Tantra likes sleep, it’s a nice period of rest and relaxation for both body and mind. No matter how rigorous the training, she always wakes up feeling refreshed, albeit quite sore. Which is why she takes great offence to anything that would interrupt said sleep. As horns blast throughout the sect, Tantra does her best to cover her ears with a pillow. What is this? Some summons for surprise training? She grumbles as the horns keep blasting, trying and failing to ignore the noise.
Then her door swings open.
Sola steps into her room with an expression Tantra hasn’t really ever seen grace her features, makes her look sharp and kind of dangerous. Which is a little funny considering she’s a child.
Tantra giggles as Solas gaze locks onto her form.
“Tantra, get up.” she says with a hint of command in her voice, “this isn’t the time to be giggling like a fool.”
“I’m no fool.” Tantra retorts, “now let this one sleep. This one is tired and grumpy.”
Sola walks over and tears away Tantra’s blanket.
“Noooo, why are you like this Sola?” Tantra whines, as she tries and fails to grab the blanket back.
“Tantra, I don’t have time for whatever this new angle you’ve got going on is.” Sola says, “I need you to get up and move.”
“But whyyyy?” Tantra whines some more, “I don’t want to do night training, I just wanna sleep.”
Sola blinks and stares at the girl as she fights her for the pillow, “Tantra , that’s the alarm for an attack.”
That sobers her up rather quickly.
-
Tantra is fiddling with her spear as she waits with the others by the door. The atmosphere is rather dour, except for Ranya, she just seems like the typical Ranya, humming joyfully as she polishes her cutlass. Tantra finds it kind of funny that the youngest of them is the one least affected by the potential oncoming violence.
Not that Tantra’s worried, if this is the work of bandits, which she chooses to believe because otherwise she will be very dead very soon, then they won’t care much for the houses of the disciples. Bandits are all about stealing coin and other valuables, and there isn’t really anything of value here.
Well, except for Tantra.
She’d make for a fairly lucrative ransom.
But their chances of knowing that she’s here are slim to none, so she keeps that out of her mind. Karaz nudges her shoulder with her own.
“Ready for your first taste of blood junior?” she says nervously, clearly trying to break the tension and failing miserably.
“I’d rather we spill no blood, honoured senior” Tantra replies
“Don’t be like that!” Ranya chirps, “violence is our bread and butter. Ranya will take the lead if you're too scared, and you can deal the final blow!”
Tantra’s stomach turns, “I’d prefer if I didn’t have to kill anyone at all.”
“Too bad,” Sola says sharply, “you're a cultivator, no matter how much you might resent that fact. Sooner or later you’ll have to deal with death, and I say the sooner the better.”
Tantra goes to reply but is interrupted by the door bursting open.
-
Bandits are usually just a pain in the ass, poking with their little spears and spouting their little threats. The bandits from the stories, that most who haven’t had the pleasure of meeting one might have heard, usually paint them as something horrifying. A bane to cultivators everywhere if you will, they always focus on the legends and not the facts. Still these ones are impressive despite their deficiencies. Jorin grabs one by the throat and squeezes, she flails and struggles but goes limp as her neck snaps.
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“Natia!” one of them screams, “you bastard, I’ll cut off your head and leave your corpse for the worms!”
Jorin throws the body aside and lets out a yawn as he slaps the man across the yard. Then he leisurely walks up to the group of bandits as they point their weapons at him. One of them raises a spear and thrusts with all their strength, the thing bends and breaks at the neck, but it does shed a small drop of blood.
Oh? Was that infusion? Impressive, for a bandit.
He snatches the spearhead before it can clatter to the ground and shoves it through the man's skull. It is a rather boring fight from there, Jorin slowly killing off a few dozen bandits one by one as they try and fail to do any real damage.
That’s the thing with cultivation at his level, things just stop getting fair, though they couldn’t have known that one such as him was present in the sect. Well, they could’ve, if they did their research, but that’s expecting too much from bandits.
Still, the fact that all of them have completed their foundations is noteworthy. It turns what would be a slaughter into a mildly inconvenient culling.
-
Tantra can barely breath, barely has time to breath.
There is a theory amongst cultivation circles that when under the threat of death the soul automatically boosts the body with Qi. Now, this is meaningless for anyone past the foundation, branching out into one of the many realms of cultivation. But to someone still going through it? Well, the whole point of the initial realm is to acclimate the body to Qi, so that it doesn’t destroy itself.
Tantra can feel her body screaming at her as she blocks another blow that threatens to sweep her off her feet. She’s keeping up, If barely, with the man in front of her. She pushes out a thrust that he backhands, parrying a blow from Ranya with his sword. Karaz rushes in and punches him in the kidney, the man grunts and brings his sword down, screeching on the metal of Karaz’s gauntlets as she blocks. Sola appears in front of the man and digs a serrated dagger into his shoulder before pulling out, causing a geyser of blood to pour out. The man barely twitches as he kicks her in the gut, sending her crashing into the wall.
Tantra thrusts as Ranya swings and the man has to choose between spear and cutlass.
He chooses neither as he simply twirls between the blows, displaying a feat befitting an acrobat rather than a fighter. His blade whips out and cuts Tantra across the chest, she screams as she pulls back in both pain and fear.
The man is like a hound, smelling blood as he rushes Tantra with a series of swings. The first goes for her neck, it nicks, creating a shallow cut as she rushes back. The second cuts into her shoulder and through her collar bone, Tantra screams again as pain overwhelmed her. The last swing is blocked by Ranya as it fails to cut Tantra in half. Tantra falls to the ground leaking blood and tears.
Why is she here? Bleeding to death on the floor of a home that isn’t hers. What did she do to deserve this? She should be back home in Johim city, managing petty trade deals as the eldest tries to manage the transition their fathers death would have brought. She shouldn’t be here, playing at being a cultivator with a crippled soul. There is so much hatred she has for her dead father at this moment. Why? She asks why did you do this to me? What did I do for you to push your idiotic dreams unto a child?
She misses the haggling, misses the lectures, and misses her family. But he didn’t pick a simple sect with simple routes to take her too, no, he chose the Serpent's Fang, with the nearest village being miles away, and the roads being nothing better than packed dirt. She hopes he’s happy for fucking her over like this, for ruining her life.
Karaz screams as she is run through and falls to the ground, and Sola hits the floor hard as the man backhands her in the face.
The sound of steel is overwhelming as Ranya holds back the man's fury all on her own.
Ranya…Ranya is the only reason they’re still alive, while the rest could hold their own for a little while, she can keep up. Moving with speed and strength that beggars belief for one still of her age, still traveling the foundation realm.
Ranya is just a child, Tantra never asked, because that would be rude, but she surely hasn’t passed the double digits in age. So young and saddled with the fate of a daemon, yet she’s always so chipper, always so happy. How does she manage it? Being dealt such a shit hand and still remaining so joyful.
Tantra grits her teeth and gets to her knees, knuckles white on the shaft of her spear, facing the back of the man as he bullies Ranya into a corner. She moves as silently as she can, blood dripping to the floor as she balances her spear with one hand.
With all the indignation she can muster she thrusts her spear in a last bid for survival.
It pierces through the mans back and comes out of his chest, he looks back at her as shock morphs to anger, he gets ready to swing at her and Tantra closes her eyes.
Death doesn’t come.
She opens her eyes to find the headless corpse of the man as Ranya stands on top of him.
“Ranya is alive!” She proclaims, then coughs out some blood. “Though she does need the workings of the medicine hall.”
Dok the duck honks.