Chapter Seven - Hiden Cave

https://i.imgur.com/xzisjky.png [https://i.imgur.com/xzisjky.png]

A powerful shove against her shoulders changed her direction, sending her into a tailspin so bad she didn't know which way was up or down. But it didn't matter, because by the time she realized she didn't know, she hit something hard and fast. The pain was a brief flash and then everything was black.

Her mind came back to her in fits and starts. Snatches of sound like a skipped record, Song Fengling's voice fading in and out bobbed against her consciousness. It was the pain that brought her out of it, sharp and believable. She opened her eyes, and light lanced through her like ice. "Oh... what happened?" She managed to groan, although to her ears it sounded a bit off, like she was slurring the words.

"Nie-Shijie!" Song Fengling cried, and there were tear tracks on the sorrowful face that shoved itself into her view. "Are you okay? You hit your head, it's bleeding pretty bad-"

"Okay, slow down, please. My head can't take it." She gasped, shifting. Nothing felt like it was grinding in her neck, so she lifted her head. Big mistake, the world swam, shifting like noodles in a bowl, separately and all together at once. "W-We need to stop the bleeding. Do you know any first aid?"

"What? I... What did you s-say?" The boy asked, and Nie Ruyi wasn't sure if his fear was because he couldn't translate the words because she was speaking English, or if he didn't understand them because she was slurring so badly that it wasn't recognizable as Mandarin, either. Either one, they had a problem.

"Healing. Do you know any field-medicine?" She asked instead, and when he looked relieved she realized it was because she was speaking English, not because she was unintelligible. He nodded, and she smiled and then winced as it pulled whatever injury she had. "Great, okay, first things first. Check my neck, see if you can feel any bones out of place. Don't push on them, be gentle."

His hands slid around her throat, and began pushing gently at her skin. A few minutes of awkwardness, and he reported that he felt nothing.

"Good. Okay, now, I can feel my toes and move them so we don't have to worry too much about spinal damage. Is there anything embedded in me in the front? My side hurts a lot. Am I impaled on something?"

"N-No, There's no blood there either." He answered, voice steadying with something to keep his mind on.

"Great! That's good, okay. H-Help me sit up." She lifted an arm, overjoyed when that particular movement didn't hurt. Of course, when Song Fengling pulled a little too hard on it, she hissed. Eventually, she was sitting up, leaning against Song Fengling's side. "Okay... Okay, we're good. I'm dizzy, and nauseous, which means concussion. But I'm conscious, I can feel my toes, and I remember roughly what date it is. My name is Nie Ruyi, and I'm 34 years old. We-"

"What are you doing, Nie-Shijie?" Song Fengling interrupted her monologue, looking at her with worry. She smiled, and patted his cheek.

"I'm testing my memory. Long term and short term. Name and age are stored in long term memory. I was about to describe our situation and how we got here, to test short term memory. It's... to make sure my mind is unhurt."

"Oh." He seemed so confused. His eyes left her face, and darted around the cave, which Nie Ruyi now recognised as her vision cleared. So they'd made it into the cave, and she had probably hit her head on impact. That made the most sense.

"C'mon. Help me up. We need to get deeper into the cave. If that person comes looking, we're easily spotted here. And we have to find the Dragon's egg. I promised..." She grunted in pain as Song Fengling lifted her from her seated position. A twelve year old boy was this strong? Nie Ruyi had underestimated how different Cultivators were from normal people.

"Yes, Nie-Shijie." He said, letting her lean on him as he walked them deeper into the caves.

"Sorry. I'm probably heavy." The drip-drip-drip of water from the stalactites punctuated their heavy, shuffling footsteps. Then she blinked, "Wait... How can I see? It's-Oh. That's nifty."

Floating over Song Fengling's shoulder was a little white light, like a firefly. "A talisman. Even Mortals can use this one. I'll teach you, if we get time." It sounded like a promise, on Song Fengling's tongue. She couldn't help but smile. The cave's path branched off, and they lingered for a moment, before she remembered something she'd heard a long time ago.

"Most people in a maze, take the left hand path. So we should take the right." She pointed, and Song Fengling stopped idling and took them in that direction. "If we get lost... at least we'll know which way we came."

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After the cave opened up into a large room, they continued right, until they realized it was a dead end. Turning around, they went left, and it took them down a long raw-rock corridor. Each time they went right, it ended in a dead-end quickly, little rooms filled with littered coins and detritus. But the coins grew and grew, becoming a thick carpeting, the further left they went.

When they started having to climb little hills made of coins, she knew they were in the right place. "Alright. Look for an egg, about the size of a human chest, most likely looks like a green gem." She ordered, before disengaging from Song Fengling and beginning the search herself.

The jangle of coins was the only music accompanying their search until, behind a pillar of beautiful white-gray stone, she found it. Just as she'd described, a beautiful green egg, the size of her chest. She lifted it into her arms, and it was as heavy as a toddler. She settled it against her belly, stroking the shell softly.

"Don't worry, little one. Your mother asked me to take care of you, and so I will." She crooned, hoping the little dragon could hear her inside. "Song-Shidi! I found it!"

The boy scrambled over the dunes of coins and found her pretty quickly. His eyes went wide as dinner plates when he saw the egg, and he crept closer, holding out a hand as if to touch. Nie Ruyi couldn't help but smile. "Go ahead. You can touch it."

