Memories of the Fall

It is very tempting by those who only know of the Ur peoples through tales to consider them thoroughly savage, abandoned to all civilisation and living as monsters in the wilderness. This view is appealing for several reasons – it fits a grand narrative whereby we oppose the savage and, in the rare cases where we are on the same side, uplift them. It is also appealing because it distances us from their awkward past and its relationship to ours. Lastly, nuance is the enemy of great agendas, and few agendas have been greater in the last 10,000 years than the reconquista of the western third of our home continent.

Those powers, going west, found only complex problems which refuted simple answers – that the Nine Consuls of the westernmost territory of the Eternal City had decided to forswear their mortality entirely rather than fall to Neron’s Nightmare was a deeply unpleasant surprise. That single act effectively locked out from easy conquest all of the rich lands between Valinkar and Solaneum, south of the Veil Flow, the vast river that runs from the Veil Source high in the Dark Veils.

The result, was that they had to turn their eyes north of the river and that put them in immediate opposition to the Ur folk who had somehow sprung fully formed. Faced with the choice of trying to convince those coming behind them to fight implacable undead, imbued by an oath sworn on the strength of that most Dreadful and August Queen, or dispossessing Orcs of their homeland… the decision, it must be said, was easily and expediently made.

Nothing of their great cities, their achievements, their civilisation that might have walked out of our own distant past returned westwards, except as tales of stolen glory, worship of false idols or dark deprivations – cannibalism, the eating of the dead, blood sacrifice, rape, pillage and massacre.

Today, we know the truth of this – those first invaders, who would become the Grand Dukes of Meltras, Belthorne, Reborin, Renlath, Jeris and Solaneum, had already seen the mirage by which they might rise – Yogo Shada.

That the price for it was the reputation of the Ur folk, their heritage, history and even their very place in this world was not one that any of those lords or their allies so much as blinked over.

Excerpt from – The Rise of the Eastern Grand Dukes.

~By Astrid Elderkaid, Milford Fellow of Imperial History.

~ Lin Ling – Udrasa by Night ~

Leaving Juni and Chunhua to sort out the various aspects of their cultivation in peace, Lin Ling found herself wandering through the cramped streets of Udrasa pondering their current circumstances. It was true that the trail had led them here, and the local rumours seemed to imply that at least two large bands of cultivators were in the general vicinity or had been recently, but that still left her with more questions than answers.

The main one, setting aside the question of her own ‘Mortal Physique’ and lack of control over her ‘Principle’ messing with Juni’s divinations, was that they were losing ground on the trail because of this diversion of sorts…

“Fish onna stick?” her thoughts were disrupted by a small, rather malnourished Ur’Vash girl holding out a handful of fried eel looking things on reeds hopefully.

-And it’s not even the most important problem that needs a solution at that…

-What an abominable place…

-Nature is lost here…

-Well, it reflects their mud-born natures…

-Miserable vermin, not even natural-born…

“Sure… how much?” she asked, pushing the quiet commentary from the memories into the background.

“Talisman fer a fish,” the girl said far more brightly.

“…”

She considered the girl’s scrawny frame and the surroundings, then pulled out one of the Longevity Lingzhe she had gotten off Juni after she used all hers.

Pretending it was a ‘magic trick’, like a street performer might have back in West Flower Picking town, she also passed it to the girl with a half grin, adding a few of the currency talismans for good measure. The girl pocketed the talismans and looked at the mushroom dubiously, actually licking it before grinning and munching it down in three bites and passing her the remaining fried eels before dashing off.

Watching her go, she took a bite from one and found it was spicy enough to disguise the fact that it was two day old catch. Likely the girl was making them to sell from scavenged produce from the docks. It didn’t matter to her in any case; her constitution was such that she could probably have eaten actual garbage and it would have had no ill effect beyond lingering as a traumatic memory.

Shaking her head, she finished the first one and wandered on, towards the waterfront, through narrow, humid streets, as she pondered her problems… their problems… of which there were quite a few.

By the time she arrived at an actual dock amid the humid, insect-ridden night air, she still hadn’t decided which of their myriad problems right now was most in need of an immediate solution, beyond the obvious one – staying in Udrasa for as little time as possible.

The problem was, as far as she had worked out, that all their problems sort of fed into each other as well – starting with the possible impact of her own physique on matters.

-I don’t suppose any of you have any thoughts on that? she directed to the still disparaging monkey-nut gallery in her psyche.

As expected… she got nothing much except from some of the older ones who merely sent support for not lingering here. The difficulty, near as she could tell, was that the memories themselves covered a long period of time and within that there were a few distinct schisms in ‘what’ and ‘why’, not to mention ‘how’ concerning Mystic Meridians.

The oldest, and actually the ones she was most inclined to trust at this point, were largely ambivalent on it. Because of how she had formed her Mystic Meridian, their view was that it was less that she was a thing that actively twisted events and more like a stable part of the flow of those events. A particularly durable tree, a rock that was hard to move, this kind of thing.

Events moved around her, of which she was part, but occasionally, because of her more stable position, she would come into contact with other stable bits, both natural and unnatural. There was a nuance in there she was sure she was missing, that their disparate views were just not able to fully convey. However, eventually she would become something like a pearl as events accumulated around her – that was their understanding of ‘accumulation’. To them, though, it was just a natural thing that happened and to which little thought was given.

The problem there, was the speed with which she had advanced to this point. Their kind advanced fast anyway, but even by those standards, advancing as she had done was not necessarily a good deed in some eyes. She had advanced fast to this point, but now, much like Juni, had to focus on acquiring qi and refining her foundation, tempering her body and pulling all the other bits upwards to match her current strength.

The later memories had no issue with it, but the earlier ones held that the strength of the meridian was lacking compared to what it should be for her realm. The shell protecting it was weak and that drew unnecessary attention and therein lay the source of problems.

“Huaaaa…” she sighed, pushing the thoughts on that away.

She was the one in control, unequivocally, unless she really went off the deep end with the transformation. This was just another symptom of her rapid advancement, it seemed, but no less annoying in its own way for it. Just like her control over her Principle could be a bit nebulous, she was unused to working with Soul Intent, having a Sea of Knowledge or marshalling the things within it, of which there was now… a lot.

When you added in the accursed soul sense wards that were rather pointedly targeting critters not unadjacent to her, things just got more frustrating.

-Such a crude ward. It will stop snakes, but never us…

-Pathetic, even the clay pots of that era were better…

-But they had to deal with my kin…

-And mine…

-And mine…

-And mine…

-And mine…

“…”

It took her all not to stop and rub her temples as she got a mocking refrain of ‘and mine’ echoing through her Sea of Knowledge. The memories were, in fact, talking to each other, she was sure. She was more like an exclusive inn or something, in which they were all resident and all arguing about how crappy the neighbourhood in which it now resided was.

-Reed boats, huh…

She paused by a broad set of steps where various Ur’Vash were hauling fish in and out of the dark, lantern-lit waters of the shallow artificial bay within the riverlands. Everywhere she looked there were smaller vessels, mostly made of reeds and some leather and timbers. Many had single or double sails – sophisticated boats, in fact, for what they looked like, and well-designed to exploit the shallow lagoons and broader stretches of open water controlled by Udrasa directly.

And yet… none were suitable for crossing the river, visible to her in the distance. It was almost half a mile wide here, broad and fast flowing. On the far side, distant lights glittered, allowing her to orientate herself to how Udrasa controlled its wealth.

-Nobody owns a boat longer than 20 metres that isn’t bearing the symbol of the town… she observed with a sigh.

To get passage to the settlement on the far side, certainly you had to go through those who controlled Udrasa. She suspected anyone who tried to build a bigger boat would also get in trouble with the officials.

-Ah well, all I can do is start asking, she sighed inwardly, looking away from one of the larger vessels that was painted prominently with the town’s motif, the symbol prominent on its bow.

That symbol, painted in yellow ochre, was a bit unsettling she had to admit – elements of four interlocking circles joined by a fifth, like an eye that seemed to always look at you, no matter what angle you glanced it from. If you stared at it too long, the arms and connecting points also seemed to shift, lingering for a second after you closed your eyes.

That design was also reproduced in fabrics and such that she saw many wearing – rather diaphanous gowns in red and yellow, with occasional bits of purple or black.

Here in the docks, the dress was rougher, the fabrics more worn, but the local style still favoured from what she saw, at least in those milling around the taverns or side streets. The workers just wore rough skirts around their waists in crude yellow fabric, usually stitched or painted with a few choice designs in red or deeper yellow, or the symbol of the town itself.

Looking around, she found three older Ur’Vash sitting around smoking a pipe between them and watching several younger ones wrestle a boat out of the water to check some problem on its underside.

“Hey, got a moment?” she asked them politely.

“Whatcha want, missy?” the oldest one with a beard looked her over. “Ain’t got no talismans if you’re—”

She coughed, cutting him off before he could make a bad impression and smiled winsomely. “I wanted ask about passage across the river.”

“Ah…” the oldest one nodded, coughing as well, while his compatriots smirked at his near mistake.

“No passage possible for a while,” the second one sighed. “Even us fisherfolk is limited; they stop anyone who goes too far out.”

“Why?” she frowned.

“Guess they don’t want people running iffen them mage bastards do actually show up,” the third spat.

“So nobody is crossing?” she frowned.

“Not since all the boats from Udaval got sunk two days ago,” the oldest one nodded.

“Do you know about that?” she frowned.

“Aye, group of strange folks showed up, slaughtered the entire outpost apparently, bar a few survivors who managed to hide in the swamps,” the second Ur’Vash sighed.

“Didn’t they steal any?” she blinked.

“My cousin fishes down there,” the third one mused, passing the pipe along. “Said he saw a right strange vessel on the water shortly afterwards, was white and gold, being pulled by three strange golden horses that ran on the water and was surrounded by strange music…”

“Aye,” the second nodded. “That was before news that Udaval was burning mud and bodies came through though. Now rumour reckons it was something someone nicked from a ruin. Only those undead do that kinda shit.”

“Could have been the crazy mages everyone is talking about…” she pointed out.

“Hah… next they be blaming the fact that the bugs are biting a bit harder on the crazy mages,” the old one sighed.

“So it’s Death Watch?” she frowned.

“Hah… nah, likely just normal undead,” the second one grunted.

“…”

“You’re young,” the old fisherman sighed, seeing her carefully pitched ‘askance’ expression. “It’s easy to buy into them bollocks, but take it from us old-timers, Death Watch is Death Watch. My grand-da saw em once; monster dropped outta the sky like something out of myth, riding a stone monster like a statue outta one of the ancient ruins to the west. You know ’em when you see ’em, he said.”

“Aye, here it’s just as likely to be normal undead, or serpents messing with your head,” the second agreed.

“So… it won’t be possible to get passage across?” she reiterated.

“Not unless you’re cosy with our crazy mages,” the third one said with an eye roll.

“And begging your pardon, miss, you look like someone just travelling through,” the oldest one muttered, looking her up and down dubiously. “Any who would take your passage now would be as likely to tie you up as soon as they were out of sight of here and sell you to a brothel on one of the wayposts as give you legitimate passage across.”

“…”

She grimaced, nodding. That was about what she had expected, in truth.

“Surely that is an… exaggeration?” she asked, putting a bit of emphasis on sounding nervous.

-Really, my principle is almost tailor-made for this, she exclaimed in her heart.

The oldest fisherman spat on the ground.

“Far be it from us to speak ill of this place. Udrasa is a bug-infested, serpent-besieged shithole – the only reason people stay here is because it’s our shithole.”

-And it’s the only shithole in the neighbourhood as well, she added in her own head.

“It can’t be impossible though?” she wheedled.

“Not impossible,” the oldest fisherman nodded. “But if you wanna convince someone to take you across in a smaller boat you’re gonna have to pay them enough that their family can either afford a new boat, or take care of themselves if they die – and pay in advance.”

“Even crossing in the day?” she pouted.

“Less but that’s not really the issue,” the second old fisherman sighed. “A young’un like you from inland won’t know it, but the river currents is dangerous for a lot of reasons, biggest one being the ones that carry their own mana.”

“Best case, you just get caught in one and swept ten miles downstream,” the first nodded sagely.

“Can’t even run away easily if you were powerful,” the third sighed. “Some of those currents in the middle have weird properties – can’t walk on em, or they drain mana away and put it in the river, that kinda thing.”

“Oh…” she nodded, looking appropriately crestfallen.

“Well, thank you for answering my questions,” she pulled out a few suitable bits of spirit grass for smoking and passed them over.

“Ah, Taker bless you,” the old fisherman chuckled, smelling the leaf.

Nodding, she thanked them again and went on her way for a bit, pondering that. After a few minutes, she checked in both directions, then walked down some steps and tried to walk on the water. It wasn’t difficult, although she did have to keep to the shadows; however, once she got out into the bay proper, she could see the issue.

There was indeed a faint tug to the water, a sense of devouring that obfuscated her senses in bizarre ways. With care and a lot of spirit herbs she could probably make it across on her own, but carrying the others would be next to impossible for more than a few hundred metres.

Returning to the shore, via a different dock, she continued to wander fairly aimlessly, taking in the sights and sounds in search of other useful bits of information, until, in the distance, she heard yelling and saw a group of guards piling out of a street, chasing several figures. A few heads turned to observe the commotion which finished when a second group of guards cut off the escape and grasped the three, binding them with ropes and dragging them away.

“Seems someone tried to run away from the mages again,” a nearby dockworker muttered.

“Big balls, wouldn’t see me offending that lot,” his compatriot grumbled.

“Mages?” she asked, frowning.

“You not from around here?” the dockworker grunted, looking her up and down.

“Came from the south, with a bunch who fought the warband,” she shrugged, “from Ajara.”

“Ah… your sort,” the other worker spat on the ground. “I heard your lot is ruled by some savage she-bitch shaman who drinks children’s blood.”

“Uh…” she stared at the dockworker, but his compatriot just rolled his eyes.

“What… wanna say something about it?” the dockworker grinned.

“…”

Shaking her head, she turned and walked away. Two groups of the ‘guards’ were still lingering nearby and keeping in mind what the previous one had said…

“Hey, bitch, how dare you take my money!” the dockworker yelled after her.

“Oh for fates’ sakes!” she hissed under her breath.

{One with What Is}

Ducking into an alley, even as the guards from the boat on the next dock trotted over, she slunk backwards through the shadows and swiftly made her way up to a low level roof overlooking the scene.

“What is it?” a guard who had just arrived grunted to the dockworkers.

She noted three more workers had come up from the lower area of the dock as well.

“Out of town bitch was poking around our dock,” the first one chuckled.

-Ah, just my luck, I asked a random question on a gang dock, she complained inwardly.

“Ah…” the guard frowned, or something like it.

“Did you get a look?”

“Aye… pretty bitch, light hair, said she was from the south…” the dockworker sneered.

Making her way back to the edge, she hid in the shadows by a stack of reeds and listened.

“Took his money and agreed, then just runs off,” his compatriot agreed.

“Interesting…” that guard sighed, even as the others who had been milling about also arrived over.

“You two, go look up the alleys. We got some out of town bitch poking around the docks asking questions,” the lead guard from the boat dock grunted.

The new arrivals sighed and made their way to the alley she had darted into, grumbling, where they started to poke around in a rather disinterested manner.

“You lot, spread out. She won’t have gone far and she sounds distinctive!” the leader yelled after them.

“Fuck him. She runs fast,” one searcher grunted.

“I think he wants to fuck her…” his compatriot snickered.

“Charming, but don’t that sound awfully like the description circulated from Grezvor regarding possible agitators for this ‘Golden Flower Tribe’ who attacked Master Udroz’s fort?” the first searching guard muttered quietly.

“Could be, could be… I heard the entire fort was insensible though, hallucinating and shit, very weird, and none of them recall anything.”

“Sounds like the southern savages’ witchery. Ajara and Ajuqa both envy our Udrasa,” a third guard muttered, arriving behind them as they continued to poke through crates and bits of garbage stacked around.

“That shit stinks. None of them recall anything and there was clearly some weird drug used,” the second guard grumbled. “Best we let others worry about it.”

“Aye…” the third hissed.

-Master Udroz huh… she frowned, moving further back into the shadows of the roof.

“So what do you reckon about their assertion that this is actually some ploy to get us off guard?”

“Oh… that the Golden Flower Tribe is actually working with this new warband, like Master Kormazuz’s followers have been whispering?” the first guard muttered, giving another garbage pile a poke.

“It’s the kind of thing those savages would do, given they know they can’t push our influence with the Grass Stalker war chief through force of arms…” the third one sneered.

She fought back a sigh at that, glad her grasp of their local language was advancing to the point where she could understand their chatter at least.

Part of her had expected that what they had done would not go unnoticed, but it was both interesting and a little frustrating that it had been pinned with the ‘Golden Flower Tribe’ and some local politics rather than some random artefact that Uaazar had provided. ‘Udroz’ had been weaker than she was – barely Dao Seeking – which was why she had guessed he was just some minor person or someone Uaazar had been working with.

“ANYTHING?” a voice from the far end of the alley hollered.

“No! You cretin!” the first guard yelled back, “and if you yell like that, don’t you think she might know even if she’s beyond the city wall?”

“Definitely a fast runner,” the second guard chuckled.

“Well, savages have to run fast, living out there,” the third laughed. “If she took his money we can circulate her description in any case. Maybe someone sees her.”

“Not that he will ever see his money back…” the second laughed, heading on up the alley.

“Well, there are small mercies in the world, praise be the Taker!” the third sneered.

Making her way back across the rooftops, she bound up her hair and used some of the spare dye to darken it a bit.

Once she was happy she didn’t immediately stand out as being light-haired she dropped down into a deserted alley and sauntered back out into the street, keeping to the shadows and using ‘One with What Is’ to help blend into the crowd.

The real issue here, was that Udrasa was huge. Her first look at it had not done it justice really. It was as big, in terms of space covered, as West Flower Picking town, even if its population density was much lower. There were five main districts – the docks, the central markets, temples and such, an area associated with wealthy or important Ur’Vash on raised ground in the middle and then two sprawling districts either side in their own walled regions.

