While sis is imbuing a few people that I assume are family members come in, strip down, placing their items folded up neatly on the shelves, and then wince, scream, and yelp their way into the tub. I shrug, strip back down, and join them as I see the Soak start clouding again. A bunch of people, all in one tub together, no pre-rinse, and I get to see some of them scrubbing their teeth, gargling, and spitting the water back into the tub. I blink blankly with regret.

“How do I imbue things with poisons?”

I only ask because my Logs say she successfully finished imbuing her craft and I really need a distraction. If I don’t get merit from returning these people to some semblance of normalcy then I’m banking and running. Some of the people in the tub scoff, my Logs showing that they think the new bath is being wasted on some random stranger, while those who were told why the Soak change, wonder why I wasn’t taught already.

When Sis turns and sees everyone in the bath, -- there’s literally five people in the massive stone tub. It really is closer to a small pool, -- she loses her shit. She’s shouting at them for violating her privacy while she’s practicing in seclusion, but she’s thinking about how she’s going to find a way to seal the room off, and the spam of we’re in trouble mixed with resentment that someone so untalented is one of the heirs keeps scrolling past.

Wait, they’re sending? No, what is this? They’re gossiping, and Sis can hear them, but she’s used to it. How are they --? What the fuck are Singing Strings? I get insight into how they can communicate with fine silk threads, an effect more potent than a string and cup telephone. I never understood why in the hells anyone would use cup phones. They’re not subtle, they’re not sneaky, and I have no idea how well they work. But cultivator magic-y bullshit.

“I’ve not ruined your cultivation, I’ve stabilized your poisons, and you would refuse me in this?”

I ignore Sis as she threatens to call on Green Grass, the others clearing out of the pool and racing from the room. Naked. How fucking deadly is a fucking vegan sausage?

“Turkey bacon,” I mumble while moving the water around.

Why do I care? I’m balancing the poisons by taking in the excess, and…? Oh, poisons have elements, and I’m reinforcing myself. Neat.

“That’s a reason to care,” I mumble. Pool’s clear, everyone out! “Teach me to imbue poisons into things.”

“It’s a technique you will learn once you increase your rank in our sect,” Sis says, pissed that I “helped” the people “stealing” her purifying soak.

“It’s not a purifying soak. It’s a stabilizing soak.” I get up and get dressed.

I spam jars and bank until half the bath is gone. ♪ I’m off to take all the things, ♪ I sing internally, banking half the baskets as I walk out the door. She doesn’t notice the baskets, but she notices the Soak, shouting at me to go back and refill the tub.

“ ♪ I’m not part of your clan or sect, ♪

♪ I don’t work for you~! ♪ ”

I skip while looking back at her in time to see her standing, buck naked, one arm outstretched, fear warped in rage and desperation, -- she can tolerate the disrespect from the others who are supposed to be respectful, but how dare I take away my usefulness? -- Green Grass’s jaws open wide as he aims for the back of my neck. I turn to reach for him, but I was already transfering. I was going to skip and disappear, but I just happened to see what was going on as I moved away. Tch! I could go back, -- I turn to see the baskets of crap foods in the lab we’d left, -- but I’m shopping right now.

“Ooh! Free samples!” I say playfully as I walk back to the dried goods.

Yes, sis gave me tea, but I gave her something her whole clan could use. All 9 of them? Her family got rekt. The only people who survived were her, her brother, -- who had saved her, -- and a family of a sub-branch that had been visiting friends in another prefecture. So she’s shit at cultivation, got a pet and poison immunity, and her brother does everything. Got it.

I give a cheeky smile to Slimy Smile as he stares at me in surprise when I walk past his workstation, just a table that he’s put a mat and jars on, -- ooh, he’s got goggles? Wait, why didn’t he wear those last time? Wow, they’re chunk as hell. -- and turn my attention to the wall of candies. More jars, -- don’t want to leave them in baskets, find out that I’ve dumped them in the lake and they all mix into mud soup, -- stash half of all of the baskets, -- I’ll sample them later, -- and then move on to some drawers I didn’t notice.

I think I thought the wall was just decorated with wood, or dismissed the handles as being part of cabinets for tools, but there are smells coming from what appear to be drawers of more shiz. Why this stuff is in drawers and not baskets? Why do they have poisons in baskets in the first place? Small little jars, a handful from each drawer, and I just move down the line. Pretty sure there’s a lot of cross contamination, but that’s not really my problem unless I’m ruining the flavors.

I stop raw-dogging the herbs and star using the scoops. I don’t want to find freaking salisbury steak or beef stroganoff again and end up sprinkling boot rot all over it. Speaking of, my brain’s been sending me sweet or disgusting since I’ve been here. What happened to all my savory?

