The DarkWoods is many things, safe is not one of them.
Then again that can apparently be attributed to most places in the world, if you were inclined to believe the words of master Jorin. Tantra is very much inclined so when Rakan announced a night watch she was one of the two that didn’t groan in dissatisfaction. Rakan could, theoretically, manage their night watch for at least half the nights, he’s awake right now after all, and perfectly peppy as he does his burpees. Which is apparently the perfect exercise for travel, how she didn’t hear about this earlier she’ll never know.
It looks exhausting, especially because he’s been doing it for the past hour. Doesn’t he get tired? She knows that the body's capabilities increase the more Qi you put in it, but this is kind of ridiculous. He isn’t secretly flowing Qi through his meridians, is he? No, she hasn’t heard of a technique to increase endurance, and if there was such a thing they would have been taught it.
Crickets and Rakan, that’s what's keeping her company in this damp little corner of the world while the others sleep. Which is good, anything else would be an unwelcome disruption, and a potential danger.
Eventually Rakan sits next to her and takes a swig of his water.
“Your shift’s done,” Rakan says, “go wake up Kisrin.”
“How do you know the mortals would be too scared?” Tantra asks.
“What?”
“Earlier, when we were talking, you said that mortals were too afraid to take a cultivator as their apprentice. How do you know?”
He swishes the water of his wineskin as he considers her. It’s deceptively expensive, dyed with arrays internally to collect Qi and convert it to water. He takes another swig.
“Wanted to try my hand at smithing once, when I got tired of all the blood.” He says, “No master would take me, all saying some such bullshit about how they were too ‘lowly’ to teach one such as me. So I bought some normal peasant clothes and tried my hand then, got kicked out every time, saying I was too old to teach.”
He chuckles as he takes another gulp of water, and lets out a contented sigh.
“Violence is the only friend we have, kid. It’s a bitch but it’s there, all throughout the journey, all the way to the end.”
“That’s…depressing” Tantra says.
He shrugs, “learn to enjoy it, isn’t so hard then.”
“My families a merchant company,” she says, “we could sponsor you if you want.”
He chuckles, “you know, for how shrewd you can be, you're surprisingly naive. All favors have a cost, especially for cultivators, I have no interest in leeching myself to some money focused scum, no offence.”
“None taken,” Tantra says.
“Don’t worry so much about it, cultivators live better lives than most. Our lives being filled with blood is a small sacrifice for a life of luxury.”
“I won’t have to,” Tantra says, “I’m gonna be a merchant.”
He lets out a small chuckle at that statement, “I’d think twice about that kid. I know you're probably all about trusting family but they’ll milk you dry and leave you to die once you’ve stopped being a convenient tool.”
“You have a depressing outlook on life, teacher Rakan.” Tantra says.
He shrugs, “yeah well, living it has a tendency to do that. Go wake up Kisrin and get some sleep, kid, we can save the depressing shit for another time.”
-
To get out of the DarkWoods, they first have to walk deeper into it, to avoid trespassing into the territory of one of the greater beasts. There are quite a few because of how untamed the DarkWoods are, most foci have a city or two at its edges, and cultivators to cull the wildlife before they can become a threat. Here there are just the disparaged sects, bandits, and the tribes. She really hopes they don’t run into any tribals, she has not heard good things.
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“I want the dao of stone,” Yorin says happily, “even bought a book from the library on it, something called petrography, really complicated but kind of interesting.”
Kisrin shrugs as he walks through the foliage, “It’d be easier to just go for a weapon focused dao, since it's something we’re already learning.”
“But that just feels…lame,” Yorin says, “why not add to what we have?”
“Bolstering our strengths is better than stretching ourselves thin,” Kisrin replies.
“You kids sure are getting ahead of yourselves huh?” Rakan says, “you don’t choose how the dao touches you…wait, that sounds wrong. You don’t choose how the dao approaches you? Yeah, that’s better. Better that way, more natural, and stronger too.”
