Nash took a moment to rest on the ledge, ecstatic that there was something substantial under his feet once more. Disregarding propriety for a moment, he leaned against the cliff wall as he waited for his servant to finish his ascent, shoes pressing as securely as they possibly could against the slick, smooth rock.

  While he waited, he retrieved the suit jacket from within the Emerald Flail and shrugged it back on to complete the suit-and-robes; he watched the guard with more than a little amusement as the Fourth Calcification cultivator ran across the links despite the wet surface and steep drop, no longer burdened by any concern of Nash falling from the chain. He passed the penultimate anchor that held the chain to the cliff, and with a loud crack that sounded something like a thunderclap, Acrux appeared in front of Nash with a salute.

  Nash nodded in response and smoothed his clothing as best as he could with one hand, entering the cave. It was rather shallowly recessed into the cliff, and it was more through his eyes adjusting rather than any actual distance or barrier that the space transitioned in his mind from a small, literal hole in the wall to a decently-sized cave; the ceiling was high enough that Nash didn't need to stoop, and though the cavern was uneven and walls and floor both were but bare rock, every surface had been worn smooth by the sea spray and years gone by.

  In the center of the room, a table had been placed and covered in a large cloth, big enough to drape down and touch the slightly wet floor at every end; Nash had no guess on how it had been brought there. Next to the table and also on the uneven stone were more pieces of cloth of the same types as the tablecloth, elegantly folded or haphazardly piled to cushion their occupants.

  In total, there were six other cultivators there. One on the very far end from Nash's position, two on each of the sides flanking that, and none sitting on the end closer to him. There was a single seat set out, obviously meant for him.

  Old Man Looking-In was standing, his hands clasped behind his back. He wore a cloak of eyes and a kind old man’s smile. "Ah, young Greenstone. You came," he remarked, giving a nod of acknowledgement. He craned his head and looked towards Acrux. "Who might this be? You shall have to introduce us to each other."

  "Of course, Senior." If Nash's deference to the old man made Acrux uncomfortable, he was good at hiding it. "This is Acrux, a guard my Father assigned to me. They don't trust me without one anymore, you see."

  An old woman laughed at that unrestrainedly, throwing back a small wooden cup of some drink and wiped her face with a piece of cloth out of some pocket or pouch hidden in her wooden armor. "Chose one with a sense of humor for once, eh? Perhaps he'll rub off on you, Eyes."

  Old Man Looking-In sighed in exasperation, and for a moment there was a dissonance between Nash's image of the old man as eternally, unflappably composed and of him being teased so overtly; the woman was probably an old friend. "Sometimes we have to be serious, Acorn. Maybe you’ll find that out one day." He cleared his throat. "For instance, now. Now, young Greenstone. There have been some, ah, concerning developments with the Hidden Mountain Temple's activities. Come in and make yourself comfortable; this seat has been reserved for you."

  "My thanks, Senior," Nash said, kneeling down on the indicated cloth mat. "Is it about the incident in the Capital?"

  "Yes, but not just that," said the man sitting on the far end of the table; the space usually reserved for the host. He was an ordinary-looking old man with a reedy, raspy voice, shaking with age but confident and measured. "Sworn Brother, now that you have received our guest, please sit down. Junior Ink-Black Crushing Depths has brought more wine for all of us."

  The cloak shifted slightly at that, and a tentacle as long as Nash was tall uncoiled from within the slowly pulsating pile of squid-meat. In the suckered, hooked end of the appendage, he held a bottle of wine, a vintage; not one Nash's father would have served to his guests, but a well-regarded one regardless. It was set in the center of the table, and one of the suckers hovered over the cork, the hook of bone effortlessly pulling it out.

  The woman in wood armor pulled more cups of beech from a pouch and slid them each to a different person across the table, each one rolling to a perfect spot in front of their intended recipient. She paused for a moment. "Does the guard want any?" she asked, apparently unsure of whether or not she should offer one.

  "Good question," Nash said, looking towards Acrux. When the guard made no response, he looked back and repositioned his own cup. "No. Probably not allowed to drink on duty, unfortunately."

  "A shame," said one in a rumbling voice. It was the broader one of the two cultivators wrapped in so much fabric that they were almost mummified in it. "Big sects. So many rules. Didn't use to be like that."

  "Of course," Nash said, faking a little polite chuckle. "And you are?"

  The leader shook his head. "Don't bother, Young Master Emerald. Junior, do you mind beginning to pour?" he asked the thinner one of the fabric twins. "My apologies. They don't like to say much about themselves to those they do not know; it is a vow of their order to refrain from such things."

  "Ah," Nash said, vaguely remembering something along those lines mentioned in his training, some monastery to the far south his Father had worked with at some point or another; the specifics escaped him for now, but it was something to note for later. "I meant no offense."

  "None taken," said the thinner fabric twin. They held out their hand and a ribbon of cloth emerged from their sleeve, grabbing onto the bottle of wine and pouring it into each cup in turn, starting with the leader and ending on Nash. From where he sat on his neatly-folded piece of cloth, Old Man Looking-In shuffled in slightly, grabbing onto his cup and raising it up. "Sworn Brother, a toast?"