His fingers brushed over the stone-like shell, and he gasped at how warm it was. She chuckled, nodding, "There's a very warm little dragon in here. It's our job to keep it safe now. Now, is there a way to get a message to your sect, to let them know we're safe, without letting whoever that was know we're here?"

Song Fengling looked down, concentrating for a moment. Nie Ruyi took a deep breath, pressing her aching head against the heat of the egg. "No... I don't think there is. We'll have to get back to the camp... Find a survivor who can fly a message to the Sect."

"...or you can." Nie Ruyi looked at him, her eyes lowered. She was getting sleepy.

Song Fengling shook his head, "No. Someone's got to keep you awake. You need healing, you can't be by yourself."

Nie Ruyi gave a rueful smile. "Ah... Smart boy. But neither of us will live long in here, without food or water. And we need help. I can't climb out of here again, I'm too dizzy. But you can fly. Fast. Follow the cliff, keep low and get out of the forest all together. Hopefully, our follower was distracted or killed by the dragon enough that you can get free." But Song Fengling seemed mutinous, glaring at her.

"Don't be stupid! A cultivator capable of slaughtering that many Senior Disciples, they're not going to be killed by a half-dead dragon. We'll hold out here. We can both survive a day or two without food, and we can gather water from the wall-drippings."

Nie Ruyi held up her hands, her arms still clasped around her egg. "Alright, alright. You win. We'll hunker down here for a while."

They didn't even have time to grow properly, stomach-rumblingly hungry before commotion started above. The ringing crash of swords against swords echoed into the cave, like disembodied specters announcing their presence. When the first bits of them happened, the two had migrated closer, and Song Fengling had suffered Nie Ruyi putting an arm around his young shoulders and pulling him so that she was in front of him.

Nie Ruyi wasn't sure if the clashing was getting closer, but it was certainly accompanied by more yelling, as time went on. Eventually, their caution was thrown to the winds, as they crept closer to the opening of the cave. Nie Ruyi had taken off one of the ridiculous robes she'd been wearing and now used it as a sling, tied by the sleeves around her chest, so that the egg sat against her back snugly. She kept one hand behind her back, holding it in place just to be safe.

The two of them found the cliff's edge of the cave, and the swirling river below. Sure enough, the sounds amplified, coming from above, and the combat sounded bad. Nie Ruyi hemmed and hawed, unsure if they should risk revealing themselves, only for a moment later to take that decision away from her.

Over the edge of the cliff tumbled a cultivator in white and red, not the blue and tangerine they'd seen on their would-be-assailant. An ally? Or an enemy? The man stopped mid-air, his sword sliding into place beneath his feet like a sentient thing, halting his falling and turning it into stylish flying. Then, as if by accident, he noticed them. A huge grin broke on his face, and she recognised him. Cai Bingtian, the man who'd been in Lin Baiwei's tent this morning.

"Nie-Shimei! Song-Shidi! You're safe! This Cai Bingtian was worried." His voice called over the still-clashing metal and the dull roar of the river. "I'll come to you! Song-Shidi should head up and join combat. Amazing experience, fighting a Nascent Soul level cultivator! You probably won't get it again!"

He swept closer, even as Song Fengling lit up like a torch. Hopping onto his own blade, he turned to Nie Ruyi and grinning, said, "Don't worry, Nie-Shijie. He'll take very good care of you. I'm going to help the others."

Before Nie Ruyi could protest, he was gone, up and over the cliff. She turned her ire onto the only one available and its true owner, instead. "Are you stupid?! You're telling a child to go fight someone who killed his elders?! You think that's a good experience for a child?!"

He set down next to her, where Song Fengling had been standing moments ago, and raised an eyebrow at her. "Of course I do. He'll learn more in combat than most would, being a physical cultivator. And if he gets injured, his very nature will make him stronger. It's good for him to go against opponents he has no chance of winning against, so long as he doesn't die. Lao Xiaojun is up there, too, so he has backup."

"He's a CHILD!" Nie Ruyi shrieked, echoing around the cave and taking Cai Bingtian by surprise. "Children are supposed to be PROTECTED, not-Not-" Words failed her, her anger lapsing into tears she could ill-afford at the moment.

"Hey, Nie-Shimei, deep breaths." His voice was oddly soft, as he reached out, settling his large, warm hands on her shaking shoulders. "It's going to be okay. You're safe now. He's safe. Trust Lao Xiaojun. Lao-Shidi has never lost a battle, and he's going to win this one too."

Somehow, the warmth of his hands soothed the tears away, but not her irritation or fear. She shook her head. "Take me up there too!" She demanded, one step away from stamping her foot.

"Of course. Let's get going, then." Cai Bingtian's sword swung around and he stepped up again. Holding out his hand, he waited patiently as she took it. His sword swayed under her, and she yelped. He laughed, when it pushed her into his chest, and wrapped his arms around her. "There," his voice echoed in her ear, the warmth of his breath making her shiver. "Settled?"

"Just... hurry up." She muttered into the cloth of his robes.

He must have, because the sound of swords clashing got louder and soon, she could hear the footsteps and harsh breaths of the combatants. As Cai Bingtian set her down outside the combat radius (which she could see clearly delineated, because all the brush and trees inside it were felled and chopped to pieces), to join the fray himself, their combatant looked up. A woman with wild eyes, a wilder grin, and her shaggy black hair thrown up in a half-ponytail. Around her neck glinted a beautiful necklace.

https://i.imgur.com/xzisjky.png [https://i.imgur.com/xzisjky.png]