Cultivator-2
Cultivator -2: Worm/Forge of Destiny
<== PREV
The sudden appearance of parahuman-in-origin beasts (shortened to parabeasts, and then Beasts) all across the globe was filed and labeled under Case-107 by the PRT. Thousands, if not tens of thousands died during the first week - a true accounting of the toll might never be possible, due to the global nature of the invading catastrophe. There was no pattern to their occurrence: it could be as large a city as Shanghai (pop. 18 million+), or as small as Solca, Romania (pop. 1,818) as pointless as Antarctica, or as helpful as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch wherein a flock of silver-gray eels were seen consuming it with gusto.
But come they did: once open, the transdimensional portals that deposited Beasts never fully closed, providing a steady trickle of Parabeasts to menace a world already reeling from daily disaster.
Most saw this as yet another trial to overcome, yet another senseless act of spite from a universe overflowing with them.
These people were normal.
Some saw it not as disaster, but as Rockefeller enthusiasts or high school art teachers might say, opportunity.
These people were dangerous.
One, or two saw it as a source of salvation.
These people were gods.
Fortunately for us, this is not yet a story about gods, which are, in any case, a rather troublesome and tiresome bunch, but those who strive to reach those storied heights. This is a story of cultivators.
Look, here comes one now.
-----
Ling Qi licked her lips.
The metal carriages before her looked, there was no other way to put it, they looked like money. It had thus come as quite a shock when she lifted one up to search for her storage ring and heard a sr-kruh-unch of protest and discovered that the soft metal at its base had crumpled around her fingertips.
Fingers waggling with the effort at keeping them soft and supple she carefully lifted the next one up.
It seemed to hold. Phew.
Quickly, she scanned the ground, hurriedly searching. It was undignified, squatting on the ground, one arm brushing aside various pieces of wet mucky-muck as she looked for her storage ring. It had been been flung hither and thither during the squabble with the self-proclaimed 'Dragon', but, between a moment of indignity and losing the multitude of treasures contained within, Ling Qi would not just pick indignity any day of the week, she would pick indignity for a year.
Well, maybe not a year. Cai would probably disown her or whatever it was Duchesses did to their vassals who acted like common street sweepers.
Admittedly, she could also do without the heckler.
"What a ridiculous pose you find yourself in, Cultivator Ling! Where is your pride?"
Ling Qi glanced backwards. With one forelimb thrust upon and trapping an unconscious 'Lung', Heizui was clearly feeling much like his old self and was currently arranging himself so that he looked to his best advantage in front of the mortals. She couldn't really criticize him for that: at least he was paying them some attention, Ling Qi, meanwhile baldly ignored them and their protests against her vehicular displacements. Still, she had an excuse. Even the bearded one in armor who seemed to speak - with difficulty - a near-comprehensible dialect, was only nearly comprehensible.
Wherever they were, it was unlikely to be the Empire.
"You could help look," she said, after setting the carriage down and patting her robes.
Heizui sniffed. "You must be joking."
She winced as she heard the boom, rattle, crunch as a carriage was tossed to the side. Zhengui was rather more enthusiastic about the game of seek-the-ring than she was. Also rather less cautious.
She was about to chide him when she felt a spike of excitement from him and saw Zhengui toddle triumphantly towards her, something shiny held atop his nose.
"Big Sis~! Look what Gui found!"
"Zhen spotted it!" his snake half snapped, surly.
"But only Gui could pick it up without damaging it!"
She welcomed him with open arms and then patted both of them on the head, before affectionately rubbing her cheeks against theirs. "You're such good little brothers!"
Both rumbled their contentment.
"He really has no pride," Heizui said conversationally, causing Zhengui to stick both his tongues out at the river dragon.
Someone cleared their throat.
Ling Qi turned.
The red armored one, who moved with impressive speed despite his lack of qi was speaking his queer jabber at her again. She did not understand his art in the least, but it appeared amazingly flexible. She'd seen him push Zhengui out of the way of a fireball, without the little Xuanwu being able to offer so much as a hint of resistance. Indeed, Heizui had first assumed him to be an enemy, and before he'd made his allegiances clear, the river dragon's waters had splashed against him without effect.
