They continued on in silence and Jie mulled over Sorek's words. She wanted to dismiss karma immediately but found that she couldn't. She lived in a world with qi and all kinds of supernatural forces. Perhaps, there was something to what Sorek said of karma... but she didn't know how to feel about the rest of what he'd said.
Her frown deepened as they walked, and his words ran through her mind over and over again.
Creatures attacked them from the darkness many times, and each time Sorek swept them aside effortlessly and without harming them in the slightest.
Ithilix's antennae quivered and Sorek sighed.
"I suppose they did leave their little treasures for you. You can collect the ones we pass by, but no others. Not while I escort you at least. I have rubbings to study," he said as he pressed a stone in the wall of the tunnel. A section of the wall slid away, revealing a small cache of treasure containing a few hundred gold and silver coins, and a jar of twenty or so twin moons pills.
"Thank you for your kindness," Ithilix said with a deep bow before rushing in with Pan Tian to gather the treasures within their storage rings.
Jie stood outside the small secret room with Sorek, watching the tunnel. Though he could easily defend them from anything she could, it made her uncomfortable to depend on anyone too much for their safety.
They made several similar stops as Sorek led them through the tunnels and Pan Tian made frequent notes of their route.
"The path you're taking us in isn't very direct, honored elder," Pan Tian said.
Sorek chuckled. "I'm aware," he said, "there are all kinds of nests around here. It would be rude for us to barge into their homes would it not?" he said.
"Nests of what?" Jie asked, which earned her a look from Pan Tian that seemed to scream the words 'be more respectful'. It seemed somewhat unfair given that Jie had said far worse and with a much more hostile tone earlier... but then again perhaps that only proved Pan Tian right...
"Noctilith, squerets, bone spiders, and willowangs, mostly," Sorek said, "though I sense you don't know what half of those are."
"No, I don't... thank you elder," Jie said with a look at Pan Tian. She looked mollified.
Sorek chuckled.
Finally, Sorek stopped in the center of a round room with an enormous vertical pipe overhead that led into the darkness above. "Gather around," he said.
They did so, and water formed beneath their feet, though it felt as solid as rock and lifted into the air, carrying them all up through the pipe. They rose to the top of the pipe and Sorek led the way through a smaller series of pipes before they exited a hole in the wall of a musty chamber.
"This is the palace. Good luck. And should you encounter any priceless relics, try not to destroy them," Sorek said.
"Thank you, esteemed elder," Pan Tian said with a bow that the others mimicked.
"Just make sure you come back the way I showed you and don't step foot in the city itself. Not for a few days at least. Megathor are patient creatures, and undeath has done nothing to blunt that. If you walk openly in the city, it may sense you and attack," Sorek said.
"We'll do as you advise, thank you honored elder," Pan Tian said.
"Mmm," Sorek said and turned away.
"Thank you..." Jie said, "Not just for escorting us through, but... our discussion gave me insights into myself... I can't follow your path... but I will think deeply about our conversation. And... I apologize for my rudeness."
"We must all walk our own path," Sorek said, "if I've helped guide you toward a better one... I'm glad. Goodbye. Don't come visiting."
With that, he and Alice walked back into the pipe and vanished into the darkness.
***
Having said their goodbyes to Sorek and Alice, they headed up from what seemed like some sort of basement storage area and climbed a set of stairs into the palace proper. Like the rest of the city, the walls were worn, weathered, and pockmarked by time. But ancient hieroglyphs and statues were still visible.
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Their lanterns cast dancing shadows around them as they walked. They'd reformed their usual formation with Pan Tian leading the way and checking for traps as they ducked under strands of webbing that crisscrossed the vast halls.
The floor was covered in a layer of dust, sand, and dirt that helped muffle their footsteps, but their movements still echoed through the ruined hallways. As did other noises... shuffling, skittering movements, and an odd sound like metal scraping on stone. Jie reached out with her spirit sense and felt auras all around them in every direction.
As usual within this dead city... they were never alone.
Thankfully, the long walk back under Sorek's protection had given Jie time to replenish her reserves. Still, she was alert as they walked. The auras she sensed didn't feel like too much of a threat, but there was no telling what else lurked in the dark halls around them.
The dungeon... the whole Crimson Valley had surprised her at every turn, throwing challenges at them that had been far closer than Jie would've liked.