  The old man at the head of the table nodded, and everyone brought their cups together in the middle of the table with a tentacle or a piece of cloth or an eye-vine or a branch. The old man's cup seemed to simply be there in a way Nash didn't understand and didn't comment on. Is it distance manipulation? No, it doesn’t feel like any Beryl techniques…

  Not to be left out, Nash hastily summoned the Emerald Flail and used it to (rather clumsily) convey his cup. "Good health and better cultivation," he toasted, and the others laughed.

  "What formality, young Greenstone!" Old Man Looking-In exclaimed before returning the toast. The others around the table followed suit, and everyone took a drink of their wine.

  His cup half-emptied, the old man at the head of the table set it down, and his face fell. Once jovial and inviting, much like Old Man Looking-In's smile, it was now deathly serious and deeply regretful. "Now," he said, sighing. "We must speak of the Temple. Young Master Emerald, do you know of the recent incident in the Capital?"

  “Yes," he replied, grimacing. "But nothing more than what is publicly available. I have asked the Patriarch to share his files, but he has not responded as of yet."

  "The Majestic Cloud Sect is gone."

  The Young Master looked at the wine in his cup for a second and drained it in one smooth, elegant movement. "That quickly? I knew Amusement had a vendetta against them, but I thought his Senior Sister would be able to resist him for a while yet."

  The primary atmosphere around the table was one of confusion. The leader paused, resting the elbow of his cup-carrying hand on the table. "Young Master, may you please elaborate? We're not familiar with this Senior Sister."

  Nash leaned back, adjusting his legs beneath him into a more comfortable position. "I'm afraid I don't know much, but I will tell you as much as I am able. However..." He reached out, grabbing the bottle of wine with the Emerald Flail and pouring himself a glass, drinking in not the wine, but the anticipation of the other cultivators.

  He looked over the bottle, staring the ordinary old man in the eyes. "I'll be blunt. I don't want to bother with all this politicking; I get more than enough of it by talking to my Father. Just put everything out into the open, and agree that we'll work against the Temple together." He swept out with the Emerald flail and gathered all of the empty cups, pouring more wine without asking whoever had been drinking from them. "No more lies of omission. No more tit-for-tat and walking on eggshells. We both agree to share information and perhaps help each other with putting it to use."

  The cloak of tentacles pulsed in what Nash realized was a laugh. "How bold," a voice from inside mumbled, taking the now-full wooden cup Nash offered him. "Senior, what do you think? He baits the hook and then jumps into the water; how interesting."

  "Would it kill you to talk clearly?" asked the Wood cultivator, waving her cup of wine around, already half-drained. "Sure, we're used to it, but the kid isn't. You're gonna creep him out."

  The leader chuckled. "The young have the right to be bold, Junior Brother. I accept; we should begin with introductions. Do you have a title?"

  "I do not, Senior," Nash replied, somewhat surprised at the lack of resistance. "I am generally called only by my name, Nash Refraction Emerald."

  Old Man Looking-In also chuckled in a way quite reminiscent of the other old man. "Sworn Brother, do not begrudge the boy; fell out of fashion with the old Imperial business. Unfortunate, that, in more ways than one; young Greenstone - or Nash, if you prefer - you should create one."

  "Why is that, Senior?"

  "Oh, you do not have too. I'm an old man; I simply have old-fashioned sensibilities. However," Old Man Looking-In blinked, and all of the eyes that acted as his cloak did so too. "I have found it helps with thinking of yourself as a cultivator. A title of your own creation, a name that can become as familiar to you as the one you were given, one that truly represents you." He chuckled again. "Besides, it commands respect and grants a degree of separation, though not complete anonymity. Something from you, not your parents; forgive me if this is too personal, but I believe you would enjoy that."

  Nash went silent for a moment. "I shall consider it, Senior. Now, about our deal?"

  "Oh, yes," the old man said, removing his elbow from the table and drinking his cup. "I am Right-Place Pebble."

  "Let us begin, then."

  ----

  Lepus laid down behind the crumpled wreck of a car, staring up from behind the tortured metal, dented beyond recognition. He was outside of the gates of the Majestic Cloud Sect, or rather what remained of it; what had once been a majestic gate of wrought iron, twisted into elegant scrollwork and flanked by pillars of concrete, had been crushed into nothing but rubble.

  The gate itself had answered to the Temple cultivator's call, tearing itself out of the mechanisms that opened and closed it; the steel had left the crumbled remains of cement and aggregate and plastic insulation behind in heaps as it surged forward in a massive wave of ferrous death, the amorphous mass forming wicked-sharp spikes and piercing through the Majestic Cloud Sect defenders.

  Lepus had seen all of that transpire, in fact, having followed the sounds of commotion from far away at the urging of the voice in his head; he had seen as, with a wave of his hand, the apron-wearing cultivator brought that steel to bear against the other cultivators, crushing or cutting or impaling them with pseudopods and spines of solid metal that flowed like liquid.

