The blonde girl rolled over and watched Yi Cao as he picked up Zihan’s bottles and stuffed them into the wallet. Dark eyes followed him as he moved around the room and he did his best to ignore them. He found a bottle that still contained a few mouthfuls of liquid and swilled it before he gave the bottle a sniff. He grimaced at the alcoholic fumes and dumped it in a corner of the room opposite his bed.

He met the girl’s eyes, briefly, as he turned, then avoided looking at her as he continued cleaning up.

The bottles on the bedside table clinked as he cleared them away making the dark haired girl toss in her sleep.

The blonde sat up, pulling the blankets around her waist and arching her back as she stretched. “You some kind of servant?” She asked.

Yi Cao found his eyes drawn to what the blankets didn’t cover.

She covered them with one hand and Yi Cao blinked several times before pulling his eyes up to the pair of dark eyes that regarded him. She smiled.

“Easier to focus this way?”

A flush crawled up Yi Cao’s neck and he jerked around. He started picking up bottles again.

“Toss me my shirt, will you?” She pointed. “It’s the white one, on the floor.”

Yi Cao found it. It wasn’t much. Enough to cover, but only barely. He handed it to her without looking, very aware of the heat moving up his neck.

“Thank you.”

She took it from him and he listened to her put it on while staring at the bare back of the other girl in the bed beside her.

“There.” She said. “You can look now.”

He did.

The shirt covered very little. Just enough.

He returned her smirk with a scowl.

She cupped one breast. “Don’t tell me you’ve never seen a woman naked before.”

He looked away. There were only four bottles left in a corner of the room and he bent to scoop them into the wallet.

“Must be new then.” She said, as though confirming something to herself. She stretched. Yawned. “Zihan said you do what he asks.” She said as she reclined back on one elbow. “Is that true?”

Yi Cao lifted the last bottle and found himself staring at the emblem pasted to its side depicting a woman’s sinuous form poured into a cup.

“Only sometimes.” He replied without turning around.

He was gripping the bottle too hard. The thing was only half empty so he upended it and shook it out where he was before he shoved it into the wallet.

“And if I asked you to bring me breakfast?” The girl asked.

Yi Cao glanced at her with a scowl then around the room to make sure he’d gotten the last of the bottles before he yanked the door open. “You’re on your own.” He told her, then snapped the door shut and stormed down the hall before she could reply.

It took him several tries to get the wallet closed as he walked. The controls were still unfamiliar and he needed to slide his hand down a control surface on the outside edge to deactivate the glowing screen of darkness before the thing would close.

Ki tickled at his channels as the wallet closed and he studied the crystal surface while contemplating the contents he’d seen so far. Some junk, and A sect’s worth of treasures, all in the palm of his hands. Enough to take him well into the second testing, or to take him home. If he abandoned his cultivation.

He flipped the wallet once or twice. Watched the light glint from the crystal panel on its front.

He reached up to touch the pendant at his neck. Tried to pull at the Ki he could feel emanating from the stone and felt the Ki in his channels respond sluggishly. Moving cultivation was always difficult but when he tried to start the process that would have him cutting channels in his foundation his whole network of channels twinged with pain and a deep ache suddenly pulsed through his body, like a headache that effected every inch of him.

Ki deprivation, he realized as he stumbled. Enough Ki in his system to keep from falling on his face, but not enough to cut new channels, or even to enforce himself where his incomplete foundation might have allowed it.

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“Excuse me.”

He’d stopped in the middle of the hall.

Yi Cao took his hand from the pendant and stepped hurriedly aside for an exhausted laborer to squeeze past him in the narrow corridor. The man’s head hung low as he walked and he had deep bags under his eyes that had nothing to do with technomancy or body augmentation. When he’d disappeared Yi Cao’s hand drifted once more to the pendant. He stood contemplating the Ki he could feel tickling the palm of his hand before he pulled it from his shirt and looked at it.

The air still rippled weirdly around the skin of the double spheres chained around his neck. The ripples were nothing like the intensity when they’d first pulled it from its case, but they were still there.

He tried to pull again and felt his hand tighten around the wallet when he felt the same ache of Ki deprivation ripple through his channels.

The pain was almost as bad as when he’d made his oath to Zihan.

Almost.

He touched the black script cut into the stone by Zihan then let the chain drop and tucked Zihan’s wallet into his technomancer’s robes before continuing into Te’Klub’s common area.

TC remained at the table where he’d seen him before his adventure to the facilities. The bald mut had a hand to his forehead as he leaned heavily on the table, a smoker stuck between two clawed fingers while he picked at a plate of something yellow and gelatinous with green and gray flecks distributed within.

“No Zihan?” Yi Cao asked as he pulled out a chair across from him. He sat heavily and TC seemed to recollect himself as he pulled his head from his hands and looked around.

