PreCursive

  The ‘guest rooms’ turned out to be a small side cave inside of the volo, with a small, pcid pool of va in the ter. The walls were smooth, gssy obsidian, much like the rest of the main cave had been, and holy?

  The air wasn’t even that hot in here. Strange, really. The temperature on the approat. Umetsuji had been gradually rising, to the extent that I’d sweated quite a lot on the hike, but now that we were here it was nearly balmy. Warm, but not as scorg as you would expect the heart of a volo to be. Especially not ohat was clearly still active, as we could see from the glowing va in our little cave.

  As Azarus set up a little grill over the glowing pool, entirely unbothered by the skin-scorg heat of the va that was still hot, I decided to ask Sena about it. The two talking saber-tooths had followed us into the room to act as apparent chaperones, while Kazuma ducted his business with Shurenga. We’d all settled on woven grass mats that were strewn about the obsidian room, while curious felines of all shapes and sizes poked their heads around the doorway to watch us.

  I didn’t mind. I’m sure we were odd to them. Besides, I had both the versation to occupy my attention, as well as a purring cub in my p. The matriard her charges had followed us as well.

  Predictably, she could speak as well, and had introduced herself stiffly as Mitsuri.

  “I expected it to be hotter in here, you know,” I said to Sena, resting on another mat not far from me. “What with being a volo.”

  Sena cracked an eye open to look at me, but Gin answered first. The uardian was watg attentively as Azarus id the meat from a ret hunt on the now scorg hot rack. As the smell of grilli filled the air, drawing even more curious onlin somehow found the will to direct his attention my way. “That’s because mom doesn’t want it that way, yeah?”

  I blinked slowly at the words.

  ‘Mom’, huh.

  Sena twitched one of her tails at her apparent sibling's words. “Gin is correct. The might of our Lady Mother prevents the temperature of Mt. Umetsuji from being unbearable in these halls. Although we are aligned with the sun, and thus fire, we are still creatures that naturally bear a coat. As you imagi would be quite unpleasant to live iremely elevated temperatures, when we are so covered in fur.”

  “You say that again,” Renauld called out, from where he was ying ft. Liora even gave a small nod in agreement from her own grass mat, where she was cheg her armor for fws.

  I accepted a small travel pte of grilled fowl from Azarus with a thankful nod, and dug into it. While I chewed, I sidered our hosts thoughtfully. I think I had more insight into the ws of the Great Spirits and their Mystic Beasts than most did, and I was starting to make some es about the Children of Shurenga.

  Most notably, that they were the Children of Shurenga, and not Tarus himself.

  I finished my meal ahe pte aside, where a nearby cub promptly pounced on it and ched into the bones. I ig. “You guys aren’t normal Mystic Beasts, are you?” I announced.

  That drew some curious looks from my panions, but it was the reas of the Shurengans that caught my eye. Not one of them dehe allegations.

  Instead, Sena me. “You are correct, Sir Hart,” She aowledged. “It is our mother who is the half-Spirit, as the only daughter of Lord Tarus. We…are different, as her children. In truth, not all of us are actually her children. Gin and I are,” She said with an aowledging nod to the male. “But we have sired our own cubs, and they their own, to form a number of different familial lines. We are…wholly physical. Aehat, to our knowledge, stands alone.”

  “Which is why there are so many of us,” Gin said zily, not even b to raise his head. “We know hur Mystic Beasts e into being, and there sure as hells isn’t a Great Spirit involved with our births. We’re born as we are, just like you and yours.”

  Bel spoke up from where she had been dozing. The pirate captain had decided to catch a nap while we waited for Kazuma and Shurenga to be done, but the versation had roused her. She cocked an eyebrow at the two guardians. “Then do ye got a Status?”

  Sena shook her head. “No, we do not. As I said, we…we’re in a halfway state between the mortals and the Spirits, even more so than regur Mystic Beasts. I…sometimes wonder, why we haven’t been aowledged by the System in such a way. It is my uanding that a new Race was graatuses, some time ago. But not us, who have surely existed for much lohan they.”

  Ah. She was talking about the Sed Initialization, where the Sculpted had been graheir Statuses and, for those of them still dormant, full sapie was curious to me that they’d heard about that when they must have limited tact with the outside world. Maybe Tarus kept them appraised of what was going on outside the shores of Goryuen?