Ming would say that life or death situations would help her grow... and she was more than willing to do whatever it took... but it was one thing to have her own life on the line... and quite another to have the risk of losing her friends. It worried her deeply and she often found herself gnawing on a knuckle or the inside of her lip as her eyes and spirit sense scanned their surroundings.
Jie wasn't sure which direction they should go in, but Pan Tian seemed to have ideas on how to figure that out and kept careful notes of their route as always. She turned them around several times, but always with purpose as though she were looking for specific signs of where to go. Jie was confident in Pan Tian finding the way, just as she had every time so far.
Most of the creatures seemed to be avoiding them as they walked, and though Jie remained alert, part of her mind chewed on her conversation with Sorek. She hadn't been lying when she'd said it'd given her insights. Though perhaps not the insights Sorek had meant to give her.
It wasn't that he was wrong, she supposed... but she could never accept the level of pacifism he had. Still, it was where their views clashed that had shown her what she believed deep down... what she truly stood for. She found the knot of conflict inside her dantian slowly starting to shift as she processed the insights. She didn't agree with most people's views on this world... their blatant disregard for life or their ideas that strength was all that mattered.
But, neither could she accept such a passive life... but somewhere between the two was a winding, difficult path and she felt herself drawn to it. She hoped it was one that her parents wouldn't hate her for... one that would make her parents, Ming, and herself proud of her.
One she could follow and still be able to look herself in the mirror without hating what she saw...
***
As they moved deeper inside the enormous palace, they came across familiar troughs carrying blood along the walls. They didn't all move in the same direction though, so it was fairly useless for finding their way. All it did was make the air heavy with the scent of blood. Thick, metallic, and so dense in the air that it felt like it clung to the back of her throat with every breath and made her gag.
Jie thought she ought to be more used to it by now, but no such luck.
They wandered through the halls and came to a courtyard within the palace. It may once have been filled with green plants of all kinds basking in the sunlight that streamed through a large rectangular section of the ceiling that was exposed to the sky. No doubt it'd been carefully tended to by a royal gardener... but now the courtyard revealed only the pulsing glow of noctilith on the cavern ceiling and a field of dirt and fungus with snails the size of cars eating glowing mushrooms.
"This is too exposed," Pan Tian said as she stared up at the cavern ceiling, "we'll find another path."
"It's not far to the other side," Ithilix said.
Pan Tian shook her head. "It doesn't matter. Sorek seems to know this place better than we do... I'm keeping us under cover no matter what. I'm not losing any of you to impatience," she said and led the way back.
Nobody argued.
They came to a set of metal double doors higher than a three-story house back on Earth, covered in rust and with no obvious means of opening them.
"Seriously? What's the point of something so big?" Jie muttered under her breath as Pan Tian checked it for traps.
The scraping noise drew closer behind them and either it was echoing strangely, or it had multiplied somehow.
"The door's clear. On this side anyway. Be careful when you open it. You'll probably want to have your defensive skill up. Just in case," Pan Tian said.
Jie nodded and stepped up to the enormous door as she cycled lightning step and her qi armor. A crackling blue glow surrounded her as the world slowed down. She stood in the center, pressed her hands against the doors, reinforced her arms with qi, and pushed.
The doors swung open with a screeching groan as rust fell like rain and the heavy metal doors scraped over the worn stone. As they parted, they revealed a dark room with four two-meter-tall obelisks at the corners of a raised dais in the center that held a statue of the red woman.
The floor of the room looked roughly carved. As though someone had ripped the rock away, leaving a thin outcropping around the edges of the square room and a single, wide pathway to an island of rock in the middle. A winding path led from the center to a sealed doorway ahead. All the rest of the floor was missing, leaving a dark pit in its place.
Pan Tian led the way inside, stepping around the shriveled, dried-out corpse of a noctilith. It looked old, but the yellow blood around it looked fresh and glistened in the light of their lanterns.
Jie held her lantern out as they walked along the pathway and peered into the darkness below. With her cultivator's eyes, she saw mounds of bones with the gleam of weapons and armor among them. She fixed her lantern back onto her belt and secretly hoped the others didn't want to go down there to get the rusty treasures.
Behind them, the scraping sound grew louder. Accompanied by shuffling footsteps.