I set up a weaker mill to mix flour and paste into loose dough to be banked when finished, then transfer out back to the mountain redoubt that is Red Silk Clan and Sect. I straighten my robes, my head snapping up as there’s shouting, and then I transfer to any hallway that will take me as a group of people charge at me in the lab.

I faintly have an impression that Noisy Dog was there before I left, and I don’t have to check my Logs for any skills or trackers anyone might have placed on me. They didn’t have time. The screams startled me into transfering with no destination in mind, and I’m not actually in a hall. There’s a dark room, a main entrance, two doors on each adjacent wall, and then a small door in the wall opposite the main door.

Out of curiosity I wander around and try to peak into the side rooms, but the doors are locked. With actual locks not just sealed transfer portals or circles disguised as solid wood doors. I move to the little hatch, noting the shelf under it and guess that the window is actually a door. Considering the nice smells, I think I’m in a closed lab. Or a closed restaurant.

So they’re waiting for me? Everywhere or just the lab? I try to leave and the door that I’m assuming leads out is locked. A quick shrug and I transfer to “any hallway”, wondering if it’ll work again. I’m standing in a brightly lit room, no candles in sight, a good chunk of the floor and the walls are covered with thick red cloth, and I’m pretty sure this is Fashion Disaster’s room or a place of importance.

“Right.”

First stop, figuring out where I am to figure out where they keep their shiz. Furniture? Chairs, tables, no fireplace, there’s a brazier --. What’s in the brazier? Remembering how there was potentially good shit being burned, I bank what’s in the brazier then just take the brazier. I sit in the chair to see if I want to take it for my kitchen or make an actual living space. It’s too firm despite the thin cushion, so I leave it and wonder around to check for hidden doors behind the tapestries.

Well, they’re not tapestries, they’re richly coloured curtains, and each one covers a doorway. Only one doorway has a door, so I go through one of the open portals on the basis that the door is the exit or the first place they’ll check.

As I cross the threshold there’s a shrill whistling and pins pierce the sides of my robes, lightly pricking me from my ribs to my hips on either side. I yelp and dance, but they’re already in me. I heard the noise, wondered what it was, then felt the prickling up and down my sides.

I bank the needles, pulling my sleeves out of my robes to check the damage as I wander further into the room in case the door trap triggers again. Another whistle, I brace myself, not sure where the attack is coming from, and my scalp prickles as more needles pepper me from above. I bank these, too, waiting for what I’m sure is a poison to take effect. My skin tingles and itches, but I don’t know if that’s just in my head or actually a physical response to the traps.

There’s no sign of the holes, but when I shift my skin around I notice that there are slightly darker small circles. I’m not leaking ichor… There’s no sign of blood poisoning, unless it won’t follow along veins for me. I part my silk to check my scalp and it looks fine… Thinking maybe the tingling is just from the heebie-jeebies. I get dressed and look around with the knowledge that this shit’s going to keep happening.

So what’s here? It looks like a sitting room, but I just left a sitting room… There’s more tables carved to look like they have drawers, but when I try to pull the drawers open nothing happens, and checking underneath reveals the tables are hollow frames.

My sides tingle and my scalp stings as I go through another doorway into an identical sitting room. Well… Can I do this in my void? Was it the pins or is it an enchantment? A quick experimental sniff wondering if I’ll smell something me-y, but I can’t not think about food. I try to transfer to my void and end up in another sitting room. I check all the curtains and one has a door so I open it in the hopes of being somewhere else and walk out into a hallway. Another attempt to transfer and I’m back home in my kitchen. I spawn a barstool at the kitchen island and make a platter of fish cakes and a bowl of Black Blood Wine. I needed to get started on wine production…

I head outside to set up embedded pots so no one’s tempted to see what’s over here. They might see steam, but pretty sure giant jars will definitely attract more people than the thought that there’s poison below ground. Massive heat elements in a hole nearly my hunan height underground, a massive pot that can sub as a bath, water, then over the pot a mill cloud to --. I need to dry the leaves, don’t I? I don’t want to chew them, and Persephone used to try to grind them to save time… I’ll just boil the fresh leaves and see what happens.

