“On your arrival, you no doubt noticed the huge variety of men and women who looked more like creatures than the typical people’s of the world you grew up on. Men with goat horns or salamander eyes, fur, and discolored skin. Scales. Feathers. Wings. These are the races of the Kispuhru, human beings warped by their priestess progenitors and the gift of the Udug worshipped in their world. Those you see on the station are outcasts, refugees, or, in some cases, servants sold to the station by their creators. Each has their own gifts, and some have brought with them the unholy faith practiced by their mothers. In general you can expect them to act like normal human beings but there are a few varieties that you should be aware of if you share a workshift with them. Keep in mind, however, that any woman can build an altar to Ab Basamaya if they know the rituals, and anyone can wear the nine horned tattoo of the Goat Lord if they perform the rites. Every gift of the Kispuhru comes from fertility magic. When it comes to avoiding trouble, the best policy is to keep it in your pants.”

— “Welcome to Aarrppaa station. Your new home” produced by the Terminal Heights Agency, office of Orientation and Re-education.

“I’m so excited.”

“Shut up Bo Bo.”

The pistol cackled quietly to itself while Yi Cao walked. Zihan glanced back from just ahead, his eyes twin sparks of light in the gloom of the maintenance tunnel.

“I offered you one that wouldn’t talk.” Zihan told him.

The pistol abruptly stopped cackling and its voice issued from the weapon at Yi Cao’s hip. “I’ll kill you.” It hissed.

Zihan gave it an unimpressed glance, then turned back to Yi Cao. Machines behind the walls hummed and the air riffled their hair as they passed bladed machines whirling behind wire cages.

Yi Cao shook his head. “I already made my choice.”

Zihan shrugged and turned back to the tunnel ahead of them. Dimly glowing spheres of of lustrous copper clung to the walls on sloppy welds, affording pools of low level illumination. Just enough to move by, if not enough to properly see.

“I love you.” The pistol whispered in Yi Cao’s ear.

Yi Cao almost didn’t grimace.

“I can’t wait.” It said again. “This is going to be so much fun.”

Yi Cao put a hand on the butt of the weapon. “We aren’t even going to be involved.” He said.

“I wouldn’t so sure.” Zihan replied up ahead. “You should be developing a cultivator’s reflexes. This will be a good opportunity to see how far you’ve come.”

“Please use me.” The pistol said quickly. “Please, please, please.”

The Young Master glanced back over his shoulder. He grinned when he saw Yi Cao’s expression. “Cheer up.” He said. He fished in his pocket and removed a smoke stick which he lit, filling the narrow passageway with smoke flickering light before he shook out his thumb. “Feiruhn probably expects us to die. He did say there would be a couple of thousand.” He stuck his hands in the pockets of his faux armor pants as he walked deeper into the dark of the maintenance tunnel. “Just imagine his face when we return with the job done.”

A few thousand.

Feiruhn said the words like they meant nothing. Standing behind Zihan Yi Cao got a good look at the way he watched Zihan as he said it. The man studied Zihan like he was waiting for some kind of reaction. For fear, or uncertainty.

Zihan nodded without concern and Feiruhn crossed his arms over his chest as he leaned back in his chair. “We knew all about them of course. Yous don’t get a fae infestation without realizing what you’s dealing with. They don’t take much usually. Credit cards from the odd customer. Clothing. They like to take clothing for some reason, or to muss it up and smear shit on it just after it’s been cleaned. It’s annoying, but not life threatening. We leave out some liquor sometimes in front of the vents and that calms em down, but they’ve been getting rowdy, and the witches I called in said they had their own witch living up there. Got a whole settlement, as a matter of fact. Several thousand just a few turns down the vents. It’s like having an army on your front step. If they don’t like the music they take to chucking shit from the fans, or screwing with my machines. Theys robbed one of my dealers when he went to take a piss. Trussed him up and hung him upside down above the toilet with sealing tape. Man mighta drowned if we hadn’t found him soon enough. Broke into a girl’s room while she was sleeping and mighta done the same if she hadn’t… surprised them.”

The man’s knuckles tightened slightly, but Zihan seemed to ignore it.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“You called them Imyenki.” Zihan said.

Feiruhn nodded sharply. “Imyenki.” He agreed. “Normally we’s don’t fuck with an Imyenki nests. They’s pests. Six, seven inches tall if they’s big. Four inches normally. They never been welcome on the station, so they’s learned a lot of tricks. Hard to keep out of a place they’s wants into. Lotta traps around the places they want you out of. Experts say you chase em out with a team and they’s usually move right back in in a week. Usually no more’n a couple of hundred to a nest and they’s don’t usually like other nests of their kind. Sometimes kill one another. We got thousands though, and that makes them doubly dangerous.”

Zihan considered his finger nails then picked up one of the white stones from the Goh board between them. “And you want us to remove them?”

Feiruhn eyed him while Yi Cao studied the man in turn from his place behind Zihan. Zihan flipped the white stone in disinterest. Eventually Feiruhn’s posture relaxed and the old man flicked at the ornately scripted box to adjust some filter on its top, subtly changing it’s Ki output to amplify its aspect in the jerry rigged grotto.

