A/N: I found a few fics where there are really well-done cultivators. Beware of Chicken by CasualFarmer on QQ and Spacebattles, and Tribulations by Salgia on QQ.
Beware: anything on Questionable Questing may be NSFW, so I will not post links, but they are well written, and their stories provided the inspiration for this one.
Damn muon-attention-span muses!
Ahem... So anyway, here's a story of how a person can become triplets.
-
There are beings in the multiverse.
Defining them is hard- mortal and even immortal languages rarely have the right sort of terms to describe these things. The people of Yharnam would call them Great Ones, as they are great and powerful, but even eclipse the primary holders of the name, but it is close.
The Time-Space Administrative Bureau would call them the Bubblemakers, for the fact that they create universes at a whim.
The Auditors of All Realities call them an irritation, always creating more paperwork, and messing up their neat higher cosmos. They cannot stop such beings though, no matter how much the hordes of Auditors try.
The Arachnitects would call them the Beings of Unimaginable Light- but in truth even that is just a mask such beings wear from time to time.
The Angels and Demons of Throne would call them the YISUN, mirrors of the original, and not be able to say more- their existence makes them aware of such an existence, but limits their imagination on what the true horror and beauty of the multiverse is like outside of the Great Wheel of universes they call home.
Planeswalkers call them Shadows, or Shadow-Titans, only able to perceive them as dim shadows against the chaos of the Howling as the spark drags them from one universe to another... And most Planeswalkers will never see them at all.
Lovecraft would call them Great Old Ones or Elder Gods, but even that is not quite right, for these beings are the source of which the Elder Gods may come from.
The (relatively) small infinity of beings in the multiverse that have met these beings call them by many names: Almighty Space Bats, Random Omnipotent Beings/Bastards, some sort of god... But in truth, they are more like.... Nursemaids.
To these creatures, every universe is an egg- and there are an infinite number of infinities because every being within is a stage in the development cycle of these beings.
Every life, every event, every living thing- the mind of the universe is compacted down, simplified, and put into a random body as it lived.
Kurzgesat is close with their Egg animation (), of the story dreamt up by Andy Weir, but these souls have their own existence too. An endless cycle, passing from universe to universe- living a life, remembering it sometimes, mostly forgetting but dragging the ontological inertia with them like a cloak.
Moreover, the souls and beings are not directly linked to the flow of time- they are linked to events, but only from their own perspective. A person from 2028 could reincarnate in 1201, or 2*10^47th, or whatever year there could be EVER. Until all experience and action is drained from the universe, it cannot allow a being to hatch.
Yet they do.
Sometimes, they do strangely, and an entire world ascends together. Sometimes, the universe in question just cycles, not acting like an egg at all, just a flowthrough for souls.
And these beings, these Writers or Authors as they would accept being called, are able to manipulate the soulstream to encourage growth in these souls. Every story, every fiction, every action not taken or taken or maybe taken- they make sure those universe split fully, then ensure that all the potential that could happen does.
But these beings are not infallible. Sometimes, a soul slips through their fingers, or duplicates, or splits into shards and generates as different beings. Sometimes they help such souls through several companies- held up by such beings, and given access to fundamental aspects of reality to assist... Though, calling S**tl**e good option here is not a very.... Yeah, no, that's not a good thing at all.
Still- better than existing in an infinite limbo, crawling out of the daze from passing through the Howling for hundreds of thousands of years only to perceive it WITHOUT filters, go mad, and implode.
One soul, the past/alternate of one of these beings, duplicated relentlessly- and with a little adjustment to get the better outcomes, the souls shot off in their own directions.
One though, fell between two fingers bigger than universes. It would fall for quite some time before being noticed, and would be nearing awakening when the Writer was able to deal with it.
The errant sparking soul was passed to a buffer universe, one that had already reset a couple times and formed splitoffs with another soul-linkage, and was given a book, a piece of paper and a ring.
All in all, there were worse fates.
Not that many though.
The world that the soul was falling towards was not a good one. Ice zombies, dragons, and worse... But the world needed it.
At least two other souls had been duplicated by the slight variation in position, and the being shrugged- 3 outsiders, all with a common theme, should do just fine. A moment of observation indicated that no- only the one it already helped needed any sort of benefit. The others already had some powers from their prior universes.
-
Over the world of Planetos, three flares of light appeared, and three bodies formed out of the light.
-
One of them had bright red skin, long white hair, and oozed malevolence.
It shuffled away into the scraggy undergrowth on the nearly-barren islands, and hummed to itself as it saw the multitude of scraggly and underfed humans working on tiny farms. It inhaled, and grimaced.
The creature stalked off into the darkness- it had other priorities, and would need a proper nest.
Nest, then food, then fun.
Stones cratered underfoot as the Oni walked through the brush and scraggly trees.
-
Over a hundred miles away, in the hills outside the city of Myr, there was flash as another one of these beings appeared.
One of them stood up from where it, no, he, had materialized, and looked around, and grimaced.
"Where the blazes am I? Some muggle place?"
"I was..." The man snapped out of his slight daze, and pulled down the sleeve of his left arm hard enough to rip the fabric, almost screaming when he saw perfectly smooth, though irritated slightly, skin there. "No- no! No no no nononononono! Master!" Bartimaeus Crouch (Jr) almost cried as he saw the empty place where his Dark Mark had been. "He can't be gone! I spoke to him! Potter had just..... POTTER!"
Barty Crouch (Jr)'s fingers were twitching like a dying spider.
"I'm going to kill you Potter!" He snapped out an arm, and blinked slightly as he saw the wand in his hand. "Wait, but...."
The wizard fell over as the memories of his worst-than-death fate (kissing Dementors was horrible) experience finally made an impression on his psyche.
"I should be dead." Muttered the loyal death eater. "Soulless.... But now I'm fine, and I'm here?" He pushed himself off the ground. "Something is going on- Appare Vestigium!" Then he blew a steady stream of air over the tip of his wand.
The tracking spell surged out as a golden cloud around him, and illuminated.... Nothing. It wasn't an unexpected outcome, but Barty Crouch (Jr) was hoping to see.... Something.
After a minute or two of thought at the completely negative results of that spell, the wizard sighed. "That felt rather... Straining. I'm going to need some sacrifices to make any larger spells working, don't I?"
His eyes turned to the nearby city.
"Oh look- Sacrifices."
-
On the mainland of Westeros, a few miles south of the midpoint between Old Oak, Goldengrove, and Red Lake, there was a town.
'Was' is used purposefully, because this little village, maybe around 120 or so people, had been one of the countless villages in the Reach that farmed. It wasn't big, mainly because it was hard to defend- the village had been built around a very thin stream from the main Silverhill-Highgarden river, and had a small bridge over it, but it also nearly terminated in a small lake that flowed back into the main river once it left the hilly area that the small village had been in.