I bank the mill cloud, dump a good load of leaves in the pot, then drop a lid on it. I’m not sure if the auto bank will work on it, and I’ll still need to set it to ferment, so I just tell myself not to forget over and over and over in the hopes that I’ll just remember to take the tea off later. Another hole, heat element, pot, fill with water, then put the mill cloud over to grind some fresh leaves into the pot before sealing it. Something nags at the back of my head and I stop when I realize I could have just ground into the first pot instead of going through the effort of banking and unbanking the mill over a different pot.

Whatever. What am I going to put in with it.

“Oh!” I snap my fingers releasing a cloud of glitter as I remember that I needed to plant shiver thorn. I bank the glitter after staring at the cloud for a few beats as it glitters and barely moves, just hovering. “Right. Shiver Thorn.”

I walk away to set up a hedge at the edge of my void, but change my mind, going back to erect a hedge around my evil 'tatoes. I set up the shiver thorn to act as a fence for a yard behind my shack, the entrance into the little yard being walking under my shit shack, but there’s miasma that way. I dust my hands after looking around the yard, the mill clouds for grinding fenced in with the 'tatoes, constantly producing fine flour from dried taters in the mega mill, evil 'tatoe paste from fresh 'tatoes in the middle mill, and fish chunks in the coarse mill.

“So if nothing else I’ll never run out of fish cake as long as I live,” I shrug and head back to the hidden kitchen.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

I remove a row of 'tatoes from drying, still having two more below, and set a row of tea leaves to dry. I’ll mill them and set up a new pot. I remember that there’s some wood production going for no reason and stop myself from just shutting it down to free up resources. I wanna know what the bears are using wood for. A transfer to the burrows to see if anyone’s just around, then I march after Bendy who is just walking into her burrow.

I follow her quietly in the hopes that she’ll show me how to get to the pool without just transfering, -- sometimes my mind wanders and I don’t go where I want to. If I’m going to rob her I don’t want to just accidentally transfer to her when I’m going to eat her shiz. She sets down a bushel of dried grass I hadn’t seen from where I was making sure no one was around me, and then turns, spotting me and freezing.

“Why are you all producing wood?” I ask, trying not to tense. “What are you using it for?”

“Will you not just wander around?” she sighs in exasperation.

“I will continue to feel free to wander around the void space I created for myself whenever I feel like it,” I say quite calmly and clearly. Go me!

“You were just some noisy dying bug that we took care of,” she grumbles forcefully shifting the bushel around, but she doesn’t appear to be doing anything other than subtly punching it over and over.

“If you hadn’t I’d still be here until I’d eaten enough to awake. And you lot would be dead because I got hungry enough to start absorbing everything in my void,” I say slowly, wondering if she doesn’t understand how this works.

They’ve had to notice the changes. Did they think they just prayed and stuff happened? No, that’s fair. They had no reason to believe that the sleeping bug had anything to do with how they got and got rid of things.

“It wasn’t my intention to collapse and trap you all here. I wanted to give you to someone who could teach you, but I couldn’t wake up,” I admit, tucking my hands into my sleeves.

“The whole ‘Where’s Trinity’, thing?” she says quietly with a tired little head wiggle.

“He is a fox. He grew up in the wilds. He knows how to find and make things without just willing them into being or turning essence into whatever is needed,” I say quietly, wondering if they’re resentful that all of this is me or if they honestly hate me for my inability to keep them and myself well.

“We don’t use the wood,” she finally starts pulling the bundle of grass apart. “We were told coal is useful and how to make it, but Red petitioned for it and now we have a steady supply that goes out and money comes in.”

“You’re trading coal for money.” Color me surprised. I can feel my eyebrows climb and my eyes pop open. “Who told you the price and for what weight?”

