> Brother Weng, it is with utmost frustration that I must write to you, once again, concerning the matter of Shu Bao, and our erstwhile ally’s inability to keep their Qilin crap out of direct sunlight.

>

> Our investigations into the grievous injury perpetuated on him are as was initially expected. He has offended someone capable of touching the nature of written destiny, or at least providing a treasure to affect it. My assessment is that this attack is personal in nature, and future investigation should proceed carefully. I would not consider it a priority, however. My justification for this is twofold.

>

> Firstly, and frankly, in spite of the status of his wife, and the favour bestowed upon him by his grandfather, Shu Bao’s talent does not warrant it. He was of potential use among this generation while he possessed that core, but now it is ruined; with no recourse to remedy that, further endeavour there will just be throwing good resources after bad. I also proffer a similar assessment on the two ‘adopted scions’ of our clan, who are missing in this incident. Neither are especially talented, nor of good standing locally. Their families will complain, but higher oversight on this matter is as above. Good resource after dross. In fact, Shu Bao’s sidelining, even if the manner is extreme, is probably a net benefit to us.

>

> Secondly, the personal nature of the attack, and the fact that Shu Bao was left alive, suggests a willingness on the part of the perpetrator, or those backing them, to at least give our clan and the Shu, some face. The targeting of the core, and the fact that Shu Bao was enticed by someone playing on that matter of ‘Song Jia’, on which we previously corresponded, only reinforces my opinion. I have looked into the background of this ‘Lady Mo’ who stepped up and so humiliated the Shu and her background is suspiciously opaque as well. It is not impossible, given the means used and the lack of evidence that the perpetrator is related to the Heavenly Mo. There is no benefit to us riling that hive; however, with your blessing, I will make some careful and circumspect enquiries.

>

> Further to this, I would also appreciate if you could somehow prevail upon old Lord Shin not to get to involved in this matter. While his contributions to our clan are, of course, peerless, I worry that he may draw undue attention to the whole matter. If his granddaughter, the young Lady Changqing, desires a personal briefing on events, we can facilitate that. It would be better than her playing ‘young lady detective’.

>

> Keeping any potential links to the Mo clan out of the eyes of the junior generation should be our priority.

>

> As always, your good friend,

>

> Qing

~Letter from the Deputy Envoy of the Kong Clan to Eastern Azure, to her superior.

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~ CANG DI — ULDARA, THE PALACE OF UANNA ~

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-Well, this is a bit of a problem, Cang Di found himself reflecting, as he watched Ao Qingcheng, who had finally slipped off into something approaching ‘sleep’, next to the drunken Quaruna.

“Indeed,” ‘Origin’ whispered in his ear. “It seems like you excel at the art of making difficult promises.”

He flinched as, like a shadow, she appeared on the edge of the bed; between the two women, veiled as before, wearing a dark, flowing gown clasped at the shoulders, that provided an eerily alluring contrast to her pale arms in the soft, flickering light illuminating the room.

“You are surprised, that I can appear like this?” she asked, sounding amused.

“A… little,” he conceded, bowing his head respectfully.

“Formality is skin deep,” she chuckled. “And these hours have always been mine. The flowers surprised you?” she added—

She was now seated beside him. This close, her already intimidating, inscrutable presence was stifling, a weight on his chest that he couldn’t shift, and yet—

She reached out, almost as if drawn by his thoughts, wondering how ‘real’ she was, placing her hand on his, and he found it cool, and very much ‘there’, as if she were just a beautiful mortal woman sitting opposite him.

“No, somehow,” he conceded at last.

It was not that he had not intended to swear—it had been necessary, if only to put the poor girl’s mind somewhat at ease—it was just…

“You do worry about the consequences of failure, though,” Origin mused.

“Should I not?” he couldn’t help but ask her. None of the ideas circling in his thoughts were without risk or unforeseen variables, and the price of failure would at best be a colossal mess as far as he could see.

All he got by way of reply to that was her laughter, which made him reflexively look back to the bed, but neither young woman stirred. In fact, it almost seemed to blend with the music still being played in the main hall.

“Back then, I rarely played favourites,” Origin mused once she stopped laughing. “However, times change… and so do we—though I think few would be enthused to learn that. So much has changed…” she added, turning to stare out, over the tops of the trees in the garden beneath the balcony, at the glittering lights of the city beyond them. “And yet… so much is as it ever was.”

-Does that mean…?

“—that I intend to, now?” she asked a hint of a smile visible beneath her veil as she echoed his thoughts out loud.

“…”

“As I see it, I have three options,” he stated at last, after they had sat in silence for a short time, looking out at the distant lights and the dark shimmer of the river. “I could free her companions by force, or by subterfuge…”

He trailed off, his gaze returning to Qingcheng and Quaruna as they slumbered on the bed. Origin said nothing, just sat there in contemplative silence, watching him.

“—Or I try to reach some kind of accommodation with Uldara.”

“So, you do have this side to you,” Origin remarked at last, looking faintly amused of all things.

“It is no crime to admit that, occasionally, necessary actions can lead to outcomes to which there are no easy answers,” he muttered.

Before coming here, and seeing the depth of this place, he had held some naive belief that the resources he had available to him might have allowed for the latter, at least, but even in the best outcome, it still painted a huge target on a lot of people, many of whom would be nowhere near as lucky or resourceful as he was. The former was frankly impossible, at least while they remained here, in Uldara, unless he wished to leave himself gravely exposed in this place to the likes of the Jade Gate Court.

Realistically, that meant that even though he had said there were three options, there was only one: to try and reach some kind of accommodation—the question was how.

“Such is the way of the world,” she mused, tapping her fingers on the arm of the couch.

“I either have to convince them of the value of… those they have captured, or find a way to work within what is here to draw as many as I can to my side?”

“Mmmm,” Origin just pursed her lips, expression still inscrutable.

“While I could produce some items that might well tempt for this auction, most will bring more questions and problems than they might solve,” he sighed, thinking on the bidding he had seen earlier for the various artefacts that had once belonged to Ao Qingcheng and her compatriots. “So, finding some kind of accommodation is really the best course of action, because no amount of force I can bring to bear, can guarantee their safety.”

“Even if you levelled much of this city?” Origin asked, smiling faintly.

“—Especially if I damaged this city to such a degree,” he replied, unable to hide his grimace this time.

In fact, that was a concern anyway. He doubted he was the only scion of a greater power that had been granted some serious ‘life insurance’ artefacts or treasures—or the only one who had had junior, or senior ‘siblings’ or sworn comrades come to grief and end up in the clutches of places like this. All it would take was one idiot, or a group of idiots not thinking things through before using one, to paint the sort of target on all of them that no junior would be able to melt. Stupider disasters had been wrought for much less, despite far greater oversight than was available in this place.

“There are far too many ‘experts’ in the Dao of ‘I thought it was a good idea at the time’ among my peers.”

Right now, their presence was a curiosity, as much as he hated to admit it. Potentially valuable, rather unknown, and thus far… seemingly being treated as something to be exploited. If it was shown that they had the ability to bloody powers like this, their old experts, like those he had seen in the auction today, would absolutely move. If that occurred… any hope the majority of their forces had in these lands would vanish like mist before the morning sun, and with it, his ability to honour that promise to Qingcheng.

“That is a good way of putting it,” Origin agreed, rolling her eyes.

-Which brings me back to her, he reflected, staring at the fitfully slumbering Quaruna.

“Can I ask you something?” he turned back to Origin.

“You want to know why your senses are telling you that that girl is both very attractive to you and also, getting involved with her would be a bad idea?” Origin suggested, her smile twitching in what he could only think was amusement.

“…”

“Yes,” he conceded after an awkward pause.

Her interest in him had been so forthright since they met that even a blind Buddhist would have noticed. Undoubtedly, she was an excellent potential ally. A daughter of the ruling family of this city, powerful in her own right, he had to presume, at least among her own peers, based on what he had seen today. It was just… that even now, his instincts were telling him that getting too involved with her, especially physically involved, was a bad idea.

It bothered him doubly, because he did not consider himself at all sheltered, or a stranger to physical pleasures, even if he did not care much to seek them out. He had lived a very long time by any logical standard of ‘mortal experiences’, and his teacher had ensured quite early on that his heart would not be easily turned by mere beauty or physical allure, and that he knew enough not to be ensnared or get drawn into the traps some of his peers all to easily succumbed to.

“…”

She gazed at him in silence for so long, he was just starting to think she really would say nothing, before sighing softly and abruptly standing up.

“Rather than try and explain, it may be easier to show you,” she informed him, holding out her hand.

“Show me?” he repeated, somewhat caught off guard by her reply.

“Yes,” she affirmed with a half-smile, before beckoning for him to stand as well. “Come.”

Left with no other option, really, he could only stand as she instructed and, still not quite sure what she intended to do, take the hand she offered.

Without waiting or giving him the opportunity to pick up any of his divested belongings, she led him around the couch and out onto the veranda. Pausing only a moment, to consider the glittering skyline of the city, she turned and walked along its vine-draped length, thick with the scents of jasmine and honeysuckle, down a flight of stairs he had barely noticed were there, and into the heart of the lush, enclosed garden surrounding a lily-garlanded pond they had been looking out over.

Barely glancing at it, she continued along the path until they reached a door, which she pushed open without any hesitation. On the other side was a small, two-story courtyard within which a pair of guards were chatting away quietly beside a brazier, sharing a bottle of alcohol as they discussed the ‘drama’ of the day’s auction.

Somehow, though, neither of them so much as glanced up as they crossed to the opposite side of the courtyard and then down a deserted, lamp-lit corridor. As they walked, he also found he could hear music—the echoing, ethereal lilt of some piped instrument, or instruments, coming from ahead of them.

Exiting it, he found himself being led through a sprawling garden, with dark trees, green tiger-berry perhaps, or some similar type, shading the walkway which was lit in parts by shining lanterns hanging from branches. The scent of night-blossoming flowers and the honeysuckle hung all about them as they walked on in silence, while the music rose and fell, joined now by the rippling sound of a zither, or maybe a qanun.

After a few minutes, the path opened out into a semi-circular, paved area. Here, steps rose on the far side, flanked by two large statues of winged, lion-like creatures, to pass through a lantern-lit gateway, beyond which he could make out the shadows of Ur-folk and the ripple of voices, in spite of the music. Somewhat to his surprise though, Origin did not go that way, but turned and went to the left, along the path out of the open area that ran parallel to the wall of the courtyard, pausing only to pluck a lantern, a simple thing made of twisted reeds and paper, decorated with a cut-out eight-pointed star, from a low branch as they passed.

In fact, as they continued, he could see that motif recurring quite a bit. It was painted in red, earthen tones on the wall to their right, and carved into some of the still warm paving stones upon which they were walking. Other lanterns were styled after birds in flight, the crescent moon and faces like the lions at the gate; however, there were also what looked like weapons—swords, spears and even arrows arranged into the eight-pointed star, and shields with suns and moons.

“What is the significance of the moon, sun and star motifs?” he asked at last, as they reached another open area. “This iconography seems quite different from that in the palace where we just were?”

“They are the history of those who founded this city,” Origin replied after a short pause. “It is interesting that you see the moon as being foremost.”

“I…” he was about to reply that it had just ‘felt right’ in the moment, but paused, then sighed and continued. “Somehow, it just feels… fitting? Maybe it’s because the moon is high in the sky and never seems to set?”

“Fitting, hah…” Origin smiled, beneath her veil. “He is, or was, called Uru-Suen. His consort was Ashingal, though the symbol you see, ‘the waxing and waning moon’, is taken to represent both of them. The star and the sun are their children. Ashinna and Ashamna.”

“I see,” he replied, nodding gratefully at her explanation.

“—No, you do not,” Origin murmured wryly. “Uru-Suen and Ashingal, within that era, had prestige unlike few others. The folk of this place, in this era, venerate those they called the ‘Honoured Five’, whom I am sure you have heard some passing mention of, even just in the time you have spent here.”

“I have,” he affirmed.

