He who redeems a single fate is called a fool by morons.

She who transforms a single village is called a hero by the envious.

The one who changes a country is a crowned a king by fools.

Anyone who would think to pervert a generation really should know better.

As to those who would mess with the fate of a whole world for their own ends? They deserve everything that is waiting in line get to them.

~ Apocryphally attributed to Mantled Empress Heaven Breaker

~ Kun Juni – ??? ~

The first thing Juni could hear, as her senses returned, was the dripping of water and the raucous calls of disturbed birds or other flying creatures in the distance. With a long groan of pain she tried to pick herself up and found that her arms and legs were made of noodles, so gave up. She was about to activate her qi vision when she stopped. There was actually daylight in the room. Well… hall. She half rolled over and stared upwards, blankly, at a scene that had haunted her deepest waking dreams for far too long in that horrible, smothering oppression far below.

The greenery cascaded through the chasm riven into the mountainside above them. A large flight of birds her vision was too hazy to identify were flying away from their location. Water ferns bled a fine mist through the air above her. It took almost a full minute before she had gained enough confidence in the integrity of her body to try sitting up again. Her head felt heavy and her stomach felt like it had run off somewhere else, but she managed it without too much difficulty.

“Oh fates, I feel like I’ve just been hit in the head with a hammer…” someone whimpered nearby

-Lin Ling.

She froze at the thought, but it was just a thought, her acknowledging the owner of the voice.

Turning her head carefully so it didn’t fall off, she took in the place they were in.

They had arrived in a deep chasm, walls coated in greenery and shrouded in gently swirling mists. Here and there, clusters of water ferns fed several large shallow pools in the stone floor…

Nearby, several suspiciously regular-shaped objects made her panic, in case they were the sludge monsters, but they turned out to be old stone basins, turned over on their sides.

After a moment of further searching, she found Lin Ling, who was weakly curled up, whimpering and dry retching as she held her head. Han Shu lay crumpled nearby, half in a shallow pool. His sword lay on the ground between them.

“What... the nameless… was that…” she finally managed to force out.

-The Blue Water Sage entered the mountain and endured many trials. When he emerged he had found a bounty even the heavens could not deny, her mind helpfully supplied.

-That was, well...

Her mind was still trying to sort itself out, as it turned out, which led to her staring at nothing for a few seconds as she got her thoughts in order.

-Was it all in my… our heads?

As if to refute that, the swordstaff was there, in front of her. She had been fortunate not to fall on it in fact.

-A proper anomaly…

That thought rattled around her head for a few seconds before she realised what, exactly, was odd.

-No voices – that would have… should have come with a…

She trailed off and waited expectantly for a snarky comment to come, but there was nothing. Her head hurt, yes. In fact, most of her hurt in one way or another, including entirely metaphysical things like her mind’s eye and her memories.

-How in all the unholy fates can my memories physically hurt this bad, she thought weakly.

No voices were forthcoming to answer that either.

Which brought her logically on to the other question regarding voices.

“By the way…” she found herself asking Han Shu, who was lying there conscious, but very much looking like a stunned fish... “Did your sword speak?”

Three people turned, with varying degrees of success, to stare at the sword…

Several long moments passed, and the sword stayed resolutely silent and utterly sword-like.

“Also… Did it always look like a normal sword?” Lin Ling asked, staring at it rather groggily.

Three people looked at the sword on the ground some more.

The sword was now, indeed, the shape of a traditional sword as any mortal sword master might use – about sixty centimetres long, with a square hilt and a blade slightly thicker than average. Where before it had been slightly curved on both edges and tapered to a very sharp point, now its edges were ruler-straight and tapered to a more rounded point about 10 centimetres before the top. It was still dull black in colour but now looked much more metallic in nature. Apart from the blade being blackish, it was almost normal looking in an aggressively plain way.

“No…” Han Shu groaned, rubbing his temples. “No it did not.”

All three stared at the sword again for a bit.

It continued to act resolutely normal, as only a normal sword should.

After several further awkward moments of staring at the sword to no avail, Han Shu finally mustered enough energy to extricate himself from his personal puddle. Even the scabbard, which returned when he picked it up, looked traditionally local. With the sword sheathed, you wouldn’t even look twice at it, which was, she reflected, perhaps the point?

Sat there, trying to process everything that had happened, she finally put her head in her hands and then just sighed, taking them away as more parts of ‘reality’ reasserted themselves. There were still parts of her that wanted to claim this was all a terrible nightmare, but setting aside the reality of the swordstaff being present, she was also covered from head to toe in… well… ick.

Looking over at Han Shu, who was also warily examining their surroundings, the part of him that hadn’t landed in the pool was also covered in drying blood and… worse. In fact, the only person who didn’t look like they had just bathed in a sacrificial pit was Lin Ling. She was just slumped there against a rock now, looking… befuddled.

Other points in favour of this being reality were also stacking up fast now. Her mantra was still changed. Her qi capacity was also as it had been in the… anomaly. After some further consideration, she decided to just go with that. There was no other explanation for it that was at all comfortable. She was, also, she had to admit, probably something of an expert on terrible reality-warping scenarios at this point, having survived at least two, possibly three, of the fate-thrashed things if you counted the moments before appearing in that nightmare battle.