“I don’t know what you mean. We send out coal and we receive money,” she shrugs.

“Yeah, no.” I immediately stop wood production, feel that there’s a massive smoking pit and decide to leave it to finish processing. “Such things are sold by volume. By weight. A bushel’s weight of coal is not as valuable as a you weight of coal. More weight of the same quality is worth vastly more.

“Who were you trading this coal to?” I ask, going into my production logs to see I’ve produced metric tons of low-grade coal.

The quality would affect the price, but where the hell do I go to find out how much they paid for all of this shit. And who. No more wood production. No more coal shipping. I wonder if they packaged the coal or just had it dumped loose. I turn and walk away, no longer interested in the cellar, and transfer to where the coal gets deposited.

I’m buried under a mound of coal. Apparently it’s transferred to one spot and just built up. I bank everything instead of trying to fight my way out. More banking of every black lump I see before I try to take in my surroundings.

I’m in a warehouse. Makes sense. There are bags, very confused workers, and bags of coal. I walk over, banking the bagged coal as I get in range, the people screaming and running away as items start disappearing. I follow them out while wondering how far I was transferring this shit, looking around to see I might actually be in Green Rivers, and not very far from Eager Heart. Where the hell is the Red Silk Sect from here?

“Wow.”

I stop to take in the fact that there’s fucking stacks of sacks of coal under more warehouses with carts and wagons being loaded up and driven out. To be fair I was producing tons, and the just started trading, but I want to make sure I got paid for my fucking labor.

“Hey!” I turn to see someone stomping towards me, a few startled baggers behind them. Greasy hair, facial and half-ponytail, and I wonder if it’s hygiene, -- he is kinda portly, -- or an affectation of wealth and stature, -- he’s chubby, not just fat—. “You’re not supposed to be here!”

“I need to find out who has been paying for my coal, and how much,” I say, moving away towards one of the warehouses, spamming my bank attempts as I close in. “I was asleep when production was forced and I was never brought in on the deal.”

“Hey!” He shouts, sprinting towards me as things start shifting and disappearing. “Guards!”

“Might want to call whoever made the deal with the Blood Rats hiding in my void,” I point out, banking the structure to help me see what’s inside easier. Surprisingly it works.

There are more alarmed shouts, but I keep banking. I’m halfway through the warehouse with its piles of sacks when something blasts through my chest from behind.

Nope. Not playing anymore. I don’t know if I’m still “chibi” but I shift to get my wing shields. Fucking fuck! It doesn’t even hurt yet, but I am super pissed. Scared, but pissed.

Six on the ground, six up and out, I whip around so I’m not being blasted up the ass and there’s no one in front of me. Until I look down. Nope. Not chibi.

I take a deep breath to see if my lungs are fine, -- I’m not having any problems breathing, and I look fine. There’s a weird patch of different color rainbow and silk growing rapidly, so I guess I’m healing? -- then release it in a scream.

[Roar Successful]

[Successful Use 1/100]

[Qi -5]

[Karma -50]

[Current Condensed Qi: 1,831,177/23,817,763]

[Current Qi: 1,812,021/957,945,100]

[Current Karma: 95,271,052/107,275,977]

[Max Will: 9,579,451]

[Mortal Wallet: 12E,692K,180P,697R,179Da,155De,105k]

[Spirit Wallet: 0Dr,0Ph,0Th,1325Di,126Co,10680St]

The shriek shifts into a roar, my wings vibrate, but it doesn’t hurt. Me. The air sings and warps, a visible pulse resonating out over and over and over as the people nearby either have blood explode from their orifices, or they thrash, collapsing to the ground or stumbling woodenly, hands clasped to their ears as they shout out.

-*That was uncalled for! If the deal was fair I’d return the product, but now I’ll have to consume it to replace my essence. Bastards!*- I shout before grooming to see what other damage I might have sustained and missed.