When I was 6, I watched my mother's belly swell. I tried not to think about the sounds I'd heard that preceeded it. At last she gave birth and I welcomed into this world a younger sister—Ju Huang. She is much loved by my parents. I think they were a little disappointed that she came out normal. They kept saying things like "she's so easily entertained" or "it's nice to have a normal childhood" to try to console themselves. It's okay. You can't always hit the jackpot.

The first big incident started when I was eight. A forager in the woods had discovered a small patch of Violet Dew Mushrooms. They were all quickly harvested and sold off, but the shipment attracted a lot of attention from alchemists because they could be refined into solutions to treat internal injuries or promote faster Ki recovery.

More importantly, they're not native to the woods around Wenjinxiang village. The mushroom were occasionally seen a few hundred miles away in the Forest of Midnight--a which was actually a single large fungi-type monster that had long ago connected and united every one of the trees. The forest of midnight's fungi caused the absorbed tree's spiritual properties to rampage, which made the Violet Dew Mushrooms there dangerous and difficult to forage for.

Thus, our sleepy village was suddenly flooded with hunters from big cities trying to “get lucky and make it big.” This would have been welcomed as an economic boon, but then their trampling of the forest and disturbing of the wildlife had another secondary effect. They riled up the beast populations nearby.

Beasts in Shu Han are ranked from 1-9 based on the potential danger they pose. Ranks 1-3 are considered bronze ranked beasts that village guards should be able to handle on their own, but sometimes adventurer requests are made to quell the rank 3 populations as preventative measure. Rank 4-6 are silver-ranked dangerous beasts that would normally result in an extermination quest being submitted to the adventurer's guild or a local martial arts sect. Rank 7-9 are the gold ranked beasts or migratory movements that are national level threats.

The rush of enterprising hunters set off a minor migratory movement of two packs of rank 3 Blood Fang wolves. Fortunately, with all the hunters in town we'd be able to defend ourselves from the sudden and unexpected pack movements, right? Not quite.

Unfortunately, at the same time as the packs were discovered they hit upon a large pocket of Violet Dew Mushrooms. They decided to protect the stash of Violet Dew Mushrooms and evacuate with their harvest securely rather than run a far less lucrative defensive mission for our village.

The nearest A-class adventurer was a day off. The Xiang clan was contacted but a pair of representatives for them were a day and a half away. We needed to make a stand to buy enough time for help to arrive.

My father as one of the village's self-defense trainers volunteered for the militia and went up on the emergency wooden stockade we'd erected. The log barrier wasn't tall, especially compared to the stone walls frontier settlements came equipped with, but it had been four years since the last time I'd seen them in use, and back then we'd had adventurers who were able to ride in right before the monsters arrived.

I try to volunteer as well, but for pretty obvious reasons am rejected. I take it graciously. I didn't truly want to be standing upon the walls either since for all the training I've done I'm still only an 8 year-old, and I'd yet to truly begin practicing the Chimera Martial Arts. To truly begin I'd need to capture a silver-ranked monster and graft parts of them onto my own body. It was a gruesome art, but highly effective, and for now utterly useless. I could make do with a rank 3 monster, but I strongly preferrred to begin transforming my body with at least a rank 4 monster.

Still, my death was unlikely if I participated alongside the others in a defensive siege, against mere rank 3 monsters. It would be a tragic shame if it happened, but it was unlikely.

Meifen's mother also came by and dropped her daughter off with my mother and me. Then she headed up to the wall. She was going to receive a wartime bonus for serving as well as a emergency bonus offered by the village. She couldn't resist but, fortunately, she wouldn't be useless. I had learned from Meifen that her mother at least was a competent enough fighter to fend off a single rank 3 monster in a 1vs1.

It was at this point that I hit upon an ingenius idea. Meifen's mother was only at the level of a rank 3 monster, but if I treated her with some drugs cooked up with alchemy she could easily bring out 20 or 30% more power for a short time before suffering backlash and side-effects.

Normally, though, it would not be feasible to quickly produce drugs for the defenders, but we were about to receive a massive windfall in terms of potions ingredients. If the Blood Fang Wolves attacked all at once it would be useless, but if they attacked in waves we could use the first wave's victims as potions fodder. I rushed out to propose some recipes I could remember that were applicable.

