The town’s security force answered the call of the alarm and immediately began searching the area around the warehouse. It didn’t take them long to pick up the scent. The mark the wards left on a thief had a drip effect, leaving a trail of coded mana for those who knew how to look, and that trail led directly to a tall young man meditating under a tree.
Timu was a middle aged one-star cultivator who would likely never take another step on the road to two. It wasn’t uncommon for pure artists to plateau at a low stage. Everyone had a role to play in the town, and in any case, too much high level channeling in one place was bad for the harvest.
His partner, a burly two-star named Kuei, didn’t look down on him for his lack of progress. Rather, she was glad she could work with someone who would never be able to challenge her. It made it easier to accept that she had reached the end of her path as well, if a bit farther down than he had.
They shared a disgust for anyone who was so obsessed with advancement that they would stoop to stealing from the town’s reserve, and when they found the culprit, Timu was ready to exact punishment that instant. He grabbed Sunwhisper by his throat, lifting him up with one arm.
"What’s your name, thief?"
Sunwhisper’s voice wouldn’t come out. He was becoming increasingly unenthusiastic about being choked.
"Loosen up," Kuei said, "he’s trying to answer."
Timu barely relented, allowing Sunwhisper’s toes to graze the ground.
"Makoto Shishio."
"I know you," Timu said, snorting coldly, "the deviation. You dare waste the town’s resources on your broken core? I’ll beat that smug look off your face."
Sunwhisper hadn’t intended to look smug. As a general rule, he kept his face blank and relaxed, and this moment was no exception.
"There’s no tattoos," Kuei said.
"What?" Timu let go so he could take a step back. Sunwhisper stood with his arms out to his sides, making it as obvious as possible that he was not marked.
"How is this possible?" Timu's eyes roamed over his body.
"There was someone else," Sunwhisper said, "he ran right into me, and then up the tree." He pointed into the thick, dark canopy.
"What are you doing out here?" Timu demanded.
"Channeling."
"In the middle of the night?” He pressed his face almost against Sunwhisper’s. “ You? A deviation?"
Kuei crossed her arms and hummed to herself. "Check the tree, Timu, and keep searching, I’ll deal with this one."
"Yes, elder." Timu lost his aggressive tone when he addressed his senior partner, dropping it as easily and completely as if it were an article of clothing, and he took off up the tree trunk at a run, disappearing into a lightless space of leaves.
"Tell me exactly what you saw." Kuei said.
Sunwhisper bowed.
"Of course, elder. I was practicing my meditation technique when someone came running. He was wearing an initiate's robes, like mine. He might have had a mask. I’m sorry, I didn’t get a good look at his face. There was not much light."
"There still isn’t." Kuei removed a cabochon from an inner pocket and charged it with mana, causing it to glow according to her color affinity, which stained the area in sepia tones. "You come out here to channel? Why?"
"Many people do not believe that I can improve, elder. I do not wish to disturb them, and I find the quiet of nature helps me."
She gave a tight nod. "Your deviation, what happened?"
"I was foolish, elder. I took an elixir that was not meant for me, and attempted a technique I did not properly understand."
"Ah, so you would know better than to steal Soma, or to eat too much at once."
"That would be the correct lesson, elder." Sunwhisper already knew that he had eaten too much. At his current level of advancement, it would have been wiser to take a single bite of the fruit and spend several hours channeling its energy before taking another. But history was an experiment you could only run once, and he didn’t expect to get another chance to raid the town’s storehouse and get away with it. Most of the fruit was still undigested, but the energy he had already absorbed was threatening to stretch his meridians to the point of collapse.
Kuei looked up; they could hear Timu dashing from branch to branch above them, his movements growing steadily more distant as the spiral of his search expanded. She frowned at Sunwhisper, and motioned for him to join her as she retraced the path they had followed back to the fence.
"Could have been the thief backtracked, giving us a decoy path to follow." She led him around to the front gate. "Might have known your habit of late night meditation, decided to use you as a red herring."
They came to the raven.
"Karasu!" she called, "Do you recognize this boy?"
The raven examined the young man carefully, and her black feathered head turned from one side to the other, her reflective purple eyes flashing with concentration. She cawed irritably.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
"This is not the face of the thief."
Sunwhisper had been holding his breath, but he did not release it all at once, not wanting to seem too relieved.
"Very well, young Makoto," Kuei patted him on the shoulder hard enough that his knees almost buckled. "You can go, but you may expect a visit from me soon for a more thorough interview."
Sunswhisper bowed deeply and turned to go.
"Wait," the raven said, and he froze.
"Your aura. Interesting. Sometime, some morning, come. See you in the light."
"As you say, wise one," Sunwhisper replied, and did his best not to hurry away. Kuei watched him for a moment, noting the hitch in his step from the injured ankle he was obviously trying to hide, then she returned to her partner to continue the search. A thief could not run forever, as the tattoos would mark them for what they were even if they traveled to another town or into Hinterland or the Middle Kingdom. Thieves were not welcome anywhere until they had paid their debt.
