I’m wandering past dark clothed not-ninjas when I finally notice that they’re not all wearing makeup. Their faces are painted white. They’ve got different color eyebrows, and eyes, and nails, and it finally occurs to me that, maybe, this is a poison guild. Would explain why bro was wearing a scarf and gloves and leaving his arms bare, but wouldn’t other people know to look for that? Then again Two-Weeks used makeup to hide a tattoo, maybe other people just think they’re wearing makeup.

I stand out among other cultivators, but here my scales shimmering just makes me look advanced. Either that or the people I’m walking past are super polite and assume I’m supposed to be here. No one stops me as I wander around, but I haven’t found anything other than standing fire pits and torches. Pretty sure all the smoke is toxic, but it just smells and tastes like food to me. I remember having a friend who bought some fancy perfume that smelled like pancakes with butter and syrup, bacon, and eggs. This is just as frustrating. Just minding my own business and then I’m hungry.

“Do I have any bus left?”

I pause, standing off to the side in a hall lined with large braziers pumping out purple smoke. I put the mills up even though I hadn’t finished making my house, ground up most of the filet and ate that with some mushroom paste… So… I should still have some of the filet, and there’s always more fish. Hopefully I’m still auto-harvesting. Ooh! I should be able to start up more tea if the bushes are still producing.

“Wait,” I go to my bank, fingers crossed, hoping these assholes didn’t -- “—drink all my fucking Saint’s Wine. Fuckers!”

“And who might you be?”

I focus to see a woman with black teeth, tiny red dots for eyebrows, and gold-embroidered red robes holding a black fan with red dots. I look around to see if she’s talking to me, surprised that she’s grinning and showing off all those teeth, and then give a slight bow while straightening up and lowering my arms.

“I made Black Blood Wine and it was sold to the guild. I’m here to see what poisons you have available.”

None of what I said was a lie. I just didn’t say I gave permission or that I’m going to pay for anything. Also didn’t mention I’m going to eat everything, but, hey! Look at me being subtle!

“Black Blood Wine?” she purses her lips, batting her eyes and looking oblivious. “Witch’s Tongue hasn’t been seen in over 200 years, so how could you make Black Blood Wine?”

I snort and pull out a handful of Umber leaves, popping one into my mouth to chew on before handing her one. She smiles and copies me before spitting out the leaf and gagging. I cross my arms and keep chewing, smug as fuck.

“I know them as umber bush leaves, and they make an excellent tea,” I say sweetly. “I was told others call sweet black tea ‘Black Blood Wine’. It’s excellent when boiled with a little Shiver Thorn.”

I lean back, arms crossed under my chest, still chewing on my first leaf as she looks from the leaf in her hand to the leaves I still hold in my hand. I smile sweetly, pausing and offering her the handful of leaves which she snatches with her free hand, her fan dangling from her wrist as she clutches the leaves to her chest.

What now, bitch?

“Sister? Is there nothing you wish to say?” Come on, bitch! Where’s my apology?

“This younger sister apologizes for her ignorance,” she pouts. Wait, who is younger? This bitch is calling me a hag! “Elder sister is very well connected.”

“Well, does ‘younger’ sister know of any other good wines?” I ask. With teeth and skin like that, she definitely knows where some good poisons are.

I don’t know what in the hells she’s thinking, but she wraps her arm around mine with a panicked expression on her face. I raise my eyebrows, give a little encouraging head shake, and then we’re off. She smiles as she leads me through the halls, expounding on various toxic herbs before staring at me intently. To be honest I’m not sure if I have them or not. When I tell her I also point out the little bits of glitter on her, warning her that my shed scales cause essence poisoning.

I jump back as she jumps back, staring as she drops down to her knees, then folds until her head is on the ground, or at least it looks like it. She sits up, a quick shuffling crawl before she bows again. What the fuck?

“Teach me!” she demands, causing me to double-take.

Why the hell did I look away and do a double-take?

“Teach you to be a moth? Aren’t you a spider?” I tease, trying to wait for an insight into what the fuck is happening.

“Oh! Are you from the Death Moth Clan?” she loops her arm in mine but stands back to look me over. “I don’t remember them being so radiant.”

“I am no death moth, though I shared Banishment Wine with one,” I sigh. I’m never going to have a drinking partner. Wait. “You can tell me where this Death Moth Clan is? I would like to share snacks and death wood with one again.”

“Surely you jest,” ‘Younger Sister’ gently swats at my arm, barely connecting as she guides me through the hall.