She gave him a tentative smile, cocking her head curiously. He laughed and gave her a thumbs up.
Well, a nice enough fellow, whoever he was.
The blue armored man who was attempting to speak to Heizui was much his opposite. He was dour looking and sounding, voice harsh and guttural when attempting to speak a proper language. He had arrived, riding upon some form of steel steed. Whatever formations gave it life were about as cunningly hidden as whatever source of qi powered it. To her senses he was as wispy and insubstantial as any mortal, but then, perhaps he was like this 'Lung' fellow, or the red one, possessing a fearsomely effective art of some sort.
It was a pity that he spoke so poorly.
Heizui reared up - Ling Qi had felt the qi too, and was happier for the discovery.
"Li!" she waved. "Li Suyin!"
Then she pursed her lips and beetled her brows. Li was running towards her, face ashen, yet another strangely dressed mortal held in her arms. She was running parallel to the ground, her feet sticking to the walls like a spider's might. "Ling! H-help!"
Of course she was several blocks away, but that hardly meant anything except that Ling had to rely more on her eyes than on the powerful abilities of Argent Mirror. And while in their natural habitat they might have had cover, here, Rimefur Wolves stood out like snow in summer.
Ling Qi expressed her bow, causing both blue and red to whirl towards her.
She clucked her tongue. Slow.
"Don't let him escape," she told Heizui.
"He is my prey," the dragon told her, affronted, dragging Lung a little closer to himself. She was reminded, awkwardly, of a child with a doll.
She shrugged. So long as he didn't kill him, she didn't much care what happened to him.
"Come, Zhengui," she said. "Time to hunt."
"Time to hunt!" he echoed, vanishing into her dantian. Although it was a little flashier than necessary, as her little brother vanished, so did she.
-----
Assault.
"Oh my fucking god - the turtle can teleport too."
Armsmaster.
"Noted."
-----
Li Suyin ran, every step echoing in time to her breaths.
Before all the… thisness had happened, Ling Qi had solemnly informed her that she had been starting to get a little pudgy. Although her friend had quickly backtracked, claiming it to be a joke, Li Suyin now truly understood where Ling had been coming from.
There was nothing like getting chased by a pack of ravenous rimefur wolves to help jog one's 'if I get out of this, I will work on my physical cultivation for ten hours a day' promises that one tended to make in these kinds of situations. If not for Senior Sister Bao's movement art that would have allowed her to scale the sheer walls as easily as the ground, she was sure she'd already have been eaten.
As it was, it was still a close thing. Rimefur wolves might not have been the deadliest of the more common spirit beasts in the Argent Peaks, but their pack instincts were second to none and they were certainly phenomenal hunters. A village whose wards failed and came to the attention of such a pack would be destroyed in the blink of an eye, leaving nothing more than a cairn.
It was horrible to admit, but carrying away the mortal was not mere altruism - in the worst case scenario, she would have to…
Well, it was a good thing it hadn't come to that.
The arrow that sparked and crackled tore through the lead rimefur wolf's flank startled the mortal so badly that Li Suyin was afraid she'd hurt herself trying to escape.
She released her technique, dropping to the ground. Above her, Ling Qi soared into the sky, her bow releasing arrow after arrow, even as her flying sword came from behind, preventing retreat.
"It's okay," she reassured the mortal, legs and arms trembling with exertion. Sweat slicked her hair and ran in icy rivulets down her back despite the relatively short run. "Everything's going to be-"
She shrieked as something long and sinuous wrapped itself around her legs and tugged her backwards into the darkness. A needle appeared in her hand and she stabbed down, hitting-
"Ow?" said a voice.
"...Zhengui?"
"Why'd you do that, Sister… Sister?" Gui asked reproachfully, trying to cover his stumble at her name by continuing on with an accusatory: "Big Sister told me to protect you!"
"She told me to protect her. Slow Gui couldn't protect anyone."
"Hmpf! Lazy Zhen would fall asleep!"
In her dantian, Zhenli hissed and chittered. She sent the young spider some wordless reassurance as she awkwardly explained her surprise to the young Xuan Wu.
"Oh! Like the funny fox girl!"