I found the village headman esconced right below the fortifications. He didn't want to listen to my plan until I threw to the ground the two men he'd sent to escort me to safety. Alright, I just tripped the last one because his armor made him too heavy for me to throw.

He was not receptive to my plan at first. Alchemy is a tough art and even apprentices do two years of training before they're allowed to brew without supervision. If I wasn't skilled enough I could easily brew poison instead of beneficial drugs.

That was a thought. I proposed that I could pretty easily adapt the Blood Fang Wolf parts into a mixture that would give out poisonous gas when poured out. We'd need to be very careful in using it, but it could become a very useful weapon for buying time. He asked me to demonstrate my skill with a packet of herbs, which I fully identified and then mixed a few into an anaesthetic, whose properties I stimulated externally with a fine trace of ki.

The easiest type of man to bargain with is a desperate one, and so he agreed to take a chance on my work.

Two hours the first wave hit, and the howls and screeches of the attackers were matched by the cries and rallying cheers of our defenders. It was over in less than 10 minutes. I wondered if it had just been a scouting party.

Still, we had used up our entire stock of arrows. We could recover some of them, but not all so the non-combatants broke down barrels and crates into short, sharpened javelins.

I also got to work and showed Meifen how to harvest their venom glands and blood sacs. I would be combining them with a bit of Fennel confiscated from the local trading post, and topping it with a layer of sawdust to keep the vapor from escaping.

It is simple to make a weak gaseous poison out of a strong liquid poison. It is not so simple to teach people how to use it and avoid being caught in the effects themselves. My uncle, master of the Ping Dojo, was the one who made that part work. He organized a few wind watchers with signals to tell us when and where it would be safe to pour it out and thereby release the gas.

He also made sure the vacancies in the wall's defensive line were patched with new raw recruits, and that everyone on the line had crude cloth masks. I didn't tell anyone, but they'd probably only block out a small fraction of the poison. Still, they probably improved morale.

A second wave before long, but this one was different. The blood fang wolves entirely avoided our structure and passed us by on our left. They were fleeing from a smaller pack of six Stony Rocs. The stony rocs were large birds as a small shed and with skin as hard as stone. Our arrows and wooden javelins would be like pin pricks.

These were rank 4 monsters, and our wooden walls would have no effect on them. I watched from the window of my house as the battle began. Only two of the Rocs broke formation and headed for our village. Someone panicked on the eastern wall and began unloading the solution without warning. It forced the birds to sway and swerve, but also took out a half dozen of our own defenders.

The two strongest fighters in our village were Sum, a retired adventurer, and Zong, one of the few Hunters who'd remained behind to help us. They took on one of the Rocs at the Northeastern wall with blunt projectiles meant to knock it out of the sky.

On the Southeastern wall the situation was far more dire. The Roc began scything attack as it cut down one or two defenders with each pass. The villagers there had seemingly nothing that would work against it.

From my perspective on the ground looking through a cracked window I didn't see my father stand up and aim for its eye. I would never see him miss the strike or it's counter that tore out his throat and half of his neck. He probably couldn't cry out at the end, but perhaps some of his comrades did on his behalf when he fell. I wouldn't hear those cries either, though, as they were lost in the chaos of the battle.

In the end, the Roc at the northeastern corner of the walls was driven into the cloud of poison and made a hasty retreat. The one who attacked in the southeastern corner eventually took two of the bodies and flew off as well. In the end, it killed four defenders and maimed several more. Of the six defenders who were poisoned all survived thanks to prompt medical care, but the after effects on the two of them took years to fully disappear.

Combined with the losses from the first assault we'd lost 6 men and 3 women. That night help arrived from the Bai Trading Company. Their splendidly armored guards arrived to a mix of cheers and mourning. They took over most of the walls and reinforced us until a group of four adventurers arrived in the morning. At that point all of the villagers left the walls, and left it to the professionals.

Meifen's mother, Hao Kwan, survived with no physical injuries but a new set of nightmares. My father was given an honorable funeral as a hero along with the eight other who fell in our defense. His was an empty grave, though. Of the hunters and merchants who started this disaster, none were punished. To the rest of the land of Shu this was just another day with only minor troubles.

This was what an awful day looked like for those who lived deep inside the safe zones of Shu Han.