We had a conversation, the uekisheile and I, about boundaries, fairness, and the lure of delicious things. The rain beat down all day, so there was time. Yes, I was anxious about Ikfael Glen, but I also wasn’t willing to risk the narrow ledge up the escarpment with the rain and wind blowing. Instead, I distracted myself by chatting with the uekisheile. We came to an understanding. Or, at least, I think we did.

Then we meditated, which was something we both enjoyed. It was especially productive, as the two of us got better at condensing my qi. The key turned out to be pressure and movement. The pressure was a crucible, while the movement was a catalyst. The two worked together to refine the qi into a denser, more rich state, which in turn made room for more qi to flow through my meridians and into my dantian.

With the storm continuing to lash the countryside, there was plenty of qi in the air to take in. Everytime the lightning flashed, the uekisheile somersaulted in excitement. I never thought I’d find anyone who loved thunderstorms as much as me, but I may have met my match in them.

Light blasted the cave, and the walls shook when a stroke of lightning struck particularly close by. It didn’t stop. The light burned, while waves of thunder clashed in the air. I opened my eyes just in time to see a giant bear leap from the top of the escarpment to draw the lightning unto itself.

For a moment, the creature hung in the air, the heart of the maelstrom, the center of a world on fire. I covered my ears to protect them from the noise, but I didn’t close my eyes--the sight was too terrible and too sublime to hide from it. The creature’s silhouette burned itself into my vision.

Then the bear fell to the ground. A tree cracked. The birds, hiding from the rain, took to the air. I blinked to clear the imprint from my eyes, but it took too long. I missed seeing the events on the ground, but I heard animals crying in alarm and fleeing the lightning-maddened monster bear.

I kicked myself for not thinking to use my camera earlier. I blind-clicked the area below.

White Pine (Plant) Talents: Fertile Cones, Flexible Needles

Nascent: ??? Redcedar (Plant) Talents: Tall

Nascent: ???, ??? Iisxabalesha Pipia (Plant) Talents: Flatulent, Silent But Deadly

Nascent: ???

Those Talents! My blurred vision meant that I didn’t see the bush or tree in question, but I noted the area it was in. I’d avoid it in the future.

Flowering Dogwood (Plant) Talents: Fruity

Nascent: ??? Walking Fern (Plant) Talents: Sunny

Nascent: ???

Did the fern really walk or was it named that way because of the way it spread? I wanted to check it out, but it was in the same area as the iisxabalesha pipia. On second thought, I wasn’t that curious.

Sharp-Shinned Hawk (Animal) Talents: Swift Flyer, Keen Sight

Nascent: ???, ??? Kalihchi Bear (Animal, Dusk) Talents: Lightning-Touched, Territorial, Unending Endurance, Domineering, Iron Belly

Nascent: ???, ???, ???

I caught a glimpse of brown and purple fur under the forest canopy. A tree fell over. In the gap, I saw animals fleeing, hints of orange among them. I enchanted my eyes and saw a familiar monster turkey disappear in a cloud of steam. It must’ve used its heat beam and vaporized the falling rain. I was able to snap a picture of its Talents before it vanished.

Bashu Turkey Alpha (Animal, Dusk) Talents: Cruel, Taste for Blood, Hot Blooded

Nascent: ???

I lost the bear, but the turkeys fled north toward a stream. Ah, that would be Ikfael Glen. I couldn’t see past the falls, but the tops of the trees shook. Then one caught fire. Then another. The turkey alpha was putting up a fight.

A bishkawi howled in triumph. I recognized that voice-- it was the alpha. Hopefully, a good number of bishkawi and turkeys died in the fighting. All I saw was a handful of turkeys fleeing uphill and upstream. The rest was stillness, as the rain dowsed the nascent fires.

I sat back with a sigh, satisfied.

Question-entertainment-gloating.

I explained to the uekisheile about the satisfaction of seeing my enemies bloodied, even if I wasn’t the one doing the bloodying. The concept of due justice was harder, and I had to rely on the idea of cause and effect. But then the concept of time became an issue, and I was going in circles trying to translate when it hit me--the words in the Talent descriptions--some of them weren’t in English. The System provided the indiginous language when the English equivalent wasn’t obvious.

“Excuse me a moment, little friend. I have to check something.”

The Talents for the BashuTurkey Alpha were still on the screen. I didn’t see a language toggle anywhere. Willing the System interface to do my bidding hadn’t worked in the past, but I was at Wisdom 15 now, and Wisdom was supposed to quantify my connection to the System, as well as the world.

“The translation service is nice, thank you, but I’d like the option to turn it off. Do you hear that, System-Eight? Anything you can do to help facilitate a request to the development team would be appreciated.”

Imagine my surprise when the System complied. A toggle appeared on the camera screen. It read English. When I clicked, it changed to Diaksh.

Bashu Dakaa Akda (Baais, Baaxia) Nutche: Bele, Alaku te Iele, Bakoon Daaska

Ishoo: ???

