The first thing Alex noted upon jumping through the gate was the bone-biting chill of the howling winds all around him. At tier 4 Silver or 140 Vitality with Draconic Ancestry mitigating the severity of both heat and cold, it was little more than refreshingly brisk, but certainly it was enough to make him feel alive. Yet he allowed himself only a moment to glory in the sensation… and a moment longer to make full use of his gestalt infravision to make sure that no predator was attempting to flank him before rushing over to Rachel’s madly shivering side as Lao’s commanding voice washed over them.

  “Everyone kit up fully! I should have insisted we do so before entering… but storms like this are extremely rare.”

  “But a good sign,” Kuaisu gamely noted. “We’ve all heard the tales. It’s when Winter storms are howling that the greatest prizes can be found!”

  “And the greatest peril,” Tang calmly noted even as he kitted himself in full winter gear, Alex wordlessly watching over them all after helping Rachel into her attire. And the look of gratitude she gave him when his own winter coat became hers…

  Kuaisu snorted. “It’s fine to take care of your wives, boy, but you do us no good if you come down with frostbite and lose a finger when we need you holding that fangtian ji like the warrior we all know you are.”

  Alex smirked. “No worries. The undercoat is more than enough for me.”

  This earned a laugh from the normally limber-looking Kuaisu who was dressed in an oversized winter suit, the same as everyone else. “Unless you’re going to tell me the blood of fiery dragons pumps within your veins, or you’re actually a fire cultivator and not a Ruidian blessed with a diamond…”

  Her words cut off when Eric’s fist erupted in flame.

  “Well I’ll be a goat’s get. You ARE a cultivator!”

  Alex’s smirk turned to a pained smile when absolutely everyone was looking at him a bit too intently, and coolly.

  “An elementally aspected body cultivator?” Lao Tie smiled and shook his head. “So. Not a pure-blooded Ruidian at all then. The ancient aristocratic bloodlines clearly flow strongly in your veins to grant you such striking features! Yet I’ve never seen anyone at court bearing the stamp of your features. So, I take it you’re one of Dongfang Hong’s associates then?”

  Alex shivered at the way the man said it so lightly. So casually. As if it weren’t any big deal at all.

  Yet he was no fool.

  He could tell that the formerly jocular party members comfortable enough to joke with him and his companions had turned to absolute professionals, ready to do whatever they had to at their lord’s behest.

  Alex took a steadying breath, doing his best not to feed into the hot fiery potential of the moment, having learned his lesson already that day and tired of constantly playing the fool after every brilliant insight or breakthrough he enjoyed.

  “Would I be correct in assuming that any core of Water or Ice we might find during our delve will not be finding its way by fair means or foul, by clever bribes, honeyed words, or cold threats, into the pockets of the Red Prince or his cronies?”

  Lao Tie and his men went deathly still, peering at a coolly smiling Alex for long painfully tense moments as the wind shrieked and howled all about them.

  Lao Tie seemed to be weighing Alex’s life in his eyes for long moments before he spoke. “The answer to that is no, Alex. I have no intention of our prizes… any of our prizes, falling into the hands of Dongfang Hong or his… cronies.” He flashed a smile both fierce and hopeful. “Why would I sell such a prize that would doom my city, shame my clan… and deny me the hand of the most beautiful woman in the entire kingdom?”

  Alex opened his mouth, at a momentary loss for words. Before forcing him to focus on what mattered. “Then we feel the same,” he said softly.

  Lao Tie scowled. “You too seek Princess Sunlay’s hand?”

  “I seek to make sure that this city never falls into the hands of Dongfang Dickhead, and I’ll do whatever I have to, to make that happen.”

  Lao Tie’s eyes crinkled with genuine warmth, features easing into a bonhomie grin as the quartet’s deadly tension eased, warm smiles all around.

  “Wonderful, Alex. I knew our meeting was a fortuitous encounter!”

  Kuaisu crossed her arms. “Even if he comes from a powerful aristocratic clan?”

  “Even so” Lao Tie said without hesitation before giving Alex a curious look. “I don’t suppose your clan is in opposition to Dongfang Hong’s own?”

  Alex couldn’t help smirking at that. “Like you wouldn’t believe,” he said without hesitation, his senses wide open for any flare of alarm, fury, or betrayal, and already knowing what his counter would have to be.

  “I knew there was something I liked about this kid,” Tang said with warm approval, earning a snort from Kuaisu.

  “Really? You were suspecting the worst, just seconds ago.”

  “Never mind, Kuaisu.”

  “Wonderful! Than we have an accord, my dear old-blooded friend! You may rest assured that the Lao clan takes good care of its friends, and should we manage a miracle, I’ll make sure that all of you are feted in a matter worthy of any city lord!”

