Waterstrider

Fifth District, Tseludia Station, Pantheonic Territory, Thirdmonth, 1634 PTS

We had no sure way to kill him, obviously. As confident as we had been in front of the academy grandmaster, there was little chance for me to defeat him in fair combat. My skills were strong, and I could face off against the weaker spirit refiners, but Hidoro was not weak by any means. We needed some method of evening the odds.

Rachel and I were lounged out on the couches of Hestky’s living room. I had come to understand that for Celans, this room functioned as both a room for hosting guests as well as a room to relax in. After returning from Canvas Town, I had sat on the couch to consider options.

In the past, I would have spent downtime such as this working on improving my cores. But at the moment, my cores were at the limit they could reach without the resources to complete it. I needed three powerful natural treasures in order to finally reach the spirit refinement stage. For an unorthodox path martial artist, my progression had been halted for far too long. If I did not resume soon, I would steadily go insane and eventually die.

Rachel was back in her usual appearance, sprawled out in an unladylike manner on the other couch. She was mumbling to herself quietly enough that I could barely hear it.

We could try explosives, I supposed. A spirit refiner would be able to escape or defend if he knew it was coming, but if he was caught off guard it might kill him. It would certainly be dishonorable, but honor meant nothing in the face of results. I was willing to roll around in the mud like a donkey as often as necessary in order to succeed. But where and how could we set the explosives up? I frowned, pondering the question. As I did so, Hestky walked past us.

He was fiddling with a slate as he always seemed to be, not even looking up to glance at the two of us. Despite having shared the house with him for the past week, I still knew next to nothing about the man.

He had once been a researcher working for the Epon, Rachel had told me, but he had found out about something and they tried to kill him because of it. I was not privy to the details, and I doubted I would have understood them. It was something about technology, spirits, and the flickering miasma. He had escaped his employer, leaving his people behind to hide in this isolated station. The sort of person that Rachel found it easy to prey upon.

Hestky emerged again from the kitchen with a glass filled with some dark brown liquid. It was hot and steaming, and bore a rather pleasant scent. Rachel leaned up from her position, turning to see it with a wistful expression on her face, as if lost in memory.

He paused, turning to look at her and then I in turn.

“How long do you intend to stay here?” he asked.

Rachel shrugged.

“We’ll have to see.”

“There’s only so long I’m willing to harbor wanted criminals,” he said.

Rachel chuckled.

“You’ve worked in the underworld for your entire career. What right do you have-”

“What right do you have, Shade? You put me at risk for harboring you, make me order you equipment and food. And it’s not just the Epon, it’s the Pantheon and even the Seiyal who are after you. I will not take the fall with you. I want no part in your games.”

I inspected his face. Hestky was trembling with fury. I had noticed that he was becoming more and more tense as the days had passed, but had not realized the extent of it. It made sense, I supposed. We had been openly planning criminal and terrorist activities in his townhome, and had been threatening him to force him to assist us. Of course he would be high strung. I certainly would not have been happy in his situation. Of course, unlike Hestky I would have been easily persuaded to join Rachel the moment she offered me hopes of assistance with my revenge.

That did not seem to be Hestky’s goal, however. He had spent plenty of time around the house, as he did not appear to have any sort of job as far as I was aware. At the very least it was not one that required him to leave the house. He spent all his time working on scholarly research in his study office. He seemed more like a retiree than a man who had been forced to flee his people for safety. He certainly was not at peace, rather the sort of man who would wander around at odd hours exuding a palpable aura of depression and melancholy.

Rachel laughed in his face.

“If we go down, you’ll go down with us,” she sneered. “You can choose to join us and help or wait for another few weeks before we move on. You’re free to make your decision.”

Hestky glowered and marched back down the hallway. The sneer left her face as he turned away.

“Coward,” she muttered under her breath.

I had no desire to dispute that assertion. While it was true that we were being unreasonable to him, it was also true that scholars were a different breed from fighters such as I and Rachel. Their temperaments were rarely the sort that drove them to acts of vengeance.

I decided to change the subject. It would be better to think about productive matters instead of worrying about insignificant matters like our dour host.

“Do you believe we would be able to set off explosives next to Hidoro? I asked.