“But it would be so cool to throw stones around, or make a suit of stone to fight in, or make stone spikes out of the ground.” Yorin babbles.
Rakan shrugs, “good luck with that, elemental daos are rare for a reason.”
-
“That’s a big monkey,” Yorin says.
“That,” Rakan says, pointing at the offending six foot spirit beast, “Is an ape, it has no tail”
“Might have lost it when mutating,” Etra replies.
“What she said”
Rakan sighs, “that’s not how mutations work, not at all.”
“How do you know, oh wise one, you study spirit beasts or something?” Etra says.
“I have actually, it’s boring as fuck”
“Can…you…guys…shut…up” Tantra says as she weaves under a swing and boosts her club into its ribs, there's a crunch, and the ape screeches, but it doesn’t relent.
“Shouldn’t we help?” Kisrin says nervously.
The three of them shrug.
“She’ll be fine” Rakan says.
-
Tantra hisses as Rakan applies a bit of wine to the wound on her shoulder.
“Gonna have to watch that in case it gets infected,” he says, “though your body shouldn’t have too much of a problem fighting one off. Joys of a complete foundation”
“I wouldn’t need to worry about an infection if you just helped,” Tantra grumbles.
“No, you wouldn’t have to worry if you learned how to dodge.” Rakan points out, “Honestly, that bite was so telegraphed it might as well have come tomorrow.”
Tantra grumbles some more as the ape-thing leg is cooked on a spit, it was a pain to skin, its hide turned into something resembling bark. Which was lucky for Tantra ‘cause blunt force trauma doesn’t really care about armour. Not entirely true but it’s close enough.
“It kinda feels wrong to eat,” Etra says as she chews through some meat, “it was weird, but it looked so much like a person. Except for its face, and the fur.”
“Learn to get used to it,” Rakan says, “Spirit beasts are a great source of Qi, and all you have to do it eat. some cultivators even turn to cannibalism to further their foundations”
Yorin gags.
“Seriously?” Etra asks, “that’s fucked.”
“Yeah, I had to fight one. Not fun, bit down on a chunk of my arm and ate it right in front of me. Luckily I wasn’t the only cultivator there because she was horrifying, pretty sure she had a connection with the dao of hunger.” Rakan says
A shiver ripples through the children
“How many journeys have you been on?” Kisrin asks, curious.
“This would be my fifth,” he says, “and i'm one of the more conservative of the disciples, keeping them to just a few years. Some disciples take decades before they return to the sect, one of the first disciple hasn’t been back for little over a century, only reason we know he’s still alive is because his token’s active.”
“How old are you?” Tantra queries.
The man shrugs, “thirty four”
“Huh, you don’t look a day over twenty,” Etra says.
“That is how cultivation works, yes.” He says blandly
-
“Tantra, can we hurry it up please?” Etra whines.
“No!” She says, “you have no idea how expensive these are, I’m going to harvest all of them.”
“It’s just a bunch of mushrooms.”
“It’s DarkWoods Lifecaps, and they go for a thousand merits each back at the sect! I can only imagine how much gold we’ll be drowning in once we find a proper city. Rakan! use that special storage of yours to keep them pristine, we don’t have the proper tools.”
Rakan looks on bemused, “alright kid.”
“Are you seriously going along with this?” Etra asks.
Rakan shrugs, “we’re going to need the money, we only have merits, and that’s worth a whole lot of nothing outside the sect”
Etra grumbles, “how does she even know how expensive those are?”
Yorin chuckles, “Tantra memorized all the prices when she was still foraging to get a Qi stone.”
“Right, forgot about her fucked soul, how’d she even get to foundation in a year anyway?” Etra asks.
“Do the control exercises and maybe I’ll tell you.” Rakan says.
-
“Tantra, are you hiding?” Rakan asks
“No,” She replies.
“It’s just a bird.” He says
“That thing is not a bird, and I refuse to fight it.”
Rakan sighs and manifests his club, “fine”