I turn from my idle wonderings to realize I’m standing in place, just sucking on what looks like a dried, red, twisted stick, and tastes like a natural strawberry fruit leather. It’s actually pretty good, not super sweet. I don’t know if I grabbed some, and the drawer I have open just has strangely symmetrical round wood chips, so I have no idea when I grabbed this stick or from where. I can always come back.

I think about going through the jars, but I’m not sure if they’re just liquids or gases sealed in them, and I’m not trying to cause a huge fuss, -- if I piss them off they’re more likely to try to stop me, -- so I transfer around until I find an empty hall, drop my anchor, and transfer to my void to check on Wide Oak’s progress. Let’s see if they managed to keep him alive.

I stop, standing in the middle of the burrows, wondering what my plan was. I like Wide Oak. He’s good people. What the fuck can I do if he actually does die. What the hell was my plan? I bank my soggy stick candy as I feel panic building inside of me, racing to Bendy’s house to see if she’s home, -- she’s been guarding her “hard work”, so it’s a safe bet, -- and she’s got a little hand mortar and pestle that she’s using to brute force grind some herbs. As a peace offering I spawn a floor mortar with a foot pestle. I spawn a chair, put my feet on the handles and demonstrate it’s use while making sure Bendy’s not about to charge me.

“It keeps your hands free and requires less effort,” I offer, standing up and absorbing my quick chair. “How’s Wide Oak’s training coming along?”

She just stares at me, eyes narrowed, so I go to my Logs. She thinks it’s a trap. She’s wondering if I’m an illusion and the real me is ransacking her home right now. Which reminds me about her poison pool which is apparently down a sloping ramp somewhere.

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I immediately start turning and looking around trying to find the ramp before hearing her leap to her feet reminds me that she’s on hyper alert for any of my bullshit. I turn to her, trying to figure out what I’m going to say, how I’m going to cover up the fact that I was actually planning on messing with her stuff, specifically the stuff I already messed with and she’s trying to get some use out of.

“Is he here?” I ask awkwardly. Nailed it.

“He’s built a ‘lean-to’ near the farms with old grass stalks,” she growls. “At the farms. Not here.”

“Ah,” I nod along, looking around hoping to spot the way down to what might be lower levels. “I’ll just be leaving,” I say as I slowly back to the door still looking.

She slams the mortar and pestle down onto her chair then comes marching at me, so I skedaddle.

Instead of going to the farms I head to my little shack to see how it’s faring. The building’s still there, the miasma mist is spreading slightly, and there’s no blood or viscera around my mills. All good things. I toss some Death Beans, -- okay, more like a mountain. Production is growing great, always had, and I thought they were potatoes because of how fast they reproduce, but knowing they’re mushrooms now kinda makes more sense, -- into the mills, banking the mash, slurry, and mousse, then try to figure out what to do about ovens.

I was going to do a cellar thing, but the area below the shack is some weird fish farm, and why do I care about location?

“Meh,” I head to the forest between me and the burrows, think better of it, then head to the forest on the opposite side of the lake away from the burrows and will a massive block of stone to start digging into.

“Mm, no,” I recoil and gag as I run into the limits of my void.

Did I get exiled to the furthest edges of my own fucking void? Seriously. I glare off in the direction of the burrows before reminding myself that size isn’t everything, and I can manipulate space. Either I do or Silent Howl does. We do. ‘Cause we’re a team. Go team!

I ignore the wave of laughter trying to bubble out of me as I set up a small block of stone on the edge of the lake, under the Qi pond’s frothy goodness, -- fuck, it’s starting to smell like bubblegum. Did I do this? I’d like to think I wouldn’t fuck with me like this… -- and the will the inside of the stone block to be my warehouse kitchen. There’s no feedback. I’m standing outside on the lake shore and the ground doesn’t warp or buckle. I wait a beat and then shit into the kitchen.

I was trying to envision my warehouse kitchen, but it looks like I got it crossed with the Red Spider Silk Sect’s lab. Or at least the one I got into. Speaking of, if they haven’t blocked me I need to find where the rest of their labs are to source more presents. How kind of them to gift me with all of these new foods, I think to myself, slowly looking away even though no one is around to see me.

I can Will stuff when I have the resources, and I’ve got some paste I want to cook into cakes, but I --. I already milled fish! And didn’t eat it all! Can I a round of fish cakes cooking…?

“Hmm?” There’s a weird scraping sound behind me and I whip around, instantly pissed that someone’s already wandering around my space to see I’ve got some weird brick construction in the corner. “Did I accidentally a pizza oven…?”