“No. No.” He said when he’d caught sight of Yi Cao. “Forest Gods. The way he does pleasure, I’d be surprised if he woke up in the next century. I don’t think I’ve ever smoked so much in a single shift, and I’ve definitely never drank as much as he did.” He took a hit from the fuming stick in his hand then looked at it as though he hadn’t realized it was there before giving it a flick and waving a hand in front of his face to clear the air.

Ki Deprivation punched Yi Cao in the head again and he realized he’d tried to cultivate again, like picking at a scab just to see if it still hurt. When his vision cleared he found TC studying him across the table.

The half-goblin nodded at Yi Cao’s chest. “Some kind of breathing stone?” He asked.

Yi Cao felt his hand around the source again and shoved it back into his shirt.

They sat there in silence as Yi Cao tried to think of some obvious lie.

“Just an heirloom.” He managed after a minute. He grimaced and TC eyed the lump underneath his shirt then shrugged and took another hit from his smoker before scooping a bite out of the gelatinous mixture in front of him.

Yi Cao felt a little sick, whether from his attempts at cultivation despite his Ki deprivation, or the smell of TC’s smoke mixed with whatever nauseating mess he called breakfast, or the simple fear that he’d sworn an oath for nothing, he couldn’t say. None of it seemed very good.

Zihan arrived as Yi Cao focused on his breathing with head cradled in his arms.

“An adventure. Like you said.” The Young Master pulled out his own chair and dropped into it. “I thought it was going to try and kill me near the end.”

Yi Cao sat up and Zihan riffled the pages of the welcome manual. “Useful book.” He said. He tossed it to Yi Cao who caught it before it fell onto a floor that stuck to his feet with every step. Zihan nodded to the book. “Get it from that library?”

Yi Cao nodded.

“I’d like to borrow it from you again.” Zihan said as he plucked the smoker from TC’s hand and took a hit. “Finish the section on the four races here.”

“I wasn’t finished with that.” TC protested.

Zihan blew smoke at him while the half goblin frowned. He grinned, then turned back to Yi Cao.

“You should read that section too if you haven’t yet.” He said. “I’ve read plenty about the eight, but that has some practical details I’d never heard before, particularly about the Kispuhru, and a few details I’d never heard about the Talyaya before.” He took a slow contemplative pull from the smoker while the ember at the tip turned cherry red and sizzled. “Might find our section of the book amusing, too.” He added, and let the smoke billow through his teeth as he grinned.

Yi Cao nodded again and pulled the little book into his robes. “I’ll do that.”

Zihan held out a hand and twitched his fingers. “Vault.” He said.

Yi Cao handed the wallet over as the short bartender appeared at their table, idly rubbing a cloth around the inside of a greasy mug, making it greasier.

“Breakfast!” Zihan announced when Izzi asked him what he wanted, he waved at Yi Cao. “For two.”

TC held up two fingers. “And a smoke.” He said, pointing them at Zihan. “On the cad.”

Zihan smirked and blew more smoke into the air between them.

“Cooks in bed this shift.” The bartender told him. “Protein pudding is what we got.”

Zihan waved a hand. “Fine, fine. Girls will want something later too. Make sure you get them when they join us.”

“Whatever you say. You want Get Up or something stronger with that?”

“I am up,” Zihan said, “so, I think I’ll take something to put me down instead.”

“Same as last night?”

“Heavens no. That shit was rank.” Zihan sucked on his stolen fume stick contemplatively. “Something good this time.” He said. “Stronger.”

Izzi nodded, his huge ears twitching. “Be more expensive.”

Zihan fiddled with his smoker, tapping out the ash as though it were a delicate operation requiring both hands. “Not a problem.” He replied.

Izzi tossed his greasy rag over one shoulder and jumped down from the chair he’d mounted in order to talk to them. “Be just a moment.” He said, then stopped and glared a Zihan as Zihan put a hand to his diminutive shoulder. “Something else, Young Master?”

Yi Cao tensed at the mockery in the bartender’s voice, but Zihan just put a fist to his mouth and cleared his throat. “Yes, bartender. One more thing.” His voice took on a stentorious note, loud enough for anyone in the relatively busy bar to hear. “Is anyone here hiring for a shady enterprise? Perhaps, a less than legal yet lucrative or well paying venture?”

He looked around the bar as people and person-things turned to stare at him. Yi Cao clapped a hand over his eyes as the Young Master gave the bar a grin.

“No one?” He asked. “Excellent, well…” He turned back to the bartender. “If you hear of anyone, please do send them our way.”

The bartender snorted and pushed Zihan’s hand away from his shoulder.

“Whatever you say kid.”

He disappeared to prepare their food.

“I think it’s time we found some real trouble, don’t you?” Zihan asked while Yi Cao kept his hand over his face. “After all. It is why we’re here.”

When Yi Cao removed his hand he found Zihan smiling at a scowling TC.