"...yes," said Li Suyin, vowing never again to dismiss Su Ling's complaints about Zhengui's stealthiness being unnatural.
"Well - oops!"
One of the Rimefur wolves, apparently understanding how futile their fight was, was attempting to flee. Zhengui, who Li Suyin remembered as a tiny thing, barely larger than the palm of her hand, put two of his feet down on the ground, causing roots to grow, twining around the thing's legs.
It howled piteously, cowering before him.
-----
"You have a what now?" asked Ling Qi.
Zhengui, who was busy at work eating one of the rimefur wolves - Ling Qi had saved the carcass of another two for Hezui - pointed to the Rimefur wolf currently cowering on the ground, grinning.
"I have a minion! I'm going to call him Spot. Because he has spots!"
"That's just blood."
"Hrrrm. How about… Wolf?"
The Rimefur Wolf continued to cower. An early second grade beast, Ling Qi doubted it was much older than Zhengui.
"Well, if you're sure," she said doubtfully. "It's a big responsibility."
"I know!" he chirped cheerfully. Gore covered both his mouths, dripping icily as he turned towards 'Wolf.' "You'll be good, right, Wolfy?"
The rimefur wolf vigorously nodded its head, eyes wide, breaths escaping in little clouds of ice.
"Mmm, that's good then." He patted the ground next to him. "Come eat."
Leaving Zhengui to torture the new recruit into line, Ling Qi went to see Li Suyin. The mortal was kind of just... there. Ling Qi wasn't too sure how to treat it. Er, her.
"One of the wolves escaped, do you think you'll be alright-"
Li Suyin turned to her and said, very seriously: "No. I really have to pee."
"Ah," said Ling Qi.
"Do you think you could-"
Ling Qi scratched her cheek, embarrassed, as she dismissed her bow and took out her flute.
"Sure."
As she began to play and mist filled the area, she thought to herself, surely one unaccounted for Rimefur Wolf could only do so much damage, right?
-----
Bitch.
"Its name is Spot."
Grue.
"Put that thing back where you found it."
-----
==> NEXT
@yrsillar: I continue to be really sorry. OTL
<== PREV
The sudden appearance of parahuman-in-origin beasts (shortened to parabeasts, and then Beasts) all across the globe was filed and labeled under Case-107 by the PRT. Thousands, if not tens of thousands died during the first week - a true accounting of the toll might never be possible, due to the global nature of the invading catastrophe. There was no pattern to their occurrence: it could be as large a city as Shanghai (pop. 18 million+), or as small as Solca, Romania (pop. 1,818) as pointless as Antarctica, or as helpful as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch wherein a flock of silver-gray eels were seen consuming it with gusto.
But come they did: once open, the transdimensional portals that deposited Beasts never fully closed, providing a steady trickle of Parabeasts to menace a world already reeling from daily disaster.
Most saw this as yet another trial to overcome, yet another senseless act of spite from a universe overflowing with them.
These people were normal.
Some saw it not as disaster, but as Rockefeller enthusiasts or high school art teachers might say, opportunity.
These people were dangerous.
One, or two saw it as a source of salvation.
These people were gods.
Fortunately for us, this is not yet a story about gods, which are, in any case, a rather troublesome and tiresome bunch, but those who strive to reach those storied heights. This is a story of cultivators.
Look, here comes one now.
-----
Ling Qi licked her lips.
The metal carriages before her looked, there was no other way to put it, they looked like money. It had thus come as quite a shock when she lifted one up to search for her storage ring and heard a sr-kruh-unch of protest and discovered that the soft metal at its base had crumpled around her fingertips.
Fingers waggling with the effort at keeping them soft and supple she carefully lifted the next one up.
It seemed to hold. Phew.
Quickly, she scanned the ground, hurriedly searching. It was undignified, squatting on the ground, one arm brushing aside various pieces of wet mucky-muck as she looked for her storage ring. It had been been flung hither and thither during the squabble with the self-proclaimed 'Dragon', but, between a moment of indignity and losing the multitude of treasures contained within, Ling Qi would not just pick indignity any day of the week, she would pick indignity for a year.
