As soon as she’s determined it’s safe, Raika invited Li Shu up out of her hyperfixation-cave and up onto a viewing platform she’s created on her back. Together, the two of them are looking out at the new world before them, both overwhelmed by a sense of wonder at it.
The plants aren’t carved. They’re just plants. But made entirely and exclusively of stone and non-organic minerals.
The seeds are little gem-things more often than not. Limestone and granite make up the stronger trunks and deeper striations of the mossy mounds as brittle substrates and porous stones make up the life that covers their bodies. They’re much harder than normal plants, obviously, but Raika is surprised to find that they don’t break when she pushes against them or step on them- they move like real plants, fluidly and without damage. It just takes a proportionately higher effort, meaning that they stand perfectly still in the wind, moving only when sufficient force is exerted on them.
It does mean that Raika keeps her strider body, at least for now- each leaf petal and blade of grass keeps its natural proportions, capable of slicing through flesh easily enough at their finer edges. Admittedly, she could just armor up parts of her body and be fine- her own Qi-saturation is such that her natural biology is much more potent and durable than it should be, and adding Blacksteel and chitin to the mix should allow her to move freely. But that would demand sacrificing the gorgeous view from up so high, and seems a bit of a waste, at least for now.
Raika strides across a living prairie of true stone, drinking in the richness and flavor of the Qi that the ground exudes constantly, and marvels at the world.
Li Shu leans against her neck, staring out at the incredible sight breathlessly. She laughs softly, eyes wide.
“It’s beautiful.”
Raika smiles, her own avatar-body standing beside Li Shu and looking through yet another pair of eyes. “It is.”
“Do you think you could pick some? Or that we could stop for a bit, just to study them some?”
Raika looks behind her, humanoid body imitating the neural patterns of her panopticon-head shifting its focus. The sands are still in view for now, and she can still taste Death and Ruin on the wind.
“Not yet. Give me an hour or two, make sure that we’re far from the sands. It’ll be a good opportunity to ask Many-Grasping where we are, if they know, and we can take the opportunity to check on Jin, now that we’re out of that place.”
Her friend sobers a bit at the reminder of the unconscious child, her mind switching gears immediately. “Good idea. Considering his cultivation, or maybe whatever constitution created his ability to see the dead… I was too overwhelmed to realize how bad it must have gotten in the infirmary. I doubt being exposed to an entire landscape of war-torn death so soon after would have done him well.”
“I thought the same, but there’s only so much I can do, keeping him isolated like I did.”
Li Shu shakes her head, patting Raika’s neck affectionately. “No, you did the right thing. I was in no state to help, and I’m still not sure I’ll be able to if it’s a cultivation-trance like you think. Nevermind the fact that… well, he deserves someone a bit less traumatizing to wake up to.”
“And you think that that’s me?” Raika asks. “I’m the one who underestimated the fortress city, and the one who got us all into that situation.”
Li Shu looks like she might argue, but something in Raika’s gaze stops her. She sighs instead.
“Doesn’t change the fact that the situation unfolded right next to me for him. He got exposed to a lot in an incredibly short period, and I was a crucial piece of the horror. It takes a lot out of even trained professionals to be in an infirmary, and I should’ve done more to help him, rather than taking for granted the idea that he’d be ok if I just distracted him. Fat lot of good that did.”
“We can agree that we both fucked up,” Raika insists, “but I’d still like your help with him once we find a place to stop. Better he wake up to someone he recently experienced horror beside than not wake up at all, and you’re the expert.”
A snort. “‘Expert’. Raika, I’m improvising all the time. It’s just theories and ideas, and I’m lucky they work out more often than not. Besides, with your senses, you’re better suited for-”
This time it’s Raika’s turn to snort, flicking Li Shu in the forehead. “They work out constantly, and they do so because you put things together in a way that I can’t. I don’t care how my senses compare to your own- they’re two different experiences, yours shaped by your cultivation and your soul. You’re a genius when it comes to finding new ways to use established medical and array-based theory. My skin is testament to that, as are your Sacrifice and still-existent meridians.”
