Sword and Snow

Evidently, the cannon shot that had removed Quarris’ arm was loud enough to get everyone’s attention.

Shortly after they had noticed that Leon had escaped, Emery and Avuri found their fellows working their way back toward them. Avuri reluctantly melted the huge ice walls that she had erected. Emery assisted in evaporating the steel mesh that had been running through the ice for structural support; Avuri could have done it, but it would have taken much longer.

When the ice was finally gone, they could all finally see the other battlefields, if only barely. The sun had already set, and there wasn’t much light from the moon yet, barely enough to make out what was out in the woods. Thankfully, Cultivator eyes were pretty good, even without much light.

Ieji emerged from a newly made bamboo forest. The bamboo wasn’t particularly tall, but it was thick, which would’ve made for perfect cover for Ieji to fight in. They carried someone - presumably Terrane - slung over their shoulder, but the body was clearly immovable. It wasn’t even bending in the middle where it was positioned over Ieji’s shoulder.

Emery winced, seeing that. She assumed it meant that Ieji had used the Rockquill poison that they regularly carried for emergencies. It was a terrible thing. Unlike the other paralytics that Ieji employed, most of which worked by either cutting off the body’s ability to send signals or simply render the whole body numb, Rockquill poison was painful.

There was no numbness involved; instead, the poison rendered the person immobile by painfully locking up all of your muscles at near maximum contraction. It was like having an incredibly painful, full body muscle cramp. And it could last hours.

It was a very potent poison though, and damn good at removing opponents from the fight.

From the other section, all three cousins emerged together. Their battlefield by contrast looked like a huge mess. The earth had been completely churned, and the landscape was a mess. There were small sections of beautifully tilled soil right next to a section of hard rock, and vise-versa. Then there were trees - some very thick, healthy looking ones - growing out of the ground at odd angles. One was even nearly grown horizontally, with a strange bend near the base and roots at a ninety-degree angle.

Glenn carried someone encased in a combination stone and wood personal prison over his shoulder. Presumably Firmis, he had been knocked out and emitted no Domain at all. He wouldn’t likely be able to from within that little prison of his for a while.

Quarris seemed to finally shut her mouth upon seeing her fellows clearly defeated like that. She turned somewhat contemplative and faced the ground, appearing to be in thought.

When Ieji reached the group, they tossed Terrane’s body to the ground nonchalantly. The man impacted the ground in a way that forcefully bent an arm at an awkward, but not unnatural angle. Emery and Avuri both winced, knowing just how painful that forced movement would be under the effects of the poison.

“He’ll be locked like that for at least another couple hours.” Ieji said. “I’d honestly rather just kill him, to be honest. He seemed unhinged and dangerous, even to his comrades.”

“Quarris said that he likely knows the most about Aysol.” Emery said sadly. “We can’t kill him until Eiry gets to chat with him at least, I imagine. After that though…who knows.”

Glenn tossed the earthen prison down on the ground next to Terrane. Firmis’ head was sticking out of one side, and it bounced with the impact. He was clearly still unconscious. And had several cuts across his face.

“Glad to see you all managed alright.” Avuri said.

“Yeah, no thanks to you.” Mica said, without any heat. “You left us the strongest of the bunch. It actually took all three of us to knock him out.” She glanced at Glenn, “Or at least Glenn. Cove and I were too weak to actually hurt him.”

“You took a lot of hits, though.” Cove said. “You sure you’re alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Mica sighed. “My ego’s a little bruised, but I’m good at taking shots like that. Raw power? Easy.” Her eyes tracked back to Firmis. “I’m glad he didn’t have any trickier techniques.”

“Well, we’re all in one piece. That’s not a bad outcome.” Emery said.

“Leon got away, though.” Avuri added, motioning toward her cage, which was now slowly deteriorating without her focus on it. “Bastard escaped while I was focused on ending our fight.”

“Speaking of,” Cove looked excitedly at the line of destruction that the cannon had caused, “what in the world was that big booming sound?”

Emery and Avuri shrugged in unison. “New technique. Sort of.” Avuri said.

“We don’t have a name for it yet.” Emery added. “But it’s basically just a really powerful cannon.”

Ieji nodded, seemingly satisfied with that for now. The cousins looked like they wanted more information, but held back as it wasn’t really the time. “So, what’s the plan now?” Glenn asked.

Avuri looked over the three subdued Cultivators they had unceremoniously dumped together on the ground. “I suppose,” she said, “we try to get as much information from these three as we can?”

“Quarris said that Terrane probably knew the most about Aysol and whatever he may be planning.” Emery added, looking over Terrane’s petrified form sadly. “It’s going to be hours before he can talk again, isn’t it?” She asked Ieji.

“...More than that.” Ieji said. Emery took the pause as a way to show their remorse. “The Rockquill poison is potent. He’ll be able to move in a few hours. Getting feeling back in your tongue to speak takes longer. Probably by tomorrow morning.”

Quarris, who had been looking over her comrades, looked up at Ieji in horror. “He’s going to be in this state for hours? That’s just cruel…” She said.

Emery and Avuri both thought to one another about how funny they found that, given the obvious hypocrisy in the statement. The group of them wanted to kill a bunch of innocent children, after all.

