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…to the most beautiful work of art ever created, and ripped it open in what probably appeared as an act of wanton destruction.
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Early the next morning, Matt stood in the training hall, his eyes closed as he moved through the increasingly familiar motions of First Form. On the other side of the room; grunts, shuffling of feet, and the clanging of metal on metal could be heard as Vic and Pete sparred. Matt let the intrusive noise pass by his attention without taking heed, focusing on the sensation of calm spreading out from his centre. As soon as he had started doing the form, flowing from stance to stance, a wave of tranquillity had brought him straight back to the place of serenity where he could feel an almost tangible pull from his Way, stretching into the future.
Last night as he was laying in bed and waiting for sleep, he had made commitments to himself. He could not afford to just let events take him from one situation to the next, not knowing–not confident in–his own role and abilities. The path that he had chosen had forced some decisions upon him: he would not take the easy path, he would not just tag along as the other four built Sanctuary and challenged the nobles. He would continue to practise even harder, becoming the best he could with the spear. He would train and hone his body into a tool that could withstand battles, that would give him freedom and agency. And lastly, he would work to sharpen his mind. It was too easy to let Mia lead them into the future, or to let Pete take charge in battle. He was going to earn his place next to them.
And that started today. Matt had started the day with meditation in the chamber with the patterned ceiling, seeking and finding a platform of peace and calm. The simple act of sitting still and centering himself had caused the glowing essence within him to pulse with strength, wrapping around the sphere in his mind and constricting threads of energy like a fist, until the sphere glowed more brightly than before.
After sharing a quick breakfast with the others, he had headed straight into the training hall where he now stood, practising the movements of First Form, again and again.
If someone were to ask him how meditation, and how the Form, would help; how just sitting still or training a series of repeating movements would make him stronger, he was not sure that he could answer them. But something deep inside him told him it was the right way to approach the future, and he wasn’t about to ignore that instinct. As the pulsating sphere in his mind glowed even more brightly in response to his exercise, he pushed himself even harder, making the motions faster, snappier and more determined. The Way flowed like a river from the centre of his mind and a golden path extended into the horizon as he flowed from a block directly into a vicious counter that ended in a straight line jab. He felt thin streams of essence flow from the room around him and into his body, travelling down his hands and arms and entering his body.
A while later–Matt wasn’t sure how long–he let his body begin to slow down. His skill with the First Form had improved greatly only from yesterday, and he felt a sense of loss as he relaxed his stance and let the tension and energy of the motions fade out. The glowing sphere of energy in his mind dimmed, and as the cloud of shifting symbols and patterns slowed down, Matt was sure the orb had become even denser than before.
Matt opened his eyes and took a deep breath, turning to see the training hall empty. He grabbed his shirt on his way out and went out into the common room. All the others were seated around the table that was closest to the kitchen alcove.
Approaching them, Matt heard Pete saying, “–so I think we need more food sooner rather than later. We are nearly out of bread and running low on cheese.”
Thor answered. “Yes, but we need to minimise our exposure. Each trip puts us at risk that someone will see us and start asking questions.”
“Yes,” Mia continued. “Harl was a nice guy, but if we go back there, he’ll know something is up. Having strangers turn up to buy supplies once is a bit strange, but if it happens again… We either need to find another farm, or bring him in on this. And I’m not sure we can do that yet. Not with all those kids.”
“Yeah,” Pete said. “We need more people, but we can’t start with a bunch of kids. We need warriors who can help defend the cave.”
“And people who can cook, clean and do all the other million little things a settlement will need,” Mia added.
“We need more people-” Pete began, but Mia interrupted him.
“Yes, but look around. Once we bring people in, they need a place to stay, to sleep. We have a couple of rooms where we can put down bedrolls, one kitchen and one outhouse. This works for us five, but if we have too many people in here without acceptable living conditions, people will just leave again. Go back to their farms. They’ll just drop by to get the wasting disease cured, go back out, and word will spread.”
“Yes,” Pete said slowly, trying to think as he spoke. “Once they join us, they can’t just leave. We need to control the exit. Now that’s going to be awkward.”
“How would we even do that?” Vic muttered.
“I’ll work something out,” Pete answered. “We will need to rotate people… Perhaps set up some sort of organised guard.”
“We need more than some guards,” Thor said. “Best case is that we get a group of people to join us. Perhaps fifty, like we spoke about before. The nobles will come for us eventually, and then it is just a matter of time. They will just starve us out. The more people are here, the more food we need. If people are here, they are not tending their farms. And if they are not sowing and harvesting…”
Matt sipped from a mug of tea that Vic had brought him, listening to the others discussing how to approach the future. As he listened to them, he realised his own mind was clear, perhaps for the first time since the battle. He had been stressed, restless and afraid for several days without a break, but now something was different. The pulses from the strange magical sphere had stopped being painful, and instead, it radiated with calm.
As their conversation went on, he listened, considered the problems, and sorted options and plans.
“Can we take the fight to them?” Everyone looked at Vic, who continued. “Why are we just talking about sitting here passively, trying to get shit going before the nobles roll over us? Listen to yourselves–that is bound to fail. Let’s attack them first. Hard and fast. We recruit two or three dozen fighters, and we hit them as hard as we can. We can hit the city centres, take out their strongholds before they know we exist.”
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“It won’t work,” Pete said, scratching the side of his head as he looked into the distance. “That fight before? That was nothing. A… a skirmish. The nobles can mobilise thousands if they have to, and among them will be the Noble Guard. You think a farmer with a spear is scary? Those guys have trained since they could walk. Each Duke has hundreds of them. Even with our classes, they will overrun us eventually.”
