Eight: Chapter 23

We had a conversation, the uekisheile and I, about boundaries, fairness… and the lure of delicious things. There was time enough for it, since I wasn’t willing to risk the narrow path leading up to the top of the escarpment. Not yet, anyway. We were halfway up and, while I had a grand view of the forest below, the path was slick with rain. It’d be a long drop if I slipped.

Once things were settled between us, we meditated, which was something we both enjoyed. It was especially productive, as the two of us were getting even better at condensing my qi. The trick of it depended on pressure and movement. The pressure was a crucible, while the movement was a catalyst. The two worked together to refine the qi into a denser, more rich state, which in turn made room for more qi to flow through my meridians and into my dantian, increasing my capacity.

With the storm continuing to lash the countryside, there was plenty of qi in the air. In the past, I’d let it soak into me, relishing the charge it gave. Now though, with the uekisheile, their tufts sprouted from all the places my skin was exposed, and they acted like an antenna to actively suck in the qi and feed my dantian.

Every time the lightning flashed, the uekisheile somersaulted in excitement. I’d never thought I’d find anyone who loved thunderstorms as much as me, but I may have met my match in them.

Light blasted the cave, and the walls shook with thunder when lightning struck particularly close by. I interrupted the meditation to open my eyes to see where the lightning had touched ground. Would there be a fire? I didn’t think so with how wet the forest was, but it’d be better to know for sure.

I scanned below, but didn’t see any flames licking at the trees. No glow among the bushes either. The forest appeared to be safe.

I heard a roar from above, but this time it was unlike the thunder from before. I looked up to the top of the escarpment just in time to see an absolutely massive bear leap into the air. My jaw dropped. I sat amazed, and even more incredulous—the bear, he somehow drew another lightning strike to himself.

For a moment, the creature hung in the heart of the maelstrom, the center of a world on fire. I covered my ears to protect them from the noise, but I didn’t close my eyes—the sight was too terrible and too sublime to hide from. The creature’s silhouette burned itself into my vision.

The moment passed. The lightning strike dissipated, and the bear fell to the ground below. I blinked to clear the imprint from my eyes, and as a result missed seeing what happened next. I heard a tree crack, though, and birds’ wings flapping as they took the air; animals on the ground cried in alarm.

I kicked myself for not thinking to use my camera earlier. I blindly clicked the area below. Though my eyes watered and my vision was still impeded, I saw the Status boxes clearly.

Those talents! I couldn’t make out the bush or tree in question, but I noted the area it was in. I’d avoid it in the future.

Does it really walk or is it named that way because of the way it spreads? I wanted to check it out, but it was in the same area as the iisxabalesha pipia. On second thought, I wasn’t that curious.

I caught a glimpse of black fur under the forest canopy. A tree fell over, and in the gap, I saw animals fleeing, hints of orange among them. I enchanted my eyes and saw a familiar monster turkey disappear in a cloud of steam. It must’ve used its heat beam and vaporized the falling rain in the process. I was able to snap a picture of the animal’s talents before it vanished.

I lost sight of the bear, but the turkeys fled north toward a familiar stream. I tracked them until they reached the Glen. The tops of the trees shook; one caught fire. Then another. The turkeys and the bishkawi rumbled, the figures in the distance intermixing.

The two alphas, bigger than the rest, were easier to spot. I saw the bishkawi leap into the air, but didn’t see the aftermath as he disappeared in a veil of steam. The bashu turkey must’ve used his heat beam again.

Suddenly, the reason why the Glen had been invaded after the previous two thunderstorms became clear. First the unideer, then the bishkawi, and now the turkeys—they’d all been forced to flee from their territories by the kalihchi bear.

A bishkawi howled in triumph. I recognized the voice immediately—it was the alpha. Hopefully, a good number of bishkawi and turkeys had died in the fighting. All I saw was a handful of turkeys fleeing north. The Glen had gone quiet, as the rain dowsed the nascent fires.

I sat back with a sigh, satisfied.

Question-why-gloating.

I explained to the uekisheile about the satisfaction of seeing my enemies bloodied, even if I wasn’t the one doing the bloodying. The concept of due justice was harder, and I had to rely on the idea of cause and effect. But then the concept of time became an issue, and I was going in circles trying to translate it—when an epiphany struck. The words in the talent descriptions, some of them weren’t in English.

The System provided a phonetic transcription of the indigenous language when the English equivalent wasn’t obvious. In other words, the Status camera had a built-in Rosetta Stone, one I could use to get a head start on learning the local language.

