Sen didn’t bother to stand as he pulled a healing elixir from a storage ring and downed it. He just lay there for most of a minute, basking in the magnificent absence of people talking at him. Knowing it couldn’t last, though, he pushed himself back up into a sitting position. Misty Peak and the spider were standing next to each other and staring at him. The fox woman looked stunned. The spider looked like, well, it mostly just looked like a spider that was staring at him. Sen wished again that the thing could speak. Even if it sounded creepy, it would still be better than the almost entirely one-sided version of communication they had at present. Sen glanced out over the ground that they had just covered.

It was a gruesome sight. There were devilish beast parts everywhere. Beyond that were the bodies of all the beasts he’d killed by accident with his wind blade trick. And to make matters worse, it looked like a god had splashed a particularly viscous black paint over the entire scene. I’m so glad no one was here to see all of that, thought Sen. Then again, there were two foxes present. I may live to hear some demented retelling of all this yet. Groaning, Sen dragged himself up to his feet. He gave the battlefield beyond the barrier one last grim look before turning his attention to the fox and the spider.

“Are either of you hurt?” he asked.

Silence.

“Are you injured?” Sen asked a bit more forcefully.

Silence.

“Hey!” shouted Sen.

That seemed to snap the pair out of some kind of stupor. Misty Peak flinched, while the spider scuttled back a step or two. The fox woman shook her head a few times as if trying to clear it before she settled a more focused on gaze on Sen.

“What?” she asked.

“Are either of you hurt?” Sen repeated.

“No. I’m fine,” said Misty Peak.

Sen looked over at the spider, sighed, and said, “Lift a leg once for yes and twice for no.”

The spider promptly lifted a leg up and again. Sen nodded.

“Then, let’s get a little farther from the barrier. No point in announcing where we went when the horde fills back in.”

Misty Peak gave him a strange look. “You think there are any left? Even after that weird bell thing you did.”

“I’m certain of it.”

“Why?”

“Because it would make my life easier if there weren’t any left. So, the horde is absolutely not completely gone and will be waiting for us when it’s time to leave.”

“You should try being more optimistic,” observed Misty Peak.

“How much?” Sen asked.

“How much what?”

“How much money do you want to bet that the horde is gone?” asked Sen, summoning a bag of taels from a storage ring and giving it a shake. “I’ve got this much that says they’re still out there when we’re done.”

Misty Peak’s eyes traveled from Sen’s face to the bag of taels. “No bet.”

“I thought so,” said Sen, storing the bag. “Okay, let’s get moving. At least until we find a spot where I can rest for a little while. Unlike you two, I didn’t come out of that unscathed.”

The three started walking deeper into the ruins. For all that time had taken its toll, Sen was surprised how much of the temple city was intact. He picked a building at random and went inside through a door that still functioned. It had clearly been someone’s home. It had also not been abandoned in haste. Everything was carefully packed away, as though the owner had expected to return after a long journey. Sen found himself frowning around at the order in the place. Misty Peak poked through a few cabinets and went into a few of the rooms, but didn’t bring anything out of them. He supposed she might have tucked away a few treasures into a storage ring, but there was a thoughtful look on her face.

“I’ve never seen hair quite like that before,” said Sen.

Misty Peak went from thoughtful consideration to a blank-faced statue from one moment to the next. Sen admitted to himself that he found it deeply satisfying to be able to spring something on the fox woman. While that strange tolling sound hadn’t hurt the woman, it had stripped away the illusion. What was left in its place wasn’t dramatically different, but softer. The lines of her face were a little gentler, a little rounder, less aggressively androgynous, and more obviously feminine. The most obvious change was her eyes, which had taken on a slightly squinted look and dark orange color. The next most obvious change had been the reddish cast of her hair. Her hand shot to her face and then jerked a piece of her hair around so she could look at it.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Hells,” she muttered.

“I’m a little disappointed there aren’t any tails,” said Sen with a grin.

She glared at him, which was much more effective with her orange eyes that seemed to blaze briefly with an inner light. “Just because you can’t see them, it doesn’t mean they aren’t there.”

Sen was tempted to tease the fox woman a bit more, but the oddity of the home nagged at him. He ended up just making a noncommittal noise before he abruptly walked outside, picked another building at random, and went inside. His frown deepened as he moved through the rooms, a perplexed Misty Peak trailing behind him and giving him quizzical looks. Another house, more frowning, and increasingly annoyed looks from Misty Peak followed. When Sen went to go into another house, the fox had seemingly reached her limit.