  “Feel free to think of me as Ruidian if you like,” Alex said with a chuckle. “For all you know, I’m a cultivating Ruidian, even if ‘old-blooded’ fits remarkably well.”

  “I mean, clearly!” Ya Ling declared, shaking her head with a wry exasperation. “Did they really just forget that you’re using a Ruidian party-forging technique, even if they wish to call it a ‘spiritual awakening’ to allow us to coordinate and connect so well?”

  Kuaisu snorted even as she hopped lightly in her spirit-fur insulated boots, the same as what they all now wore. “The girl’s right. So, he must be a cultivating Ruidian, whether or not he’s actually pureblooded. Have you ever heard of such a thing in your travels, Tang?”

  She seemed surprised when Tang dutifully nodded. “They do crop up at least as frequently as jewel-masters who could so easily pass for a native, like Rachel here.” The girl immediately flushed. “And even our Linnea is clearly of mixed stock, despite her pretty green eyes, and all the stronger for it, I’m guessing, as inbred Ruidians are the farthest thing from healthy, if you’ll forgive my saying so.”

  Kuaisu frowned, peering thoughtfully at an increasingly uncomfortable Alex. “Yet that boy all but glows with vitality despite his pale skin and bright blue eyes. He looks the farthest thing from inbred and sickly.”

  “True, and his hair is as blond as golden wheat. However that mutation came about, it clearly did nothing but good things for his bloodline.”

  Alex forced an awkward chuckle. “And on that note, what’s say we get exploring? I, for one, would absolutely love to test my mettle against whatever passes for spirit beasts around here.”

  Kuaisu and Tang immediately exchanged worried glances, the air suddenly alive with a mournful howl.

  Ya Ling glared. “Seriously, Alex?”

  “What did I do?”

  “Form up in ranks!” Lao Tie snapped, all earlier bonhomie replaced by a commander’s authority.

  With a quick nod, Alex eased the communion he should have separated from the start, allowing Linnea to effortlessly link up her efforts with Lao Tie while gently squeezing a suddenly anxious Rachel’s shoulder through both overcoats as the three turned as one in the direction the howls had come from, Tang and Wu Xien directly in front of them while Kuaisu spread out to cover their left flank, before hissing at Alex and a momentarily flustered Ya Ling to do the same.

  “Alex?”

  He nodded as Ya Ling drew her jian, the howling winds not touching a hair on her head, for all that she had been prudent enough to kit herself fully in the winter gear supplied, Alex the only one who had foregone the thicker overcoat.

  “Really, no spear in reserve, girl?” Kuaisu had almost teasingly called to Ya Ling, noting a weapon that, for all its courtly grace and elegance, most guardsmen and adventuring cultivators would consider secondary to a polearm or spear like the one Kuaisu now held at the ready, her pair of short gladii still sheathed at her hips, though she had restrapped her weapon belt outside of her winter ware. Her bow was gone, though Alex suspected she was now more openly using a storage space item after Alex had seemingly so boldly revealed his own.

  Ya Ling flashed a tight, hard smile, not bothering to answer the question, though Alex’s Soul Sight made exquisitely clear the swirling storm of Wind Qi presently swirling about her, and he sensed that she was ready to take to the skies at a moment’s notice, waiting only for Alex’s nod.

  “Kuaisu. Report!” Wu Xien’s rough, baritone voice easily cut through the howling wind, but it was Ya Ling who hissed in alarm, spinning about on feet that left no mark in the snow at all as she jutted her blade toward the threat an alarmed Alex realized he hadn’t sensed at all.

  “There!” Ya Ling cried, at the sudden handful of massive white shapes, blending so perfectly with the snow as they charged them as one.

  Time seemed to stretch as peril abruptly manifested as the giant beasts leaped for unsuspecting throats.

  A storm of fire abruptly swirled around Linnea as she and Alex fused fully once more.

  Fire flaring far faster than even a stunned Lao Tie could spin around and adjust, Rachel utterly confused and already losing her balance as a trio of wolves tore through the air.

  Wolves clearly aligned to both Ice and Wind as they crashed into Linnea’s now fiercely bright ward, eager for the ripe flesh guarded so imperfectly by confused sentinels…

  Before the air flashed with the storm’s bitter rebuttal. For when the currents of chaos howled, it was the roaring sea that washed away all resistance, trumping even the fiercest gull or spirit beast swooping for prizes hidden in swirling currents below.

  Black Swan!

  You have successfully cleaved your foe in half!

  Yet a single deadly strike wasn’t enough to avert three Silver tier monsters leaping as one, even as desperate roars and a woman’s scream made it horrifically clear that they truly were under attack by multiple ambushing foes.