Kuei felt bad for the young Makoto. Handsome, tall, and in good physical condition, he must have had quite the life in the Middle Kingdom. But he had done what young men often did in those places, pushed too hard too quickly and burned out. He was still pushing, and it would have been admirable if it wasn’t so pathetic. Kuei didn’t have any illusions about Fringe. Because of the limitations imposed on the area due to the risk powerful cultivators posed to the Soma crop, many of the artists who grew up here didn’t realize how small they were compared to what was out there. They grew complacent, as she and her partner had grown complacent.
As a young woman, Kuei had dreamed of going to the Middle Kingdom, but seeing young Makoto made her glad she had never tried. There was only disappointment waiting for small people like them in the greater world.
"Never bite the fruit that is higher than your hand," she said, and took to the trees.
Sunwhisper collapsed halfway home, took several long moments to gather himself, and lurched back to his feet, forcing himself to keep going. He was such a novice, it was difficult for him to channel and walk at the same time, but he had to try. There was a real risk that he was going to damage himself in the way everyone already thought he was damaged.
For experienced cultivators, mana could flow like a river through their meridians into the ocean of their core and it would only add to their potency. For a novice, too much mana meant one’s channels could rupture, or even the core itself.
But he couldn’t have taken the fruit with him any other way, and he had wanted as much as he could hold. Sunwhisper crawled back in through the window of his bedroom and sprawled out face down on the floor next to the bed, pushing himself as deeply as he could into the meditation technique to control the raging flow of energy that was stretching his newly expanded meridians to their limits.
As it was, it took his complete concentration to regulate the flow.
He had not realized how much mana was in the fruit, or how much more efficient it would be to eat the Soma that shared his color affinity than one that didn’t match.
Mana filled every channel in his body, and burned a bright and golden light in the center of his core as he regulated the flow with the pattern of thought and will that had been prescribed by the Makoto’s initiate scrolls.
Morning came to the house of Jin, and as he heard the family stirring, Sunwhisper had had no rest. Normally, he partitioned his mind so that part of him was defragging, the mechanoborg equivalent of sleep, while still remaining partially conscious. But managing this much spirit energy required his full attention.
He didn’t even notice Janna entering his room and finding him on the floor. She knelt beside him, and oddly, seemed to check his arms. There was dirt under her fingernails, an unusual oversight for such a meticulous girl, especially this early in the morning.
Sunwhisper sat up. "Why are you in my room?"
"I’m sorry," Janna stood and gave three short bows to add emphasis to the apology. "I was worried, and you were on the floor."
"What were you worried about?" Sunwhisper found himself checking his own arms, but of course, there was no sign of the thief brands that had been inscribed there the night before aside from a few tiny specks. The tattoos had been effectively broken down and incorporated into his skin.
"I heard you come back late last night, when there was no reason for you to be out." Her hair was up, and she was dressed in plain work clothes, prepared to help their mother with the herb collection and refinement, something they did to support the family apart from the windfall of the Reaping. "Then I heard about the theft."
Sunwhisper said nothing.
"The elder’s warehouse was ransacked last night," she said. “There isn’t a bird in town that isn’t singing about it.”
Ransacked seemed like a strong word for a few pilfered fruits, but Sunwhisper was not in a place to disagree.
"That is terrible," he said, "but what does it have to do with me?"
"Nothing," Janna said, frowning. "I had a foolish thought, and should have known better." She brightened. "You look so much better! It was like you were never attacked."
"It was not as bad as I thought," Sunwhisper said, rubbing his back and pretending to be sore. Channeling so much mana had a secondary effect, speeding the recovery of the injuries replacing his disguise had not repaired. Even his ankle felt better,
"Still," Janna said, "you should not push yourself too hard. Why were you on the floor?"
"Oh," Sunwhisper forced an awkward laugh, and sat on the bed "it helped my back. I think you are right, I may take a walk today, but otherwise, I should rest."
Janna smiled at him. "That sounds good. Let me know if I can do anything for you." She left, and Sunwhisper again found himself unable to comprehend her shifting attitudes. None of the Jin were particularly fond of him, or so he’d thought. It wasn’t that they disliked him, but he was a stranger in their home, and a known failure, two strikes against his name. He pushed it aside. These people would not be a part of his life for long if things went as he planned.
He had ignored the notifications from his status screen through the night, but now he had enough processing power free to deal with them.
<<<>>>
You have accumulated enough Dao to advance. Will you develop your Physical or Mental statistics?
<<<>>>
There was also an option to abstain and let the unspent ranks remain floating, but Sunwhisper already knew what he needed. Strength was important, but it could wait. He needed to increase his Ego and Constitution to help him channel all the fruit he had stolen as quickly as possible. One fruit and one night had done more for his Dao Rating than months of regular meditations would have accomplished. He had improved to the point where he felt he was ready to try some of the more advanced meditations Makoto kept in his personal library.
<<<>>>
Sunwhisper (Mechanoborg Ne Plus Ultra)
Strength: *2
Dexterity: *2
Constitution: *4
IQ: *6
EQ: *1
Ego: *6
Dao Rating: 527
<<<>>>