Chapter One - Falling into a New World

Nie Ruyi

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Nie Ruyi scrounged in the bottom of her purse, the sidewalk painful beneath the chunky high-heels she’d worn to work today. Her steps jarred the bag, causing the bus pass she was searching for to slip away. A curse slipped from her lips, as she pushed away the little zipper-bag in which she kept her minor first aid kit. Grumbling, she continued the search as her legs carried her on the well-trod path to the bus stop.

After work, she’d headed out instantly, her spirits high thanks to the news that one of her favorite novels was deploying the first episode of it’s animated adaptation today. She’d intended on setting up a little watch party for herself at home, a nice bag of popcorn and some soda to accompany her squee-ing bliss. She was looking forward to seeing Teng Xueling’s introduction to the Imperial Harem and all the drama contained within.

The world seemed to drop out from under her. She looked up from her bag, alert with panic, thinking she’d missed a step, or perhaps she’d twisted her ankle and was falling. The truth was far stranger. Beneath her feet was a well of light so bright it blinded her to look at. She barely made out the lines and symbols that made it up, and she wouldn’t be able to say she read it and actually retained any of it. Then, the falling sensation changed into an odd sort-of floating instead.

Her hair, short and curled around her cheeks and ears, lifted in weightlessness, and she felt as if her bag weighed nothing on her shoulder. She didn’t have time to scream, or even the air to do so, a breathlessness stealing over her. Ruyi’s entire world collapsed into bright light, and then, as suddenly as it was there, it was gone.

The floor was hard and wooden when she collapsed on it, her bag dropping from her shoulder, her legs askew. A hiss of pain escaped her lips, her hands immediately going to rub her aching backside, which had caught her heavy fall. Her eyes watered with the light even as it faded, and as it did and they became accustomed to the new surroundings, Nie Ruyi wondered if perhaps she’d died.

After all, how else could one explain closing one’s eyes on the sidewalk next to a busy street, only to open them in a candle-lit room with rice-woven mats for flooring and red-painted walls? How else could one explain having been (mostly) alone on a sidewalk, only to open one’s eyes to the staring, concerned faces of people wearing ancient clothing all around you?

“Um…” Nie Ruyi managed as her intelligent first foray into this situation, “Where am I?”

This broke the staring faces from their surprise and some of them turned to converse with each other. Two stayed focused on Nie Ruyi, however, never leaving her face. One was a woman who looked in her early thirties, a soft curve to her cheeks speaking of an excess of food for most of her life. It made her no less beautiful, for her lips were well-shaped and her eyes kind and sparkling. Her hair was worn in a style Nie Ruyi had only seen in xianxia anime and historical dramas, a complicated bun high in the back and the rest a free-falling black curtain. This woman wore robes that seemed to shimmer and shine, some of the cloth so fine it floated on the breezes like spiderwebs in the early morning.

She was the one who spoke first. “Welcome. I am Lao Minghui, leader of the Severing Firefly Sect. We are currently in the Skies Hunting Caverns. This will, of course, mean nothing to you, as you are not from this world and do not know its places.”

“Oh.” Nie Ruyi managed. “I see. Then…. Uh. Why am I here? Can… Can you send me back home?”

Here a sadness grew over Lao Minghui’s face, and it created a squeezing ache in Nie Ruyi’s chest. “No, we cannot send you home. I am sorry. We brought you here out of selfish necessity, and for that, this one is sorry. However, our need is dire, and we would not have used the array, had it not been a life-or-death situation.”

“That-” Nie Ruyi didn’t know if that made it better or worse. “You…You can’t send me home. At all.”

“We can discuss the details later. For now, may I ask your name?” As Lao Minghui spoke, the whispers and curious mumbles quieted around them, a silence waiting for Ruyi’s answer.

“Nie Ruyi. I’m Nie Ruyi, and… I guess I’m stuck here.”

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Lao Minghui led Nie Ruyi from the room she’d been summoned in, helping her up and out of the blood-red circle. She’d seemed worried about Nie Ruyi’s state of dress, as she led the young woman down a hall and through several doors. Nie Ruyi had yet to see any windows, or any sign of the outdoors, but Lao Minghui had not let up with the conversation enough to let her search.

“You must forgive our followers, you see.” She’d started, after Nie Ruyi had cast a worried glance over her shoulder at the hangers-on that trodded after them. “Several of them are my assistants. One is my brother, Lao Xiaojun, who is acting as my bodyguard in this situation. And the others are curious students, warning to know what we’ve done and how it will help the situation.”