The little village had been called Ass-Crack, as the inhabitants, if they had been asked, were perfectly willing to share the amusing story of a small crevasse and an angry donkey, but the local nobility in House Ambrose only remembered that the village was there every few years, unless they didn't pay their taxes of course.
Now...
It was a horrible place.
The outsider walked through the small town, and kept a hand over his nose, while the other one carefully held the two books he had appeared with, trying to drown out the corpse-stench.
It wasn't as bad as it could be- the little village was a farming town, and they had built a sort-of tower over several compost pits, which even now steamed- but second things were very obvious about this place. First- the compost pits were also used as the town's toilets, and Second- this was a medieval-technology area or era.
Third.... Everyone left in the town was dead.
Once he got away from one of the piles of bodies, the man- a somewhat overweight man in a red jacket and blue jeans- took a few minutes to throw up.
After purging his stomach, he turned back to the village, and saw a lot of things- but mainly hoof prints, drag marks, and a lack of female corpses.
Shaking his head and trying not to vomit, the outsider began to gather wood and material with which to make a fire- best to burn the bodies.
A/N: Because my muses have NO ATTENTION SPAN.... And Barty Crouch Jr. looks like David Tenant.
-
In a forest in the middle of a small valley with a tiny river in it, just outside the blacksmith's home of a small town that used to bustle with life, a man was on the ground.
Appearing in any universe other than your own is usually not fun, I mused. "Especially if you don't know where I am...." I muttered with a grumble.
I had spent most of the day setting up a decent fire for the bodies- thankfully, the blacksmith in the village had some flammable oils, and I knew how to use a flint and steel, which I habitually carried on a bracelet, so....
Pyre. A big one.
My guess? This was a rural town that had been pillaged by a marauding horde of bandits- and the smoke cloud was climbing VERY high.
I took a deep breath, and finally, FINALLY (now that the corpses were dealt with), took the time to look at the books that I had appeared with here.
There were four of them.
The Conceptual Medicine Manual
The Tenfold Wheel Method of Qi Integration
The Dao of Crafting
The Geometry of Qi
For a second there, each one had another title over it, like the books themselves changed to fit the watcher, and DAMN Was that creepy.
"Still.... Qi, or Ki, or Chi, usually means superpowers of some sort." I muttered. Then I looked at the ring that had been in my pocket, and grinned slightly. "What does it have in it's pocketses, precious?"
The ring refused to tell me, even when I put it on.
"Oh well, it can't be that easy."
I settled in, and cracked the first book.
I thought of them as books, but they were more like binders- each one fairly thin, and looked like what happened if you inscribed mystical circuitry on the inside of a binder, then placed several pages of fractally-patterned art inside it.
The situation was vaguely familiar- I dropped the binder in my lap as I realized what this was.
"Holy leaping monkeys- are these the same sort of books from Tribulations by Saligia?" I muttered. That story was.... Well, it was NSFW, being on Questionable Questing and all, but it was one of the few cultivation stories that I read that were NOT full of so many Asian tropes that it felt like a TV Tropes record holder.
Wish people didn't feel the need to put porn in everything, but eh.
I picked back up The Conceptual Medicine Manual, and stopped, again. Like most binders, there was a thin pocket on the front page, and in that pocket, was a folded piece of paper.
The message that was written on it in a script that HURT my eyes but I could still read, was.... Illuminating.
Greetings Interdimensional Traveler!
Due to your ontological inertia, you unfortunately were duplicated/copied/dropped into a world you may recognize from your fiction!
Do not be alarmed- you will not die right away from any local diseases or marauding wildlife for at least 1 local solar cycle, and part of the emergency survival package WILL make sure you land in a location that has enough to bootstrap to survivable levels!
But, as per multiversal agreement, you may not be helped as you are not part of any of the current interdimensional empires, megacorps, or other such groups.
Enjoy your life, and do not forget: Optimistic Nihilism and the Selfish Reasons to Make the World a Better Place!
Emergency Survival Package (Qi)
Contains: 1x type-8 Library (Qi) & emergency supplies (Qi) (stored in ring), 4x Mental Impression Rapid-Study Manuals (Qi) (selected by Emergency Survival package in order to facilitate survival), 1x Combination-Storage Ring (Qi)
I carefully folded the sheet, put it back in the binder-pocket, and looked at the sheets. Each one was different, and full of swooping lines and curves that defied the eye in how they interacted with each other slightly... The I grimaced.
If these were anything like the books from Tribulations, then once I put all the pages side-by-side, I would suffer from a horrible headache.
I was currently sitting on a clean rock, one that was large enough for me to lay down on, and I was able to scavenge some fruit from one of the houses (that I ate while lighting the pyre), so I wasn't feeling any immediate needs....
Working carefully, I placed the books in a stack, extracted the 4 pages from The Conceptual Medicine Manual, laid them out side-by-side, and lined them up with the thickest line in a singular curve that went from page to page....
Then the pain hit.
-
When I woke up, I noticed three things immediately.
First- I had a really bad headache. 4/10, easily. Considering my '10' was 'dislocated hips and trying to pass out from the pain but can't because I was desperately trying not to scream since I had no air left with which TO SCREAM BECAUSE MY LEGS WERE BACKWARD WHY DO YOU KEEP POKING IT PLEASE STOP PLEASE STOP PLEASE STOP PLEASE STOP', that's not good at all.
Second- I KNEW. Not much- the pages were still there, although the manual that I took them out of seemed to grow a medical textbook when I hadn't been paying attention, but I could feel that the knowlege that had been dumped into my brain was... Important.
I could feel the bits of knowlege that I had absorbed like a mass that was percolating into the edges of my mind, and I could also FEEL the boundaries of the knowlege dissipating faster than I was absorbing it. After a few seconds, it was done, and I realized I had absorbed about a third to a half of what had been in those four pages.... Which was kind of disturbing, to be honest.
But I knew a lot now, and it led into the third, and possibly most important point.
Third- I could feel my Qi, and with my new knowlege I had a diagnosis.
The diagnosis was not good.
Most of my meridians- the primary conceptual pipe ways of Qi that circulate through the body- were blocked. Twelve mortal meridians and eight cultivatable meridians, and I had THREE that were unblocked to various degrees. The Governing Vessel was somewhat unblocked, the primary line on my left leg was also somewhat unblocked but SEARED AWAY from the mid-shin/calf down (with all the meridian components below that zone were jumbled significantly), and the line leading out to my bad fingers was blown wide open and charred.
I took a second and compared it to the nerve-damaged areas from the lightning back in 2013, and noted that yes- these were the dead spots that the bolt had left behind after I was struck.... But there was another problem.
I could feel my Qi now, and it was flowing out of those ruptured meridians. The slight jump-start of the Rapid-Study Manual pages had agitated my Qi just enough to cause the damaged segments to breach, which meant I was on a ticking clock- either I fixed it, or my soul would literally burn myself out slightly.
Worse, because there was a touch of Lightning Qi there, my Qi- you know, the stuff that if I use too much of it, the lack of it will kill me- was being PUSHED out of my wounds slightly.
