Most cultivators who use an animal’s name do so to evoke a ferocious image. ‘Black Dragon Lo,’ ‘The Bloody Tiger Sect,’ ‘Wolf’s Fang Martial Art,’ these names bring to mind a savage bearing. Something powerful, but with a sort of majesty to them. When one thinks of dangerous animals, those are the first things to enter the average person’s head, whether they’re a mortal peasant or a powerful disciple.
But how likely was the average person to be eaten by wolves or tigers, in these modern days? How many had ever even seen these so-called savage beasts?
The truth of the matter was that if you were going to be murdered by an animal, it was probably going to be a horse or cow that took you out. Maybe a pig. Yes, mortal villages were menaced by all sorts of spirit beasts – but it had been some time since humanity had huddled together in fear of the dark, trembling as the night’s children bayed at the moon, bright eyes closing in.
Therefore… Bull. It wasn’t a name that evoked fear – but it should have been, if people were actually smart. It was a sort of joke, the kind that wasn’t funny at all. A tiger is as likely as not to run away when it spots a person, even a mortal. An angry bull? That would charge, even if you were a cultivator.
They weren’t exactly bright creatures. But did they need to be, when they were big, and fast, and could cave your head in with one kick?
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Waterfaller had always respected the power of fear, ever since he had first tasted it as a sharpie. It was, at least in his eyes, the most useful emotion. It was that small tingle on the back of your neck that alerted you to danger, that acidic panic that kept you moving when your limbs were leaden and weary.
That creeping dread, that forced you to see things that would otherwise slip into the background. Like, say, that the prisoner seemed to be predicting their guard schedule ahead of time.
[Nonsense.] Boil-Off-The-White’s mental voice was harsh, but in a subtle way, always hidden under a fuzz of amusement. It made talking to him pleasant in short bursts, but painful over the long run. [Look at him, sitting there. He hasn’t opened his eyes once since we got here.]
[I’m telling you, he knew we would be here today. There was no surprise in him, none.] Not even the smallest tingle, like you’d feel when your hair shifted in the breeze or at the sound of distant footsteps. [He was expecting us.]
[Or he just doesn’t care. He’s obviously meditating, something that requires emotional control.] His one nostril snorted, misting the air between them with fluid. He left the ‘you’d know that, if you could control your own emotions’ unthought, but Waterfaller heard it in the silence anyway.
His foot tapped nervously. [I don’t like it. What are we even gaining, by keeping him here?]
Another snort. [Stuff about his homeland.]
[Right, but what specifically? The grandmaster is playing this too close to the edge. You want to know what I think?] Boil’s reply contained no words, being only a strong negative feeling. [I think he should take this whole thing to Junk Dog, before it blows up. The guy already got out once, it’s just a matter of time before it happens again.]
They both looked to the alien, sitting in silence on the other side of the barrier. He seemed barely aware of his surroundings, but Waterfaller couldn’t shake the feeling that he knew they were talking about him, somehow.
Boil shook himself side to side. [I’ll say it again: nonsense. He jumped the boss while he was surprised, and still didn’t win. How’s he going to get through the barrier, hm?]
Waterfaller could only grind his teeth in near-silent anxiety. No idea. But I really don’t want to be in here when he does.
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It was Stickbug and Gasbag again today, just like he thought it would be. They were two of the more distinctive guards, neither one even slightly human; one looked like a sculpture of a person made from lengths of wood no thicker than a broom handle, and the other was just a torso and arms, floating like a jellyfish suspended in water. Neither really had a head, though Stickbug had eyes and a mouth on the top part of his abdomen. Gasbag just had a sphincter closing off his neck; Bull would have named him Asshole, but that name had been used up early by a much less deserving freak of nature.
The sight of his more unusual captors had unsettled him at first, but familiarity had worn down any squeamishness to mulch. You could only sit in a room with a jelly-skulled man so long before it became utterly mundane. Two hours, then it’ll be Lobster and either Butterfly or Shaved Cat.
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Then first thing tomorrow… Tiny and Fatty, he was completely certain. One out of a thousand, that was where he's put his chances of being wrong. He had never seen them take a shift together, but all the patterns added up. Tiny takes as many shifts as he can, while Fatty takes the same shift every third day, like clockwork. He had been waiting for this specific combination for a while. As for why…
Well, he had a theory. It was more gut instinct than anything, but it was corroborated by Lu’s experiences and what little he’d observed himself. These natives, they didn’t use spells, obviously… But they used something like spells, close enough that you could turn one thing into the other with just a little work.