-I even got a weapon out of it… she thought, looking again at the swordstaff.

Belatedly she considered the robe that Han Shu had given her, however long ago that was. It wasn’t made of luss cloth, just normal, sturdy weave that was infused with qi. Good up to Golden Core, but clearly not good enough to survive its lengthy brush with calamity below. The only reason it was still intact was several ad hoc adjustments she had made to it to remedy the giant hole in the side.

Looking around, none of them were much better, really. Lin Ling’s clothing was only held together by her luss cloth additions at this point and Han Shu had taken a few proper hits during their fighting in the long corridor, so his top was missing its other sleeve and his light tunic was badly rent in several places. She was wearing his spare trousers currently and besides that, she only had one spare set of undergarments. All of Lin Ling’s other clothes beyond what she was wearing were also gone – lost along with much of the rest of her storage talisman's contents. While the loss of the herbs hurt, along with the other items, both of them would gladly trade most of them for some actual clothes at this point, she was pretty certain. In any case, there was not a lot of spare clothing to go around three people.

While Han Shu checked out the damage that Halla had done to his talisman, she turned her own attention back to the swordstaff. Now she got a good look at it, it was really an excellent weapon. Around two metres long, it was just a bit taller than she was. Excellently balanced and made entirely out of different metals. It also had a nice weight too, while not being too heavy. A mortal would struggle to wield it, but to her, it was very usable indeed. Even more remarkable, it was entirely unenhanced as far as she could see. Pushing her qi into it, she nodded in appreciation. There was no resistance at all. It wasn’t possible to soul bind it, not yet at least, but it certainly wouldn’t hinder any of the arts or forms she could use with it. The only issue was the lack of a scabbard, however, there were enough sturdy vines in the chasm that something could be worked out, she was sure.

“All of the stuff we took from the warehouse is back there,” Han Shu said with a sigh.

She nodded, having suspected as much. There were still aspects of the last two days she didn’t want to prod to hard at, though. It was odd enough that she still had the swordstaff.

“So what are we left with?” she said, after some further consideration.

“Hmmm.” Han Shu frowned and then dumped two large piles of herbs and some other sundries out.

“200 kilos of grade four and five herbs, forty-ish of grade six and a few dozen of grade seven or higher. You?”

She eyed what was in her own storage device, it was about the same, minus the grade four and five herbs. Before all this mess kicked off and they had been overtaken by the Ha clan then... the others, she had been focusing on quality in what she gathered. She also hadn't had as many opportunities for random gathering as Han Shu, or Sana – both of whom had been doing more scouting and trailblazing.

“About the same, minus the low-grade stuff,” she said wearily.

“I got nothing.” Lin Ling grunted from where she still sat, looking vexed.

“And – outside of this, all we got is stuff that poses more questions than answers if we were to hand any of it in,” she agreed, eyeing her swordstaff and Han Shu’s sword.

“Yeah, given this mess apparently started over a ruined tablet, at least according to Sana, us rocking up with a bunch of weapons from a vestige is really gonna cause a problem isn’t it,” Ling added.

“There is also much of what we recorded,” Han Shu pointed out.

“There is,” she agreed. “But a lot of that likely only gets us points with the Hunter Bureau, unless you wanna try scribing some of it to a viewing crystal and then auction some of it in exchange for herbs.”

“Yep,” Lin Ling said sourly. “They aren’t gonna take spirit stones for the levy. All the parties trying to get herbs on the sly thanks to this ridiculous scam are so rich they could buy the entirety of West Flower Picking town a dozen times over.”

With nothing else, really, to say, they sat in silence for a good while, just recovering their sensibilities and enjoying not being in obvious mortal danger. Finally, though, she decided that she was recovered enough to take a proper look at their surroundings.

The cavern itself was huge, almost a miniature valley in its own right. It almost hurt to look at the bright sky above, although her eyes were adapting fast she had to acknowledge.

What stood out immediately, to her though, was that the gaping hole in the cavern roof was not natural. Something had carved a huge hole through the ceiling. Somehow, the image of someone plunging a giant spear or sword into the mountain to cause it, or tearing it open with some terrible ability, seemed a lot less distant than it might otherwise have… however long ago it was they actually went into the depths.

The leafy greenery pouring in like a cascade from the opening seemed to be predominantly ‘Broad-leafed Alv’ although she caught glimpses of other trees like ‘Star-leaf Hardwood’ and ‘Monkey Perch’. All very normal for the innermost valleys on the western side of the mountain.

Noting that Han Shu had wandered over to look at the pools, she took the opportunity to make her way over and sit on the rock beside Lin Ling, who was still looking dazed.

“How are you..?” she asked eventually after they had sat there in silence for a few minutes just admiring the fact that it wasn’t pitch dark and horrible.

“Alive,” Lin Ling said eventually.

“…”

She sat there in silence, waiting to see if the younger girl would continue.

