Shards of Awakening

While commonly misunderstood as a monolithic entity, the barbarian tribes are in fact as numerous as dogs in a kennel. And like said dogs, there exist a myriad of temperaments within the mind and soul of these tribes. For instance among the ocean bound tribes that the Yao have dealt with, more than a few have been amenable to trade and prosperous accord. Indeed the Defenders of the Stormwall have sailed in to battle with the support of and in support of alliances old even by the reckoning of the Ascended.

Imperial policy dictates that first contact between the Empire and a tribe be conducted under the auspices of the Ministry of Glorious Expansion. It is they who will transmit the raiment and panoply of these foreign tribes back for investigation within the depthless halls of the Seven Stone Concordant. Should the tribe have no violent history within those archives, then peace may be negotiated, and with it the flow of trade goods.

Should a tribe have enacted violence upon settlers of the Empire, however, there can only be one response: extermination.

Explorations in the Nature of Barbarism. Scholar Shao Ya, 2nd Year of of Our Glorious Empress, Dawn's Fire Li Lian, forever may her light shine.

-[X] Cultivate Meridians 4x
--[X] 2 spirit diamonds
--[X] 1 Green Meridian Pill


Quan Jia looks around at the meticulously prepared space. Her mind drifts back to a conversation with Fu Zian, because it was super important she got all the details right and not at all because she was procrastinating on opening meridians.

This was going to hurt soo much.

"So how do I take this pill?" Quan Jia points at the thin green wafer.

"Does Quan Jia not think she should just eat it?" the silver haired boy tilts his head in a gesture that seems subtly wrong… somehow

"Uh-uh," she shakes her head, "that's for boring pills… these aren't boring pills though, right?"

"For one who seeks but power, they are dull indeed," he grins that razor toothed grin, "but for an aesthete upon the path of diversion, ritual and distinction matter just as much, no?"

"Right," she nods, "so how does it work?"

"For one like Quan Jia, the wafer must first be melted within a crucible of pure spring."

Well, she didn't really have anything for Spring, but there was a nice spring right in front of her that was bubbling with pure mountain water. So that was probably close enough.

Melting it was probably just as easy. Hence the slowly growing campfire that Quan Jia was periodically channeling motes of fire into. Held above the flame by a metal rod attached to wooden braces was a crucible full of that pure spring water. Water that was just beginning to boil. Done and done.

What was next, oh right…

"Next, Quan Jia must entrap a mote of dawn's light and apply it directly to the melting wafer."

Was it rude to ask Mei Mei to stand there and hold the mirror in her hands perfectly steady as it reflected the first rays of the dawn onto her crucible? Probably. But Xiao Lien had graduated from staring at that mirror to getting squeezed inside the ring, so she wasn't available. And her two maids, and Screeching Monkey looked even cuter in frills than his sister did, were busy shopping for breakfast. Since, unfortunately, neither could really cook much. So really, it was Mei Mei's fault for being by far the best choice.

"Once the elixir has started to bubble, Quan Jia must then cool the air above the crucible with the chill of the Northern Wind."

Since the sun was rising over in that direction, then that would be north. Taking a sliding, skating, step across loose sand, Quan Jia materializes her Cool Fan and activates it with a mote of qi. Branches ripple along the fan and cool fresh air blows from the trinket. Fortunately the fan floated on its own, because it would be difficult to manage the next step while holding a fan.

"Next, and finally, Quan Jia must bathe within the mist that collects."

Despite Mei Mei being there to ensure that no creepy perverts were around, she was absolutely not going to bathe outside like this. So Inappropriate. Still, she left the Cool Fan floating in the air behind her and moved back to where drops of condensation were beginning to gather. Slumping down onto the dirt Quan Jia frowned, it was not at all comfortable, but she couldn't risk getting her Comfy Pillow and Comfy Blanket stained with alchemy stuff, so she was left with nothing but to stay in this ridiculously un-nap-like pose and await pain.

Yep, just sit here getting wet from all this mist and await pain… any minute now.

Between one moment and the next, mist engulfs her in a verdant radiance. Her world shrinks to a pinprick, to an endless vista of impenetrable verdigris. Her eyes blur, constricting against that painfully bright glow, expanding to discern the faintest detail amidst jade-tinted gloom.

Ghosts, visions of men and women, larger than life, larger than reality, flicker in and out of her vision. Huge shapes, cascade down from a ship massive enough to blot out the sun. Astride steeds of steel and artifice, the ghosts descend. Blood and steel and fire trail in their wake. The land itself trembles under their stride, canyons and craters form where they smite those who dare raise desperate arms in defense.

Reality shivers, warps, melts under the Dao brought to bear against it. Impossible shapes, eldritch and horrid, blur amidst the fog as the invaders shape land as though clay. Before their craft, forest becomes desert, mountain becomes ocean, all is in flux, like the melting flows of wax, until.

A spark of golden light, a second sun, rises into the sky and shatters into the seven rays of a rainbow. Seven rays become seven stars as those pinpricks of light crash back to earth. In the cloud of their collision, the land responds, scours itself clean of this violent invasion. Shatters a host that had swarmed across continents into the barest remnants of itself.

The devastation wrought on land pales though in comparison to what was happening above. A shard of that sun, a drop of purest black mixed and yet still separate with purest white shifts, forming...

A muscle in her wrist twinged, popped, and released, and a new trickle of qi flowed into her core. In rapid succession, her arm, calf, and thigh all twinged, popped, and released. Qi floods into her, the tidal wave vast enough that even the seemingly countless leaks caused by the cracks in her core couldn't dampen her mood.

Jubilant, Quan Jia looks around, noting for an instant that at some point day had turned to night, and that Mei Mei was still holding up the mirror.


[AN]
As folks had speculated, this wasn't going to be a long update, though there may be some interesting stuff here. Since I don't want to start the next turn quite yet, you can have a vote on the interlude that will serve as the independent action for the turn.

All of the options are in a different character's POV and Quan Jia has met none of them personally (though all have been referenced at least obliquely in the text).

[] Of Arks and Elders.

[] Something Wicked that way Stirs.

[] Hail to the Queen.