Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)

As they left the town behind, Ling Qi smiled. "I think you did pretty well there."

"You sure about that? Pretty sure your mother doesn't approve of me," Yu Nuan said dryly.

"I think she's not entirely sure what to make of this yet," Ling Qi said. "I wouldn't call it disapproval though."

"She's your mom," Yu Nuan said with a shrug.

Ling Qi hummed an agreement, she liked that Yu Nuan was already growing casual with her. Most of her friends still didn't really do casual. There was really only Su Ling and to an extent Li Suyin. "Why did you offer to take me on this trip anyway?"

Yu Nuan shrugged uncomfortably as they left the town behind, turning toward the western foothills and the dusty road that wound between the outlying farms. "It's part of the deal isn't it. Access is one of the resources I bring."

"Fair," Ling Qi replied. "I'm looking forward too it. I haven't had a chance to explore any odd spirit locales without a lot of pressure on recently."

"Man, do I not even rate an odd?" Sixiang complained aloud, voice carrying on the wind.

"Dreamwalking is a whole different thing," Ling Qi shot back.

Yu Nuan watched her out of the corner of her eye. To a mortal Ling Qi probably would have looked a bit crazy, arguing with the thin air. "You really that carefree?"

Ling Qi shrugged, giving her a sidelong look. "Carefree isn't how I'd put it. I've worked pretty hard to earn some confidence though."

Her companion let out a breath. "Yeah, that's fair."

Ling Qi hummed the first notes of a half formed melody as they walked on at a swift pace, the pastoral landscape soon vanishing in favor of scrub and thin trees. Her fingers idly twitching as she toyed with the wind blowing around her. "What are you working on, in your cultivation right now?"

Yu Nuan looked up from the trail they were on, and ahead Qiu paused raising his own head to look back at them. "Movement, I've been studying Qiu and looking up similar arts. When one of us summons a storm, I want to be able to move between lightning strikes."

That made sense, she was serving a scouting role in the Sect forces, to be able to move swiftly and avoid large numbers of enemies.

"How about you?" The other girl asked.

"A technique called the Opened Vault," ling Qi said with a small smile. "It allows one to sneak between the barriers of the world a bit and access spaces you shouldn't be able too. Don't tell, obviously."

"I'm surprised," Yu Nuan said warily. "That seems like the kind of thing you've tried to leave behind."

"Do I come off that way?" Ling Qi asked with a frown.

"I kinda assumed," Yu nuan admitted, shrugging helplessly as they crossed under the shade of the thickening forest that lay between a pair of larger hills. Qiu let out a bark trotting ahead on the trail.

Ling Qi closed her eyes for a moment, feeling the wind kicking up around her. "I haven't had much need for those skills is all. But Lady Cai and I, we're stepping out of this little walled garden you know. I think you have an idea of what things are really like out there."

"...I get it a bit," Yu Nuan admitted. "I guess I was just distracted by how shiny you lot are."

"Lady Cai isn't stupid," Ling Qi said with a frown. "The real world… I don't think it will ever be as clean as she wants it to be, but there's value in trying I think."

"And how does stealing out of people's purses fit into that?" Yu Nuan shot back.

"What I take out I can put back," Ling Qi said idly. "You'd be amazed at the kind of things people will carry around. More than that though, I think its just a first step. Are you going to stop once you figure out how to jump with the lightning?"

"No, that's not enough," Yu Nuan said with a frown. "I gotta be able to move when I need to, it's scary how much difference getting a warning out can make."

"And I have a lot of barriers I have to learn to navigate," Ling Qi said wryly, between the squabbling clans of the province, between the province and the capital, between both and the foreigners. It was a labyrinth she really dreaded taking a step into.

She'd already chosen to do it though.

"It'll be fun to be able to peak into peoples stuff though," Sixiang needled.

"Of course," Ling Qi said without missing a beat. "It's always kind of thrilling to be unnoticed."

"I don't really get that part," Yu Nuan drawled. "Being ignored has always pissed me off."

And wasn't that as clear a description of their differences as there could be, isolation approached from two different venues, seen in two different ways.

"...What are you trying to do with all of this anyway?" Yu Nuan asked as they walked on.