I grinned, feeling like I’d solved the final clue in the Sunday crossword.

Bele was the word for cruel. Te seemed to mirror the word for; again front loading the descriptor. Hot blooded was an idiom, so I wasn’t surprised that the word for blood appeared to be different. Iele was probably the real word for blood, while daaska was likely a synonym for angry.

My grin spread--this was fun.

Curiosity-entertainment-smile.

How to explain the concepts of language? Well, that was a puzzle too. I’d work it out eventually. Meanwhile, I took a break from meditating to scan the forest and compare words. After the difficulties in the cave, it was a welcome break.

Sure, I was hungry, worried for Ikfael, and wary of the new resident in my body, but there were no imminent threats and nothing I could do other than give my overwrought nervous system a rest. Only once my head was full of unfamiliar words did I go back to meditating.

By the way, I did ask the System for other quality of life improvements. That’s where the new clock in my Status came from. Everything else was declined though: the experience bar, the weather forecast, the danger meter, everything. For now anyway. As S-Eight said, the System was evolving along with me.

###

The storm ended just as night began to fall. The clouds were thick and dominated the sky, but they’d lost their heaviness. All the dark had been rained out of them, and they turned silver in the moonlight.

As for me, I felt surprisingly good. The rest helped, but more importantly, my heart dantian was full of rich, condensed qi. The only problem was that my other dantian couldn’t keep up with the pressure it was producing. The flow of qi was unbalanced. I wasn’t worried though. I had a master qi manipulator working with me.

I learned from the uekisheile, as much as they learned from me. Their ability to manipulate qi, to find areas of restriction, and to make use of meridians that were otherwise underutilized was incredible. They couldn’t explain what they were doing, but I watched and together we found a rhythm. We turned our attention to the lower dantian next. The importance of a solid foundation was never lost on me.

There was still enough storm qi in the air that we didn’t lack for raw material. As soon as my qi condensed, it was replaced with more. If I had to guess, I recovered a point every twelve or thirteen minutes, while still condensing the stuff. My whole body felt like a pump working to inject and compress qi.

Midway through the night, the lower dantian completely filled with condensed qi. It felt good. It felt right--I understood that at an almost cellular level--but I also felt stretched out. My ability to focus and pay attention ached.

The uekisheile was unfazed. If anything, they were thrilled. My qi was turning into a rich, dense broth, and while they understood they shouldn’t eat it, being immersed was enough to cause, Pleasure-cozy-delicious. The vibe was almost indecent. But then I was being gifted with a level of spiritual advancement that would’ve otherwise taken decades of practice. I didn’t complain.

We moved on to the upper dantian and were halfway through when the qi in the air normalized. The pump ran low, and I was forced to rely on my native reserves. The recovery rate dropped to a point every twenty-five to thirty minutes, which was still amazing, but not enough.

The condensation process stalled. I thought about stopping to refill my tank, but the uekisheile was intent on continuing. Suddenly, an alien qi roared through my meridians. The uekisheile dumped the qi they’d eaten from the chliapp lion into my upper dantian.

The qi wanted to move in unfamiliar directions, but I recovered my wits and drove it into the condensation process. At first, the alien qi didn’t meld with the native qi, but the uekisheile was an expert at qi intake. They found connections between the energies and bound them together, the two becoming one.

When the last drop of qi condensed, a gong resounded. My whole body vibrated, and all the qi burst from my dantian in waves. The uekisheile was ecstatic and surfed along with it. I felt like I was being wrung out, while at the same time, my body tried to shake itself to pieces. Like a really bad earthquake, it only lasted for a few tens of seconds, but it felt much longer than that.

When the shaking finally stopped, I lay on the ground, spent. I was exhausted again, but the aftermath was sweeter this time. My spiritual muscles were sore, but it was a happy sore. There was a languidness, and the innate knowledge I’d be stronger once the muscles found their tension again.

Joy-joy-joy. Again-again-again.

The uekisheile wasn’t joking either. They began the process of re-condensing the qi in my heart dantian, but the same process didn’t work twice. I even played along as best I could--curious about it myself--but no, we’d need to find a different method to further refine my qi.

Disappointment-happy glow-happy rich/qi-curiosity. Curiosity-curiosity-curiosity.

Outside, the dawn broke, the fingers of light turning the clouds pink and rose. The forest was still except for the few early risers, their calls waking the rest. The trees were wet from a short, light rain during the night.

A feathered snake flew between me and the trees below.

Bilikku Baaii Iaxtla (Baais)

Nutche: Puuche, Iuluato

Ishoo: ???, ??? Rainbow Feathered Snake (Animal)

Talents: Quick, Colorful

Nascent: ???, ???

Oh. There was a surprise in my Status:

Qi 0/26

The amount of maximum Qi doubled, and:

Qi Body 8

As did my Qi Body Skill, going from 4 to 8. Finally:

Conditions Occupied (Truce, *)

My butt was sore from sitting so long, so I stood and stretched until all the kinks loosened. Optimistic for the first time in days, I made my way carefully outside the cave.