But they don’t learn them the way we learn spells. Even a first realm cultivator would know a few different spells, even if they cast them like shit. He himself could recognise a couple hundred, though he only used like a dozen regularly. Then there were dedicated spellcrafters like Lu, who went completely nuts and might know a couple thousand by the time they hit the core realms.
But the natives? They definitely didn’t know a thousand spells, or a hundred. If any of them knew more than ten, he’d eat his festive green hat. Excepting the mind reader; he seems like the equivalent of an Elder. No, they had a small core of maybe three spells that were almost universal, and then one or two unique ones that seemed to be personal. The guards sometimes fought, though never enough to draw blood, and he hadn’t seen any of the wackier shit be repeated across individuals.
And – and this one was shakier, but it made so much sense – he thought that whatever weird effect made their bodies turn into that, it had some connection to those personal spells. There were patterns; guys with weird body parts tended to incorporate those parts into their arts, on a sort of thematic level.
Big head? Stronger telekinesis, or shields, or reaction time; arts that were more intellectual. More eyes? Some sort of sensory enhancement – or just eye beams, sometimes. It was ephemeral, more metaphorical than literal. But it was a pattern. One that was easy to spot was whether they talked with their mouths; if they did, they weren't too weird. His targets both did, and that together with other patterns he had seen over the last month… He was pretty sure that both Tiny and Fatty had simple, brute-force physical powers.
Things he could punch.
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It was right near the end of the shift, and Boil-Off-The-White was going slowly insane. Waterfaller was always paranoid to the extreme, but as the shift had gone on the man could just not. Shut. Up.
[Do you think his blood is made of poison? I bet it is, I bet he’s just waiting for us to get complacent before spraying us down. That’s why he’s dressed in green, it’s a warning sign.] The man’s excessive caution was usually not too hard to put up with – even amusing, sometimes – but today he really had something in his ear. [Like a tree. Trees. Do you think he can control plants? Did you know there are funguses that live on the surface of your skin? It’s obvious. Any second now, he’s-]
[Funguses are actually animals, Water. Not plants.] He knew better than to just tell him to shut up, that never worked. Better to divert him, force him to think for a few blissful seconds.
His clan brother turned to him, his eyes wilder that usual. [That’s a trap. It’s all a trap.] The ensuing rant was an unbroken stream of nonsense, completely disconnected from reality. The unsettling part was that he believed every word; Boil could feel it, sense his sincerity. Ancestors, please. Ten seconds of silence; I'll kill whoever you want me to.
He was already feeling ill from being in the desolate space of the prison cave, and the constant chatter was like a razor ghosting through the folds of his brain. He was hollowed out, tired, and it was starting to get just a little hard to think.
The area was completely devoid of energy, a spiritual desert. It made everyone cranky just to be in here, and fights between paired guards had been becoming more frequent. It felt like being a sharpie again, empty, an unfillable hole in one’s centre that could only be sated by stuffing everything you saw down your gullet. But he wasn’t a sharpie, and there wasn’t anything in here to eat.
[-So we should really be keeping lead out of other people’s hands. I used to know this guy, who knew this other guy, who could get lead foil for basically-]
A ripple in the darkness. [Water. Water!] The psychic noise stopped. [That looks like our replacements, shift’s over.] Thank all the Ancestors. That one felt twice as long as usual. He glanced at the prisoner, just to make sure he wasn’t doing anything while they were distracted, but the man hadn’t so much as twitched.
He turned back, reaching out to connect with whoever would step through first. But when the lead figure drifted out from the shifting black veil, it wasn’t either of the men they'd been expecting. [Grandmaster,] they both greeted.
Two Worlds Gestalt nodded. Behind him were Morelli and Eats-Only-Guts, who took up positions on either side of the man. “Boil-Off-The-White, Waterfaller. As you were; I’ve just come to speak to our visitor for a moment.”
Water was gone almost before they could react, slipping through the entrance without another word. Boil shook himself. Typical. I suppose he’s off to go buy up all the loose foil again. He started to drift forward, exchanging a pulse of emotion with Morelli – but he stopped for a brief moment as he passed the grandmaster, who was inspecting the prisoner from a distance.
[Water was really riled up by something.] Two Worlds eyed him, one brow raised. [It’s probably nothing. But maybe give him an extra once-over, yeah?]
He inclined himself in farewell, and received equivalent gestures in return. Then he was through the void, back out into the real world. Like every time, it was a shock; suddenly there were colours and flavours where before there had been none. He breathed, swallowing a little of the ambient emotion that drifted through the air like fog.
Fireblessed was here, as always, his eyes focussed and intense. Waterfaller was nowhere to be seen. [Pardon, brother. Did you happen to see..?]
[He screamed ‘they’re putting it in the water’ and bolted.]
Boil sighed.