“Are you just going to search every building hoping that you stumble onto the spatial treasure?”

Sen blinked at her a few times, trying to make sense of her words. Spatial treasure? It came back to him in a rush. They were in the ruins to get that spatial treasure for Laughing River. The strangeness in the houses had simply displaced everything else and, with a touch of embarrassment, he realized he hadn’t bothered explaining what he was doing to Misty Peak or the spider. The spider, thought Sen. I really need to just give that thing a name. The spider didn’t seem to care very much what Sen was doing. It just settled outside of whatever building Sen happened to be inside and did… Sen didn’t know exactly what it was doing. Maybe it was cultivating or meditating on the intrinsic beauty of webs or… Sen came up with nothing. Spider things, he decided.

“Are you going to answer me or just keep giving me that blank look? I mean, it’d be one thing if you’d been struck dumb by my beauty but that clearly didn’t happen.”

She’d said that last bit with more heat than Sen thought was entirely necessary. She wasn’t a heavens’ shaking beauty but she did have a vaguely predatory prettiness that Sen found appealing. Of course, Sen belated realized, he hadn’t bothered to say anything like that to her either. Maybe that almost possession had done him more damage than he thought. He usually explained things to people. He considered that a little more. I explain things to people, don’t I? A glowing-eyed glare that threatened to punch a hole into his brain reminded Sen that he still hadn’t actually uttered a word. He shook his head.

“Come with me.”

“Oh, the time for that particular invitation was back at the first bedroom we came across. For someone with impeccable timing in battle, your social timing is terrible.”

Sen snorted, which just made the glare intensify. “Your grandfather made the same observation about my social skills not that long ago, but that’s not what I was getting at. Seriously, come with me.”

Sen went into the building and, after a long enough pause to let Sen know that he wasn’t in charge of her, Misty Peak followed. Sen gestured around the place. The fox eyed the room they were in, which wasn’t appreciably different from the common areas of the last few houses they’d been in during the last hour. She glanced around the room before directing an unimpressed look his way.

“Yes, you’ve discovered the magic of walls. They do indeed make rooms. Congratulations.”

“Amusing. So, answer me this. Why is all of the furniture still here in all of these houses? I mean, I can understand an odd piece here or there if the temple or city dwindled over the centuries. But furniture isn’t cheap. People take it with them when they leave. I’ve been on the roads enough to see it happen.”

Misty Peak looked around again, and it was her turn to frown. He could see it on her face as she mentally reviewed the other homes they’d gone into. Her eyes focused again. Sen waited in the common area as the woman marched around the house from room to room. She vanished into what Sen suspected was the kitchen and came back holding a wok. She was staring at the pan like it was keeping secrets from her and she wanted to shake them free from the stubborn metal. She held the pan up and flicked the bottom with a finger. It gave off the dull clang of thick metal being struck.

“This is the kind of thing that mortals pass down,” she said. “You could get another fifty years of service out of something like this.”

Sen walked over and cycled for metal. He let his qi settle into the pan. It was extremely well made with almost no flaws. He suspected that Misty Peak had the right of it.

“It seems that way. So, why is it still here?”

Misty Peak gave the wok another hard look before she gave him a helpless look.

“I’ll admit that it’s strange. Very strange. Annoyingly strange. It’s also not what we’re here for.”

Sen gave her a long look. “It’s certainly not what I’m here for. I’m not so sure about you. Why are you here? Maybe just as importantly, why didn’t you just give your grandfather that toy of yours that let you come in here in the first place? Could have saved you, me, and that poor spider outside a lot of trouble.”

“You saw that? Didn’t you have more important things to be paying attention to at the time than me?”

“You had just shed your disguise, however unintentionally. Plus, I was inside the barrier at that point. I was just enjoying the view.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “Oh, were you?”

“Stop fishing for compliments. You didn’t answer my questions.”

“Oh fine. It won’t work for him. It barely works for me,” she said before she turned her head like she was trying to look through the wall. “Come to think of it, why in the hells is that spider here?”

Sen threw his hands in the air. “I have no idea and didn’t feel like spending three hours asking it yes or no questions to try and find out.”