With a grunt Silas rushed downstairs. He went to some hooks they had by the door and reached for a couple of things that belonged to his wife. First was her scarf with fall coming it would get cold at night, but truth be told it wasn’t something he actually needed. It was something more personal, something he didn’t want to leave. He reached out and grabbed the cloth that belonged to her, the long scarf she wore to protect herself from the cold and the sun. The deep purple fabric was a thick cotton, and it was extra long.
He held it to his nose and breathed his wife’s scent in deep. She always smelled like a fresh open field with a hint of spice in the background from the herbs she worked with all day. He took a minute and told himself. No, he told him he promised himself he’d find her. Silas pushed those thoughts from his mind now. They wouldn’t help him now. He wrapped the scarf around his neck a couple of times and then made a hood with some of the fabric. The scarf was so long it still draped down the front of him.
His eyes cleared he grabbed the last thing of hers she hung on the hooks. It was a simple brown leather satchel she’d wear over her shoulder. He particularly liked when she would wear the single strap across her chest and Silas grinned a little despite everything going on with the memory. He closed his eyes letting the memory burn itself in his brain and he gave a small devilish chuckle. It took him a minute but eventually the deviant moment passed and he opened his eyes before he moved over to the couch to dump whatever was in the bag out.
The bag was mostly empty, just some small glass containers that had random clippings. He assumed it was things she was planning on getting into the next day when she worked in her lab. Silas frowned and looked them over. He didn’t have any idea what they were and then he looked towards the ceiling of the room. Silas imagined he could see the raised beds in her lab upstairs and thought of going up there to take some herbs. It was only a passing notion. He did not know what any of them were. As far as he knew some of them could have been simple spices she used in cooking.
“Blegh,” he gargled and wished he paid more attention to her when she explained what he was helping her with when she used to recruit him to help move around herbs and plants in her gardens. He finally shook his head and moved to the kitchen.
“Let’s just grab the things you know will be useful,” he chided himself as he dug through the cold box and cupboards in the kitchen.
They had little in the way of easy to transport foods for travel but they had some. Silas found some salted and smoked nuts, some dried meat, even some aged hard cheese. He reached for the cloth napkins they had always set on the counter and wrapped everything up before he set it in the messenger's bag. After that he found some hardened clay bottles with water in them and maneuvered them in the bag so they’d be on the bottom. Satisfied this was all he’d need he slung the bag over his shoulder and then headed back upstairs for his hammer.
Only a few minutes later and after an exhausting amount of strength used, he knew he knew he had to do something. He made his way for his foundry to make the hammer lighter than it currently was. Not only was the weapon physically heavy, but it was also spiritually heavy. The stones he used from the earth spirit beast to enchant the weapon was from a bear well into the spiritual realm of cultivation. It was always hard to judge the beast's spiritual level, but the bear was strong.
It was a hellish fight when the bear terrorized merchants coming and going from the village. At one point people wouldn’t even travel until Silas had done something about it. He brought one monk from the town guard to help him offer backup and support and he was glad he did. He reminisced about the simpler time back before he had an apprentice and it was just him and his wife trying to lead a quiet, peaceful life and try to have a family.
Silas threw the hammerhead on top of a table with a loud grunt and scoffed. Something else he failed at. His mouth got a nasty taste in his mouth as he reached for some metal working tools. Hikari wanted a child, and Silas wanted nothing more than to give her that. For some reason the Heaven’s and the Universe never allowed it. It was part of why he took Reiko in to begin with.
He began carving runes into the hammer. Small intricate runes with slight curves that would call the aether to the weapon. They were runes that would call the wind to the weapon to help make it a little easier to carry. It would end up making the hammer feel a little lighter by using the wind to help carry it. He had to make the runes light. It wasn’t something he’d be able to draw upon and use in battle. They’d interfere with the spirit stone in the weapon too much.
It didn’t take him long, he didn’t carve them too deep. When he was finished, he looked over the runes in the weapons and cleaned out the metal shavings by blowing and then wiping them away. His work was… Silas sighed. The work was fine. He knew runes, but he didn’t concentrate on the craft. He worked on beating metal with a hammer shaping it to his will. That’s what he enjoyed doing. He left the more intricate run carving to the arcanists, the people who used runes and spirit stones to make peoples’ day to day lives easier. They’re the ones who made lamps who would last the night and the ice boxes people used in their homes.
Silas shrugged and lifted the hammer from the table. The runes didn’t work as well as he hoped, but they’d be serviceable. He could already feel the difference in the observed weight of the hammer. Not that the hammer wasn’t actually lighter, it was just easier to lift and move for him. He slung it over his shoulder and headed for the door. He turned before he left and gave one look around the foundry and wondered if there was anything in here he should take with him.
“Blah,” he grumped and left. Anything in here would just weigh himself down. He slammed the door in frustration and went to the last place he wanted to check before he left the village. Reiko’s house. He was sure the boy or his parents weren’t there, but he wanted to look over and just check. The master was here and walking around, so maybe his apprentice was there as well? He knew it was foolish, but he still had to check.