If I left this too long, I will die.
There was only one word to express my thoughts on the matter.
"Oh Fuckberries...."
Okay, well, two words.
No time to waste then! I stuffed the pages back into The Conceptual Medicine Manual (carefully), and pulled out the pages of The Geometry of Qi.
Twenty-six pages worth of jigsaw puzzle later, I felt my headache begin to recede- but again, I was on a timetable, and heard a scream as I managed to get the whole picture in view.
-
I woke up with a heavy nosebleed, a headache that rated a good 6/10, and feeling lightheaded- but I KNEW more. Theory and principle of the WHY behind Qi, although not too much- this one, I barely absorbed 10% of it before the impression of knowlege vanished, but I did just have the equivalent of a high-school-quality Qi education in fractions of a second.
And it was dark out.
I pulled myself and the pages together, grumbling the whole way, grabbed the books, and shut myself into the one mostly-intact house (the blacksmith's house) that was left. I grabbed a still-burning branch of wood from the pyre (which smelled, honestly mostly like the wood I had piled around it), and lit the fire inside the forge.
I had spent a couple hours while monitoring the pyre to set up a self-feeding fire in the Blacksmith's fire pit (as they had a number of metal rods, and some bits of rock large enough to let me set up a decent feeder), and now my work was paying off as the small fire initially lit, and the airflow changed a little to feed into the fire.
Out of curiosity I placed my Qi-leaking hole nearer to the flames, and felt something change about them, but other than that- nothing.
I went to sleep very quickly (after using the fire to boil a little water, which I drank, because if you have lived in the desert once, you don't forget how important water is).
-
The next morning dawned bright, early, and with a touch of exhausted panic as I felt my inner Qi levels. I was making slightly more Qi than I needed if I DIDN'T have massive holes in my meridians, and not enough to stem the bleeding of the energy.
Time to play Good News - Bad News!
Good news- I didn't have a headache any longer, which indicated that my Upper Dantian/Chakra/Core/whatever had recovered from yesterday's impulsive use of magical items, so I was now ready to take in the third, and possibly fourth books!
Bad news- if I was interpreting the level of Qi loss correctly, I had two days or so left before I didn't have enough Qi to survive opening my other meridians and flushing impurities before the Cores bootstrapped into ideal generation levels.
Good news- I had some fresh eggs. The chickens liked their coop behind the blacksmith's house/forge, and I had breakfast.
Bad news- I was nauseous from the literal leaking lifeforce, and felt like I was nearly five years older than I really was. Which SUCKED. All my joints hurt more than usual (damn scarring), and I could FEEL the edges of where sensation ended after the lightning strike burned me tingle. Constantly.
I got breakfast quickly, and arranged the twenty pages of The Dao of Crafting. My current knowlege was useful, but it was full of theory (in the case of the Geometry of Qi), or techniques relying on already-existent infrastructure or knowledge.... And The Dao of Crafting should plug the holes there.
This time I didn't pass out! It still hurt like being tazed in the face (long story short- never again will I engage in a 'friendly' football game where people didn't disarm first), but I managed to blink my way through the pain with a nose bleed and a LOT of tears... And I knew what I had to make to help fix this.
I needed some tin, gold, copper, and a few other things.... Most of which were, luckily, inside the blacksmith's house.
The gold though- that I had collected from one of the bodies. Looked like a traveling merchant, who had his cart ransacked by whoever killed the town- but he had a few pieces of gold in his pockets that hadn't been taken.
-
Some hours later, the sun was high in the sky, and I had realized that my Qi loss was making this nearly impossible.
I had a number of old injuries- mostly joint scarring from repeated dislocation or subluxation, but the worst (other than the lightning damage) was my wrists. I had broken the capitate of both wrists, and due to a rather unpleasant need to take the final exam of a sign language coarse and some other tests, I didn't get them splinted or in casts for around a week after the breaks. Because of that, the broken chunks had sealed, and I had 9 instead of 8 bones in my wrists.
It usually just hurt a bit, and I had to unjam my wrists when some of the bones locked into a position occasionally, but the shaking was minimal, and I could cope. Usually. I was limited in how hard I could grip things before my wrists would start to jam, and I had some not-insignificant limits in how much I could lift before my wrists dislocated, but I managed.
My leaking Qi was making managing the normal pain a LOT harder, and every hour it got harder to keep from shaking.
My ring, the Combination Storage Ring (a rather complicated device according to what I absorbed from the Dao of Crafting) ended up slipping off after while of me trying to pound the gold I had collected into a thin sheet, and my hand loosing grip as I failed, again, to stop the shaking.
I had been wearing it on my right hand, but since my right hand was now twitching, I picked it up with my left, and the dots along the rim began to suck in the outgassing Qi. After a few seconds of this, while I waited for the shakes to stop in my other hand, the dots suddenly lit up with visible light, and the ring began spinning of it's own accord.
They clicked into a specific orientation- Blue Dot, |1551|, 14- and I felt my Qi come out of the ring, twisting into a very strange pattern (one half-remembered thanks to my knowlege on how Qi worked), before inverting and popping an item into reality.
It looked and felt like a ram's horn- but on the inside, I could feel circuitry..... And I could feel the Qi/Lifeforce from my left hand gravitate into it- falling down an invisible slope.
I shrugged, and placed the carved horn on a hay bale- but my fingers couldn't let go of it.
"That's... Odd."
I grabbed it with my right hand (not shaking any longer), and pulled- but nothing happened. I couldn't get it off.
The feeling of suction increased.
"That can't be good-" I choked back a scream as SOMETHING blasted through the meridians of my right arm, causing every pore to ooze rancid black gunk at a disturbing speed.
"OhSHIT!"
I ran out of the building, and collapsed on a grassy patch outside the house as pulse after pulse of my own Qi surged out of the device and into my arm, then my body.
Eventually, I couldn't hold back the screams.
-
In a forest in the middle of a small valley with a tiny river in it, just outside the blacksmith's home of a small town that used to bustle with life, a man was on the ground.
This is probably going to continue for a while, and it will be rather disgusting. How about we take a look at the other pro/antagonists?
-
In the city of Myr...
Barty Crouch Jr. was not particularly concerned, but he was... Confused.
He was a Death Eater, but he had spent a lot of time in the muggle world, and all of this just seemed.... Backwards.
Sure- muggles were pathetic and inferior wastes of air, but they did have cars, last time I checked. Planes were a thing too, as were busses, and... Barty's nose wrinkled as he saw someone literally defecating in a corner. Plumbing. By Hekate's left tit, this place was horribly disgusting and unclean- even for muggles!
Covered by a muggle-repelling charm, everyone was parting to let him pass- but there was little he could really understand. The language of this place was... Well, Barty had heard many languages, but hadn't had the opportunity to learn them himself. It had Egyptian overtones though, and he knew he would need to do something distasteful in order to make any real progress with this.