It did make her thankful that she had had the presence of mind to mark Grezvor and a few of the others with her qi back when they were making the trek to the town. Unfortunately, the sprawl and the mass of conflicting senses made following it almost impossible and all she could tell was that Grezvor was in the district where there were important Ur’Vash.

She was pretty sure as well, that Uaazar had ‘recognised’ Juni and Chunhua as being rather similar-looking to the ‘mage’ warband. Their disguise worked because superficially there was very little difference between Ur’Vash and ‘Humans’ due to their origins. Those who had first created the various Ur tribes had marked them in various ways to ensure that they understood their station.

Depending on the tribe, that varied from making them a bit ugly or giving them skin colours akin to mud to remind them that they could easily be sent back where they came from to putting actual brands into them, akin to artificial mystic meridians according to the memories. Now, many of those traits had been turned on their heads or subverted by the passage of time and events, but without ‘exposure’ to humans, it was enough for them to pass as Ur’Vash through ignorance and denial of the opposite.

-Which was why that damned Jotnar immediately sent out a warning to all his camps that there were infiltrators that looked like Ur’Vash but were not… she sighed mentally.

-This is why you should have just killed them all and had the ones you like run away, one of the more draconic voices sneered, directing some attention to her for a moment.

-Just mud anyway, what is there to mourn? Another snickered.

-Shut up, you, she sent back, thumbing them mentally.

It disturbed her a bit how easily they resorted to such methods, and also in a way how inclined she was to go along with them. The earlier memories were not as bloodthirsty, but tended to engage less. It didn’t help that they were probably right in hindsight. She should have frozen all the scouts, absorbed their vitality, killed Uaazar’s bunch as well and then let the other Ur’Inan flee or do as they would.

The curious bit there, she mused as she started looking at market stalls for ‘food’, was that Uaazar and Uaakaz had not made it immediately clear to the Ur’Vash official – her best guess there was that he had wanted to make profit off them without thoroughly implicating the rest of the band he had aspirations to lead?

She hadn’t mentioned it to the others… yet, because at the time it seemed like a short term problem, but as she listened to rumours as she bought various bits of cooked fish and other interesting delicacies, she could only conclude that they probably wanted to get out of here as fast as possible, ideally first thing in the morning given how widespread the rumours of ‘The Golden Flower Tribe are a ploy by the southern savages to draw us off guard’ seemed to be.

That disdain of the ‘southern savages’ by the river folk appeared to be why few masks were worn as well. They had been relatively common place in Ajara and elsewhere, usually carved in the shape of animals or stylistic Ur’Vash faces and painted colourfully. Here, there were quite a few veils, but they didn’t disguise much and seemed more aimed at dealing with the bugs. The few mask-like things she had seen were all associated with the temple at the far end of the market, worn by hulking Ur’Vash with black and gold tattoos who appeared to be guards.

“So… I heard that they ripped off all their penises and their cores and skinned them…”

“Yeah, and then they cast aside their long bones and smashed them!”

“I heard that when they attacked Ajara they threw children at the city…”

“They didn’t attack Ajara!” someone else refuted.

“Well, they attacked some settlement down there. Those places are all the same, right?”

“…”

Shaking her head as yet more discussion of the ‘atrocities’ meted out by the ‘crazy mages’ on ‘good’ Urdrasa folk entered her ears, she paid for a basket of fried fish and walked on, glad she was able to mask her presence within the crowd as she hunted for somewhere selling cloth.

It took a few minutes but eventually she found a stall and paid for it with a rather hefty chunk of the stolen currency from Ajara. She guessed she could have gotten it for less if she haggled, but the shopkeeper refused to speak in Easten and still charged her a third more ‘because it was not Udrasa talismans’.

It didn’t help that most of what was on sale was light and sheer or cut in ways that would see Juni and certainly Chunhua balk at wearing it as underwear, never mind actual clothing.

Departing that, she sighed inwardly because she also noted she had picked up a tail – several youths with gold bands on their arms were sauntering after her, no doubt relying on the wards and her youthful appearance…

-Like, seriously? she sighed inwardly and walked on affecting not to have noticed.

They followed her, not that closely as she meandered down two more stall-lined streets, stopping to buy this and that, before turning to head back in the general direction of where they were staying. At that point, still pretending to be oblivious, she sauntered down a narrow street, occasionally kicking a rock and munching on a fried fish—

“Well, little miss, you look all lost and alone here…” an Ur’Vash behind her said, in rather urbane Easten, no less.

“…”

She stopped and turned to face him, noting two more figures also sauntering out of an alley ahead of her.

“All that stuff seems very heavy; perhaps you would like my friends to carry it for you, while you and I have a bit of fun?”

“Uh,” she shook her head, pretending to be nervous as she considered how strong they were.

“Aww… look at her,” another laughed. “It must be so confusing here in a civilized place like Udrasa…”

“Tcch, it’s because you’re being so civilized about it that she is confused…” another laughed. “Just push her against the wall and have your fun now she has caught your eye.”

“…”

“Noo…” she backed up, cursing in her heart that she was able to play that part all too well.

The nearest one grabbed her, grinning.

“Hold”

Her whisper, limited mostly to the radius around her, caught all of them, locking space around them. The strongest was somewhere around 5th advancement – peak of Nascent Soul, in truth, and even were it not for the ward, she could have killed all of them easily.

The nearest one stared at her eyes bulging, sweating with fear.

“You know, your wards have been giving me a terrible headache,” she sighed, grappling him by his organ and twisting it viciously.

Placing her other hand over his heart, she grinned broadly.

“Absorb”

His body convulsed as longevity and qi flowed away from him.

“…”

“Oh come on,” she complained out loud, stopping, and clapped her hand to her head, recalling that there were a few other steps she could take there just to make this more efficient.

Turning to the one who had advocated for ‘pushing her against the wall’, she again placed a hand on his chest and focused inwards this time.

“Imbue”

A thread of her own blood carrying yang intent surged through his body, making his body steam faintly in the humid night air.

She repeated that for the other five, including the one she had injured before, aware that time was not on her side. By the time she was done, the first one had nearly been consumed by the Yang Intent in her blood, so she returned to him and, pressing one hand against his heart and the other down at his navel, focused her intent outwards.

“Absorb”

This time, vitality surged out of the unfortunate Ur’Vash, flowing into her body to a degree previously unseen except for the youth with the tiny bit of dragon blood back on the battlefield. This was not as efficient as that, but it was still a step up from just drawing out their longevity.

The whole process took about 10 heartbeats for each, by which time the lingering impetus of ‘Hold’ was also starting to diminish.

“…”

Frowning, she found herself again pondering a nuance regarding the wards on this place that she had not had an easy opportunity to test until now – what exactly were the limits of its restrictions on soul intent.

-First though, the two watchers, she decided decisively.

The rest of the thieves guarding the exit ahead of her were also staring, bug-eyed, their bodies straining to try to break whatever had grasped them. Even at ten paces she could taste the fear pouring off them – one had actually pissed himself she noted with a certain degree of amusement before catching herself and shooting a nasty look at the more vengeful memories.

Out of time, she jogged over and grasped both frozen watchers by the neck, dragging them fully into the shadowed alley.

“Absorb”

She managed to keep them both silent, even as they struggled like fish in her grip as she dragged them back to the other five, who were barely living now.

“So, you could have just not tried to rape me and none of this would have happened,” she said conversationally, kneeling down next to the leader.

Externalisation of soul intent was impossible but she had been wondering if other uses for it still worked – starting with using it to investigate someone’s memories.

Putting her thumb and little finger to his temple with her middle finger on the top of his head, she nominally ‘sealed’ the ‘third eye’ and sent threads of intent-infused qi into those meridian systems, effectively locking out his whole body.

The second step, however, which was to then use that conduit to send her own ‘Soul Intent’ directly to his Sea of Knowledge, failed. She tried twice more with different combinations of the meridian points before sighing and sitting back.

-So it really does block all transfer of ‘Soul Intent’ outside ‘the originator’s body’, rather than just prevent transmission outside of direct contact.

She tried a further time, using her blood as the medium, but even that failed, leaving only a further suggestion provided by the memories which just made her grimace. Their approach was to use a focal point of the opponent as the medium – in this case, suggesting she literally eat their hearts as the catalyst.

-Maybe not… she reproachfully rejected their suggestion.

“HEY, YOU!”

She glanced up from the stunned, terrified Ur’Vash and grimaced as she locked eyes with three Ur’Vash carrying spears, blades of some kind of coppery metal and those talismans that marked them out as ‘guards’ who were now standing at the end of the alley.

“Forget”

The words murmured in the air as she retreated into the shadows. The guards stumbled backwards and everyone else in the alleyway thrashed and rasped under the grasping madness of the humidity directed into a form of delirium. Dashing forwards, still not using any of her own qi, she spun around the first, driving him into the ground, shattering half the bones in his body in the process.

Slipping between the flailing spears of his compatriots, she kicked one in the crotch, leaving him slumped and bleeding from both ends before grabbing the last one and sending him sprawling into the alley.

Dragging the other two into the alley, she took a spear and stabbed it through one of the Ur’Vash. Two more she stabbed in ways that made it look like they had picked up incidental injuries.

It was tempting to try to style it as more, but it was hard to shake the feeling that her being targeted was a little too coincidental. Sighing, she took a blade from the guard and proceeded to stab them twice in the leg and the arm before putting that blade in the hands of one youth as well.

The main problem, in truth, was that they were drained in vitality; however, such was the vigour of Ur’Vash that unless someone knew to look for it, the visual signs were not much and with all of them injured in some way or another, it would hopefully not be too obvious.

-Just a fight between some drunk youths and a… ah!

She rifled through her jars in her storage talisman and found a pot of what amounted to atrociously pure spirit alcohol and dumped it on the ground in a garbage pot, letting the fumes permeate the humid night air near one of the group.

-Yep, just a fight between some drunken youths and the guard, she muttered to herself as she left them all behind in their confused, un-remembering state.

-I guess this confirms that I have to go find Grezvor, or at least seek out some information about that… captive?

Thinking about it, that second option seemed somewhat more feasible, given she had no means to actually get information out of the former if soul scrying wasn’t possible by the means she knew of.

With that in mind, she wandered back through the streets towards the quarter they had originally gone to. Late at night it was even more insalubrious, which was not something she would have thought possible if it were not unfolding all around her. Drunks were stumbling in and out of brothels, taverns were full to bursting and, in fact, frequently bursting out onto side streets. Every street had its own brawl and the shrines to the ‘Taker’ that she passed were almost indistinguishable from the whorehouses.

-It is certainly someone’s bad joke that the Ur’Inan enclave is in the slums like this, she sighed inwardly, thinking of how the more spiritually-orientated, traditional Ur’Inan had their enclave in the middle of the brothel quarter, as she finally found her destination, the series of squares close to the inner wall next to one of the canals that ran in from the harbour.

Even here, the evening was raucous and crude – it was little wonder that the Ur’Inan had been quite happy, after grumbling about hospitality a bit, to join them in the inn they were at.

“I am looking for Azuum?” she asked one of the passing Ur’Inan, marked by his different tattoos.

“Azuum? You entertainment for his party?” the Ur’Inan grunted, looking her over.

-Does everyone here just think about one thing? she complained in her heart.

“No, I got a message,” she shrugged.

“Oh… no idea,” the Ur’Inan shook his head and walked off without a second look.

“…”

-Well that sure was helpful, she sighed inwardly.

She made her way onwards asking a few others at random for ‘Azuum’s party’ or some variants of it until she was directed to an estate in the heart of that quarter. Outwardly, it was rather dilapidated, but once she made her way up a wall and inside she found the interior was ‘simple yet refined’ in a way that spoke of someone who didn’t want to show outwardly how wealthy they were.

The party, as such, was a fairly select affair but it was easy enough with her exceptional senses to slip up to the second floor and skulk in the shadows. There were not many there – eight attendees and two women who were dancing provocatively for them in an open space.

Azuum she recognised, along with Uaazar and Uaakaz. Another was vaguely familiar as one of the shopkeepers who had been standing around in the square talking to Azuum when they arrived. The others were all dressed in the local style, marked only as Ur’Inan by the tattoos visible, of which they did not have that many.

“Look, Uaazar, I know you suspect this,” Azuum was saying, “but our position here is precarious as it is – especially now your gambit has run into this complication.”

“I…” Uaazar scowled.

“It is enough,” one of the others said, cutting him off. “The gambit was that we could use the capture of some of those ‘mages’ to buy access to the inner circles – however, now that Udroz has been summoned by his master to explain that pot…”

“You are certain it is nothing you or the others found?” another asked Uaazar and Uaakaz.

“It was not,” Uaakaz grunted, clearly not pleased.

“Respectfully, please,” another laughed. “We must show others we are not savages. Enjoy this party, Uaakaz!”

“…”

“In any case, Udroz will be unwilling to work with us to the extent he was before,” someone else, who she couldn’t see clearly, added.

“Yes, this is the real problem,” Azuum nodded. “The question of your control over Naakos’s band is secondary to that. Do not bring it up again.”

“…”

Uaazar and Uaakaz both twitched slightly but both fell silent.

“I must say, your woman dances very well, Uaakaz,” the one who had told Uaakaz to enjoy the party added with a grin, toasting the two dancing Ur’Inan women.

Uaakaz’s expression settled a bit more – it was well-hidden but she knew killing intent when she saw it at this point.

-Well, this is interesting, she mused.

“So, what about those other three?” Azuum frowned.

“Well, it is hard to say. They look the part and could just be Grass Stalkers from the south…” one of the others mused.

“No,” Uaakaz hissed. “I captured those others, remember? I have seen these crazy mages and those two both look the part – the blonde one is an enigma; she is clearly Ur’Vash.”

“Well, the stories of the Golden Flower Tribe being associated with the crazy mages’ warband and their atrocities are quite widespread,” Azuum mused.

“So, do we try to seize them or…?”

“Or what?” Uaazar sighed. “I gave you the objects already. These things in numbers could change a lot.”

“Or see us all summarily dead in the swamp for serpent bait and our women bound in one of Kozrak’s barracks until they die of overuse,” another scowled.

“You are the ones who decided to settle here,” an old man in much plainer clothes growled. “You knew the—”

“That was before Kozrak turned out to be a tenth of what his father was,” another spat.

“That kind of talk will see you in the swamp for snake bait,” Azuum scowled.

“So what do we do about Naakai and Naakos?” the shopkeeper asked.

“They have split, no longer part of our group,” Uaakaz hissed. “Their link is cut.”

“In that case, it is easy? We just frame them as sympathetic—”

“No, Luuzak,” Azuum scowled, cutting him off. “Naakai is the oldest of the speakers. Her mother was eccentric and gifted. If she is killed or seized, we will lose a lot of valuable information.”

“So… what do you suggest?”

“She is training a successor, that girl Lashaan,” another of the attendees noted.

“And that gambit, to marry Uaazar here to her, is also lost then,” Azuum sighed, drumming the arm of his chair.

“This is what you get,” the old man chuckled.

“Why are you even here, Jotvas?” Luuzak sighed.

“To see you all squirm and contort, trying to advance yourselves in ways that are not Ur’Inan,” Jotvas, the old Ur’Inan, laughed, taking a deep swig of wine. “So why don’t you all talk more quietly and let this old man appreciate beauty.”

“…”

The others all scowled as Jotvas very obviously directed his gaze back towards the two sweating, dancing Ur’Inan females wearing little beyond red and gold paint that very obviously drew attention to all their feminine attributes.

“Ah well, so what of these other bands?” Uaazar sighed. “Do you know anything of the ones who stole away our prisoners and killed Uaaval and Uaaqorz?”

“Not a sign,” one of the others responded. “There have been two groups sighted for sure though – one lot was actually captured, would you credit?”

“They have captives of this mage band?”

“Yes, one group, quite badly injured, had an extended skirmish with one of the bands returning from the battle and were taken captive about two days ago. They have been sent across the river already I think, to one of the secure strongholds of the Udrasa Masters.”

“A pity. I guess they will not go up for sale.”

“You think you could afford a bound mage, Vaayar?” one of the others laughed.

“True, true,” Vaayar sighed, “but we can have dreams can we not?”

“It is the other group that you should be concerned about,” Jotvaz grunted.

“Ahhhh, I find it hard to credit the reports of those numbers though,” another of those lounging sighed.

“There was one band of nearly 300 or so the reports go that gave Ajara a bloody nose—”

“I heard it was some strange beast that came. Before that, these mages were being held by a bunch of old geriatrics who should have died long ago… That hardly strikes fear into the heart!” another laughed.

“They levelled a fortress by all accounts,” Jotvaz chuckled, “and then vanished into the swamps, leaving only a handful of survivors and the place totally looted.”

“A small compound, hardly a fortress I heard – manned by maybe 80 soldiers and 40-50 others and by accounts of the survivors they took casualties,” Azuum noted. “Barely more than was with Udroz.”

“It was a rather convenient compound though,” Vaayar laughed.

Jotvas shook his head, clearly disinterested.

After that they just went back to bickering and sharing gossip about various local events. She sat immobile on the leafy terrace listening for almost another hour, finally understanding why Naakai and Naakos had been keen to spend as little time here as possible. These Ur’Inan were little different from the Ur’Vash and full of ambition to rise above what they saw as their current circumstances and recover their status.

They spoke a lot about that, once they properly started drinking, about how it was Ur’Inan that ruled once and how Ur’Vash took orders, rather than gave them. Uaazar and Uaakaz’s place in this meeting appeared to be mostly answering questions as ‘guests’ of Azuum, and while they were wined and dined and lavished as the others were, especially once other women were brought in, they always looked out of place and uneasy to her eyes.

The only other topic of interest was the ‘Death Watch’ and the ‘Undead’. Azuum was interested in that and pressed Uaazar and Uaakuz for various answers, as did the others. From what she was able to gather, their recent activity was rather atypical and they had been sighted outside the Badlands. Uaazar speculated that something had happened to whatever held them there before, to which the others mostly just nodded in agreement.

Eventually, she left, contemplating what she had learned – namely that the later prisoners had been definitely grasped by some group who then vanished into the riverlands. What was interesting was that that didn’t easily tie with what she had heard the fishermen speak of, but it was possible that in the aftermath of that battle with bands fleeing everywhere there was more than one band or that bands were moving in loose groups.

