As Li progressed down the ever-shrinking passage, she realized that it was the first with no exits at all. This made the dragon wonder if she had made the right choice in coming this way. Perhaps she should have taken a short nap in the alcove where she’d eaten the ki-stone, and waited for Kaz.

Still, Li had to admit that she was, possibly, slightly concerned… that is, curious, about where the husede had taken Lianhua, and why. If the mosui just wanted to keep the human as a pet, Li didn’t think the female would have looked so worried. Li didn’t know what had gone on while she was trapped inside the box, but whatever it was had frightened Lianhua enough to make her take drastic action in order to free Li, even if she couldn’t escape herself.

It was that thought that compelled the dragon to continue flying as the passage narrowed and her muscles began to stiffen, causing her wingbeats to slow. While her instincts told her that it was only right for lesser beings to sacrifice themselves for her, she had spent too much time with Kaz, felt his emotions, and thought that, just possibly, she owed the human something. What that something was, she didn’t know, but she would figure it out when she got there.

It was the loud, strident voice of the white-furred mosui that warned her someone was approaching. Li darted toward the nearest niche holding a crystal, only realizing that it might not be far enough above the ground to conceal her completely after she had already crawled into it and pulled in her tail. She found herself looking down at the top of a fuzzy round head, the damp tendrils surrounding the agitated mosui’s quivering nose almost close enough to bite. Not that she wanted to, because they looked disgusting. But also tasty.

Fortunately, both the mosui and her husede escort were too busy to notice a tiny dragon tucked into an alcove just above their eye level. The mosui was screeching angrily, glancing back down the passage even as she continued walking. The husede’s broad, gray face had very little expression, but her lips were compressed into a flat line, and her gaze was fixed straight ahead, giving away her own anger or frustration.

Li had no idea what the mosui was saying, since she used her own language of chitters and squeals, but the two passed by quickly enough, and soon the dragon was alone in the corridor again. She poked her head out, watching and listening for any sign that someone else approached. Nothing came, and the tiny shred of concern in the corner of Li’s heart grew into full-blown worry. Those two had taken Lianhua somewhere, and left her there, and Li doubted that was a good sign.

She moved on down the hall more cautiously, because she was a wise dragon, and not at all because her shoulder hurt too much to move quickly. Eventually, she heard more noises coming from ahead and retreated to yet another alcove, curling up around the crystal resting there with no small amount of relief. Her shoulder was really quite uncomfortable, and she could barely move the claws on her injured paw anymore.

Nothing happened. No one approached, and the noises she heard didn’t rise above the level of quiet conversation. There was certainly no screaming in anguish, which was good, but made Li feel a tiny bit peevish, as if she had gone to a great deal of trouble for no particular purpose.

When Li cautiously crawled to the front of her resting place, extending her gleaming golden wings so they caught the light of the nearby crystals just so - because she had eaten the one in the alcove, which was disappointingly weak - she nearly changed her mind and turned around.

She had a clear memory of the human female writhing in pain as the collar around her neck burned with carmine ki, and discovering that Lianhua might well be engaged in a pleasant chat instead of suffering additional torment had rather reduced the amount of urgency the dragon felt. Still, she had come this far, so she might as well go on, if only to sate the curiosity that she would have chastised Kaz for feeling.

The voices grew louder as she neared, and to her surprise, the dragon realized that it sounded like two humans speaking, rather than one human and one mosui. Admittedly, the second voice was higher-pitched than even Lianhua’s, but it was nowhere near as shrill as the other mosui Li or Kaz had heard.

Once the voices were loud enough for the words to be intelligible, Li found another nook in which to exercise her wisdom and gather more information before advancing. She didn’t feel as secure here as she had in the ones before, since even a mosui could look straight at her if they happened by, but it was better than nothing. Sadly, she didn’t quite dare eat the chip of red crystal lying there, taunting her, since a dark alcove would certainly attract the eye, and she had already left several of them behind her.

“-how many of you there are,” the treble voice said.

“I’m the only one left,” Lianhua replied, sounding tired. “I was here with a bodyguard, trying to make my way down to the kobold city, but the strange monsters on the levels above this killed them, one by one.”

A quiet hum reached Li’s ears before the first speaker went on. “I see, I see. And how did you find them? These… monsters.”

“They found me,” Lianhua replied wryly. “And they’re terrible. We spoke to some kobolds- Ah, I mean, before my companions were killed, we spoke to them. The kobolds said that the stairs usually blocked the fulan from traveling between levels, but that doesn’t seem to be happening any longer.”

A little chuckle reached Li, and the dragon found herself edging forward, her head protruding from her nook as she tried to see what the being looked like. There was more corridor ahead, but it ended in a door which wasn’t quite closed all the way. It was from behind this door that the muffled voices emerged.

“Oh, no,” the person said conversationally. “I turned off that function of the staircases shortly after we released the fulan. Here, let me show you. It isn’t often that the kobolds irritate me enough to go this far, but I felt it was appropriate, given the offense.”

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The word ‘kobolds’ dripped with such contempt that Li shivered slightly. Even Gaoda didn’t speak with such absolute hatred. The being obviously felt kobolds were as far beneath him as humans were beneath dragons, and this mosui absolutely loathed the other race with whom his people shared the mountain.

Sounds came from beyond the door: quiet clicking and soft, shuffling footsteps. Lianhua gasped, and Li slithered from her hiding spot and spread her wings, gliding down until she landed on the ground just before the door. It was open just a crack, but a crack was enough for a lithe, graceful, agile dragon like Li, and she inserted her nose through it until she could see.

