the project involves questioning cultivators.”

Deciding that the monsters intended them no immediate harm, Xian cleared her throat and asked a question. “You’ve mentioned this ‘project’ a couple of times now. Would you mind if I asked what the ‘project’ is?”

“Oh, I’m glad you asked,” the goliath said, voice sincerely enthused. “You see, we’re filming a documentary!”

“A what now,” Xian asked, but Yuan could already feel his lips turning pale with fright at those horrifying words.

“A documentary- an informative presentation, recorded for posterity, which aims to present a report on a subject. A documentary on trees, for instance, would feature a number of tree experts - arborists, botanists, horticulturalists, dendrologists, lumberjacks, gardeners, orchardists, General Tree Enthusiasts, etc. - useful and representative stories about trees, statistics about trees, and of course all sorts of tree-related art.”

The giant began rummaging around in a tiny, mortal-sized bag by his hip. “A documentary about cultivators is the same: it features interviews with experts on cultivators, footage of cultivators in the wild - their activities, natural habitats, mating strategies, etc. - statistics about cultivators, and discussions with cultivators themselves.”

Finally he pulled a small, square shape from his bag - one the cultivators recognised as a spirit tablet - waving it about in the air triumphantly. “Would you care to see the footage we’ve assembled thus far?”

The four cultivators looked at each other, nodded, and communicated their assent to the monster. It sounded interesting.

The monster whistled happily as he fiddled with several invisible buttons in the qi field, finally pushing a switch.

A grainy voice boomed out from the spirit tablet.

“Cultivators!” It cried. The tablet flickered, revealing an image of a stereotypical cultivator, sword drawn, majestic silk robes flowing out behind his elegant body.

“Who are they?” The cultivator began to run in place on the screen, waving his sword about, facial features screwed up in anger.

“What do they want?” The cultivator reached a hellish door of Cyclopean proportions, and began rubbing his hands together while making cackling motions.

“And most importantly…” the cultivator kicked in the door.

“Why do they keep destroying our non-euclidean noodle shops?” The cultivator ran in, waving his sword and silently crying about courting death. The small, speck-like figure ran about, kicking over tables of gigantic proportions and upsetting the colossal monsters eating peacefully, most of whom backed up for the door. Bowls of tasty if geometrically unfathomable noodles spilt on the floor, the majority of their delicious contents tragically uneaten.

At last a hideous, one hundred foot tall monster in a hilariously tight police uniform entered, blowing whistles on all three of its mouths, and then whacked the cultivator with a giant fly swatter.

“Alas,” cried the voice, “some things have remained a mystery for far too long!”

A bright red warning sign labelled ‘NOT a Fictionalisation - Beware!’ popped up in the centre of the screen. In the bottom corner a message thanked Xxfrzlng’gath of Xxfrzlng’gath’s Ramen Emporium for giving them permission to use the footage.

“Intent on revealing the truth behind this cosmic mystery of existence, the Institute for Infrastructure Information assembled a crack team of the finest scientific minds, dispatching them to the mortal realms in the geometrically flat places to study cultivators and turn their findings into easily digestible entertainment.”

There was a cut, the image flipping around on the screen, and after the animation it switched to an image of the orange-red monster, gelatinous body surrounded by tiny flagella, one eye blinking ceaselessly over its horn. Its voice, when it spoke, was nervous, and it stumbled over its words. “I was hard at work with the City of Toronto Urban Planning Committee - helping the city become even more of an eldritch and unfathomable mess - when Gerry - excuse me, Jarvjarvangelathill, Chairman of the Institute - approached me, and he said to me, ‘Donald, would you ever want to study… cultivators?”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

The scene cut once more - with a ‘kapow’ transition and some blaring sounds - revealing the skeletal goliath standing before them, only this time without any limbs trailing off his mass of skulls. “Yeah, I asked Don’ial’glothgloth if he could help. Him and Tom - T’m’rang-szhvrg - are the two finest planners in the Institute - you should see what they did with that subway line - so when the board voted to do a documentary on cultivators I said to myself, ‘Gerry, if you’re going to do this, you need those two with you.’”

There was another idiosyncratic transition - the image of Gerry flying off the screen to the sound of air horns - before Donald appeared back on the screen. “‘Course I accepted when ol’ Gerry asked, with one condition: Mickey needed to come with us.”

A straight cut, and the cloud thing was half on the screen. The other half was somewhere off the screen, an effect which was greatly jarring (especially when the camera monster tried to fix the shot, getting the whole of Tom width-wise but cutting off his top, so that only half a mouth could be seen speaking).

“Donald wanted me for my expertise in research. I was willing, of course - getting to study cultivators was the chance of a lifetime - but it was a near thing. I was hard at work convincing humans that statistical modelling absent surveying was a viable alternative way to produce useful information about changing complex populations, and wasn’t sure I’d have the time.”

Donald stuck his head into the shot, although only part of his eye could be seen (and none of his mouth). “So then I raised Mickey a question. I said to Tom, ‘You want humans to use statistical modelling absent surveying, but cultivators are humans. Now how do you think they do their statistics?’”