As I watch, moist fist-sized lumps of paste appear in the open-faced oven, cooking as I remember that I needed to dry out some of the not-tatoes to make flour to make my cakes. The cooked not quite cakes disappear to be replaced by more not cakes before I Will production to stop.

“Neat! So that works,” I say, wandering to the perimeter lined with crates, and racks and counters. “Where do the --? I can put them in the floor…”

I gasp at my epiphany. It’d be like having heated floors, I don’t need to have them open, per se, I can have air flowing through the walls to keep the whole place toasty, it might help with proofing --. I can have them in the walls...! To be honest I don’t need an accessible oven or stove, it just always felt better, but I can turn that into counter space for prep and just have the ovens, stove, dehydrators, --. I can move my “machines” to the walls!

I experiment with different configurations while sampling some of the items I’ve pulled from the crap lab. I’m assuming it was a low-grade lab considering they wanted me in it and everything tasted bad. Most everything except for super dangerous crap that probably shouldn’t be there --.

Are they being sabotaged or is someone just really incompetent?

They might have some misplaced treasures I’ve managed to get my hands on because someone just filled baskets instead of checking to see if that’s stuff that needed to be in there. Wait, so is everything stored together somewhere? Or is it just something goes empty and they put something else on the shelves as they get more stock? I might not need to look for other labs. And I emptied half of the items, so they should maybe have to restock soon?

Wait, how often do they craft poisons? What if they’re rearranging the baskets right now? Going through them to see what wasn’t supposed to be in the lower lab in the first place, and fixing it? What if they noticed that the baskets are emptier than they should be? Maybe I should have just taken everything… No way should I have tried to take less. Free samples.

I go through my Logs to see if I’ve eaten anything I liked and see that I’m just eating some kind of starchy fish pudding. It’s just fish with the milled wet 'tato, but I’ve got what look like shelves of potatoes that are actually dryers that I’ve set up and dumped 'tatoes in. The filled dryers are only replacing two walls, one wall appears to have ovens, and another has a counter of stove tops with space below for storage. Handy that.

I’ve already got dried 'tatoes populating my bank so I head back out to the shack to start milling them and wind up standing in the middle of the burrows with a bundled up Wide Oak looking terrified in what appears to be a bite suit. He’s literally wearing a suit of straw, straw sandles, -- he was barefoot before, so he might appreciate this change, -- and some kind of goalie mask made of straw.

“It’s to detect if he’s in an area too dangerous for him,” Bendy chimes in cheerfully and I wonder if she’s so proud she’s inadvertently forgotten to hate me. “If it starts changing colors he needs to leave, and he’ll be able to tell the direction the toxins are coming from!”

“And he’s still alive,” I point out. That’s the most important part to me.

I turn to him and his eyes are darting to all of the steaming vents. Ah. Right. Toxic mists to help them build up immunities, but he doesn’t have a basic immunity.

“How are you increasing his immunity?” I look around at the bears as Wide Oak fixes his gaze on the steam leaking from the closest vent.

“First we tested to make sure he didn’t have an allergy, and then we started giving him mild baths with greened grass,” Bendy says, hands out in front of her as she holds them in a sign for patience as she speaks with barely restrained excitement.

“What’s greened grass?” I ask, Red jumping in immediately.

“Sometimes toxins build up naturally in the harvest, so the dried shoots that turn green are toxic. We soak those and use a small amount of the resulting emulsion in a tub of clean water to help him gain resistance!” Red finishes triumphantly. Kinda figured Bendy would keep explaining the whole poison part on account of her being the poison person, but whatever.

“Ah~,” I slowly process how they’re easing him in with common poisons, but wonder how they’re going to help him develop immunities to others. “So how are you going to increase his general resistance without accidentally making something dangerous inside of him?”

“Oh,” Bendy says as the bears all exchange looks, Wide Oak continuing to just stand around awkwardly.

“I’ve provided a floor mortar, is there anything else you lot needed?” Apparently they put in a request for an audience and I just transfered right over here instead of my mills. At least that’s what it looks like based on how my recent local logs read compared to what played out. “If it interferes with any of my stuff I will eat more of your stuff.” I catch Bendy narrowing her eyes at me and bristling while the others just frown in disapproval. “The higher the elevation, the higher the stature. Mountains equal might and you little shits flattened my home!”

I try to process that the sky has gone all prismatic and my voice is echoing over and over again. Oh. My fists are clenched. Ah. I got pissed off all over again. I clear my throat, the air, and then excuse myself to my shack as they process that they’ve taken my things, -- this whole place is my things and they’ve tossed out the parts they didn’t like! -- and I’ve just started paying them back for that. They’ve suffered? I wasn’t trying to punish them, and they were quick to take offense, weren’t they?