From what he could tell, those five were held up as both founders and deliverers of great feats within the Ur-folk’s civilisation—

“—Yet, its Uru-Suen who is, in fact, the tutelary ancestor for the folk who first took the epithet of ‘Ur’,” Origin continued, as they walked on through the garden. “And it was Ashingal whose vision led them to endure. Ashamna, as king and judge, was his father’s son, and Ashinna, guided by her mother’s wisdom, was unto a bright star in the hearts of their people, so that where others were consumed by their failures, or those of their leaders, their strength endured… and while others crumbled and were claimed by madness or buried by darkness, they took control of what remained and forged of it a ‘people’ who were more than what even the one these people herald above all others as ‘The Great Maker’ were capable of envisioning.”

“—and that is why those others are spoken of first?” he guessed, knowing something of the way great powers consolidated their history.

“Indeed,” Origin agreed, sounding rather amused that he had caught that so quickly.

“Seldom do the trappings of great power make a breeding ground for bonds of lasting friendship,” he murmured under his breath—that saying his own teacher was fond of returning to with regard to the current circumstances within the Shu Heavenly Clan.

“—It is a petty vengeance of those other tribes and families, that they took the great achievement of Uru-Suen and Ashingal, and abandoned it to aggrandize and revise their own ancestors’ less than glowing records,” Origin added, shaking her head as they arrived at another open area within the garden, where a smaller gate, flanked by two statues; a man and a woman, both beautiful and alluring, held up an eight-pointed star and a burning sun in their hands to form an arch above it.

“Of these two, Ashinna’s legacy endures more, I suppose,” she mused, gazing up at the statues, “though despite her many dalliances and alluring demeanour, she had few children. Ashamna’s children were many and powerful though, and under their spears, the crown of their tribe grew grand and far reaching on the blood and suffering of those who could not resist them.

“In truth, they were no worse than any other conquering tyrant of that bloody age, that those who never lived through would later praise as the dawn of the first great ‘heroic era’, but as your teacher observes, a legacy of bloody conquest and unquestioned power is not a breeding ground for bonds of lasting friendship.

“Eventually, the justice of Ashamna’s children faltered, and the vision of Ashinna’s wisdom grew dim. Then, those who they had taken in revealed their own hands, and the legacy of Uru-Suen became just another story with which Kings crowned themselves and Queens sold themselves.”

Origin sighed and shook her head, then led him over to the bronze-clad gate and pushed it open.

Beyond it, was another large verdant courtyard, flanked on each side by a dozen columns into which were carved pairs of figures, male and female. The male was always seated, his head crowned, holding a bird in one hand and a sceptre-like object, made of a rod and a ring, in the other. Behind him, the female figure, also crowned, had bird-like wings that spread, merging into the supports between the columns, her hands resting on the seated figure’s shoulders, with a radiant sun-disk behind the king’s crowned head, and over her stomach.

“The Kings of their line and the High Priestess who advised them,” Origin informed him as they walked between the figures, towards the steps at the far end. “Or at least the ones they deemed worth remembering.”

Each one, he noticed, had a complicated, and seemingly unique circular pattern resembling the sceptre at its base.

“Recreations,” Origin added, as he paused before one in particular, which was genuinely oppressive to his sight, carrying with it an aura of conquering violence worthy of any peak Martial Ascendant he had seen. “The originals are long lost to history, and these are wrought from the visions of those who sought to try and keep something of their legacy. Were this the real ‘Hall of The Heavenly Blood’, few, bar none in your Great World, would be able to pass between these statues without bowing their heads and praising each in turn, upon folded knees.”

He turned to look at her, not entirely sure he believed that. According to his teacher, there were powers of great and terrible mystery still haunting Eastern Azure. Nevermind his own sect's Ancestral Expert, there was the Sage of the Moon Tomb for example, and it was believed that the Seven Sovereigns had an Apex Tutelary Ancestor of the Meng clan to guard Meng Fu. Even setting them aside, or the question of esoteric existences like the ‘Demon King’ of the south-eastern continent, most of the Heavenly clans’ influences had at least one powerful, quasi-apex Venerate they could call upon, as he understood it.

“This is why I am showing you,” Origin replied, meeting his gaze with an amused expression, as if she could see right through his doubts. “So you might genuinely understand something of these people and their roots.”

Before he could find words to reply, she just shook her head slightly and started walking once more.

Leaving the garden courtyard with its statues behind, they ascended the steps at the far end in silence and passed into what turned out to be a cavernous, lamp-lit hall. Here there were no statues, but rather every surface—walls, floors, columns, the flowing, translucent curtains between them, even the ceiling—was covered with carved reliefs, many of them vibrantly coloured, the scenes they presented almost reaching out to grasp his attention, no matter where he looked. Yet, despite that, he could not help but feel a rather oppressive gloom about the whole place.

“The Halls of Memory,” Origin informed him as he took it all in. “Or at least, that is what they would call this place. Every ‘great’ and most of the ‘terrible’”—he couldn’t help but notice her slight, rather wry pause—“events pertaining to their peoples, as they recall it, are preserved here. The side halls”—she gestured off to doorways he had barely noticed, hidden as they were behind the gently shimmering curtains of fabric between the columns—“are shrines to those kings you saw before, and to some other figures besides, like the founders of the great families of this town.”

“Why does it feel…?”

“—Like a mausoleum?” Origin finished his question for him as she started to walk onwards again.

“Because it is, I suppose,” she mused. “A tomb to something that will never be recaptured, at least not in a way many of those who made this place would acknowledge, I think. And like the statutes you saw before, it is a hollow thing, recreated with… mostly good intentions, but still, the intent within it can only ever be backwards looking…”

She trailed off, seeming almost a little sad, he couldn’t help but feel. There was a melancholic air about her all of a sudden, just like he had felt earlier, when she first appeared in the room.

“—And you wonder why I say this, despite my stated goal being to impress on you the roots of this place, and convince you of its power, yet all I am doing is showing you how it has waned?”

“…”

Indeed, her words had quite accurately skewered the thought that had been creeping up on him as they walked.

“It is difficult for you to grasp, I understand,” Origin added, her tone lightening again. “You have lived, by the span of mortal years, for longer than most dynasties might ever dream to endure both in life and in death. You have seen great power and heard words of profound wisdom. Your every experience has been guided by those around you, to ‘understand’ the world in a certain way—you disagree?”

She stopped to look at him, even as he opened his mouth to try and, if not refute her words, at least protest that his teacher had given him a lot of freedom, certainly compared to some scions.

“Do none in your great pavilion yearn for earlier days?” she asked abruptly. “Days when their clan was more than just one ‘wise voice’ among many trying to sway the path of your world a little in their favour? Do they not harken, in their hearts, to kneel at the feet of those grand sages who shaped a great Aeon to their whim and have them be more than a statue in graven stone? A symbol cast from half-remembered antiquity? What might they do if they thought such a dream had even the merest chance of being realised?”

“Oh.”

He stared at her, cold sweat suddenly pricking his arms, then looked around at the carvings again. Wondering, uneasily, why that ‘thought’ had not occurred earlier.

“You came here seeking the relics of Mu Shansu, to learn the truth of his fate. How long have your teachers and elders plotted that? What was lost with their passing into darkness that those who sent you here might not move heaven and earth to recapture even a fragment of?

“What might your sect master do, if he learned how his dear sister perished? What might the pupils of those great figures perpetuate, if they knew how that era truly ended?”

As she spoke, he almost felt like he was standing there, in some other dark, cavernous place. Whispering death stalking its shadows, as the light of lanterns guttered and grew dim. The memory of what Han Shu had seen, that she had shown him before, was a stifling fist, grasping his heart, choking all reason out of him—

The feeling vanished and the shadows receded, and he was standing in the hall once again.

Opposite him, in the middle level of one of the great pillars holding up the room, a wild young woman with red hair was impaling a twisted, masked, eight-armed creature. Her broad-bladed spear split the earth like a black lightning bolt to cast it into some dark, ‘othered’ place. Behind her, a panoply of figures, including Ur, he realised, fought desperately against the same lizard-like monstrosities he had seen appear in the tribulation. Below it, in what appeared to be a companion scene, he saw hooded figures dragging Ur and folk like Erishkira down into the depths, chanting, and binding the black lightning into a sword, in the middle of a dark lake.

Origin half turned to follow his gaze and then shook her head.

“At least they are honest in the parts they play—the same cannot be said of others.”

“Who was she?” he asked, pointing to the woman, who now that he thought about it, also bore a striking resemblance to the ‘final hunter’ from the earth dragon’s tribulation. From whom he had gleaned that foundational sliver of insight into Severing Law.

“A dream, like the ones your ancestors chase,” Origin replied with a deep sigh. “A cruel temptation to future generations and a reminder of a strength of prescience that will never be reclaimed. This hall is filled with such figures, and each one is a darker, crueller and more dangerous promise than the last.”

“And that sword… is it?” It almost seemed too fantastical to believe that it was the same one, depicted here, right before him, and yet…

“The one Han Shu carried?” Origin gazed at the lower half of the depicted scene, her expression inscrutable now, beneath her veil. “Yes, that cult of power hunted down the remnants of the doom she wielded and an era later wrought that key, among others. They swore oaths that it would only be as a prison to the Great Evils of their era, yet they themselves were little better than most of what they hid away in that place.”

-And this was the place that I was being asked to delve into?

The longer he gazed at that lower image, the more unsettling it became, because whoever had carved this had taken great care to show exactly what Origin had said. For every dreadful shadow and barely formed abomination they bound in the pit on that island, there was a hooded or masked figure similar to their own, or a figure like Erishkira, and it seemed to him that as time went on, the interest of those hooded figures turned more and more towards the latter, rather than the former.

“What… would have become of…?” he almost hesitated to ask that question.

“—of you? Of your friends? Of those who joined you on the road, when you actually reached that place?” Origin sighed and her smile turned… bitter. “Do not ask such a question. It will not help you sleep at night.”

He wanted to reply that that response did not help, but Origin had already started to walk onwards again.

-She didn’t say ‘if’… she said ‘when’?

That thought was almost a malicious and thoroughly unsettling final tug on the topic as he tore his eyes away from the lower half of the scene.

“Wait…”

Another oddly incongruous—and very concerning—idea surfaced in his mind, following that previous one. Somewhat to his surprise, Origin did, in fact pause as he turned back to the column and stared at the cowled figures depicted on the lower half. At their masks, which were pure white, and inscribed with a golden symbol that seemed, to his eyes, to translate itself as ‘ancient’.

In his mind’s eye, the regalia of the elite disciples of the Jade Gate Court overlaid itself with those dark-robed figures, and rather disturbingly, he had to acknowledge that while they were not truly the same—white masks with symbols on them were not that uncommon— they were similar enough…

-And they were really keen on getting that sword, to the point where Din Ouyeng was willing to…

The longer he stared at those figures, the more certain he became that there was some line there.

“Mmmm, if that connection gets out you will have a great deal more difficulty saving your friends and honouring that oath,” Origin observed blandly.

“Shit…” he groaned, his heart sinking as he could only agree with her on that, as he looked around and started to spot them in other scenes, on other pillars.

“Right now, you have the interest of those among these powers who are just after some quick gains. If they suspect a link to them, you will gain the real attention of experts on a calibre with Erishkira or the Masters of Udrasa, who will start to move in earnest, and they will not be ‘capturing’ your compatriots.”

“Those hooded experts are an enemy of these peoples…” he observed grimly, noting how they were invariably working against the efforts of the Ur powers wherever they were depicted.

“—And most of the powers here have spent many thousands of years seeking ceaselessly to recapture what they see as the sublimity and the majesty that was raped from their people, by ones such as those,” Origin murmured, her words confirming his worst hunch from what he could see around him.

“What happens if that comes out, even after I…? —I have to show that those I want to save are not the same, don’t I,” he muttered, his thoughts racing how.

“Indeed,” Origin replied, nodding as she started walking again.

“—And the only place I can secure that is… here?” he realised, a few more pieces of the wider situation clicking together in his mind as he thought back through events.

“Mmmm,” Origin nodded again, smiling. “Erishkira, for all that she acted unconcerned and aloof, really understood my instruction.”

“But…?” he really wanted to ask ‘How!?’, because it felt to him that there was still a piece missing in all of this.

“That last bit is up to you.” Origin chuckled, patting his arm and giving him an amused, sideways look.

“Right…” He just about managed to suppress a sigh at her comment.

Among his peers, he suspected many would have lost their composure by this point and either demanded or begged her to explain. However, after millennia of being around politicking elders in the Shu Pavilion, he was fairly confident he knew a ‘leading statement’ when he saw one, and a part of him could not forget those initial feelings of deep and profound anger he had felt off of her, when they first crossed paths. So rather than make a fool out of himself, he instead turned his focus back to the scenes depicted around them as they walked onwards.