By the time she had made it back to the inn, she guessed nearly four hours had passed. Juni and Chunhua were both still in their rooms, thinking of their various cultivation issues.

“How is the town?” Juni asked, sitting up from her bed as she entered and deposited the various bits of food and other useful things like cloth onto the handy table.

“Like the worst cesspit corners of Little Harbour,” she grumbled. “It makes Ajara look like a Buddhist temple. I did confirm a few things though…”

While they ate the food, she briefly elaborated on what she had learned, relaying the more reliable rumours regarding the other cultivators mainly, including that a large band had sacked one of the forts on the river near the city along with what she had learned about potential prisoners and slaves from both spying on Azuum and her other observations.

“Charming place, this,” Juni agreed. “So what about the one that Uaazar captured?”

“I didn’t prod about that for obvious reasons, but there was some complaint about missing boats this morning on the south side of the town,” she answered, sitting down on a stool and starting to look at the cloth.

“If I had to bet, I would say that was the group we were following who maybe also swept up that prisoner,” Chunhua agreed.

“That seems likely,” she agreed. “However, if we are going to get anywhere with this now – and I strongly advocate that we get out of this place sooner rather than later – we can’t do it looking as we are.”

“Ah, so that’s why you acquired cloth,” Juni nodded. “I did mark the looks the Ur’Inan got when we walked through the town.”

“Yep, that reaction is pretty widespread, not to mention that there are some complicated rumours drifting about about the ‘Golden Flower Tribe’, Ajara and a possible ploy regarding opposing Udrasa,” she added.

“…”

“That sounds…?” Chunhua frowned.

“Over-engineered?” she chuckled.

“Political,” Juni frowned.

“Yes, political,” she agreed. “Related to that, it seems we have inadvertently screwed a major political plan of the Ur’Inan faction that that Azuum seems to lead.”

“How?” Juni blinked.

“Just by being,” she sighed. “It appears our disguise may have been partially seen through by Uaazar.”

“Shit… I knew I should have pressed you to just ditch them,” Chunhua scowled.

“Yes,” she conceded, because she regretted that now as well.

“On u ubber ‘and,” Juni paused and swallowed down the mouthful of fish she had and looked sheepish. “On the other hand, this has, for all that it is giving all of us a headache, been surprisingly informative.”

“It has,” she agreed. “But we don’t want to linger – Azuum’s lot at the very least are considering targeting us if what I overheard was—”

“They are what?” Chunhua groaned.

“Where did you go?” Juni asked, narrowing her eyes.

“Here and there,” she shrugged. “I went exploring the town but that did lead me back to try and get some info on those prisoners, so I spied on the Ur’Inan having some kind of drunken orgy.”

“Right…” Juni’s tone made her sigh, because she could hear the scorn hidden there.

“It’s fine… That was that… I am…” she trailed off. “Okay, I hate this place and everything I’ve seen here. I want to leave first thing tomorrow,” she said with a soft sigh.

~ Teng Chunhua – Udrasa, like Little Harbour but worse in every way ~

-What did I do to end up in this mess, Teng Chunhua sighed inwardly as she looked from Kun Juni to Lin Ling.

Her progress with the stuff Lin Ling had given her had been rather remarkable – although mainly in terms of integrating it with what she already knew. Not for the first time she had found herself thinking that if she had found it outside she would have run off and dug a hole in the ground somewhere to hide from the world for a few hundred years, or faked her own death or something.

-And that was before I had to dance around the question of mantras, inheritance and Core Formation with Juni…

“So, what do we do now?” she repeated, grabbing another fried fish.

“Well, we need to look less like a bunch of savages, it seems,” Lin Ling sighed, collecting herself.

“And we need to work out what the best way to cross the river is,” Juni added.

“That…” Lin Ling agreed.

Picking up one of the bits of pale golden yellow cloth, she considered it dubiously, because there was an obvious…

“This is nearly sheer.”

“…”

Lin Ling nodded with a sigh.

“I repeat, this is nearly sheer, and I don’t see a lot of Ur’Vash out there wearing obscuring body paint,” she repeated, just in case that hadn’t sunk in.

“I got you the first time,” Lin Ling grumbled.

“And if I recall right, they don’t wear much…” she sighed.

“Well, it’s hot, humid, sticky and diaphanous clothing keeps the bugs out and dries quickly,” Juni sighed, holding up a long length as well.

“You two… have been in the jungle far too long,” she finally concluded a bit lamely.

“If your modesty still has words left to say at this point…” Juni chuckled a bit wanly.

“If it helps, you can just use ‘One with What Is’ to avoid notice,” Lin Ling sighed. “It’s not for long anyway, just until we can get out of the town.”

“I take it masks are out?” she added, wondering if she was going to end up using her emotion-dampening aspects of her mantra so long that she would suffer some kind of backlash. That could happen…

“Veils are not, though,” Lin Ling added. “I am not sure why they don’t like masks and didn’t have any easy means to find out. The only people I saw wearing masks were affiliated with the Taker’s Temple or some high-ranked Ur’Vash on palanquins and those were all in metal – gold or golden-copper.”

By the time she had made a ‘dress’, which was a very charitable term for it, and was considering herself, with her veil, her hair braided in the local style, she was very glad she had the means to bury her discomfort with her mantra.

“I feel like I will never be married if I walk outside like this,” she scowled, holding it up. “Can I not be your savage slave or something?”

“…”

“If I have to dress like this, you have to dress like this,” Juni scowled.

They both looked at Lin Ling who had not bothered with a veil. She didn’t need it, looking every inch the Ur’Vash, now that she had properly dyed her hair more towards brown and cut it short at the sides and plaited it at the back in the local style.

“On the bright side,” Lin Ling giggled, looking at them both, “so long as you use ‘One with What Is’ nobody is going to get as far as looking at your faces—”

Juni beat her to throwing a piece of fruit at Lin Ling by half a pace.

“Hey… hey,” Lin Ling sniffed.

She looked at her garb again and sighed.

-Yep, I am never getting married, and I know who to blame, she grumbled inwardly.

“So, what first?” she asked for a third time.

“Well, I still think we need to make things somewhat right by Naakai and Naakos’s group,” Lin Ling mused.

“…”

“There is such a thing as being too attached,” she pointed out.

She had to admit that while she felt a degree of sympathy for their plight, if they had just accepted their initial hospitality then left the next day most of this would not have happened.

-And I wouldn’t be wearing something a bride would blush to wear on her wedding night in a town that makes the brothel canals of Little Harbour look positively staid…

That, she didn’t say out loud though, because she was also certain that if Juni and Lin Ling, who had a certain degree of personal trauma there, were putting up with it and wearing this kind of garment, she, who was just feeling embarrassed, should just shut up and suck it up.

“There is, but it sits badly with me that they showed us hospitality and lost everything for it, and now Uaazar and that other lot are basically targeting them,” Lin Ling grumbled. “The memories have been trying to tell me I should have killed the lot of Uaazar’s band, this town, whatever for hours as it is.”

“They are probably not wrong,” Juni sighed, adjusting her gown slightly.

“No, but I’d at least like to think there is some line we can draw,” Lin Ling sighed, to which she could only nod.

“So, what do we do?” Juni mused, hopping on the spot and then sighing.

“…”

“…”

“If you do that in a street there will be a small riot and we will have to kill people,” she snickered, because dark humour was the only way she was sure she was going to cope with this.

Lin Ling just nodded.

“May you be chased by monkeys,” Juni sniffed, and made another adjustment to her robe so she could move quickly without drawing every roving eye within a block.

“Well, giving them talismans and such is probably out,” Lin Ling mused. “Hospitality is important for Ur’Inan and they will be offended if we undermine that by paying them money for their problems.”

“So… we give spirit herbs?” she frowned.

“For their children? Suitable ones?” Lin Ling mused. “Possible, if they aren’t too valuable, but poses problems of a different manner.”

“Ah, we are trying not to get noticed as cultivators.”

“…”

Juni, having claimed another fish, exhaled deeply before speaking again.

“What about providing learning, something related to divinations or formations? They taught us a lot of information, after all.”

“That… could work,” Lin Ling nodded. “There isn’t much point in trading herb lore or anything like that because they certainly know more than we do, we certainly can’t give them talismans because that marks us as cultivators… and it can’t be anything too large because uh… we are not meant to be carrying much beyond what we have on us.”

“True, true,” she nodded.

“So, formations knowledge then?” Lin Ling mused.

“Or how to make beggar’s compasses?” she suggested, recalling that she had a copy of the Han Manual on her.

“I am not too sure what they do for divinations. They must do them,” Juni mused, “but I haven’t seen anyone using a compass or compass-like thing at all.”

“I imagine they do rituals and a few people maybe have arts. Here, in the towns, it’s likely a thing people go to the temples for,” Lin Ling mused. “Certainly if their culture here follows anything like what the memories consider as comparable, it would be the prevalence of priests of the Shaper or auguries to the Changer.”

“Just those two?” she asked, curious, thinking back to what had been said before.

“Well, the Maker as well, but that’s for bigger stuff – Breaker is also kind of absolute – it is the Taker, Shaper and Changer who have the reputation for comprehending the natural forces of the world in various ways.”

“Well, I have a few bits of basic formations theory that can be passed off as a ‘thing of our tribe’,” Juni mused, “and I can also teach them how to make beggar’s compasses.”

“I have a copy of the Han Manual,” she added, pulling it out. “We can always say it was something we looted in the battle.”

“Ah, I have one as well,” Juni rolled her eyes, “so yeah, we can give them that, I suppose?”

“Assuming they even accept it,” Lin Ling nodded.

With that deciding that, they sat around getting used to wearing the gowns and finishing off the rest of the food and storing away everything else before making their way out of their rooms and down the hall to where the group of Ur’Inan had allowed them to pay for one of the larger sets of rooms on this floor.

Lin Ling banged on the door, which was opened a few moments later by a wary Teshek who blinked at their new attire with palpable confusion.

“Can we come in to speak?” Lin Ling asked.

“Uh…ah… of course,” Teshek nodded, shooting both of them looks as well.

“Who is it?” Naakos asked, also appearing from the inner room before pausing to look at them dubiously.

“Lin, Jun and Chun,” Teshek replied.

“I can see that; my eyes are not blind,” Naakos chuckled. “What prompted the wardrobe change?”

“Uaazar,” Lin Ling sniffed.

“…”

“Which is also why we are here,” Juni added smoothly.

She nodded and slipped in last, closing the door behind them. Various other Ur’Inan looked at them with mild bemusement as Naakos led them through to the far room where Naakai was seated in something approaching meditation and Lashaan and Eruuna were both playing some kind of board game with stones on one of the beds.

“I see you wasted little time going local,” Naakai said with a certain amount of amusement.

“Not by choice,” Lin Ling sighed earnestly. “It’s also why we are here… part of why we are here.”

Not for the first time, she found herself wondering about Lin Ling’s principle and how thorough it actually was – yang principles were usually seen as forceful, destructive things, yet the way she wielded what was clearly a yang principle was so far outside the box of what you usually saw as to be nearly subversive. In a way, it was forceful and subversive, certainly in how it allowed her a degree of manipulation of social interactions that made her question what she thought her mantra was able to do in hiding her own emotions and moving them at her will.

“I see…” Naakai nodded for them to sit on the far bed and pull up some chairs.

She sat down on one and crossed her legs, while Juni took up residence on the end of the bed beside Lashaan and Eruuna – Lin Ling sat on the other chair.

“In short,” Lin Ling explained, “I went out for a bit of a scout… not looking like this, but as I was before… and I got acquainted with how… uniquely welcoming this place is to those from the south.”

“Ah…” Naakos scowled, also looking concerned. “You are unharmed… beyond?”

“I am fine,” Lin Ling shook her head, “but in the process of going out I stumbled across a few things of relevance. Did you know how involved Azuum and some of the others—”

“Yes,” Naakai scowled. “It is why Uaazar has never been considered a suitable candidate to take over from my brother. Caanar is a much better choice, or Kruuvar.”

“I see, that makes things easier,” Ling nodded. “Well, Azuum and Uaazar seemed to want to use that prisoner they captured to gain influence with the ‘Masters of Udrasa’?”

“Ah… shit,” Naakos groaned. “So that’s what this is about.”

“Mmm…” Naakai nodded. “It was planned that we make the crossing one way or another in the next few days, but if they are still interested in trying to build influence in the hope that greedy old lecher’s even greedier and more lecherous son will give that thing back to them, this is not worth staying around for.”

All three of them blinked.

“It is old history, a thing of our tribe and this town from many years ago, back when Udrasa was merely lawless and a bit uncouth,” Naakos. “Nothing related to you.”

-For now, she sighed inwardly, because the way things were going she would not be surprised if it did come back to bite them somehow.

“I can understand why you are dubious on that, Chun,” Naakai chuckled, apparently managing to read her views because she had not bothered to hide them with her mantra for once. “But you really do not need to worry. There is no way that old rock with its account comes back to our peoples. My mother and father had made peace with it in their time. It is only people like Azuum, who want for us to be more, that are interested in it. In a land where ‘Vash’ rule, no ‘Inan’ is going to be acknowledged to that degree. That is just the nature of our ancient history.”

“And in any case, it is just a rock; the things on it are known to several anyway,” Naakos grunted.

Lin Ling nodded, presenting understanding. “But not Azuum or those here?”

“No, not them, because while they have done important things for our Ur’Inan people and built links, they are neither chieftains nor speakers nor shamans,” Naakai shrugged.

-So Lashaan knows, because you are a ‘Speaker’ and she is being trained by you? She mused to herself, thinking back to that comment about Uaazar wanting to marry Lashaan, or at least have some kind of official relationship with her.

“So, how does this come back to…?”

“Uaazar likely wanted to use us, who had participated in that battle, as a secondary prize,” Lin Ling mused, withdrawing the book and passing it to them.

“What is this?” Naakai frowned, taking it.

“It is written in Lataan?” Naakos exclaimed in surprise, peering at it as well.

“It was a thing we looted off the warband scouts. They had two such books in the few things we found,” Lin Ling shrugged. “It is a collection of teachings on ‘geomancy’.”

“Still, this does not explain why…?” Eruuna frowned, looking at them.

“I overheard Uaazar, Uaakaz and Azuum speaking with others, an old Ur’Inan called Jotvaz… a Vaayar and a Luuzak?”

“Pah!” Naakos mimed spitting.

“They said that they believed we were associated with this Golden Flowers Tribe,” Lin Ling said, smoothly redirecting away from the real reason why that lot likely wanted them… because they were also ‘mages’.

“And because you were at the battle, you likely got things… that they can use to trade,” Naakai nodded. “So they have your descriptions…”

“Yes,” Juni nodded along with her.

“That and this place is quite hostile to outsiders.”

“No less hostile to those born here,” Naakos sighed. “If you intended to fit in like that, you will, but possibly not always in ways you like.”

“Well, we only have to stay here till we can get a boat, which is the problem really,” Lin Ling sighed.

“You can’t,” Naakos nodded.

“You knew?” she interjected.

“Well, it would be hard,” Naakos nodded. “Normally Azuum would arrange crossing for our folk; this is how he secured his position here: he has influence in those circles and makes much trading with the lands up and down the river, relying on the ‘reputation’ of Ur’Inan for honest speaking.”

“Haa…” Lin Ling shook her head, making her wonder what she had witnessed at that ‘party’.

“Yes… quite, but we must work with those who we dislike, and for all his flaws he has always tried to do well by the Ur’Inan bands, even if he is just a facilitator.”

“Except he wants more,” she interjected, even before Juni, being familiar with this type of problem.

Azuum was a ‘middleman’, who was vital to many parties but not viewed as someone who, despite their wealth and influence, would rise up to become one of the leaders because he was not in the right group and he was more useful to all those around him where he was. Some liked that position, but for an ambitious person it was not always a good fit.

“Yes, he and many here,” Naakos nodded. “They make relations with the various bands, but we are few and while we are very understanding, the life of the Ur’Vash is for them, and the life of the Ur’Inan is for us. We made our choice. This is how our tribe is and how we have thrived.”

“Understandably,” Lin Ling nodded.

“Do you have a means to cross the river anyway?” Juni chipped in.

“We do,” Naakos nodded. “Although not here… to the north… the next…”

He trailed off, seeing their strange expressions.

“You haven’t heard?” Lin Ling frowned. “A warband, apparently the ‘crazy mages’ as everyone is calling them, as if all mages are not crazy, obliterated it a few days ago and crossed the river.”

“…”

Lashaan and Eruuna were both staring at them dully now.

“Oh…” Naakai sighed softly, then glanced at Eruuna. “I am sorry.”

“I…” the younger Ur’Inan blinked then exhaled. “I… will go to the…”

“No, please stay,” Naakai said firmly, holding out her hands.

Eruuna wavered then just took her hands and accepted the embrace.

“Eruuna’s family work much like Azuum does here; however, they are much more traditional,” Naakos murmured. “They have a good standing in that place and that afforded them influence even those here respected.”

“No wonder they didn’t seem that perturbed by that news,” Lin Ling signed to them, presumably meaning Azuum and the others.

“A loss of competition,” she nodded.

“This is more problematic,” Naakos sighed.

“What are the threats that stop us crossing?” she asked, curious.

“Serpents and various things in the river and swamps on the far side,” Naakai sighed. “Smaller boats are easy prey, assuming they do not get caught in the currents.”

“But people must have crossed before?” she added.

“They did, but since Udrasa has grown in strength, they have promoted certain channels, forced beasts out of them into the areas between and then controlled those areas forcibly. The ‘Masters’ all have their strongholds either here or across the water and all passage for 200 miles has to go through them because here the river is broad and smooth. Further upstream it is broken land, with harsh currents…”

“And monsters forced out from here?” she guessed.

“Yes, along with a few nasty ruins – the southern tribes do not get on well with those up here as I understand it. The Grass Stalker war chiefs to the east across the river have a good relationship with the ‘Masters’ because they are powerful mages.”

“Compared to those further south who are more… independently minded?” she guessed, thinking about what they had seen in Ajara.

“They don’t like Shamaness Ezajara?” Lin Ling mused.

