The Boreal Pass is more of a clearing than a road, a strip of dead land between two competing foci, the DarkWoods and The Forest Of Seven Legs. They are about equal in Qi output, but The Forest has no sects on its periphery, no tribes in its centre, and no bandits hiding amongst the foliage. It is, for all intents and purposes, a wild foci. Meaning the spirit beasts are left to mutate as they please, making it much more dangerous than the DarkWoods. Add to that the bandits and the Boreal Pass is only really travelled by seasoned cultivators and/or merchant caravans. She's a little worried since Rakan is still holding in his guts, but she trusts his judgment…somewhat.
They kind of have too, the geography isn’t exactly kind, with the Roudune Peaks surrounding and cutting into both forests. Unless they wanted to hike up the mountains, or were willing to cross the entirety of the DarkWoods, then this is the only way to get to Yorin and Etra’s village.
“Oh~
I once threw a stone at a very big crone~
She cursed and screamed like an angry gnome~
So I picked up another and threw it at her brother~
He turned to me and cursed my mother~
Then I stole his son and went on the run~
So they grabbed a knife and took my life~”
Tantra stares shocked at Yorin as Erick giggles, “where did you learn that?”
“They didn’t sing you songs back home?” Yorin asks, perplexed.
“My family had good taste”
“What!” Etra exclaims, “the stone and the crone is a classic! You take that back.”
“I most certainly will not,” Tantra says, “whatever that was, it should never have left the mouths of man to taint the illustrious art of music.”
Erick turns confused to Yorin, “what’s il-lus-tri-ous?”
“Don’t worry about it kiddo,” Yorin pats his back, “Tantra likes to use big words because she’s smart.”
Erick’s eyes sparkle, “can I be smart?”
“Of course you can! I’m sure Tantra would be happy to teach you,” Yorin says.
Tantra raises a brow, “are you volunteering my services, honourable Yorin?”
“You would have done it anyway,” Yorin points out
Tantra shrugs, “true, though I’d prefer for it to be courtesy rather than expectation.”
-
Yorin dodges to the side as the wolf pounces, bringing his guandao up to bisect the beast. It’s a little heavy for his arms but he manages. Have to be when facing a group afterall. The other wolves circle him and Kisrin as the others watch. Each wolf is slightly different, one has eyes like a honeycomb, another’s fur has turned sharp, and the last has fangs that are too big for its maw. Spirit beasts are not known to work together, but it can happen, if a group of particularly close animals mutate together.
The wolf with big fangs nips at his legs and responds by hitting it in the face with the butt of his weapon.
Yorin and Kisrin continue their standoff as the mongrels circle them slowly.
This is going nowhere.
Yorin pushes Qi into the meridians of his legs and boosts forward, ever so slightly, so as to not lose the ability to walk. The honeycomb wolf tries to back away in shock, but it’s too late, the blade of his weapon cuts into its neck, leaving its head to hang from the threads of it’s muscles. His legs hurt but that’s fine-
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Something bites his ankle and pulls.
He holds his ground and turns to see the fanged wolf.
He smiles and grabs his guandao into a close-grip and stabs into its brain. The wolf goes limp and Yorin’s smile widens as he searches for the last one. He finds it impaled by Kisrin’s spear.
Yorin pouts, “couldn’t let me have all of them?”
Kisrin just looks confused at the boy, “are you stupid?”
Yorin shrugs, “only a little”
-
Rakan cleans his club of hemolymph as he stands over the corpse of a twelve foot long millipede with feet tipped in keratin and poison mist slowly being expelled from the glands on its back. He’s quiet, and contemplating, both things Tantra knows means bad news. The others are chatting happily but she’s standing next to Rakan, staring at him.
He looks at her and sighs, “you’re too observant, you know that?”
“It’s a requirement for haggling” Tantra replies.
He snorts, “always comes back to the merchant shit huh?”
Tantra nods.
He lets out a slight chuckle and turns back to the millipede, taking a deep breath of the poison fumes. She doesn’t know how deep his roots are but they must be impressive if he’s willing to risk what she assumes would be a brutally painful death for no reason.
“I sense best through smell,” he says, as though reading her thoughts, “was checking to see which forest this thing came from.”
Tantra tilts her head, “does it matter.”
He shrugs, “call it professional curiosity. Spirit beasts wander much deeper into the Boreal Path, where the two foci actually intersect and mix, not here, barely past its beginning.”
“It could just be a coincidence,” Tantra reasons.
He shrugs, “could be.”
-
“Weeeeeee” Erick says succinctly as he sprints in a circle by the fireplace.
“Erick,” Tantra chastises, “stop that, you could burn yourself.”
He just stops and sticks out his tongue at her before going back to his running.
Tantra gets up with a sigh, “remember, you made me do this.”
She rushes him, catches him, and then tickles him.
-
Tantra holds four threads, moving them slowly together as she starts to weave a rope. She can feel her soul protesting, but she continues on anyway. Pain in the soul isn’t really pain, it’s more like what pain is literally is to its definition. It’s telling her that there is an injury and that she should stop, but she doesn’t feel anything beyond the profuse sweating and the nausea. She’s doubled down, has to double down. She’s the second strongest person in their group, and while the gap between her and Rakan is large, it still leaves her with a responsibility to protect her friends, at least until they reach foundation themselves.
So she needs to be stronger, and the quickest way would be to improve her control, both for future plans and for her current rate of boost efficiency. If she could cleanse her large meridians then she wouldn’t need to bother with control, then again, if she didn’t bother with control then she would still be training at the sect.
Pros and cons.
She never thought being a spiritual cripple would have pros but here we are.
She holds the rope together with all the will she can muster. Her soul hasn’t gotten that much stronger, but willpower can triumph over anything, and it's easy to build determination over an action you’ve done multiple times. Just have to get used to it.
So she extends the rope to her xiphoid process and holds it there, letting the pressure build and build until-
Tantra vomits bile and blood.
“That’s enough for today,” Rakan says beside her, “get back on watch, I’ve got burpees to do.”
She just nods once she’s able.
-
Hakan raises his greatsword, bringing it down as it cuts through air.
A lot of people tend to think you need a cultivator's strength to handle a greatsword with any level of finesse, but they couldn’t be further from the truth. Despite its impressive size it’s not all that heavy, most weapons aren’t, it’s all about balance. If the weapon was made by a competent smith, then it’ll be relatively easy to wield with training. If not, well, then any weapon would be a pain.
He brings his blade up, he brings his blade down.
A simple motion, and one that serves little purpose to him after so many days of repetition, both muscle and muscle memory are suitably trained for one of his cultivation, but it’s soothing, something to calm his nerves in these troubled times.
The Rakkaja are leaving the forest.
They only do that for one reason.
A beast tide is coming.