“Is it just my… imagination, or are the tragedies starting to outweigh the triumphs?” he asked at last, after they had passed several more columns, most showing fairly graphic scenes of misery or, at best, victories so costly all but the most optimistic would struggle to laud them.

“No, it is not,” Origin sighed, as they passed between two more columns, around which someone had actually left some candles, a bowl of food offerings and a bowl of incense.

“The tragedy of these folk is much like Erishkira’s and, in many ways, it is entwined,” she elaborated. “The offerings are because we are close enough to the current day that there are some left in this city who have links, albeit very ancient, to some of the events depicted here.”

Glancing around, he noted that other nearby columns and a few of the other images on the floors between them also had offerings left, in little piles, as if each was its own shrine.

“Close enough?” he queried, eyeing another scene on the next pillar to his right, which showed a group of the hooded figures, accompanied by soldiers and robed figures bearing crosses, burning villages, while a youth in bright armour, a golden halo around his head, watched with various other figures as workmen dug into mounds of earth, clearly searching for something.

“Well, time is a complicated thing to compare, but yes. I doubt more than a few still endure, but their children’s children would have been of an age to end up here,” Origin replied, shrugging slightly. “Ah, this depicts the Hero of Hope,” she added, nodding to his pillar. “He was a figure like one of your great clan’s Heavenly Scions. They seem to be digging for… huh.”

To his surprise she actually stopped to consider the image he had just been looking at, even going so far as to stretch out her free hand and run her fingers down over the scene of the diggers, as if tracing something in it he couldn’t see.

The picture below just showed the youth and his army fighting down through an uncovered ruin, into dark caverns, following paths uncovered by the diggers, before returning to the surface holding a harp strung with gold, which was put into a ship that took flight into the clouds.

“So that was rediscovered…” Origin stared at the harp for a long moment, then sighed.

“Is it something of significance?” he asked her, curious now, because that was the first time she had seemed really drawn to anything depicted.

“Perhaps,” Origin mused, glancing at the offering of pomegranates someone had left in a bowl at the base of the pillar among the candles, before shaking her head again. “—Or maybe it is just a recreation of a fanciful rumour. It is very easy to believe every crazy tale spun about those ‘Heroes’ of the ‘Golden Age of The Five Kingdoms’.”

Looking at the next pillar over, he noted that it also depicted a figure with a golden-halo—a fair-haired young woman dressed in a beautiful gown who was riding a white horse with a horn on its head into a sacked city populated by Ur-folk in a vast jungle. More of the hooded and masked figures came behind her, mingling with her soldiers, looking through the prisoners as if searching for someone.

A part of him was tempted to ask about her, but in truth, the allusion she had made to ‘Heavenly Scions’ sort of clarified that, for now at least. Rather, the burning question in his mind was these ‘hooded groups’ and what they stood for.

“About these hooded figures…” he asked, curiously eyeing the upper part of the scene. The main part of it was taken up by a procession of weeping refugees fleeing deep into forested mountains; however, the fair-haired young woman was also shown directly suppressing an old, bearded figure who had been ruling over that city in some kind of duel, while the hooded figures took the opportunity of her battle to secretively search tunnels beneath the city. “It feels like they are searching for something? Do they think there is some ‘Great Evil’ in this place?”

“Hah…” Origin shook her head ruefully. “Their goal… it has always been to turn back the clock, or maybe… to remake it anew, with them in control of the hours it strikes. To that end, they worked tirelessly through years far too numerous to count and perpetrated much sorrow. Sometimes I wonder what might have been, had they turned those energies to actually trying to better the lot of their world…

“Instead, they twisted Fortune and perjured Destiny, raised favoured scions—like the Hero of Hope and the Heroine of Seven Fathers that you see depicted so glamorously here, on these pillars—for the banners they picked and went hither and thither, trying to remake those eras to their vision of what the ‘Heroic Age’ that I spoke of before, was.”

“But how does that relate to the people of this city?” he asked, still feeling like he was missing something critical in all of this. “Unless…” he found himself staring at the lower part of the image, searching for… It took him a moment, but there, eventually, he found a young woman among the refugees, dressed like a priestess from the first hall, carrying a child in her arms. “—Is it to do with their Kings and Priestesses in some way?”

“Mmmm, in part, it is,” Origin nodded. “However, it is also just a sorry story about power lost, and the desire to control how history is viewed.

“In any case,”—she gave him another sideways look—“unless you wish to dwell on each and every grievance depicted in this hall…”

“Ah, sorry,” he ducked his head apologetically to her as she started walking onwards again. “I am just trying to understand…”

“—the things you should understand,” she finished before he could, nodding.

“Yes,” he conceded with a grimace.

It had been one thing to just infiltrate this place as they had, with a fairly short-term goal in mind. However, now that it appeared he would have to attempt to construct something much more… enduring, to safeguard their endeavour here, he could not help but worry about the details of his ‘cover’ a bit more. It was one thing to present himself as a ‘hunter’ and not too clued in about recent events, but even with his best efforts there was only so much he could do to conceal his true age and inner strength, especially in front of real experts like those he had already seen in this place. Origin’s talisman seemed to confer a lot of obfuscation, but relying on such outside means could only get him so far. Even if he pretended to just be a few centuries, or a millennium, old, not knowing anything substantive about the wider history of these people would be a huge hindrance when it came to navigating social matters. Especially if, as this hall and everything he had seen over the past day suggested, their past and those struggles meant this much to them, and he and Dongmei were already so visibly accompanying Erishkira.

“I mean, what were they called, these ‘enemies’ of this city, and these people?” he asked, eyeing another scene on a pillar as they passed between them, showing a council of what looked like kingdoms in a great city in the desert. Here, two of the hooded, masked figures in blue and white actually had seats at that table, opposite Ur and even some folk like Erishkira, while another, in a blue robe, advised the pale-haired young woman she had called the ‘Heroine of Seven Fathers’, who was now a ruler at that same gathering.

“They had many names, and many faces,” Origin mused, glancing at that pillar. “Some, as you can see, more respectable than others. Sometimes they had a seat at the table, sometimes they were the table, sometimes…”

“—They broke it?” he suggested, drily, eyeing the chaotic scenes depicted in a sprawling floor panel between this column and the next.

The first part showed a group of masked people in a city, built upon the ruins of an ancient Ur fortress, being violently attacked by a force led by one of the five-eyed demons he had seen at the tribulation, while in surrounding countries the influence of the masked groups was being weeded out. The middle showed surrounding kingdoms advancing to the city and starting a military siege, with small, independent forces infiltrating and causing chaos, until a female elf with striking reddish-gold hair, garbed rather like Erishkira and wearing war-paint depicting a familiar golden peony, fought and defeated the demon. In the third part, a familiar, blue-robed man, who had been supporting the heroine of Seven Fathers in the pillar scene, began to rally the remaining forces, conspicuously turning a blind eye to the masked figures slowly returning to reassert their influence on the now weakened forces, while the elvish woman, injured from her battle, walked away into shadow.

“Or ensured it never came to be,” she agreed, tapping her foot on the final scene of that section.

In it, the blue-robed man sent off a small group of what looked like mercenaries to hunt down the remnant Ur forces from the jungle, a golden-haired youth slaying the young Ur champion who had been leading them and taking his weapon, while in the background, the priestess, now older, wept and fled, trying to save who she could from being enslaved.

“As I said,” she continued with slightly resigned tone. “They worked tirelessly towards that goal, reimagining the revival of an era that none who actually lived it, truly desired to return to, once it was properly buried by the dirt of ages, and cared nothing for what their vision cost.”

After that, they walked on in silence, deeper into the hall. The music drifting in from outside made for a strange, slightly frenetic, yet undeniably appropriate accompaniment.

“I assume ‘they’ did not succeed?” he asked at last, glancing around at some of the depicted scenes as they passed, which were all the more depressing for how similar they were to the ones they had just been looking at.

Yet, something was starting to bug him the more he pondered the ‘why’, rather than the ‘what’, they were presenting. It was evident, simply through the fact that they were walking in this hall, that the miserable circumstances depicted unfolding in these scenes had not resulted in the annihilation of this people. The city beyond this hall also seemed prosperous and had a depth of strength that might be notable even back home, and yet… he found his mind drifting back to the depiction of the arena battle, based on a proclaimed ‘historical event’.

It was one thing to enshrine past grievances for future generations. To pridefully display some redress done, or even memorialize a great failure that had some identarian significance, and that he could see in their recreation of the ‘Battle of the Lashaan Plain’, very easily. However, the scenes all around them gave him nothing of that vibe. Certainly, he could not claim to be any great expert on such depictions, but in his time in the Shu Pavilion he had seen quite a bit of how ‘great powers’, dealt with ‘failure’. The debacle around Song Jia had framed his formative years there, and its tragic aftermath had echoed through imperial politics for centuries after, yet nowhere in the sect would he find a display of such a thing like what he was walking past here.

Their unflinching appraisal of events all around them felt more like the dispassionate presentation of a third-party chronicler, than someone who had lived those moments. Yet, countering that, there was such a vibrant, dreamlike and almost masochistic quality to it all, that he could not doubt that whoever had put this down cared, deeply about what was shown here.

It was hard to articulate, but the longer he pondered it, as they walked, the more… off, something felt. Doubly so, after what Origin had said earlier, about the founding of these people. It was almost like an itch that slowly grew with each scene, spurred on by the atmosphere of the hall and the distant music, until he could not help but turn to her.

“What happened… then, in the end?” he asked.

“As to that… it is easier to just show you,” she replied with a deeper sigh, picking up her pace a little. “As, in the things you need to understand about these people, and what they have rebuilt here, that is probably the much more important thing—and in any case, we are basically here,” she added, gesturing ahead of them with her free hand.

“Ah.”

Such had been his focus on the scenes around them, he realised he had somehow completely failed to notice that not that far ahead of them, the hall opened out into a broad semicircle, steps rising gently for maybe half his height unto an open dais, beyond which he could just make out a large metal door.

Reaching the top of the steps, a massive series of interlocking constellations, picked out in glittering crystalline hues, spread out before them, but it was the scene on the great doors at the far side of it that immediately drew all of his attention.

The lower portion depicted a beautiful, dark-haired woman clad in a flowing red-gold gown, in the style of the priestesses he had seen in the previous hall, kneeling, her arms spread wide in supplication, while her whole form was consumed by multi-coloured flames.

Above her, the rest of the door was dominated by a triptych of interwoven scenes that emerged out of the flames consuming her and especially from her eyes and her third eye on her forehead.

Her right eye bled black fire that swirled up to become a female figure, terrible and imposing, her arms raised to a shadowed sky. A vast black crack emanating from her hand that, if he moved his head slightly, transformed into a sword, which she was plunging deep into a blazing sun that was descending from the top right of the scene, surrounded by red-robed figures. All around her, a world—mountains, forests, cities, armies, peoples in their multitudes—crumbled into ruin. Myriad flames becoming grasping, iridescent figures reaching for her in anger, fury and desperation, while below her a dreadful void opened up, out of which barely seen things were emerging into the shadows.

Her left eye bled silver, turning the left-hand panel above her into a great plain, rather reminiscent of a meditation garden, dominated by a pitch-black tree, almost a mirror of the dreadful crack in the other side, festooned with hanging silhouettes. Beneath it, he fancied he could see a solitary, seated, beggar-like figure with a staff, looking into the horizon, over endless ripples of raked sand. That was not the focus of that side, though. There, his eye was drawn to the only colour, a red-golden haired young woman in a ragged green gown, a broken sword of silver in her hand, which she was pointing furiously towards that horizon, where, melting into the darkness, a huge figure seemed to be emerging, little by little, grasping towards her.

Both scenes, in their encompassing intent, shook him to the very core of his soul, for their anger, sorrow and emptiness, yet it was the reddish golden sparks rising up like a swarm of fireflies from the woman’s third eye, in her forehead, threading a way between the other two images, that somehow grasped his attention and truly refused to let it go.