“Possibly,” Naakos shrugged. “Their ways are not ours and you rarely find out unless they decide to make it everyone’s problem.”

“That was the rumour about town,” Lin Ling nodded. “That this whole thing to the south was a ploy to destabilize Udrasa after they sent so many forces to fight against the tribes in the mountains.”

“Hah!” Naakos barked a laugh and even the still quietly weeping Eruuna managed a half-hearted hiccup at that.

“If Udrasa sent more than a thousand soldiers I’ll eat my shoes!”

“They do seem like the type to speak words and make promises yet always do only the bare minimum,” Juni agreed.

“That might be this place’s motto,” Naakai grumbled.

“Well, it is possible that all is not lost,” Naakos mused, glancing at Eruuna.

“There were survivors, mostly among those at the fort according to what I heard,” Lin Ling mused.

“Ah, was it just the fort?” Naakos frowned.

“Maybe they were not there, but at the actual settlement?” Naakai said to the younger woman, who sniffed and nodded hopefully.

“We can but hope,” she agreed, not really believing it herself knowing cultivators, especially if they were associated with the group who had been captured… either group actually.

“So, if we cannot cross there, can we cross here?” she asked.

“Not without a means of finding a safe path and evading the eyes of Udrasa,” Naakos sighed.

“That…” Lin Ling frowned.

“What?” she asked.

“Well, if it is just that, it should be doable actually,” Lin Ling mused. “I had been thinking about this the wrong way…”

“You had?” Juni frowned as well now, clearly sharing her confusion.

“If it’s a thing we can give you, as recompense for our part in the trouble caused…” Lin Ling mused.

“Unnecessary,” Naakos shook his head. “It is our failure…”

“No, please,” Lin Ling shook her head. “We can go around in circles about this for quite a while – you offered us hospitality, and because of our presence others of your tribe made difficulties and you have been put in a difficult position. We have all lost goods as a result, but what we can easily replace, you cannot. And you have been kind enough to share your learning with us; please let us return that favour in our own fashion.”

“She is not wrong,” Naakai mused. “What is the other thing you would share?”

“Hmmm…” Lin Ling frowned and then with a soft sigh started to draw in the air, leaving a glowing trail of qi to outline the formation setup.

“This is?” Naakos frowned, peering at it intently.

“This is a Heaven’s Path formation?” Naakai blinked after a moment, then looked at Lin Ling with narrowed eyes. “How do you… are you a Grass Scorpion?”

“…”

Lin Ling rolled her eyes. “No, I am not a Grass Scorpion.”

“This is true; if they were Grass Scorpions, Udrasa would already be a smoking ruin,” Naakos grunted, not looking from the formation.

“This formation requires nine or eighteen items of the sympathetic attribute to be used in accordance to this formation,” Lin Ling explained, showing the ‘Element Seizing Cage’ formation, which all of them were very familiar with, to Naakos and Naakai.

“The formation itself is designed to neutralise or seep away the strength of anything within its perimeter so long as you maintain it, while also preventing them from fleeing due to the way the alignments lock out in relation to the various natural attributes of the thing you are focusing on. In this form, it is quite simple, but so long as you understand the theory you can use better materials or items with a lot of mana to contain things you have suppressed or stumbled upon that are quite a bit stronger than you,” she added helpfully.

“Each person has to hold one and you visualise this symbol…” Juni added, drawing a symbol in the air. “That will help you move your mana in the correct way. It is good for spirit herbs, even some slower animals, and will work with any element so long as you can acquire the corresponding materials to support it.”

“This is a valuable tool, especially if it works on difficult spirit plants,” Naakos mused. “We are familiar with such formations, though the style of this is somewhat different. However, ones like these that are for utility rather than attacking are rare and highly prized.”

“Like the Breaker’s Eye wards we use to prevent soul sense,” Lashaan nodded.

-So that is the name of that? she filed that piece of knowledge away.

“There is a second part to this,” Lin Ling added, “A means by which the formation can be further enhanced. However, it may be that you already have the means and we have just not witnessed it.”

“Ohh?” Naakos frowned.

“Are you familiar with compasses?” Juni asked, looking around the room pensively.

“Compasses?” Lashaan shook her head.

“A means by which you can be guided through the good fortune of the world, using Intent to pick out optimal paths. It can be done with or without mana, but the latter is much harder,” she added.

“It is like making an item that guides you between blue and orange,” Lin Ling shrugged.

“Ah, such things are known, but rarely used,” Naakos mused. “They require a lot of ritual setup and then sacrifice to the Mother of Earth and also Sky, then you must find an auspicious spot.”

-So about what we expected then, she mused inwardly, looking around to see if the pieces to make one could actually be scavenged in the room.

“Want me to go see if I can find the pieces to demonstrate?” she asked.

“Sure,” Lin Ling nodded, still drawing.

“I’ll come as well,” Juni said, standing up.

They left the rooms and made their way out into the humid night air, avoiding the common room. In truth, despite her unease they really didn’t get many glances. Looking around, she saw that quite a few women were wandering about, although usually with male escorts, even here, dressed in similar reed cloth.

“I have to admit I didn’t look that closely on the way in, but compared to what others are wearing these are nearly opaque,” Juni signed as they walked down the street looking about.

“It’s more the idea of it that annoys me,” she signed back. “I guess I am just not used to a place like this; I avoided Little Harbour and such places even back home.”

Juni nodded pensively before pausing by a stall that was selling various herbs and other oddments clearly scavenged from the fields outside.

“You, how much for this, this, this and… this?” Juni asked the store vendor, a youth with a nasty scar and a missing hand, who was somewhat surprised to get an actual customer, she suspected.

“Two little mun,” the vendor said promptly.

“Hmm… how about I tell you something good instead?” Juni mused, casting a roving eye over the stall.

“…”

“You no pay… you can—”

“This, if you eat it, will make your mana stronger, and this… and this…” Juni selected three rather bent stalks of a spirit herb.

“Make my mana grow?” the youth stared at her dully.

“How do I know you are not trying to cheat me?”

Picking up the persis stick without comment, she tossed him one of the bone tooth talismans then bit it, grimacing a bit. It was a mature one, which was not the best; however, the growing influence of the parasol qi on her cultivation rather neutered the side effects.

Seeing her easily eat half the stick, the youth nodded, then passed Juni all the bits and took the bone talisman.

“This enough,” he grinned.

“I’ll bet,” Juni signed to her as they walked away, before adding, “I could probably have persuaded him to do it for free; I was curious as to how far I could push my divination art in a conversation like that.”

“Sorry,” she apologised, not realising she had messed that up.

“Nah, it’s fine. It works all the same,” Juni signed.

“When did you pick up so much of their local tongue?” she asked, curious.

She had managed to get a bit, here and there, but that was before they entered the soul wards and without the crutch of Soul Intent to help her intuit the meaning of the words it was difficult for her to speak more than a few words.

“My divination art helps… a lot,” Juni shrugged, before pausing and staring around with narrowed eyes.

“What is it?” she asked, looking around.

“My divination art is still… being nudged,” Juni frowned. “It is still messed up, even though we are quite a ways away from Ling.”

“Ah,” she understood now – it was likely still bugging the other woman that her arts were not quite working right, especially since Lin Ling had suggested it might be because of her principle.

“If it’s not related to that?” she asked carefully, “then what could it be?”

“I… don’t know,” Juni frowned staring around. “However it’s a bit familiar, in an ominous kind of way that I can’t place. I won’t be sorry to leave here behind though.”

“Me neither,” she agreed with a grimace behind her veil before shaking her head to dislodge a flying bug that had buzzed into it. “That said,” she added. “This place is surprisingly good for my cultivation.”

“Same,” Juni mused as they looked at another stall which held various low grade spirit herbs and a few pots of various water critters swimming around. “It’s just a shame it’s also a horrid place.”

“ALL AWAY! ALL AWAY!” a voice yelled suddenly.

Immediately, everyone was scrambling to get out of the street. They stepped to the side as a dozen figures wearing crude copper armour and carrying nasty-looking glaives trotted past, banging on a metal gongs. After them came a palanquin carried on a hulking lizard beast that was heavily branded and scarred.

{One with What Is}

She used it intuitively, feeling herself fade into the surroundings, even before the follow on yell came.

“ALL BOW FOR THE MASTER!” the command sank into everyone – not soul sense, ‘Principle’.

Both of them went down without fighting it. She was sure she probably could have, thanks to the parasol qi and ‘One with What Is’, but it would certainly have attracted some notice so she just schooled herself with her mantra and acted as panicked as everyone else who was grovelling.

The beast tromped past and she shot a furtive sideways look at where it was going, her worst fears already confirmed when it stopped outside the inn they were staying in.

“Shit…” she signed to Juni.

“…”

Nobody else was daring to move as the guards prowled this way and that in the street. At this distance it was impossible to see who got out of the palanquin and entered the inn.

“What do we do?” she signed.

“There they are!” an intent suddenly washed over her, and she was bodily hauled up to find Grezvor standing nearby, with Uaazar behind him.

Neither of them had done that – it was one of the last two she was sure. One was a scrawny female Ur’Vash covered in off-yellow paint with two extra eyes painted on her cheeks and a black swirl on her forehead.

“Hah, they sure look the part,” the mage, who was much stronger than her, easily an Immortal, cackled.

“They do blend in well,” the other, a male covered in strange eye-like markings and also wearing bronze armour with a slightly greenish tint, nodded. “I can see why that Udroz wanted to keep them for himself. If we had not known that this warband of mages looked very similar to us it would be easy to be fooled.”

“Can we run?” she managed to sign.

“Interesting, you think you can run?” the woman grinned, making her sweat mentally.

-Their realm is such that they can grasp the intent from the signing at a single glance?

“…”

A moment later the various Ur’Inan, along with Lin Ling, were ushered out of the inn by the guards, children and all. Two actually dragged Naakos, who appeared to have been hit by something. Lin Ling’s face was a mask, inscrutable, but she was being flanked closely by four of the guards. The female figure who led them was dressed like the scrawny woman, but with more gold if that was at all possible – including a solid gold mask cast in the shape of a smiling woman’s face. The eyes visible through it dark pits that made her shudder.

They watched as she got back into the palanquin without comment and started off back down the street, the other guards falling in behind them, escorting the Ur’Inan who were pale and shaking. The guards escorted them over as the group went past. Unable to speak, they were escorted all the way to the docks where they were met by Azuum.

Unable to speak, they were escorted all the way to the docks where they were met by Azuum.

“You have done well, Azuum. We will remember this,” the tall Ur’Vash covered in eyed tattoos smirked.

“It is just our duty as citizens of Udrasa, Great Kozrak,” Azuum said with a deep bow.

“You are a disgrace,” Naakai spat.

Azuum and the other six behind him said nothing, not meeting her eyes.

“Perhaps they could come, to witness their service in full?” the voice from the palanquin mused.

“Your command is wise, Great Quazam,” the scrawny woman cackled. “Azuum and these others will come with them.”

“…”

The guards fanned out as the local Ur’Inan and Uaazar suddenly looked a bit less sure of themselves.

“Our humble selves are just happy to be of service, Great Quazam,” Azuum bowed deeply. “Please do not let our presence cause issues for you. It is enough that we have been of service like this.”

“All citizens of Udrasa serve the will of Great Quazam, mother of Kozrak, Great Mother of Udrasa, Mother of the Masters,” the scrawny woman said with amusement. “You are required to witness the service you have rendered in full. You are honoured, are you not?”

“We are so honoured, Great Mother,” Azuum said, a bit uneasily.

-Hah, you’re in just as much trouble as we might be, she sneered inwardly.

Without further comment, they were escorted along the dock and directly onto a large reed and wood boat which held almost six times the same in guards if she was any guess.

~ Cang Di & Qing Dongmei – Retracing Steps ~

It took them nearly a full day to make it back to the battlefield in the end, despite his earlier determination that it was a bad idea. It wasn’t Shatterpoint, or even Qing Dongmei that suggested he do so; it was actually that he felt bad about leaving the dragon girl in the barrier. She had not seemed that broken up about his inability to free her, but he had still been sure it would take a while at least.

“So… you came back to look at these barriers…” Qing Dongmei said at last, as they stood there by the now somewhat reformed pond, considering them.

“I did,” he acknowledged, a bit awkwardly.

“They are empty,” Qing Dongmei added.

“They are,” he agreed, pondering how that could have been achieved.

Looking around, all the Yang effervescence had dissipated so he could walk right up to them without difficulty.

“It’s one thing to get out of one of these, but quite another to do so in a way that leaves them intact,” Qing Dongmei frowned, surveying the barriers as well.

“They used one of the weirder variants… I think?” he mused, experimentally poking it with his spear.

“You don’t even know which barriers those Jade Gate lunatics were slinging around?” Qing Dongmei frowned as he had to take a few steps backwards to recover from the recoil of the impact.

“These were courtesy of Jiong Jiaying,” he grunted, narrowly avoiding stepping in the pond.

“Ah…” Qing Dongmei nodded, then turned to look at him. “Wait, that bitch is here?”

“You didn’t cross paths in the battle?” he was surprised at that, before recalling it was the other Ancient Immortal who had made reference to her being tidied up.

“No, thankfully – isn’t she a quasi Dao Immortal?” Qing Dongmei didn’t quite ask ‘isn’t she nearly as strong as you’, but the implication was there.

“Close,” he nodded, still considering the barrier.

He could see it had been weakened in some way. Yang strength was corroding it slowly – the barrier itself was recovering, as it was designed to do, but…

“…”

He had to stare at it rather carefully, but the aftershocks of energy preserved in the signature of the yang strength suggested a pointed, strong impact from both sides at once. He had gotten out of his cage by a similar means, but it had cost him a rare talisman.

“Ah,” he clapped a hand to his head, suddenly feeling stupid. “Of course.”

“Are you just going to stand there exclaiming or will you actually explain?” Dongmei pouted a bit.

“You recall the meteor in the tribulation?” he mused.

“Vividly,” she shuddered.

“Recall how the dragon broke it?”

Dongmei paused for a brief moment.

“Then why is the barrier still here?” Dongmei frowned.

“It’s a stupidly high step barrier for what it is, while that tribulation was only a Mortal Step one,” he pointed out. “I would guess, though, that she did not use the same degree of power – such an ability cannot be without a serious cost.”

“Ah, that’s true,” she agreed, “And it was an extraordinary tribulation. Someone still must have hit it from the outside though?”

“That does seem to be the case,” he agreed, considering the integrity again.

“So if this earth dragon, the person who set this all off, has managed to get free? Who was in the other one?” she asked.

“Well, I was in that one”—he pointed to the one on the left—“The other one had an old Ur’Vash expert in it.”

“Who is also not there,” she noted, peering at it closely. “The barrier shows a similar kind of distortion? So someone came and freed that Ur’Vash and also freed the dragon?”

“Or someone freed the dragon and then they… or she dealt with the Ur’Vash,” he mused, looking around at the distortions in the ambient qi.

“So,” she frowned, staring around at their surroundings again, “what do we do now?”

“…”

“Follow after your juniors and try to catch up to them before something stupid happens to the prisoners and we can get to the bottom of this,” he mused.

-There is also the question of that disturbing artefact those brats ran off with…

Reminded of that, he pulled out his talisman and considered it again – the scores were still…

“Huh…”

In doing so, he also cast his eye across the sect transmission talisman he had brought along, not in any real expectation of using it, but such things were occasionally useful. Now it was outside, not sealed in his storage talisman it had just updated with a message.

‘Senior Brother Cang, we are trapped in an abandoned city…’

He parsed the rest of the message and sighed.

“What is it?” Dongmei asked.

Without comment he passed her the talisman.

“Senior Brother Cang, we are trapped in an abandoned city, having been randomly teleported in an anomaly in the mountains. Now that talismans have been restored, we have been able to contact you along with other seniors to ask for aid in exploring this city. Various other powers of the Imperial Court are already collaborating to try and uncover its mysteries – please aid us in upholding the righteousness for Shu. – Shu Erwei.”

She read it out, frowning then looked at him with a dubious expression. “Are juniors from the Shu Pavilion really going to send you a message like this?”

“I’d like to say no?” he frowned, “but in this case, Shu Erwei is not from the ‘Shu Pavilion’ but from the ‘Wise Gate of Supreme Law’.”

“Oh… them,” Dongmei’s tone of voice dropped a level, making it clear what she thought of them.

In truth, they were not actually a bad sect and had a fairly good reputation – the issue was that they were chief among those advocating for closer ties to the Blue Morality Court within the wider auspice of the Shu clan’s various powers on Eastern Azure.

“So, they are trying to rally what exists of those sympathetic to the Shu clan to exploit some ruin or other?” she mused, pulling out her own similar talisman.

“Do you have a message on your talisman as well?” he asked.

“Nope, there are two short ones relating to the battle and various other bits of coordination but nothing like that.”

“Well, it’s not fake in and of itself… but…” He considered the talisman again, then sent a short message back.

“Details, explanation – Bronze.”

{Shatterpoint}

It was somewhat redundant, given the distance, but there was no harm in trying, he concluded as they both stood there considering the talisman. A response came back a few seconds later.

“Senior Cang? Are you able to help? Your strength and skill with divinations would give us an excellent edge in this endeavour.”

“This is Erwei?” he sent back, grimacing at how much of his qi went to each transmission.

“No, senior brother is conversing with others about our stratagem. I am Fuan Hao, core disciple of the Eastern Fire Wind Pagoda.”

“…”

Dongmei, watching from the side just shook her head.

-Another one from the more Imperial Court aligned stable, he mused.

“What is the ruin?” he sent back.

“An old city. It has some treasures in it, as well as various formations and such we are trying to break.”

“Sounds like where we were,” Dongmei added.

“Can you transmit an image?” he sent back.

“Our qi is not enough; is Senior able to come support our endeavour?”

“Send me the coordinates and I will consider it,” he replied noncommittally.

A moment later, a series of constellation like points appeared, giving him a faint pull to the south-east as the origin points of the talismans synchronised briefly.

“That’s a long way away,” Dongmei mused.

“Probably you are too far away. Teleport talismans are problematic and there is a lot of hostile territory between us,” he sent back.