To her credit, Li Shu does try very hard to come up with a point to refute her. It only makes it funnier when she splutters out, not having the data to back up her own self-perception.
“Fine. Not like I wouldn’t help anyways, I just…”
“I know. It’s ok. Look, I think I found us a good place to stop.”
A little under an hour later, Raika lowers her body, spider-like stilt constructs bending and folding along new joints as she comes down. One armored underbelly later, and the weight of her altered mass crushes flat the grasses and flowers all around, though it does tingle slightly as she does. She feels Qi trying to push its way into her body, refuted by the nature of her cursed skin and how soaked in raw Qi her biology is. Still, better not to risk her allies- she opens herself up, unmaking large pieces of the supporting structures of her biology to create an open space, bones forming into tiles and furniture to block off the ground in a larger area and make the experience more comfortable.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
She is partially successful. Li Shu flinches a bit as she emerges, stepping gingerly on the biological terrace beneath her feet. Many-Grasping, on the other hand, immediately tries to retreat back into Raika’s body.
Fear! Danger! This Place = Danger!
Raika turns an avatar to face her, still partially formed as she prioritizes securing their resting area. Immediately she is on alert, panopticon-head swiveling in place trying to find anything threatening them. “Many-Grasping, what’s wrong?” Explain.
It takes some coaxing, but eventually, she manages to get the beastkin to clarify the issue. Intent makes it hard to get objective details, making it as much a guessing game as proper communication in this case. Many-Grasping manages to communicate a tremendous risk of Qi poisoning in the area, and a chance of violent deviation in even stronger cultivators.
Raika frowns. As they talk, she extends a single tendril out from her body. She removes all defenses, thinning it out to the thickness of a normal human figure, no internal spatial shenanigans. The tingling she noticed when she lowered her body onto the ground comes back, maybe a bit stronger.
She thins the tendril further, until it’s barely a few muscle groups together… there. She marvels as her panopticon-head watches the tip of the tendril begin to ossify against her will, and then watches as the ossification turns to stone.
The sheer richness and amount of stone-flavored Qi in the landscape is enough to alter anything in it to stone as well- and she can only imagine that trying to absorb Qi here would cause a whole host of other issues. Especially for someone in the Qi-Gathering realm like Many-Grasping, this place is maybe even more of a death sentence than the sands.
But maybe due to the nature of the stone properties the Qi here exudes, it doesn’t rise up much. It stays close to the ground, tight to the earth and the plant life that generates and feeds on it.
Raika turns back to Many-Grasping, who has mostly been staring in horrified wonder at how Li Shu, someone perhaps just a bit stronger than her guide, walks completely unbothered out in the open air of the Qi radiation.
“It’s alright,” she says. “Well, not entirely, it’s still plenty dangerous, but if you don’t touch the ground, you should be safe. And don’t try to cultivate, obviously. Or eat the rock plants, probably. I-”
She pauses, seeing that the beastkin has no idea what she’s talking about.
She hums. Partial fluency is useful, but Many-Grasping doesn’t have the vocal cords for it, and probably doesn’t have the ears to parse it, either. Considering how Intent is so much clearer, immediate, and context-rich, it’s just objectively a better language in terms of actual communication, though it lacks in its ability to describe things outside the speakers.
Danger = True, Raika sends through Intent. Self = Protector. Stay Within Platform = Reduce Danger To Acceptable Levels.
Many-Grasping still hesitates, but that’s the beauty of Intent- Raika can’t lie. She can be wrong- acceptable danger levels in her mind might not be the same in someone else’s perception, but Li Shu is here as well, without any protections and already cooing and leaning over some stone flowers, her Sacrifice buzzing around her head like a halo of white needles.
“I’ll warn you if I detect anything coming closer,” Raika says. “And we’ll only stay for a bit. Try and see if you remember anything about the area beyond this, and we’ll be off in a little time.”
