Shards of Awakening

Spirits fall into one of two main categories: those that owe allegiance to a particular Court and renegades. The following chapters will focus on the former, as standard procedure within the Empire is to ensure either the pacification or elimination of the latter.

Typically, a court is composed of spirits with aligned or synergistic themes. For instance, the Court of Floating Zephyrs, famous for their occupation of the high winds that circle the Imperial City, is ruled by the Dragon Yin Zhu, a spirit of Wind. Within that Court are spirits of rain and storm, thunder and lightning, and winter and summer, and dozens of others. As might be interpreted from the breadth of themes embodied by the Court of Floating Zephyrs, the more powerful the ruling spirit or spirits, the more varied the themes contained within.

While few Courts can claim to be either as varied or as powerful as the Court of Floating Zephyrs, all Courts require at least a spirit of equivalent cultivation to Pearl Soul. For reasons that have been hypothesized extensively in other publications, and thus won't be repeated here, without this kernel of power, the native spirits of a land tend toward isolation and aggressive defense of territory.

Spirits aligned with a Court, however, gain a semblance of reason and may be treated with either individually or collectively. Indeed many profitable and advantageous bargains have been struck between Imperial factions and the Courts. Do not mistake this capacity for reason for anything approaching humanity. Spirits are tied almost inextricably to their themes, and few indeed are those that can rise beyond them.

On Spirits and Courts, Scholar Feng Jiao, Third Age, 2nd year of the Third Interregnum

[] Claim a house.

Somewhat reluctantly, Quan Jia sighs, "I guess we should go take one of those nice houses before someone else does."

"Are you feeling well, my lady," with her eyes bandaged as they always were Mei Mei's raised eyebrow can't truly convey the depth of sarcastic amusement she's feeling at the moment. Her voice does that perfectly though. "I thought you would rather have done almost anything else than negotiate with your peers for housing."

"I'm being responsible Mei Mei, don't make fun of me." She huffs, "besides, I've got a new friend who totally wouldn't be content with one of those tiny houses."

"Umm, I actually would be fine with one of those cottages," Xiao Lien chimes in, "they're bigger than the house I grew up in at least."

Horrified sympathy flashes across her face and Quan Jia rests a comforting arm across her friend's shoulder, "that Xiao Lien could have gone through such pain and deprivation and still be so cool, truly her potential must be limitless."

Xiao Lien stiffens momentarily at the unexpected contact before relaxing against her, "I don't know what you're thinking, but my mother was a weaver, a successful one."

"Shh, everything will be ok now." Quan Jia murmurs, heavy eyelids already beginning to drift closed with the warmth of her eighth favorite pillow.

"You'll have to forgive my lady," Mei Mei's distant voice echoes softly, "her only experience with unawakened cities are from fairytales and stories."

"Heh," her pillow shifts slightly and Quan Jia snuggles in a bit closer, "it seems somehow fitting that my world would be as strange to her as this world is to me."

"Noisy pillow," Quan Jia's complaint is mostly muffled by silk fabric.

"So, ahh," Xiao Lien mumbles, "do we just stand here now or…"

"In situations like this, there are really only two choices," words drift through Quan Jia's ears without any sense of comprehension. "One can offer up a fanciful imagining and hope that is enough to draw her from sleep. Alternatively one can physically divest oneself of that particularly tenacious barnacle. Though the latter is infinitely more satisfying, allow me to demonstrate the first…"

"Is that a thirteen-pointed rainbow lotus," the exclamation snaps Quan Jia from her light doze and her head snaps around wildly in search.

Within moments It becomes apparent that there's no such thing nearby and she frowns, "so mean."

"Is it truly the fault of the trickster, when the one being tricked falls so easily for the same trick?"

"Mean."

"I hate to interrupt, but if my lady wishes to negotiate for one of the large houses, it appears that we should join soon," her attendant points over to where the other three nobles had gathered.


Quan Jia leaves Mei Mei and Xiao Lien behind as she takes her place as the fourth point in the square. Meng Chao tilts his head and smiles enigmatically while Shao Cuifen eyes her with a distant disinterest and returns to her study of her sword's hilt.

Luo Lifen was the only one to speak, unfortunately, "I feel as though I must offer my protestations at the inclusion of the failure." Brown eyes, practically radiating scorn, meet hers, "it's most likely that she will become distracted by some manner of unusual plant or bug and end up as fertilizer."


"It's odd," Quan Jia frowns with mock thoughtfulness, "by all appearances someone is speaking, and yet all I hear are the sounds of a sow as she roots about for a truffle."

The flash of color in the pig's cheeks indicate the insult hit home and Quan Jia smiles mockingly.

Well, with that upturned nose of hers how could it not.

"If we were to discuss farm animals, I do believe the focus would more appropriately settle on one who would best serve her clan as broodmare to birth a more successful heir." a flash of pure loathing crosses that pig's face as she speaks before it disappears behind a noble's mask.

"Hmm," Quan Jia manages a totally convincing display of indifference, "and yet only one of us is betrothed to a cultivator three decades her senior…"

"Ahh, the nostalgia of childhood truly warms my heart," Meng Chao comments drily before the pig can offer up her feeble defense of her cousin or uncle or whatever, "but as delightful as this is, perhaps we should focus on the disbursement of estates first."