“Oh… well, Senior might be able to get here; this will not be a quick exploration,” the disciple on the other end asked, sounding somewhat hopeful.

“Perhaps,” he agreed. “In any case, please give my regards to disciple Erwei.”

“Shu is Righteous, Senior Cang,” the other disciple sent, then closed the link.

There was nothing overtly untoward about the message itself, but some part of it did feel off. It took him a minute of pondering to find what it was – the feeling surrounding the circumstances itself was invitingly auspicious but didn’t feel particularly natural.

“Interesting,” he mused, considering the details and sensations the art gave him. “It’s not fake in and of itself… but…”

“It’s suspicious, very suspicious,” she remarked with an amused expression, likely recalling his initial comments about the pills and the Shu juniors.

“Yes, it’s suspicious, very suspicious,” he agreed, mirroring her stupidly phrased comment.

“…”

“So…”

“Well, were I closer I’d be tempted to look into it, but they are affiliated with the Imperial Court more than the Shu Pavilion. Actually I am kind of tired of playing nursemaid to juniors who just want to stab others out of my shadow or want to stab me by sideways means,” he sighed, putting it away. “Having just had one lengthy run-in with the Jade Gate Court, my tolerance for the plots and stratagems of the other ‘Gates’ is…”

“Nonexistent?” she agreed with an eye roll.

Shaking his head, he took a few steps and arrived on the hilltop, overlooking the battlefield. Dongmei arrived beside him a moment later with a *shufft* of displaced breeze.

“In any case, they can have their glory,” he added, “whatever it is. Our problems are up here and are somewhat more pressing, I rather suspect.”

“The link talisman I have for our sect tells me that Ah Mei, Kani and Zhenmei are all off in the north-east. Surprisingly, it also shows Meifen in that general direction as well,” she noted, considering the compass-like charm she now held.

“Hmmm…” he stroked his rather scraggly beard and sighed, then looked up at the sky.

It didn’t take long to find a circling bird of prey and send out his soul sense to ride with it. The goal here wasn’t to actually track them like that, although that was a possibility, but rather to get a better idea of the terrain to the north-east.

The bird responded to his nudges and rose, gliding off on a thermal in that direction for a bit and allowing him to use its eyes passively to see what he needed. To the north was a huge swathe of grassland and broken land – rolling hills, scrubby vegetation and the odd meandering river as the plains dropped in altitude gradually.

Some twenty miles away was the site of another large-scale combat, discernible to his experienced eyes without too much effort. He also spotted four different camps of Ur’Vash towards the north-east as well, including one rather close to that battlefield.

Exhaling, he let the bird go on its way and refocused on the moment.

“Well?” Dongmei asked.

“We want to go… north-east… ish,” he pointed away in the general direction of that second battle. “Someone had a big fight with Ur’Vash about twenty miles away.”

~ Dun Lian Jing – Solaneum ~

Stood in the central courtyard of the city she now knew to be called Solaneum, Lian Jing felt unclean. Not, for once, because she was being degraded or humiliated or had someone messing with her, although that last thing was happening now. No, she felt unclean because she understood clearly what Gan Renshu and the diviners were doing now and it disgusted her thoroughly.

Somewhere, they had found an imperial gown for her to wear, and forced her to dress up like a picture book princess – beautiful, regal, elegant, imperious even – all to play the part being presented here.

Before her, almost two hundred cultivators of various sects aligned to the Imperial Court, the Huang Clan and others bowed to her and those around her. Mostly that was disciples of the White Storm Sect along with a few others dressed up as the Ran clan. Gan Renshu himself was using some high grade disguise art to pretend to be Huang JiLao, while Gan Jiao was masquerading as Ran Hao.

Another two hundred or so, who had already gotten a variant of this speech, were standing around the edges, watching respectfully. Surveying them all, she found it hard to credit that this place had been a charnel house mere days before.

Some prisoners still lived, held in a secure location and being interrogated by the diviners, but almost all of those who had lived here had been thoroughly disposed of now, their cores harvested, the remnants of their Nascent Souls refined into precious crystals and everything else of obvious worth cleaned out before any of those they were using arrived. After that, everyone else within the inner circle had left, dissociating themselves with the initial phase of this stratagem which was being mostly handled by those vagabonds who had come in later and a few paid-for experts.

“…”

“SEES IMPERIAL PRINCESS LIAN!”

“SEES IMPERIAL PRINCESS LIAN!”

“SEES IMPERIAL PRINCESS LIAN!”

The new arrivals all saluted grandly, three times as was appropriate for someone of her station, and then she held up her fan to bring them to respectful silence so she could speak the words Gan Renshu had put in her mouth.

“Thank you all for answering our summons, loyal disciples of our Eastern Azure Great World… As you are aware, our august father has called this trial to test the heart of our great world and allow a new generation to rise.”

“OUR HONOUR TO SERVE!” the salute echoed through the whole courtyard.

“It is indeed an honour for us all to serve the will of our world’s heavens, the Blue Morality Emperor,” she acknowledged graciously.

The worst part there, was that they didn’t even allow her to sneer inside – she had no love left for any part of that edifice and they knew it and so she was made to feel love for it and also allowed to feel just a little disgusted by it, without being permitted to acknowledge that disgust itself.

“I have called you all here so that we might undertake a great achievement for Eastern Azure,” she went on regally. “As you have seen, this is a land of devils, yet within it peerless treasures are sealed. With your aid, today we will uncover the secret of this place and in doing so you will all make a great contribution to the future of Eastern Azure.”

The worst part there was that it wasn’t even a lie – it was just that the contribution they were about to make was to paint a massive target on the Imperial Court and likely set the Wuli branch against the Core branch of the Huang clan when word of what had occurred here got back, which she was very sure it would, whether the whole thing worked or not.

“Young Noble Huang,” she waved to ‘Huang JiLao-Gan Renshu’ elegantly with the fan. “If I could prevail upon you to explain to all of those here what we hope to achieve today?”

“Of course, Princess,” the fake Huang JiLao bowed politely and stepped forward to stand beside her.

“As the princess has stated, we wish to uncover the secret of this place and to do that requires your aid. As some of you have already seen, there is a stele in the heart of this city which the princess wishes to uncover the secrets of, on behalf of her Imperial Father. The nature of the seal has already been divined – it is associated with the inheritance shades of five worldly truths of demon ancestors who once resided in this place.”

That got rather some rather uneasy shuffling, but the fact that none of those on the platform where they were standing looked uneasy quickly quelled the unease.

“The various leaders of those noble powers here”—he waved a hand to the other ‘young nobles’ from various Imperial Court influences standing to the side—“will explain to those of you from their factions what is required. As to the rest, we will discuss with you directly to determine what role you can best fulfil to contribute to this great endeavour!”

The various leaders of influences from the ‘Four Peacocks Court’, ‘Jade Gate Court’, ‘Azure Pillar Court’ and ‘Wise Gate of Supreme Law’ all politely saluted her first. The others, from various influences like the Pill Sovereigns, Argent Hall, Zhi Zhi Mountain, White Storm Sect… the Red Sovereigns and so on, saluted a moment later as befitted their ‘lesser’ status in the hierarchy of the Imperial Court.

The appearance of the Red Sovereigns was particularly egregious, because as far as she could see, they were legitimate disciples of the sect, not at all associated with Gan Renshu’s plot.

“What I will say, however, is that we must be careful. These demon ancestors sealed away a treasure associated with the Huang clan and did so successfully – while the treasure strives to help us, sending a great augury to aid this endeavour, we cannot be complacent,” she said.

“Good fortune and success to Eastern Azure!” Gan Renshu concluded with a salute to her, then to the flag of the Imperial Court that fluttered next to them.

The others all followed suit, saluting first her, then the flag of Eastern Azure’s Imperial Court as well.

“GOOD FORTUNE AND SUCCESS TO EASTERN AZURE!” the assembled throng cheered.

She watched them mill about and start to reorganize according to the instructions of those already there with an empty heart. The feelings of euphoria and ‘hope’ that echoed within her were just…

She was forced to turn and walk over to Gan Renshu and the others, to see Yan Ju smile ‘respectfully’ at her, and Gan Jiao, disguised as ‘Ran Hao’, greet her ‘warmly’. Nobody else noticed anything untoward – that she could see anyway.

-If only you knew, she sighed inwardly, surprised that they allowed her that… then realising that letting her acknowledge the futility and injustice of what she was witnessing and being party to was all just part of their attempts to slowly subvert and control her thoroughly.

The goal was to subvert a worldly truth, no more, no less… and thus had this stratagem been born out of the minds of Gan Renshu and the various diviners.

As everyone had reasonably concluded after interrogating the various leaders, the chance of this ending badly in some manner was almost a forgone conclusion, so this was the solution. They would push the potential blame in the eyes of whatever vengeful reaction came onto Eastern Azure and in the process make the Wuli branch of the Huang clan and the Imperial Court the sinners if any of those venerates did still live.

The means by which they planned to subvert that thread was also deeply unsettling, all the more so because she knew her history. To subvert a thread of the world’s fate you had to acquire a connection to it and then make a malleable link. Gan Renshu had been quiet on what that might be, but near as she could tell, they intended to use a huge divination stratagem with this group to induce the already twisted threads of this place’s fates to try to correct their current confusion.

That process had already begun, using talismans ‘she’ had provided – which in truth came from Gan Wan and Gan Ulang – to divine the events unfolding that were most easily nudge-able towards a suitable outcome. When that happened, those assembled would then divine the connection point – be it a person provided a lucky opportunity, or a treasure or some other thing – and use the grand momentum of the stratagem to do to them what had been done to her. They would thus become a second living puppet, but tied to one of the truths sealing the stele.

The diviners suspected it would be the golden flowers as that had had a prominent momentary connection, but really, they had concluded any would do. All that was required was that way in, at which point the whole seal could be disentangled and the contents of the stele uncovered.

They would get the prize and the backlash would fall on all the unfortunates here.

It was remarkable, really, how quickly this has actually been set up. The various Dao Immortals had rushed off, posing as juniors of various sects and basically set the whole thing in motion. Others had called through talismans to sect members explaining away absences as a freak anomaly that had deposited them far to the south in this ‘abandoned’ treasure city.

Within three days, almost 400 victims of this plot had been assembled and more were still arriving by the hour. By comparison, the Gan clan’s group had basically stepped aside and were just observing, as were the Heavenly Solace contingent. Only a few of the diviners had an active role, posing as various experts and infiltrating the various groups to guide others.

“Congratulations, Princess Lian,” the leader of the Four Peacocks Court contingent said, saluting her politely as she arrived beside them. “Very eloquently spoken.”

The others nodded, before the disguised Gan Renshu turned back to the leader of the group from the Wise Gate of Supreme Law, a scholarly youth in gold and white robes called Shu Erwei.

“Any luck with your sect brothers? Brother Erwei?”

“Some to the north have agreed, they say they will be here in a while, but Senior Cang claimed to be too far away.”

“Hmm… a pity, his achievements are exceptional and he is even rumoured to excel at divinations. It would have been a good thing if he participated,” Renshu mused.

“Yes, although it is understandable. Senior Cang is a righteous person, but frequently prefers to let others make their own names,” Erwei nodded.

“Indeed, Senior Cang’s style is very commendable,” the leader of Zhi Zhi Mountain, a cold-looking man in blue robes called Quar Fan, agreed.

The leaders from the Pill Sovereigns and the Jade Gate Court both nodded in agreement as well.

“Yes… Very admirable,” Renshu sighed, looking a bit disappointed. “However, his presence here would have been helpful to our endeavours.”

“Indeed, quite so. Perhaps if I interceded with him personally to ask for help on behalf of all of Eastern Azure?” she found herself asking.

“Perhaps,” Erwei nodded. “The princess’s offer is most gracious and may sway Senior Cang’s view; however, it will take a while to re-configure a connection.”

“See if it is possible,” Gan Renshu sighed. “Someone of the calibre of Senior Cang will be a great boon.”

She shuddered inwardly at that, as much as she was able. At the current rate, the spread of sympathetic influences here would see Eastern Azure buried in bloodshed if this went remotely according to plan.

Even if it didn’t, she suspected that the hole torn through the younger generation in this place would be such that nobody had the slightest idea where to start.

“It is a pity Senior Renshu is also unable to be reached,” the Red Sovereigns’ ‘leader’, a beautiful woman called Qing Xing whose own contribution score was ranked 14th overall at this point, sighed, staring at the talisman in her hand.

“Yes, it is,” Gan Renshu deadpanned.

“Have you tried reaching out to him, or his brother Gan Jiao again?” ‘Ran Hao’ – Gan Jiao himself, in truth – asked earnestly.

“Yes, but it seems he cannot be reached. I suppose he has his own endeavour,” Qing Xing frowned.

“It will be their loss when we succeed here,” Yan Fu smirked.

“Perhaps, however, the more we are, the greater the chances of success…” Gan Renshu sighed, before turning to the others. “Well, it is what it is. Let us talk about how we set up the second phase of this exploration…”

~ Ruo Han – Savannah Dawn ~

-Another miserable night gone… Ruo Han found himself sighing, as he watched the last stars again fade away into haze with the first light of dawn pushing away the grey gloom of fading night. And no disturbing red sky either… and no heads on trees…

The dawn sky was still red, but it was the normal red of haze and dust in the sky.

Those heads were… unnerving, because even now, he could still see them, if he shut his eyes, their pallid, bloodless faces grimly glaring at him… and the fact that one of them had been the head of that slain interloper…

Grimacing, he took a sip of water from the flask, trying and failing to ignore how lukewarm it was, courtesy of the very mundane container it was in. They had not sat watch through the dawn this time, so their camp was within the inner ring, on the edge of the one affiliated with Senior Zi and also the tents of the Verdant Flowers Valley – where Liao Ying was, talking to some of the female disciples there.

As such, the only other company he had was Jin Chen, who was sitting in half-slumbering meditation opposite him, trying his best to recuperate qi beside the fire’s smouldering embers.

“Would you at least walk quickly?” a called voice, coming from the direction of the tents just visible beyond the rock they were camped against, asked.

“…”

He made no overt reply after glancing around, and instead continued to listen to the sounds of the dawn, mercifully lacking an enraged dog pack, and instead checked that the formation node for their portion of the campsite was still where it should be, around his neck.

“Why do we have to do this?” another voice complained, confirming his original hunch that it wasn’t for him.

“Maybe because this landscape is chock full of crap that will pounce on you as soon as look at you?” the first voice grumbled.

“It’s dog-shit,” the complainer muttered.

“Do you want to wake up to find a wild dog gnawing your testicles?” someone else said with a nasty chuckle.

“I’d happily wake up to a pretty b—”

“Shut up you two…” a third voice hissed.

Through the scattered shrubs he caught a glimpse of three disciples in loose-fitting teal robes talking away without much care for their surroundings as they headed back towards their tents, visible off to the left in the grey morning mist.

“Bleugh, it’s so mediocre…” the second voice complained, clearly not willing to let their grudge go, as they moved past his camp.

“Well, what do you expect? For all that Senior Song is an expert and good at battle, she is a rogue cultivator…”

“…”

-How quickly they forget… he sighed inwardly, though they were probably from one of the groups who had drifted in the previous day.

The teal robes should be… Four Peacocks Court, though equally they could be Myriad Herb Association, who were sort of like the Hunter Bureau; however, so far he wasn’t seeing the competence compared to Teng Chunhua or the others.

He was about to sit back and just wait for the other camps to stir, when there was a faint shimmer in the formation jade he wore around his neck… a warning that something had slipped across the perimeter without a proper ward stone…

“Wake up!” he poked Jin Chen, across from him with his foot.

“Beast attack?” Jin Chen grimaced, opening his eyes and grasping for the hilt of the sword he had been lent.

“No,” he signed, pointing at the jade.

Beasts would just trip the alarms… or in the case of the serpents, unravel them. For the jade to resonate meant someone had tried to cross but done so via more conventionally mendacious means – a cultivator basically, trying to infiltrate the camp.

“Shit…” Jin Chen made a rude sign and looked around at the gloomy, pre-dawn shrubbery warily.

“What do you think?” he signed, pushing him down to remain out of sight.

“They should be near here,” an unfamiliar male voice hissed to the left of him, making him groan inwardly as they both carefully started to move towards the side of the camp closer to the other fires some 5 metres away from their position—

“You want to run?” a second amused voice murmured.

Between them and the next camp, two masked cultivators wearing dark robes slipped out of the dry vegetation, holding talismans, and swords, blocking off their retreat.

Cursing the lack of any real offensive options, for neither of them had storage rings or anything beyond what they were carrying, he sent a tiny flicker of qi into the formation talisman, triggering the ward completely.

With an echoing chime, the alarm triggered and lit up the whole area like a small constellation of moons.

“You—!” an arrow took the speaker through the head, shattering his mask and pinning him to a rock.

“Brother Shun—!” his compatriot hissed, diving towards them with enough speed to mark him as at least a Nascent Soul cultivator…

{Cao Cun’s Area Ga—

Before what he assumed was a rather high grade area teleport talisman could trigger, three more arrows struck the youth from out of the gloom. One hit their right arm, another a leg and the third damaged his assailant’s storage ring with a sharp crack of shattering space, taking the attacker’s left forearm with it.

“—Aggggghhh!”

The youth screamed, which in other circumstances he would have considered rather unprofessional of supposedly stealthy raiders, but he was fairly sure that the disciples from the Nine Auspicious Moons’ had started poisoning their arrows…

What was weirder was that the sound didn’t travel, as if dampened by something…

-Figures, he thought grimly, waving to Jin Chen to move as he now dashed out of their little campfire, towards the next, somewhat larger one.

It wasn’t like they were on the perimeter either. There were two larger camps beyond their spot towards the edge of the camp, and the group led by Senior Jia, another Nine Auspicious Moons disciple, was only ten metres away…

A third masked disciple appeared like a ghost, through the tall grass, grasping for him, and then froze as a pair of feminine hands grasped his head in the grey morning gloom. The interloper twitched and collapsed like a broken puppet as Fairy Liling stepped over him, a sour expression marring her normally beautiful face.

With that cultivator’s incapacitation, sounds returned to the world, starting with the crack of another storage ring being broken in the middle distance, then a further, more distant scream that was cut off very abruptly.