“It’s… hard to process,” Lin Ling said, eventually. “I remember most of it, but it’s like I’m watching a viewing jade of someone else’s experience who just happens to look like me. I… felt like I was a puppet in my own mind. I didn’t realise just how badly I was fragmenting until that Grand Magus O’Brian healed me… well, maybe I did, but I just didn’t want to acknowledge it.”

“Yeah…” she said after a long pause… “I can’t say that what I experienced was any better. To have that thing… in my head, be my friend, talk me through all that stuff, slowly pushing out all the parts of me that would have noticed, and then to do what it did at the very end…”

“At least you don’t have holes in your mind,” Lin Ling said softly.

“No… I don’t,” she had to concede.

-Or if I do, the creature did such a fate-thrashed good job of papering over those cracks, I’ll probably never know it, she added for herself.

“—But on the other hand, I can see every part of me that walked along with that thing and was happy to do so. Not that anything about this fate-thrashed mess is remotely comparable for any one of us, it seems,” she murmured softly.

“Back in the shaft… I still have three sets of events in my mind,” Lin Ling said with a sad sigh.

“The three you told me?” she asked, looking at the other girl sideways.

“Yeah, mostly, although they make more sense now. I think I left the complex, walked up, and met…” Lin Ling trailed off, looking distant.

“And after that?” she asked gently.

“Uh… it gets blurry, but I think he took my stuff, I think we went down, he made me show him the cavern where I got the blood, then we went to the prison and he used me to open someplace, that was where the…”

“—The skeleton prince in the chair was?” she prompted.

“Yeah,” Lin Ling said. “After that… it gets fuzzy... until I meet you again.”

“…”

“That was really that Di Ji somehow, wasn’t it?” Lin ling asked in a small voice. “All of it…”

“Yeah, I rather fear it was,” she agreed, considering their experiences.

“I hope that the thing that came ended him,” Lin Ling hissed.

“So do I…” she whispered, thinking about the look in his eyes as he had walked towards her. “So. Do. I.”

“Did he... do anything to you…?” Lin Ling finally asked in a very small voice...

Juni stared ahead, not looking at the other girl.

-Ah. So that was what had been gnawing away at her down there, the uncertainty… in the dark.

She closed her eyes and suddenly felt sick. She should have realised.

-No wonder she kept fragmenting even after our escape, if you could call it that. She’s been constantly questioning everything she experienced because of those holes he tore in her mind she couldn’t fill… That was nearly my fate as well… or would we just have been two more of his puppets, dancing on lustful strings.

-Poor Ling Luo, another thought surfaced.

“I… remember bits now... The voices… somehow. He was in my head, pushing me this way and that.” Lin Ling said softly. “Even after… him… when we were in the complex, in the warehouse… something was nudging me, needling me, twisting away at my insecurities…”

“Even when you stopped me trying to murder Han Shu, there in the hall, he was poking at me, turning me against you...” Lin Ling’s voice had grown really small now.

Following on from that, she closed her eyes for a second, trying to think, with all the experience of her years, on Lin Ling.

-How do I even start that conversation? One route leads to thoughts that your friend escaped something when you might not. Another leads to pity and embitterment. The last is just rage. All of them will cause scars that will never go away unless she herself can find an answer that sets her own heart at peace.

And would she even really believe it if she told her it was unlikely in the context of his interactions with her.

-Do I believe that?

Her own thoughts were mostly back where they should be, or at least showing the appearance of it… However, the same doubt that Lin Ling was likely having, just in a different context, was also firmly nestled in her mind.

-Can I trust anything I intuit after that? There is no way I shook it off that easily. Right…?

Part of her was left to wonder if that was, in fact, the point. The question would do more damage than the reality in the long term. For her, it was somewhat easier in a way. At least superficially. Her mental rigidity was stronger, and whatever Valash had done to her mantra seemed to be legit. Whereas for Lin Ling, who was still young, whose mind hadn’t settled, who had a lot of intellect and fast thoughts, who was gifted, in many ways despite her bad spirit root, this was a crippling strike straight at her nascent potential.

While someone of the social status of Han Shu wouldn’t know much about him, the Kun family certainly knew about Di Ji and she was sure the Lin family had information as well. Even though the nobles on the central continent covered so much of it up in a veil of secrecy and threats, several influential influences hadn't liked that. Enough that the rumours had still managed to spread through certain circles and were still very much kicking about in places like the Yin Eclipse Subcontinent – even if the guts of it was a century ago.

To someone at Dao Seeking that was a short cultivation retreat.

To an Immortal, maybe even less.

Even if it was seventy-six years before her birth, never mind Lin Ling, what he did to Lady Kai’s handmaiden… What he was accused of doing to so many others…

A small generation of talented women had been ruined just through the questions raised.

-Yet only a small number of them had more than mental scars, part of her pointed out.

That was true… but those were among the worst in many ways. Those who had been physically wronged in various ways had at least had a grievance for their clans to hang allegations on, even if they protested how in love with the horrid spawn they had been and how he was… there was a reason why those kind of dual-partner arts were rightly decried as heretical.

Thanks to such things, it was those who had been twisted into sycophantic followers that had defended him the most vociferously. Even Lady Kai’s own adopted daughter as she recalled. That had been the final straw in that sordid saga, a valuable lesson to many and the ruin of a small portion of the current generation not afforded the immediate protection of the throne.