“What situation? You haven’t exactly told me why you’ve brought me here.” Nie Ruyi complained, chilled to the bone. It had been summer moments ago for her, and now, it felt as if someone had left the thermostat off in the middle of winter. She could only assume the others were dressed warmly because it was cold too. Lao Minghui even had a fur collar at her throat, and lining her wrists and shoulders. Nie Ruyi felt entirely underdressed in her silky short-sleeve blouse and above-the-knee ruffly skirt-and-tights combo. She hadn’t even brought a cardigan, because of how warm it was.

“I would prefer to discuss it in a more… controlled setting. The information is a bit sensitive, you see.” Lao Minghui concluded with a wave of her hand. “Are you alright? Ah, A-Jun, could you allow Maiden Nie to borrow your cloak?”

The man, square jaw tense and eyes narrowed in what could only be annoyance, removed the fur-liend thing and fair-tossed it over Nie Ruyi’s shoulders. While she had to admit it was much warmer than what she was wearing, it was also awkward. The cloak was incredibly long, and she worried about tripping over it. But, it was warm with reflected heat from his body and she wasn’t going to give up that warmth now that her tremors were slowing.

“Thank you, A-Jun.” Lao Minghui patted the young man on his entirely-too-thick shoulder, and he didn’t seem mollified in the slightest. He was still staring daggers at Nie Ruyi’s profile. The modern girl huffed out a breath that clouded in the cold air, and followed Lao Minghui once again through the cavernous corridors of this building.

Finally (thankfully for Nie Ruyi’s poor bruised feet) they reached whatever room Lao Minghui had been leading them towards. One of the assistants slid forward between the bodies to push the door open. Lao Minghui entered first, ushering Nie Ruyi to follow her. This put Lao Xiaojun at her back, and Nie Ruyi wasn’t sure she felt comfortable with the hulking man behind her. When she saw Lao Minghui settled behind what appeared to be a low desk, Nie Ruyi moved forward with quick strides and sank to the ground in front of it, wrapping the cloak around her as tightly as one might a blanket.

With a flicker of her fingers, Lao Minghui gave some kind of order that resolved itself into one of the assistants ushering all the other watchers out of the door, and closing it behind them. During this shuffle taking place, Nie Ruyi found herself looking around the room she’d found herself in. Delicately carved yet strong shelves held knick-knacks and scrolls (honest to god scrolls!). Little jade-colored tea-cups and teapots, vases filled with flowers that looked fresh, and a few odd things Nie Ruyi didn’t recognise lined every surface. On the walls were unrolled scrolls, paintings made with ink and brush. One or two even had calligraphy on them. The script (thank heavens) was readable, and seemed to be quotes from poetry. She’d never read those poems before, but Nie Ruyi had rarely read poetry anyway.

The pillow she’d sunk down on was fluffy and comfortable, even though it was on a floor, and the window to the side of the room let in a soft light filtered through tannish paper. Was glass not invented yet? Was it too expensive to make windows out of? She wondered what sort of world she’d landed herself in.

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A cleared throat called her attention back, and the assistant set a cup of steaming tea in front of her. Nie Ruyi gratefully went to pick it up, only for her fingers to sting at the heat of the porcelain. She still kept her fingers cupped around it, not quite touching, leeching the heat into her cold extremities. She turned her eyes up to where Lao Minghui was looking at her thoughtfully.

“During your stay here, you will be provided with anything you need. I already have some of my assistants working on getting your lodging and clothing situated. I am sorry that we caught you in such a state of… vulnerability.” It was like she was trying to talk delicately around something.

“...I was only walking home from work?” Nie Ruyi posited, confusion settling in like an old friend. “Thank you, I guess. I’m not like…. A prisoner, or anything, am I?”

“Heavens no!” Lao Minghui gasped, as if she were horrified by the idea. “Not at all. You are our guest, and hopefully, our savior. No, you will be treated with the utmost respect we can afford.”

“Oh.” Nie Ruyi felt as if the floor kept rolling out from under her feet. She didn’t understand any of this. “What am I saving you from, exactly?”

“A dragon.” The gruff voice came from the corner behind Nie Ruyi, where Lao Xiaojun had taken up post. He stood, back straight and arms behind him, a sentry against attack. Nie Ruyi wasn’t sure if he expected her to be doing the attacking or not.

“A… what?” Nie Ruyi couldn’t help the flatness of her response. A dragon? What sort of fantasy, DnD bullshit was this?!