“Thank you, Fairy Liling,” he said with a relieved sigh, working to get his pounding heart rate back under control.

She nodded, then looked around, frowning, noting the other two bodies.

“Was that all of them, Senior Liling?” Jin Chen asked.

“Seems like it.” Liling nodded. “The majority went for Han Shu… and Liao Ying.”

“…”

He wasn’t sure what to make of that, beyond how angry and helpless it made him feel in the circumstances — stuck here as a technical cripple, able only to watch his qi bleed away bit by bit and try to outlast it in the aim of ‘recovery’, unable to help.

“We got two more,” a young woman wearing a beige travelling robe and a grey veil, carrying a bloody chakram, appeared from the direction of the camp perimeter, dragging another dark-robed body.

Shen Cui came after her, carrying a second headless corpse and looking a bit aggrieved at how much blood it was putting on his robe.

“…”

Silently, he stared at the head, which improbably, he realised he recognised as one of those that had been hanging on the tree, glaring at him in his vision the previous day…

“Okay,” Liling sighed again and motioned for them to head on by.

Two more women that he had barely marked in the gloom, both from Verdant Flowers Valley, turned back to the camp perimeter.

“So they were after us…” he tried not to sound too unnerved as he asked, as much to distract himself from the uncanny sight.

“Greed makes fools out of people,” Liling shrugged, waving for them to follow her back into the camp. “So long as they come with storage rings there is something good to be gained of it at least.”

Though it was probably not a sentiment shared by many of those hanging onto their group at this point, he couldn’t really disagree with her assessment. It didn’t take long to reach the main circle of the camp, past two more groups of disciples huddling in barriers, protecting their tents and looking at them with sour expressions.

Ahead of them, several disciples from one of the groups were pleading with Senior Song and Senior Zi, while several other disciples from the Verdant Flowers Valley and Dewdrop Sage sect stood around with folded arms and dark expressions. Looking over them, he could see that two were obviously injured, while Liao Ying was standing next to the dark-haired Senior Jia Ying, of the Nine Auspicious Moons, with a pale face.

Senior Quan Dingxiang was stood off to one side, looking contemplatively at the interlopers as well, along with several of his own sect.

“Look… this is—”

“You speak words, but I see only empty things…” Zi Min sneered, cutting the protestations of various people off by resting his blade on the neck of a shivering, dark-robed cultivator, who had been robbed of his mask.

“Our seniors just told us—” another mumbled.

“Then you can congratulate them for their lack of care for their juniors before you drink Granny Meng’s potion!” Zi Min cut him off with nasty grin. “You think you can just raid camps without consequences? This is not the Imperial Court’s nursery!”

“No… please… we will swear an oath…”

“Yes… an oath!”

“By the Eyes of Heaven—”

“Didn’t you hear? Oaths are worth dog-shit here now…” one of the Dewdrop Sage disciples smirked, cutting them off.

“As much as I also want to kill them…” Fairy Liling murmured as they arrived in the circle of firelight. “That will only exacerbate matters, Senior Zi. We must be mindful of the bigger picture.”

“She is right,” Jia Ying agreed, her luminous blue-grey eyes narrowed in a way that suggested she was not exactly happy with the reality of the words she was agreeing with.

“…”

Zi Min looked at them and sighed, taking his blade away.

“Look… Daoist Song, Fairy Jia” one of the disciples from the Shen clan, spoke up. “We appreciate that you are trying to do right by your Senior Dongmei, but if this keeps up… how long will it be until someone dies protecting these three traitors to their sect and that body… which is certainly marked by the Jade Gate Court?”

“Indeed,” another disciple from a minor Imperial continent sect added. “If we just give the Jade Gate Court and the Argent Hall what they want…”

“Our lives are certainly not worth those of these bureau dogs…” another muttered, referencing the few Hunter Bureau prisoners they were also still taking care of.

“You think that will matter now?” Zi Min chuckled.

“It is the prisoners they are after… If we just give—” a disciple from the Pill Sovereigns sect spoke up.

“They are after all of us…” Senior Jia said softly, cutting him off. “You think they will believe that as a group we got nothing from them? You were screwed the moment you went along with their farce back by the forest.”

“But…?” the disciple resolutely refused to back down, with the captives watching on with nervous interest now.

“How cowardly,” Liling sneered. “You hide behind Senior Song, you hid behind Senior Cang, and Senior Zi and Senior Xin… Does your spine only exist for your own circumstances?”

“Quite,” another Nine Auspicious Moons disciple snickered. “Such brave heroes of the generation, hiding behind little sisters’ skirts…”

That got quite a few nasty laughs from the various disciples behind them, though he noticed that quite a few from the clans were not as overtly enthused.

“…”

“This is bad…” Jin Chen muttered.

“You don’t say?” he agreed, looking around, doing his best to hide his concern and ignore the few dismissive or outright hostile looks being cast their way.

The sentiment in the group had already been on a knife edge; however, for many the desire to not die was starting to outweigh their dislike of the Jade Gate Court and there had been quite a bit of post-battle re-rationalisation going on he suspected. The problem, now, was that many saw the most expedient means of ensuring their ongoing survival, distancing themselves from this scenario, as giving ‘them’, or the other freed prisoners, to someone else.

The secondary issue was that quite a few were unhappy that those leading were mostly from the Western Continent rather than their own sects. There was also, remarkably, some snobbishness in there that a ‘Rogue Cultivator’, Senior Song, was the most powerful person here, and not some noble representative of a great clan.

“You think after all that effort they will let this lie?” he muttered to Jin Chen, who nodded in sullen agreement.

The Jade Gate Court had put a lot of effort into getting Han Shu, that much was clear now, and anyone caught up in that was going to have a bad time of it he was pretty sure, starting with the three of them. That it had taken this long for there to be an attempt like this was already quite miraculous now he got to thinking about it.

-If it’s someone like Hao Tai, they, or the Argent Hall, absolutely won’t let this lie… if we provide a link to whatever Han Shu had.

In a way, he was more concerned about that, because he knew how dangerous the Hao clan could be and they had clearly been after the artefacts on Han Shu as well.

-If we are talking about culprits, this kind of thing has the Hao clan all over it…

Where the Jade Gate Court could possibly afford to just hide their theft by fiat of their status, the Hao clan would likely aim for subterfuge then just see everyone here dead, banking that this was a foreign land and lost bodies were hard to interrogate at the best of times… Not to mention, killing anyone from the Hao clan was a rather spicy prospect and they cared little for justification when seeking retribution.

-Though it could equally be any number of the other lesser influences, because word has clearly followed us.

“How do we have any means to get anything from them anyway?” someone else complained.

“If we explain…”

“Yes, if we just explain… the Court is reasonable…!”

-Then why by the nameless fates are you lot even here? he wanted to scream at them, but sadly that would be counterproductive.

That was the problem, as he saw it. The group was simply too large and over half of it was unwilling to see eye to eye and basically just ‘sticking with them’, because they thought there was a chance at free profit. When they were told to bugger off, and they had been given several opportunities to go their own way already, they refused, and yet they also complained at not having a say. It was like being haunted by in-laws…

“Yes, the Discipline Gate is righteous…” that would be another of the latecomers, one of several groups who had miraculously missed both the mess by the forest and the battle… or were just being wilfully problematic and had been swept up the day before yesterday.

“And will you let them scour your soul to check?” Senior Song replied, in an almost sisterly tone, putting away the scroll she had been reading. “Will you hand over your storage rings for them to root through, swear an oath of their wording to the highest heavens?”

“…”

There was awkward silence around the camp, as the various cultivators who had been captured hid smiles.

-Is this what they were after, not to succeed, but a gamble to sow further discord?

“Will your seniors protect you, or will you just vanish into the depths of your sects… go into ‘retreat’… or ‘private meditation to advance’ while some old elder unpicks your psyche for his chosen scion’s benefit, pondering what might have turned the eyes of the great powers on you?”

“…”

“Look,” one of the captured disciples said winsomely, into the silence, “ignore this quarrelsome rogue cultivator. She knows nothing about the honour of the sects or the bonds we share! You can see from our conduct that we are not interested in you…”

“…”

The dull-eyed stares that got were borderline hilarious, truthfully, though it still seemed to win over a slightly disturbing number of the onlookers, several of whom were actually nodding.

“Senior Song… we beseech you, please don’t implicate us in this more than we are already…” a Four Peacocks Court disciple spoke up, which made even the leader of those disciples, stood nearby, scowl darkly at them.

-Even the Imperial Court factions are inwardly at odds over this?

“Please Senior Zi…”

“Senior Jia…”

“Senior Liling…”

“Senior Quan!”

“Where do they keep finding these silver-tongued bastards from?” Jin Chen muttered beside him.

Various disciples from the various influences all bowed or protested to the group of seniors as he wondered that himself. He had seen his fair share of people willing to talk fast and wide to get what they wanted back in the sect, but these last few days were making him wonder if he had been blind.

“You know… rather depressingly, I actually find myself agreeing with Cang Di…” Senior Song muttered, standing up abruptly.

“Agree with…?” one of the protesting disciples asked, confused.

“It is the shame of my lifetime to be associated with this generation,” Senior Song sneered. “Now, everyone pack up so we can get moving, before the wildlife or the locals also decide we are overstaying our welcome!”

“Pack up…?” someone groaned.

“Now! Whinging hour is over!”

For the first time, actual intent infused her voice, making the dawn mists around them shimmer and dance oddly. Most of those talking grimaced and took a step or two backwards… some even sat down, looking pale.

“What about them?” another of the Nine Auspicious Moons senior disciples asked.

“You—”

“The—”

“We—!”

Senior Song waved her hand, cutting off their various words as all five survivors twitched and collapsed unconscious. “Toss them in the second carriage. Some of those from the Myriad Herb Association and the Four Peacocks Court will gladly give up a spot or two, I am sure, or pick some concerned soul to carry them, if anyone can be found… Now, Jia, Liling, a word?”

“…”

They watched in silence, as she turned and walked off towards the first carriage, a moment later, Jia Ying and Liling Mei followed after, with dismissive glances at those assembled.

“Well, what are you waiting for!? Get moving!”

Senior Zi’s voice cut through the silence, and with that everyone started to disperse, grumbling.

“What now?” Jin Chen signed to him.

“…”

“Let’s go find Liao Ying,” he concluded after a moment’s thought.

Jin Chen nodded and started to walk a bit more purposefully through the bush towards the first of the two carriages, where Han Shu was being guarded and where several Nine Auspicious Moons disciples were now loading various bits of butchered animals into the back. The second carriage, also parked nearby, held the injured herb hunters who still couldn’t walk, which was more than half, and was a further source of much annoyance to many of the hangers on.

As they walked up, he caught two of the Nine Auspicious Moons’ disciples shaking their heads behind him.

“If their stupidity causes more problems for Senior Dongmei…” one murmured softly.

“No more prisoners,” her companion agreed.

“Agreed,” a third scout, from Verdant Flowers Valley, who had just caught up, nodded.

Jin Chen shuddered, walking a bit quicker, because all three were now staring at many of those around them, slowing packing up the tents like they were vermin to be wrung out.

…

Their onward progress through the rolling grass hills was, as expected… fractional. Nobody was happy about the raid, though for various different reasons, as he had already seen and nobody was happy about the solution, again, for rather differing reasons. The guards on the second wagon were, in the end, from the Shen clan, who sort of ended up as the mediators between the rank and file Nine Auspicious Moons disciples and the influences like the Four Peacocks Court.

“I think the problem is the sky,” Jin Chen muttered, after about an hour of them walking along ahead of the first carriage, making sure it didn’t run into anything difficult to traverse.

It took him a moment to work out what his friend meant, because those were probably the first words he had spoken since they started moving.

“Yeah…” a youth in a ragged blue robe beside them muttered. “And the horizon.”

It was the horizon, he had to reflect. The whole landscape had a sort of pressure to it beyond anything to do with cultivation that began to wear after a while. It was something to do with the vastness, and the unending blue, without any clouds. It robbed you of awareness of distance, and made you feel unnaturally small, never mind the sanity-eroding climate that ignored cultivation realm.

Even Golden Immortals were sweating as they walked, the women wearing their loosest gowns and broad veils and many of the men stripped to the waist and wearing hats of grass or cloth.

The wind was also hot, which didn’t help at all, because the grass was dry and sharp, with edges that cut like razors and left a nasty rash if they caught you wrong.

Most of the trees they passed had nasty spikes associated with their leaf clusters and every shrub and plant had thorns, stinging hairs or both.

It had already been mooted at least once that they trek closer to the river, which had been spotted a few times now, but when they finally got there, around late morning, that was discounted almost immediately, simply because humid heat was overwhelmingly worse than hot heat… and the river, according to the scouts who went in to check as they progressed onwards, also had something else the higher ground did not – insects.

Lots and lots of insects.

Having walked through the forests with the others, he could imagine, just by looking at the still reed beds and distant glimmering water channels in the distance, how foetid trying to walk through that would be… How open to attack it would leave you, even in the day, and at night, he could only imagine how grim it might be, with the lure of water attracting all sorts of things from the plains around them.

Even by day, the plains were not that empty. There were several distant trails of smoke from out in the marshes to their east and south that hinted, ominously, at settlements – something nobody was keen to go near – and they passed occasional herds of tan and white cows browsing in the wetter grasslands, near the waterways. Predators were less… but not to the point where you could ignore then either: soon after they arrived near the marshy region, several obnoxious two-headed serpents that spat poison managed to ambush a group of foragers from a minor sect before fleeing into the reeds, leaving two people badly injured.

By the time noon rolled around, there was, unsurprisingly, some appetite for stopping; however, much to his amusement, Senior Song and Senior Zi basically told those who wanted to that they were more than happy to, but that they, the carriages and the supplies would continue.

There was some grumbling for several minutes; however, it was undeniable that stopping would just leave you vulnerable, and things like the serpents might return, so it was without much suspense that they hurried to catch up again, casting dark looks in every direction as they did so.

An hour later, however, finally saw them run into a proper problem, though not, in the first instance, from any cultivators. Instead, it was when a group of some sixty bow-wielding Ur’Vash riding horned jaguars and dressed in light grey cloth armour charged out of the savannah haze.

The first volley of arrows hit the back half of their train, scrupulously avoiding the area around the carriages and instead splintering their way into the rather amorphous and discontented gaggle of groups milling along either side of them.

“Left!”

“No! Right—!”

“There are—!”

“Brother Kua!”

“No… please…!”

“Watch out for—!”

Caught in the open, all he could do was dash towards the nearest hill slope and the cover of some rocks with Jin Chen in tow and lament that he had nothing much by way of a weapon, beyond a loaned sword.

As he watched, the second volley peppered the far side of their band, easily splintering three groups away and exposing the carriages properly. In retreat, the mounted archers cycled back, skilfully dodging talismans and breaking line of sight with rocks and trees before they could be hit by the barrage of lightning sent in retaliation.

The chaos that it caused was immediate, although also somewhat superficial, as the various organised, battle-hardened parties associated with Senior Song, Senior Zi and Senior Jia watched cultivators scatter everywhere even as their own parties started to form formations.

“Hah… at least they are good for something,” a Verdant Flowers disciple snickered as she sought refuge beside them a moment later.

“Senior Yi,” he saluted her with a nod of his head and continued keeping a wary lookout for what would certainly be flanking forces coming from behind them.

“You don’t have a useful weapon?” she asked dubiously, looking between him and Jin Chen, noting their swords.

“…”

“We barely have pills, and it’s impossible to scavenge anything,” Jin Chen muttered, to which he could only nod.

“Any good with bows?” she asked, then ducked as several more arrows embedded themselves in the bank disturbingly close to them, shafts painted with yellow lines quivering…

He scrambled back, around the rock he had taken refuge beside, but to his surprise they didn’t explode.

“These don’t explode?” Jin Chen asked warily, echoing his sentiments.

“Why would they explode?” Senior Yi asked.

“The yellow… markings…” he explained, swiftly scanning to see if he could make out the archers. “Those with blue move in unpleasant ways, those with yellow tend to explode, those with red send your qi chaotic…”

“…”

“Huh…” she nodded, not asking how he knew that, then stared at the arrows again, also backing away. “So why aren’t these exploding?”

They both looked at her, trying not to appear as if she had asked a stupid question and she sighed, pulling out a throwing spear and a treasure bow, tossing the spear to Jin Chen and the bow to him.

“I know you can’t bind things because of your circumstances, but with these you can provide some support so long as they have qi. They are Dao Seeking grade artefacts that run off spirit stones, so don’t lose them,” she admonished, drawing his attention to two pieces of pale jade, in his case set into the grip of the bow.

Nodding gratefully, he took the bow and pulled back the string, watching as it manifested an arrow automatically and also imbued it with martial intent courtesy of whoever had refined the spirit stone without him having to do anything. As far as treasures went, it was, in fact, a rather good one, though he had no chance to really admire it as three horned jaguar riders leapt over the rock outcropping and skidded down the slope some twenty metres away, angling towards them.

Senior Yi pulled out a silver chakram and slung it at them, then grabbed both him and Jin Chen and started dragging them forcibly along at a fair pace, leading him to guess that all three were above Dao Seeking at least. Behind him, he saw the chakram bisect two riders and break the arrow of the third before it returned to her.

“Loose net!” a voice in harsh Easten called out and suddenly a dozen arrows carrying a swirling net of silvery threads drifted through the air towards them, shot by a group of archers on foot who had just appeared out of the reed beds a hundred metres down slope to their right.

{Moon Sickle Mirage}

Another Nine Moons disciple on the top of the ridge ahead of them shot an arrow at the net, scattering strange silver beams through it, only to see those too dissipate with minimal effect, before being forced to evade for cover as a several arrows split the air where they had been.

“…”

Watching how the arrows that landed near them looked almost like they had deliberately missed, he had a rather unpleasant premonition, recalling how the groups in the forest had been remarkably hard to cope with…

“BACK!” he yelled, hauling both Jin Chen and Senior Yi up short—

Abruptly, phantasmal, gossamer-like threads swirled outwards from the fallen net, enmeshing the entire area in a restraining field. As soon as the fibres came into contact with him, he felt a sickly sweet aroma of some kind of drug and his qi started to dissipate like spring mist in sun.