“Sure.” He said. “You’s break em, and that’ll be a good start to our association.”

“He expects us to die.” Zihan said again as they walked down the maintenance hallway shown to them by a guard.

“Give them whatever they need from the armory.” Feiruhn told the man. “The illegal one. Scripted spears, explosives, armor, whatever they need.”

“We won’t need anything.” Zihan told him.

“You’s sure?” Feiruhn raised an eyebrow from his place at the door to his little grotto. “We got some nice things.”

Zihan smiled. “One of the benefits of coming armed to a meeting.” He replied.

Feiruhn shrugged. “You’re funeral.” He replied. He waved a hand. “Just show em the way then. Then have the doors opened and the fans turned off so we don’t smell it, and have a team in the lobby in case of unwelcome guests.”

“A team, he said.” Zihan noted as he pulled his smoker from his mouth in the long hall they’d been instructed to follow down a couple of bends. “If he needs a team just to keep them from causing trouble, he isn’t expecting us to finish the job properly, which can only end one way.”

The pistol hummed happily in Yi Cao’s ear as he followed in the Young Master’s footsteps.

“But why would he want us dead?” Yi Cao replied.

“Win win.” Zihan replied. “For him.” He popped his tobacco stick back into his lips and continued with his hands once more in his pockets. “Cultivators on this rock are a persecuted tribe, one Feiruhn obviously depends upon. We die and he doesn’t have to worry about us stirring up trouble for his organization. We trip any of the nests defenses and that’s one less booby trap he has to deal with when he sends his own in to clear it out.”

“But… we could die?” Yi Cao asked.

Zihan grinned. “Of course. It’s the whole point.”

“I will keep you safe.” Bo Bo whispered in his ear. “I promise.”

The coal at the tip of Zihan’s fume stick cast a low glow in the darkness as he took a contemplative drag while they walked. “Was a time I did a lot of stuff like this. Clear out spirit beasts, or take down bandit gangs.” He looked at the coal, then spat and stuck it back into his mouth. “Played traveling cultivator for a couple of years after I opened my first node. Pretended I’d run away from home, till my father got sick of it and stuck me in the Sect.” The coal glowed red again. Blue haze filling the hall until it fell behind them. “Best years of my life,” Zihan said quietly, “and the worst. Probably the worst. More than the best.”

They walked in silence for a while as the shadows came and went with each passing glow bulb tacked to the walls.

They came to a turn and Zihan stopped to toss his tobacco stub on to the floor.

“He’ll probably have more stuff like this for us before we can organize to take on the guild ship.” He said.

Smoke curled from the stub on the floor until Zihan stepped on it and turned to Yi Cao.

Yi Cao hesitated. “If, you need cultivation resources back home, isn’t the source you gave me, enough to pay for them? You made it seem like some kind of supreme treasure.”

Zihan smirked. “Of course it could.” He looked away, down the turn in the tunnel they’d stopped at. “I was just blowing smoke up his ass.” He seemed to think about it for a moment. “Smoke, up his ass.” He repeated, rolling the urdul across his tongue. “What a wonderful phrase. I don’t even know what it means.”

“And… the treasure?” Yi Cao asked.

Zihan looked back to him. He frowned as he considered Yi Cao. “I’m going to tell a lot of lies over the next couple of weeks.” He said. “It would be best if you didn’t take most of it too seriously.”

Yi Cao met the Young Master’s eyes and thought of his profession of trust to Feiruhn.

“I won’t.” Yi Cao replied.

Zihan nodded. “Good.” He clapped his hands together, then pointed down the tunnel. “This should be the last tunnel before we run into the little pests.” He turned back to Yi Cao with a grin Yi Cao didn’t trust. “Time for you to go and open negotiations.”

Yi Cao stared down the tunnel towards the side tunnel they’d been told served as the Imyenki’s gate.

“Negotiations?”

Zihan crossed his arms and leaned on the tunnels side. Fans rumbled further down the hall, forcing air down the long throat of the passageway. “You weren’t planning on killing them without giving them a chance to run away were you?”

Yi Cao stared down the tunnel and didn’t answer. After a moment he turned to Zihan. “And you want me to go and speak with them?”

“Of course.” Zihan replied. He smirked as he watched Yi Cao. “You’re going to be killing them after all. You should be the one to tell them why.” He glanced down the tunnel and thought for a moment before going on. “You’re a cultivator now.” He said. “A real cultivator, not the sad imitation they turned you into at the sect. Its time for you to take on a cultivator’s responsibilities.”

He looked back at Yi Cao and studied him. “If we were in the sect, an hour with that source I gave you would cost contribution points. Probably a lot. A billion, let’s say. So,” he nodded down the hall, then grinned, “for helping with this task, I will give you one billion contribution points.”

“But we aren’t in the sect.” Yi Cao replied.

Zihan’s smile grew sharp. “Then they’ll be contribution points towards the obligations of your oath.”

Yi Cao touched his cultivation with his mind, waiting for some twisting sensation from his oath. None came and he looked up to meet the twinkling light of fire Ki dancing in Zihan’s eyes.