She beheld the site of a low, wide cavern with a sense of creeping familiarity. It had been over a year since she had seen this place last, but she had seen it. Sluggish black water lapped at the muddy shore and she remembered the treasures pulled from it. The shard of solid darkness from which her domain blade had been carved, the deathly mirror whose sale had funded her cultivation for a year now, and the near forgotten seed pods still resting in her storage ring in the material world.
And, in the center was the horned skeleton, wrapped in vines, covered in black flowers, bleeding the liquid that filled the pool, driven into the earth at its side was a bronze spear, but now the thing flickered with a ghastly green radiance.
As she beheld it, she sucked in a breath as the bare skull twitched and rose to regard her with sockets full of black flower petals.
"I see you," The voice that emitted from the skeleton dug into her mind with claws of icy cold, painful and ragged. Yet, through the pain Ling Qi could feel no malice in those words. If anything they seemed almost wonder filled.
She felt a sharp pain in her chest then, and felt something part her skin from within. She looked down to see the point of her domain blade pulling free, glistening and black. It shot from her chest, and it took everything she had to halt it middair, vibrating with tension. It felt like someone had just yanked on her arm hard enough to dislocate it.
"My blood, you will not come?" The worn whisper of the skeleton scratched at her ears. It's jaw didn't move she noticed, it's voice seemed to be born from the rustle of petals and dried vines.
"Honored Elder, you are mistaken," Ling Qi ground out through grit teeth, feeling the strain of holding her blade in place, humming in the air between them. "I only took the gifts freely offered, I am not your blood."
The worst thing somehow was that she could feel the futility of her effort. She could feel the strength of the thing, if it exerted itself just a little more she knew, it would have her blade.
"Liar," its voice was scolding but fond. "But what thief does not lie."
Air shimmered in a veil of glittering color and chaotic qi washed out over the room like a tidal wave as Sixiang meterialized in front of her at full height. "Let her go," the muse hissed, their expression strained.
She jerked back as the pressure on her domain blade loosened, and yet the grip was not wholly gone.
"How greedy," whispered the skeleton not seeming angered by the interference. "You deny a lonely elder their first company in an age?"
"If she doesn't want to be here you bet I do," Sixiang's words no longer came from their lips but rather on the sounds of increasingly violent tide.
"Thank you Sixiang," Ling Qi said with a wince, laying a hand on the muse's shoulder. "Honored Elder, unfortunately I cannot stay. I have many obligations."
"Young, so young. So much remains to be seen, to be taken," the voice crooned. "Go, and come visit again. Bring with you your tales, and let us share as one thief to another."
The grip vanished, and Ling Qi nearly stumbled, staring at the skeleton warily. "Why do you trust that I would come back?"
"Ling Qi don't question the thing," Sixiang hissed in alarm.
Somehow the thorny vines framing fleshless jaws seemed to convey a smile. "Curiosity, Want, Power."
Ling Qi felt something like an impact against her stomach and a rushing sensation like flying at top speed. Her back slammed against wood, and cherry blossoms rained down. She found herself starring up at the boughs which surrounded her starting point. The Dream idol floated soundlessly above the shimmering ring gates and all was serene.
