"This changes nothing," Mitch said levelly to the old man in front of him. Kanshou just nodded, as though that had been his expectation.

Now that Mitch was calm again he regretted his previous outburst. It had been childish. Yes, he was under an inordinate amount of stress, but so was everyone else and he needed to keep a lid on it if he was going to make it through this. "Enough curiosities, let's talk about these mutants," Mitch said. Kanshou nodded.

"As discussed, I will not give you any information that will assist you in dealing with them. Only basic facts." It was Mitch's turn to nod. "Calling them mutants is actually a bit of a misnomer. They will be returning to their true forms, although there may be some new variants as well. After the transformation, their bodies will be temporarily unable to absorb energy from the environment, and they will seek out energy sources to consume. Many times this means humans. This will happen after each Tolling from now on."

"Why don't they turn on each other instead?"

"I will not tell you this." Mitch nodded again.

"What about modern weapons? Won't they be able to handle this pretty easily?"

"They may help somewhat, but if you think of some of the abilities recorded in the legends of your world, you may begin to see why they will not be capable of dealing with everything. Also, as populous as humans are, they are still vastly outnumbered."

Mitch took a moment and considered the possibilities as Kanshou had implied them. If one reviewed all of the beasts of legend things became genuinely frightening. He thought of dragons and qilins, of bugbears and griffins, of harpies, centaurs, and strix, of skinwalkers; breath of fire, invisibility, mental manipulation, impenetrable scales, shapeshifting. The beasts of legend held innumerable dangers which may not be readily countered by a simple bullet.

“So you’re saying the legends are returning?”

“Many of the legends that remain hold some truth. There is also a great deal of fabrication.”

So, Mitch could not know for sure what was real and what was not. Unless Kanshou could tell him.

“So what should I expect?”

“Do not forget about swarms,” was all that Kanshou said.

“But-“

“That is all I will tell you.”

Mitch was not satisfied, but he was also not willing to press the issue. On to the next.

“You mentioned resources?”

Kanshou pulled a small pouch out from somewhere behind him, Mitch did not see precisely where and tossed it to Mitch. Mitch let it drop to the sandy floor in front of him, not willing to take anything at face value anymore. When Mitch did not catch it or reach for it, Kanshou sighed.

“It is safe.”

“I can’t know that.”

Kanshou looked at him as if he were an idiot. “If I intended to kill you I would not need to resort to tricks to do so. You are thirty feet below the ground. I could do anything to you that I might wish, even torture you for days and let you scream at the top of your lungs, and no one else would be the wiser. I would not even need to expend any effort to cover anything up.”

Mitch knew he was right, but was still hesitant to believe the man had no ill intentions. After another moment of hesitation, he finally grabbed the bag gingerly and began untying it. With that accomplished, rather than reaching into the pouch, he dumped its contents out onto the sand. What came out left him decidedly underwhelmed. Three rocks, a polished jade cube about a centimeter to a side and sporting a loop at the top, and something that looked like a stylus.

“What the fuck am I supposed to do with this junk?”

“The stones are a source of energy, think of them as a battery. The jade will let us communicate over long distances. It will also allow me to observe your progress more easily. The rod you will have to figure out on your own. This is the standard kit given to new inductees, minus the manuals that normally go with it.”

Mitc cautiously picked up the stones. It seemed like Kanshou was telling the truth. With his body in contact, he could feel the energy flowing through them. Flowing was the wrong word. It felt like more of a pulsing. Batteries, there was a lot he might be able to do with batteries. There were two ways he knew of to increase combat ability; skills and gear. He only had three months left until the next Tolling, and he did not think he would be able to acquire much in the way of martial arts skills in that time. That left gear. He had the feeling he was about to have an epic crafting session.

When he set the stones down and grabbed the stylus that Kanshou had called a rod he didn’t get any sort of feeling like he had with the rocks; just a vague sense of emptiness, like there was a hole that needed to be filled within it.

The jade he left alone. He didn’t feel like he needed to make it easier for Kanshou to spy on him. When he put the stones and rod back into the bag and began to tie it closed once more, Kanshou spoke up.

“One of the conditions of our support is that you take the jade. If you refuse that I will kill you now.”

Mitch looked up sharply: there was no hint of remorse or placability in Kanshou’s eyes. He began to set the bag with the other items bag down as well, but Kanshou shook his head.

“At this point, I have told you too much. You may take the jade and leave the others, but if you do not take the jade, you will not leave this room.”

Mitch glared a bit but did not dare to say what he was really thinking.

“I do not wish to be spied upon.”

“You may choose to accept or die.”