Shards of Awakening

Today was the day Quan Jia had set aside to wander through the sect market and find a place to change easy gambling winnings into drugs. A task that had been even easier than she had anticipated, what with the way a huge saffron banner had advertised the presence of a shop called the Pill Palace at the main entrance to the Sect Market. That banner, and a number of subsequent signs painted in the same shade of eye-searingly bright yellow had led her through some of the more packed streets lined with wood slatted buildings and toward the overlooking hills. At the crest of one hill, far away from the din of the market was a small arching bridge. Seemingly grown out of the earth, the bridge connected to a second rock sided hill topped with a sprawling green-tiled estate. She looked at the curious figure of a lion decanting a silver liquid and nodded in satisfaction, this was it.

Alternating opal and pearl bridge tiles passed beneath her feet as she skipped toward the Pill Palace where tiling gave way to granite paving blocks and equally stone stairs. Practically dancing up granite steps, she slipped between corded beads of sapphire and jade and into the shop itself. Inside, bins filled to near overflowing were set out in neatly arranged rows that stretched out into the distance in a way that seemed far larger on the inside than it had outside.

As Quan Jia marveled at the way pale sunlight shone through colored glass and glittered against the pills in those bins, the scent of a fresh ocean breeze tickled at her nose. Looking up, she recognizes the dangling turquoise stones that generated the fresh breeze that took away the worst of the medicinal smell. Taking her first step into the light, airy shop, the marble flooring beneath her clacked most satisfactorily against her thick heeled shoes.

Clack. Clack. Clack. A hand is placed gently on her arm and Quan Jia turns a betrayed look at her attendant, but obediently stops stomping and starts browsing. Despite the early hour a number of first-year disciples wearing accented solid red robes as well as disciples with the colored fringes that indicated other years. All of this Quan Jia absorbs in an instant of delight, one that lasts until the moment she looks down into the nearest bin.

"I don't think I've ever seen a Three-Springs Joy pill quite so… grey," she frowns down at the collection of off-white, pearl sized, pills. Her gaze shifts over to the next bin over, this one filled with a faded red pill, "this Crimson-Serpent's Agony is rather dull as well."

Mei Mei shrugs, ever so slightly, in agreement, but doesn't say anything. That leaves her with a slowly burgeoning sense of disappointment as she continues to walk down aisles filled with off-colored, rough-textured, and occasionally bad-smelling pills. It doesn't take long, disillusionment rises, annoyance spikes, and Quan Jia scowls, "all this stuff looks like a scam, come on Mei Mei, we're leaving."

Ignoring the questioning calls from a store attendant, Quan Jia storms out of the fake store, back down shoddy steps, and back across misshapen tiles. Her huff lasts until she's solidly on the other side of the bridge, at which Quan Jia frowns at the mid-afternoon sun, "now what, Mei Mei? We were supposed to find a lot of pills so I could get drugged up…"

"My lady truly has a way with words," bandaged eyes glance briefly at her and then return to scanning the hilltop, "perhaps she could beseech the Heavens for a sign."

"Don't make fun of me…" she pouts, "Dreamer's Endless Journey doesn't work that way at all, Mei Mei you should know tha-"

A crow caws three times, a wolf's howl answers it, Quan Jia scowls, "Not a word, Mei Mei. Not one."


Signs, portents, signals, it was all different, all completely the same, and when it was that obvious, even a foolish Mei Mei could follow it. Even more fortunately, there was a wise Quan Jia who could actually begin to interpret things, so when the dream strewn path ended at a rather worn down straw thatched hut in what could only be charitably called the middle of nowhere, Quan Jia barely paused to knock before entering.

"Oh a second customer already, and Fu Zian had just opened his shop yesterday," a boy looks up from an elaborately carved pill furnace, revealing black sclera with iris and pupil merged in a pale yellow. "Welcome, customer, to Fu Zian's humble shop."

"Hi," she smiles at the cool looking boy, "I"m Quan Jia, and this is Mei Mei, and we're looking for not scammy pills."

"Welcome, again, Quan Jia and Liu Mei," the boy grins, revealing serrated teeth, "Fu Zian has many pills, and can make many more if he receives the right price."

"Could I maybe... see one?" she asks, "cause the last place we went to had a bunch of junk."

"Quan Jia stops first by the Palace, and finds that soulless production leads to soulless product." The boy nods and taps lightly on the furnace in front of him, "Fu Zian will show Quan Jia a different Way."

A soft green aroma wafts out of the top valve of the furnace, carrying with it the scent of a summer's rain. The boy taps once more on the pill furnace, and a pair of azure blue sticks of incense float out. With a smooth motion, he plucks them from where they hover and hands one to Mei Mei and one to her.

She studies the feathery light hairs that radiate out from the stick of incense, noting both the deep blue color and the crystalline appearance, "I didn't think many people still made Seven-Skies Elixir this way?"

"To make smoke that melts as it is inhaled is far more intriguing than making mere liquid, Fu Zian thinks," the boy grins that sharp toothed grin again, "He thinks Quan Jia shares the same interest, yes?"

"Absolutely," she nods, "interesting things are always better."

"A panacea for the ennui of life," the boy agrees and then gestures. Pills, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands and still more spill forth. "On life and hopes and dreams and things yet more ephemeral does Fu Zian ply his craft, but for a fledgling on her Way, he has but these."

"No names grace Fu Zian's true craft," he gestures again and all but five pills vanish. A finger lacquered in pitch black touches the first: a smooth, transparent marble with a cloud lazily floating through it, "The vaultless heights of Heaven, wrought within clearest amber."

His finger shifts to the second pill, a disc of pure and deep jade green, "A drop of transgression against mortality, stamped by audacity."

He shifts again, tracing the third pill, an egg of blinding brightness, listing slightly from side to side, "a hero's defiance of Fate, at the moment of triumph."

The fourth pill radiates kaleidoscopic light, and entranced by both the color and feel of it, Quan Jia breathes out, "Dream."

"Just so," again, the boy grins that sharp toothed grin, "a languid dream, trapped amidst sweetest nightmare."

The fifth pill is by contrast entirely plain: a simple, perfect sphere dotted with hundreds of tiny indentations, "the endless sea of Earth, framed in a torrent of stillness."

"Ooo, so cool," Quan Jia smiles so widely her face hurts," I kind of want them all."

"And for but a pittance, Quan Jia may have one or all of them."


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