Wayun Village is a small, simple place. It has almost always been a small, simple place. Almost two hundred years ago, a couple of farmers and hunters made their way to a newly uncovered clearing from towns just full enough to support that sort of new founding, and the rest, as they say, is history. Before this year, the most exciting thing that happened in the village was a fight between cultivators nearly a dozen miles away.
And then, of course, came the boar.
Right after it, there came the cultivator who could heal even the most grievous of wounds and control a dozen implements at once, and the beast-blooded stranger went out into the woods after the monster. An entire section of farmland rebuilt by hand in under a day, hundreds who could have died instead brought back to health, and a feast of flesh given over to the village larder. The flesh of a spirit beast resists decay in a way that is literally supernatural, meaning that the meat will remain ready to eat for months at the least, especially as its aura scares away lesser scavengers. The biggest danger would be lesser spirit beasts coming for the meat to feed, but between the walls of the village and the strange arrays and flags that the healer showed them, the danger is minimal.
And then… nothing.
No requests for payment. No return visit. No threats from similar beasts, rising up to avenge their fallen brethren. Neither the strangers to their village nor the impossible monsters that brought them to its defense made any appearance after that day.
So Nan Su finds herself mightily surprised at the package on her porch step one fine morning about two weeks after all the excitement.
It’s nothing fancy, there’s none of that weird “whoosh-ness” she associates with Qi, no fancy details or strange words on it. There’s just a thick, heavy canvas sack that looks home-woven, a little note attached at the top of it with a little bone trinket she recognizes.
Crouching down and cursing her old bones (and hips, and back, and joints in general), she picks up the note, plucking it from between the threads and finding a strange black smear on one edge of it. She folds it open and finds a small, simple letter inside.
Thank you for the cookie, it says. I hope your lavender-oranges enjoy the dirt. May your wastrel son find a good wife, and your many grand-children bring you many joys.
Beneath the first note, there’s a second one, written in a much unsteadier hand.
Bye ya old hag!
Thank you
There is no signature on either, but she doesn’t make a habit of giving cookies out to just anyone. It’s a family recipe, after all! Her grandmother made it for her, and she’ll make it for her grandkids someday. And besides, she remembers the talk she had with the large, lovely woman who had been helping that little kid.
And who later rebuilt an entire section of farmland and had her nice young friend with the clean robes come to heal her beloved son.
She stretches a hand out to the bag, touching it gently, but between that and the stain on the letter, the contents become clear. The scent of rich, fresh earth rises from the bag, filled with the scent of well-made blood meal, the slightly metallic scent cutting through the herbal earthiness. There are few scents that bring quite so much joy to a tender of plants as truly rich, delectable earth.
She hears sounds of surprise as others wake up (lazy bums, the lot! Letting an old woman like her rise before them!) and find gifts on their porches. Most of the farmers get dirt like she has (though she can’t help but smile at their considerably smaller bags of mulch), but she sees some doorways with bone charms hanging off them, some doorways with little fruits near them, a few even with packages of moss and herbs.
They’re not tremendous gifts, alien things of might and power, but for a small, quiet town, they’re more than perfect.
Though Nan Su frowns, looking at the massive bag of dirt on her porch.
Those damned brats. How the hell is an old lady like her supposed to get this thing to her backyard!?
“Nan Hie! Get your lazy butt out here and help your mother!”
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Elder Shang Hao sits at his desk, looking out over a long, complex letter. There’s a rather considerable amount of simplistic, rote honorifics spread throughout it, as is befitting addressing one’s betters. While he himself may be well into the Nascent Soul realm, his advanced age betrays how long he has remained there, and even without being his superior in cultivation and talent (as Runemaster Boriah certainly is), he is his superior by the weight of the Empire’s authority. A Senior Researcher- not a Head Researcher of a project group, but a Senior Researcher, and a recent one at that. To tempt his wrath, or defy his wishes, has consequences, both for a sect elder like himself and his sect as a whole.
And yet… his pride rankles at how Outer Disciple Raika spoke to him.
No. Not an Outer Disciple, not anymore. Now she is something else, her only real title that of the Unbroken. Considering her ruined cultivation, an emptiness of Qi and of a Soul to his senses, he cannot even say that the title is unearned. Especially with the strength she showed.
She even admitted, to his face, that she was weaker than he… but there had been such confidence in her words. Such an impossible, overwhelming weight to her certainty that it wouldn’t be easy for him.
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The fact he cannot deny the possibility eats at him.
He is in the Nascent Soul realm. A master unrivaled outside other sects in the third ring. To hear someone, anyone, not only hold power over him while standing as his lesser, but come to him with such naked confidence in her ability to commit violence…
And yet, he had been unable to refute it. And when he’d extended his aura, shaped the world with his proto-Domain and placed as much pressure as he could against her, she hadn’t even flinched, like for all that she screamed empty to his senses, he was nothing to her.
So, as she suggested, he writes his letter to her master. Informs him, as she said it would be inevitable that he would.
And his Qi shakes inside him in rage.
His Nascent Soul is torn on the matter. It speaks of passivity, the many-rooted thing that crawls through the earth within him, but it is also always perpetually eager for fresh things to crush in its writhing movements. He has cultivated his sect’s techniques and ideals diligently for two centuries now, and has learned to be more than careful when it comes to potential deviations or losing control of his trained impulses. Patience and hunger, always unevenly fluctuating within him.
And now… now he has to deal with Hisheng.
