Khorun stood in a clearing in the forest. Lum started sneaking toward him from behind. He placed each foot carefully, avoiding leaves and twigs and always leading with the ball of the foot. He had a dagger at the ready.

Just as he was about to close the distance and strike, the butt of Khorun's staff lifted off the ground and struck Lum in the arm. He dropped the dagger.

"Better," Khorun said.

They had been practicing for days, having learned an array of weapon skills from Khorun. Then they worked on stealth.

"Being a bandit or a sneak-thief is no proper way to live," Khorun said. "However, learning to move in silence and hide from sight are important when hunting animals."

Khorun took a lot of time to practice to get his own skills up. The process of teaching, Clay found, gave experience, as did the process of morphing items into other items. She thought this was probably built into the crafting system; after all, what is baking but taking several things and turning them into something else? Blacksmithing takes one object and changes its shape as well as some of its characteristics.

Experience points were good for Khorun's progress, but each level gave only a baseline increase across the board to all his skills. Combat skills, scribing skills, even qi cultivation skills needed to be practiced. It was an exhausting and time-consuming effort to be a jack-of-all-trades. It left precious little time for coding, but Clay managed to make a slightly refined version of the bagua mirror "cameras" that monitored character comings and goings in a given area.

It was mainly for this that Khorun chose to spend a great deal of time developing stealth and teaching it to his two students. They would need to place and retrieve the cameras unseen in places traveled by humans--including guards. They had made themselves unwelcome in the starting town, but they would have to go there or to other populated centers.

This attraction to the starting town became oppressively greater as Khorun discovered his inability to impart instruction in qi cultivation. It must be something the temple master is exclusively able to teach, he thought. Perhaps the two students could make an offering at the temple, kowtow to the temple master, and perhaps perform a task for the temple master in order to gain face. It was a shame, especially because a strong dragon line ran through the milky-white cave below.

Teaching his students cultivation would open the floodgate to new abilities: weapon skills, like Khorun's Qi Spear, and esoteric skills like Light Foot to help with sneaking and Iron Shirt to protect oneself. Khorun's simple robe provided no protection, but the "spirit armor" Khorun cultivated made him at least as well-protected as other characters of similar level.

Khorun had also kept up with his scribing skills, but had decided against teaching those skills, as they were a bit too cerebral and "magical" for the physically energetic young men. He continued to scribe paper talismans, creating the necessary materials out of dirt and rock. Some of the materials, however, could not be morphed by such base materials. For those, Khorun needed to find rarities: stones, or flowers. The Skilledex made reference to "cores" that held significant power; Khorun figured perhaps these meant geodes, and tucked the information away for the time being.

Khorun was slowly but steadily expanding his safe area of operations around the cave entrance. He could "see" the presence of predatory animals before he would be able to hear them, and he was able to use stealth to move around within their range of hearing. There were a couple of combats that were unavoidable, but Khorun came through them barely wounded thanks to his qi-enhanced combat skills. Even when wounded, he was able to profit from using his mundane, mystical, and magical skills to heal himself.

The blind monk was fairly confident he could now sneak to the edge of the Lawless Zone. From there he could travel back to the starting town. He thought it was best for him to go speak to the temple master and try to get his two students back in the temple master's good graces. Perhaps he would seek out a town leader and explain the situation and vouch for the two young men.

While in town, Khorun intended to place a couple of bagua mirrors for monitoring activity. Clay had refined them slightly, identifying non-player characters in the view of the mirror and activating a low-resource-using code module that compared network activity over time.

Khorun remembered the temple master's predilection for strong drink, and so went to the travelers' house first to buy a small earthenware jug of what the innkeeper assured him was his most potent rice wine. He approached the open-air shrine to find the temple master napping under the huge bell.

The monk cleared his throat politely. The temple master did not stir. He cleared his throat again, this time a little louder. The temple master emitted a snore. Khorun coughed rather loudly and the temple master started slightly, one baleful eye looking up at the blindfold-wearing monk.

"Honorable Master of the Temple--" Khorun began.

"I taught you before." The temple master set down his head. "Go away."

"Yes, honored master, and I am grateful for your wise tutelage. I wished only to ask you about a couple of prospective students--perhaps while you partake of some of this wine."

The one eye opened again, sly and narrow this time. "Wine, you say?" The temple master rolled out from under the bell, rose smoothly to his feet and snatched the jug from Khorun.