“A dragon. Or… so we surmise. Honestly, it is a creature we have never encountered before. And anyone we have sent up against it has died. I myself narrowly escaped death only by the skin of my teeth. That was six months ago, and it still wreaks havoc across our lands. The beast is unknown to us, for it is unlike anything we have seen. It is too intelligent to be a basilisk, but has too many limbs to be a dragon of any type we know. It is too big, too magical to be a drake, and it has bested our best cultivators.”

“...Then what the hell do you expect me to do about it?!” Nie Ruyi exclaimed, her voice turned squeaky with fear. “I’m just a call-center jockey! I-I can’t even throw a punch, let alone kill a dragon?!”

Lao Minghui’s mouth shut with a click, and it looked as if her whole world had come crashing down. There was a terrible fear in her eyes that sent a thrill of cold up Nie Ruyi’s back. They were so desperate for help that they called on someone from a whole other world. What exactly were they facing?

“The ritual was meant to call someone capable of solving our problem.” The glacier in the corner finally decided to speak, moving forward to stand next to Lao Minghui. Lao Xiaojun stared down at Nie Ruyi with a look she could only classify as disgust. “You are the answer to the problem, whether you know it or not.”

Lao Minghui’s eyes widened, and she shot a look over her shoulder at her brother, only to turn back to Nie Ruyi and smile that gentle smile once more. “I agree. Perhaps once you re rested and know more of the situation, you will see what we see.”

Nie Ruyi sincerely doubted it. “Look…Dragons… They didn’t even exist in my world. The closest thing to fighting one I’ve ever done was read the Monster Manual for DnD. My DM didn’t even bring dragons into our sessions, because he said it was too cliche.” To which she had called him a hack, but still. “My job in my world was to sit at a desk and talk to people. I fixed their problems, and then they went on their way. I’ve never gotten in a fight in my life.”

A moment of uncertainty passed over her. Could she really say that with certainty? Shaking off that thought like a bad nightmare, she pushed forward. “I’ll offer what help I can, but I really, really think you should look into other options too.”

Lao Minghui was already shaking her head before Nie Ruyi even finished her sentence. “We’ve tried. The four closest sects are all too small to handle such a beast, and the largest sect we could send to for help we’ve alienated. They would not respond. The dragon grows stronger still, and it refuses to communicate. We don’t even know if the land it has claimed can be reclaimed.”

“What do you mean?” Nie Ruyi asked, confused.

“The air around it’s territory is poisonous.” Lao Xiaojun answered, sharp and cutting. “Too long in it and it cripples a mortal. Cultivators can stand to be in it longer, but not without effects.”

Nie Ruyi put away the term Cultivators for later perusal (without acting on the silent squeeing the world brought about in her brain), and focused on the other part of it. “Poisonous…Wait, describe the dragon to me?”

“...Those that have seen it describe it as having six limbs. Two of which are huge wings like a bat’s. It has dark scales, and a few have described them as green-ish. It has a fin from the center of it’s forehead all the way down it’s back, and it is the size of a manor house, roughly. We have been able to track it’s lair to a forest to the south, however, once in the forest, no one can seem to locate the creature itself.” Lao Xiaojun’s face held a more vitriolic version of the previous expression Nie Ruyi had clocked as annoyance.

Something niggled at the back of her mind, and she frowned at the desk, trying to think of it. “Poison…A forest…AH!” Nie Ruyi gasped, when she realized like a bolt of lightning what they were dealing with. “A green dragon! Probably ancient, if it’s that big. Wait…That’s not a chinese dragon though, and based on your clothes this is ancient china. …Have any travelers come through here?”

The sudden shift in topic seemed to throw the other two in the room, but Nie Ruyi was already up and running, figuratively.

“Really, there are only two possible reasons for it to be here. Either it grew up in that forest and you’re only just noticing it now because it’s expanding it’s territory, or someone brought it here. I suppose it could have migrated, but for a dragon that size, that old, it’d be hard to make it leave it’s territory, and then we’d have to consider what sent it this way in the first place.

“So the question is, has it just shown up, or are you just now noticing it?” She turned curious eyes to the other two, only for their stares to slough off her confidence. “What? …Am I talking too fast?”

“No. Not at all, it’s…We simply did not expect you to know what it was. Or to seem so certain before you have even seen it.” Lao Minghui explained, spreading her manicured hands as if to say she was beyond her depth.