  "Yeah, that's him alright," was all the parasite had to offer; At least it had the sense to wait until the monstrous cultivator had disappeared into the courtyard, accompanied by not-that-distant screams of rage and pain, each one snuffed out quickly and mercilessly. "That's the sycophant. I don't remember much, but I remember Mother hates him. Or who he's made of. Not entirely sure."

  "What does that mean?" Lepus asked, all too used to the parasite dropping some bizarre comment out of nowhere and refusing to elaborate.

  "Don't worry about it. Go and help Mother."

  The amnesiac stood up from behind the twisted wreck, his stolen shoes pushing aside the shards of tempered glass beneath his feet. Promptly, he turned around and walked calmly in the exact opposite direction of the Majestic Cloud Sect.

  "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" the parasite screamed, leaving the thief's throat hoarse and his heart beating in terror, afraid that the apron-wearing man had somehow been alerted. He started to run.

  "What am I supposed to do? Go in there, scream "this is for my hallucination's mommy' and then attempt to catch a flying limo with my face?"

  His body froze between steps as the parasite fixed them in place. "You're the one that's supposed to make the plans, moron. You're supposed to do something!"

  Lepus strained against the lock on his body, feeling the muscles of his neck strain as he pushed forward, managing another step. His teeth clenched and grinded against each other and he felt an odd pressure on his spine that only partially came from his clenching neck.

  "What, and deny your Mother a Third Calcification asset? I'm not messing with that guy; I dunno what he's at, but it's a damn deal higher than me."

  "I have to kill him! For Mother!"

  "Yeah," Lepus said, the syllable stretching out showing that he meant the exact opposite. "That ain't happening. Maybe if there was another dozen or two of me I'd consider it, but I'm not getting myself killed because you don't have a survival instinct."

  There was a scuffle for a bit as each struggled to control the body; the parasite won, but with Lepus's resistance and already lacking experience in balance, they simply fell on the ground, twitching.

  "Satisfied, parasite?" Lepus spat out, still fighting for control of his limbs. "Way I see it, there's three outcomes. You get in control, we walk in there like a drunk toddler, get decapitated and achieve nothing. I don't know about you, but I already died once; not raring to go out and do it again."

  "But MOTHER!" the parasite screamed. It tried getting Lepus's arms under him, but Lepus, unconcerned with their dignity at this point, forced a few other muscles to relax and get his belly against the ground.

  "Quiet," he said. "Second, we continue in this moronic little dance rolling round in the gutter filth like a five-year-old's pet carp as soon as they open the lid. Not ideal, but we'd at least be alive."

  "And three?" the parasite asked, having calmed slightly down. Again, it tried to stand up, and it failed miserably once more.

  "I was getting to that," Lepus said, lifting his face a bit out of the concrete and spitting out a piece of gravel. "Three, you give control back to me, we bounce, and then we find another way we can help your Mother; we’ve got information she can work off of."

  Lepus rolled onto his back, drawing his arms and legs in as the parasite kicked and flailed them around. "I dunno about you, but I prefer helping Mother in a way that won't kill us. And it still helps her We're an asset; keeping ourselves alive is a service to Mother, if you think about it," he pleaded.

  The parasite relented, and Lepus stayed there a few seconds to make sure that it hadn't changed its mind; he could still feel that brain fog as the parasite strained to think through the pros and cons and make an actual decision.

  Over the short period of his life that he remembered, Lepus had learned that the parasite struggled with planning; really, any sort of abstract thought. Not only did it need to literally borrow brainpower from him, it simply wasn't built for that; no, it was built for something quite different, with abilities that Lepus still hadn't puzzled out. What he did know, though, was that it wasn't the ability spread of a normal human.

  It could manipulate, sure, and it goaded and joked and poked and prodded, but it struggled with anything else that required quick reaction or abstract processing. It seemed not to do well with spatial or kinesthetic tasks, as shown by them rolling around on the ground whenever it tried to take control. Presumably, that was because it was meant to borrow those parts of his brain, and was only approximating those faculties when it took over.

  Eventually, the parasite's processing slowed down and Lepus felt his full faculties return, or at least what he was used to being his full. "Fine," it said, imparting a measure of anger into the words spat form Lepus's lips, and allowed him to stand up and walk away.

  The parasite's eye stared at him through where it reflected in the shards of tortured, torn metal. "But don't get used to this. I'm in control, and if you know what's good for you, we're working for Mother's aims. Not your comfort."

  "I haven't forgotten," Lepus said. "I still have things I need from you. You still have things Mother needs from me. For now, we’ve gotta work together.”

  ----

  Senior Sister screamed in rage as she felt nodes snuff out in the Majestic Cloud Sect.

  Whichever instances of her had mouths, whether they were toothy and hinged or circular and ringed with radulae, roared in that anger even as they went about their tasks. They whirled back in forth, skittering on the walls and ceilings in their practiced dances of drawing symbols and planting the mushroom-made faux-flowers that seduced her victims; they screamed even as their claws and teeth tore the results of that deadly seduction out of those corpses, dripping that stolen lifeblood from the shelf mushrooms onto arcane runes to create more and more of her.