There, as they merged into an ephemeral golden path of flames between the two great images, figures desperately fought, one after another, emerging from those sparks to protect them against dread shadows from the left scene and golden-winged, multi-coloured figures from the right, culminating, at eye-height on the door, in a scene where a heroic black-haired youth wielding a strangely familiar dark spear impaled the leader of the golden figures, slaying them, even as the fire of its blood consumed him, presumably leading the remainder of his people, led by a dark-haired woman who… now he looked at her, had a remarkable resemblance to Quaruna, off that path illuminated by the sparks into a vast shimmering, grassy plain, through which wound a great river.

Not quite sure why, he found himself tracing the red-hued gold of the path back through the image, to the priestess’s robe.

A hand—Origin’s—on his shoulder almost led him to turn, even as he followed their path back behind them, where…

“This…”

Gazing back through the hall, words failed him, as the final pieces slid into place, right before his eyes.

“Now, you see,” Origin whispered, softly, beside him. “What might be sacrificed for a single word, a single, all-encompassing dream.”

“Future…”

The word sounded almost discordant as he whispered it, because it was written in everything, to a degree where, if he had failed to see it, he would probably have just quit cultivation right there.

The reddish gold on all the different pillars, the floors, the walls, the banners, even the ceiling, all flowed to this point, picked out, from the darkest corners to the highest vaults, by the hanging lanterns, flowing together into a swirling river of sparks that met at the feet of the woman depicted on the door. Meanwhile, matching it, was a veritable swarm of shadows, dark colours that flowed around those golden sparks and through them, as if trying to overwhelm everything else.

“Everything… leads to here?”

He had to ask, because a part of him just couldn’t grasp it, not truly, despite seeing this visualisation of it before his eyes.

As a complete ‘thing’, it was a breathtaking, mind-boggling feat of feng shui, the likes of which he had never seen. It also gripped him with a sense of horror and awe that made his legs go weak, because now, from this vantage point, he could see the truth of what had been gnawing at him.

“I was once asked about Omniscience,” Origin murmured, sadly. “This hall, here, and the terrible sacrifices of Ninzaluanna and her ancestors, is as true and pure a depiction of the curse that is ‘Prescience’ as you will find without delving into places no sane person should ever step.”

As she was saying that, his gaze again turned to the floor before the door. He had been so caught up with what was depicted on it, that he had barely given a thought to what the penultimate scene of this whole vast tableau was, which made it all the more surprising to him that it was not, in fact a ‘scene’.

What stretched out before him was a vast series of interlocking circles, picked out in iridescent crystalline stone and cunningly merged with the flowing train of the kneeling woman’s robe. The now familiar eight-pointed star motif formed the central image, with a secondary constellation and image between each of its pairs of cardinal points. The northwestern quadrant held a full moon, the northeastern, a winged lion, the southeastern a rising sun and the southwestern a dove in flight. Meanwhile, the extremities of all eight points and the four quadrants were each denoted with a lit, three-legged, orichalcum brazier.

After the shock of the image on the door and the realisation of what the hall depicted, it took him frankly embarrassingly long to realise what he was looking at, with the twelve stars linked together into a greater whole and then four constellations building on that at the cardinal quadrants, but when it did finally sink in, he was very glad, suddenly, that Origin was still holding onto his arm.

It was unnervingly similar to the iconography of the twelve-pointed sun and four heavenly birds he had witnessed when his teacher took him to present offerings at the shrines of Ancestors Adamant and Heaven Gold, deep in the heart of the Four Holy Peaks of the Shu Pavilion, when he underwent the rituals to become an inheriting disciple.

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“This Ninzaluanna,” he had to focus to try and get the pronunciation, “was she a Heavenly… Venerate?” he asked at last, nearly not daring to ask that out loud.

Mechanically, he half turned back to the door and the scene depicted there, his eyes now finding fresh details he had somehow missed at first glance, like how there were the same number of stars on the floor in total as there were ‘core’ embers picking out the path between the images.

-Did… she sacrifice her entire… to become the focal point of all this, to open up that ‘path’?

“Her realm… yes, she reached the stage you would call ‘Heavenly Venerate’,” Origin confirmed. “Though her folk would see it through a slightly different lens.”

He turned back to her and flinched in surprise, because at some point in the last few moments her appearance had shifted. Her garb was basically the same, with the flowing black dress, and her demeanour was just as hypnotically alluring, but her veil no longer hid her face and age seemed to have fallen off of her, in some unquantifiable way. Now, she looked little older than Qing Dongmei.

“—Does it surprise you so, that I can also look like this?” Origin asked, shaking her head in amusement as she led him across the eight-pointed star to the door. “In truth, I could appear as I was, but sometimes a younger face is more… suitable—if only to set others at ease. Though…”

She pursed her lips as she looked sideways at him again, then sighed, almost wryly, he thought, as they reached the door.

“—Seriously, that old teacher of yours has truly tried to harden your heart to the joys of beauty… what a harsh Master he is.”

“I…” he wanted to protest, rather, at that brutal assessment of his teacher’s foresight, but before he could formulate any sort of response, she had already put her free hand to the door and pushed the two halves open with a single, effortless motion.

He wasn’t entirely sure what he had expected lay beyond it, but a garden courtyard, thick with richly scented jasmine and honeysuckle, open to the night sky… with the moon reflected in its lotus-wreathed central pond was disconcertingly mundane.

An egret which was picking its way across the far end of the pond glanced up at them, and the rippling stringed chords of the music and their flute accompaniment stilled for a moment.

Surprised, he found himself staring at a young, pale-skinned woman with lush dark hair, clad in a diaphanous saffron-coloured robe, who had been sitting on a bench to the right of the pond. The four-stringed, long-necked lute cradled in her arms was now silent as she stared at him, her silvery eyes almost seeming to consume his whole being. It was only with a monumental effort of will that he managed to lower his head respectfully to her… and yet, for some reason, her gaze didn’t linger on him for more than a moment, before sliding towards the pond.

Following her gaze, the first thing he realised was that there was a second young woman, seated on the opposite side of the pond. Also clad in the colour of saffron, with flowers of honeysuckle woven into her black hair, she was lowering a pair of silver pipes from her lips, her gaze also not focused on him, but rather the near edge of the pond…?

-What am I…?

Wondering, with growing concern, what he was missing, he focused all his attention at the place where the other two young women were glancing, where a very normal-looking young woman with pale skin and long dark hair, clad in a loose, silken, silvery-gold gown, was crouched—

-Wait… what?!

Had Origin not been holding his arm, he fancied he would have jumped backwards as he realised, he was—had been—looking right at the third occupant of the courtyard all along and yet… it was as if she was somehow flattened into the entire perspective of the courtyard, so at one with it, that until that moment she had gone entirely unnoticed.

Now that he could see her though, she was suddenly fully and utterly… bewitching. His gaze could not leave her in the slightest. The only sound he could hear was the thud of his own heartbeat and the alluring rustle of her silken gown on her flawless ivory-hued skin as she stood up. Transfixed, he could only admire how utterly perfect she was in every way. How the moonlight shone on her lustrous, midnight-hued hair. How lightly the gown hung on her as she turned to look at him… his thoughts, his breath, his everything… was held in the palm of her hand in that instant.

Silver eyes, like twin, full moons gazed through him, as he found himself face to face with the young woman who had been depicted on the door behind him, leading her people so heroically into the sanctuary of these grassy lands.

Quaruna had been undeniably attractive, and her mother oppressively alluring, but for this woman… he wanted to prostrate himself before her, to offer her everything, to be her…

A hand, gentle fingers cupped his chin, those haunting, all-consuming eyes hung over him, looking into the darkest recesses of his being—

Beside him, he heard Origin sigh, ruefully, and something intangible in their surroundings shifted, like a chord breaking, or a slightly discordant musical note.

“Will you not allow me a little revenge, Pasithea?” the woman, who was now standing right in front of him, looking down at him, murmured as he suddenly found himself once more… mostly in full control of his body—

For a moment, the way she smiled, with slight amusement was the most beautiful…

“Okay, maybe he deserved it a bit, for thinking he had any hope of causing a real ruckus in this place,” Origin—or rather Pasithea, as this woman had just addressed her, remarked—sounding thoroughly amused with herself. “But he is still here with me.”

“Aiiiii…” the woman stared at him… through him, for a long moment, and then, again, he was himself.

Cold sweat slicked his body as he stared at her… and found he was looking up, not because he had fallen to his knees, but because she was fully three heads taller than him. Her presence was still entirely beyond his grasp, distractingly so, but far more concerningly, he found that he had no capability to even touch his own qi, intent… anything. It was still there, within him, but he could influence it directly about as much as a mortal might be able to change the way their blood flowed or see the inside of their own stomach. It was like some aspect of the rule of the world around him was no longer even slightly his own and he just existed within it.

It was terrifyingly also a familiar feeling, because he had known it before, when his teacher showed him exactly what it really meant to stand before a Venerate realm expert, and how little control anyone who had not embraced their own Truth had in such a moment.

“I… apologize, for my earlier thoughts,” he managed to whisper, still unable to look away from her gaze.

“And now I feel like I am bullying a child, despite your years,” the dark-haired young woman muttered, rolling her eyes.

“…”

“In many respects he is still but a child, Meuanna,” Origin remarked drily. “A child who has lived some precocious years, to be sure…”

“I should have known that Erishkira would not come here alone,” the woman—Meuanna—sighed.

As she spoke, she let go of his chin and it took every shred of his focus, and Origin’s arm still holding him up, not to collapse into a jellied heap on the floor. His strength still wasn’t his own, either.

“Though… I suppose I cannot blame her for not wanting to seek me out.”

“It would probably help if your atrium didn’t feel like a mausoleum to a bygone era,” Origin replied drily. “Especially for her.”

“I can’t argue with that,” Meuanna conceded with a deeper sigh. “Still, I am surprised the face that finally brought her to my city is yours, Lady Pasithea.”

“Ah, well, you know how it is,” Origin replied, almost a little evasively he—

Her elbow found his ribs, making him wince.

“—And in the company of such an interesting young man,” Meuanna added, her gaze flitting back to him. “I can see why he has been on the lips of so many, this past day or more.”

He just about managed to salute her in the local style with what he hoped was approaching the correct degree of respect—even though he had no expectation at all that his cover had held up before her scrutiny.

“A fast study, too, but if you wanted to be true to using our local customs, ‘Great Hunter Kang’, you should be on your knees with your face buried in the hem of my gown right now,” Meuanna observed with a smirk.

“I think we can dispense with that,” Origin suggested lightly.

“True, if it was such praise I craved, I would have shown up to one of my son-in-law’s little gatherings,” Meuanna replied drily. “But then I would have had to put up with my daughter giving me sideways looks every time someone flattered me or sang my praises, wondering if today is the day I finally just push one of their faces through a pillar, or toss them out of the city directly for being utterly obnoxious.”

“Opportunity giveth, and taketh,” the dark-haired young woman who had been playing the lute remarked with a smirk.

Meuanna gave the young woman a sideways look that she returned with such a remarkable steadiness that he found himself reappraising what the status of the two musicians might actually be, here. He had taken them for servants, or maybe ladies-in-waiting, but their exchange almost suggested some kind of equality in status?

“Anyway, where are my manners? Lady Pasithea, would you care to—?"

“—Please, you can just call me Sister Pasithea,” Origin cut in warmly, taking half a step forward and putting her free hand on Meuanna’s arm.

“Ah.”

To his surprise, Meuanna actually flushed a little, for the first time looking a little caught off guard, though the moment passed almost as quickly as it came, and she was back to her regal, alluring self once more.

“In that case… dear sister, please come take a seat,” Meuanna continued, gesturing to the far end of the pond, where the courtyard adjoined what appeared to be a covered veranda, and where he could now see a finely made table between several couches was already laid out with food and wine.

“These are my two companions, through these many years,” she added, gesturing to the lute player first “—Melis, and…” she then nodded to the flute player. “—Lissaea.”

Thoroughly relieved to no longer be the focus of attention he was quite happy to just be led along the edge of the pond by Origin as Meuanna showed her to the table.“Alas, I have no ambrosia…” Meuanna trailed off as from seemingly nowhere, Origin produced a black and red ceramic wine jar and wordlessly passed it over to her with a warm smile.

“Then please accept this as an apology for not visiting before,” Origin informed her as Meuanna took the jar with what to him felt like an almost disconcerting degree of reverence. “It may be a bit… stronger than anticipated,” Origin added, more wryly. “It was made with apples… mostly.”