Khorun gave a little bow in case the temple master had made a subaudible grunt of thanks for the wine. "Honored master, there are two younger folk I wish to instruct. They fell onto the path of the ruffian, but now seek to make amends. They need only some very basic instruction."

"'Ruffians,' eh? I don't teach to low sorts. Thieves, outlaws, dru--" He squinched his brow in thought, finally saying, "Dru...m beating annoyances."

"Of course, honored master," Khorun said. "But they need only learn the basics of qi cultivation. After that, I can teach them some qi-based weapon and other martial skills."

The temple master goggled at Khorun. "Teach? You just learned a few days ago, and left here with one weapon skill. You can't teach!"

Khorun gave a lower bow. "Your gracious self taught me well, and I have found myself in a position to be able to impart some knowledge to others."

"No you don't!" The temple master stuck out one wet lip as he glared at the much taller man. "You don't have the authority! Only I can teach qi skills!"

Khorun bowed again. "Forgive me, noble master," he said. "I meant only to save your august self some time--"

"No teaching!" the temple master said. He waved past Khorun to a pair of men in green robes and plumed helmets. "Guards!"

The men whirled smartly toward the temple, not slowing their march. The temple master called out, "Arrest this man! He presumes to teach the internal ways illegally." One guard nodded as they advanced on Khorun.

Khorun began to protest, but saw the bulging-eyed fury on the temple master's face. Obviously he was still ignorant of many of the ways of this new land. He ran instead.

The guards started off in pursuit, nearly catching him, but Khorun had taught himself the qi ability Feet of Air. He sprinted away from them, slowing and turning around only once he reached the boundary of the Lawless Zone. The armored men jogged tirelessly in pursuit. Probably much higher level, Khorun thought. There was no sense in engaging them or even risking them closing the distance. He ran on.

By the time he reached the cave, he was thankful for its relatively concealed entrance and the unobtrusive hole leading into the cave that housed the monastery. Tired, nearly drained of stamina, he made his weary way down the ladder. Reaching the bottom, cocooned by the low candlelight that suffused the chamber where they worked, Khorun felt very much shut in his own little world. Even such a large cave had restricted sound, and the silence closed in on him. It gave the sensation of being cut off from the world.

Cut off... Khorun slowly stood straight, covered eyes seemingly staring into the distance. Yes, that was it. A plan was beginning to form. Clay reached over for a keyboard and started composing bits of code and looking through the PERSEUS documentation.

An hour later, Khorun went out into the forest, flanked by Ricktivish and Lum. They had never seen the morphing process before and were duly impressed. This lasted approximately until Khorun used two rocks to create a shovel for each of them and they had to help with the process of digging. He told them of his experiences thus far with training qi and scribing, and how he discovered things meditating in a cave. He told them that the process or changing one thing into another was very difficult and exhausting, and was not something he could teach them.

"So are you a player, or a GM, or...?" Ricktivish asked. Khorun craned his neck so he was facing Ricktivish and giving what would've been a stern glare had the blindfold not been in the way. Clay's preference had always been to be part of the immersion and to roleplay at least to the extent of not dragging in reminders of the real world or the nature of the game itself.

"I am... something else," Khorun said.

"An AI?" Lum asked, eyes bright under his bangs.

"No, not a damned AI," Khorun snapped, breaking his own rules of immersion. More quietly he said, "Those don't exist. They never have, and never will."

"Okay," Ricktivish said. "I guess it's kind of a sore subject with you."

Khorun said nothing and continued to take the earth the other two dug and turn it into sky-grey slabs of stone. After a while, their pit stood well over six feet deep, measuring a few feet on either side. Khorun had the others help him with dropping one slab down as a floor, then levering the others down to make four walls for the pit. He told his students to go on ahead of him before making one last stone, larger than the others. This he set face-down. Before covering it with leaves, he read "SIM END XINJIANG" on the side not covered with sky.

Catching up with his two students, Khorun indicated a strip of cloth he'd tied to a tree right near the pit. "That will mark where the pit is," he said. "Keep running if you get pursued instead of me, and jump over the pit to lead the guard straight into it." He tied another strip of cloth around another tree when they were nearly out of sight of the first. They walked on a while more, and Khorun added a last strip of cloth to a tree at the very end of the forest. They jogged the rest of the way to the boundary of the Lawless Zone, then, and headed for the town.