Ieji shrugged, but Emery could see the same struggle in them that always came about when they were forced to use some of their more uncouth techniques. “I simply took the easiest way to end the fight. He fought off my simple paralytics, so I went bigger. This is the result.”

Quarris glared at them, but she was ignored.

“There are a number of unconscious Cultivators around the area too. They’ll need to be cleaned up.” Cove said, looking around.

“And that’s not including the ones that were frozen solid in Avuri’s initial assault.” Emery said with a chuckle.

Mica laughed. “I forgot about them! The ice turned out to be pretty frosted instead of clear, so we can’t even see them.”

“They’ll be fine.” Avuri said, aiming to stop Quarris from complaining. “I’ve made sure not to freeze their internal organs or anything, and they each have a sphere around their heads for air.”

Emery shivered, remembering being trapped like that a few times before. “Hopefully none of them are too claustrophobic. I hate being unable to move my arms and legs. Makes me uncomfortable.”

“Not sure anyone likes it.” Ieji said. “That’s rather the point, I would imagine.”

Avuri looked insulted and took a step back playfully. “Ieji! I’m not trying to torture them! But they threatened my family, and no one gets away with that.”

“Fair.” Mica muttered to the side, “last time, Leon limped away with several broken bones.”

Avuri turned to her cousin. “That’s right - I meant to ask how many of his ribs I cracked.”

Glenn smirked. “Broke three ribs, cracked four more. He hid it well on the way back to Bouquet, but I think he broke an arm, too.”

“We think it was from the impact with the ground when you launched him.” Cove added. “May have just been a sprain though, we’re not sure.”

Avuri smiled, hearing about it. She rolled her shoulders, thinking back on the solid punch she had landed in anger and couldn’t help the wash of satisfaction that flowed over her.

“In any case,” Emery said, trying to draw attention back to the matter at hand, “we should decide what to do from here.”

“I think we can help with that.”

Everyone turned in relative unison as Eiry and the other elders stalked out of the treeline.

“Honestly, we probably don’t even need whatever information Terrane has on Aysol.” Cyril said as they approached. “We know the bastard pretty well, so unless he has some kind of insider knowledge about that man’s plans, it’s probably useless.”

“The chance at such knowledge is worth keeping him around for. At least for now.” Eiry said, clearly uninterested. “After that, you all can do whatever you want with him. Or all of these people, for that matter. They were very clearly intending to make an assault against your home; I have no issues with you all dealing with them as you see fit.”

“Personally, I’d rather you not kill them all.” Lyn chimed in. “But she is right. If they had made it to the basin and attacked, it would be up to you all what to do. And we wouldn’t bother intervening there.”

“For now though, we’ll need to wait until this ‘Terrane’ can speak again.” Vyne said, eyeing Ieji carefully. “I don’t think Aysol is planning on making any fast moves; he’s been patient enough to wait a few hundred years, there’s no reason to expect he’s suddenly in a rush of some kind.”

“Right.” Emery agreed. “In which case, what would you like us to do for now?” She asked, looking around at the relative chaos that the group had left behind. “Should we clean up?”

“We do need to clean up the area.” Vyne said, also looking around. “All of the Qi and techniques used here are going to alter the area if we don’t try to neutralize it. The Peaks are pretty delicate ecosystems; any added elemental Qi can throw things off, and we don’t want that.”

“The group of you can chase down your brother, Avuri.” Ray said. “There’s no reason for us to keep you here; we can watch the Cultivators in the meantime.” He stomped and metal bands rose from the ground and wrapped tightly around each of the enemy Cultivators, including everyone still frozen in ice, the unconscious ones around the battlefield, and the three leaders.

“Ray, I literally just said we need to neutralize the other Qi used here, and you go and add a bunch of metal Qi to the mix?” Vyne rubbed his forehead between his eyes.

“Oh. Sorry.” Ray said a little sheepishly. “But still. The kids can run along.”

“Everyone want to come with us, then?” Avuri asked, mostly aiming the question at her cousins. Emery looked at Vale questioningly, silently asking the same question.

Vale smiled and said “I’ll stay with the Elders for now.”

Avuri’s cousins stretched a bit and looked excited. “We’ll follow right behind.” Cove said.

“I won’t lie,” Mica grinned, “I’m excited to see your house again.”

“And meet all the new kids. You said you have how many now?” Glenn asked.

Avuri laughed. “Twenty-seven.”

“And I’m sure that they’ll be happy to meet you three.” Emery said, then trailed off, asking no one, “I wonder if Cierra and Stena remember you…?”

“Let’s get moving.” Ieji said, waving everyone toward the Basin. “Leon got a head start. I’m not too worried about him actually managing anything but we don’t know how fast or strong he is.”

“No, we know how strong he is.” Emery said.

“And it’s not very.” Avuri continued. “He’s not likely to manage anything on his own. I’d honestly be worried about him if I cared. If he really tries to go in there alone, he’ll have a rude awakening waiting for him.”

“I see…”

“We should still follow, just in case. But I think we can hide and wait to see what happens, assuming we catch up to him alone. If we catch him with supporters…well. He won’t like what happens then.”