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A little while later he exited Reiko’s house disappointed but not surprised. He found some extra travel rations and took them. Silas hoped they wouldn’t care about the theft if they showed up as if the entire village was on some excursion that they didn’t bring him along for. The cultivator tried to not think about how stupid that was as he walked back through the village where the mountains on one side and the hills that separated the town from the water both ended. In the geographical opening were the farms and he walked through the remaining fields that were still waiting to be collected.
Silas looked out over the fields and then to the sky. It was past its zenith and it had started its descent to bring the night. It was going to get chilly tonight, he could feel it in the air, a slight chill in the breeze that blew around him. One last look back at the village and he played with the idea of sleeping there tonight, maybe in his own warm bed. He’d get an early start up and through the mountains to the sect in the morning. It might have been the smarter thing to do, really. He sighed though and shook his head.
No, it would be too weird, the day was too weird. Laying in his bed without his wife's presence in their home. Without even knowing where she was. Was she even still alive? Silas sighed and looked down to his boots. She had to be. He looked up now back at the base of the mountains and started his trek.
Before the man went three feet though his vision blurred. There was a black haze around him. It moved in like a fog that seemed to come in from nowhere yet everywhere at the same time. Silas rubbed at his eyes and blinked and wondered if this was something that came along with the lessening of power he had been feeling in his body.
It took several moments, but the fog cleared and was replaced with a sort of vision. A scene unfolded in front of him. He watched a large, well, Silas wasn’t sure what it was. It was some sort of creature that stood almost as high as the nearest mountain. It was black as night with glittering stars in it and Silas recognized the vision for what it was. It was a memory of what happened.
The creature was like a nightmare come to fruition. Silas squinted through the black fog and wondered if the creature had legs. The fog came from the creature itself now he realized. It shrouded what would be the lower half of the monster. As it was, it leered over the village, just a black mass with a head that poked out from it. The head didn’t really appear to have eyes or a nose but it had large snaggy and gruesome teeth that it showed with its gaping maw.
The arms of the thing were hulking and reached down towards the village. Along with the two very distinct arms, it had kraken sized tentacles that flowed behind and around it. A roar resounded through the mountainside and the nightmare raised its head. Silas realized it was actually directing its anger and malice towards something and he turned and looked.
Silas gaped with what he saw. There was a small group of cultivators that included his wife at the forefront. It was her, the few monks they had from the Clear Lake Monastery, the other master from the village and then at the rear was Reiko. Silas staggered when he saw his apprentice there at the rear of the group holding the picks Silas made for him.
Finally he looked at Hikari and grew a sad smile. The love of his life, part of the reason he turned his back to the rat race that was cultivation. She stood there swinging the rope dart that she used. That damn rope dart. It was always a menace to fight against. The weapon was a simple thing, a small dart on a chain rope she maneuvered and swung around her body both in defense and offense. It was a natural weapon for a wind cultivator like she was. When he looked back towards the sky, he saw the demon rush down towards the group from the Heavens. Silas sighed and shook his head. That must be where they were all now, the afterlife.
What was the afterlife that existed? No one actually knew. The wise men all debated. Some said the spirits just returned to the aether which is why people shouldn’t try to cultivate. Too strong a spirit and it would damage the balance of the aether. That’s why people said cultivation defied the heavens. Other so-called wise men said we were reborn. As what? Well, that depended on the life we lived when we lived. The Clear Lake Monastery touted this idea.
Others yet said that mortals went to a plane of existence and that depended on how they lived. Some would go to the Heavenly planes, while others might wind up in the very Hells themselves. Cultivators too, though depending on their power they might hold a seat of honor in that plane, whichever it may be.
Personally, Silas did not know what waited beyond the mortal realm. He’d leave the guessing and theorizing up for the wise men of the world. The man looked down to his boots and closed his eyes as he wished the vision would end. He didn’t need to see what had actually happened to him. Why didn’t the vision explain why he wasn’t there? He should have been in the front of that line of fighters ready to defend the village.
Silas spat. Village protector. He brought a hand to his eyes and rubbed at them once more, a single tear fell and hit the ground near where he spat. With a groan he finally looked up and the monster and fighters were gone. There was no trace of the vision he saw. There was just the empty broken down village that oddly, considering the size and scope of the attack he was surprised the buildings were still standing and left alone.
He looked back towards and up the mountain and then he saw one last thing that Silas wasn’t sure was a lingering part of the vision or something that was still there. It was a young girl. He couldn’t make out too many details of the girl, but she looked like she had her hair done up and she wore all black robes. Silas squinted and took a few steps forward but before he could squint and readjust his eyes, the vision and the girl were gone.
A grunt and he blinked several times rapidly. He was trying to tell himself he saw the girl. Beyond that he looked up to the sky and wondered. With a creature like that, and a girl in black robes. Could it have been one of the kami? He peered up into the Heavens and wondered. He knew what people said the kami looked like, and he knew the names of the beings that claimed dominion over elements and other things mortals cared about. Silas could think of only a few that would wear black like that going from the stories he heard. The thing that wasn’t explained was why in the world did it look like the night sky?
He had never heard of a night sky kami. Silas snorted with the thought and shook his head. He’d find out, he would find out and make the kami pay for whoever such a demon upon his home. He may not be a Celestial but he was Silas Zhao and the Heavens themselves wouldn’t stop him from finding out what the hell happened.