Leaving Many-Grasping to the task (though she ensures some of her eyes stay on her, making sure she’s alright), Raika alters her body to raise her most precious package up to the surface.
Li Shu, sensing the shift, comes closer, nervously fidgeting with one of her Sacrifice needles (which Raika notices is… strangely stone-like, and not in the way her trial-tendril was). Raika gives her a nod, trying to instill confidence she herself doesn’t feel- but it’s past the point for hesitation. For most of a week Jin has been unconscious, his Qi barely moving, his body in a true coma. Outside of a place that might genuinely poison him, no longer forced to march or be eaten, it’s more than time to see what’s actually wrong.
She raises him from out of her biology, bringing the cocoon she has him in up to the surface, leaning forward to see if she or Li Shu can detect something new-
They don’t get a chance to examine him. At all.
Something flashes in the sky above.
From somewhere far beyond the range of her senses, something shifts. It’s not Qi, not a Dao, and only briefly reminds her of Intent in the millisecond in which she perceives it- but something slams down from the sky above into Jin’s cocoon.
It bursts open explosively, and Raika hears her apprentice drag a long, hoarse breath into a long-silent throat.
In the half-second it’s taken her to perceive and react to the events in front of her, her Body has turned into a half-dome of violent armor, layers and layers dense, her avatar-body has dashed forward to throw herself over Jin and try to hold him, her Mind has raced through a hundred questions. None of it matters, none of it is fast enough, and-
And Jin looks up at her, disoriented, eyes wide and coughing up viscous fluids from the exploded shell he was sleeping in.
“...Master?”
Raika blinks.
She sniffs, loudly enough that Jin flinches a bit. She smells him all over, synesthesia letting her see and feel every blood vessel, physical contact with her hand on his chest letting her feel and thus smell his meridians. His Qi is flowing, and the flavor is- well, it’s different, but not in a ‘alien being from the infinite sky above crawled in to find a place to live’ sort of way. And it’s flowing in the same pattern as before, one that doesn’t suit it particularly anymore. His hormones, digestive system, circulation, acids, neural activity…
He’s Jin. Changed, but himself, as far as every sense can detect.
He stares at her, his disorientation considerably worse now.
She laughs, a sharp bark of mixed relief and exhausted fear. Jin gives a surprised grunt as she scoops him up, lifting him into a hug and spinning.
“What the fuck was that?” she asks, still half-trembling from the sudden adrenal rush. “Are you okay? How do you feel? What’s-”
“Raika,” Li Shu interrupts.
Raika blinks. “Right! Right, Jin, sit still, Li Shu’s going to examine you, you’ve been in a coma or a trance, I was- we were worried, but-”
“Master, I think you need to put me down before I can sit anywhere.”
“I- right, yes.” She puts him down, and the moment his feet touch the ground, Li Shu’s Sacrifice is whirling around him. Raika notices that the stony one, she keeps close to her chest, held tightly in her fist. Her other hand lightly touches a few points of interest on Jin’s body, and Raika does her best to follow along- but what she told Li Shu remains accurate. Learning, talent and inherent skill point the healer to small fluctuations of Qi, ones that Raika felt but didn’t identify as an issue. She’s not sure if Li Shu is identifying them as issues either, but she does check over them nonetheless. Delicate waves of Qi flavored by healing and biology wash over Jin, who seems very disoriented by the whole thing, but still fine.
“Is this… what happened? Am I okay?” he asks.
“You’ve been asleep almost a week, I- we were worried about you. Didn’t know what was wrong.”
“Still don’t,” Li Shu says. “I can’t determine anything specific that’s wrong. But your cultivation has leapt up a lot. If you don’t mind, I’d like to do a full review, see what’s wrong.”
Jin frowns, but nods. “Of course, sis Shu. Thank you for your help.”
“Wait,” Raika says. “Before we get into a medical review… what do you remember?”
Jin goes silent for a while, looking down at the ground. He waits, confused, the smell of his mind churning to Raika’s senses.
“I… I think I had a dream.”