Well, maybe not a year. Cai would probably disown her or whatever it was Duchesses did to their vassals who acted like common street sweepers.
Admittedly, she could also do without the heckler.
"What a ridiculous pose you find yourself in, Cultivator Ling! Where is your pride?"
Ling Qi glanced backwards. With one forelimb thrust upon and trapping an unconscious 'Lung', Heizui was clearly feeling much like his old self and was currently arranging himself so that he looked to his best advantage in front of the mortals. She couldn't really criticize him for that: at least he was paying them some attention, Ling Qi, meanwhile baldly ignored them and their protests against her vehicular displacements. Still, she had an excuse. Even the bearded one in armor who seemed to speak - with difficulty - a near-comprehensible dialect, was only nearly comprehensible.
Wherever they were, it was unlikely to be the Empire.
"You could help look," she said, after setting the carriage down and patting her robes.
Heizui sniffed. "You must be joking."
She winced as she heard the boom, rattle, crunch as a carriage was tossed to the side. Zhengui was rather more enthusiastic about the game of seek-the-ring than she was. Also rather less cautious.
She was about to chide him when she felt a spike of excitement from him and saw Zhengui toddle triumphantly towards her, something shiny held atop his nose.
"Big Sis~! Look what Gui found!"
"Zhen spotted it!" his snake half snapped, surly.
"But only Gui could pick it up without damaging it!"
She welcomed him with open arms and then patted both of them on the head, before affectionately rubbing her cheeks against theirs. "You're such good little brothers!"
Both rumbled their contentment.
"He really has no pride," Heizui said conversationally, causing Zhengui to stick both his tongues out at the river dragon.
Someone cleared their throat.
Ling Qi turned.
The red armored one, who moved with impressive speed despite his lack of qi was speaking his queer jabber at her again. She did not understand his art in the least, but it appeared amazingly flexible. She'd seen him push Zhengui out of the way of a fireball, without the little Xuanwu being able to offer so much as a hint of resistance. Indeed, Heizui had first assumed him to be an enemy, and before he'd made his allegiances clear, the river dragon's waters had splashed against him without effect.
She gave him a tentative smile, cocking her head curiously. He laughed and gave her a thumbs up.
Well, a nice enough fellow, whoever he was.
The blue armored man who was attempting to speak to Heizui was much his opposite. He was dour looking and sounding, voice harsh and guttural when attempting to speak a proper language. He had arrived, riding upon some form of steel steed. Whatever formations gave it life were about as cunningly hidden as whatever source of qi powered it. To her senses he was as wispy and insubstantial as any mortal, but then, perhaps he was like this 'Lung' fellow, or the red one, possessing a fearsomely effective art of some sort.
It was a pity that he spoke so poorly.
Heizui reared up - Ling Qi had felt the qi too, and was happier for the discovery.
"Li!" she waved. "Li Suyin!"
Then she pursed her lips and beetled her brows. Li was running towards her, face ashen, yet another strangely dressed mortal held in her arms. She was running parallel to the ground, her feet sticking to the walls like a spider's might. "Ling! H-help!"
Of course she was several blocks away, but that hardly meant anything except that Ling had to rely more on her eyes than on the powerful abilities of Argent Mirror. And while in their natural habitat they might have had cover, here, Rimefur Wolves stood out like snow in summer.
Ling Qi expressed her bow, causing both blue and red to whirl towards her.
She clucked her tongue. Slow.
"Don't let him escape," she told Heizui.
"He is my prey," the dragon told her, affronted, dragging Lung a little closer to himself. She was reminded, awkwardly, of a child with a doll.
She shrugged. So long as he didn't kill him, she didn't much care what happened to him.
"Come, Zhengui," she said. "Time to hunt."
"Time to hunt!" he echoed, vanishing into her dantian. Although it was a little flashier than necessary, as her little brother vanished, so did she.
-----
Assault.
"Oh my fucking god - the turtle can teleport too."
Armsmaster.
"Noted."
-----
Li Suyin ran, every step echoing in time to her breaths.
Before all the… thisness had happened, Ling Qi had solemnly informed her that she had been starting to get a little pudgy. Although her friend had quickly backtracked, claiming it to be a joke, Li Suyin now truly understood where Ling had been coming from.