“Oh. Well, uh…It’s… pretty easy? You said dragon, and then mentioned six limbs. So it’s not an eastern dragon, the kind with pearls and beards. It’s got to be a western dragon at that point. And it couldn’t have been a wyvern or a wyrm, because wyverns have two legs and two wings, while wyrms have four legs but no wings. So… Dragon. You told me what color it was, and the habitat, so I just… guessed.”

“Hmph.” Lao Xiaojun stared down at her and for a moment, Nie Ruyi wondered if her guess was incorrect. “We checked records in the area before calling you. There was a sudden uptick in missing people, but the forest’s poison blight hasn’t simply spread. It only began existing a few months ago.”

“Then yeah. It was either summoned here, or it moved from a previous lair somewhere else.” Nie Ruyi leaned back, feeling more comfortable with that answer. She shifts her numb legs out from under her, the tingles of circulation beginning, as she rubbed a hand up and down them beneath the borrowed cloak.

“Astounding.” Lao Minghui gave another of those kind smiles, although this one seemed different to Nie Ruyi. “Thank you, Maiden Nie. You have already proven quite helpful. Now, as I mentioned previously, you will be cared for while you are here. Your lodging will be taken care of, and you will be allotted clothing and hygiene items as we would one of our orphan disciples.

“While you are here, we hope for your assistance with ending the dragon. Should you succeed in this matter, we will be happy to grant a boon to you, equal to the destruction the beast has caused. Severing Firefly sect will take you in as an inner disciple, and you will have a home here the entirety of your life.”

“Wait…so you’re offering me a position as a disciple of the sect?”

“Yes. Its the least we can do after pulling you from your home so carelessly.” Lao Minghui moved a few things aside on her desk, and then pulled out what looked like a small pouch and dumped its contents onto the surface. “This is the base living expenses we afford to orphaned disciples. I’ve included three months worth here, as part of our recompense. Do you have any experience with the coinage here?”

Looking over the coins, Nie Ruyi felt a wave of frustrated confusion, and shook her head. This caused her to be treated to a small economics lesson. What she took away from it was that there were several types of coins to be used in various situations. After running through a few mock transactions with Lao Minghui, she was passed the coins in their little pouch.

“As someone who has not grown up in our world, we understand you will need some assistance, and so we have assigned an assistant to you. He’s an inner disciple, very trustworthy. If he gives you any trouble, you need simply speak to A-Jun or myself.” The sect leader waved a hand to designate the two of them.

“Oh. Thank you.”

“Think nothing of it. Song Fengling is a dedicated cultivator, and he’s also done rounds in the medical ward as well. He should be able to help you however you might need. If you wished to hire one of the outer disciples as a maid as well, you have the funds to do so there. Ask Song Fengling and he will be able to help you with interviews.

“That being said, as you have mentioned being near-helpless in combat, I will ask one of the Upper Disciples to take you in hand for some self-defense training. Until she deems you properly trained, you must have a guard, and for that, I’ll be entrusting my brother, A-Jun with your safety.”

“What?!” Twin echoes rang out, and Nie Ruyi flinched back when Lao Xiaojun turned his glare towards her instead of his sister.

“I cannot entrust our savior to just anyone, A-Jun, and honestly, Maiden Nie needs a face she recognises during this time. Surely you can feel for her, someone adrift and alone in a world she knows nothing of?” Lao Minghui turned her face to look at her brother, the full brunt of that sad, sweet frown on him.

He glowered at her in silence, and Nie Ruyi was about to speak up, to say something, when he gave out a gusty sigh and shook his head, “Fine. I will protect Maiden Nie.”

“Ah Ah! It’s Nie-Shimei now. She’s your martial sister now, of a younger generation. You must welcome her!” Lao Minghui said, smiling gently. Her eyes sparkled, lending her a mischievous look as if teasing her baby brother was something she just lived for.

“Fine.” Lao Xiaojun huffed, rolling his eyes in true little sibling fashion. “Nie-Shimei.” Lao Minghui nodded affectionately and then turned back to Nie Ruyi.

“Is there anything else you might need?”

“You said clothes were being arranged, but… I might not know how to wear them? I’ve never worn anything like what you all are wearing.” Her cosplay days were long behind her and she hadn’t put on anything more complicated than a dressy outfit since she was a teenager.

“Ah, that… could be an issue.” Lao Minghui blinked, before tapping her cheek with a finger. “I will have maids sent over the next few days to teach you how to dress properly. And after your bath tonight, one of the maids will teach you how to wear underthings properly. We’ll deal with all of that as it comes, however.”

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