Sky Pride

The dagger was the best thing they found. To their immense frustration, the Gu Masters weren’t actually poor. They were quite rich. It’s just that their wealth was in their curse-insects and the things needed to cultivate curse-insects. There was some debate about whether to incinerate all of it, but they decided to hang on to everything for now. First, because neither of them were confident in making a fire hot enough to burn such evil things, and second, technically it wasn’t valueless, which meant it was reportable loot to be divided.

“It’s going to go to a Treasure Weighing Magistrate.” Hong lay sprawled against the red sands, moodily munching on a steamed bun. The twice-baked pork had been long since devoured, and even the vegetables had been eaten clean up. They were just filling in the corners of their stomachs now, and to both their surprises, they were ravenous.

After seeing the slaughter around the wagons, both had wondered if they would ever want to eat again.

“What’s a Treasure Weighing Magistrate?”

“When there is a conflict over how to divide loot, or the origins of the loot are too complicated, it goes to an expert on the sect regulations to sort out,” Hong recited. Then her face shifted slightly. Tian wondered if she knew her expression changed when she was reciting things she had been told. “In our case, there are the heretics you killed, the heretics I killed, the loot from the wagons, the loot from people killed by our Brothers and Sisters, and whoever was killed by Martial Uncle Ku. Each one is entitled to varying shares of each source of loot, and to make things more complicated, we don’t know exactly who killed what.”

Tian nodded. He decided to run away and live in the jungle if anyone ever tried to make him a Treasure Weighing Magistrate. Hong was moving better than he thought she would be. The book said the poison would leave her weak for about a week. Maybe because she hadn’t been ‘dead’ for that long?

“Well, at least we got two hundred and thirty four spirit crystals out of them. That’s two hundred and thirty four more than I was expecting.” Tian said, optimistically. “Plus there are some talismans. That’s good. And wine. We can trade that. I don’t want to drink the tea, though. It doesn’t look safe at all.”

“True.” She sighed. “I just,” she waved her hands. “A whole caravan worth of treasure and the loot from twenty or so level nine cultivators, and it’s just this much. I wanted more.”

I wanted more too. The dagger is something at least, but I was hoping for something… dramatic. Another strange statue would have been good. I had some hopes for that eerie picture but it’s just a visualization technique for some fifth rate evil art. Why are all these heretics so damned disappointing?! They are driving this old man crazy!

Tian nodded, agreeing with both of the voices. He fiddled with the snake dagger. It was a nasty thing. He wasn’t quite sure what the curse was supposed to do, but he was betting on some kind of poison. Not that he would use it to attack someone. It was just a cultivation aid for him.

“You really like that dagger.”

“It works well with my body.”

“Huh? You mean your physique?”

“Something like that.” He nodded. Grandpa had made it very clear he shouldn’t talk casually about the Hell Suppressing Sutra. A mildly interesting physique was fine. Telling people you had a statue that could transform you into a body capable of eating curses was simply courting death.

“Hah. Well. For what it’s worth, my physique will have me ready to fight by midday tomorrow.” Hong smiled bitterly. “Better than ever.”

“Oh? What’s your physique?”2

“Southern Mountain.”

Tian blinked and took a second look at her. There were red hairs mixed in with the black stubble on her head, and if he remembered correctly, she practiced a fire related spear art. “I was sure it was fire related.”

“It is.” She didn’t look happy about that fact, rubbing her shoulders roughly against the sand.

“I don’t understand.”

“Phoenixes.”

The fire crackled, the winds blew, and sand rasped against sand. Eventually, Tian looked up from the fire and said “I have a theory that I can fix your brain if I just kick you in the head enough. Now seems like a good time.”

“Ancestors give me strength!”

“They did, you come from a cultivator family.”

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Hong buried her face in her hands and muffled a scream. “The physique. Is related. To where phoenixes live. The auspicious beast is said to live on an immortal parasol tree on a mountain in the extreme south. And some other places, but the mountain in the south is why the physique has that name.”

“Oh.”

“And phoenixes are associated with…?”

Tian looked at her curiously. Eventually Hong gave up.

“The physique isn’t very good at any one thing, but it does let me get better, quicker from minor things. I never got sick even when I was a mortal, and I can train until my body is about to break and be totally fresh the next day. It’s less good at serious wounds, but it’s better than many.”

“That’s a good thing. I’m not sure why you look like it’s a bad thing.”

“Go to sleep. I’m going to be better tomorrow, but you still need to do most of the fighting until the afternoon.”