  They screamed because she screamed. She screamed as more instances of her erupted out of the Majestic Cloud Sect disciples and elders, screaming as they lunged at Amusement, at first in rage and then in the pain cascading through the network as they were burnt or crushed or cut out of existence.

  That offshoot of that worthless sycophant. He had scraped and bowed and followed her around back in the temple, but as soon as Master interfered with her breakthrough, with the creation of her magnum opus...

  Even now, a weak offshoot, a simulacrum created from that trash attacked her while she was still weak? While she still worked to reconstruct her body? While she was scattered like this?

  Her many teeth gnashed in anger. Her many hands clenched in rage.

  Her furious eyes narrowed, and she sent more failed, deformed instances streaming out of the secret passage into the Majestic Cloud Sect. She was going to drown him in fungus. If she could not, she would drown him, and the city, in cultivator bodies.

  There was much she could do with a cityfull of corpses and Contracted, after all.

  ----

  Before this meeting, The Lord Chief of Police had believed that he had moved past fear and into anger on the subject of the Emeralds.

  Perhaps a few days ago, that was true; he certainly had railed against the Young Master, ranting at the unaffected Emerald, much too like his father for the policeman's comfort. He had ranted and raved until he had seized that offered hand, that show of hope, that little vouching on the Emerald's part that would give him the leverage he needed to keep his position. From there, he had been able to calm down.

  That bit of assurance was something he could wave around like a talisman, something to make his more ambitious subordinates less sure about their chances for a promotion if they opposed him, and that assurance had been integral in allaying the pressure the Senate placed on him in the near-absence of Senator Emerald's protection.

  He felt bitter, sure, that the Patriarch of the Emeralds had left him hung out to dry, but he was secure once more in his position; he could take time, cement his place, perhaps he could even begin to break away from the need for Emerald support.

  Then, the call came.

  The entrance of his secretary, holding the phone out for him to accept, had sent shivers down his spine, his emotional reaction threatening to shoot the spines out of his back; he could feel them strain against the underside of the barely-scabbed-over wounds, the ones also caused by an Emerald.

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  Once again, he accepted a restaurant meeting with an Emerald.

  His Aethero-mechanical parts whirred violently now that his fear had returned.

  Nervously, he knocked on the delicate wood-and-paper screen. It was done in a traditional manner of a currently fashionable minority culture in the southeast of Wolf Country, all nigh-transparent white paper stretched across carved scenes of nature and cultivation, with only a small metal ring hanging from it as a doorknob. This contemplation of the restaurant's style did nothing to distract him, for the door was opened immediately from the inside, forcing him to take a step back as it swung open. Servants flanked it on each side, giving him a proper martial salute and pointing with their palm-up hands to his chair.

  He nodded and walked to his seat.

  Despite the short distance, it felt like it took an eternity; each step sent more oil coursing through him, sent more blood to the surface to cool off his overheating internals, sent more nausea up into his throat and sunk his gut farther down. With a strained smile and a stiff salute to the Patriarch, he sat down.

  "I find your recent actions interesting," the Patriarch said, holding out his cup.

  Tea was poured into it; the Senator rarely drank alcohol, and it seemed tonight would be no exception. Does that mean this is serious? the policeman thought, taking a cup of tea himself. He wished it was alcohol instead; he needed to cool his nerves.

  "Senator Emerald," he said, barely restraining the spines from shooting out. "Could you please elaborate? Did I somehow cause you offense?"

  "Stop cowering."

  His face fell, and he suddenly found the patterns in the table rather interesting. "Yes, Senator Emerald."

  "Stop scraping and cringing like a schoolboy. No wonder my son was able to manipulate you; even someone as inexperienced as he could lead you by the nose." One eyebrow raised on the Emerald's face, a rare sign of actual curiosity. "I do wonder, though, what he squeezed out of you in exchange for that little news story. He saved your position; I'm sure you're well aware of that fact."

  "I am aware," the Lord Chief of Police replied, harsher than he intended. He paused for a moment, sure that the Emerald's face would twist in anger or he would be ordered to leave, but it didn't come. "I am,” he paused, unsure how to phrase the following sentence. “I am greatly thankful to the Young Master for what he has done for me, Senator Emerald."

  The food came, a well-dressed waiter in flowing robes more fit for a historical drama than a modern restaurant carrying two small plates of seared fish, paper-thin pieces of flatbread, and a spicy-smelling paste. He set a carefully-arranged plate down in front of each man, serving the Emerald first, and gave a deep bow that caused his robes to swirl around him.

  They each nodded to the waiter; the Lord Chief of Police's gaze flickered to the plate for only a moment, confused as to why utensils had not been provided, but his attention was soon reclaimed by the Patriarch.

  "I shall not hold that outburst against you. Do not do it again; it is unbecoming for a man of your status to not be in control of yourself," the Patriarch said, taking one of the thin, almost rubbery pieces of bread and using it to grab a piece of fish before dipping both in the green paste. "I do wonder, though, why my son tied himself to a possible liability like you; the boy may have never shown all that much promise in the ambition department, but he's savvy enough to know that remnants of the Imperial era aren't popular in any circle."