“Apples…” Lissaea repeated, raising an eyebrow and glancing at Melis. “Ah, then that is a heavenly gift indeed, big sister.”

Now, both young women bowed respectfully to Origin, before Melis actually pulled out a chair so Origin could sit down more easily.

He was just wondering whether he was expected to stand respectfully behind her chair, when he realised that Lissaea pulled out the one beside him and was looking at him expectantly.

-She also expects…?

Entirely caught off guard, he found himself staring back at her, suddenly entirely unsure of what was the correct thing to do—politely refuse, as he was clearly the inferior party here or…?

Erishkira had explained the hospitality rituals of Uldara to them in some detail before they came to the palace as guests. However, almost none of what she had mentioned, such as not asking questions of guests, hosts giving gifts to visitors and so on, had occurred, so he had sort of pushed it to the back of his mind, followed her lead and then Quaruna’s, relying on Shatterpoint for the rest.

“Sit, we are guests here.” Origin whispered to him, so softly he nearly didn’t hear her as she slipped her arm free of his and took her own seat.

Exhaling, he nodded gratefully to her, then to the dark-haired Lissaea holding his chair and took his own seat a moment after she did, very glad his knees hadn’t given out.

The food on the table was surprisingly plain. A large bowl of mashed… green and black berries mixed with herbs and oil, several loaves of fresh bread, a platter of roasted vegetables, another of fish and a tureen of dark red soup, or maybe stew, with beans. It was also interestingly in contrast to the meat-rich spreads he had seen laid on at the ‘auction’, earlier.

Before he could inquire of her what the protocol was, Origin had already started to help herself to bread and fish.

“You know… it is so easy to forget how wonderful fresh baked bread is!” Origin declared happily.

“Please, help yourself…” Lissaea remarked to him, while pouring wine from the pitcher into the shallow cup-like bowl next to him.

The only dining implements on the table were some spoons—for the soup, he presumed, so he could only grab one of the fried fish with his fingers. Taking a bite out of it, flavour that was somehow both sweet and a little sharp, yet also not at all overpowering, filled his taste buds. It was also exceptional spirit food, though he supposed that should not surprise him in the slightest. Experts of this kind would not eat anything less. What was more… disconcerting though, was that it was that it was not at all overpowering for him. The vitality within had a lightness to it that he would not have believed possible for qi that pure, and he didn’t think he was a stranger to excellent, high-quality spirit food, by any stretch.

“Mmmmm, did you actually find silphium?” Origin asked Meuanna, after savouring a mouthful of her own fish.

“It is a variant, yes,” Meuanna replied. “I hope it is to your taste?”

“I’d be lying if I said anything cooked from grown ingredients would be an improvement over tasting air,” Origin declared drily. “But this is downright nostalgic…”

“Skin and bones are not served in this house,” Melis giggled.

All four of them laughed at that, which was clearly some sort of in-joke.

Picking up the bowl, he took a sip of the wine and found it fruity and far lighter in taste than its dark colour and heady aroma might have suggested. There was also had a faint hint of sharp spice to its aftertaste. It perfectly complemented the fish.

“Citrus… olives,” Origin mused, eyeing the spread. “The bread is an interesting texture—tiger nuts?”

“We do grow some cereals,” Meuanna replied. “But most flour is made from tiger nuts, yes, or rice or lotus roots. Some reed roots are suitable as well. Economy of scale and crop durability are what they are.”

Curious as he listened to their conversation, he claimed a piece of the bread for himself and found it was quite nutty, though not at all earthen. It reminded him of earth ginger, or even some types of ginseng. There was also a fragrant aftertaste that slowly turned sweet as he savoured it. Even that one mouthful was impressively nourishing and energizing. At least as good as a top tier immortal pill, when it came to bolstering his qi.

“It is even better if you spread it with the olives,” Lissaea remarked, sitting down on his other side and gesturing to the bowl of what looked like finely chopped green tiger berries, and a black berry, seasoned with oil and herbs.

Back home, green tiger berries tended only to be used in some alchemical recipes, or as a cheap source of qi-rich oil for lamps, so he wasn’t quite sure what to expect as he took a spoonful at her suggestion and spread it on some more of the bread.

Salty, yet with subtle refreshing tang was not what he expected. The herbs flavouring them tasted a little similar to the fish as well, with the same lingering aftertaste that meant he had to fight hard not to immediately take a second bite. As spirit food it was almost, if not more potent than the bread, if not quite in the same league as the fish.

Instead, he washed it down with a mouthful of wine… and just marvelled at the craft of the food laid out before them. Most really high-quality spirit food dishes back home brought out singular traits of an exceptional core ingredient. It was a huge amount of effort, for a lot of risk in ingredients misbehaving, to make bread of this quality, for example. Or a combination dish like the various types of tiger berries, herbs and such, that would not squander much of the efficacy of the ingredients.

“It is excellent,” he agreed, taking a second sip of the wine, which he could also only class as ‘dangerously drinkable’.

Lissaea just smiled and pushed the large bowl of soup over to him and then ladled out some for him to try.

Tasting it, he was surprised to find that it was sweet, rather than savoury. The dominant ingredient seemed to be pomegranate, bulked out by some kind of bean, and the whole thing was flavoured with the same mix of spices as the wine.

“What is it called?” he asked, savouring a second spoonful.

“It has a few names,” Lissaea replied. “Ash’harn soup is probably the most common. Pomegranate and Water Bean, flavoured with bitter honey and a few spices. Popular this time of year because you sweat out all your mana just walking across a courtyard.”

“You can also use it to garnish the fish,” Origin added, doing just that, he noted. “—or the bread. That helps a lot with the sweetness.”

He tried that and could, again, only admire the effortless synergy of the combination. A Spirit Chef who could make a repast like this, with qi this pure would be able to walk into any hegemonic sect or clan and be hired on the spot. Even at banquets for the Shu clan, he doubted he had tasted such craft, though, despite his standing as the premier disciple, he had to concede he had rarely sat ‘at’ the top table of such gatherings.

“May I ask a question?” he asked Lissaea at last, after he had eaten a bit more of the fish. “If it’s not…?”

“Of course,” Lissaea replied with a bright smile.

“Well, the food you have laid on is quite different to…?”

“—what was served at the auction, yes,” Lissaea nodded. “That does not surprise me. This is a much more traditional repast of our peoples. Devoid of artifice and performance. Also—”

“—None of us really like meat,” Meuanna added drily. “I have never really eaten it.”

“Uh-huh,” Melis agreed, nodding along.

“Ah.” He inclined his head slightly in thanks for the answer—

“If you want some…?” Lissaea added, making to get to her feet…

“Oh, no… uh, thanks,” he shook his head hurriedly. “This is already more than satisfactory.”

“Mmmhm,” Origin, who was well through her third fish at this point, agreed, nodding.

In the end, he also had a second bowl of the stew, and more bread. Both were undeniably tasty, and, he found that despite the richness of the qi in the food, the lightness and deftness of the preparation made it very easy to keep eating. The roast vegetables were some kind of slightly bitter gourd that also worked to balance the sweetness of the stew.

Origin certainly seemed to have no qualms about helping herself, finishing off almost everything in front of her, including most of the wine.

“That was wonderful, thank you!” she declared at last, sitting back in her chair and letting Melis refill her cup for the… sixth time, he thought.

“Not at all…” Meuanna chuckled, before turning to him.

“Ah… yes, it was delicious, thank you,” he agreed, quickly. “This is the best spirit food I have ever eaten.”

“Spirit Food, huh—” Lissaea chuckled. “I have not heard it called that in a long time.”

“…”

“Oh, don’t look quite so…” Melis giggled. “There are Heaven’s Path practitioners among the various powers of this place. They are not many, and most of them are… recalcitrant—”

“—That is putting it mildly,” Meuanna murmured, rolling her eyes.

“Perhaps,” Lissaea chuckled, a little wryly. “But they cause less mayhem than mages—

“Has anyone told those centipede worshiping savages that recently?” Melis snickered. “Or the zealots at the Dawn’s Gate?”

“I thought Caeracht had a bunch of Primalists?” Lissaea frowned, turning to Melis.

“Eh… I mean, the Primalists have never really considered themselves as ‘Heavens Path’ practitioners, despite everything.” Melis shrugged. “If we were being true to the letter of the definition, only Hundred Ghost’s lot are properly ‘on the path’—at least in comparison to the bunch who have now started popping up like autumn mushrooms and proving the adage that nobody behaves less like a Taoist than someone who has ‘Taoist’ in their title in the process. As for their issues with the Hundred Ghosts Princess, that’s just Grimvak being Grimvak.”

“Ah, a tale as old as Grimvak,” Lissaea sighed ruefully as he looked from one to the other.

“Well, your confusion is interesting,” Meuanna mused, sitting back and giving him a rather searching look. “I must concede, my initial thought was that some other shard-realm, holding a bunch of Heavenly Lady Moondream’s lot, or someone associated with her, had melded with ours.”

“There… are other shard realms?” he blinked, caught off guard by that statement as much as the revelation that this land apparently already had cultivators.

“A few,” Meuanna nodded. “Most are pretty nasty. This one is by far the largest and the most stable. The Deepwell is not…”

“—pleasant,” Melis interjected pithily.

“Understatements hyo,” Lissaea remarked, rolling her eyes.

“—a place you want to go unawares, certainly,” Meuanna mused, giving Origin a sideways glance that she seemingly affected not to see. “There is the Mirror Fade, and the Sathafrode Meadows which are both deeply hostile to any mortal beings because of the nature of their environments.

“The Shattershard margin in the high slopes around Thundercrest is little better, but the dangers there are unstable space and even more unstable occupants. There are a few others as well, like the twisted lands where Yogo Shada used to be. These are places that are reliably accessible.”

-They also call it Thunder Crest here? He mused, listening to her.

“The structure of this land is like a patchwork quilt,” she continued. “Overlaid and worked through itself in dozens of iterations. Occasionally they spit out some disaster, usually they just consume those unwary or foolish enough to enter. Others, like the Mirror Fade, or Sathafrode… if you transgress into them, you will live out the rest of your mortal years there, unless you can attain a True Immortal’s soul, or already possessed one, or someone is able to locate and haul you out directly.

“Honestly, I doubted you were from any remnant faction from Aertha Majoris, if only due to Erishkira, but now, having seen you in person, I am slightly relieved to see it confirmed,” Meuanna sighed. “The ward on your foundation is also…” she glanced at Origin once again, who just shrugged.

“That’s not me, his teacher at least prepared him well enough,” Origin replied with a faint smile. “At least for the trials he could anticipate.”

“The nature of your inner energies—qi, mana, pneuma, whatever you want to call them, is also fundamentally different,” Lissaea added. “You are not of this world, though you have acclimatized to it as well as you are able, unlike many of the others who were captured and brought here.”

-So… they know. he sighed inwardly.

He had expected as much, in his heart, as soon as he realised Meuanna’s realm, but to have it said openly to his face—actually, on reflection, it was a little reassuring. He could only take her words about not seeing through the inner wards on his spiritual foundation, that his teacher had placed there millennia ago, at face value.

“Truthfully,” he stared at the wine, wondering if he needed to take another sip, then opted not to, and to just… relate events simply. “Our various factions do, indeed, come from ‘outside’ this realm. The power ruling our world declared a ‘Trial’…?”

He trailed off, wondering if he needed to explain the concept, but all three just sighed.

“So, it is something like that after all,” Melis nodded.

“—And they determined to invade this place?” Lissaea asked, frowning.

“Not as far as I am aware,” he hurriedly reassured them, hoping that was indeed the case, after what he had seen in the hall outside, with the iconography resembling the Jade Gate Court. “Certainly my own influence, the Shu Pavilion, had no such designs. We—that is those held here, and many more who are probably still roaming widely in these lands—had no anticipation of ending up in here.

There was a huge spatial collapse a few days after the trial started and once things stabilized again, we found ourselves in a sort of mirror of the valley we had been in, but with ruins melded through it—?”

“The Shattershard margin…” Meuanna observed. “It looks rather like…?”

She waved her hand and a rippling image of a landscape very reminiscent in form to the valleys they had first arrived in, appeared over the table.

“Yes,” he confirmed. “You said that the great mountain there was called Thunder Crest?”

“Interesting, that that name is familiar to you…” Meuanna gave him a slightly searching look.