An agreeing murmur, a nodded head from Shao Cuifen, and a squealing oink signal that it was probably time to behave a bit more like adults.

So boring…

"Since there are only two houses of an appropriate level of comfort, and four of us," Meng Chao begins, "and likely none of us are inclined to become roommates, we must then determine who among us will claim them."

"I don't know if my Comfy Bed will fit in one of the smaller homes," Quan Jia muses, "and I've got a new friend who needs to see what nice things look like."

"Hmph," the pig snorts, but thankfully refrains from making any other noises.

"Odd. Not enough for each of us." Shao Cuifen's typically clipped monotone bites off the end of each word giving her speech a peculiar type of intensity..

"Odd or intentional," Meng Chao nods in agreement, "One wonders what games the elders have seen fit to play amongst our year."

"Boring games it seems, at least if this is the kind of thing they're focused on." Quan Jia replies after a moment of thought.

Two agreements and a chuffing noise meet her statement, and the four of them lapse into a familiar, if in no way comfortable silence.

"In the interest of starting a negotiation," unsurprisingly, it is Meng Chao that breaks the building silence, "I would be willing to give up any claim over the two largest estates for a modest sum of spirit-diamonds."

"A fight," Shao Cuifen mutters, not looking up from her sword, "beat me and it's yours."

"Tempting offers," the pig squeals, "I believe I will take one of you up on it… unless someone would rather grovel and beg for my abstention."

That barely warrants an acknowledgment. She'd rather never sleep again then beg that pig for anything.

Hmm, Meng Chao probably doesn't want that much… relationships are much more important to him than a few spirit gems. The only question is whether he'd allow a bidding war if I didn't offer enough… something the pig would definitely start if she could.

As far as Shao Cuifen's offer goes: a spar might be fun, but a bit risky. She's always been focused on fighting things, and that sword feels really strong too. It'd be bad to lose and disappoint Xiao Lien with a small house too, so… I don't know.

On the other hand, I suppose I could withdraw my claim and get some shiny stuff in return. But would that really be fair to poor deprived Xiao Lien?


[] Pay Meng Chao.
-[] write in how much

[] Duel Shao Cuifen

[] Ask for concessions.
-[] write in what type.

With the particulars of where they would stay solved, Mei Me was sent to oversee the servants moving their things, after all, it was vitally important that her Comfy Bed wasn't damaged. That had left Quan Jia and her new friend alone for the first time, and instead of wasting time meeting people, the two of them had departed, one dragged behind the other.

[] Explore the sect.


It was a beautiful day, sunlight shone with a gentle warmth and a cool breeze carried with it the scent of spring. It was that scent that Quan Jia followed, a somewhat bemused Xiao Lien followed along in her wake.

"You've got to find these places early," She mentions, legs swishing against ankle length silk as she practically danced across a rock strewn hillside. "Most sites can't really handle more than one or two cultivators."

While her friend wasn't quite as agile, she managed to follow along without any particular difficulty, "Can't handle multiple cultivators, I don't…, I mean all we've seen so far today was that nice cliff overlooking a small pond."

"That was nap site three," Quan Jia corrects as she tops the hill, and takes a good look at the countryside around them. "But it wasn't a cultivation site, at least not yet… a few centuries and it might be."

"You keep saying things like I should understand them," Xiao Lien complains as she steps up beside you, "Wow it's really pretty up here."

"Right," Quan Jia grins in reply, "sites are nice, but I think I could spend all day up here."

"Are you just not going to explain what a site is?" is the somewhat exasperated question

"Not if you keep asking," is the sing-song response. "Besides, can't you feel it?"

"What do you…" Xiao Lien trails off and her focus seems to turn inward. Sunlight radiates out from her friend, bathing the hilltop in a soft golden glow, "oh, we're here… I mean this is one, isn't it?"

"Yep," she nods happily, "it's too bad it's aligned with Wind, but the breeze is kind of nice anyways, isn't it?"

"Aligned with…" once again, her friend trails off and her eyes close in relaxation. "Yeah, it is nice. I wonder what something aligned with sunlight would feel like?"

"That's your resonance, huh," Quan Jia flops back, a simple pillow and blanket appearing beneath her as she does so, "mine's sleep… Slumber to be official about it."

"Yeah, I was trying to find something... something important, I think… and then there was light, the Sun." Her friend kneels down beside her, settling on the blanket, and smiles, "never found what I was looking for though."

"Should keep lookin' then," Quan Jia's voice slurs with sleep as her thoughts start to drift, "cultivation's funny like that..."

The last words that pass through over her head as she drifts off are, "Huh, I don't know whether to be insulted or not that she chose to sleep on that pillow…"

[AN]
One vote this time. Next chapter we'll see where Quan Jia ends up staying and she'll have a chance to meet some neighbors, or spar with Shao Cuifen, or maybe both.

Been thinking a bit, and since there's a lot of things that Quan Jia, or more properly Liu Mei, knows that provide context to decisions or worldbuilding or whatever. I'll provide in character responses for questions that come up