"Isn't that a big question," Sixiang drawled aloud. "Could you answer that one?"

Yu Nuan glanced at the empty air as if looking for a face. "I-You know what I mean, this whole crazy project with the barbarians."

Ling Qi chuckled. "I did get it."

She didn't answer right away though. Because in the end, her reasons were a little unformed. Just following in Cai Renxiang's lead reducing mortality in the south was enough reason and that was important. It was better if less people died, more stable, safer for both her family and her. But there was something else to it. There was… an inkling of something, a frustration, an itch.

She liked Jaromila, and to a lesser extent others she had met down there. Why should they have to be in conflict over misunderstanding and ancient fossilized grudges?

"Because someone has to be willing to talk I suppose," her mind went to a bloody dream and a field of bones, violence unending. If she didn't like what she saw, then do something about it huh? "Because I don't like the way I see things going otherwise."

Sixiang shifted uncomfortably in her mind, nestling closer in a mental embrace.

"That simple huh?" Yu Nuan replied.

"What about you though?" Ling Qi asked. "What do you want from all this?"

"I want to keep developing my music," Yu Nuan said, frowning. "It's… before the fighting it was kinda immature.I thought I was following the Grandmaster Jiang's path, you know. Passion and anger, but you know, I think his stuff is more than that."

Grandmaster Jiang was the most recent of the three great musicians acknowledged in the Emerald Seas, a low ranking member of the Hui clan; his raucous and discordant melodies had nonetheless grown immensely popular in a short time. He'd shortly after died and his music was outlawed, only returning under the current Duchess.

"How so," Ling Qi asked, tilting her head.

"Because being angry isn't enough, I think," she replied, frowning."Most people are totally self absorbed, nothing that doesn't directly, obviously hurt them will make them raise their heads, even if it happens right in front of them. It kinda pisses me off."

Ling Qi didn't say anything as they walked on, just listening.

"So I think what the Grandmaster was actually going for, was a music that could make people shake that off, if only a little. I want to do that too."

"And here I thought you weren't that ambitious, but here you say you wanna match up with a grandmaster," Ling Qi chuckled.

"It's way less crazy than what you're doing," Yu Nuan snorted.

"Fair," Ling Qi chuckled. "How much further?"

"Not much."

+1 Persistence XP

Conversation tapered off as they approached their destination. It was a high and sheer cliff face on the side of a stony mountain capped with snow, at the base where they were, the sheer rockface gave way to a grassy slope filled with scrub, it's only remarkable feature was a rounded stone 'table' a flat boulder that protruded from the grass.

Ling Qi shaded her eyes looking up toward the peak, shrouded even now in dark clouds. In her senses, the air here hummed and sparked with raw undirected energy. It made the hairs on the back of her neck rise and her teeth itch, as if the very air was vibrating here. The wind felt charged pulling away from her grasp as she tried to continue the basic exercises of the art she was practicing. "So, how does this go? Do you need me to fly us to the peak?"

"I'm not sure how that'd go," Yu Nuan admitted, shrugging off the leather strap that held her lute on her back, swinging it around to cradle in her arms as she briefly tested and tuned the strings. "Got the greeting right here, just stay close."

Ling Qi nodded in understanding following the girl up the slope. Different spirits required different greetings and Yu Nuan knew these ones. They stepped onto the flattened stone, Yu Nuan a step ahead. There was a moment of relative silence, with only the sound of the wind blowing through the vale. Then Yu Nuan began to play.

The first note was a low bass strum, a growing rumble like a storm on the horizon, steadily picking up speed and volume. Sparks jumped from the lute strings and smoke wafted from the body of the instrument as the melody picked up. Hard, forceful, demanding. It was a song that roared for attention and focus on the player, a command and an announcement.

The was a thunderous crack and a bright line split the mountain face, a spider webbing fissure filled with sparking, snapping lightning. The sky darkened overhead, and Yu Nuan's song picked up speed, flames and sparks danced across her blurring fingers as the instrument belted out notes that no mortal lute could have made. Thunder crashed, lightning struck around them. A bolt striking stone bare inches to Ling Qi's left, then another and another, kicking up soot from flash burned grass around their feet. Stone groaned as it split further, the fissure of lightning growing deeper and wider, splitting apart to reveal a passage formed of rumbling storm clouds.