“I’m only a void moth, but I’m very fond of tasty foods. Is it my fault that most of them are toxic to hunans?” I lament my fate, just sharing girl talk. “What poisons do you cultivate here? Do you have wines I can sample?”

She just stares at me, wide-eyed, still leading me through what is apparently a mountain stronghold. Eventually she leads me to a room with a bed, thick bedding, a blood firework tapestry on the wall, and a standing closet. She releases my arm then goes and sits on the bed, patting a spot beside her. I don’t know where this is going, but I don’t want to leap to conclusions, because I’m sure, if she could, she’d have much better decorations. That’s not me being a bitch because she called me old, I’m just making an observation based on her elaborate robes and hair.

“If sister doesn’t have a clan, if she likes, I can help her find a place in our Red Silk Clan?” She cocks her head, batting her eyes. “We can show her how to make many tasty foods?”

“What would I have to do to start?”

Why go through tearing this place apart, and cleaning up after, if they’ll feed me just because?

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

I look around, standing up as “Sister” stands up. She reaches out, palm down, thumb tucked in and I end up accepting a small perfumed purse. It looks like a sand dollar with a red silk tassel. She explains that it’ll be a badge and a sign of her favor, letting me know that she’s not simple, and that I’m very fortunate to have caught her eye. I help her with her flattery, telling her that I could tell she wasn’t simple simply by her coloring and she blushes, her cheeks, -- and only her cheeks, -- turning a light pink as she dips her head, hiding her mouth behind her hand, but very obviously grinning.

“I’ll come back to see you in a week,” she waves her silk handkerchief at me. “Get comfortable, learn your way around, then I’ll see if I can’t get you scheduled to join our Red Silk Clan.”

I smile and freeze, wondering what I’m supposed to eat in the meantime. Tch! She leaves and I don’t feel like chasing after her, so I explore the room. The bed isn’t raised, it’s built on a set of drawers, -- more storage, yay! -- the closet is pretty expansive and has drawers at the bottom, the tapestry is hung over a cabinet inset into the wall, there’s no windows and one door.

I lay down on the bed, the pillow is pretty small, but, hey, I’ve got a bed in my own room! I think about taking a nap, then remember that I needed to get started on wine production. I sigh, and shift to my bank, the bears nowhere in sight as I stand in my lake bed. My shit shack is still there, my mills are still in back, and I forgot to bank the leftover. I bank the bins, checking to make sure I’ve got tea leaves producing, -- I do, -- and then remember how sad the bears looked in their plain robes.

“These are some old silks I had, you should try to make needles out of fish bones,” I shrug as I dump a pile of assorted silks that I’d made in the middle of their burrows.

Silk panel spools, silk thread spools, old robes off of bodies that haven’t been eaten, yet. I shift away wondering if they kept the robes for patterns or so they could look at them longingly. That’s my good deed done. They better keep giving me rent.

What do I get for rent?

I shrug and shift back to the edge of the lake, nearly crashing into a bush that didn’t get dug up. Sweet. I circle around the lake, planting bushes loosely around the perimeter, just an open fence. I finish, moving back to the shack and wondering where my miasma is before remembering that I thought my phone alarm was going off. I laugh at myself, before heading to the loose mound with my miasma tablet.

Ooh, wonder if “sis” will like to see it?

So… Cellar house… I climb up the stairs and go into the house, place a trap door in the corner, then open it to find a stone chamber. I didn’t think I’d done this already, but okay. I was thinking about stone versus wood because of the moisture, but I’m not sure if it matters at all. I look around and note that there’s a hot tub steaming. Don’t remember visualizing that. I wander over, -- a hot soak sounds nice, but I’m not sure if I can, -- so I strip down and climb in. Smells kinda like soup, but who makes a pool of soup?

I take a sip and freeze. I’m soaking in someone’s soup base. Whoops. It tastes more like beef than fish, it’s very nice actually. Feels pretty good, too. I lean back and float, my scales dissolving with weird sounds as I look up to see that there’s a woven hatch with sky beyond it. Wait, did I not make this? Well, of course I made it, but am I in someone’s burrow right now?

I sigh and just enjoy the bath. It’s been a while. This is nice. Yeah, no, I’m definitely going to need to do this. Gonna have mine raised, a metal pot or something. Can I drink essence contaminated water? Does it just tastes like water or can I be my own soup base? Why do I want to be my own soup base? Didn’t I get a Devour thing for eating myself? What’d I get from that? How do I check?