Senior Yi, looking pale, tossed out a small white artefact scroll which twisted twice in the air and emitted a shining white flower and taiji over their immediate surroundings, scattering the majority of the gossamer threads and the net before disintegrating itself.

{Myriad Steps Celestial Dance}

Even as he was recovering, she vanished in an afterimage and appeared before the archers, wielding the pair of chakram-like short blades now, tearing Ur’Vash apart in bloody arcs as they scattered back into the reed bed.

He was about to relax, when she screamed and suddenly vanished into the reed beds, as if yanked away by something so fast he hadn’t even seen—

A serpent shot out of the reeds, a robed, bronze-masked Ur’Vash seated on its back, holding the struggling Senior Yi by her neck—

{Moon Dust Spark}

The lightning bolt hit both Ur’Vash and serpent, illuminating the entire area in a searing flare of light. The only person spared its brutal fury was Senior Yi, who twisted free and leapt back from it to land, breathing hard and looking pale.

“Senior Liling…” she gasped as Fairy Liling appeared a second later, her own bow strung, searching for another target.

“With me,” the older woman grimaced, glancing at them.

Not needing any encouragement, he hauled Jin Chen up and all three of them followed after—

Zi Min, wielding a sabre, crashed down on the slope to their left, already cutting outwards at the reed beds.

{Storm Cutting Shadow Sabre}

The reeds swept backwards and then everything within 200 metres of them collapsed into shredded ribbons, all but a few of the dozens of Ur’Vash who had been rushing silently through them reduced to bloody chunks.

Gritting his teeth, he sighted on one of the survivors, a swarthy, masked figure in a red robe carrying a bronze staff, and shot three arrows at him in rapid succession. The figure slammed the staff into the ground, a swirling barrier appearing around them that blocked the worst of the arrows, but failed to stop the spear that Jin Chen had thrown, which pierced through his shoulder and then vanished in a crack of lightning to reappear in Jin Chen’s hand.

-Handy, he grimaced, sending another volley of spectral arrows, two of which did find their mark—

Senior Yi cast both her chakrams, dragging him down as a lightning bolt split the ridge line, distorted from its original path by her thrown weapons.

Even so, with the close miss, he felt his limbs grow numb, while behind him there were screams of anger and pain.

Pushing himself up, he saw that the injured, robed Ur’Vash had vanished; however, Senior Zi had killed most of the survivors…

With a flicker of movement, Zi Min appeared on the ridge beside them, shaking his head.

“Talk about unexpected…”

“Yes… why did we not notice this?” Senior Yi muttered.

“No compass worth a blood-cursed spirit stone has worked since we departed the battle,” Zi Min sighed.

“Likely because of that pitiable Han Shu,” Liling agreed, giving the two of them a sideways glance.

“I’m more concerned about those Ur’Vash,” he interjected helpfully.

“Ohh?” Zi Min frowned, glancing at him.

“Uh… well… before we got captured, we saw a lot of them in the forest.”

“Yes… there were reports…” Liling nodded.

He shook his head, because he doubted anyone had explained… and nobody had asked him at least.

“When I say a lot… I mean thousands… more than you… uh… fought before… Proper armed bands… arts users, their battle devastated an entire valley in a matter of hours and was still ramping up when we fled.”

“I… see…” Zi Min frowned. “However, what does that have to do with these… Ur’Vash?”

“Well, we saw next to none with metal weapons, and certainly none with metal armour,” he said grimly.

“Those were proper military units we saw in the forest, with big formations and qi beasts stronger than anything we have yet encountered out here, I think,” he pressed. “All of them were tribal elites… We ran into ones that could run through the air… and split rock outcrops with ease from hundreds of metres away…”

“…”

Zi Min stared at him, then started cursing under his breath.

“And none of those tribes used metal weapons or tactics like this?”

He shook his head.

“Why is this relevant to this group?” Senior Yi looked a bit confused as well.

“And nobody thought to ask you about this before now?” Zi Min groaned.

“…”

He wasn’t sure what to say to that really, beyond shrug apologetically.

“There were proper formations, with metal weapons, in the battle,” Liling nodded. “They came at the end, and didn’t engage fully, as we were already retreating… and the second group who came were mostly infantry, but well-organized… Now they are hunting us with skirmishers.”

“They are taking us seriously and they know how to fight groups like ours,” Zi Min nodded grimly.

“Then there are the arrows,” Liling sighed, passing Zi Min one.

“…”

Zi Min looked at the coppery-golden metal tipped arrow then experimentally poked his hand with it and grimaced.

“Well, shit…”

“Quite,” Liling nodded. “I have our group from the Dewdrop Sage Sect gathering them up post-haste, before other cultivators from the less trustworthy groups do, but enough were shot by them that their effects are clear at this point.”

“What do they do, seniors?” he asked, curious.

“The metal causes physical injuries to the soul somehow,” Liling said, taking the arrow back and shoving it in the quiver at her side.

“Excellent for hunting powerful spirit beasts,” Zi Min nodded.

“Also, excellent for making cultivators whose longevity has flipped primacy with their soul very nervous,” Liling agreed. “And it’s just as effective against Immortal Souls as Nascent Souls. Anyone shot with these gets a nasty soul injury that doesn’t heal without expenditure of some fairly precious medicines…”

“Well, there is a bright side to this nasty little ambush, it should have killed off the hotheads who want to go raiding,” Zi Min chuckled nastily.

“You think?” Liling scowled.

“…”

“Yeah… who am I kidding,” Zi Min agreed with an eye roll.

The rest of the afternoon was fairly uneventful. They passed two small ruins, both strange affairs, carved in cliffs of hillsides and resembling shrines, putting him in mind of the ruin they had found behind the waterfall. Despite some vocal protestations by a few parties, they didn’t stop long, mainly, he supposed, because of the wariness about more Ur’Vash attackers… who never appeared in any case.

That didn’t surprise him particularly, given that the Ur’Vash were likely masters at working in this landscape and the cultivators, despite the efforts of Senior Song and a few others, were not that subtle. She was clearly doing something to obfuscate their trail, but that likely only worked for longer distance divination and it certainly wasn’t keeping cultivators away, because two more bands found them just before dusk.

The first was a ragged, battle-worn bunch from the central continent’s Ji clan of all things, who claimed to have fled some mishap further west and who were met with open arms by the followers… much to the low-key annoyance of those from the Nine Auspicious Moons.

The second, was a larger group, also rather battle-worn, that caught up from the south… somehow. They were also folded into the followers-on; however, with them, they brought news that the Ur’Vash tribe controlling the river lands to their east was, it seemed, actively hunting down bands of cultivators.

That, in itself, didn’t surprise him a great deal, as he sat in the processing camp, helping Liao Ying sort spirit herbs to the best of their ability, listening to the various back and forth from groups as they came and went.

“You are surprisingly good at this?” that remark cut through his general sense of fugue and made him glance up.

The speaker was an older man who he didn’t really recognise, who was sitting on a rock, smoking a pipe. In that regard, he stood out, because he was clearly not a junior.

“Weng,” the older man chuckled. “I was one of the hired guides with the big miss from the Shen clan… We caught up yesterday, seems fortuitous as well…”

-Big miss from the Shen clan? he had to think for a moment, because nobody was going around introducing anyone like that to ‘freed prisoners who might have betrayed their sect’, before recalling that was the dark-haired beauty Shen Biyu – the highest-ranking member of the Shen clan with them – who was currently standing across the other side of the cleared area, talking to Shen Cui and another disciple with blonde hair in a greenish robe.

“Yes… fortuitous,” he muttered.

“Ah… you are that lad who was with Han Shu…” the older hunter sighed, looking at the carriage with a dark look.

“You… know Han Shu?” he asked, surprised.

“Aye. A good lad, it was disgusting to see what they done,” the older man nodded.

“…”

He wasn’t sure what to make of that…

“You’re better with herbs than I expected… I take it he taught you something?”

“…”

“We did help out… We crossed paths with Han Shu and a few others after some mishaps… They led us out of the jungle… and then got caught up in this…” he explained at last.

“Ah… bad business,” Weng nodded. “Been coming for a while, truth be told, but didn’t expect it to explode in here of all places.”

“Been coming for a while?” he blinked.

“Yeah, there’s been politics between the big clans and the Azure Astral Authority over taxes and stuff for the last few years… questions bigger than a bunch of juniors out to make a name for themselves… except when shit like this happens…” Weng took another puff of his pipe and shook his head, then glanced at the herbs before him. “That’s not one you want to put in the alchemy pile,” he waved a hand and flipped two greyish spiky stems of a plant out of the pile he had just put them in. “Rare thing, too yin for compounding, better to put it in the special pile.”

Nodding, he moved a third bit of that herb over as well.

“So how do you know Han Shu?” he asked, politely, sitting back.

“Well, mainly by reputation. He was a nine star hunter, a good lad, if a bit lacking in field experience among the up and coming lot in West Flower Picking,” Weng sighed. “I’m a Beast Hunter from North Fissure, and the other one over there trying to talk up the Shen miss is Deng Xiang, a former seven-star herb hunter from Blue Water City who jumped ship to the Myriad Herb Association. I knew Kun Juni and her brother more, because she basically ran the procurement hall in West Flower Picking town.”

“…”

He had to work hard to school his face at that fairly offhand comment. From what he recalled, Beast Hunters were the elite groups within the Hunter Bureau that focused on qi beasts rather than spirit herbs… so that meant that Weng was definitely at least an Immortal.

“I wouldn’t go reminiscing about either of them around Deng Xiang though,” Weng chuckled, “seeing as he’s from the Deng clan after all.”

“How does that factor in?” he asked, confused.

“You never thought Han Shu’s foundation was a bit low for a Junior Official’s?” Weng chuckled.

It had crossed his mind, he had to admit, but having seen their competence… and Teng Chunhua’s, it had sort of fallen away as an issue quite rapidly, especially when you factored in the suppression in Yin Eclipse.

Apparently taking his silence for agreement, Weng went on with another puff of his pipe. “Some of those who are a bit older, like Deng Xiang, don’t like how Blue Water Province started fast tracking hunters after the last big bust up between the influences. That disaster basically killed off all the junior herb hunters not tied to the big powers, and many of them—”

“Wait, killed off?” he turned to look at the older man, surprised.

“Aye, nasty business some 30 years ago. Over half the Blue Water Province pavilions’ younger generation got eviscerated or pulled away to join the three schools when the Imperial Court’s backers in the Teng and Golden Promise schools tried to break the influence of the Azure Authority on the Hunter Bureau… and the Deng clan and Ha clan also got in on the act,” Weng nodded. “West Flower Picking was among the worst hit. Most of their current high rank hunters are too young for their ranks, much to the annoyance of those like Deng Xiang.”

“Our hunter from South Grove kept us alive when everyone else bailed,” he added a bit more bullishly than he intended. “And as for Han Shu… our path out of the jungle was much smoother than our path now is. I doubt anyone else could have done better…”

“…”

Weng eyed him, then nodded. “I ain’t speaking ill of them, don’t get me wrong. They are… were… all bright kids, but there are some who would, just because they don’t like to see others rise too fast…”

“Still, it seems…”

“Hypocritical?” Weng barked a laugh that got some nasty looks from the other hunters sat a few metres away. “You’re not wrong, but staring at one’s own nose is a skill akin to a Dao Path, as I am sure you have noted already!”

Flipping through a few more herbs, recalling the different patterns he had been shown when they were helping Ling and Juni with making compounds for Jin Chen to turn into crude pills, he mulled that over, feeling a bit depressed. With their names on everyone’s talismans, he was sure that Sir Weng was politely fishing for some information, even if he was being sociable… and in a way that made his head hurt even more than it already did.

Looking around, four of the other Hunters, former prisoners of the Jade Gate Court, were sitting a distance away, sorting through herbs themselves… but the majority of the back and forth was being handled by the Myriad Herb Association or the Pill Sovereigns’ own disciples… and two Golden Immortals from the Nine Auspicious Moons were sitting nearby, also, ostensibly, working on some jade for a formation core, but certainly really just keeping an eye on things.

Nearby, several other disciples from the Four Peacocks Court were also sitting, watching and drinking wine, weapons clearly in evidence, casting dark looks at the freed prisoners.

-This state of affairs cannot last, he thought grimly.

…

That night was much the same as the previous; however, after the attempt at stealing away them and Han Shu, there was no question of any of them doing something like ‘keeping watch’, so instead he just found himself finding odd things to do to stay occupied while his cultivation slowly and painfully imploded as his Nascent Soul continued to haemorrhage qi.

The dawn brought more of the same, as he, Liao Ying and Jin Chen basically remained under the watchful eye of various Nine Auspicious Moon disciples as the carriages made their way on over the rolling grassland, a third, much less spacious one having been added to hold the five prisoners. Those still worried him, as did the apparent concern of many of those along with them that they not be too badly mistreated, even if they were unconscious. There were some protestations about that, as they were transferred, but nobody seemed inclined to seek out Senior Song to ask her to awaken them, which was rather amusing.

Their first proper sight of the strength of the territory they were moving through came just after midday, though soul sense had been obscured since mid-morning from what he could grasp of the grumbling of those around him. Standing on the escarpment, looking down over the river lands, it was hard not to be impressed. He was not sure what he had expected of an Ur’Vash settlement, despite having seen some fairly hefty ruins in the jungles, but the sprawling fortress covering almost two square miles with outlying walls and various causeways was certainly not it.

That was a view shared quite vocally by quite a few others, as more people finally arrived on the ridge. It wasn’t just the fortress, though, that drew the eye. While much of the river land was obscured by a misty, haze-like mirage, it was possible to make out long causeways, smaller fortified buildings and towers amid the reed beds and large lakes. Off to the north, he could see a lot of smoke rising, and even with his currently quite poor eye sight, at least one more slightly smaller fortress along the waterway, maybe eight or nine miles distant.

“They have boats…” a Shen clan cultivator nearby muttered, pointing.

Following their gaze, he saw that they did indeed have boats, well-built ones at that, pulled up on the river-ward side of the nearest fort.

“Getting across there is going to be a total pain in the neck…” a Nine Auspicious Moons disciple muttered nearby.

“You don’t say,” her compatriot, from the Verdant Flowers, agreed.

“It certainly explains why there were more forces still coming for the battle…” someone else agreed.

“How… can there be something like this?” that was likely one of the remarkable group who had hitherto managed to avoid most trouble before joining up with them, he supposed.

“At least it explains why they have standing forces and cavalry…”

“Are those siege weapons?” someone else muttered, pointing.

Shading his eyes, he realised that the towers of the fortress did have siege weapons on them, and they were manned. Huge crossbow weapons with what looked like…

He glanced sideways because already someone had wasted a distant view talisman to provide a better picture, telling him that they did indeed appear to be repeater ballistae, and he could make out stacks of ammunition, arm-length darts of golden-copper metal stacked near a wall behind one.

“Stop that!” one of the Chosen Immortals from the Ji clan snapped, stalking over and cancelling the talisman.

“Hey!”

“Those are expensive!” the youth who had used it, who was from the Dun Imperial School, complained.

“And if they have a way to latch onto it and drop a few volleys of whatever those siege weapons are on us?” someone else nearby pointed out.

“You think some crude…”

He turned his attention away as various other onlookers became aware that the group had maybe just endangered all their lives and started condemning the trio from the Dun School at length, looking for Jin Chen and Liao Ying. It didn’t take long to find them, a bit further along the ridge, standing on the edge of a much more serious discussion between several scouts, Seniors Song, Zi, Quan and a few others.

“We can’t take this group across there,” Quan Dingxiang was saying. “Even if we had all the strength of the previous group, even I can see that this is an entirely different prospect.”

“Indeed… however, there is another problem…” the scout, a male disciple of the Nine Auspicious Moons, interjected.

“Another problem? Beyond the wards, patrols and the fact that we will not be able to travel a mile down there without being spotted?” the leader from the Four Peacocks Court scowled.

“Yes, Senior Wen,” the scout replied with a grimace. “We met another group, remnants of… well, they should be coming in soon. They said that the demons down there are out in force, and that two groups they were in contact with vanished a day ago as they were making their way up river towards here.”

“Vanished?” Senior Song frowned.

“Almost certainly captured by these local demons. They claimed they narrowly avoided such a fate themselves, last night, mostly by scattering and risking running into the savannah blind. Qilong Mei found them when screening our path an hour ago.”

“What influences?”

“Four Peacocks Court, Dun Imperial School, Jade Gate Court… several minor groups with ties to the Huang clan… a few with ties to the Argent Hall…”

“…”

“So we keep going north—?” Quan Dingxiang mused, not sounding that bothered by that list, though Senior Wen was looking perturbed.

“—But?” Senior Song prompted, cutting Senior Quan off.

“Well… we managed to get some prisoners to interrogate – a small patrol on a boat – and it turns out that we are on the southern edge of this territory, which is heavily focused on these river lands to the north and east,” the scout grimaced.

“Because of course we are,” Jia Ying observed with an eye roll.

“There is more, isn’t there?” Fairy Liling pressed.

“Well, those disciples described a few in their group that were likely from the Autumn Peony Pagoda… and Senior Pei, who was not with them.”

“…”

“And they were not just saying this to make sure you were interested in helping them, Qing Jiang?” Senior Song frowned.

“We thought that… but…” the scout, Qing Jiang, trailed off for a moment, then continued, “Well, Qilong did search for other survivors but found nothing other than a few skirmishes and trails heading to the river… however, when we scoured the prisoners’ minds, they had knowledge of four separate groups associated with a ‘warband of crazy mages’ as they termed it.”

Another of the scout group passed over a jade, which Jia Ying sent qi into directly because of the soul sense restriction, then sighed and passed it to Liling.

“The stolen gear of those interrogated includes storage rings and robes of the Autumn Peony Pagoda,” Liling murmured, passing it to the Four Peacocks Court disciple whose face darkened further after a moment of looking at it.

