Dark eyes hid behind some rocks above a large cave entrance, watching forms leave it. There was a massive man with a top knot first, followed by a small girl wearing black with a hood over her head. The dark eyes knew who these people were, and they were its siblings, after all. Finally, the woman in armor and the man wearing a long coat left, speaking to each other.

However, just because they were gone did not mean that the white-furred snow fox leaped down right then. It waited patiently there, overlooking the mouth of the cave until the night was well set in. Once the animal decided there was no one around. It reached down and gently picked up a long stick.

The stick was a deep red, almost the color of blood, with streaks of black running through it. It was fatter on one end and got thinner on the other point. The kitsune moved its five tails swiftly as it pounced down sure-footed, jumping down the rocks on the side of the large entrance, holding the stick carefully in its mouth. It moved, sticking to the shadows even though it knew it should be all clear of anyone else. The cave was a magical place, and few knew of it even though it was literally in plain sight.

Once it was in the cave, it relaxed a little. Even if anyone had somehow accidentally seen the cave mouth, they wouldn't have been able to get inside it. The creature padded off past the large solid rock of a table with eight seats of that same material. Once it went a little further, it came to where the large central chamber of the cave split off into eight sections. The snow fox went down one of these chambers towards the end, one for each of the siblings giving them direct access to their lands from here.

As it moved, it seemed to shift. The tails disappeared, and the form shifted so it was walking on its back paws. Soon the kitsune was gone, and something that looked awfully like a young girl with short pink hair replaced it. Genki grinned her mischievous little grin as she slowly walked down her cavern, carrying the stick in her hands and looking it over with her bright eyes. She could hardly contain her excitement, and she had another piece of the wand. A portion of the wand that would give her absolute control.

What made her cavern special from her siblings was that she had created a little pocket space off her cavern. The most potent abilities protected it she could conjure, locking the area away from the visible eye. She was now holding out her palm, concentrating on her mana, and sending it into the world to open the extra space. The mountain moved now, sliding away and exposing a simple mirror that Genki stepped through without hesitation.

There wasn't much inside this little pocket realm she had made herself. There wasn't very much room. She couldn't make it too large without one of her siblings or her father catching on and destroying it. Just some bookcases with various mortal artifacts or relics that she wanted. There may have also been a thing or two from various siblings' lands, nothing major, things they never missed.

Then there was one almost bare shelf, though, with one thing on it, a simple small crystal orb. Even sitting there, a shadow shrouded it, and a black mist swirled around in it. That mischievous grin returned when she looked at it. A twinkle formed in her eye as she set the wand on the shelf next to it.

"Two of the eight," she told herself, and cackled a little menacingly.

__________________

Silas was in the middle of his camp, sitting over a fire. He had been here now. How long was it? Silas couldn't even really remember. Through the winter, anyway. It was still chilly out, though. It was always cold here in the north. He was holding his hands out over the fire, thinking of the past season. It had been hard, and there were times he didn't know he was going to make it. Thankfully, with his hunting skills and Leo at the Dagger's Sheath, he could survive. He traded the man's meat for some basic supplies and more healing elixir that time he had gotten sick.

He had built a small hut where his tent used to be. The large tree that was broken down was cleaned up, and he used the trunk as a table next to the fire pit he had fashioned. It was a decent little area, with lots of cover from the elements with the trees, and the water was close by. To get fresh water during the winter, he had to go out and chip out some ice into a bucket. He’d then set the bucket on the spit he made over his fire pit so he could drink and bathe himself. All in all, while not quite at all what he was used to, it worked.

Now with the snow thawing, and it had been some time since he had even tried setting foot into the city. He figured he'd be able to make a life for himself. He spent the winter thinking of what he could do, his mission, his entire purpose for even still being alive. Finding out what happened to Kyoto and Himari and Reiko, he had failed them once. He was hurrying down the path to failing them again. Cultivation-wise, he had only gotten worse. Silas went through the pills Master Eichi had given him, and he only worsened. He could barely cultivate or cycle. He was basically just a strong human at this point.

Standing now, he'd kicked some snow and dirt over the fire to put it out. He had put his giant war hammer away a while ago and kept it in the storage ring. It was too big and unwieldy for him in his current state, which still felt funny. Instead, he held a bow and quiver on his back for hunting and a dagger on his belt. Other than that, he really didn't need any weapons. No one bugged him out here in the woods, and they especially didn't come out here while it was snowing.