“The forbidden land in which the trial took place has five great mountains,” he clarified. “Thunder Crest is the western most of the five?”

“Five… you say?” Melis frowned now.

“Thunder Crest, East Fury, Snow Jade, South Grove and Golden Promise, surrounding a great peak known as Yin Eclipse.”

“…”

“It is indeed the association you think,” Origin interjected as the three women gave him very contemplative looks. “The ruins of this land fell into the Axial Abyss and eventually got caught on their world.”

“Watchtowers are hard to destroy…” Meuanna sighed, a little ruefully it seemed to him.

“They are indeed,” Melis agreed drily.

“And you said you are part of the ‘Shu’ Pavilion?” Lissaea asked.

“It is the hegemonic influence of the Shu Heavenly Clan on my world,” he clarified. “We don’t rule Eastern Azure—that is the world we mostly come from—but we are one of the foremost powers on it.”

“I see…” Meuanna mused. “The name Shu is familiar to me, but I wonder if it is the same. There was a group once, who were exceptional smiths of primal metals. The works they crafted became so sought after, in their era, that even in the halls of my ancestors, they gained praise…”

“—And also much trouble for it,” Melis added more ruefully. “To the point where, I have been told, the Heaven’s themselves colluded to, if not bring about their downfall, at least place them in a position of political subservience, where they might have stood proudly on their own.”

“I do not believe I know of that story,” he answered diplomatically, though his interest was certainly piqued. “I have various treasures with the emblem of the Heavenly Shu… but they are… um, inaccessible, here.”

“Ah, yes.” Meuanna chuckled. “Well, it matters little, I was merely curious.”

“Shu is written so…” he drew the clan symbol with a little water from the bowl to wash your fingers in, on the table, because there was nothing to be gained from hiding anything. “There are various other icons, but their heraldry in the Bureaucracy of Heaven is a sun with twelve flames, surrounded by four golden birds.”

That emblem was also the one associated with the most senior of the founding ancestors of the Four Peaks of the Shu Pavilion—Heaven Gold—in the ancestral shrine.

“Mountain, River, City,” Lissaea mused, eyeing the design he had drawn.

He blinked, as she echoed the very phrase his own teacher had used when explaining the symbolism of the way ‘Shu’ was written, all those years ago.

“Maybe they do have a link, after all…” she shook her head and glanced at Origin for some reason.

“I cannot claim to be any great expert on the part of the world he comes from.” Origin replied drily. “All I can tell you is that the roots of Shu in his homeland are ancient, even by the standards of the Heavenly Dynasties.”

“The Shu and then the Heavenly Meng—” he started to clarify.

“—Hong Meng, as in the bunch from ‘Vast Obscurity’?” Melis cut in.

“Yes,” he nodded. “You know of them?”

“Their reputation… precedes them,” Lissaea remarked, rolling her eyes. “Older than Xia, old as Yangshao, with claim to the Paradigm of Eight Primal Transformations. Their Old Master’s shadow is as long as any from that era.”

“He certainly has a reputation,” Origin agreed blandly.

“The Meng clan ruled my world after the Shu,” he clarified. “At least until… the forbidden land that we entered into this place through, crashed into it. After that, their power waned, and the Heavenly Tang and Shen gained influence for an era, then, most recently the Heavenly Kong and Huang.”

“Hmmm…”

Meuanna held him in her gaze, absently drumming her fingers on the table, looking… if not perturbed, as if she was pondering something.

“As I said… to my knowledge, Celestial Lady, we did not anticipate that a realm like this existed within the depths of Yin Eclipse,” he tried to assure her. “My own purpose here, as part of this trial, was to seek traces of some experts who went missing in that land, long ago, and to recover their legacies, if it was possible.”

“I see,” she nodded, but still gave nothing at all away.

-Can I only pitch it directly, after all? he reflected with another inward sigh.

The problem was that he still wasn’t completely sure what the ‘rules’ were. Hospitality and the rituals of it were clearly important here, to a greater degree than what he had witnessed earlier on. In fact, now his initial disorientation had been blunted a bit, by the meal, this whole experience was much more in line with what Erishkira had instructed them to expect.

A host would greet and feed the guest and maybe offer other refreshments besides, like bathing or music. They would not ask probing questions until afterward the meal was finished and would not challenge the guest unduly. Gifts would be exchanged, and, failing that, the guest was expected to share news of their own journey to the host, while the host would guarantee the guest’s onward journey. The whole meeting was akin to a contract, arranged; and so long as neither side stepped egregiously out of line, the idea was that the hospitality would be reciprocal.

Origin certainly seemed to know the rules well enough, but at the same time, he had little doubt her displeasure over what had happened to Han Shu was manifesting in making him work here.

“If it is suitable, I… would be pleased to recount my part, and those of my companions, in this trial, before arriving in your city,” he suggested at last, after the silence had dragged on for a few seconds and his mind raced, weighing up the various options available to him.

Quaruna and her friends had certainly been keen on hearing about the exploits of a ‘Great Hunter’, and now that he thought on it, the hall on the way into this place had also been a presentation of this sort of idea as well. In this context the question of his, and everyone else’s origins as not from the shard was already entirely exposed anyway, so probably the best option was to seize the moment and present Meuanna, Lissaea and Melis with an account of matters as he had experienced them before moving onto the ‘and so, that’s why fighting doesn’t benefit us, and I would rather like to arrive at a more diplomatic solution for myself and those nominally under my protection’ pitch.

“To hear of this trial, and your exploits, hmmm,” Melis mused, sitting back in her chair and sipping her wine.

“It would be our honour,” Meuanna replied, nodding.

Out of the corner of his eye, he also thought he saw Origin give him the faintest of nods as well.

Taking a moment to compose his thoughts, and decide where to ‘start’ the recounting, he picked the point at which the announcement was formally ‘presented’ to the Elder Hall in the Shu Pavilion. That didn’t take long to run through, but it helped set the scene and provided a helpful opportunity to make the Shu Pavilion at least appear somewhat good and influential, given that unless he glossed over a few things, that image was going to take a few unavoidable knocks. From there, he talked a little bit about his teacher and the sect master instructing him in his ‘part’, and how it had been determined that now was the most ‘auspicious time’ to seek for the traces of that ancient expedition. That got several eyerolls from his audience, but he couldn’t really blame them, in hindsight.

He talked about the banquet hosted by Dun Jian and the other great experts, as that was another opportunity to show the Shu Pavilion is a good light. His ‘duel’, looking back on it, felt a bit performative, truth be told, but it was also an opportunity to set up some ‘sides’ in the narrative. After that, he took them on the trip into Yin Eclipse, setting out the situation in the province and the various roles his companions had as their group grew, until the fateful meeting with Din Ouyeng, and then Meng Fu and Cao Liang… and the great tribulation and spatial collapse that was the start of everything that came after.

Because he kept a fairly brisk pace and only dwelt on the critical moments, it only took him some thirty minutes of narration to reach that point. When put in the perspective of all the things that had happened, it was a little depressing, a part of him could not help but feel. So much drama and struggle reduced to merely that, though the three women seemed quite engrossed, which was a relief.

From there, he ran through their experiences in the place Meuanna had termed the ‘Shatter Margin’, exiting it amidst the turmoil and chaos and attempting to forge something more organizational among those who gravitated towards them, until the whole thing became too unwieldly and factional thanks in no small part to the Jade Gate Court.

“It has been a long time since I went to Valinkar,” Melis remarked as he accepted a cup of wine from Lissaea.

“It was a shithole back when it was still a functional town,” Lissaea remarked drily. “And undeath did not especially improve its occupants. It would not surprise me if the real reason Asuraleth sacked it all those years ago is simply because one of its merchant families scammed her.”

“It was a trading city?” he asked, curious to learn a bit more about that enigmatic ruin that had been his first real encounter with the much murkier waters of this place.

“Yeah, it was one of the earliest settlements in that part of the world,” Lissaea continued, refilling her own wine cup. “It was the western gateway to those mountains, and one of the major players in provincial power of the Eternal City in its colonial aspirations. Amanerus, that would become Jeris, was the capital on the coast, while Solaneum, that was also called Caeracht, then Portam Aurorae, then Dawn Gate, was the administrative capital on the eastern side. Nowadays, it’s a major regional capital like this city. Any of your compatriots who end up there will not be in for a good time, though. Its ruler is a hard-assed zealot who delights in only two things. Reminding others how much they owe her, and her people—and using that to extort others to fight stupid battles in the mountains you escaped from, against other tribes much more worried about things sliming or mushrooming out of the Deep Wells beneath them than her petty grievances.”

“A ‘character', that is what she is,” Melis agreed, rather sourly.

“Be nice,” Meuanna sighed. “Grimvak, for all her personality flaws—”

“—Is a self-serving bitch who tried to screw everyone just so she could have ‘her moment’, back then. Had she not…”

“—It is what it is,” Meuanna cut her off with a raised hand, then sighed more deeply. “However, without her involvement, my people would be much worse off…”

“Only because the one thing she hates more than folk not respecting her ‘achievements’ is the legacies of the powers that put her in that position in the first place,” Lissaea sneered. “In any case, our guests do not need to hear about Grimvak’s capabilities to twist every matter to her own agenda,” she added giving him an apologetic smile. “Please forgive the interruption.”

“No… it is interesting to get some extra context,” he replied hurriedly.

The knowledge that there were powers like that in this hand was certainly helpful. Erishkira had also been fairly dismissive of this leader, though no more so than some others, when she gave them the basic overview of what she thought they should know to fit in. As such, getting a little more context was certainly helpful.

Their discussion had also nudged a more recent memory. The invitation—that had been closer to a thinly veiled threat, in all honesty—to come help some of the actual Shu Scions in the trial explore a large ‘ruin’ on what had amounted to the eastern side, by his rough estimation, of the mountainous land they had first arrived in. He had refused at the time partly because the expenditure in teleport talismans would have been ruinous, and it had seemed, even at the time, to be rather suspect.

“This Lady Grimvak’s… territory. It is extensive?” he asked politely.

“Personally, she doesn’t do much ruling herself,” Lissaea replied, shaking her head slightly. “Others do that for her, but she is the major figurehead of a factional alliance that extends almost from the lower reaches of Katum and the Riverlands, all the way to the foothills of Thundercrest.”

-Which would indeed put that ruin firmly in her territory, he mused, matching that to the basic overview of the geography of these lands Erishkira had furnished them with. Well, one problem at a time.

“—And because of her… reputation, she has sympathetic ears and hearts much further than that, into Udrasa, Katum… even here in Uldara,” Melis added.

“She has offended a few people she should not, in any case,” Origin murmured. “And circumstances have started to shift in ways that will not be especially affable to her should she persist in being a nuisance.”

“To hear that from you, big sister, she really must have annoyed someone from on high,” Meuanna mused, a little leadingly, he thought.

“What fortune is allotted, but which we write for ourselves, measured back and forth until at last, resenting the prideful determination to ignore good order, the wage is recalled and affliction, implacable, is awarded,” Origin stated.

“…”

“That spear…” Meuanna declared after all three had stared at her, for the longest moment. “I effing knew it.”

“So, it really was one of those relics of the first dawn,” Lissaea sighed. “I am surprised she didn’t try to wield it.”

“Knowing her, she did, and upon finding she could not, sealed it,” Melis muttered.

“Certainly, I would love to hear your account of that matter,” Origin murmured. “But right now, the tale is not about that…”

“Quite,” Meuanna agreed, turning back to him. “Please, ‘Hunter Kang’, do not let our interruptions keep you from the rest of your tale.”

Taking another drink of the wine, he sighed and nodded, then launched into recounting the matters that had led to Han Shu’s sorry fate. He had been pondering how best to present it, in the back of his mind as he recounted matters before, but in the end, there was no benefit to glossing anything over. The only thing he played a little coy with, was Origin’s talisman, presenting that simply as the means by which he had then crossed paths with Origin, as ‘Pasithea’. In that regard, she was quite content to nod along to his ‘take’, which was a relief.

None of the cultivators came out of that tragic clash of circumstances looking particularly good, but it did serve as a good place to further delineate with an eye towards future problems the ideological and political division between those who he was ‘representing’ and the troublemakers like the Jade Gate Court faction. He didn’t make any direct allusion on the link he had observed to the ancient rivals of the Ur people though. His growing hunch there was that that was… a complicated topic, and he really wanted to learn a bit more on it, first.