It was still far before her time, but tales of that confrontation in the hall before the Emperor’s Throne had travelled widely, along with the very explicit threats Lady Kai Lan had made. In that regard, she was sure it was an exceptional quirk of fate that either of them was able to think about him by name, let alone name the deeds he had done after crossing paths with such a malignant star.

She had been intending to suggest that they find a quiet moment away from Han Shu to talk about this, but in many respects this seemed, in an impromptu way, to be it.

“For what it’s worth,” she added softly. “What matters most is that we are here, in spite of everything else that horrible place threw at us.”

“...”

Lin Ling just leant against her in silence for a long moment before nodding.

“Yes,” Lin Ling hissed under her breath. “We have indeed survived.”

Noting that Han Shu, who was something of an unfortunate accessory in all this, was wandering back in their general direction, she sighed. There would indeed need to be another, longer, heart-to-heart she suspected.

It also didn’t help that… the degree of healing they had both experienced in that anomaly was very weird.

Her own bodily condition was oddly optimal.

Investigating it now they were out, with sky overhead, she was realising that it had even fixed a few things that didn’t strictly need fixing. Her mantra would probably reset them in short order at least. But it made the questions that were, she suspected, haunting Lin Ling’s darker thoughts almost impossible to verify now.

-If only I had realised back then, she thought, feeling frustrated again. I could have checked her physical condition and the injuries done when it was just the two of us.

It was an easy thing to check with qi, even down there. However, Ling had been healed and healed, drawn out vital qi, been so badly burned by the Pure Yang Blood and then healed again in the anomaly that all that would be left were mental scars if anything had indeed occurred. Unfortunately, mental scars would be by far the worst to shift just because of the lingering uncertainty.

“You… won’t try to stab him or break a pot of that blood over his head again, will you?” she said eventually, trying to make the question seem both serious and innocuous and not at all accusatory.

“No more than you might stab me if I mention Han Bao again,” Lin Ling said with a wince.

“That… seems fair,” she agreed, sighing deeply.

“Uh… sorry about that, by the way,” Lin Ling said without looking at her. “Isn’t it awkward though, what with Han Murai and Han Yen being in the Military Authority and all?”

“In a way, you’re lucky that the Lin clan arrived with the cloud they did,” she said dryly. “Most young ladies in my position either get sent off to a suitable sect or school if they are talented, or married off to a talented person about to go to a local sect if they are not.”

“Yeah… I wasn’t in my right mind when I was poking shade at you,” Lin Ling muttered.

“It's fine,” she reassured the younger girl. “I was too caught up in my own sense of trying to be the one leading everyone out of that hell hole to see what I should have when I should.”

-And being led by the nose by an eldritch horror. Maybe I still am, that was a sobering thought.

“Maybe we could stab him together?” Lin Ling said after a moment.

“No!” she retorted dryly, hoping that had been a joke. “No stabbing. Our problems are our problems. Nobody else’s.”

“You know…” Lin Ling said, sounding pensive. “It’s really hard to shake the feeling that it wasn’t entirely accidental that we ended up in that anomaly.”

“Yeah… do you maybe want to talk about a certain jar of clearly very dangerous water from a pool that was doing weird things with time?” she said, looking at the younger girl.

“…”

“When you put it like that.” Lin Ling had the good grace to look a little awkward.

“I do. Not that I’m gonna hold it against you. We survived because you took that stuff, I am pretty sure at this point.”

“But it was your idea to take the stuff from the box in the end, even after I kept talking about curses and stuff. Without it, we might not have been branded thieves by them,” Lin Ling shot back. "And you were the one that touched that piece of the broken Orrery, making it shock us all oddly like that."

“Yeah… when you put it like that,” she chuckled wryly, also feeling rather awkward.

They sat in silence for a bit longer, watching the world go by and just enjoying not feeling in imminent danger, really. She even found herself regretting that she didn’t have a flute to play, but then again, that was probably a good thing because she might have used it to murder either of the other two long before now. Sound Arts and Physical Cultivation were an unusual but highly potent synergy. That would have to wait until they got out of here.

-The flute playing, not the murdering the other two with qi-infused music, she corrected herself with a mental eye roll.

At that time, there would also be better opportunities for a longer talk with Lin Ling – one where they could properly hash out some of the lingering difficulties it was too early to pick at.

As Lin Ling seemed to have talked herself out, she took the opportunity to again investigate her own mental and physical condition.

As far as she could remember she had been healed at least twice and drunk that potent healing tonic as well. It still disturbed her on a certain level, how fast she was rebounding from what should be an utterly debilitating mental trauma in many respects. It couldn’t all be down to the change that Valash made to her mantra. Part of her felt almost beholden to determine that there was more to it than that at this point.

For Lin Ling, fortuitous as that had been in its own way, whatever the Mages in that anomaly had effected had at least made her seem like a coherent person again.

Han Shu not being affected was she was certain now down to that sword he had – or maybe the ancestral talisman? Those things could have serious power if their obligations were deployed effectively… but swords that could speak?