  Hell, it’s probably why they had knoere ing, now that I thought about it.

  Here Seated before speaking again. “In truth…” She said slowly. “In truth, I have always been curious. It is said that Awakened have an ability called Observe. With it, they quantify the existence of all things in this world. We…I…do not know what this ability would say we are.”

  I sat up at that. Hell, that caught the attention of most of my group. Venix even cracked an eye, from where he sat cross-legged meditating against a wall. I exged a gh him before speaking. “I…could try, if you’d like?”

  Sena was quiet for a moment, before nodding wordlessly. In fact, I noticed that most of the chatter and py in the ‘guest room’ had e to a halt. I was fixed with more than a few pairs of quiet, curious feline eyes.

  I took the hint and cast Observe directly at Sena. As the crimson-furred saber-tooth shivered at the sensation, I took in the results.

  Name:Sena of the Silent CwAge: 432 yearsSpecies:UnalignedWhat? I had never seen something like that. Even when I had observed other Mystic Beasts, such as Fade or even the Foliathoptera ba Sancthaven, they had still dispyed a Species name. Not whatever ‘Unaligned’ meant.

  Sena was right. There was something odd going on with the System when it came to them.

  I reported my findings to our curious patrons.

  “Strange,” Sena whispered thoughtfully, eg my own clusions.

  Meanwhile, Gin sat up from where he’d been reing. For once, he had a serious cast to his feliures. “I don’t sider myself ‘Unaligned’,” He said bluntly. “I kly where my loyalties lie.”

  There were a number of answering, agreeing nods from various other cats strewn about the room. The cubs were too young to uand the question, but even they could feel the shift in mood. Some of them, even the one in my p, mewed in distress. I did my best to fort them, while Mitsuri did the same.

  Strangely, Sena wasn’t one of the Shurengans to agree with the others. Instead, she stared out into space thoughtfully, seemingly unaware of the room.

  I think all of us were surprised when a familiar voice echoed from out of the room, sending the curious window-peekers there scurrying away.

  “Because, my children, you all very muot Unaligned,” the voice of Shurenga sounded. I turned in pce, expeg to see her huge muzzle poking through the doorway and staring at us.

  Instead, I found a miniature version of the previously titanic feline waltzing into the room into the room as if she ow. Instead of being several stories tall, the daughter of Tarus was instead smaller even than Sena and Gin, ing up to barely face height with my sitting form. She wi my surprised expression.

  I…guess she could ge her size, huh? Made me wonder if Taran could do the same thing.

  Following behihe fme-maiger was a white-faced Kazuma. The normally stolid samurai was swaying on his feet, looking to be beyond exhausted and soaked i. Actually, taking another look, I swear there wasn’t enough blood in his cheeks. He frankly looked a bit anemic.

  But he also seemed fiercely triumphant, because he had something carried in his arms.

  A long, cloth-ed bundle, about the length, width, and shape of katana. Nothing was visible on the obscured form of the on, but its presence filled the room just as Shurenga did.

  Even several feet away, I could tell that this on outshone even Grey’s own Stelrum or even Honoka’s Kasai. Maybe only Grey’s staff Erux could pete in sheer Aetherial density, to the empty-tasting power that surrouhat a bde. My own Terractus, as well as the staff that Tzo had lent me, paled in parison to any of them.

  As much as I had grown, it was a s reminder of just how high the ceiling was.

  While I and most of my panions were distracted by the sight of the sword, Venix even rising to his feet, the Shurengans were fixing their attention on their matriarch. “I expect uests have never used their ‘Observe’ ability on a true Spirit in the past, am I correct?”

  I dragged my gaze away from Kazuma as he walked into the room and slumped onto a grass mat before the va pit. “Ah.” I tilted my head in thought. “I…haven’t, no.”

  Holy, it just hadn’t occurred to me to try, ba the cord. I’d had bigger problems at the time.

  Venix ighe question altogether to crouch before Kazuma and begin whispering to him. For ohe other samurai didn’t look at the like Antium detritus to be scraped from the bottom of his sandal and answered him. I couldn’t hear them, though.

  “I thought so,” Shurenga said, nodding wisely. “If you had, you would know that it is the term any Spirit would be deemed as by the System.”