The trail was only a couple feet wide in places, but the footing was solid. The rain had washed away the dirt and loose debris. The only difficulty was that all the stuff I carried imbalanced my center of gravity and threatened to pull me over the side. I’d already fallen from a cliff once, thank you. I didn’t plan to do it again. I hiked up the two hundred feet to the top of the escarpment with great care.

The morning sun broke through the last remaining clouds and shone down on the lands to the east. The top of Ikfael Glen’s waterfall sparkled to the northeast, almost like a quest objective. Well, and it was. I’d just had to find a way down from the escarpment first. No, first, I had to find something to eat. I was starving, the hole in my belly deeper than the Marianas Trench.

The forest here was similar to the one around Ikfael Glen, and I quickly stumbled across a blueberry bush, the berries just ripe enough for eating. Greedily, I gobbled them as soon as I picked them, my fingers stained blue. I felt the tension in me easing with every mouthful.

The edge of my hunger blunted, I went looking for something more substantial. I found a large black walnut tree among the usual mix of pine, cedar, and maple, but the tree was another three or four months from producing edible nuts. While I was looking up at the branches though, I spotted a squirrel, a nice, big, fat one. I shrugged off the new backpack and strung my bow.

Thanks to the uekisheile, I’d already recovered a point of qi. I invested it into my last arrow, aimed, and released. The arrow missed, startling the squirrel, and sending it scampering.

“No, no, no.”

I quickly gathered my mana and threw it at the Anesthetic rune. The squirrel, suddenly unable to feel its limbs (or anything really), stumbled from the branch and fell to the ground. I grabbed my spear and smacked it broadside to stun it. Pulling the hunting knife, I quickly slit the squirrel’s throat.

The arrow had punched through the walnut’s branches to fly farther west. While I searched for it, a portion of the uekishiele slipped free to enjoy the squirrel’s qi. They gave me a portion, but there was so little, I barely felt the difference.

Happy-different-delicious.

“Well, I’m glad you liked it. Hopefully, it hasn’t cost us my last arrow. Not for something as trivial as a squirrel.”

The uekisheile understood that we were searching for something but not what. They sprouted along my face to help me look. That was the only way they could sense the ambient mana. When they were inside me, I was their entire world. They seemed happy though, with both the flavor of the forest and me.

I tried not to think about it too much. Instead, I crept along with my spear at the ready. Just because I was anxious about the arrow, didn’t mean that I’d forgotten about the lions, turkeys, and bears, oh my.

“This is what happens when I think with my stomach,” I muttered. “I really don’t want to start from scratch again.”

I’d gone about thirty yards, scanning high and low for the orange vanes, when I smelled something cooking--a stew or porridge--with corn and sage and--I sniffed--onions. There was the scent of game meat mixed in too, and my mouth flooded with saliva.

I had the money I scavenged from the zombies. Maybe I could mime my way through buying a bowl? I eased through the brush, spear in hand, just in case it was another trick of the forest.

A light breeze carried the scent to me from the southwest. I tracked it to a small clearing under another black walnut. Under its broad branches, two men had two Little Horrors chained to the tree.

My appetite disappeared at seeing the Little Horrors. They were disguised as a boy and girl, the expressions on their faces as blank as I remembered. The damn things were eerie with a capital E-eerie. But then, the men were even stranger.

A small thin man, his skin the color of indigo, had his back to me. A long lizard’s tail poked through a hole in the back of his armor. The armor looked like brigandine, cloth on the outside layered with thin metal plates on the inside.

Opposite him was a tall man, easily seven feet tall and broad across the chest. His face was square and wide, the eyes set far apart, almost curving around to the sides. He leaned back against a rock. His bare torso was wrapped in bloody bandages. His brigandine lay near their campfire, a rent in the right side.

The two men quietly argued, but the language was unfamiliar.

Boscun the Wall (Human, Dolbec, Dusk) Talents: Tough, Thick, Stubborn, Gullible

Nascent: ???, ??? Kaad Keelsson (Human, Iisaak) Talents: Quick, Manipulative

Nascent: ???

They kept their voices low so as to not disturb the forest, but they gestured a lot to make up for it. Mostly toward the Little Horrors. Boscun picked up a small bag and waved it around. Quick as a bird, Kaad snatched it out of his hand, which only pissed off Boscun even more.

As for the Little Horrors, they pulled on their chains to get away. It was creepy how silently and steadily they struggled against the collars around their necks. The metal bit into their husks, enough to bleed.

Red. The sap was red, like blood. Click.

Billisha (Human) Talents: Skinner

Nascent: ???, ???, ??? Aluali (Human) Talents: Skinner

Nascent: ???, ???, ???

Billiisha and Aluali were children in the grip of Meliune’s Blessing. Their panic suppressed, they did everything they could to escape.

I didn’t know why the children were in chains. There might even have been a perfectly good, legitimate reason. But that’s not what this smelled like. No, this smelled a lot like slavery.