Heading out of the woods and to the main road, he walked along on it. Silas had lost some weight living on scrapes in the woods and was now not built like the power lifter he once appeared to be. He also no longer had the cultivation robes he had. Silas wore simple plain brown robes and had fashioned that polar bear he killed at the beginning of the winter into a heavy robe he now wore. The head of the bear was over his head, and he was quite the sight to behold. He looked dangerous now, but for wholly different reasons than he used to.

Approaching the city gates, he could blend in with a group of travelers well enough. The leader of the little group spoke to the city guards so they could gain entrance. Once the group was through the gates, Silas separated himself from them and began exploring the city a little. He stayed out of the higher-class areas and closer to the Emperor's Castle. Currently, he was checking things out and seeing where everything was. Before, when he was in the city, he just saw the High Road, as they called it. Or the road where the Castle was and the more affluent part of town. He was now with the laborers in the city, the artisan, the more straightforward kind of folk.

Mostly, he was just looking to see if any of the Mothers were in the city. It might still be too snowy along the primary routes for them to do much journeying around here currently, but if he found someone, they may help him. Seeing a little shop with a sign that just had that eye, Silas stared at it. It couldn't be that easy, could it? The seers didn't set up a shop like this, did they? He had never heard of such a thing. Silas walked to the door and stepped through it.

Once he was in, he quickly realized that the place was a fraud. The mothers traveled with young, powerful men who acted as their bodyguards, and none were there. Silas knew he shouldn't have gotten his hopes up. Then there was a petite form walking from the back of the shop. He knew it wasn't a mother. It was…

"Kio?!" Silas exclaimed, and his jaw dropped to the floor. He couldn't believe who he was seeing.

The beautiful fairy and fellow cultivator from The School of the Jade Mountains looked equally surprised to him. She grinned and stared at him. "The winter didn't treat you very well, did it?" She sounded concerned. They were friends, after all.

Silas recovered a moment later from the initial shock of seeing Kio and gave a bit of a sigh and a shrug. "I'm as good as with everything th…."

Kio stopped him and moved in, embracing him. "I'm sorry I wasn't there, Silas. Maybe we could have stopped what happened."

She knew? How could she have known what happened? Word had barely moved north of what happened. Silas's own sect didn't even know or register what had happened down in Okuhama. He pulled away from her and stared into her eyes, squinting his own, unbelieving.

"Silas, we need to talk." She frowned and walked to the door of the little fake Seer shop and locked the door. "Sit down," she motioned to a simple stool with a crystal ball on a small table.

Silas sat, finally removing the bear hat and setting it on the table in front of him, ignoring all the questions about the shop, table, and crystal ball. She moved and sat across from him in a large, plush, oversized chair made of black leather. "I think you know. I'm not part of any major sect, Silas. My friend William and I are a part of something else. I suppose it's still technically a sect, but we're tiny."

Silas sat there and listened to Kio's story. She went into the tale about how she's from a tiny faction that wasn't well known and could barely be called a sect. It was just a handful of people, all led by this mysterious old man they simply called Old Man. They called themselves the Beggar Sect and paid homage to a not very popular or well-known constellation, the Rat.

Silas scoffed at this. There were some who believed in this constellation in the sky, and others shamed the idea. They said the constellation had to borrow stars from the others to make it, so they didn't think it was real. Silas tried explaining this to Kio, and she laughed and nodded.

"Yes, it's there, and it does. It represents what we are as a group. We all hail from other sects or clans and have come together. The world is much bigger and deeper in cultivation than we thought, Silas. It would be best if you took William up on his offer to go to the Desolation. If anyone could help you, they could." Kio explained to Silas, who still looked like he doubted everything she was saying.

Silas scoffed. "The few days I spent in the wastelands were enough of the desert for me, thank you, and I thought about going with William. I had some things I wanted to try to do first, and then winter came." He frowned then and stared off, thinking of the beginning of winter when he first got here.

Kio nodded to him. "Yeah. I had heard about what happened." She shook her head. "You can still go down there. There might be more down there than you have here."

She knew about that as well? Silas stood. He was confused, angry, and more than a bit hurt. "You knew I was around?! You did nothing? I almost died!"

"Silas, I couldn't. I'm sorry. I only hear about things here because people come to me because they think I'm a mother. This way, I'm able to get some information from them. They couldn't see me wandering to the woods to find an old hermit and help him. It isn't what the Mothers would do, and you know it." Kio tried to explain, but it was like throwing a cup of cold water on a roaring flame.

"I almost died, Kio! I can't even cultivate anymore, and I'm broken!" Silas raged more. "Everyone in the village is gone! My wife! Reiko! Everyone!" He paused a moment after he mentioned his wife and then Reiko. Silas then slumped back to the stool, crumbling. This whole winter, he had never let himself feel the sting of losing everything and losing his entire life and becoming a hermit in the woods by himself.