  That snapped Sena out of her ption. She tilted her head in fusion. “But, Mother, we are not Spirits. Nor are we destio bee them.”

  “You are not, but the System does not care,” Shurenga said. “It is a peculiarity that Mystic Beasts be quantified, but not Spirits. And not whatever you have bee, my beloved children. A mystery, in truth.”

  Another dead end when it came to the System. They popped up all the time.

  Just another day on Vereden.

  “But enough of this,” The progenitor of the Shurengans announced. “As you see, the bde has been rebound to Higanashi, and their Lord has it once more.” She said, ining her head towards the nearly delirious Kazuma. In fact, the samurai was so ing to look at that Renauld had sat up and goo tend him.

  Venix stood up from his crouch as the Gnoll’s hands glowed the green of a diagnostic spell, h over Kazuma’s head. Strangely, there was a small smile on his lips as he gazed down at the miniaturized Shurenga. “Temporarily, it seems.”

  I cocked an eyebrow her way. Shurenga, however, shook her head. “Not so, Sir Venix. It is merely…a weak bond. It could grow, to be certain. However, it will take time to settle upon the bloodline and Kazuma’s soul both. Why, if a great deal of Aether were to be absorbed by the bde all at once, say…from a Core Colpse, perhaps. Both it and the bde itself may well shatter into a thousand thousand pieces.”

  There was a sly, sly smile on those furred lips.

  Oh, Tarus was definitely keeping an eye on us and talking to his daughter.

  The matg smile on Venix’s lips grew, and he bowed deeply at the waist to Shurenga. There was resped gratitude both visible in his posture. She merely ined her head in queenly aowledgment while I absorbed that.

  Well, it looked like Kazuma wasn’t going to be killing himself anytime soon. Wonder if he knew anything about that.

  I doubted it, with the way he was nodding off into Renauld’s cws.

  “In any case…,” Shurenga trailed off, looking over at me. I straighte her regard. “Sir Hart, if you will apany me? We have some business as well.”

  I blinked, but nodded and got to my feet. I’d been expeg something like this, from the near wink the feline had shot me earlier. “Please, lead the way, Lady Shurenga. I’ll be back ter, guys.”

  My panions bid me farewell as I followed the daughter of Tarus out of the guest room and into the main thhfare. I saw a number of different Shurengans scamper out of the path of their matriarch, said Mystic Beast nearly purring in amusement at their antics. Once upoh, she led me bato the heart of the mountain. Back to where I suspect she had bound the bde to Kazuma.

  When we reached the end of the obsidian path, it opened up into a chamber. A truly massive ohat seemed to reside in the very ter of the volo itself. A long shaft stretched far up above me to where an opening to the sky revealed Tarus himself to be visible directly overhead of the mouth of Mt. Umetsuji, high into the blue yonder.

  I found the timing required for that to be…a tad suspect, but didn’t ent on it.

  Meanwhile, we stood on a simple circur ptform of stohat was suspended in the middle of the shaft. Four struts of obsidian held it aloft, and upon it were simple woven grass mats c the surface of the ptform. The surface of the terrace itself was nearly gsslike in appearance, from how smooth the bed surface was. I swear, it didn't look like this ptform had been carved, so much as melted into pce.

  I walked to the edge, and looked down.

  Below, the shaft stretched downwards into darkness. Something glowed below us in that abyss, visible from a great distance. I suspect I knew what that was, and had no desire to test the inferno by falling towards it. As I watched, the light at the bottom of the shaft pulsed ever so slowly, just the once.

  “The heart of Mt. Umetsuji,” I heard Shurenga say, as she joined me in looking over the edge. “We keep it pcated, and the mountain allows us to reside within its bosom.”

  I looked at her aska that.

  ‘Pcated'?

  “Not…with sacrifice, right?”

  Shurenga smirked at me with furry lips. “Not mortal, at least.”

  I blinked and decided I didn’t want to know. Instead, I ged the subject. “So, what did you want to talk to me about, Lady Shurenga?”

  Said feline shrugged one shoulder at me. “Oh, I have nothing for you personally, Sir Hart. Rather…it is my Father that I speak on behalf of.”

  “He wishes to make a deal with you, Precursor.”