  The gears in his spine clicked at that reminder.

  "That just makes me more curious." The Patriarch took a bite and chewed, his piercing eyes not leaving the Lord Chief's face for a single moment; the policeman felt frozen, like a deer staring into the harsh and rapidly approaching headlights of a pickup truck, the primitive brain trying to relate the massive apparatus to a more understandable predator and dying in the attempt. "The boy has shown more initiative recently, true, but what exactly did you give him to convince him to lend you his name?"

  The Lord Chief of Police swallowed the oil-bile rising in the back of his throat. "Resources," he said, somehow exhausted by the effort of a single word, doing everything he could to not gasp for breath. "Resources and a promise. That the police department would side with him and him personally in the event of a conflict. I don't know what he wanted that for, but I swear, I would never betray the Emeralds, even to -"

  The Patriarch held out his hand. "That is enough," he said. He muttered to himself. "So the boy's building himself a base of power, is he? Well, it's about time." He looked back up at the Lord Chief of Police. "Very well. Finish your meal; I shall stay out of this, for now, and will offer neither support nor opposition. I want to see where this is going."

  ----

  "That is... worrying," the ordinary-looking old man said as Nash finished imparting his information on Senior Sister. "Simulacra always have incredible cultivations, but this seems like something else entirely; parasitism, fungus that survives cultivator physiology, a non-humanoid form, and such destructive power? It must be that witch."

  "What do you mean, Sworn Brother?" Old Man Looking-In asked; he sat formally and properly on the fabric mat drinking what remained of his wine. On the floor next to him, his cloak had sloughed off and acted as nothing more than a blanket of slowly writhing plant matter that stared unnervingly in every-which-way. "Do you believe it's some sort of technique?"

  "No." The word came reluctantly from the old man.

  "From the sounds of it, it's far too independent to be a technique; it is intelligent enough to control a human being without them noticing prior to the incident, and strong enough to fight against someone who is at least equivalent to the Fourth Calcification," Nash said.

  His wine was already long-gone, but he still held the cup in his hands, gesturing in a way that he had picked up long ago because it was considered more polite than fidgeting. "Even if you had such a technique, would you want to use it? If it's so strong and so intelligent, it could use that independence to break away, even work against you. No, it was his Senior Sister that Amusement was talking to, in the flesh."

  "The Body Destruction Realm..." the old man at the head of the table sighed.

  The eyes of everyone at the table leaped to him. Even Acrux momentarily dropped his stiff, statue-like demeanor, intently focused on the leader of the anti-Temple cabal.

  "The Body Destruction Realm," he continued with an odd resignation to his voice. "It is not impossible that this is some sort of technique. But with what I know of Temple history? This cultivator may not be a simulacrum at all, but rather a Body Destruction Realm cultivator; or, more likely, a part of one specific cultivator."

  "What do you mean?" Nash asked while everyone else digested the information, leaning in greedily. The Body Destruction Realm; even a scrap of information on it would give him not only a chance to reach it one day, centuries in the future, but perhaps even leverage on his Father; the old coot was obsessed with anything that could let him break through to that legendary status.

  "The Body Destruction Realm is where one diverges from mortality, from humanity. It is where the incomplete approaches the complete with a robber’s heart and the imperfect attempts to grasp the perfect," the leader said, looking older and more tired and shrunken than ever. There was a hollowness to his gaze, and meeting his eyes sent a pulse of warning through Nash’s body. "There are as many variations in the form and abilities of that realm as there are people."

  He took a deep, shaking breath. "This is mere speculation. But I remember, decades ago, a story told in the villages that dare to live in the Mountains of Howling Wind. Of a cultivator more like the witches of stories than a true practitioner of martial arts; one that was struck down by her very own Master, for doing something forbidden to even the Temple, who shy not from cruelty."

  The room was silent; Nash and his guard were trying to determine whether he was screwing with them by telling a ghost story, while the others, those who knew him, could tell that he was deathly serious.

  "She had modified the teachings of the temple. Instead of simulacra, she performed a mass sacrifice of cultivator and Aether-beast blood. Instead of destroying her body and reforming it, perfected, she turned herself into a massive expanse of fungus; the storyteller I learned it from described her as 'a forest of tendrils hanging like spiderwebs from the karsts of her ritual cave.'

  Instead of one body, she had many.

  Her master saw what she had done, and destroyed her while she was still weak; I do not know why. I have heard of this man; he is callous beyond belief, and not low-ranking in the Temple; perhaps he feared what she could do to him, if he allowed her to grow. Whatever his reasons, he failed. She was instead scattered, left desperate, vulnerable, unable to utilize her true power."

  Nash opened his mouth, ready to ask how the old man knew so much about the Body Destruction Realm. Before he could, their eyes met, and he silently retracted his question, feeling danger in the palpitating of his heart and the sudden clamminess of his hands.

  "Sworn Brother," Old Man Looking-In said, obviously concerned; Nash was not sure whether it was because of his friend's words or his mood. "Are you alright? Do you have a plan against this cultivator?"