Well, distasteful isn't quite right.... Barty thought as he pointed at a mother with her two children. A muttered "Imperio!" had her dragging her children (both confused at the abrupt change in direction) away from a male, who was confused and began shouting at Lessina (the woman's name).
A "Confundo" made the male walk right in front of a heavy cart, and stick a foot out in front of one of the wheels.
The children started crying when they heard the bone crunching, but Barty pushed the imperio and kept a decent hold of the woman's mind even as she tried to fight her way out of it.
The fact that she had a CHANCE of fighting her way out of it was infuriating to the Death Eater, who released the imperio, cast "Silencio" and "Crucio" in rapid succession, then re-established the imperio without more than a second or two having passed.
He could FEEL her mind twisting in agony, and the imperio was able to settle in easier than before.
I must remember to torture these muggles more. Barty thought with a not innocuous amount of glee. Makes puppetting them a lot easier. In fact....
Another "Imperio" snapped into place on the injured muggle, and Barty followed the two of them back to their hovel- by a fairly long and circuitous path.
Torturing muggles was always a fun pastime, and why shouldn't he mix business with pleasure? Admittedly, feeling the man's mind crack under the pressure of walking normally on a foot that had more similarity to a burger than a limb was slightly unpleasant (nausea bled over the link easier than any emotion for whatever reason), but the fear, horror, and pain in the woman's mind made up for it.
Plus, it was an easy way to keep them under control.
It was a small hovel- barely large enough for a bed and a place for a jug of water to sit undisturbed- but it became an inescapable prison after a few quick spells.
Only when Barty had several compulsion spells on every one of the muggles AND he had the small shack enchanted with a temporary muggle-repelling charm did he lift the Imperius... And nearly doubled over as he abruptly became severely exhausted.
What is going on?! He screamed mentally. I used to be able to do this with entire families without any effort! Why am I so tired!?
Still- couldn't show weakness in front of the muggles. Barty took a deep breath, and sat on the bed, while the entire little family stood at attention, the compulsion spells holding them in place even with bleeding and crushed feet, or the mild twitching of cruciatus exposure, or the shaking of barely-three-year-old children who were just dragged for hours through a city nonstop without a break.
The male (probably father, could be brother- Muggles all looked alike to Barty Crouch Jr.) muttered something at the wizard, who sighed. Oh right- the whole reason I did this- I need their language. Well, good thing they have children.
He cast a stinging charm at both children, and listened carefully. One of them (the smallest one) tried to double over and cry, while the other used words- probably. They sounded like words, so that was enough for him.
A quick hand gesture (because why not include those in the compulsion matrix he had set?) had the taller child standing in arm's reach.
Barty grimaced, and cast. "Legitimens."
The hovel filled with screaming.
Muggles get really loud when anyone rifles through their memories. I must remember to silence them later. Possibly just kill them.
-
In a forest in the middle of a small valley with a tiny river in it, just outside the blacksmith's home of a small town that used to bustle with life, a being that could only be called humanoid and covered in black tar was on the ground.
And screaming.
"~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Admittedly screaming silently, despite having... Two sets of lungs, and two heads.
Okay, the spine is splitting and.... Wow that's nasty.
...
This is not going to be rated T if what is currently going on is described in a book, is it?
....
No. No it's not.
....
How about that demon, eh?
-
Great Wyk, Iron Islands
The Oni looked at himself in the river, and shuddered.
Lu Ban, the Bloody Burning Tide of the Jade Sea, almost sobbed at the state of his body. It was his... Eighth? Yes, his Eighth body now, and it had been a very powerful one- the Crimson Demon General, with a name he didn't care to remember. Unfortunately, as he had discovered, trying to find the 'wandering cultivator' that had nearly killed him during his first use of the Twilight Cuckoo's Triumph technique, that simply switching into a more powerful body of one of his slaved cauldrons was damaging to his cultivation.
Not much, but it had left him weakened for a time- then he was banished, and then he was here.
On a barbaric little island with barbaric little people and their slaves. Not a cultivator among them to harvest for power, no Qi in the environment beyond basic life bleed off- and nothing he could refine here, other than the inhabitants!
His pointed ears twitched as he heard/felt the screams of a man and woman running through the forest very close to him, and he grinned.
Food/materials.
It was a quick journey with his speed, exhausted and crippled though he was, and Lu Ban made sure to kill and eat any animal he came across- for their meager Qi helped refill his nearly-empty reserves. Soon, he was overlooking a small cliff and a absolutely delightful scene where the man he had heard was currently ripping the clothes off a struggling woman.
Ah.... Lu Ban mused. That takes me back. But I'ma need that, so....
He took a step off the cliff, falling like a rock and landing as silently as a feather behind the man, who was so preoccupied with his prize that he didn't notice the eight-foot-tall oni standing behind him... And neither did the woman, until Lu Ban's claws stabbed through the mortal's chest, showering her in lifeblood even as the man started to make choking sounds.
Lu Ban did not act hastily- he checked the meridians of his prey, and they were.... Lacking. Still, more than enough for the next technique. His blood and oil-rich qi, slightly strained by his current weakness, slipped into the man's body, and BURNED out the impurities, causing a great plume of smoke to erupt from the mouth of the mortal even as his eyes popped from the influx of energy.
Then, with all the delicate deliberation of an immortal eating a refined pill of millennia-old ingredients, Lu Ban opened his demonic jaw wide, and bit down on the back of the man's head, teeth enveloping all of it, to the point where when he pulled back, the only thing left on the head was a stump of neck connected to the jaw and face.
The soul of the forced cultivator/mortal hung there, face utterly perplexed, and linked to his brain- before Lu Ban swallowed the brain whole. The soul screamed as it was sucked into the cultivator, compressed and condensed into a surge of power that reinvigorated the cultivator greatly- and he felt part of the man's knowlege on language and local culture assimilate into his own vast stores of knowlege.
Carefully, while the woman looked on in horror, Lu Ban discarded most of the man's knowlege after a quick perusal (he was merely some no-name raider that had worked as a thug for the local nobles- HammeringHorned or something stupid), but kept the languages.... Though he needed something extra to utilize it.... Oh, right!
Might of Many Tongues.
With a wet ripping noise, Lu Ban removed the man's tongue, and swallowed it- while circulating his now-somewhat recharged Qi in a old/familiar pattern. In moments, he KNEW how to speak the local languages- though Lu Ban ferociously crushed any of the slang he could find.
Lu Ban would not sound like some raider-savage!
"Excuse me, can you understand me?" He asked to the blood-splattered and terrified woman.
She nodded.
"Good!" Lu Ban smiled, but made sure not to show any teeth he could hide. "And where am I?"
"Y-y-y-y-"
The cultivator sighed, and forced his Qi into his eyes to make them glow, using the Stare of the Rainbow Serpent to calm the woman down so she could answer his questions.
She visibly relaxed, the technique forcing it on her with little resistance. "You are on Great Wyk, master."