I thought it was in Smorgas-Board --. Logs. Fuck, I’m an idiot. Filters… So many fucking filters… Um-um-um…

“Gods, grant me patience…”

I look over to see Bendy holding her face, head bowed. Did she facepalm? Wait, so this isn’t soup? She grabs a giant ladle and just frowns, pouting as she watches me floating. So… Why a tub of poison?

“There are more bushes around the lake,” Red says, coming down a ramp along the side of the room. “It’s back somewhere. I felt it was necessary to warn you.”

“It’s not a problem any more. It’s in the pit,” Bendy scowls, gesturing towards me. “It came by at some point and used a spoon on all the pots contaminating them. I dumped all the contaminated pots in here to try to make an antidote for later, and found its body floating here. Greedy thing died.”

“What’s that mean for us?” Red frowns. Nice to know how much you care. “If it’s void collapses that’ll destroy Sanctuary and Eager Heart. I’m not sure how well we can do outside.”

“We’ll be fine,” Bendy shakes her head, sneering in disgust. “We’ve survived its poison and made a safe haven. I doubt any outsider can say as much!”

“Not poison to me,” I slap away the ladle as she tries to use it to steer me to the side of the tub.

She screams and throws the ladle at me, splashing poison everywhere. She wails, keeping her hands near her face before turning around and fleeing. Not sure if she’s suffering or trying to get away from the steam. Or maybe I freaked her out by being alive?

“This tastes like beef and feels amazing,” I stretch. “You lot have been using my poisons for something. What?”

“Sometimes… things appear,” Red says stiffly. “We use your poisons to defend ourselves.”

“‘Things’?” Not liking how this feels like the miasma geode all over again.

“Like the strange fish you were throwing at us as we chased you,” Red growls, narrowing her eyes at me.

“Around the void that I cultivated and you lot changed while I was sleeping,” I point out. I sit up and just float on the top of the poison, apparently I’m not dense enough to sink. Huh. “How were they going to make an antidote out of this?”

“We’ve all got some resistance to poisons from living here, but having the poisons diluted and living in the steam helps us develop an immunity,” Red says while gesturing to the tub I’m still soaking in. “We can extract an antidote from our blood to help one another if one of us aren’t developing a resistance fast enough. It would be deadly to others, no doubt.”

“No doubt,” I snort before laughing. Who’s he think he’s talking to? “I’m gonna take some of this to eat,” I say while stretching. “I’m gonna head back now. I was trying to make a cellar and I wound up here.”

“Please don’t take all of it,” Red says through grit teeth, their snout twitching as they try to force a polite smile.

I look around and spot a pile of upside down jars on a drying board. I climb out of the tub, bank my clothing and items so I’m wandering around nekkid, -- my void, I do what I want, -- grab a pot and fill it up. I stand with the filled pot, look directly at Red, then shift back to my home-ette.

I bank the pot, pettiness over, and wonder what the fuck happened. Did I accidentally connect my trap door to a space that was similar enough to what I wanted to work? Did I just lazy bullshit myself? What the fuck, me!

Back inside, close the trapdoor, firmly cement a view of the lake bed above and a block of stone under--. There’s an aquifer? I’m trying to visualize a block of stone under the lake, just for carving into to make my basement, and my little mental image is replaced by an actual bubble of water with fish in it.

I shift to see if I wind up in dirt or water, and I’m deadass in a lake. And I glow? Not much, but enough that I can never fully hide in the dark. Unless someone thinks I’m their eyes playing tricks on them. Huh…

I don’t have time to tune out before a bus swallows me. I’d pulled my limbs in to pretend I was just sitting and thinking, literally just minding my own business in my void, and I get eaten by a fish? Wait, is this where all my fish are breeding? It doesn’t seem that big… I shift out of the bus, turn to watch it, and it disappears. Fish are popping in and out of existence all around me and I don’t know why. Am I not actually farming them? I need to do a soul suck on a bear, but I still need to figure out --.

Why do I need them again? No, -- fuck! -- I was trying to save them! Wow, I’m an idiot. Little Red was being experimented on, and there was that whole “there are no city guards” thing, and I still haven’t talked to Trinity.

Fuck it.

I shift over to Trinity, luckily they’re in Eager Heart enjoying some nice fish and a steaming beverage. They’re in an outdoor seating area with stone benches and tables, -- super impractical if this is some setup that might change with a new shop on the bottom floor, -- and I try to greet them, but the other people enjoying the weather start screaming. Trinity spits out their drink and it occurs to me I’ve been looking for them this entire time, but I never tried sending to them directly.