“Excuse me a moment, little friend. I have to check something.”

The talents for the bashu turkey alpha were still on the screen. There wasn’t a language toggle anywhere though, and willing the System interface to do my bidding hadn’t worked in the past. But that was before I had 15 Wisdom, and Wisdom was supposed to be the attribute quantifying my connection to the System, as well as the world around me.

I focused my will, and said, “The translation service is nice, thank you, but I’d like the option to turn it off. Do you hear me, System-Eight? Anything you can do to help facilitate a request to the development team would be appreciated.”

Imagine my surprise when the System complied. A toggle appeared on the screen. It read English. When I clicked, it changed to Diaksh. I grinned, feeling like I’d solved the Sunday crossword, and I began to switch back and forth between the languages, playing with my new toy.

Bele was the word for cruel. Te seemed to mirror the word for. Hot Blooded was an idiom, so I wasn’t surprised that the word for blood appeared to be different. Lele was probably the real word for blood, while Daaska was likely a synonym for angry.

My grin spread—this was fun. And hopefully useful too. The likelihood I’d be able to safely interact with this world’s civilization grew with every word learned.

Curiosity-why-smile.

How to explain the concept of language? Well, that was a puzzle too. I’d work it out eventually. Meanwhile, I continued taking a break from meditating to scan the forest and compare words, adding to my vocabulary. It was a welcome break and distraction from my hunger pains.

There were no imminent threats and nothing I could do other than give my overworked nervous system a rest. Only once my head was full of unfamiliar words did I go back to meditating.

By the way, I did ask the System for other quality-of-life improvements. That was how I got a clock added to the screen. Everything else was declined though: the experience bar, the weather forecast, the danger meter—everything. I planned to try again once I leveled up some more. The System was supposed to be evolving with me, after all.

The storm ended just as night fell. The clouds were thick and dominated the sky, but they’d lost their heaviness. All the dark had been rained out of them, and they turned silver in the moonlight.

As for me, I felt surprisingly good. The time spent meditating helped me recover from the difficulties I’d undergone in the caves, but more importantly, my heart dantian was full of rich, condensed qi. The only problem was that my other energy centers couldn’t keep up with the pressure it was producing. The flow of qi was unbalanced. I wasn’t worried, though. I had a master qi manipulator working with me.

I learned from the uekisheile just as much as they learned from me. Their ability to manipulate qi, to find areas of restriction, and to make use of meridians that were otherwise underutilized was incredible. They couldn’t explain what they were doing, but I watched and together we found a rhythm. We turned our attention to the lower dantian next, located just below and behind my belly button.

There was still enough storm qi in the air that we didn’t lack for raw material. As soon as my qi condensed, it was replaced with more. My whole body felt like it was a pump working to inject and compress qi.

Midway through the night, the lower dantian had completely filled with condensed qi. It felt good. It felt right—I understood that at an almost cellular level—but I also felt stretched out. My ability to focus and pay attention ached.

The uekisheile was unfazed, thrilled even. My qi was turning into a dense broth, and while they understood they shouldn’t eat it, being immersed was enough to cause pleasure-cozy-deliciousness. The vibe was almost indecent, but I reminded myself I was being gifted with a level of spiritual advancement that would’ve likely taken me decades of practice, assuming I figured out the process in the first place. I didn’t complain.

We moved on to the upper dantian and were halfway through when the qi in the air normalized. The pump ran low, and I was forced to rely on my native reserves. The condensation process stalled. I thought about stopping to refill my tank, but the uekisheile was intent on continuing. Suddenly, an alien qi roared through my meridians. The uekisheile had dumped the qi they’d eaten from the chliapp lion into my upper dantian.

The qi wanted to move in unfamiliar directions, but I recovered my wits and drove it into the condensation process. At first, the alien qi didn’t meld with the native qi, but the uekisheile was an expert at assimilation. They found connections between the energies and bound them together, the two becoming one.

When the last drop of qi condensed, a gong resounded. My whole body vibrated, and all the qi burst from my dantian in waves. The uekisheile was ecstatic and surfed along with it. I felt like I was being wrung out, while at the same time my body tried to shake itself to pieces. Like a bad earthquake, it only lasted for a short while, but it felt much longer.

When the shaking stopped, I lay on the ground, spent. I was exhausted again, but the aftermath was sweeter this time. My spiritual muscles were sore, but it was a happy sore. There was a languidness, as well as the innate knowledge I’d be stronger once the muscles found their tension again.

Joy-joy-joy. Again-again-again.