-That was the mythical land of Dao Weapons at the very least.

-When do I admit that that sword is starting to bother me almost as much as my own probable inner demons? she thought glumly.

Not to mention that that wave of cold… no, cool, refreshing, almost-presence that swept through her, just when she was about to have a second, proper breakdown.

It was... odd.

The fact that it didn’t bother her though – that was disturbing her.

It had swept up all her fear, her anguish, her confusion and her despair almost like… a net sweeping rubbish from a pond. A strange analogy to have, but it seemed to fit. The intent within it, such as she had grasped, was more profound than simple purification or removal of troubles though. Those parts were still within her. She was aware of them, but they now felt detached faintly in a way she couldn’t quite fathom.

She exhaled and looked around. About ten minutes seemed to have passed, which wasn’t bad really. That left the next point on her mental list, given that worrying about her mental state was going to be somewhat self-defeating in the short term.

-Where the fates actually are we?

Taking her hunter pavilion talisman out of the storage jade where she had stashed it before she first went into the caves, she pushed some qi into it with the intention of getting a fix on where ‘here’ might actually be in relation to the map in her scrip. Unfortunately, what she got wasn’t really what she wanted. Within moments, the green talisman gave a gold shimmer and a melodious voice whispered in her mind.

~ Updating status…

> Array alterations completed successfully.

~ Pending information…

> Uploaded.

> Experiences calculated.

> Divination attained.

> Contribution calculated.

>> Contribution based on delayed augury.

>>: Kun Juni (Hunter Pavilion, West Flower Picking): 1,508,900 points. Status: overall rank: 2nd. ~ +8981 places.

“What?” she exclaimed out loud. “Ling, did your talisman also just...?”

Lin Ling, sat beside her frowned and looked in her own jade... “Oh... monkeyshit. It’s gone…”

She looked distant... “I guess he took it or threw it away?”

“Hey... Han Shu! Have you still got your talisman?” she called out, waving to him to come over.

“Er… yeah? It’s in my jade... Why?” he replied, making his way to their rock.

“Take it out,” she said.

Frowning a bit at her rather perfunctory tone, he did so only to pause frozen, staring at it blankly.

“What is it listing you as…?” she asked, standing up.

“3rd… 1,502,219 contribution score…” he said, sounding like a human puppet.

They looked at each other…

“Can we search for other people’s scores?” Lin Ling asked.

Juni stared at her talisman and focused... Sure enough, the image flickered in front of her. She focused on showing it. Moments later a projection appeared in front of them.

Rank

Last shift

Name

Influence

Score

1

+9901

Lin Ling

Hunter Bureau

15,021,621

2

+8981

Kun Juni

Hunter Bureau

1,508,900

3

+8980

Han Shu

Hunter Bureau

1,502,219

4

-3

Ji Huan

Red Sovereign Sect

600,210

5

-3

Tian Cang Di

Shu Pavilion

590,201

6

-3

Huang JiLao

Huang Clan

581,201

7

-3

Lian Jing

Dun Clan

580,220

8

-3

Shu Tanshi

Shu Pavilion

561,800

9

-3

Lu Dong

Jade Gate Court

550,490

10

-3

Tuo Hai

Heaven's Justice Sect

501,810

“What…?” all three echoed with simultaneous confusion.

“Oh, this is very bad...” she whispered under her breath.

Unbidden she had a very unfortunate moment of recall about… misfortune that the Sar’Katush had somehow sent into her mind. The specifics of that were now totally lost, but the ‘Intent’ that they, and only they, could save her from a huge problem, or so they had claimed, did still linger somewhat.

She stared at the medallion in her hand, thoughts racing, wondering if this was perhaps that ‘huge problem’ or somehow related to it.

“These things allow the Bureau to track us….”

“You don’t think the Bureau would give that up… do you?” Lin Ling said uneasily.

“They don’t have to. Remember Di Ji and Din Ouyeng had… Ling Luo with them.” she said dully.

“Oh. Monkeyshit!” Lin Ling hissed, kicking a convenient rock.

“Yes. Quite. Monkeyshit!” she agreed.

“But...” Han Shu frowned, staring at his own amulet. “Even if they… If charitably those…how is… uh”

He trailed off, looking confused… almost as if—

Staring at him, a sneaking suspicion arose in her mind. Whether it was interesting, or problematic, she didn’t feel confident to say, but the only thing she could do was ask and see.

“Can you remember who attacked us on the ridge?” she said suddenly.

“Uh…. Ha Yun… and uh… there was someone from the Deng... no… Din Clan?” Han Shu muttered, counting them off on his hands, sounding perplexed. “But… how would someone from the Din Clan? That makes no sense at all?”

Lin Ling looked sideways at her, frowning and signed. “He remembered before?”

“He did,” she signed back unobtrusively, wondering what had changed.

Unbidden, her eye fell on the sword next to the rock. Until they got out here, it hadn’t left Han Shu’s hand or back since they rejoined him, and before that, he had been in the depths, in that strange, twisted dark.

-But that doesn’t explain why we can both now remember, part of her pointed out.