“Shirong Pei, Linren Kana and Qing Yao are still unaccounted for among the more senior disciples of Nine Auspicious Moons… who were with us before; however, their soul jades are all with Senior Qing,” Jia Ying said gloomily. “And these demons also saw a weapon I know belonged to Junior Brother Shirong Pei…”

“Wei Chu and Ao Chengqing for us,” Bai Tuli, the de-facto leader of the Verdant Flowers Valley group, who rarely spoke up that he had seen, mused, glancing at a talisman she had just pulled out of her rustic coloured gown.

“Hua Mei and Yu Feifan,” Liling Mei noted.

“We have a few as well,” Quan Dingxiang agreed, “though the chaos of the battle does not help.”

“There should also be a group from the Burning Tiger Sect as well as those from the Autumn Peony Pagoda that were with us back in the ruins… before all this insanity,” Zi Min noted. “They have not caught us up either…”

“Yeah,” Liling Mei nodded. “However, it would be foolish to assume that everyone still missing has been captured though.”

“True,” Jia Ying murmured in agreement. “But the last communication from Qing Yao did say that her group had met up with the Burning Tiger Sect and were heading back to us.”

“Hmmmmm…”

Senior Song looked oddly contemplative, while Jia Ying scowled darkly.

“Anything else?” Zi Min asked after a moment.

“We got a map, would you credit?” Qing Jiang said, taking a reed parchment out of his sleeve and passing it to Jia Ying.

“…”

“They have roads and, with soul sense restrictions all over, they have to have some means to keep track of things,” Quan Dingxiang sighed, peering at it.

Standing beside Jin Chen, he also craned his neck to see the map, which turned out to be a fairly sophisticated ink thing with a lot of annotation and various lines drawn.

“At least this explains why those traces of pursuit you have been picking up on the trail are so sporadic… If those chasing us from the battlefield knew we were going to head straight here… they don’t have to hurry,” Zi Min sighed.

“That seems awfully convenient?” Fairy Liling asked.

“You think? Well, turns out they were taxmen among their other tasks…” another scout answered, running a hand through his hair.

“Taxmen…”

“Well, you made some demon’s day brighter, I guess,” Senior Song chuckled, also staring at the map, which showed quite a broad sprawl of waterways with various settlements and other features, with narrowed eyes.

“So… what do we do now, Seniors?” one of the alchemists standing beside Quan Dingxiang asked, after they had looked at it for a short while.

“Certainly, quite a few will be keen to try and recover those who were captured…” Zi Min said with a sideways look at Jia Ying and the Senior Wen from the Four Peacocks Court.

“Yes,” Wen agreed, also looking at Senior Song and Quan Dingxiang.

“What is the deal with your juniors anyway, Brother Wen?” Quan Dingxiang scowled at him. “They are nearly as bad as the Jade Gate Court in causing trouble, and the more people arrive, the more spin into their orbit.”

“Different faction, they are mostly from the Green Feather Hall…” Wen grimaced. “In any case, because your side is doing most of the real scouting, news likely won’t spread just yet, but as soon as those others come in you can be certain that it will not take long before the more discontented parties start to talk… and with you already pulling around one group of freed prisoners…”

“…”

“Do one righteous deed and it haunts you for a lifetime,” Fairy Liling chuckled darkly.

Wen grimaced, though a few others, including Zi Min, laughed.

“So, setting that aside, do we go inland now?”

“No,” Senior Song said decisively. “Even before I heard what that Ji bunch had to say and read between those lines, that auspice was bad.”

“And we can’t backtrack,” Zi Min mused. “Not unless you want to fight a small army again and there is the question of the Jade Gate Court and the Argent Hall… after that raid the other day.”

The Ancient Immortal from the Four Peacocks Court grimaced at that, he noted.

“Wait for Senior Cang and Senior Qing?” the scout ventured.

“Bunker down somewhere and hide?” Quan Dingxiang mused. “That could work…”

“It won’t. We are being tracked fairly unerringly, and that is even without the matters surrounding Han Shu,” Jia Ying shook her head, casting a sideways glance at them as well that made him feel… decidedly uneasy for some reason.

“Let’s get moving again, anyway. We can talk about it more as we move,” Senior Song remarked after staring at the distant fortress for a moment.

…

The rest of the afternoon passed rather uneventfully, which seemed almost in contravention to circumstances, at least until the arrival of the groups found by the scouts and word of the local influence ‘taking prisoners’ became widespread knowledge. Because of their fairly central position to the convoy, he got to witness, at a distance and in silence, because they warded their surroundings, the various ‘groups’ all come to ‘put their case’ to the seniors at quite some length.

To their surprise, though not so much to his, Jin Chen or Liao Ying’s, the seniors appeared to be rather receptive to the idea of some kind of expedition to free prisoners, because those who made the entreaty left with rather confused and, in a few cases, rather doubting expressions.

Camp that evening was in another scattered ruin, a semi-circular set of abandoned buildings around another small rock-cut complex set into the side of the escarpment, slightly sheltered from the river lands sprawling to their right. The scouting mission departed soon after the camp was set up, though it did not, he noted, contain all that many disciples from those parties who had pushed for it.

“I guess only seniors are going?” Jin Chen asked Bai Jing, who was with them at their campfire currently.

“It does seem that way,” the young woman from the Verdant Flowers Valley nodded, not looking up from the various spirit herbs she was preparing.

“Makes sense,” he said, sitting down and taking another drink of lukewarm water as he tried to ignore how hollow his stomach felt. “In an all-out attack, numbers matter, but to just find out what is going on, you need people who can actually keep their composure.”

“Funny to hear that wisdom from a Nascent Soul cultivator,” Bai Jing chuckled, glancing at him. “If some of those Chosen Immortals hear you say that, they would drag you out into the shrubbery and beat you like a dog.”

“You don’t say,” he agreed sourly. “Which kind of proves the point really, though part of it is that I am twice the age of half of them and wasn’t born in a noble’s estate.”

“It does,” she agreed. “Though half those sects didn’t even send their second best… idiots in the first place.”

“…”

Jin Chen shot him a sideways look, because, in a way, that was close to the view they had formed on the Argent Hall… and their own… maybe former sect.

“What do you make of the ruins?” he asked Liao Ying, to change topic.

“They are…” Liao Ying glanced at Bai Jing, then just sighed, “familiar.”

Clearly, that meant that she had discussed some aspects of what they had seen in the jungle with the Verdant Flowers, at the very least. That likely explained why they had not been bothered much, beyond his short discussion with Zi Min.

He was just about to reply, when an odd movement caught his eye. Because they were seated outside one of the abandoned buildings closer to the cliff face, there was a fairly good view out across the rest of the little village. As such, the three figures standing in the shadow of one of the perimeter buildings talking quietly… just stood out to him for some reason.

“Problem?” Jin Chen muttered.

“Dunno… you see those three by the far building?” he frowned.

Bai Jing glanced over as well, and then frowned. “Odd… those two sects don’t really have a good relationship…”

“And I don’t recognise the one looking this way,” he mused.

Bai Jing nodded. “They came in with those rescued, I think.”

A few moments later, the three started gesticulating and then the two from the Green Feather Hall stalked off, leaving the other, who was from the Lu clan he thought, to kick the wall then stalk off a moment later. It all looked very ‘usual’ all of sudden, but of that previous few seconds where they had been conferring closely…

-If someone was going to try something… they would do it when Senior Song and the others are not in the camp… except they would also have to know that?

“Oh… there, another group just arrived…” Liao Ying noted, pointing off to the side at some two dozen rather ragged-looking disciples in unfamiliar robes who were striding into the encampment.

“Oh may the day be buggered by Yama’s monkey-dogs…” Bai Jing hissed, standing up and cursing very colourfully.

“What?” he asked, wary now.

“That new bunch are from the Sheng clan’s Azure Astral Dragon sect… and there are ones from the Azure Luminary Pagoda there as well.”

“…”

He opened and shut his mouth a few times, as did Liao Ying, because those names he did know, at least by reputation… All of them were powerful influences within the Azure Astral Authority, with deep roots on Southern Azure and Shan Lai.

The obvious question was how… though the more concerning one was that this was just a bit too coincidental.

“Come with me,” Bai Jing scowled, waving to the three of them and turning on her heel.

Without comment, they followed after her, around the building and across the rear of the camp… and then stopped, as a dozen figures slipped out of the shadows of the building ahead of them.

“Well, this was expected,” the leader, one of the Chosen Immortals from the Green Feathers Hall mused, looking at the four of them.

“As you suspected, Senior Guo,” another disciple agreed.

“…”

“Scram back to your section,” Bai Jing frowned.

“No… I don’t think we will. You are clearly intending to push us out of the camp, and now that these other Sheng dogs have appeared, it all makes sense,” another youth grinned. “You western sects were always working with the Sheng clan…”

“Are you an idiot?” Bai Jing snapped. “Do you know the history our Verdant Flowers Valley and the Nine Moons have with the Sheng clan?”

“Who is to say what can be written by scholars and sages?” Guo smirked.

“Anyway, your choice is pretty clear. Turn them over to us. We already possess that Han Shu… and the prisoners have agreed to help us bargain with the Jade Gate Court. If you do this willingly, we will ensure you only suffer the same penalty as that Ying girl.”

“You…” Bai Jing’s face went flat.

“What?” he blinked.

“They didn’t tell you?” a disciple from the Dun Imperial School laughed. “She begged on her knees to Hao Tai to spare your lives… and traded half her primordial potential for you two…”

“You!” Jin Chen moved even before he did, which was futile, because one of the higher realm disciples caught him by the hair and smashed him into the wall effortlessly.

-And they still crippled both of us…

Liao Ying’s face was flat as well, devoid of colour, her hands shaking.

“Well… it’s moot, because you will come with us,” Senior Guo shrugged.

Without any control over his body, he started to walk towards them, as did Jin Chen.

“If you don’t want these two to die, you two will come as well, and not do anything stupid,” Senior Guo said blandly.

“You really think this will go according to your plan?” Bai Jing hissed.

“We have a strong agreement from those who came that delivering the three of you and Han Shu will waive all problems,” Senior Guo shrugged. “If I have to choose between my life and some nobodies who betrayed their sect… it’s not much of a choice at all.”

“…”

Wordlessly, they followed after the group, into another courtyard, where maybe a dozen more disciples of various influences were stood around, with Han Shu slumped against the wall. Two disciples from the Nine Auspicious Moons who had been guarding him were lying unconscious nearby.

“We need to hurry up. There is still that Jia Ying and Quan Dingxiang…” one was saying. “Liling Mei didn’t go either…”

“You think a teleport formation can just be triggered on a whim?” a disciple wearing the golden robe of Shimmering Dragon Sept snapped without looking up, continuing to set Heavenly Jades into a formation disc.

“You worry too much. Jia Ying is barely even an early stage Ancient Immortal, as is Liling Mei, while Quan Dingxiang is injured. They can do formations but we have been careful…” another disciple scoffed, chuckling.

“They will all be focused on that bunch of Sheng dogs anyway,” another agreed.

“Even if they do chase after us, we will be rendezvousing with Senior Huang Jiaosheng’s group to investigate this ruin the Dun Princess is interested in. Are the Dewdrop Sage Sect or Nine Auspicious Moons going to show their faces there?” a Green Feather Hall disciple said with amusement.

“Would be funny to see them—”

“Done!” the disciple setting the formation said, standing up.

The two with him pushed him over into the middle of the courtyard as the various betraying disciples clustered around.

Space wavered… and almost everyone there, bar those holding them, vanished.

“…”

“Well… that was surprisingly easy…” Jia Ying dropped off the roof of the nearby building and landed lightly on the ground opposite them, her dark hair shimmering in the firelight of the torch.

“Uh…” the five remaining disciples stared at them… then her, mute incomprehension written on their faces.

“Well, I suppose this is to be expected. Children don’t know the wide ways of the world…” Jia Ying grinned.

“G-get back…!” the disciple holding him pulled him away, trying to use him as some kind of shield. “I’ll kill him…!”

“You’re a Chosen Immortal… Aren’t your eyes a bit big?” Jia Ying murmured.

{Jade Chain of—

The disciple beside Bai Jing cast a talisman at her, only to be cut off as a golden-copper tipped arrow punched through his head.

The other disciples were backing away… then one turned—

With an amused sigh, Jia Ying waved her hand, and the other four collapsed, unmoving from whatever art she had used, leaving them all stood there in the flickering light of the torch, trying to work out what was going on.

“Come on… we don’t have long,” she sighed. “When they realise their subterfuge has been seen through, there will be a bloodbath, for what it’s worth.”

“Their subterfuge?” Jin Chen asked a bit wanly.

Jia Ying reached down and pulled up the dead disciple beside him and took his storage ring, pulling out a talisman that read ‘Din’.

“Seems like the Din clan are trying to pull a fast one… it was expected that someone would have gotten in with those who came… given how the hangers on have been clinging to us like parasites for days, but the fact that they are also pretending to be the Sheng clan is a bit much…”

“Pretending to be the…?” Bai Jing also looked caught out at that revelation, as was he, truth be told.

“Huh… I was expecting Hao,” he added.

“You’re not alone there,” Jia Ying chuckled, glancing at him, then at Bai Jing. “While it does seem like new influences have arrived, I have a good eye for faces. Several of those in that group were with the Jade Gate Court back before you all teleported to the forest.”

“So what now?” he managed to ask, trying to stand up, and then frowned… because he still couldn’t move.

“Bah, figures,” Jia Ying grunted, staring at the three of them, then waved a hand again.

Two disciples from the Nine Auspicious Moons hopped down off the roof of the opposite building and grabbed both Liao Ying and Jin Chen, who were also looking confused and unable to move. Jia Ying poked him hard in the chest and he felt his qi turn chaotic—

Coughing, he opened his eyes and found he was sitting against a wall on the edge of the same courtyard, Liao Ying wiping his face.

“What just…?”

“They messed with the seals put in you and Jin Chen…” Liao Ying hissed.

“What are they openly aiming for?” Jia Ying was asking Bai Tuli as she crouched down in the middle of the courtyard, focusing on something.

Looking around, he saw that not only had Bai Tuli joined them, there were other disciples from the Shen clan and Zi Min’s group who had not gone with him now in the courtyard. Han Shu was slumped where he had been before, watched over by two of those disciples.

“The Sheng?” Tuli frowned. “Overtly, the hunters, proclaiming that Imperial dogs have slapped the face of the Azure Astral Authority and so on…”

“…”

“So, get both sides snapping at each other, and one way or another, they walk off with the prize and everyone is confused…” Jia Ying nodded.

In truth, it was not a terrible plan – in the chaos of the last few days he could see how it had been credibly engineered, with a bit of opportunism thrown in for good measure.

“There is the question of how they managed to target this opportunity—” Bai Jing muttered.

-That is indeed the question… he could only agree.

“How long will this take?” one of the Shen clan cut in.

“Longer than I’d like,” Jia Ying was setting up some kind for formation he saw, almost on the same spot as the others had used to try to teleport away with them. “It doesn’t help that we had to wait for them to waste that teleport jade to cover it either…”

In the distance, he could hear shouting now… and then an abrupt cessation of about half the noise in the village for a few seconds.

“Yep, they worked it out,” one of the gate guards hissed. “Get ready for—”

Three shadows shot out of the gloom, dark-robed, masked figures all aiming for her, while a heartbeat later five more appeared, dashing through the exit to the courtyard, aiming for the four of them.

Two were bisected immediately, killed by a chakram thrown by Bai Tuli, while one of the Auspicious Moons Disciples caught another with an arrow. The rest of the clash he lost in the shadows, such was the realm of the combatants, but it only lasted a few seconds, whereupon one Shen clan cultivator was injured and all the interlopers were dead bar the three who went for Jia Ying.

For her part, she spun away, drawing her sword and effortlessly parried one strike, split the mask of a second attacker, then grabbed the third by the back of the neck in a strike that deformed their upper torso for a moment.

All three collapsed to the ground, and he felt his breath catch in his throat, as the two visible faces also, hauntingly, were of those that were hanging from that tree…

“Are you okay?” Liao Ying asked beside him, as he fought against the sense of nausea that was suddenly welling up.

“Y-yeah,” he gasped, fumbling for his flask and taking a long drink, wishing it was a lot stronger than lukewarm water.

“I guess we just have to take everyone?” Bai Tuli said.

“Yes, we can worry about who is trustworthy later,” Jia Ying nodded. “At least Quan’s work is exemplary. Even if he is a money grubbing idiot at times… he at least knows who his friends are in this generation.”

“Circumstances make for strange allies,” Bai Tuli agreed.

“Okay… this hurts my soul to have to use one of these like this… but count it out,” Jia Ying sighed, standing up and taking out a scroll which she unrolled.

“…”

He could only stare blankly, because, even sealed as it was, he recognised what was embedded into the scroll talisman which was closer to a banner in truth.

“Dao Jade?” someone else echoed his own strangled thought.

“Without that map, this would be a lot harder… How many miles do you reckon?” Jia Ying asked someone… the scout, he realised.

“20, maybe 30? There were spatial anomalies in the marsh, associated with the mist, so I cannot say how well teleportation will work.”

“That’s a day or so anyway… and so long as we don’t land in a lake, it’s probably fine,” she nodded.

“Three!” came a call from the other side of the courtyard as a Shen clan disciple put down another scroll.

“Five…” a second Shen disciple called out.

“Two…” a third one echoed from the far side of the courtyard.

-What are they doing? he wondered for a moment, before realising they all held compass charts. Divination?

Bai Tuli was also holding a compass over the map he had seen before, he realised.

“Heavenly Virgin, please don’t see us land in a lake…” Bai Jing stood nearby muttered under her breath.

Jia Ying rolled her eyes and the talisman banner blazed as she planted it in the ground decisively.

The world around them wavered and shimmered like ripples in a moonlit pond, their surroundings slipping in and out of focus in a truly nauseating manner—

There was a sickening lurch and he found himself a foot above the ground, on the edge of a reed bed. Landing with a splash, he flailed for a second before finding his footing in half a metre of muddy water. Liao Ying, who had been stood beside him, vanished into the water up to her midriff with a shocked yelp. Nearby, splashes and curses echoed in the misty evening air, along with the flap of startled birds being disturbed from their roosts.

Nearby, Jia Ying landed, much more adeptly than anyone else, with the banner firmly in her grip.