The uekisheile wasn’t joking either. They began the process of re-condensing the qi in my heart dantian, but the same process didn’t work twice. I even played along as best I could—curious about it myself—but no, we’d need to find a different method to further refine my qi.

Rich-qi-curiosity. Curiosity-curiosity-curiosity.

Outside, dawn broke, the fingers of light turning the clouds pink and rose. The forest was quiet except for the few early risers, their calls waking the rest.

A feathered snake flew between me and the trees below.

Then, a change in my Status caught my attention.

My capacity for qi had doubled overnight, and:

As did the number of skill ranks in Qi Body. Finally:

Being Occupied (Truce) hadn’t changed, but an asterisk was now attached.

The other times I’d seen the System use an asterisk was when there was the potential for a condition to change or evolve in some way. It represented a recognition that the uekisheile and I had come to an agreement, and that this agreement would likely change over time. That was my interpretation, anyway.

My butt was sore from sitting so long, so I stood and stretched until all the kinks loosened. Optimistic for the first time in days, I made my way carefully outside the cave.

The trail leading to the top of the escarpment was only a couple feet wide in places, but the footing was finally dry and solid enough for me to feel okay trying it. The only difficulty was that all the stuff I carried unbalanced me and threatened to pull me over the side. I’d already fallen from a cliff once, thank you. I didn’t plan on doing that again, so I hiked up with great care.

The morning sun broke through the last remaining clouds and shone down on the land below. The top of Ikfael’s waterfall sparkled in the distance, almost like a quest objective. Well, in a sense I guess it was. I just had to find a way down from the escarpment. First, though, I had to find something to eat. Enriching my qi overnight helped with the hunger pangs, but I was beyond starving.

The forest here was similar to the one around the Glen, and I quickly stumbled across a blueberry bush, the berries just ripe enough for eating. Greedily, I gobbled them as fast as I could pick them, staining my fingers blue. I felt the tension in me easing with every mouthful.

With the edge of my hunger blunted, I went looking for firewood to grill up some lion meat. I hadn’t brought any with me, not wanting to risk it spoiling by taking it out into the day’s heat, but I thought the cave might work as a secondary base. I planned to build a fire there, eat, and then think of a way to liberate the Glen from the bishkawi.

The uekisheile understood that we were searching for something but not what. They sprouted along my face to help me look, as that was the way they sensed ambient qi, and they seemed happy with both the flavor of the forest and me.

I tried not to think about it too much. Instead, I crept along with my spear at the ready. Just because I was hungry didn’t mean I’d forgotten about the lions, turkeys, and bear, oh my.

I’d gone about thirty yards, when I smelled something cooking: a stew or porridge with corn and sage and—I sniffed—onions. There was the scent of game meat mixed in too, and my mouth flooded with saliva.

I had the money I’d scavenged from the zombies. Maybe I could mime my way through buying a bowl?

I searched the area and tracked the scent to a small clearing under a black walnut tree. Under its broad branches, two men had a couple of the little plant horrors chained to the tree’s trunk.

My appetite disappeared at seeing the creatures. They were disguised as a boy and girl, the expressions on their faces just as blank as I remembered. The damn things were eerie with a capital E. But then, the men were even stranger.

A small, thin man, his skin the color of indigo, had his back to me. A long lizard-like tail poked through a hole in the back of his armor, which looked to be brigandine, cloth on the outside layered with thin metal plates on the inside.

Opposite him was a large man, easily seven feet tall and broad across the chest. His face was square and wide, the eyes set far apart, almost curving around to the sides. He leaned back against a rock. His bare torso was wrapped in bloody bandages. His brigandine lay near a campfire, and it was rent open along the right side.

The two men quietly argued, the language sounding similar to what the town’s gate guard had used.

They kept their voices low, but they gestured a lot to make up for it—mostly toward the plant creatures. Boscun picked up a small bag and waved it around. Quick as a bird, Kaad snatched it out of his hand, which only seemed to piss Boscun off more. His voice rose, until Kaad shushed him. They both looked around then, but their argument hadn’t drawn any animals to their campsite.

As for the little plant horrors, they pulled on their chains to get away. It was creepy how silently and steadily they struggled against the collars around their necks. The metal bit into their husks, enough to bleed.

The sap was red, like blood. Wait, that’s not right.

Billiisha and Aluali were children in the grip of Meliune’s Blessing. Their panic was being suppressed, and they were doing everything they could to escape.

I didn’t know why the children were in chains. There might even have been a perfectly good, legitimate reason. But that definitely wasn’t what it seemed like.

Damn it, this looks like slavery.