“Uggh,” she put a hand to her temples and sighed.

“What’s wrong?” Lin Ling asked.

“Same old, it will take a while for them to go away, I think.”

“Oh,” Lin Ling nodded and muttered quietly. “Yeah… That Grand Magus O’Brian told me I would have momentary relapses for several weeks at least and that I should… avoid situations of profound mental stress in the short term.”

“Hah,” she could only laugh out loud at that as Lin Ling shook her head sadly.

“Had I realised this was likely I’d have thrown it away in the anomaly or left it down there…” Han Shu muttered weakly, still staring at his talisman. “—And! What’s with the score on Lin Ling’s talisman?”

All three turned back to stare at the floating blue/green box in the air beside Han Shu’s talisman.

-Yes… what is with that?

They stared at the ridiculous number in silence, until Ling finally spoke.

“Well, I guess it answers whether I lost my talisman or it was taken…”

“Yeah,” she agreed, still staring at it, it did indeed answer that question.

If they operated under the assumption that Di Ji… Ji Tantai, or whatever his name was now, had stolen Lin Ling’s talisman for whatever reason, whatever he had found, or whatever had found him, was a magnitude greater than their own misfortune.

In her mind’s eye, she could still picture that incandescent thing that came from the depths, the words it spoke… the declaration that he had ‘killed its oldest friend’. It suddenly occurred to her that there might be far more terrible things lurking in the depths of that place than what they had had the misfortune to encounter. Then again, with any luck, that entity had delivered the wretched malignancy that had caused both her and Lin Ling so much trouble to a fate worse than death. Certainly, neither of them would ever be in a position to exact revenge for themselves, which was a sad thought.

-Probably this is how those old mothers who still cried out for justice on behalf of Heaven at the war shrine every year over the fallout from the Three Schools Conflict feel, a part of her muttered.

-Shut it, she grimaced.

It wasn’t a voice, but she didn’t want to engage with that thought.

Shaking her head to try and get rid of it, she stood up, a bit more decisively than she had actually intended, making the other two both look at her quizzically.

“…”

“First thing, even before we work out what we do about that. We need to work out exactly where we are,” she said, recovering herself somewhat. “This chasm is remarkably danger-free for what is presumably somewhere in the inner valleys. While it would be nice to think we are somewhere like the South Grove Spires – far, far away from the Great Mount—”

“—I really doubt we have been that lucky,” Lin Ling interjected, pushing herself up as well. “Remember, there is that one other place that is like this in the ‘Inner Valleys’.”

“Well, if we are there, anyone that tries to rob us will die without a grave,” she said with a mocking smile, fervently hoping in her heart that they were not in the ‘Green Pit’: “Not that anybody will ever find our corpses either.”

“Still better than that dark hell,” Lin Ling said with a similar weird smile.

“No argument there,” she agreed, staring first at her bloody arms and then in the direction of one of the shallower pools. “But before we worry about any of that… I am going to try to wipe off the worst of this horrible gunk.”

~ Dun Lian Jing – A Certain Bog in the Inner Valleys ~

Lian Jing sat on the rock, rubbing her temples. It was a hilariously mortal gesture to reflect how she felt right now. First, there had been that squirrel that somehow managed to make off with a whole bunch of stuff from them while they were evading that truly terrible toad. Now there was this. In fact, this almost outweighed the first issue and the terrible weather in this place. Almost.

In any event, now that she was once again without a communication talisman courtesy of truly bizarre circumstances, the burden of communication with Teacher Dun had fallen to JiLao. That was probably a mercy because she really didn’t feel like she had the patience for that conversation as it was currently playing out.

“Really, this is preposterous,” one of the White Storm Sect cultivators sat on a lower rock grumbled.

“Doesn’t this make a mockery of anything we might have achieved?” Yan Ju added sourly.

Huang JiLao was also staring at a talisman jade, one provided especially for the event, with a vexed expression on his face to match her own, albeit for somewhat different reasons. The thunder riven sky above was blocking any kind of normal message talismans in here, and updates to the talismans were rather flaky, anyway.

“I guess there is no avoiding it,” he sighed, turning to her.

“If I have to be the one to relay this, you’re going to sit in on the conversation, given his orders were that you were the point of communication for whatever reason.”

“He said it would be more auspicious to hear news from me,” she shrugged.

They both paused in silence before shaking their heads.

-Who can think what the auspice of those higher realms is, she added sourly to herself.

Certainly ever since they had started trekking through this bog, she had a much clearer understanding of why someone like Dun Jian would send them here rather than come in person. What Dao Eternal was going to slog like a mortal through a bog, looking for treasure? Never mind that the place was infested with the kind of wildlife that would make even the staunchest explorer pale. Everyone was avoiding looking at the corpse of the fourteen-star rank Doom Toad a few hundred metres out in the swamp. They had had to use half of their Dao Eternal talismans to kill the thing.

“Seriously,” someone else muttered nearby. “How did they get such a stupidly high score?”

“Maybe they robbed and killed a bunch of people?” another of the White Storm Sect sniffed. “Aren’t those names kind of familiar in any case?”