Lu Ban resisted the urge to blink in surprise at the utter sincerity of the word 'master', but it was also pleasing to find a mortal who didn't need to be instructed in every little thing. "I see... Where is that compared to the Red Phoenix Continent?"
"I do not know, master." Her voice was completely absent of emotional tone that he recognized, but there was a strange undertone there. Maybe he had used a bit too much of the Stare of the Rainbow Serpent?
"I see.... How do you feel?" It was a calibration question, one that Lu Ban had been taught all those years ago, to tell if he was doing the technique correctly.
"Good~...." Her voice took on a floating tone of bliss. "So gooooooooodddddd~~~~......"
"I see... And who am I?"
"The master...." Hummed the now blissed-out woman, who had sagged into the crevice that she had tried to back into when the now-deceased man had tried to take her. "My master...."
"I see." Lu Ban hummed a little to himself as he felt his Qi, brushing the blood of his recent meal off his skin and onto the grass. He had enough Qi to maintain a better shape than this Oni, and he was GOOD at shapeshifting. A little work with a blacksmith or some gold even, and he would have a passive amulet to keep a better shape in place.... But until then, he would manage.
He could already feel his dantian strengthening as the meal was burned for it's energy, and picked the shape he would have from now on.
It would be attractive- he was a cultivator, he expected nothing less- and he would be able to pull all his current body-based instabilities into.... A glowing symbol on his forehead, highlights, and slightly glowing golden eyes.
Yes, that would do it.
"Am I still your master?" Lu Ban asked the woman, who was breathing heavily despite the Stare of the Rainbow Serpent.
She nodded languidly. "Oh, yes master... And you are very pretty, master...."
"Good!" Lu Ban began to pull the Stare back a bit, giving her room to stand up. "Now, bring me to your home, and tell me about this.... Great Wyk."
-
Lu Ban was... Not really surprised, at the squalor, nor the tiny amount of farming, but it was still an unpleasantly small amount of food.
"How can you live like this?" He asked under his breath, as children cowered in doorways and the only people in the village were children, women, the elderly, and the crippled. "Where are all the men?"
"Many are fishing." The woman, who's name he learned was Meya, was looking around warily. "Only the un-manned ones are allowed to stay with us thralls. Or the crippled. Or too old. They have to bring enough food to the castle to keep their lives, and the lords always know if there is a man here who is not one of their reavers." She spat the last word quietly.
"And the ones that stay here?"
"They die. If they are lucky...." Meya turned to him with such hope that Lu Ban NOTICED. "You- you are strong, master! Stronger than ten men! I never saw a man die like that before, and you could show us how to be strong, and destroy the lords!"
"Don't start that again young'un!" A old, scarred man with a missing leg and arm hopped carefully out of a hut. Lu Ban covered his nose- the man was rotting, from the inside from some mortal disease, and it STANK. "None can challenge them- especially not pretty strangers! You nearly got your brother killed for that last stunt!"
"And then he died from eating something he shouldn't." Meya flippantly replied. "He was not smart enough, strong enough, or ruthless enough to kill anyone, and then he died. At least he died with his balls still on."
Wait, what?
Lu Ban twitched as he heard a distant, heavy gate open, and a number of armored boots march out. The two natives were still bickering, so he took the time to look over the village.
As his first impressions appeared to be right, the village was... Small. There were several gardens- small ones, growing in carefully-tended dirt on this rocky place. Rain catchers, made from barrels and shaped roofs, were all over the place, and as he watched, a child used a piece of chipped pottery to scoop out a little of the tepid water.
A young woman, with fresh bruises, freshly torn clothes, and many barely-aged blood splatters on the edges of the tears sobbed quietly as she cradled a young child, who cuddled her with the concern of a child who is seeing their parent in distress.
Several elderly men and women, missing arms, legs, or fingers, were making or repairing fishing nets- and all of them looked depressed, but they had smiles for the few children that helped out with the complex task.
All in all, this village was full of sad people who had mostly given up, and... They were perfect!
In his meridians, Lu Ban felt his element roil happily. Oil and Blood were JUST what these people needed- and he would help....
I will help them out- then feed later on their cores! Lu Ban thought, licking his lips briefly as he thought of all the juicy Qi sources these people would become with just a little investment.
The argument continued between Meya and the older man, but they stopped as their mortal senses finally noticed in rustle of armor and clank of metal on packed dirt and stone.
Meya grabbed his arm, and tugged on it. "Those are the lord's men- we must hide!"
Lu Ban looked at her with not a little incredulity. "Did you not tell me I had the strength of ten men? I am afraid of no man." He boasted- confident that he should be able, even in this weakened state, holding a human form, to be more than a match for any mortal without Qi.
Meya looked around, then nodded, and darted into one of the huts.
Lu Ban rolled his eyes, and waited.
And waited.
The armored mortals were checking various houses, doing a thorough search- but that would take a while. And while Lu Ban had reached the final stage of lesser immortality, he craved MORE. Faster. Better.
Their lives would feed him.... If they would get to him!
Eventually, Lu Ban lost patience. "Soldiers, Reavers, Rapers and worse!" He shouted. "I am here! Are you all so cowardly and craven that you would consider women and children more of a threat than ME!?"
The searching sounds stopped, and they began converging on him.... But it was still slow.
Evidently, they need more encouragement... Lu Ban grinned as he smelled their rage. "Ironborn? I only hear children playing at war, rusty and dull as you are. May as well call you the rustbirthed, because your blood is probably as rusted as the rest of you!"
That should be enough... For now.
The first man that came around the corner was frothing with rage, and he met Lu Ban's fist with his face. There was a crunching sound, and the man dropped like a puppet without strings or Qi manipulation, a pit where his face and most of his skull used to be.
The others came out from behind various corners, and saw the body, then Lu Ban, and the smarter ones realized that there was something wrong- but this being such a pathetic place, they were not smart enough to understand what COULD be wrong: IE, one man being deadlier than all of them put together.
Fingers shredded steel like it was paper. Flesh parted beneath his strikes with ease. None of them could hit him- and even the one archer with them ended up learning that Lu Ban could both catch and throw arrows without pausing.
Over a dozen men died- the latter ones needing a bit of encouragement from Lu Ban to keep them from running... Light Upon the Waves was useful for skewing priorities, and with the exception of the first, he left them all bleeding out with broken bones, destroyed organs, and in one case, a hole in their neck.
Once he was certain he had killed them all (without them being dead yet- that was very important), Lu Ban dragged the screaming/gurgling forms around him, and spoke in his preferred celestial tongue the words of his very own custom technique. "<Bleed for Me.>"
The ones that had lungs began to scream- but it quickly petered out as their blood, qi, and souls were siphoned out through their wounds into the palm of his outstretched hand, condensing under the pressure of his own qi into a smooth, red pill with the ease of long practice.