Tian shrugged and buried himself in the sand. At some point he woke up and he was trapped it was dark and he was trapped and he couldn’t breathe and everything had fallen on him again and he was back in the dump trapped under garbage and he would die down here he would die it was too heavy to move he would die and then he managed to thrash his way out of the sand and Hong was screaming at him and asking him what was wrong.

It took him a long while to get himself back together. Neither of them slept the rest of the night, though he thought Hong dozed off for a while around dawn. Tian wound up putting her on a stretcher again and dragging her behind him. She objected, but stayed put. Tian could see she wasn’t in good shape, no matter what she said about her physique. He wasn’t in good shape either. His legs worked. He walked.

One thing he noticed was that Hong was starting to smell. He didn’t really pay much attention to hygiene- things were what they were out in the wastes. But she was smelly. It didn’t smell like a wound. It smelled like she needed a bath. Not something Tian ever thought he would think about another person, but it was true.

They came across a few minor insect swarms and the occasional scorpion, but nothing they couldn’t handle. As the sun set, they made their way to a promising looking rock ridge, practically a hill, and agreed it was a good spot to camp for the night.

It was a windy night, and got steadily windier. Before the moon was halfway across the night sky, it was blotted out by the flying sand. Hong battered on the side of Tian’s tent, waking him up. “We can’t stay here. I saw some rocks and caves we might use for shelter up on the ridge. It will be hard to find them at night in the middle of a storm, but it’s better than having our tents destroyed and us buried under the sand.”

Tian was in no mood to get buried again. He followed Hong as they scrambled up the slope. True to her word, she led them to a cave partially concealed from the ground. It went into the ridge and down a bit. Tian noticed that it was quite different from the only other cave he had been in. It was dry, and the floors weren’t smooth. Tian felt the walls.

Hong had brought a smokeless torch, something that Tian hadn’t even known existed. They used sweet smelling oil lamps in the Temple, on the occasions when they were up after sundown and wanted to read something. Which was rare. Generally the brothers were firm believers in learning to do without. He used a little palm sized one around camp. It just made everything that little bit more comfortable and cheerful in his tent.

Tian laughed silently. Vibration sensitivity. “Breathless, motionless, lightless, they will never know you are there, even after it’s too late for them.” Brother Three Nights was smiling as he explained it, but Tian could imagine how that smile might look to the water bandits on Gooseneck Lake. If he came in here by himself, he’d thump the floors and walls to find his way around. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

The two walked another few minutes, heading vaguely downward until the cave opened up into a wide, circular chamber. The walls of the chamber had long cubbies carved into them, stacked three high, and about twice the width of a grown man deep. There was a little circular platform in the middle of the room, barely three feet across, with an iron handle in the middle of it.

“I think we found a hidden waystation. And I don’t know who it belongs to.” Tian lifted the stone lid up. The smell of salty water rose from the dark hole beneath.

“They pull up brine water and boil it, capturing the steam and turning it into water.” Hong sounded like she was smiling. “Smart. And while this room doesn’t protect you from the poisonous qi, it does keep all the dust out. You could sleep here safely, even without our tents. Not to mention water to drink and a place to safely cook.”

“Where does the smoke go?” Tian was staring up into the ceiling. The torchlight didn’t do much to brighten the shadows up there.

“Hidden chimneys? Or maybe they have some smokeless fire like this torch.”

Tian shrugged. He didn’t have a better idea. “There are a lot of cubbies.”

“Yeah. Which makes me wonder how many people they expected to stay in here at one time.”

They set up for the night, opting to sleep in their tents rather than use the cubbies. Tian set some simple traps in the hallway, but nothing disturbed them. They passed through the storm peacefully.

Come morning, the two packed up. Tian noticed Hong smelled better today. She must have washed in her tent.

“Let’s fight.”

Tian jerked around, looking at his sister.

“That came from nowhere. Why?”

“Because.”

She hadn’t wrapped herself up again. Tian could see something in her eyes. More of that tightness he had noticed before. Maybe it wasn’t pain. Or… not just physical pain.

“Want revenge for losing our spars?”

“Yes. But also I just really, really want to beat the hell out of someone. Let’s go bare handed. I know you practice a palm art, and I practice the Iron Breaking technique. So let’s say no vital energy, just muscle.”

“Ah… my art is almost entirely-”

“If you hit my heart or head with your palm, it’s your win, how about that?”

Tian saw her shifting around, her fists tightening and her stance widening.

“Alright.”

Tian dropped into a stance, hands softly stretched in front of him. Hong fully adopted her stance, fists up and tight to her face, her balance placed on the balls of her feet. There wasn’t a signal. They both felt the moment, and attacked.