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"I know, Silas, I know. Look, go back to your camp. Someone will come for you, and you can go down to meet the Beggars. I promise you, in due time, everything can be explained to you." Kio looked at her old friend sorrowfully. "I'd take you myself, but I can't leave yet. My work needs me here."

Silas, defeated, stood and left the shop. He wandered around the city aimlessly, not paying attention to where he was going or where he was. Silas was lost in his thoughts. Now that he had let those floodgates of emotions open when he was with Kio, he couldn't contain them. He was nearly bawling as he was wandering the city. The other people walking around steered clear of the deranged-looking man wearing a bear's head for a hat and crying.

He didn't wake out of it until he was across the street from the Emperor's Castle, staring at the front gates. He was out in front of the city guard's office, where he had been hauled in the night his father almost assassinated him. His father, the head of a sect and true ruler of this empire, tried to have him killed. Silas spent the entire winter feeling sorry for himself, and he had forgotten what brought him to this city in the first place.

Silas was a broken cultivator, and apparently, there was a way he could fix himself. Why wasn't Silas gone already? He didn't need to be here. Still, the snow was melting away. The passes should be mostly clear by now. He needed to take Kio up on her offer.

Silas snapped out of the depression fog he was in and went back to the lower parts of the city, looking for Kio's little shop once more. When he arrived, he knocked on the door, and a surprised Kio answered the door. They exchanged words, which was basically just Silas asking Kio if she had money she could lend him. If he was going off to join some new sect, he needed to look presentable. He would need fresh robes and some supplies for the journey.

"So, this means you're going to go?" Kio asked him, shocked, handing him a few gold pieces.

"I must. I have to find out what happened, and I must return to the sacred arts. This shell of existence. It isn't me." He told her with a new hopeful gleam in his eye. He took the coins from her, looking into her eyes. "Thank you, Kio, I will repay you." Then he left the shop practically giddy.

He spent the rest of the day buying some foodstuff and things he'd need on another long journey. The last thing he needed was some new robes which sent him to a small shop. He stayed in the lower parts of the city. Things were cheaper down here but were still of decent quality, just without the frills of the higher society, which demanded more money. Stepping inside the seamstress shop, he was kicked out immediately when the old woman saw him.

She was an old woman with a tight gray bun and a hunched back from sitting over her loom, working and making the fabric. She wore simple clothes, had a pencil behind her ear, and measuring tape around her neck. Everyone on this side of the city recommended this shop as somewhere to get clothing. They considered it the best shop in the city, even counting the fancier seamstresses in the upper city.

"Grandmother, I have gold. I just need some new robes," he explained when the old woman, who thought he was a beggar, grabbed a broom to shoo him from her shop.

The woman lowered the broom but held it at the ready. Gold changed everyone's minds in the end. "That's not very much." She accused, "What do you expect to get with that?"

Silas nodded to her and sighed. "Yes, I know. I'm sorry. This is all I have left. I needed to buy some food and things as well. All I need is plain robes. I'm leaving the city to join a new sect that has decided to take me in."

The woman glared at him. "You don't look like any cultivator I've ever seen, but those damn monkeys. You never can be sure." She then raised her hands in defeat and retreated into the shop. "Come on. I think I have something I can sell you for cheap."

Silas followed her into the shop and removed the bear cap once more since he was inside, and there was a pleasant fire on one side of the room. "Oh?"

"Yes, one of these damn dignitaries or something placed an order with me. Then decided since my shop isn't on the right side of town, he'd back out of the order." She shook her head and huffed. "They're plain black outer robes and gray inner. All lined with a deep purple color that's almost black."

She went to the back of the shop now, which was off limits to customers. Probably where the old woman worked her fabric and possibly even lived, depending on how much room was back there. He heard her fumbling around and some things falling. Finally, she came from the backroom with two sets of robes and set them on her counter. "Give me what you have left, and we'll call it square." She smiled and looked up at him expectantly.

Silas mulled it over for a moment. It was the last of his gold, but he needed the robes. An extra set of robes would be required eventually, and he was moving south into a desert known for its extreme heat. This bear costume he wore would not work out well once he got there. He crossed himself. Why was he even thinking this over? This is why Kio had given him the gold, to begin with. He set the gold pieces on the counter in front of the woman.

"Thank you, Grandmother." He told her and lifted the robes feeling the fabric. They seemed to be made from a reinforced fabric, and the material seemed rough. It would be tough for these robes to get dirty or anything. He looked at her curiously.