The last part of the tale thusly became the events that led up to the battle on the plains, which they had seemingly heard about, and were actually quite amused by his involvement in it, and then the aftermath of that, leading up to the tribulation and his and Dongmei’s encounter with Erishkira, and Origin’s tasking of them to repair the talisman—now framed as her Pasithea identity suggesting it.

Fortunately, he was able to gloss over much of the Tribulation itself, with Origin herself finally chipping in to give a little added context, which was a relief, as he was not at all sure what to say about elements of that. Her explanation was pretty much what he would have said, as it turned out, but her recounting it absolved him of being caught out in saying the wrong thing, at least.

“Well, that certainly gives an interesting perspective on the flood,” Melis remarked at last, after he finished the tale with their arrival in Uldara.

“Not unexpected, honestly,” Meuanna sighed. “It was either going to be Erishkira or someone like Quazam, and with the involvement of those old villains who have control of much of Udrasa, it makes sense.”

“Though I still wonder what in Phane’s tits they were trying to do with that stunt?” Melis muttered. “Subvert an escalating Ascension to get out of this place? There was definitely more than just them involved in that mess, though.”

“Best not ask too much about that,” Origin replied blandly.

“I guess…” Melis conceded with a grimace, helping herself to some more of the wine.

“The Prestige of Bright Fortune and the Sky Mother is really not affable,” Lissaea agreed.

“In any case, your purpose in coming to Uldara was to seek out some of the materials needed to repair the talisman you spoke of?” Meuanna asked him.

“In the first instance, yes,” he conceded, glancing at Origin.

“There is no issue showing it to her,” Origin informed him, looking a little too amused for his liking.

Taking the talisman from around his neck, he passed it over to Meuanna, who turned it over in her hands, pensively.

“Soul gold you should be able to acquire here,” she mused after a long moment of silence. “The base material is unusual though? Aren’t they usually crafted from something like Arbacite or a ritual metal? This has a purified Illdrium lattice and the craft almost seems D’vari in parts?”

“It is a bit of a chimeric one, for sure,” Origin nodded. “I’d quite like to remedy that. Remaking it entirely would be a bit much, I suspect, but…”

“—Replacing the Illdrium with something less… like Soul Gold…” Meuanna mused. “Was the weapon it was set into made of Silver Sand, or similar?”

“Yes,” Origin nodded, as he recalled how the blade had shattered, shedding silver dust back then. “Dark Jasper or Moon Jade would be acceptable. Thunderstone is probably too domineering, and I have no expectation that suitably pure Arbacite exists in any accessible place.”

“Arbacite?” he asked, wondering what that was.

“It’s a metamorphic mineral formed in association with Ignitic Arborundum,” Origin informed him.

“The only chunk I know of is in the possession of the Hundred Ghosts Princess,” Meuanna replied with a sigh. “I doubt you will convince her to give it up... though finding her would be your first challenge.”

“Would Bitter Marble work?” Melis asked, tapping her fingers on the table. “It would be more malleable…”

“If the structure is suitably clear,” Origin frowned. “Sunless Iron, or a similar primal metal would also work.”

“You will only find things like that in old artefacts,” Lissaea interjected. “Our armouries were never good, created as they were after the collapse. Our best materiel is scavenged from what the Evergrove forces had, in the main, along with relic finds. Katum has a source of Orichalcic copper, and the factions on the far side of the plains possess stores of other metals, like Illdrium and Agrond, but none of those are useful to your purposes. The deeps beneath Caeracht, or the Badlands around Old Sannahal would be the only places you might find something not scavenged, and even there… those places are not especially hospitable.”

“No, they are not,” Meuanna agreed. “How soon would you need the materials?”

“The sooner the better,” Origin mused. “But I appreciate the difficulties involved. The alchemy of opportunity is also not weighted in my favour.”

“I can see that, there is some… interesting entanglement on this,” Meuanna agreed, her gaze drifting back to him as she spoke, in a way that didn’t particularly set him at ease.

“Several of those materials are… hard to pin down,” Lissaea informed him. “You are familiar with the concept of ‘Fated to encounter, Destined never to meet’?”

“I am,” he affirmed.

“A lot of those things have strange properties. They fell into dark places and have acquired difficult natures as a result,” Meuanna added, sitting back in her chair. “In a sense, they are quite like the treasure spear you carry—or this talisman you seek to repair.”

“Put another way,” Melis mused. “Things can be drawn together, or forced apart. However, the calculus of what that results in, while it can seem simple when viewed holistically, and in retrospect, is never easy to determine in the moment.”

“Which is, in part, why we have come to you,” Origin conceded. “In the hope that several matters may be reconciled in a way that is most… fitting—”

“And with the least amount of silliness, presumably,” Meuanna added ruefully.

“Well, there is always some silliness in these things,” Origin sighed. “That is unavoidable.”

“So, aside from the talisman, the other matter is…?” Even as she spoke, he knew that Meuanna had some inkling already of what he was going to ask her.

“I… well, you have heard the story of how we arrived here,” he stated, carefully, while once again thinking through how he pitched this. “I am bound to try to redress my own failings, but if I am honest, I know the situation my people are in, in this place, sits on a knife-edge. I cannot speak for all of my compatriots, but my position within the Shu Pavilion is not small, and my reputation is…”

“—such that others would push you forward to take on problems on their behalf?” Melis suggested playfully.

“Your Ladyship sees it clearly,” he conceded, having set out as much in the tale he recounted to them in any case. “It is my hope that… an agreement can be reached. A number of my compatriots have ended up in adverse circumstances—”

“—They were captured and enslaved, and you want to free them,” Meuanna nodded.

“I concede, I entertained thoughts of that,” he replied. “But truthfully, that alone is not a solution… I have agreed to help Lady Pasithea,” he nodded slightly towards Origin. “And Lady Erishkira has also agreed to help us, in the matter of the talisman, but… I also have a duty to those who look up to me—even if they do not know it is my hand that has reached out to them.”

“Some would argue that you should abandon them,” Lissaea suggested. “Their actions led to the circumstances they find themselves in. The choices they made write the path they walk.”

“Indeed, but what sort of person would that make me?” he asked.

“A pragmatic one?” Lissaea chuckled.

“Also, someone who does not do their utmost to stand over the promises they make. If I fail to keep them, I would at least like to be judged on my efforts not to end up in that circumstance,” he replied. “We have walked into a dragon’s lair, and most have not understood this—”

“Certainly, it has not stopped some from acting as if they are the dragons, by all accounts,” Melis remarked. “You would seek to claim even those who have wronged our people? Who have wiped out villages. Burned crops. Destroyed livelihoods. Robbed and raped?”

“How many of those captured and sold here, of my people were attacked without cause, by those greedy to capitalize on the weak and the unawares?” he replied, thinking back to what Qingcheng had told him, and what he had overheard from the others. “I cannot deny that there are, among those who would claim to be my peers in this generation, individuals and groups who have acted shamelessly and cruelly—I am not those men.

“I am Cang Di, disciple of the Shu Pavillion's Bronze Peak. Any who have done as you claim shall have no protection from me.”

“Worthy words,” Melis murmured, with a faint smirk. “But… I think you understand the imbalance involved?”

“I do,” he acknowledged, inwardly cursing those who were incapable of not acting like lunatic bandits for even five minutes. “And that is why we need backing, and stability. Even if I purchased the freedom of those I wished, tomorrow and took them from this place, that does not solve anything. What is to stop someone who had a greater eye for them but far fewer scruples, seizing them—?

“And you?” Lissaea asked, with a rueful smile.

“—Who produced the resources to outbid others?” he agreed, nodding again.

“I wonder, would Erishkira and Big Sister Pasithea here like that?” Lissaea pressed.

“I doubt it,” he replied giving Origin a sideways look, but her face was impassive, clearly happy to just let him talk this out, it seemed. “But mass bloodshed would be unavoidable.” He continued. “Lines much harder to melt with words would be written by actions, and that benefits nobody.”

Even as he said that, he grimaced inwardly, realising that his words came embarrassingly close to a veiled threat. And could strike somewhat hollow in any event. The treasures he had would only get him so far, and that would not be any great distance at all if he offended the bottom line of a Celestial Venerate. A talisman avatar was no match for the real thing. He was also relieved that she didn’t seem to view his words as a slight on the ‘law and order’ of her territory, which in retrospect he had also rather implied.

“—Least of all those I want to help…” he added quickly.

“So…” Meuanna mused, drumming her fingers lightly on the arm of her chair.

“I would like to secure your favour to establish an Estate, within which my compatriots could be sheltered…” he suggested.

“An alliance, between your Shu Pavillion, and Uldara,” Meuanna nodded.

“Yes,” he replied, after nearly saying something slightly more ambiguous. “However, a cultivator influence wielded openly might not benefit either of us.”

“No, it would not,” she agreed, rather to his surprise. “I wondered how far through this you had thought, but actually, this makes it easier… after a fashion. In fact, to the first part, I have no issue agreeing to such a pact. Even were big sister Pasithea and Erishkira not standing beside you. Though you will have to convince my granddaughter, who I presume you intend to act as your public backer, on your own merits.”

“…”

“That said, don’t thank me just yet,” Meuanna added drily as he just about managed not to stare at her open mouthed, surprised at how quickly she seemingly agreed. “There is a complication we will need to work out. One you have actually touched upon already.”

-There is...? Ah. Quickly running back through what he had just said, his heart sank.

“There is already someone else set on securing my compatriots from this auction tomorrow, and they will not be so easily dissuaded?”

“Indeed,” Meuanna nodded. “And they are not just a problem for you. They are a long-festering and difficult concern. I will speak plainly, because you have also had experience of them. They are a danger to everything that comes into contact with them, and I would, in other circumstances, be loath to link engaging with them to our alliance. As host, it would be deeply improper in the rites and rituals we should observe, to give face to good order and hospitality…”

For some reason Meuanna trailed off and glanced over at Origin, however, she didn’t seem inclined to add anything.

“As such, I can only give you a choice. In either case, whether you agree to help me in this matter, or not, I will set in motion the processes which will allow you to establish a household of good standing within my city, and consider it as such, that we have a hospitality arrangement between myself, and my household, you, and your Shu Pavillion.” She continued. “I will also say, that if you cannot, or do not wish to help me, it may be that you can still avoid disaster, but I fear you will still have to solve this problem, one way or another.”

“…”

Processing that, he felt his skin crawl a little, because the words she picked had a veiled suggestion that matters could transpire in which he was no longer attached to the Shu Pavilion.

“I have never liked the style of those old tyrants, who upon receiving great talent into their halls set them self-serving tasks of arduous endeavour.”

“But you will still set one now?” Origin suggested drily, finally speaking up.

“…”

Meuanna, to his surprise actually seemed to squirm a little in her chair.

“I would ask your help,” she replied, putting emphasis in her words. “You may refuse to give it. If you do agree, however, and succeed in this matter, I will, by the Grace of Good Order and Hospitality, owe you a favour such as few have ever held over me, in this era.”

“Can I ask what issue I could deal with, that you cannot, Lady Meuanna?” he asked, warily.

“The root of my own inability to act on this matter lies in ancient oaths between the various foundational powers of this land,” Meuanna sighed. “This land is beset by a rot that is older than eras, It creeps out of the shadows, like a dreadful beast, drawing one victim after another into its eye, while hiding behind those same promises of Good Order. It was invited by fools into our halls, and slowly it gnaws at the pillars of our society, under the guise of proffering a way back to an era when we were glorious and unparalleled in our power.

“You have already met their undisguised face. The monstrosities that assailed that tribulation, and which attempted to seize Erishkira?”

“…”

“The lizard demons,” he stated, trying not to shudder at the recollection.

“Sar’Katush, yes. However, I am not asking you to slay one of them,” Meuanna was quick to assure. “Even had you the means. No, it is their agents you must contend with. Specifically, those who have long held control of Udrasa. You met that ‘Old Master’, Daraxes, the villain in the golden mask, at the auction?”

“I did,” he nodded.

“He is one of them, and their chief agent of disruption in my territory,” she informed him with a grimace. “You wonder why I do not force them out? Knowing what they are? Alas the twisted corruption within Udrasa’s influence already had deep roots in the era before this. The Masters have always been trouble, but the rot was not fully revealed until well beyond the point if was easy to do something about, and they are as scrupulous as they are insidious.