Lu Ban looked upon the most recent test of his skill. Just under the surface, the qi networks BURNED impurities away, their own natural properties condensing and converting the souls into more qi as they did so, the pill visibly shrinking and smoking even as more of the necessary ingredients poured in. The blood eventually stopped coming- the mortals having been drained to husk-like cadavers-, and he then waited a little longer until smoke stopped pouring off the floating pellet.
Eventually, the orb bigger than his head had condensed into a pill smaller than the tip bone of a pinky finger, was so dark as to appear black, and shimmered like mother-of-pearl. Within, if one had the eyes and Qi to look, they would see nothing but power. Sure, fully 3/4's of all the potential of the victims was lost, but for a fast, easy technique? One that could be cast without much distraction in a charnel house or at the end of a battle?
So fast?
Lu Ban mused for a moment on the pill- a valuable thing, and one that many would kill to have... Many aspirants. Not Initiates. Qi pills were usually made in an alchemy furnace (or other type of pill furnace), and there was a saying- with a furnace, you have 3 aspects: powerful, fast, efficient- pick two.
Pills without a furnace... Pick one.
He chose fast.
Lu Ban swallowed the pill, even as he saw the locals poking heads out from hiding places to see what was happening, and groaned a little as the power hit his core. It BURNED as only Qi could, but it was surpressed with the ease of practice- and it was easier than normal to deal with though, considering his level of Qi exhaustion.
Meya came out from behind a wall, and cheered. "You killed them!" Then thought better of it. "You're going to need to kill more of them, master, if you want to have any peace."
Lu Ban grinned. "Sounds interesting... But first, come here girl."
She pouted, but approached. "My name is Meya!"
"And you can call me Master Lu Ban, now..." He placed his hand on her head. "If you swear your loyalty to me, I will grant you power to fight back. Do you accept?"
That got EVERYONE's attention.
"Power like yours?" Meya asked quietly.
"Yes.... Power that you can grow." Lu Ban grinned widely. "And if you accept, your power will last you as long as you have life."
Or until I rip it from you and consume it. Lu Ban thought to himself.
"I accept, Master Luban." Meya leaned into his hand, and the cultivator sighed.
"My name is not... Never mind." Lu Ban wove his qi through Meya's meridians, and ignored the gasping moans as his primarily-Yang Qi entwined with her ambient primarily-Yin Qi. With the deft ease of long practice, he wove the Qi into an artificial core around her Dantian, igniting it with a surge of his will, and holding his breath as her body burned away her mortal impurities. The presence of his Qi surging in her system would make this process pleasurable somewhat rather than painful, but it wouldn't remove all the pain.
Her body began SMOKING as every meridian released the foul-smelling byproduct of burned impurities, and great black clouds of smoke erupted from her body as she writhed, unable to fall from his hand but writhing like she was experiencing great pain and pleasure at once- because she was.
Soon enough though, she stopped smoking, and blinked in astonishment as Lu Ban felt her exploring the new sensations. Still, there would be time for exploration and other... Sensations later.
"Meya, my newest initiate." Lu Ban intoned. "Do you swear, upon this power and your soul, both now intertwined, to serve me?"
"Yes..." Her breathy voice was quite nice to hear.
"Do you swear to slay any intruding gods, to destroy the heavens, and draw the very clouds and sky down to harness against my enemies?"
"I so swear!" She cried in ecstasy as her power surged in a simple positive-reinforcement loop.
"Do you pledge yourself, and all your get, to me?" He pulsed her network again, and smiled as she writhed and moaned again.
"I-I-I-I... I SWEAR!" She screamed, legs shaking.
He released her head, and Meya steadied herself.
"Good.... Now." Lu Ban turned and looked around at the now-frozen tableau of peasants around him. "Does anyone else wish to join us?"
A number of peasants took him up on that offer.
Soon, he had a small army- one that was amusing itself by crushing stone with bare hands.
Soon.... I would have a seat of power here. Lu Ban couldn't keep the grin from his face. And more...
-
In a forest in the middle of a small valley with a tiny river in it, just outside the blacksmith's home of a small town that used to bustle with life, a being that could only be called humanoid and covered in black tar was on the ground.
The screaming had stopped, and the figure breathed slowly- but smoked as the black tar continued to sizzle and destroyed any living thing it touched other than its source... And if an observer looked closely, they would see that the one figure was in fact two- just covered in a thick layer of gunk.
There was a hint of movement, and the two bodies started to move at the same moment- then tried to open their eyes through the gunk, and tried to swear, only for their mouths to be covered in the stuff.
It was rather disgusting, but at least the screaming was over.
Two bodies do NOT make things better. I mused as both of my new bodies washed in the stream. It was rather... Strange, being in two places at once, but I guessed that since I was running two brains at the same time, it was making the situation merely confusing rather than insanity-inducing.
I had scraped off most of the black gunk into a bucket- there was a way to utilize the so-called Mortal Essence in a way to make myself stronger, but that was quite a time away. Now though, I was more interested in getting the remainder OFF by bodies, and boy that was a strange thing to think.
I had been ~270 lbs., 6 feet tall, and not particularly shapely, being overweight and built like a barrel even if I had been skinny didn't help. Now though, I was glad for the extra weight, as it looks like that horn (which my new knowlege from The Dao of Crafting referenced) had been an artifact of last resort known as the Horn of Immolation.
Not a nice name- but what it was usually used for was resealing injured or shattered cores, as well as a very advanced type of body cultivation.
It was also a device that was known for sucking the environment around it for miles dry of Qi, and had accidentally consumed people before, so DAMN I had been lucky. Maybe not lucky- it was known to consume a number of people around the subject that was being healed, and true to form there was now just bare dirt where there HAD been grass up until the tree line.... Which was farther away from the blacksmith's house than it had been.
Now, because of a weird-ass device that was so close to magical that it made me uncomfortable, I was in two places at once.
Good news: my meridians were healed, across both bodies! I could FEEL both sets, and they were stronger than I had felt before the split.
Bad news: I only had the left arm and head meridians of both bodies cleared.
Good news: I had the left arm (and head) meridian cleared all the way to my Dantian on BOTH bodies, which meant that I was being passively reinforced over time... And my meridians would clear on their own given time!
Bad news: at my current rate of reinforcement and clearing would take literal centuries.
Conclusion: I needed to speed things up. A lot.
Also: I was INCREDIBLY HUNGRY.
-
Several days later, I had made quite a bit of progress.
I had clothes for both my bodies- long tunics with long sleeves that I could use as gloves in a pinch, and rope belts. Unfortunately, I had no underclothes, or pants- the whole division thing had ruined my clothes, and a medieval village didn't include a lot of clothing. Sure, there were furs, but only the blacksmith had more than one tunic, and he was a LOT bigger than I was.
As in, both bodies were swimming in a shirt each.
I had also continued working on the Qi engine, and it was working out fairly well- but I was only able to get part of the thing working.
See, a Qi engine has two main segments- the physical and the metaphysical. The Metaphysical was the.... Pattern of Qi that orbited around the physical part, and took up most of the volume that limited how close Qi engines could be to each other. This Metaphysical part was usually eight times the radius of the central part, and was generated by the engine as it generated more Qi from the [********] layer that 'surrounded' the universe.
