The moment seemed frozen in time. Nothing but the soft sounds of the acid as everyone stared at Kai. He realized that he was completely surrounded, not that the workers were any physical threat to him. And yet, if he had ruined things from the start...
Abruptly the boy began squirming. Kai set him down and the boy patted his leg before wandering off. His sister cried out "Gundle!" and scooped him up, though he didn't seem much happier in her arms. But the disruption finally broke the stalemate and some of the workers began to breathe again.
"Who are you?" one of the older men asked. "You don't look like a soldier."
"I'm not," Kai said. "I'm here to help."
Just saying that was taking a risk, because there was a very real chance that he couldn't trust the workers. Unlike in the mines, they interacted with the soldiers on a regular basis. And as much as he doubted they loved their captors, there were so many ways the guards could exert pressure that one of the workers might turn him in.
But he had already jumped in and blown his cover, and if he couldn't inspire some hope in them there was no point doing any of this. So Kai stood tall and hoped he looked suitably heroic.
"Are you from one of the other cities?" a middle-aged woman asked. "They've never sent somebody to us before. You can just fight the soldiers, we'll keep working."
"No, I'm not from any city." Kai raised his hands to show he wasn't holding a weapon. "I'm not going to do anything to make your lives harder. I'm Goralian, so I don't fully understand life here. If you let me stay for a while, I'll try to do whatever I can to help you."
He'd thought that might be a challenge... but he saw smiles and nods from most of the workers. Many started moving in closer, asking all kinds of questions about the outside world. Before it could get too far out of hand, one of the oldest women in camp spoke up.
"Mark my words, this will be a trap," she said. "It'll turn out that they sent him in to see if we were loyal. Just ignore him and keep working, that's the only way through."
"If that's what you think, I doubt I can convince you." Kai spoke less to her than to everyone else watching. "But let me prove myself. So long as the guards don't notice me, I'll do whatever I can."
"Hmph." The old woman turned away, but she was the only one.
Everyone else mobbed Kai and he did his best to keep up. They flooded him with names and he didn't have a chance to remembering most of them. For the most part, it seemed as though they were just happy to meet someone from the outside world. Unlike the mines, which held tens of thousands of workers throughout its tunnels, the acid pits had at most a thousand inhabitants, so they had a smaller community.
Some of them had direct requests, so Kai started with those to get off on a good foot. Rocks falling from the cliffs around them were apparently a common problem, though they didn't usually threaten lives like that. Because so many of the workers were severely weakened, they struggled to move any rock too large to budge with simple tools and teamwork. Most of their tools were glass, useful for acid and not much else.
None of the stones were any trouble for him to simply pick up and move. That led to more cheering, then a round of shushing from the older workers. Kai doubted that they would be heard from this distance, not over all the acid burbling, but he thought that was the smart decision. Best not to attract attention.
When he got a free moment, he bent down beside one of the acid pools. He gingerly stuck one finger in, then swept his hand under the surface. It was definitely trying to burn him, but his skin resisted and he didn't think that it was doing any damage to his Physique. Likewise, each breath tingled and he could feel Behemoth's Heart beating overtime to fight back the toxic fumes.
That was what he had been hoping, since the idea of a substance that could destroy any Physique was both troubling and improbable. Instead the acid was more like an attack that slowly undermined the body, and his defenses were enough to resist it. Still, he wouldn't want to live there.
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Eventually the enthusiasm died down a bit, since they all had work to do. Kai managed to find a group of harder men and women who gathered to ask real questions. They might all be weak, but he could see the determination in their eyes.
"I'm not going to make any false promises," Kai told them. "I want to help, but I need to understand first."
"Why are you doing this?" someone asked from the back of the crowd.
"Because I was at the bottom once and nobody helped me." He felt bad about dismissing the people who had actually helped him, but he thought it was a better explanation than some fancy ethics they wouldn't believe. "Now, the way I understand it, you get the raw crystal ore and you need to pass it through the acid in order to create refined crystals. Do I have the gist of it?"
"It's harder than that!" One of them began going into the details of the more full process and he listened carefully.
"I've seen how much of a toll it takes on you," Kai said. "Is that part of the process, or does it just come from living here?"
He got mixed opinions on that, even some arguments among the workers. They all agreed that being extremely careful with the acid could avoid the worst consequences, but that it was only delaying the inevitable. Apparently there was a well-known descent of symptoms starting with light coughing and ending in death.
"When does that happen in relation to dropping below G-0?" he asked. For the first time he got only blank stares. "I mean in your spiritual sight. You might see it slightly differently, but it sh-"
"Is that a crystallier ability?" one of the workers asked. "We don't know anything about that. They won't send anybody here if they know about that sort of thing. It'd be too dangerous."
"Because they could cultivate all the qi crystals? I'd been meaning to ask about that."
"The soldiers can do that sort of thing, but we can't. I knew an old lady once, she tried to figure it out and they killed her. If you do anything to mess with the crystals, they punish you."
"Don't worry, I don't plan to." It had occurred to him that they processed a small fortune in qi crystals on a regular basis, but interfering with that process in any way would immediately set off a chain of nasty events. "Now, what about that drink they give you?"
"Oh, that's how they control us," one of the younger men told him. "Without drinking that, your lungs start bleeding earlier. Even if we run away and manage to get out, we'll just die."
"Can I try some of it, please? I have some experience with potions."
It turned out that one of the old men had hoarded away a cup of the purple liquid and brought it forth. Kai flicked it with his tongue, then took a sip. He wasn't experienced enough to analyze the ingredients, but working with Juray had given him some basic knowledge of potions, and he trusted his monstrous abilities to be able to determine its fundamental nature.
The potion was what they claimed it was. He'd been harboring a little theory that the potion itself might be causing the damage in order to trap them all there, but that was definitely wrong. It seemed to be a mix of healing and Physique enhancing effects that kept them alive longer. Other than being unusual for Krysal, which generally used pills, there was nothing remarkable about it.
As a whole, he thought he'd gained a better understanding of their position. They were kept intentionally ignorant of their situation, none of them able to use spiritual sight or the slightest cultivation. Because of that, none of them could answer any questions about the "acid cultivation" he saw in their souls, other than noting that only the oldest hands at the work had it. Most likely the crystal refinement process actually included a qi component that they were using unknowingly.
He decided not to ask them anything about moonmelt. In part because he couldn't be confident this would work out and in part because he didn't want to appear like he just wanted something from them. If the workers in the acid pits had actually welcomed him, he shouldn't take advantage of that welcome.
Eventually the interest in him died down. As he looked over the acid pits, Kai wondered exactly what his next step should be. The idea of just grabbing a bunch of moonmelt seemed to be out, but he couldn't exactly lead a group of people this sickly out of their prison. He'd have to figure out a plan and run it past the most experienced in the group.
Instead of actually taking action toward that end, Kai found himself looking toward the boy again. Gundle, apparently. He had returned to an acid pool, though his sister was watching from a distance in case he risked himself again. Kai ended up walking over beside him.
"What you're doing there is interesting," he said. He brushed his hand through the pool as well and the boy blinked in surprise.
"You're tough," Gundle's voice trembled, but he sounded excited. "It doesn't touch you."
"That's because I've trained outside, but it doesn't touch you either."
"No, it does. It touches all of us." Gundle stuck a finger into the pool and stirred it around. "But you can touch back. The others can do it, I don't know why they don't understand."
Perhaps this acid cultivation was an art that had never been fully explored. At minimum, Kai was curious where it might go. He bent down lower to the child, trying not to loom so much, and smiled. "Why don't you show me?"