“Aye,” Thor rumbled. “This will unite the nobles, and the maths just does not work out. We cannot run enough people through the dungeons to get skills and classes before they take us out. What we have here is a threat to all of them. Sure, the cave is defensible…. We are looking at either a protracted siege, which we will lose eventually, or they will punch through. And if they bring in the priests–”
Listening to the discussion, Matt had been stuck on a particular problem, when something Thor said loosened a connection somewhere in his thoughts. Us versus them. We are just five now, but… A vague idea began to form, and he let his mind follow one scenario as it played out, comparing it to another, then another, then a third. How about… no. That won’t work. It’s possible to defend the cave with few people, but there is no way to gather the supplies that we need… The crucial factor in their favour was their ability to make people powerful. The principal obstacles were their lack of people and the limited space in the cave. The farmland outside was extensive and fertile, and if they could… He thought through another scenario, thoughts formed and were thrown out like the shifting tumblers of a lock. A plan was coming together, but it still hinged on a series of unknowns. He needed more information. They needed to explore the cave further.
“Did you ever roll a snowball down a hill?” he said in a low voice, interrupting whoever had been talking while he was thinking. Soon, all eyes were on him, surprised when he suddenly rejoined the conversation. “It starts small, and then it grows. It rolls, and it rolls, growing as it picks up pace, as it picks up power. The momentum… Eventually, its speed and size will be enough to flatten a man–or a building, or even a small village. It just depends on the size of the hill and the depth of the snow.” He looked up at confused faces.
“We need to make a snowball, but first we need to find out how big this hill is, and how deep the snow is. We need to explore the broken stairs.”
They all looked to the side of the room where a large double door was open into a room filled with fallen rocks and debris.
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The collapsed stairwell at the end of the common room had been on Matt’s mind since they discovered it, but events had pushed them in other directions since they entered the cave. Now they were shifting the large slabs of stone out of the way to make a hole big enough that they could climb up through. Finally they finished, and Pete went first, struggling to squeeze through the opening, before Matt and Vic climbed up after him, Mia and Thor following behind.
After climbing up through the gap, they found themselves in a long and wide corridor with doors lining both sides at regular intervals. A lot of doors.
“How big is this place?” Vic muttered, and Matt wondered the same thing.
The far end of the corridor was hidden in shadow, with the flames from their torches only reaching a few strides in before darkness swallowed the flickering light. As they rested for a moment at the beginning of the corridor, Matt noticed a line running across the middle of the ceiling. About an inch wide, he squinted to see thin lines of familiar symbols glowing faintly, illuminating a thin stripe with a soft glow.
His eyes followed the line to a point right above their heads, where it diverted to the side to follow the ceiling until it met the wall, where it traced down until it connected with the now familiar small metal plate that was set into the stone wall. As he touched the plate, the corridor lit up with a wave of glowing threads that flowed down the thin line across the ceiling, reaching down towards the end of the corridor in a wave of yellow light.
“Wow,” Vic murmured. They could now see the entire corridor. The doors continued at regular intervals all the way to the end, where the corridor ended in a doorway. “There must be at least twenty doors.”
“Nice,” Pete said, approaching one door. “Let’s check what is in here.” He tightened his grip on the sword as he opened the door and peered inside. “Clear,” he declared and stepped inside.
Thor followed behind with a torch. “A sleeping chamber.”
Matt joined them and looked around. Small and rectangular, furnished with a plain bed, a desk with a chair, and a cupboard. The room was basic, but Matt’s scalp tingled as he noticed what was hanging above the writing desk. He reached a hand out to steady himself on the side of the bed, the comfort of the cold wood mixed with the crawling awe he felt as he looked at the picture.
The simple wooden frame held an intricate drawing of a young man, his features clear and sharp. It was both exquisite and graceful. Simple, vibrant colours captured a face framed by black hair braided and held back with a pin, a small nose turned slightly up, almost as if in challenge. Matt looked into his blue eyes and shivered.
People had lived here. Real people. He had known it intellectually, but now it hit him with full force. People had walked around these halls, slept in this bed and sat at this desk. Who had the man been to the original occupant of this room? A son? A brother? A lover?
Who were these people? What had their lives been like? Why did they choose to live inside a mountain?
The mysteries tugged at him, and still with every new revelation, a score of new questions came to him. How did this all fit together? The patterns and the threads, the vast complex carved out of the mountain, the wasting disease and the powerful magical skills. How has this remained hidden for all this time? How far into the mountain do these rooms extend? This cave was not the result of a small group of people determined to live in a different place for a little while. Standing in that small room, it struck Matt that generations must have lived here, hidden away from the world. Where did their food come from? There is no sunlight down here.
“Let’s check the other rooms,” he said finally, shaking his head to clear it. “If they are all bedrooms, that is great. We can’t keep camping out in the common room.”
They moved down the corridor, checking the doors as they went along. Every room that he explored told the same story: the original inhabitants had been people just like them, and Matt felt his sense of purpose growing with each new personal memento that he found. These rooms, more than anything before, were proof that people could survive down here. The original inhabitants had found a way to live here, demonstrating that it was possible. At the same time, another fact played on his mind: the caves were now deserted, the original inhabitants gone. What had caused them to leave? Had they even left?
His conviction grew as they searched the rooms. Their dream of establishing a sanctuary, to save as many people as they could, was getting closer. Each new room that they searched was another space where someone could live.
He was searching a room halfway down the corridor when he made a discovery.
In the chest at the foot of a bed, he found a small, bound, green book. The leather cover was worn, and the pages were frayed at the edges. Carefully opening it to the first page, he read the title:
The Journal of Chenxi,
Silver Dao Cultivator of Sunshine of the Weight of the Mountain Sect