“Oh, yeah… now that you mention it.” Yan Ju agreed. “Aren’t they the ones that were on the rebellion proclamation that was issued then rescinded?”

Activating the talisman, JiLao handed it to her.

“Yes, disciple JiLao,” her uncle’s voice came through, sounding a bit testy, “what are you bothering me with?”

“It’s me, Uncle,” she said flatly.

“Oh. Erm… Jing’er, why are you using JiLao’s talisman?”

“There is a problem with the weather. The talisman you sent me doesn’t work, anyway, have you seen the update?”

“…”

“Yes,” came the reply after a long silence

“From what we have experienced out here, the second and third rank scores are somewhat understandable through some sideways means. Clearly, they have stumbled across a ‘major’ anomaly, as you termed it,” she explained. “Not that we have any idea how the Grand Astrologer has actually divined—”

“—with the help of an old ancestor from the Kong Heavenly clan,” her uncle sent back, sounding displeased as his reply cut her off.

“What does that mean for our endeavour out here?” she asked.

“Those old fellows are rather wary of those mountains. They will barely set foot in the world, the concern with them will be a matter for after, you don’t need to worry about it,” Dun Jian replied somewhat perfunctorily. “They merely supplied an array as I understand it and the Imperial Court Astrologers and the Three Eyes were able to set it up with some resource assistance.”

-Really, this is getting odder and odder, she could only concede. Maybe JiLao was right and there was something else going on.

“Well?” JiLao asked from where he was pacing nearby.

“A moment,” she replied, trying not to sigh audibly.

“Umm, it seems some of the others know these names,” Tan Fang said, coming over to them.

“I trust there won’t be any issues in reaching that auspicious place?” her uncle pressed, changing the topic.

“Hard to say, the going is much harder than either you or anything in the Blue Gate School’s records suggested. We tried to get stuff from the Bureau, but they were politely noncommittal,” she explained.

“And the people with us are spooked by that contribution score,” Tan Fang muttered.

“What is it?” she hissed, “I am talking to my uncle.”

“Oh…” he winced and actually bowed towards the talisman, like an idiot.

“Umm, the people from the Blue Gate School know a bit more about these three,” Tan Fang said apologetically.

“Do you know anything about them yet, Uncle?” she asked.

“…”

“The Hunter Bureau has shut up like a void clam. Anything related to the West Flower Picking Pavilion has been sealed from Shan Lai directly,” her uncle said sounding annoyed. “The Hunter Bureau is not being… cooperative.”

“In that case… it seems we can probably save you some searching,” she said. “Shall I put Tan Fang on?”

“Unnecessary, just find out and relay me the information,” her uncle said.

“…”

Shaking her head, she turned back to Tan Fang, trying not to look as annoyed as she felt.

“Right, who are they?” she asked him.

Tan Fang ushered forward one of the surviving few mercenary cultivators Yan Ju had hired to provide additional expertise on the local environs of Yin Eclipse.

“Your Imperial Highness, honoured young nobles,” the middle-aged man, a Dao Seeking cultivator, almost grovelled as he addressed them.

“All of them are elite herb hunters from West Flower Picking town. They are all quite well known in our circles. The one at the top of the rankings is called Lin Ling, she does a lot of consultation with various influences in Blue Water City. As for the other two, they are… well, both technically nine-star ranked Herb Hunters, much more qualified than she is.

“Kun Juni is probationally held at eight-star rank but is a Junior Bureau Official working for the West Flower Picking Pavilion.

“Han Shu… is an expert who works in the West Shadow Forest. An indigenous, but his family has influence with the Military Bureau in this region that goes back a long way.

“Lin Ling is a daughter of one of the remnant branches of the Lin family, of the Three Schools Conflict fame.”

“What are their cultivation realms?” Ran Hao, who was also waiting nearby, asked.

“Err…. The two girls are both mid Qi Condensation… the boy doesn’t cultivate spiritual arts at all. Their physical cultivations are probably very close to the peak of Physical Foundation, if not actually in Mantra Seed Formation…” another mercenary hunter replied nervously.

“…”

“I find that improbable” Yan Ju pointed out, sounding incredulous. “How can a bunch of people at that realm traverse this place without finding death without a grave?”

“Are you sure they are not some concealed masters or such?” another of the Ran Clan cultivators added.

Ling Fan, the Beast Hunter from the Ling clan who was travelling with them, finally spoke up, while glowering at the mercenaries. “No. They are all very accomplished. Out here, cultivation means nothing in comparison to knowledge. The only reason we had to fight that accursed toad was because you lot didn’t want to take the detour around the far side of the valley as it would take a day longer.”

“I see,” she said with a frown.

“Basically, it is only their low spiritual cultivation that holds them back or they would already have moved into the Beast Cadre. As it is all three do accomplished follow up patrols in their specialist regions and Kun Juni has been a hunter for almost 20 years.”

“Wait... she’s an eight-star hunter after only 20 years?” one of the Ran clan disciples said.

“And Junior Official,” Ling Fan reminded them. “Technically she is a nine-star ranked hunter.”