Rachel put her finger on her chin and looked to the side in contemplation.

“We could certainly manufacture them with a Staiven replicator, but I’m not sure we would be able to trick him into an area we prepared in advance,” she said. “Could you sneak them into his room yourself?”

I shook my head.

“A spirit refiner would be able to sense my presence even if he was asleep, and I wouldn’t be able to sneak inside without killing his guards, so he would realize something was amiss if I were to try this while he was gone.”

“Damn.”

We discussed the idea more, but other than deciding we might as well print out some explosives just on principle, the discussion went nowhere. That night, annoyed and concerned by all the potential plans we had cast aside, I left the townhouse.

If there was nothing productive to be doing, then it would be best to see what solutions could be stumbled upon. After all, I had long since found that when trapped by a puzzling issue, it was always best to visit the black market. Occasionally, exactly what you needed might be offered for sale.

Canvas Town, Tseludia Station, Pantheonic Territory, Thirdmonth, 1634 PTS

With her left hand Karie Hadal scribbled angrily at the canvas with her brush, planting fat blots of ink in heavy strokes across the canvas. With the other, she carefully tended to a small potted shrub that was growing a large coniferous seedling at its apex.

She was annoyed, and she expressed that with startling vigor, her movements sending flecks of paint to spiral through the air to land on the floor as well as her robes. She cursed in annoyance. Her mother would certainly complain when the maids informed her that Karie had made a mess. All the while, her right hand still moved in careful practiced motions as she peeled moss from the plant’s bark with a small pair of wooden tweezers.

The tweezers would be considered incredibly normal, the sort of item one could find most anywhere on Canvas for dirt cheap. Here however, it was an expensive, luxurious item, solely for the scarcity of the material it was made from.

She had first arrived at the station a decade and a half ago, and had been but a child when her family had left Canvas behind. Even so, it was hard to adjust to a world so different from everything you had known. Growing up, she and the other first generation immigrants from Canvas had trouble fitting in with all of the children who were second and third generation, having only ever seen the sun through windows and known nothing but the gravity of the station, just slightly heavier than the homeworld of their people.

Not even all of them even knew that fact. It was as if they were more Tseludian than they were Seiyal. They had always disgusted her.

It had been over a week since that martial artist- Riverfiend, the media were calling him, had robbed the Celans, and not a hint of his presence had been sensed around the station. Kalie could not understand how he had gone to ground so effectively. He had to be sheltered by some organization, but which one could it be?

When she was little, Karie remembered the worry her parents held about risk of attack by the unorthodox alliance of Crucible’s Edge, the very real threat it faced for their own Sunlit Hall. She remembered the relief they had felt when they moved here in the wake of the Hadal Clan’s ancestral city being burned down, as they resettled as far from the conflicts of their homeworld as possible. To her parents and the Hadal Clan, it was a place where they were left unconstrained by the petty conflicts of their own people, a place where their only rivals were alien.

They had thrived, but to Karie, something seemed missing. There was something wrong about the lack of her people’s ancient foe.

When a martial artist came of age, typically they would spend several years wandering from town to city to the countryside, getting into fights and experiencing adventures as they matured and acquired their own fame and fortune.

Karie had never had the chance, unable to dedicate decades in transit just to return to Canvas for a few mere years.

Only martial artists who earned a martial title received one, crowned with it in the court of public opinion. This Riverfiend, named after a dangerous beast that was known for attacking fishermen, had obtained one likely soon after arriving at the station. He would be a worthy foe for her. A perfect stepping stone to create Karie’s legend.

With a snap, the tweezers in her right hand burst. She had momentarily forgotten to manage her own strength.

For a moment, Karie looked at the expensive good lying in pieces on the floor. The next, she turned back to her art piece. The marks were far too heavy-handed. She would need to put effort into masking the overly hard lines of the calligraphy, but with effort she might be able to save the work.

All it would take was some time and effort.

Formless: [It is the shifting ephemeral shape, the water than molds itself to its basin. The air that spreads to encompass all in its domain. It is the snake squirming out of the hawk's talons, the insect skipping across water, the mask-changer of the theater troupe. But at its core, the formless is the illusion that is unmasked to reveal no answer. Formless miasma always begins first as a lie.]