The physical part though, had a couple of requirements. It utilized the tuned effects of Qi to generate power, by having male and female tuned Qi which were attracted to each other, separated by a barrier that prevented the two from touching, but generating an energy gradient that bled off and was 'matured' through the metaphysical part of the engine.
The requirements of the physical part were actually simple- a taijitu (yin-yang symbol) mounted on a simple bearing. Yin was needed tin in order to conduct the energies properly. Yang was needed copper, and the two needed to be separated with a gold layer. Some copper wire was used to hold twine soaked in blood (mine) in order to get it to conduct the generalized qi output, so I had a framework for the metaphysical part in place (the very thin copper wire, which I had to draw, would be destroyed by the process of conducting the framework, as would the twine, and when it was in place it would probably BURN while the energies coursed through it)... But I only had a tiny amount of tin.
It was a fairly rare metal (as rare as uranium, I think), and I was able to figure out that some of the various metal samples in the blacksmith's office (which I had needed an axe and several hours of effort to break into) were tin because I had seen the ore before... But there was barely a few ounces of the stuff.
Nowhere near enough to make the main Yin driver.
So I needed another solution to the Yin driver... But even with my recently-acquired knowlege, I didn't have an easy solution that didn't require tin in the first place.
"I guess I need to find tin." I muttered with both bodies as they worked together to smelt a little of the tin on the forge. I need the pure stuff, and- my female body facepalmed.
"I can make a compass to find it! Why am I so stupid?"
-
Making a compass for this is actually really easy. I needed a sample of what I was looking for, a knife, some string, and a day of working to get the thing set up correctly. Oh and some blood- but my left arm healed within hours, so I had no issues with that part.
Still hurt though.
"Are we there yet?" I asked myself with my female body as we/I (man that's weird) kept walking through the forest, both bodies carrying different things. My female body was carrying a couple sacks and a pick-hammer (I think it's called a slater's hammer or a stater's hammer, can't remember now), while my male body was carrying the food, some water that I had boiled several times, a pick-hammer, a sack (which was carrying everything except the last item, and tied to the pick-hammer), and the compass.
"We'll get there when we get there!" I replied with my male body as both trudged through the woods.
The whole speaking-to-myself thing was one of the few things I felt was keeping me sane.
The compass spun slightly on it's string as both bodies halted, and my male body set down the sack and pulled out a tiny piece of tin ore. Qi compasses were actually very simple devices- more capacitor and sensor than anything else. In a moderate-to-high-Qi environment, they could also function indefinitely, be attuned to one thing and always track it, swinging like a pendulum indefinitely and always pointing the edge towards the nearest part of whatever it was tracking.
This was NOT a moderate-to-high Qi environment, so the device needed to be recharged and keyed to the material in question every time I used it, as it's 'memory' was stored in the Qi patterns that it emitted, like with most Qi devices. Thankfully, I had a little fragment of cinnabar (a red compound that had a toxic level of mercury in it) and a fragment of tin ore, both of which had been in the blacksmith's house, and both of which I had tied fragments of to the string.
String, unless it was soaked in blood, mercury/cinnabar, or was silk, was not naturally Qi-conductive, which meant that I could, and had, tied the samples to my compass, and was sure that it wouldn't be a significant issue to the device's functionality.
A few seconds of rubbing the tin ore onto the knife which channeling some of my tiny supply of accessible Qi into the carvings in it, charged the device. I let it swing freely, and the edge of the knife with the channels directed around it aimed and pointed unerringly at the target: the nearest source of tin ore.
Specifically, the EDGE pointed at the nearest source of ore.
Both my bodies groaned, and we kept walking.
I would find this eventually.
-
Several hours later, I was swearing.
In two bodies.
In sync.
The compass had drawn me to the tin ore, and it was, well.... It was underneath an upturned (and somewhat burned) cart, with a charred and broken skeleton inside it. At the base of a small outcropping of stone that was sticking up out of the ground like a moss-covered shard of, well, ore.
"I need to bury another body." I groaned twice. "Then clear the garbage, and start digging."
It was going to be an annoying day.
-
The sun had almost set by the time that I managed to bury what was left of the... Merchant? He didn't have anything left- whoever had robbed him and broken his skull with a mace before setting him and his cart on fire had stolen EVERYTHING. I wasn't even sure of the sex of the corpse really, but I had a better than 50% chance of being right if my memories of the middle ages and logistics were right.
I ended up staying overnight and into the afternoon the next day, both bodies swapping being asleep and being awake to extract the bits of tin ore visible in the rock. I would say it was idyllic, but...
You bury one corpse, and the smell of burned manflesh remained in the area for a while.
It kind-of ruined the place for me- and the fact that 'I' didn't get downtime while both bodies alternated shifts resting didn't help.
Eventually, I had a nice chunk of the ore, and decided that no- I wasn't going to drag 50+ lbs. of ore to ANOTHER potential mine site.
Both bodies flipped off the sun (my headache was getting to me a little), and I went back to the village.
-
In the city of Myr...
Barty Crouch Jr. was not happy. No, strike that, he was downright pissed.
The broken, tortured muggles before him were, well... Not the source of his rage, exactly... But while they had tried, such primitives were barely worth his time. Even their minds were jumbled- it was like no-one had ever taught them any sort of standardized information!
Well, they never were really taught things beyond the basics. He mused, as the family writhed again under the cruciatus. Ignorant savages....
"Get up!" He snapped, as he stopped the Crucio being applied to all four members of the tiny family, their twitching bodies being forced to obey him as they did so. "While your screaming has been pleasant, I am at an impasse, and would like to have some of your... Level of understanding here."
The woman groaned a little, and pushed herself off the ground, leaving her baby behind. It hasn't made a sound since yesterday, and it wouldn't eat any longer. She looked sadly at it, and stroked the unmoving face. "W-w-w-wh-wh-"
He glared at the muggle, who shuddered in remembered pain. "STOP. STUTTERING."
She collapsed over her motionless baby. "what do you want to know?" She asked softly, cradling the unmoving form.
"This place- Myr. What do people do here? Why is it so primitive? I remembered you _muggles_ had planes at least- you know? Flight?" He started to feel more and more angry as she looked more and more confused. "Who are in charge here?"
She took a deep breath. "Master Lazan Fyllos is the Prince of Myr."
"And where is this prince?"
The muggle got up, twitching as their body was wracked by the pain that resided after the cruciatus had ended. She slowly walked over to the door, and pointed at a thin gap in the buildings. Barty looked, and saw a set of white towers, connected by bridges.
"That is the Prince's Palace."
Barty hummed as he thought. A prince would be worth more under control rather than my current toys... "I see.... In that case, you have reason to rejoice!"
She perked up. "Can... Can you help my baby?" The muggle offered the unmoving, but still living, baby towards him.
