“New information has come to light. The beast tide that hunted you was one of the first signs I personally witnessed, but there’s been, broadly speaking, a significant increase in the number of spirit beast sightings in the third ring. Considering how, for the last few centuries, the third ring has had a fraction of the sightings that the second ring has had, and a fraction again that of the fourth ring, it’s been a subject of interest. One of the reasons I let you indulge your self-destruction by staying outside the village.”

She frowns at how he’s framed it, but… fair enough. Not like she needs more reasons to dislike him, nor that she would have appreciated it if he’d stopped her.

“The events at Cragend, the divine beast there, and the one on the spatial axis next to this little… island of yours, indicate that it’s not an isolated incident.”

“And here I am, conveniently offering a little pilgrimage of my own out in that direction.”

Taurus smiles slightly with his large, flat teeth. “Precisely.”

She shrugs. “I suppose, since I’m headed that way anyways… no.”

His weight subtly influences the world again, but she stands firm, not bothering to Change in response. She tilts her head at him instead.

“The whole point of this is that I’m under no obligation to take your orders. You make my life easier, I help with your objectives if and when I agree with them. So before I agree, you need to tell me what you’d want me to look for, and what you intend to do with whatever information I might find.”

“...mmh. In the interest of continued cooperation, that’s… agreeable.”

She huffs. “I preferred you when we first met. You were much more direct.”

“That was before you became such a fucking problem, wasn’t it?”

She laughs, throwing her head back in a joyous little twist even as her Mind analyzes and interprets every tick and movement. He’s… easier to predict when he’s on edge, at least a little. When he’s acting more like “Runemaster Boriah” than he is Taurus. But it comes with its own issues.

Like not knowing the exact moment he’ll decide that she’s too much of a problem to cooperate with, and if he’ll decide to start exerting… pressure. Again.

“Somehow, divine beasts are getting past the fortress cities. What’s more, there’ve been more pushes against those same cities this year than in the last six- but no true beast tides. Put the two together, and there’s a possibility of something major being organized in the fourth ring. The sooner I know about it, the sooner I can make something useful out of it.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Is that what we’re calling it nowadays?”

He shrugs. “Either it’ll be useful to the plan, or it won’t. If it is, then maybe it can be encouraged, and if not, we can find a way to make it so, or subvert it, keep it for a later date.”

“You’re making a lot of assumptions about your ability to outright control, or pick and choose shit, for what sounds like a divine beast tide.”

He snorts. “What can’t be controlled can be redirected. There’s plenty of ways that we both get what we want.”

“And what is it that you want, Taurus? What, precisely, would you hope to achieve by shaping events like this? You’re risking your life more than even mine, going against the Empire like you say you are… but you’ve yet to say how you’re doing it at all. Or what, exactly you want to do. You told me, not long after… after we met, that you would see people like Feng Gui dead and two of the Empire’s Divisions unmade. What does that mean, Taurus?”

For a moment, it looks like he might not say. She sees his throat flex, the changes to his bloodflow and heart rate patterns, the little twitches of something behind his eyes…

But then he huffs out a breath. Nods.

“Fine. Are you going to invite me in for a chat, or do we have to do this out in the open?”

She snorts, finishing shaping the bone pipe she’s holding. What’s left of her robes don’t exactly have her smoke supplies in them, but it’s still reassuring to hold it, a tangible measure of control and of change. Then… she flops, unceremoniously, onto the grass.

“We’re just fine out here. The land won’t let anyone hear that it doesn't want to, not unless you plan to shout as loud as my Reactor.”

He snorts right back at her… but, rolling his eyes, he kneels down, sitting into a lotus position.

“Fine. Though I’m not sure how you know what a reactor is, to know to call it that.”

She shrugs. “‘Engine’ didn’t feel just right. Reactor… does.”

He grunts. “Something to aspire to, perhaps.”

She doesn’t acknowledge that. Instead, she just pats the land politely and twirls her pipe, her eyes on Taurus, waiting for him to speak.

He does send a pointed look towards the cabin, pointed enough that she wonders if he can sense some of the details of what’s inside… but then he just turns back to look at her, calm and collected. Professional. As “Boriah”.

“There are currently eight Divisions in the Empire, each dedicated to a different but often overlapping fields of study and application. The Division of Altered Cultivation you’re already familiar with, and focuses on the specific pursuit of new and strange ways in which ascension and reality alteration can be enacted. Under their remit, all things that the Empire doesn’t already control are found, brought under its grip, and comprehended enough that they can move to the Division of Research. While there’s a great overlap between the Divisions of Research and Altered Cultivation, Research focuses on furthering mysteries already at least partially under control. Most Daemons, Daos, and the natural sciences, like electricity, heat, mathematics and such.

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“The Division of Creation and Division of Education go hand in hand, each of them focused on building things from the ground up. Introducing curriculums and training to sects and villages, supporting academics, and controlling the Academies themselves fall under the Division of Education, while building infrastructure, finding ways to integrate new technologies and understandings into existing cities and structures of the Empire fall under Creation’s remit. They’re the ones responsible for the railroads and highways, for example.”

Raika cracks her neck, leaning back and sighing.

Taurus, in turn, gives her a heavy, tired look.

She keeps quiet. No need to stop his little spiel, so long as it's going somewhere, no matter how boring it is.

If he’s taking this seriously, actually willing to share (as all the senses of the Body tell her) then she’ll listen.