The soot solidified under them, the growing cloud a platform of particulates and air as Yu Nuan played. They began to rise into the air on it, drifting toward the opened the portal.

"Heh, bunch of show offs," Sixiang laughed in her head. "Maybe these Yang-y types aren't all bad."

Ling QI allowed herself a small smile as the cloud of soot carried them into the storm clouds.If nothing else this was going to be interesting.

What awaited on the over side of the crackling passage was a wall of noise that struck with physical force. A heavy rhythmic pounding and the cry of strings, the stamping of feet and the roar of voices. It was a grand cavern of stone and crystal, with boiling clouds shrouding the ceiling. Below there was no sign of the floor only scores and scores of spirits in uncountable shapes, mountain ogres and winged humans with the heads of birds, living clouds of mist and leaves, bonfires that walked like men, beasts and birds of every type.

What they bore in common was an exultant energy, they roared, they fought, they drank, they danced, and more. Above blue skinned ogres lined the carven paths ringing the cloud ceiling beating upon drums of beasthide with iron sticks, and tables and fixing floated about in midair on their clouds of soot, heavy with food and drink. Even the revelry of the Dreaming Moon held a sort of elegance to it in its raucous revelry, but there was none of that here. It felt more like a riot than a revel.

"Welcome to the Thunder Palace," Yu Nuan said, and Ling Qi could barely hear her over the din.

"Welcome indeed!" Boomed a tremendous voice, louder than Gan Guangli at his best. Leigong the storm shepherd descended from the churning clouds. Three meters tall, blue of skin, with the wings of a great bat and the beak, talons, and crimson eyes of crow. "Come to perform for the court again, thundercaller?"

"Yes, and I've brought a guest," Yu Nuan said, bowing low before the lord of this palace. "Ling Qi whose family I may be joining."

The Leigong peered at her with a sharp eye. "Oho, the one who flew with this one when we first met! If you will be taking care of my favorite musician then you are welcome indeed to our revels, disciple of the moon."

"It is a very impressive gathering,'' Ling Qi complemented. "I have been looking forward to seeing it."

"Haha, well it is good to know that we can impress a revelry of the dream," the Leigong sad cheerfully, the clacking of his beak punctuating the words. "But! Your arrival is sudden. I will rouse these fellows to listen later, but you have arrived just as we were arranging some games! Perhaps you and your guest would care to join us?"

Yu Nuan looked a little worried, but Ling Qi just tilted her head curiously.

"What sort of games, honored lord?" Yu Nuan asked.

"Hm hm, well I will be arranging a game of chase and capture with many of my sons and retainers, a great bit of fun in flying through the halls a test of speed, endurance and wit," The Leigong said, puffing out his chest. "The winner will be the one who gathers the most jade tokens that will be given to the participants!"

"The other game will be overseen by my sharp eyed wife," the little god continued in a jovial tone."A grand scavenger hunt for things hidden among the palace. It seems a little fiddly to me but it is her game after all!"

"Give us a moment to decide please?" Yu Nuan asked.

"Of course! But don't take too long thundercaller," he laughed and a beat of his wings carried him back to the crowds.

Yu Nuan took a deep breath.

Ling Qi chuckled. "It sounds like fun, but I'm guessing there's a catch."

"Kinda, they're still friendly games," Yu Nuan admitted. "But what a spirit considers friendly…"

"Yeah, we don't really get how fragile you guys are most of the time. I'm guessing it'll get pretty violent, with all the lightning qi here," Sixiang said.

"The Leigong here isn't totally wild, he'd not have invited us if any fourth realms were participating, and I don't think anyone will go for deliberate kills, but it'd also be rude to refuse."

"I don't think I'd want to refuse anyway, Ling Qi admitted. "Either one seems like a fun training exercise for what we're working on."

Yu Nuan blew out a breath. "Guess so. Got a preference?"

[ ] The Leigong's chase and capture game
[ ] His wife's scavenger hunt