The room beyond was lit by ki. Not just red, but all the colors, gleaming from crystals embedded in the walls and floor. Lianhua stood, her robes still perfectly clean, but her hair in disarray and face streaked with sweat and tears. The female’s amethyst eyes were wide, and she stared at an image floating in the air in front of her. It was the mountain, made up entirely of crystalline ki, solid and light all at once, and sliced neatly in half so its interior was fully visible.

More shuffling, and the being who had been hidden behind this creation of ki emerged into sight. He was taller than any other mosui, maybe as tall as Kaz, and the silver fur covering his skin was shorter and finer. His snout was shorter as well, and the tendrils around the tip were mere stubs compared to Yanshu’s four-inch tentacles. He had external ears, not unlike those of the humans, and his eyes showed white around the iris, rather than being solid black or brown from edge to edge. In fact, he looked very much like a mosui and a human had somehow managed to produce a child who was a rather unfortunate combination of both.

Stretching out a human finger tipped with a long mosui claw, he tapped the image of the mountain, and as he did so, one of the gem-encrusted rings adorning his fingers glinted with ki. A section of the mountain swelled as everything above and below it faded away, leaving only eighteen levels visible.

“This controls everything within my territory,” the strange being said. He reached out and touched a miniature staircase, which glowed as red as the real thing until his finger brushed against it, at which point it went dark. Another tap, a spark jumping from one of his rings, and the stairs lit up again.

“The interlopers, the oversteppers, the murderers, hadn’t reached this area, so I left this one active, but for that moment, the fulan could have drifted down it. Perhaps a few spores will settle on a plant nearby, and the fulan will spread anyway.” He giggled, brown eyes gleaming with malevolent pleasure. “I haven’t been able to play with the shiyan in so long. Though until you came, it wasn’t nearly as entertaining as it used to be.”

With a wave of his hand, he dismissed the ki-image and turned to Lianhua, baring teeth that were nearly as sharp as a dragon’s. “If you had a core, it would be better, but I suppose it’s too much to ask that the first human to offer herself up to me in eight hundred years should be absolutely perfect. Still, one makes do with what one has, as the master used to say. Not that he ever settled for that, oh no. Ever tinkering, was the master.”

Lianhua looked between the mosui-man and the place the mountain used to stand. She was pale, but her voice was firm as she asked, “Who was the master?”

Turning his back on her, the being shrugged. “Ask him yourself, if you see him. He’s gone, risen and fallen and lost to us, centuries ago. Left us to rot here, lingering past our time, stuck in a cycle he set for us when his eyes still saw. Kobolds, yes,” he murmured, voice rising to something nearly as shrill as that of a normal mosui. “Kobolds took him, kobolds left him, kobolds live on while he lies forgotten.”

He continued speaking as he stared down at something on the floor, perhaps the many-hued crystals, or perhaps something that existed only in his own mind. His fingers twitched, and he turned a ring on his left middle finger, spinning it around and around.

Behind him, Lianhua tensed, her own fingers lifting as if to pull an invisible bowstring. She sighted down it, and Li saw the ki in her lower dantian brighten, spinning up along her channels until it reached the ring around her neck, which flashed ruby red, cutting off the flow of ki before it could reach the dantian in her forehead. The female’s face twisted in pain, but she stubbornly continued, more and more ki cycling through her, stopped each time by the red circle. Finally, she collapsed to her knees, trembling and panting as sweat or tears dripped from the end of her nose.

The mosui-man turned, lips stretched wide in a caricature of a smile. “You can’t burn through it, human child. Master made it to keep us safe, protect us from the shiyan, at least once we were no longer shiyan ourselves. You’re like a bug, flitting around my face, in comparison to the things that collar was designed to hold. You hurt no one but yourself with your efforts, and-”

Lianhua lunged at him. He might be tall for a mosui, but she was taller, and her body refinement gave her a strength no one looking at her would have expected. She knocked him down, and the two of them tumbled across the floor, bumping into a table. A shower of small bottles fell down around them, spilling colorful liquids that soaked the male’s robes and slid off Lianhua’s silks.

With a fierce cry, Lianhua dealt a series of punishing blows to the mosui’s throat and head, hands moving with practiced speed and precision to strike at her opponent’s weakest points. He lay there, body shaking beneath the blows, but didn’t cry out. At first, Li thought the attack had already succeeded, and he was unconscious, but then she saw the look on Lianhua’s face as she continued to assault the fallen male. There was fury there, but also a desperation that she wouldn’t be feeling if she thought she would win.

A hand rose, almost as quickly as a dragon could strike, and grabbed Lianhua’s wrist before her next attack could connect with the fallen mosui’s neck. With an ease belied by his small size, the male sat up, holding onto Lianhua as she attempted to twist away, turning her wrist and bending her arm to use leverage to force the fingers apart.

With another giggle, the mosui’s face split, revealing far more teeth than a human could boast. Without blinking, he leaned forward, the stunted tentacles on his nose stretching forward as if to stroke Lianhua’s face. The human female froze, staring into his eyes, and he lifted his free hand, revealing a strange object that Li instantly coveted. It was made of rich, lustrous yellow gold, thickly encrusted with ki gems.

Mana surged from him, so thick even Li could see it, traveling into the device, and from there into the collar around Lianhua’s neck. Without a word, she slumped to the ground.