Khorun snuck into the temple, the other two following as quietly as they could some distance behind him. He saw the temple master sleeping under the bell again; it was the same time of day as he visited yesterday. The monk crept up to the bell, then gave it a huge whack with his staff. The bell made a booming sound.

The temple master startled awake with a cry, jackknifing as all of him tried to get up at once. He banged his head on the bottom of the bell, adding a "bong" of a lower tone that accompanied the resonant peal.

"What? What?" the temple master cried, looking around until he saw the tall form of the blind monk. "You!"

"Yes, me," Khorun said. "These are the two students I mentioned. Can we convince you to let them back into the town and instruct them in the gathering and collection of qi?"

The temple master's face reddened. "Guards!" he yelled. Khorun looked blandly toward the rest of the town.

"It would seem no guards are handy," Khorun observed. "Should we go find some for you?" He looked around, making a show of searching for guards. The temple master stalked to the edge of his grounds, muttering and pacing. He jabbed a finger at Khorun. "You will go before the authorities. They will strip you of your qi. All your inner pathways will be filled with black sludge and you will be no more able to sense the larger world than a turtle!" He glanced to the distance. "Ah, here are the guards now." He waved them over.

"Him!" the temple master said, jabbing a finger at Khorun. "He is the one breaking the law against qi collection. Arrest him!"

The guards advanced on Khorun as his students shrank back. "Wait," Khorun said. "With qi abilities and the ability of IMPART KNOWLEDGE, I should be able to give instruction to others. I only cannot lead my students to activate their qi initially. This requires intervention and a ruling."

The guards stood still a moment, looking at each other. Then one nodded, closing his eyes.

Clay kept an eye on a tiny readout in the corner of her screen. It gave a sudden spike in network traffic. The guard's head came back up, eyes opening--

Just in time for Khorun's punch to hit him flush in the face.

Khorun turned and ran. The other two ducked out of his way, let the punched guard run past them, then body-checked the other guard to slow down his pursuit. They couldn't hope to hold him off in combat, but they could tangle him up a little. They resorted to schoolyard tactics then, Lum on all fours behind the guard as Ricktivish pushed the guard back to trip over Lum. The two booked it then, scattering and making for the Lawless Zone.

The guard possessed by one of the people in Raf's medical zone was a fast runner, but Khorun had been over this terrain and he called on Feet of Air. The guard lagged behind a little bit, but Khorun allowed him to catch up a little. A human intelligence working against a human intelligence had both advantages and disadvantages as opposed to the computer "intelligence" of an NPC not being run by a person.

When it came time to reach the pit, Khorun leapt the short distance, skidded on the ground as if falling, and planted his staff. He looked as though he was trying to slow his slide with his staff. But as the guard found when he jumped the pit (having seen Khorun jump it and correctly concluding there was an obstacle), the monk had set it to arrest the guard's forward momentum.

The end of Khorun's staff hit the guard in the solar plexus. The guard's breath escaped all at once in a barking wheeze. He fell into the pit with an undignified thump.

Khorun scrambled back to his feet and grabbed the last sky-painted stone block. He flipped it on its end, then tipped it over so it formed a lid for the pit, trapping the guard inside it.

The sky painting was part of the assets for Xinjiang province, which was the extreme edge of the Tai-shan simulation. No in-game mobile objects--cars, people, animals--were to go past it. To people in the simulation, it would just look like the endless sky over a no-man's-land.

To the guard, it would look like a staging arena in which he was not supposed to do anything but wait to be acted upon. The Dragon Guard was effectively in a state of suspended animation: the person who inhabited him would be unable to get commands through and the guard couldn't take any actions on his own. It was a perfect double bind.

Khorun gathered up his staff and made his way to the town. The other Dragon Guard had broken off pursuit some time back, and Ricktivish and Lum rendezvoused with Khorun and told him the guard wandered away around the time Khorun trapped the other one.

"Good," Khorun said. "Now to deal with the temple master on slightly better terms."

The temple master was sitting with one leg crossed over his lap, swigging from a wine jug. He looked over as the trio approached but said nothing.

"I have come to ask again for training for my two apprentices," Khorun said.

"Okay," the temple master said, and while Khorun was still taken aback with surprise said, "Bletchley."