Fire and violence were not uncommon. Eithan never forgot the apprentice of the Shining Demon Foot sect[1] who made an obscene gesture to an adept of the Seven Fists Demon clan[2], or the hot oil, or plastic flesh remolding over bone.

As a child Eithan used to sneak into the teahouse where cultivators gathered. The beams of the teahouse were made of thick old wood that unlike the inhabitants did not easily burn. If in the course of a fight a brazier was bumped or a lamp was spilled and smoke began to spread the crowd would stampede to the exit.

Eithan was caught in one of these crushes. The panic, the scent, the suffocation and pressure, the sight of a Lesser Celestial[3] tearing through the crowd in order to reach the door first -- those too he never forgot.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

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[1] Repeated applications of Lesser Heavenly Pearl* powder onto small cuts leads to the creation of a rough layer under the epidermis, primarily calcium, an ersatz bone

* Only found in a certain oyster living in the depths of the warm north seas, huddled around the nutrients and oxygen that spew from metal stomata on the ocean floor. To create light in this dark certain creatures use a small bioelectric arc; when they encounter one of these bubbles there is a detonation that in unwary divers ruptures organs, cracks bone.

[2] For anatomical reasons sworn enemies of the Shining Foot sect. The name comes from the seven clan elders; the clan itself has only one punch.

[3] Below Lower Greater Celestials, above Higher Least Celestials