“The means to push them out of this city and this territory does exist, but over the years their influence over the hearts and minds of the people is second only to Grimvak. Both present alluring, desirous and nostalgic pictures of an era we could return to, but which few have any appreciation of what it cost our peoples to claw their way free from. We bought that freedom with uncounted bodies and sorrows to match. Grimvak, at least is just an ideologue. Powerful, but so long as you treat with her appropriately, she is manageable. She just wishes ruin upon all those who brought us to this end, and has a mean-streak to make elves envious.

“The Masters of Udrasa are all that, but also unto a disease. They dream of an era, like in our earliest days, where our people stand tall, but they, and only they stand tallest. Where all the legacies of our people are theirs. All our paths are theirs. They would be Suen and Ashinna, Arvash, Keramos and Mokratha combined and we their slave armies and peoples to bow to their every whim.”

Having seen the hall outside, he could certainly understand why she had no desire to go back to that.

“That… sounds awfully like those groups who are depicted in the hall outside,” he observed.

“Because they are,” Melis replied with a grimace. “Or at least, born from them. They took Ur for slaves from the southlands and used them in many rituals. Eventually that was the undoing of one such group, but not until much later was it discovered why.”

“—In any case,” Lissaea added, “their ideology is not simply a thing of those great powers, now deservedly ruined. Who does not hark to go back to Arcadia, somewhere in their heart.”

“What they always forget is that ambrosia for three meals a day is sooo boring and entertainment had to be entirely self-sourced,” Origin added drily.

“I cannot lie, decent mattresses were a divine invention,” Lissaea agreed, rolling her eyes.

“—Still, within all this I am unclear what part you think I could play?” he asked.

In truth, he had half a hunch at this point, but what she was pitching would almost certainly put him at odds with one of the major powers in this region, and might well force him to make such a scene in the process that no cultivator within thousand miles would be in any doubt who had just cashed in their ancestor’s best talismans. Thus, he wanted to be as clear as possible on matters before deciding one way or the other.

“Simply put, the fact that you are not of this world is a huge advantage,” Meuanna stated. “The Masters are powerful sorcerers, this is true. Their grasp of the flow of this era is second to none, and, it shames me to admit it, may even exceed mine, though my realm greatly eclipses theirs. This house is mine, and they have no purchase here, but elsewhere, if all actions are written, of cause and consequence.”

“—And where there is consequence, there is cause, and cause can be read, like the ripples in a pool,” Lissaea added.

“So any sign of you acting against them they would perceive?” he asked, finally seeing what the issue they faced was. In wasn’t actually that unusual a problem, from the perspective of wider scale conflicts between great powers outside this space. However, it was absolutely a problem well beyond his own means to influence, at least directly.

“Yes,” Melis nodded. “And they act accordingly. It might cost them some opportunity in given moment, and you might feel like you came away with a win—”

“But really, the blade just became harder to see, wherever they finally decide to let it cut.” Lissaea sighed. “Last time it cost us a town, a lot of soft power and control over the influence of that weapon platform.”

“They are also assiduous in acquiring those that might act against them,” Meuanna added, “And they are especially adept at finding those who do not exist within the flow of the world. In fact, there was a previous incursion, similar to this, some… five millenniums back, but most of the powers of the shard never realised it, because the Masters and powers allied to Udrasa somehow got there three steps ahead of everyone. That was the first sign something was really ‘wrong’ with them. However, by the time it became clear something needed to be ‘done’, all those who could have stood against their power grab, among those invaders, had been captured or ruined by them, one way or another. Quazam seemingly retained a few, but she is even less able to act than I, against the stolen fortune of her own hall.”

“There was an incursion before?” he asked. Does she mean after Blue Water Sage? Or the Huang Mo Wars?

“There was a catastrophe some thirty thousand years ago, after the then Emperor sought to get gains from Yin Eclipse…” he mused. “However…?”

Another unsettling through slipped into his mind. The potential link between those masked groups in the hall, and the Jade Gate Court… and now this revelation that the lost generation of thirty thousand years ago had been largely swept up by a group with the same origins, in control of Udrasa.

-Don’t tell me that that was deliberate in some way? Were they also aiming to do the same this time?

“The flow of time in this place is not continuous,” Origin informed him, shaking him out of that rather disturbing and very worrying line of thought. “At moments of stability it runs closer to what is on the surface, but at other times, it is sluggish and unpredictable, relative to what exists beyond it. To those within you would see no change, but to those without… you could have days, or even years pass in equilibrium then see centuries pass in seconds on the flip of a coin.”

“I see,” he nodded, grateful for the explanation. “So, here and now you fear they are already moving to do the same again?”

“There is not much to fear, they already are,” Meuanna confirmed for him. “And while many will be fooled by the disguise you are very artfully presenting…”

“—Can they read my qi?” he asked, surprised at that, glancing over at Origin.

“No, not currently, but you were present in this place prior to our crossing paths,” Origin informed him, frowning now. “Their reach was already insidious, and they took the long way around to get at… hmmmm, you know, this clarifies something I was intending to look into, anyway. I have some good news for you at least, sister Meuanna!”

“Oh?” Meuanna raised an eyebrow quizzically.

“Yes,” Origin nodded. “I know how they are cheating your efforts to keep tabs on them—or at least I presume they are cheating you.”

“They… are.” Meuanna grimaced.

“In that case, they are going the wrong way around the circle, so to speak,” Origin replied.

“They… oh, for fucks sake…” Meuanna made a face.

“Indeed, thanks to their presence outside, which they can maintain rather awkwardly, they can capture loops to enter this place and then coordinate with their agents inside, lying low until just the right moment. Its long, boring and almost foolproof, unless you have someone willing to…”

“—Sit and play the prescience game non-stop for millenniums at a time,” Melis sighed. “Miserable lizard bastards.”

“If that is the case…?” Lissaea started to speak, then paused for a moment to stare up at the sky with an annoyed expression before continuing. “Does that mean even inviting an expert like his teacher to act from outside would not work?”

“To strike directly at their foundation?” Origin mused. “Potentially, but you would be better served going after their agents controlling Udrasa by plausibly deniable means. There is no shame in borrowing a convenient knife, so long as it is properly remunerated, and currently the Sar’Katush are rather weakened, in terms of their ability to influence this shard.

“Which is, in part, a major reason to try to head this off now,” Meuanna conceded, shifting her gaze back to him. “And why your involvement would be a major boon.”

“Because my written destiny is not originally part of this world?” he concluded.

“Indeed. And your prestige is such that, as I said before, they will almost certainly come for you, or those around you. Others may also target you, but being affiliated with Uldara will dissuade most—”

“—But not them,” he sighed.

“It might,” she chuckled mirthlessly. “I cannot deny there is always the potential for a surprise or two. But you are also a potential route to Erishkira, and your companion is also a talented young lady of means…”

“So, one way or another I am almost guaranteed to end up in some form of confrontation with them?” he concluded. “Unless I chose to just abandon everything?”

“Almost certainly,” she replied, giving him a sympathetic look.

When it was put like that, he had to concede there was little reason not to agree to her pitch. If he refused, he would still most certainly have to solve this problem, and while he would have Origin’s help, probably, and Erishkira’s, if Udrasa was also targeting her, it would mean he was then faced with the anger of Udrasa and nowhere to easily retreat to. On the other hand, if he agreed to help Meuanna, and proactively tackled this task, he would ‘have’ to act against Udrasa, and it would bind him to Uldara, politically—but would gain a Celestial Venerate’s unqualified backing for everything he wanted to achieve beyond the materials, as recompense.

“If I act against them, is there not a danger that it will be traced back to you?” he asked.

“The support for your endeavour would be fronted by the Master’s household,” Meuanna replied. “It is not an uncommon thing to recruit guest experts, and it is past time that my granddaughter grew her influence to include up and coming talents like you. Should your status as an outworlder be exposed, then it will be a simple thing to state that Uldara has reached an alliance with your sect to mutual benefit. If Udrasa tries something it will be subversive. They prefer to capture influence by allure and promised glory or entrap it through vice. Only if all else fails will they stab, but when they do decide to do that, they are decisive. Should they risk openly targeting you and it is revealed, that would change the rules… significantly.”

Listening to her words, it suddenly occurred to him that she might not have to even strike this arrangement with him. It was almost like she was talking herself into owing him a favour, for some reason. The problem there was he wasn’t even sure how to ask that question in a way that didn’t come across as suspiciously rude.

That said, there was a flaw in this that he could see pretty clearly.

“You said that their prescience for opportunity is remarkable. What if they target me in some way before I can establish a dialogue with my teacher, or Sect Master?”

In theory, he could do that with his teacher’s talisman clone, but he didn’t exactly have a bottomless supply of spirit-jades with which to enhance its capabilities. Based on the appearance of the Sheng group, a more recent wave had come into the shard, but with external ‘fate’ blocked from unduly influencing things…?

“I feel you are forgetting I can do certain things…” Origin remarked drily.

“…”

“In any case, with the means I have seen that you have at your disposal, you should be able to handle yourself in the short term,” she added, rolling her eyes. “Just so long as you don’t underestimate those old villains, and they are old villains.”

“Yes, what kind of Master would you have, if he hadn’t left you at least a handful of utterly ludicrous tricks to spit in the eye of his peers?” Melis added with a giggle.

“…”

He wasn’t entirely sure what to say to that. She wasn’t wrong, thought not all of them had come from his teacher. His senior brothers and sister had also given him some things, as had Sect Master Tian. The issue up to this point was that most of them were not ‘halfway’ treasures. Using them on something, or someone would lead to a death, or worse with little recourse for going ‘oops, my bad’ afterwards.

Sitting back in his own chair, he stared up at the night sky, reviewing everything.

A choice, but not really a choice. The dangers were equal in their own way, but in truth, his instincts, outside of the technical concerns of what the ‘problem’ was had always been leaning one way. His master had warned frequently about the dangers of being caught up in the mentality of being the ‘protagonist of your own insanity’, but equally, you also just had to have faith in your own judgement sometimes. Running away was not an option. Nevermind the oaths he had sworn, he had always had a stubborn streak in him that even when faced with near-unavoidable failure, refused to take it lying down.

Qing Dongmei was his friend and he could not abandon her, or those who had come with her.

He had done wrong by Han Shu, by trying to please too many sides; and being too concerned with the circumstances they were in.

He had sworn that oath to Ao Qingcheng, to free her compatriots.

If he thought back to the meeting with the golden-masked old Ur, earlier in the day, it was impossible not to see that ‘interest’ he had had in an entirely new light. For him, for Dongmei… he had even had eyes for Quaruna… ah.

Feeling a bit foolish, the final part clicked into place. The piece he should perhaps have seen almost immediately, when Meuanna commented that the dark shadow within Udrasa, this beast stalking for prey was a threat to her household. It couldn’t mean her, and her daughter was presumably old enough and strong enough to guarantee herself, given she was the wife of the Master. Thus, the vulnerable one was somehow Quaruna, despite being the granddaughter of a Celestial Venerate.

He still couldn’t shake the feeling he was missing something, but in the end, the choice wasn’t really a choice, irrespective of that.

“Okay,” he declared after the silence had dragged on around his own thoughts for long enough that it was starting to get a little awkward. “I will help you, in exchange for what you offered.”

“In that case, let us drink to it,” Meuanna suggested, pouring wine into the drinking cup in front of her to the point where it was nearly full. “By the Grace of Good Order and ties of Providence that bind us, let our words be as one and our actions aligned in our Hearts, before the adjudication of Heaven and Earth!” she declared, taking a deep drink of the wine then passing it over to him.

“By the Grace of Good Order…” echoing her words, he also drank a deep draught.

It was a much headier, richer… and stronger wine than the one he had been served with the meal. The warmth it brought, even without his ability to touch its qi, was an indicator of potency. Had he not eaten the meal, even the one mouthful might have been enough to make him drunk… as it was, the whole bowl would certainly still lay him out cold, he suspected, as he passed the bowl on to Origin.

She also repeated the oath, then passed it to Melis, who finally passed it to Lissaea, who put it down on the table between them.

As soon as the bowl touched the table, he gasped as a faint golden hue rippled across all of them, flowing like the vapours of the wine before vanishing into his body as if it never was.