“The Division of Mortal Affairs is the last of the… infrastructural Divisions, so to speak. Most of their work is focused on census data, tracking mortals being born, dying, their taxes, so forth and so on. Plagues, famines, the average education, lifetimes and resources they produce and need. They’re… they’re one of the few of the Divisions I consider to actually do their job. Corruption remains, but there’s less space to decide policy, and few want the job. It makes it… generally worthwhile.

“As for the rest… well.

“The Division of Exploration and Discovery. It’s dedicated entirely to exploring out past the fifth ring. They’re… not relevant. Not yet. Most of them are much too busy, and there’s only around a hundred people in it. About ninety of those people are just the bureaucrats who write down what the few that can even make it to the fifth ring see or do.

“And then the two largest Divisions. Larger than even Research or Altered Cultivation, which are large.

“The Divisions of Divination… and War.

“Divination… well. The art of cultivating Divination is an esoteric one, a rare one- and one that the Emperor has pushed millions of tons of Qi stones, Jade, and much rarer resources into. The Oracular Pools are a complex creation, one I do not have time to go into, but the Oracles themselves watch everything. Through reading the threads of the future, the present, and the past, they track every movement of the world like… like categorizing the waves of the ocean by shape and speed, and using this to track the tides, to see how the beach changes, to understand the fish in it. Except they also count the grains of sand, and watch each and every fish, and see the tide as it moves. The only real way to avoid their gaze is to either blend into the crowd, to be as one amongst the many, or to subvert them directly, through ritual or corruption. As I have, which is the only reason you weren’t taken in a year ago and fed to some other research team. They are the eyes and ears of the Empire, and through them, the Empire sees everything from the first ring to third, and a lot beyond that.”

Taurus… twitches. Just a bit.

“And then there’s War. Where the Blades sit, forever unsheathed. The Division of those who command the fortress cities. Those whose whole lives are slaughter. For now, all that they do, day in and day out, is kill, kill, and kill again. They hunt those who rebel, the criminals who stand out, those that the sects can’t handle… and they make a churning mulcher of meat out of the entirety of the fourth ring. If not for them, there would be endless invasions. If not for them, there would be far less death in the world.”

Raika… aches for something to smoke.

She sighs. “Alright. Eight Divisions. Eight massive branches of nightmarish bureaucracy and bullshit.

“What does that have to do with you.”

He laughs. Soft, quiet… pained.

“I… have been in the Empire all my life. Since I was five years old.

“I am turning one-hundred and forty-nine next week.

“They… took me. I… don’t really remember what came before. I only have vague recollections of my parents, my home. What I remember most is the coffin they raised me in.

“A white room. Blank. No windows, no furniture… just a door, and the runes that they watched me through. That… that was year one through six. I was not the same person when I emerged.”

She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t offer anything. For all that his subject matter weighs so very heavily on his words, there’s minimal sadness to him. Just… pensiveness. Like he’s putting together a puzzle he doesn’t quite remember the steps to.

“After that, the tests became more invasive. I had what was, at that point, considered a special constitution- a beastblooded mortal with enough of said beastblood to be born looking much as I am now. I’ve grown into it, so to speak, but the horns, the snout, the fur, those I was born with. It was proposed that there might be merit in reopening old studies into beastbloods, since the Division of Altered cultivation, still fresh at the time, was looking in every possible place for new things to experiment with.

“I won’t bore you with my life story. Suffice to say I have far more reason than most, in a world where many have reason, to want the Empire broken.”

“But that’s not what you want. You said you wanted it reformed.”

He shrugs. “Some cultivators like to believe themselves invincible, given time. I know better. You need time, and luck, and opportunity, and to survive long enough to get all three in spades to be able to fight the Empire truly- and the Emperor does not abide such things. Why do you think anyone in the Emperor realm works directly for him? Why I’ve avoided ascending to the Warrior realm for so long? It draws more eyes than I’d like. I can’t defeat something this vast, and even if I could, I don’t have the power to decide what happens next. What I can decide is the shape of things to come.

“The Divisions of Altered Cultivation and War, as they are, need to die. They’ll only continue to feed the mill more bodies so long as they exist, and the Division of Research is barely better. The language, the power structures, those in command and the laws and ideals that have allowed them to harvest the best and brightest for centuries into their forever-wars or their surgical tables needs to end, and by ending them, there is opportunity to change more. But I have been in the Division half its life. I’ve done bad things, and I will do more, and worse, before my work is done. And the only thing I have to offer you that isn’t some far-off ideal is the fact that I do not care if I survive the coming change.

“A century and a half of pain is enough. And I will do worse before I make it to my one-hundred and fifty-second nameday, which I have so generously scheduled as my offered end.”

Now he leans forward, and for a moment, she sees, bright as day, the impossible thing in the valley that is his Soul, chained and tormented and warped by the ways he has caged it, kept it from growing. She sees its eyes, still bright, as hateful as they are deep, and sees those same eyes reflected in different tones from Taurus.

His Soul, that thing of cutting winds and heavy mountains which can wade through both, hates him.

And Taurus feels nothing.

There’s something there, around the nothing. She’s seen it. He does seem to genuinely care for Kaena, Taran and Yun Ka, and for all the ways he’s nearly broken her, he could have been far worse. Zhoulong was proof of that. It isn’t all manipulation.

But there is something inside him that is deeply, yawningly empty.

Something familiar.

So she nods.

“Alright. What do you need from the fourth ring?”