  The wood-armored woman chimed in, face and voice grim. "Remember, Right-Place Pebble, they're immortal, not unkillable; age cannot touch them, but that does not mean we cannot. Everyone can die, somehow."

  Nash's fingers tapped against the table, rolling back and forth as he contemplated. The Imperials had one, and that didn't stop the revolution. My father has slain a Body Destruction cultivator before, but he doesn't talk about it much; could he replicate the feat? Should I even risk asking of it?

  "The Acorn speaks truth," the broader of the ones wrapped in fabric said, his rumbling voice cutting through the silence. "Body Destruction is power, not divinity. They can still die."

  The tentacles around Ink-Black Crushing Depths were coiled tight as if drawing into themselves. "Might as well be, to mortals like us," he said, a pinch of fear sneaking into his manic voice. "Me? I'm barely in the Fourth, and likely to stay there the rest of my life. What can I do against someone beyond the Calcification realms?"

  There were mutterings throughout the room, but nothing that turned into true words. Seeing the need for some confidence in their purpose, Nash stood up and slammed his hands on the table; there was a sound of cracking wood, one that he ignored.

  "A Body Destruction cultivator died less than two hundred years ago in this very country, at the hands of my Father and his allies. This witch is still weak, from what Right-Place Pebble has relayed; it can be done again. It must be done again."

  Projecting with a confidence he still did not feel, but one that was much easier to falsify with momentum, he shouted. "This group was founded to oppose the Temple, was it not? What does it change that we are fighting an apostate of the Hidden Mountain Temple rather than a simulacrum? Don't be a coward! Amusement is still alive, so she is obviously not a true Body Destruction cultivator; this is no calamity! Rather, it is an opportunity!"

  "Such passion," Old Man Looking-In said, proudly smiling. "Why do you say that?"

  "Not only is one of our enemies weakened, they are in opposition to the temple and all of the simulacra belonging to the Temple," Nash said in a much more measured tone of voice.

  He had shown that a display of emotion, had opened them up to the idea; now, he had to appeal to their logic, if possible. "While we can't exactly cart around this witch around like a spear to chuck at the simulacra, she can still serve our purposes by weakening Amusement, the current most prominent of our enemies; likewise, he is weakening her, making them both vulnerable. All we have to do is capitalize on that weakness."

  "Wait just a moment," the Wood-armored cultivation said. She waved her hand, and roots sprouted from the table legs to reinforce the cracked portion, but the motion was done more habitually than deliberately. "Did you say your daddy killed a Body Destruction Cultivator? WHEN, EXACTLY?"

  "The Emperor," Nash said, hesitating. "The Emperor was a Body Destruction cultivator, may his name be struck from fate. The Patriarch doesn't talk about it often; I do not know why. Usually, such an achievement would be leveraged for propaganda. Perhaps he thought it was simply too extraordinary to be believed, despite being the truth."

  The tentacled man shrunk further into himself. "Your father may have been able to, but are you him? Even if you are as strong as he, we are not the equal of his allies; we are not that much younger than him, and probably still weaker than they were when the Emperor was slain."

  "I am not my father. That is part of why we will win," Nash said, smiling in assurance. "For one, our foe, while formidable, is not at her full power, so do not fret about a commoner's upbringing. Second, I have no intention to keep this in a small cabal of kingslayers; no, I have already independently made inroads with the police department of the Capital city for resources and possible support in the slaying of both."

  Nash smiled wider, practically beaming. "We have everything we need. All we need to do is use it correctly."

  A plan of attack was drafted, alongside a message to the Lord Chief of Police.

  ----

  The Lord Chief of Police's secretary came once more.

  This time, however, he was given not a phone, but rather a tablet with a report already displayed on it; quashing his burgeoning hopes, it did come from an Emerald. At the top of the perfectly-formatted document was the formal request of Nash Emerald for him to heed and obey.

  He sighed and the gears in his spine clicked in frustration. At least distributing antifungal medication and burning mushrooms whenever possible was actionable, whatever the Young Master intended by them; was he a wannabe mycologist or something?

  Oh, well; it wasn't his place to question the reasons behind the order. More likely than not, it was a test of his obedience with no real function.

  He called the secretary in once more and directed them to relay some orders. It wasn't as if he had a choice on whether to comply, if he wanted to keep his position, at least - he was held in the Young Master's hands for now, just as easy to crush as he was to lift up.

  ----

  The Young Master returned to his limousine smelling of salt, his hair soaked with the ocean's spray, directing his attendants to return him to the hotel. It was time to actually make some plans.

  Amusement interfering with his home wouldn't do, after all. For a moment, he considered contacting his father, but decided against it; The Patriarch would do nothing but hinder his efforts.

  ----

  Blood sizzled away on Amusement's metallic arm, cooking and evaporating away from the sheer heat of the artificial appendage; the flamethrower had been used many times in quick succession, and it was only his cultivation that kept it from searing his stump as it had seared shut his wounds.