“And I realised I didn’t know. How do cultivators handle statistics? Do they even have statistics, or do they just run around causing havoc, smiting noodle shops and blustering about secret realms all day? Surely they must do something else: they wear lavish silk robes, after all, which implies they have an economy and hence are capable of at least some higher thoughts. Armed with these questions and my handy slide level I sallied forth, determined to find answers.” And Tom waved his slide level about, once or twice, before the scene cut again.

“But though he dug for answers, answers were long in coming,” intoned the narrator, to a shot of Tom digging a hole in the hills.

“Asking questions of the mortals produced all manner of contradictory replies.”

“Cultivators? They don’t exist,” said Contrary Carl, as a cultivator hurled streams of fire at one of his non-existent cows. The cow leapt into the air, doing a spinning cartwheel, and then briefly glowed purple before dropkicking the cultivator in the head. Then the scene changed again, and hideous former demonic thug Xie Xia appeared on the screen. He was drinking tea peacefully on the tops of a treetop, alongside a koala and wombat.

“I used to be a cultivator,” he admitted bashfully, as if the memory brought him some embarrassment, “but then I turned to Treetop Teahouse Asceticism.”

“Treetop Teahouse Asceticism? What’s that?” The interviewer asked. Hong pumped his arms once in joy, delighted at the prospect of finally finding out what Treetop Teahouse Asceticism was.

And then the scene switched.

“A cultivator is someone who’s learning about the world and their place in it, and as Mr. Rogers says, ‘The most important learning is the ability to accept and expect mistakes, and deal with the disappointments that they bring’… I think a cultivator is someone who accepts with good humour the mistakes of others and themselves, and grows from them,” said a content-looking Rennet.

A giant finger entered the shot, giving her an approving headpat, and she beamed.

The grainy narrator voice returned. “Attempts to film cultivators at home in their natural environments were scarcely more illuminating. How, for instance, do cultivators breed? Our intrepid researchers attempted to find out - alas, unsuccessfully.”

The scene now showed a mountain path, fringed on either side by trees. Donald and Mickey could be seen trying to hide in the shrubberies, their huge bodies comically obvious behind the scarce branches.

Down below, on the path, a male cultivator was hiding in the trees, watching a female cultivator approach. She was skipping along, pink pigtails flapping in the breeze, totally heedless of the annoying fate awaiting her.

With a smooth whoosh the cultivator stepped out of the trees, slicking back his hair. “Why hello there, heavenly beauty. I see you’re all alone; this great one will grace you wi- aargh blargh aargh!”

This as the heavenly beauty in question whipped a can of Cultivator-Be-Gone out of nowhere, spraying it in the male cultivator’s eyes. Then she kicked him in the neck before climbing on a flying sword and zipping away.

“I’m confused,” Donald whispered to Mickey. “Was that supposed to be some sort of mating rite?”

“An unsuccessful one, I should say,” Mickey whispered back, “I think she didn’t like his mating call.”

“Our intrepid researchers even followed cultivators into their favourite hunting grounds - noodle shops.”

Another cultivator looked back over his shoulder at the dozens of giant, eldritch monstrosities calmly walking behind him. He blanched, then switched from a walk to a brisk speed-walk.

The monsters increased their pace until they were once more just immediately behind him.

The cultivator started to sweat and upped his speed till he was jogging.

The monsters increased their own speed. They were now moving at a slightly aggressive walk, as they continued to follow him.

The cultivator screamed and started to run, booking it at top speeds. The monsters calmly switched into a light jog, continuing to record him.

At last, in the midst of the swamp ahead, the cultivator saw a low-lying, rectangular building with a straw roof, puffing steam merrily into the air.

Delighted by the sign on the door - which clearly identified it as a restaurant - the cultivator burst into the building. The monsters waited just outside. After a moment voices emanated from inside.

“Wait, you’re all goblins? You’re courting death!”

There were then several very loud, very aggressive shouts, the sound of something shattering, and a high pitched shriek.

At last the monsters grew tired of waiting and opened the door, shoving their camera inside. Instantly, everyone inside froze.

The restaurant was indeed a goblin bar. It was filled with green-skinned creatures with stunted bodies, wiry limbs, and ears that stuck out like a bat.

Most of these were eating noodles and fungus, and drinking root beer (a tasty alcoholic snack made from the roots of several trees). The cultivator was on the dance floor in the middle of the room, with one goblin behind him pulling his hair, a second on his chest, hands stuffed inside the cultivator’s mouth, and the third on the floor, frozen in the act of swinging a cleaver at the cultivator’s nether regions.

The entire bar turned slowly to gaze at the monsters. The latter finally realised they were intruding and, after some hurried and embarrassed remarks, went on their way.

“Alas, our ventures proved unsuccessful,” the narrator helpfully said, in case that wasn’t clear to the audience.

“So we figured that if trying to track down cultivators wasn’t going to work, maybe we should try and get the cultivators to come to us,” said an eldritch abomination whose name tag marked him as Tom. “With that in mind, we decided to camp out in a noodle shop, and wait for cultivators to show up and destroy it.”

The screen now showed the monsters hiding out in the ruins of Xufu O’Paddyhaddy’s, waiting patiently for cultivators to arrive.

Gerry cut the feed, then turned to stare at the cultivators. His skeletal face remained in a rictus grin. “So, how about it? Want to help?”