“You try running about here every week for two decades doing missions to capture, hunt, kill, or identify fates knows what and see what rank you have if you live that long…” one of the Blue Gate Inner Disciples, the girl Mo Xiao muttered... “You do not get elite ratings in this province by meditating in a cave for years at a time.”

She was certain that the Ran clan disciple hadn’t meant it like that. Anywhere else it would, with a clan's influence, be possible to become a junior official within a year or two of joining a Pavilion – so long as your cultivation was up to par. But when it was flipped around, she noted nobody had the stomach to say that this Kun Juni’s feat wasn’t impressive.

“Uncle…” she took the talisman back up and swiftly relayed the conversation she had just had to him.

“…”

“I see… thank you Jing’er,” her uncle sent back a few moments later.

“If you hold… we can… Ah… Okay. Interesting, interesting… most interesting,” she listened as he muttered away on the other end, presumably looking at some other source of information. “So two of them – Kun Juni and this Han Shu are… very close to the place you need to head to.”

-Oh, how convenient, a part of her muttered.

“They are to the north of you, on one of the minor peaks beyond that point, on the slopes of the Great Mount itself. You can identify it… as it’s in a line with Thunder Crest, and 40 degrees to East Fury’s last peak. The fastest way to get there will actually be to swap paths and go north rather than continue on the trajectory JiLao had mapped.”

"If you take the new route I am sending to your talisman, you can probably reach them within two days...”

“Are others likely to find out their location?” she asked, ignoring the perturbed looks on various faces around her at the length of the conversation.

“—Probably.” her uncle sent back. “Fortunately the system as those old schemers set it up aggregates scores if participants kill each other… so if anyone does get to them first it will be very obvious.”

“Assuming they can’t obstruct that in some way.”

“Jing’er. Unless they are stronger than the old ancestor from the Kong can that set this system up… you can rest easy. Even if they destroy the talismans themselves, so long as they have been in contact with them for a length of time the link will remain.”

-Will it now, she narrowed her eyes at that. That was certainly new information that nobody had mentioned.

While she didn’t really share JiLao’s worries about some of this, she did have a growing worry about the background involvement of a few of the other powers in the Imperial Household – like Fanshu. The open nature of this trial almost promoted outside fishing.

“Now, I have work to do it seems,” her uncle sent back. “The Hunter Bureau is unlikely to let be, either here or in Shan Lai, if three of their own are suddenly top of the rankings. If they send some old ghosts from the Tang clan or the bunch of meddlers from the Sheng get involved you must let me know immediately!”

-And how are we meant to know if one of them pops out of the ground, she thought sourly to herself.

The talisman dimmed in her hand. Shaking her head, she handed it back to JiLao.

“Well?” Ran Hao said. “What do we do now?”

She took a few moments to pull the new map out of the talisman and transfer it to her spatial ring. It took notably longer for them to look over the new route. Most of those along with them were not keen on leaving the safety of the ridge lines to head across the green gulf and the river towards the Great Mount.

Finally, it was JiLao who got them all to shut up. She had sat back mostly and let him handle it. It was easier than arguing with Yan Ju and the other White Storm Sect disciples over every little thing in that changed route.

Standing up he looked around their muddied, depleted group and shook his head. “Well today has been a shit day, but at least now we have a route out of this fate-thrashed bog.”

That got some scattered laughter from the Blue Gate School disciples. “Let’s go try and snare us this golden Luan, whatever the fates it actually is.”

“—and pray we don’t meet another one of those in the process.” Tan Fang shuddered, staring at the body of the toad.

“Yeah...” Ran Hao grimaced.

She nodded in agreement at that. It had not been a nice fight. Outside here a beast with that degree of suggestive strength and skill with illusions would be a nightmare.

“If it’s any consolation,” Tan Feng said. “I understand others who have made it this far in are also suffering enormously…”

“Oh yes… the deep valleys above here have had a terrible reputation since... Well, forever,” Mo Xiao chipped in. “But on the bright side, when the weather is this shitty it does keep the really nasty and rather aggravating things away.”

“That horror is not considered nasty?” Tan Fang muttered, though Mo Xiao didn’t say any more on the matter.

She glanced at the young woman with a frown, her attitude was…

Well, she had to admit that Mo Xiao was one of the quiet surprises among the Blue Gate disciples.

It was mainly thanks to her contributions and very much against the odds that the Blue Gate disciples were still alive in numbers comparable to the White Storm Sect and the Ran clan. She was gifted as a formations controller, something which had totally evaded JiLao's research on the talents of the school up until this trip. She also knew a surprising array of mildly useful arts that actually worked up here. Not to mention her instincts were top-notch and several of her snap decisions had saved quite a few lives, especially in their latest rather encounter with the local fauna.

The other disciples of the Blue Gate School had taken to her semi-leadership quite quickly as well, which saved JiLao having to manage the most skittish members of their expedition directly.

Still, she wasn’t entirely sure she didn’t mean the ‘rather aggravating’ if apparently totally harmless two-tailed squirrels with that comment. Ever since the low thunder had shown up and forced them off the ridgelines earlier that day she hadn’t seen the squirrel or squirrels at all. Not since that one made off with her talisman and several other people’s pill bottles and some other oddments.