Barty's eye twitched. "No. You get to die painlessly. Evanesco."
The vanishing charm hit the baby first, and it disintegrated into nothingness. The muggle gapped, her feeble mind not understanding what just happened.
"Evanesco."
She vanished.
Two more castings removed the other people from life and the hovel.
Barty Crouch Jr. sat down where the child had been, not three seconds ago, and thought about his next moves.
I could go to the prince, get a high-ranking puppet quickly, but... But no. That would be risky. I need some assurances, and maybe some fodder to act as bodyguards... I think I should approach a merchant. More money is always easy to get, but sometimes muggles can be difficult.
He twirled his wand, and then reconsidered it. I CANNOT lose my wand.... But I do know of how to make simple foci.
It wasn't hard- the most magical parts of an animal, and a wood that felt nice would allow him a functional (not ideal) wand. There had to be some creatures that were magical- and he could always make a basic broom to travel with....
But first... Barty stood up, stretched, grabbed the very modest coin purse that had belonged to the family, and started walking. It's time to get some food.
-
On the Iron Island 'Great Wyk', inside the castle of Hammerhorn...
Meya followed her new master, Luban, as he walked, effortlessly, through the castle of Hammerhorn. And through guards. Soldiers. A few armored knights. Several of the nobles whose names she did not know- other than to recognize the Goodbrother crest on their chest plates before a punch from Luban caved in the metal.
"Oh little lordling~~~ Come out to play!" Luban sang as he strode, silently, over the stone slabs in the large castle. He had spent a day or so teaching Meya how to utilize her new strength, maybe ten or so times stronger than even the strongest fisherman in the village, and why it was important to dodge.
Even just thinking about it made her butt hurt, in memory of all the stones that had been thrown at her to encourage her dodging attacks instead of blocking them. Even now, as she carried an oversized club made from a ship's keel that Luban had ripped apart to show her how to leverage her enhanced strength earlier in the day.
Then a few more days of showing her how to leverage that new strength- and kill a few more batches of thugs. He even fed her one of the red stones that Luban habitually made from the bodies of their enemies- and she felt her strength and Qi (what a strange word) surge when she did so.
After a little more walking and lecturing, the two just... Walked through the gates (literally in Luban's case- he just strode through the thick wood like it was cobwebs), dealt with the guards (she had enjoyed swatting them with her ship-sized club), and were now slowly combing through the large structure in a rather relaxing time-
Luban and Meya walked around a corner, and came face-to-face with dozens of archers, all with strung bows.
"Surrender, intrudAK!" The man in dark armor behind them was not quick enough to get his word out before Luban was in his face, and gripping his throat THROUGH the armor, the heraldry of Goodbrother obscured by her master's slim body and arm lifting the heavily-armored knight into the air like a misbehaving child.
"I see. Is this your lord?" Luban asked the nearest archer.
Said archer was still holding the drawn bow, not having had time yet to un-draw it, and slowly turned to look at Luban. "How-"
Luban squeezed slightly, and there was a bone-splintering crack. The man in dark armor slumped. "I asked a question."
"... You are?" The archer haphazarded.
"Ah yes, a smart man." Luban tossed the body to the side, and brushed off his flawless hands. "Now, as I am your new lord, I have some orders for you."
Several of the archers looked at each other, before relaxing their stance. "Yes, my lord?" asked the evident spokesperson.
"Spread out, and find the rest of these... Goodbrothers." Luban hummed. "And if you cannot subdue them, let me know. Otherwise, bring them to me. I will find the throne room."
The room felt like it got a little smaller as he said that last line.
Meya stepped to the side as the archers left the corridor. "Is that... Wise, master?" She asked, trying not to sound too impertinent. "They are-"
"They are like most men- people who want to be safe under the strongest." Luban assured her, and stepped close. "They will not betray us. It is in their best interests not to." He patted her on the head, and she leaned into it- his touch was always so warm....
"Good girl." He murmured, and Meya felt herself purr.
Eventually though, all good things had to come to an end, and he stopped touching her. Meya was rather distraught at how unpleasant it was, not to be touching, and pouted- but that didn't come to anything.
The two quickly backtracked to the throne room- not an overlarge room, but one with a table, chairs, and the throne being one carved out of driftwood, and easily large enough for at least two people on it.
Luban sat down in it, and after a moment's thought, Meya placed her club within easy reach before plopping herself right on his lap.
So warm...~
Now it was time to wait for the archers to succeed, or bring the remaining forces to them.
-
In the middle of nowhere, valley.
It would be three days before I left to get the cinnabar.
In those two days, I consulted the books I had- The Dao of Crafting was incredibly helpful when it came to metalworking, and had an INDEX. Moreover, it had a possibly-magical index, and I found myself finding what I was looking for within a few minutes of searching, every time.
It might also be the fact that I had some of the knowledge downloaded into my brain, and I *think* the knowlege in question that tried to download to me was less than 1/10th or so of what was in the book. Possibly less. And not all of it managed to impress into me.
It's a big book. It was actively wider than either of my waists.
Now though....
Well, tin was not an element like copper that was nice to smelt. I managed to get a crystalline ore of the stuff, and that meant only a smaller amount of processing was needed, but that still meant I needed to break it into small chunks, pick away the quartz that was naturally in it, and then spent the rest of the night alternating shifts to pound it into dust. The next morning, I spent the first half of the day building a bloody Qi array that could be pulsed to pull out the magnetic elements.
I then facepalmed, panned the stuff to separate out the heavy metals, and THEN used the magnet array to separate out the iron bits. What was left was mostly, probably, tin.
Everything about this took a long time.
The metal was eventually separated out, and heated in the furnace without oxygen, using one of the crucibles. Overnight, the metal would bake, heated as hot as I could get the forge running with two bodies. When dawn broke on the third day, I pulled the crucible out of the forge to cool.
It would set, and I needed to get the cinnabar.
Once again, I set off with both bodies carrying sacks, some food, tools, and the compass.
-
The cinnabar was not as close as the Tin had been.
About half-again as far, but there was a complication.
See, this area was full of hills. I HATED hills, despite having lived in one of the most hilly places in the USA for my first life. I also hated rain, and mold, and this place... It rained a LOT.
Thankfully, my red rain jacket had survived my bisection, and it was large enough that a little work with some sticks and string had turned it into a decent umbrella that was large enough for both bodies.
Still unpleasant. And I had to make the umbrella while it was raining.
Bleh.
But yes- hills. See, some hills break, forming small canyons and crevasse, depending on the flow of water. The compass ended up pointing towards the bottom of a ravine, which had been a river at one point, and partway down the cracked and fracturing stone cliff, was a glimmer of red in the rock.
But it was halfway down the cliff.
Both my bodies groaned. "FUUUCK." I said in stereo. "I HATE HEIGHTS...."
It's pretty neat but I'm not sure if the setting can really handle even one of them, depending on how much buildup they get, though I'd be interested in seeing more and how you handle it.