  By now, he had more scar tissue than skin. Most of the scars were from burning his cuts closed, halting the encroachment of his Senior Sister's spores. He had no idea if even a simulacrum's physiology could resist the parasitic pieces of his Sister, and his duty refused to allow him to test that fact even as his drive for any scrap of amusement gnawed at him.

  Of course, not all of his injuries had so fully healed. Burning and crushing and stabbing and cutting had all marred his body, angry pockmarks of stab wounds and flesh sheared off from cultivator weapons; the assault had been stout enough that even some of his bones had been broken.

  That particular injury came from the sheer crushing force of the building that had been collapsed onto him to blunt his advance. Even that had done no good other than to shatter his remaining flesh fingers, each one quickly splinted with flowing steel, flexing more thanks to his metal control than his ligaments and forced back into service regardless.

  He was naked now, other than his respirator and socks, and soaked in gore. His clothes had finally tattered beyond use and fallen off of his form, soaked in blood and brain matter and torn away by attacks, both his and those of his enemies. His shoes had been torn away when the building collapsed on him, splitting and interfering with his movement when placed under the forces of a fallen building; he had been forced to abandon them.

  He kept the socks on entirely because the image he cut with them on amused him. If he was designed to feel discomfort, the sensation of gore-soaked and giblet-splattered fabric flapping around his feet as he sprinted naked through the remains of the Majestic Cloud Sect would have likely embarrased him, but he had no such weakness.

  From beneath a small pile of rubble, a tendril of mycelium grew, trying to worm away from the scene. He took the rebar from the fallen building and sharpened it into a thousand miniscule edges and sent them spinning up and around the hyphae, shredding the fungal flesh. In the distance, he could feel more coming. In his Aether-sight, more intuition at those distances than an actual sense, he could smell a fungal wave, rotting and horrid, teeming with life; that wave was screaming down the tunnels, trying to burst out of an entrance hidden deep in this compound.

  If it was meant to be hidden from him, the method was poorly chosen. The fittings were made of an Aether-doped steel; he could recognize that from a distance much farther than this.

  Sirens screamed in the distance. The Majestic Cloud Sect had ceased theirs; the dead didn't complain, after all. That thought brought him a measure of amusement. For a few fractions of a second, his duty did not interfere with the smirk on his face and the presence of something in his soul.

  ----

  Any conversation between Leo and the rest of the Young Masters was awkward; at this point, with the dynamics that had been established, that was simply a given. With the current absence of the Emerald, however, it was somewhat more civil; Leo was simply reminded of the main source of his anger by association rather than by direct presence.

  "I am sorry," Leo said, the word feeling like a sack of rats was stuck in his stomach and everything inside was trying to squirm its way out. His mouth tasted sour; where his hand rested on the pommel of his sword, still in its sheath and on his belt, it clenched to the point of whitening his knuckles. "I was uncouth."

  The others were astonished at that, and were shocked into silence. Do they think I am that incapable of recognizing my flaws? Leo thought to himself, that thought bringing a fresh wave of anger and a much more hostile expression to his face. He suppressed it, however; his honor would be besmirched enough by admitting his fault, no matter how required for reconciliation.

  It wouldn't do to add another tantrum to that humiliation.

  None spoke a word for a tense period of ten or fifteen seconds. Leo glared at nothing in particular, staring down at them with a visible tenseness to his gangly frame, while the three others looked on in varying degrees of disbelief and suspicion.

  Lycaon was the first to break that silence, of course. He cleared his throat and spoke, putting on his best ‘satisfied medical official' face and voice. "That is quite a difficult thing to admit, Leo; it requires a great deal of strength to say such a thing."

  He paused a second to allow Leo to process the generic therapyspeak, the Aquamarine’s mind interpreting them as obviously meant to soothe his bruised ego. "However, what do you refer to in specific? I do not want to project my misconceptions onto the situation."

  Leo's glare deepened, and his fingernail jerkily traced the patterns of inlay in his sword's hilt. "For being immature," he said, every word coming out with the same reluctance as a pulled tooth. "I have been discourteous and insubordinate to not only our shared leader, but also to you, my..." He felt sick. "My seniors in cultivation and nobility."

  They all looked even more surprised at that, probably at the outright admittance of his attitudes. Sorex, for one, seemed absolutely flabbergasted and failed to hide it, while Lacerta was the same but significantly more controlled in expression. Lycaon, however, had recovered from his surprise, and now seemed only to feel vindicated by the development, staring with that same annoying curiosity.

  "That's a very mature thing to say, Brother Aquamarine," Lycaon said, deliberately using an honorific that put them on a more equal level, despite their obvious differences in both cultivation and family prestige. "It is normal to feel frustrated when forced to work with people higher in cultivation than you, but it is also an opportunity to grow. Perhaps I can give you some pointers soon and -"

  "That will not be necessary." Leo's interruption was curt and impolite, but the Morganite didn't seem to mind, simply giving a knowing smile; he stepped back, holding his palms up placatingly.

  "Very well, then. Remember that the offer is always open."