There was nothing like getting chased by a pack of ravenous rimefur wolves to help jog one's 'if I get out of this, I will work on my physical cultivation for ten hours a day' promises that one tended to make in these kinds of situations. If not for Senior Sister Bao's movement art that would have allowed her to scale the sheer walls as easily as the ground, she was sure she'd already have been eaten.
As it was, it was still a close thing. Rimefur wolves might not have been the deadliest of the more common spirit beasts in the Argent Peaks, but their pack instincts were second to none and they were certainly phenomenal hunters. A village whose wards failed and came to the attention of such a pack would be destroyed in the blink of an eye, leaving nothing more than a cairn.
It was horrible to admit, but carrying away the mortal was not mere altruism - in the worst case scenario, she would have to…
Well, it was a good thing it hadn't come to that.
The arrow that sparked and crackled tore through the lead rimefur wolf's flank startled the mortal so badly that Li Suyin was afraid she'd hurt herself trying to escape.
She released her technique, dropping to the ground. Above her, Ling Qi soared into the sky, her bow releasing arrow after arrow, even as her flying sword came from behind, preventing retreat.
"It's okay," she reassured the mortal, legs and arms trembling with exertion. Sweat slicked her hair and ran in icy rivulets down her back despite the relatively short run. "Everything's going to be-"
She shrieked as something long and sinuous wrapped itself around her legs and tugged her backwards into the darkness. A needle appeared in her hand and she stabbed down, hitting-
"Ow?" said a voice.
"...Zhengui?"
"Why'd you do that, Sister… Sister?" Gui asked reproachfully, trying to cover his stumble at her name by continuing on with an accusatory: "Big Sister told me to protect you!"
"She told me to protect her. Slow Gui couldn't protect anyone."
"Hmpf! Lazy Zhen would fall asleep!"
In her dantian, Zhenli hissed and chittered. She sent the young spider some wordless reassurance as she awkwardly explained her surprise to the young Xuan Wu.
"Oh! Like the funny fox girl!"
"...yes," said Li Suyin, vowing never again to dismiss Su Ling's complaints about Zhengui's stealthiness being unnatural.
"Well - oops!"
One of the Rimefur wolves, apparently understanding how futile their fight was, was attempting to flee. Zhengui, who Li Suyin remembered as a tiny thing, barely larger than the palm of her hand, put two of his feet down on the ground, causing roots to grow, twining around the thing's legs.
It howled piteously, cowering before him.
-----
"You have a what now?" asked Ling Qi.
Zhengui, who was busy at work eating one of the rimefur wolves - Ling Qi had saved the carcass of another two for Hezui - pointed to the Rimefur wolf currently cowering on the ground, grinning.
"I have a minion! I'm going to call him Spot. Because he has spots!"
"That's just blood."
"Hrrrm. How about… Wolf?"
The Rimefur Wolf continued to cower. An early second grade beast, Ling Qi doubted it was much older than Zhengui.
"Well, if you're sure," she said doubtfully. "It's a big responsibility."
"I know!" he chirped cheerfully. Gore covered both his mouths, dripping icily as he turned towards 'Wolf.' "You'll be good, right, Wolfy?"
The rimefur wolf vigorously nodded its head, eyes wide, breaths escaping in little clouds of ice.
"Mmm, that's good then." He patted the ground next to him. "Come eat."
Leaving Zhengui to torture the new recruit into line, Ling Qi went to see Li Suyin. The mortal was kind of just... there. Ling Qi wasn't too sure how to treat it. Er, her.
"One of the wolves escaped, do you think you'll be alright-"
Li Suyin turned to her and said, very seriously: "No. I really have to pee."
"Ah," said Ling Qi.
"Do you think you could-"
Ling Qi scratched her cheek, embarrassed, as she dismissed her bow and took out her flute.
"Sure."
As she began to play and mist filled the area, she thought to herself, surely one unaccounted for Rimefur Wolf could only do so much damage, right?
-----
Bitch.
"Its name is Spot."
Grue.
"Put that thing back where you found it."
-----
==> NEXT
@yrsillar: I continue to be really sorry. OTL
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