Core Disciple Hisheng, to be proper. It is best to be proper even in one’s thoughts, after all. Core Disciple Hisheng has become a brand new nightmare for Shang Hao to deal with. The other elders might chide him for favoritism, but his options are limited. Disrespect the subject of a Senior Researcher of one of the Divisions of the Empire, or do as she says and damn himself to…
Well. To a promising and sincere young man whose growth has been both impressive and considerable. It’s hardly the worst deal he’s had to make, and beside the wound to his pride, it’s not a bad one either. A truce with a former disciple, the ear of a Senior Researcher, and a debt owed to him, all in exchange for tending to the boy as he would have anyways.
Though now he might be a little more… aggressive, when it comes to finding resources and opportunities for the boy.
After he required a visit by a psykologist, someone from the Scholar Academy of the Empire who now sells their service as a cure to heart demons and mental ills, Shang Hao was worried that the boy might be too weak, too passive. And yet, in his defiance, he’s shown initiative, strength of character, and a surprising amount of growth in a short period of time. It truly is the privilege of the young to be brash. The young are to be regarded with awe, as they say, even if a newborn calf doesn’t know to be afraid of tigers.
And that woman is most certainly a tiger.
It was honestly a little funny, seeing Hisheng come back. He’d worn his conquest on his sleeve, so to speak, and yet the woman is no jade beauty. Beasts in human skin often appear conventionally beautiful, if only for the sake of tricking the young, and yet, in the folly of youth, she has instead caught a promising young man with with naked violence and animal appeal.
He can’t fault him for that. He, too, was young at one point. He’ll just have to do the best he can to pull him away from her influence with time, while holding on to the debt she has offered.
There is much work ahead for Elder Shang Hao. A new Core Disciple to push forth into the world, standing at the height of what the Hungering Roots sect can offer, a favor he may choose to call in when it is required, and signs of clear and drastic plots occurring in the Empire’s Division of Altered Cultivation.
Yes. In spite of his pride, Elder Shang Hao can’t help but think that there’s too much to do to wallow.
He closes and marks the letter with his seal, readying himself for a troublesome new pupil.
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Sees-All-Dances-Between-Layers is having a wonderful time.
It came out this way on orders, which was a very strange new experience, but then, as it turns out, it discovered a new little sister! Brand new, barely out of her first molt. If she’s the type to molt, which she might not be. What a wonderful world it is!
It came after the delightful, delicious smells it had sensed. One of them was a young and vibrant thing, bright and lovely, that of incense and mystery and transformation and infusion. Delightfully, it had also smelled like one of the hairless apes, which always made for tasty treats when they were full of proper life. The new pack-masters had said to wait, to eat only when required, but Sees-All-Dances-Between-Layers is a hunter. A predator! To ask it not to eat or hunt as much as it wants is an outright insult!
And yet… it cannot deny that the pack leaders are stronger than it is. And smart… in their own way. So it was willing to listen for at least a little bit.
But then… oh, that second smell. It had been… pure. Extravagantly, dramatically pure, an indulgence that simply could not be neglected. It had smelled Qi fonts with less purity, though it was much less potent a scent overall. None of the messiness of flesh, of confused emotion, nothing even of the fear it has to purify away from some of its prey, that second scent screamed only of a pure, genuine font of transformation, full and brimming with potential.
Yes, that had been it. Potential. It had been like smelling not just fuel, energy untainted and clear, but flavored with the very idea of growth, of changing flesh and soul. It could have advanced by two or three cores at least if it consumed such a thing, and to think it had found such a blessing in this place, so starved of wilderness and mystery, so steeped in miserable little monkey-things and their sticks and words!
And then it met its newest sister, and suddenly, things changed.
The pack leaders were very clear on the matter- the hairless monkeys can only be eaten away from their nests, the juicy hairless monkeys could only be hunted alone and if they were much weaker, and any potential packmates were to be left alone. Unless one of them actively attacks, in which case, as with all wild things, those whose weapons are sharper and whose tools are greater would kill and eat. And it’s very much clear that, in spite of the skin she was wearing, the thing with the impossible scent is clearly a new packmate.
At first it wasn’t sure, but Sees-All-Dances-Between-Layers doesn’t like not being sure. So it let out a friendly greeting, and came to say hello. It couldn’t tell at first, but then its new packmate understood! It still spoke like a monkey, all those noisy sounds and patterns, so annoying to interpret, but it understood how to at least listen properly!
And then the second time they met, it shed its skin!
What a beautiful molt it had been, so war-like and strident. Its teeth were ever so sharp, its weapons all black and gloriously hungry, and it had enough muscle and defenses it seemed like a fortress. Such a form is hopelessly bland and much too inefficient compared to almost any other packmate Sees-All-Dances-Between-Layers has seen, but considering the font inside of her, perhaps its new packmate has more wiggle room to take such heavy and basic tools.
Still, Sees-All-Dances-Between-Layers enjoyed the vicious pleasure of being smart and being right, and, to a lesser extent, the milder pleasure of obeying orders properly. It’s not a big fan of how restricted it is, but the pack leaders have their smarts, and Sees-All-Dances-Between-Layers is more than capable of understanding being patient before pouncing. Now that its newest soon-to-be packmate is off towards the leaders, there’s even more chance both that they’ll be useful to the pack- and that, if they prove unworthy, the strange font of impossible Change and fuel inside them will be up for eating.
Win-win, all around.
As Sees-All-Dances-Between-Layers tracks three layers down and to the left of its new packmate and her snacks, it can’t help but feel excited. This is the most fun its had since it first met the pack! Definitely makes eating only measly little apes for months worth it.