"Are you sure you don't want more for these, Grandmother? This is exceptional work." He asked her, looking her over.

The woman just smiled up at him and nodded. "Yes, they're of no use to me, and there aren't many people running around the same size as you. This lowlife who ordered the robes and then canceled when they were finished. I'll sit on them and not be able to sell them. If I don't sell them to you, or I'll have to tear them apart and reuse the fabric, and I'm backed up on orders as it is." She shook her head.

"They'll be helpful in your journey. That fabric doesn't allow dirt and filth to stick to it easily, and while it won't stop a blade, it might lighten the blow of a punch or something. Since all you cultivators seem to do is fight."

Silas laughed and nodded his head. "Yes, it is true. Thank you again, Grandmother." Silas then pressed his palms together and bowed to her lightly. Picking the robes up once more, he stuffed them in his pack and left the shop, heading toward his camp.

It took him the rest of the day to return to his camp, which was an uneventful trip. He got through the guard posts without hassle, since they only cared who was leaving the city if there was an alert. Heading down the road, he was mulling the possibilities of everything in his mind, wondering if he should get his hopes up. On the one hand, he trusted Kio. On the other, he wasn't sure he could ever believe someone could fix him. Master Eichi couldn't even do that, and the man was a legend.

As he approached and walked past The Dagger's Sheath, he saw some smoke coming up from a fire toward his camp. He could just make it out with the sky turning orange and turning to dusk. He narrowed his eyes. What the hell? Silas obviously wouldn't have left a fire burning while he went to the city. He didn't want to burn down his camp or the woods. He moved quicker now, almost running.

When he got to the camp, he saw a figure sitting on the large stump of the tree in front of the fire pit. Silas slowed once he saw the figure, wondering who it was. He wanted to keep quiet now, not giving whoever it was a clue Silas was approaching in case it was some attack. His eyes still worked better than an average person, and Silas just had to hope whoever it was didn't have ears as well as he had eyes. As he moved closer, he recognized the blonde spikey hair of the person on the stump and the robes he wore.

"Goodness, Silas, you're as loud as an ox in a tea shop," William spoke up without looking back at Silas and then laughed a bit.

"William, what in the world are you doing here?" Silas then walked up to the man and clapped the man on his shoulder after removing it from the hilt of the dagger at his belt.

William motioned to the fire and smirked, pointing to the meat roasting over the flame on the spit. "I'm makin' some dinner. What does it look like I'm doing?" he responded with a grin. "Found a boar while I was waiting for you and figured you could use a good meal."

Silas smirked, "right, I'm sure you came all the way back up here to feed me."

"Well, you do look like you've lost some weight, but no. Kio brought me back up and said you were ready to come down and could probably use some help to get down there to meet our little ragtag group." William explained.

Silas cocked an eyebrow curiously at William. How in the world could that be? He had just spoken to Kio a few hours earlier. Was he closer to the Desolation than he initially thought? No, it was much further south, and he knew that.

"I was already on my way up, and then I got a message a bit ago from her, so I figured I should hurry. It doesn't matter, Silas. What matters is that you're finally willing to learn some new things, which I guarantee you will." William looked at him seriously but then eventually grinned. "Come on. I brought some ale from that whore house up the road. Let's eat, drink and then get some rest. We'll head off in the morning."

That's what the pair then did. They drank and exchanged some stories of the world they had seen. When the pork was finished, they ate it and had some vegetables William had brought with him and roasted in the fire. This was the best meal Silas had eaten all winter long. When they had their fill of the food and then had drunk all the ale William had brought, they put out the fire and headed into his little shack. It was tight for the two of them, but they made it work.

When Silas lay down, William sat down in lotus pose and closed his eyes, breathing deeply. He was cultivating, and Silas could feel the flow of aura around him now. Silas just sighed and rolled over, closing his eyes.

"Do you no longer try to cultivate?" William asked without breaking his breathing rhythm or opening his eyes.

"No, there isn't any point. I can't do it, and if I try too hard, it hurts too much." Silas explained to him. "It's like there's a blockage. I took some pills, the Three Treasure Restoration Pill. They were supposed to help. Which they did for a short time, but they wore off a long time ago, and I can't find a bunch of phoenix feathers or dragon blood to remake the pills."

"Aye, I see. Well, I'm sorry to hear that, Silas. Maybe The Old Man will be able to help you out and get your channels sorted so you can go on to practice the Sacred Arts once more." William nodded reassuringly, though Silas didn't see it. He only sat there for a few more moments, then laid down next to Silas in the dirt. However, Silas could feel the aura still being manipulated as William cultivated. Eventually, though, he fell asleep.