  Leo took a few deep breaths in an effort to calm himself, and pulled his hand away from the sword. He's always looking down on me; and now he seems to think he's doing me a favor by doing it, he thought, the fury building in his head, prickles of white-hot anger dappling along the back of his neck and shoulders like drops of scalding rain.

  "Finally," Lacerta said, an exasperated glad-to-be-done-with-it smile on her face, but there was no malice in it other than that which Leo imagined. "Took you long enough." She went back to her phone, where she appeared to be researching chemical synthesis labs in the area for reasons Leo didn't need to ask to know.

  "Thank you," Sorex said, collapsing into himself in embarrassment both first and second hand.

  "Don't be," Leo said. "I still don't like being here. I still don't like the Emerald. I've just realized the way I was going about it was immature."

  He turned and stepped away, stomping through the hallways up to his room. Despite that, some hope rose in his chest below all the anger; if he could see behind his head, he would see the satisfied, practically beaming smile of Lycaon.

  ----

  A few hours later, they were once again all in the opulently-decorated ballroom they had appointed as the standard hangout spot, with the minor exception of two noblemen. One of them was Leo, of course, who was sulking in his room as per usual; the other one was Nash, who was still away on 'business.'

  A betting pool had actually formed by now of what specifically Nash had meant by a "personal errand;" mostly jokingly, Lycaon had put his money on a secret mistress, while Lacerta had put hers on getting sidetracked by cultivation resources and Sorex, once the concept had been explained to him (and he had been convinced it wasn't meant to make fun of Nash) had put his on researching the Temple.

  Lycaon was avidly reading through a book on psychology he had not read before, every so often jotting something down in the margin or highlighting a sentence.

  Lacerta was also writing, but in this case she was jotting down a few ideas of what to buy from the chemistry supply store, every single compound a crime for most people to possess without a license. (She had, apparently, bribed some officials into allowing her to act as a one-woman research corporation at thirteen years old, and had been buying whatever deadly compounds she wished ever since.)

  Sorex was reading a historical analysis and was obviously enraptured in the contents to obliviousness of his surroundings, but every so often looked over his book and seemed to simply feel glad to be included.

  "So," Lacerta said, looking up from her list of suspect substances, "Has Emerald said anything more to you?" she asked, looking towards Lycaon.

  Lycaon was jolted out of his reading, setting the highlighter and pen down where the pages met the spine. "Yes, but not directly," he said, his eyes looking up and to the side in that nigh-universal sign of trying to recall some fiddly piece of information. "He said he was delayed by needing to contact the Lord Chief of Police for who-knows-what; he didn't elaborate. He didn't predict any time of return, but said his business was finally wrapping up."

  "Actually," he said, setting the book down and walking towards the door. He rapped on the door, which was done in mahogany and inlaid silver, and stepped back; a servant entered, their hands clasped behind their back and their beard neatly groomed and braided.

  "What do you require, Young Master?" the servant asked, giving a curt bow.

  "Has Young Master Emerald said anything more about his expected time of arrival?"

  "Yes," the servant said, pulling a cell phone out of a pocket and unlocking it with his fingerprint. He presented it to the Young Master of the Morganites, and on it was a text message. "Through a servant, Young Master Emerald told us that he is on his way back from his errand and is expected to return shortly."

  "That's your answer, I suppose," Lycaon said, looking to Lacerta and dismissing the servant. He bowed and left the room as Lycaon returned to his reading spot. "Wonder what business brings him so far outside of the city. Any ideas?"

  "No idea, but you're deluded if you think you're winning that bet," Lacerta said, smiling and circling a particular toxin. "You know we need to ask him once he's back, now. To settle the bet if anything."

  "I'm sure he won't mind."

  "I'll bet about that too."

  "I'm sorry, Miss Heliodor, but I must refuse."

  Lacerta laughed at that while Sorex looked on in confusion before shrugging his shoulders and returning to his book. Lycaon, noticing this, glanced over; "What are you reading, buddy?"

  Sorex paused for a moment, looking back up. "A history book," he said, a lilt of confusion tinting his words.

  "Well, about what?"

  "It's..." Sorex struggled to explain it for a moment, having momentarily forgotten every detail about it as soon as someone asked him. "It's a partially archaeological, partially ethnographic and mythological exploration of religious practices in pre-Imperial Dynasty Wolf Country. Specifically in the foothills of the Mountains of Howling Wind."

  "Oh, interesting! I might check it out later," Lycaon politely lied. "Is it any good?"

  "Yeah! I thought I would look more into ancient history here, see if there are any hints of the Temple, but I haven't found anything yet." Sorex ran through his rather rusty model of human conversation and realized that both people were expected to show interest. "What are you reading?"

  "It's a psychology book, of course," Lycaon replied effortlessly, chuckling a bit in a friendly manner. "Some specifics on comorbidities of certain mental disorders and how patient environment factors into it. I won't bore you with the details, but it's rather interesting."

  They spend the rest of the time waiting for Nash in pleasant conversation that gradually drifted away into reading in parallel, silent but together. Eventually, Leo joined them, though reluctantly, and used the wide-open space to practice a few sword forms.

  He didn't even insult any of them over the whole time he was there.