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  Fortunately, Ya Ling, truly one with the Wind, having blossomed so brightly in her own way, had already sprung forth, as the second wolf about to pounce down upon a terrified Rachel jerked in the air when enchanted steel rammed through its eye as Ya Ling’s blade struck with force beyond even a Deep Bronze’s might, Greater Wind affinity allowing her to puncture the creature’s skull with the force of a Silver.

  And even as Alex prepared to cleave through the third wolf in furious retribution as it dove for Lao Tie’s throat, it jerked away with a hideous howl as white hot plasma fire obliterated the flesh from its face in a flash of obliterating flame so hot that Rachel cried out and even Lao Tie hissed as the yipping wolf desperately tried to escape, an instant before Alex roared and struck, silencing its howls forever more.

  Crimson Corkscrew stuns and cripples opponent!

  You have successfully decapitated your foe!

  But Alex was already spinning on his heals and racing for a screaming Kuaisu, effortlessly sprinting above snowy ground that had slowed Wu Xien’s footsteps to the man’s roaring frustration. Yet Alex’s newest allies had hardly been lax, for even as a pair of snarling wolves blending so perfectly with the snow darted under Kuaisu’s spear and snapped at her heals and wrists, Tang’s naginata was already cleaving through the air, and steel enhanced with the essence of sharpness left a deep gash on the closest wolf’s flank, spraying the snow with crimson and foiling the snarling ambusher’s camouflage in the instant Kuaisu screamed, massive jaws tearing into her calf an instant before Alex roared and struck.

  There was no way he could safely chop through the snarling beast as it flung Kuaisu about, so instead, he plunged his weapon’s spear point right through the monster’s neck, ripping right through its spine.

  The snarling wolf instantly collapsed as Kuaisu crumpled with a cry, spurting blood from her badly injured leg.

  Alex immediately leaped into the air, gaining a few feet’s altitude to glare through the howling snow storm that had blown full force at the worst possible time, finding even his infravision somewhat impaired by the chilly whiteness all around.

  “Ya Ling, report!”

  “I think that’s the last of them, Alex.”

  “How can you tell?”

  He could sense the odd bemusement in her tone. “The Wind. Can’t you sense it as well?”

  Alex’s eyes widened, feeling a twinge of dismay mirrored by Linnea. In truth, he had grown so accustomed to making full use of her infravision and Soul Sight to spot trouble that he hadn’t even thought of incorporating Wind the way Ya Ling seemed to be implying. Not simply a means of carrying sound, though little could be heard above the howl beyond Kuaisu’s sob as Lao Tie rushed to her side, but as a pressure against the Wind itself.

  Alex flashed a tight smile, before stepping off the currents to Lao Tie and Kuaisu’s side.

  “I think that’s going to take me some work to master,” he admitted, his mind utterly free of insight or revelation, ears rich with the Wind’s cheerful bluster, willing to blow at his command, in moderation, or send him flying high above… but he sensed no pressure affinity at all.

  Ya Ling’s eyes twinkled. “Well then, it’s a good thing I’m around, wouldn’t you say?”

  Alex gave her an appreciative nod before his features hardened with concern, catching sight of Kuaisu’s pain-filled expression, readying himself to reveal yet another card he would have rather kept close.

  Only for Lao Tie to reveal cards of his own.

  “Focus, Kuaisu. Stop thrashing! We can heal this, but you need to be still.”

  “It fucking hurts!” She hissed, glaring Lao Tie’s way with pain-filled eyes. Yet she had stilled enough to accept a single sip from the crimson flask Alex recognized all too well… before he placed several drops on top of the savaged calf, armor shredded and torn as if it had been no more substantial than delicate lace.

  Then she began to buck and spasm, cursing furiously as she was forced-healed to painful effect in ways Alex recognized all too well.

  Just seconds later, it was over, Kuaisu’s eyes wide with relief and wonder. “Heaven’s mercy, that stuff actually works!”

  Lao Tie flashed a weak smile. “For the coin I paid… it damn well better.” He then turned anxious eyes toward Tang. “Report.”

  Tang glared all around what Alex now appreciated was a very open and vulnerable position. “No sign of any more of those bastards, but they can cloak through snow so damned well that there’s no way I can say for certain.” He cursed under his breath, looking back the way they had come, the portal, like a lifeline, just a short distance off. “Captain…”

  Lao Tie angrily shook his head. “No. Not after a single damned encounter, just minutes after we entered!”

  Wu Xien snorted. “Ambushed by a pack of five Silver spirit beasts. Silver! Even if barely more than a half-step. They still came too damned close to making short work of us. And had it not been for our newest companions…”

  Lao Tie shuddered, eyes revealing unexpected vulnerability. He turned to Linnea, flashing a grateful smile. “Your fire burns hot indeed, sister of the flame. Glad I am to have you fighting by our side.”

  “Thank you!” Linnea beamed happily. “But you should totally be thanking my husband and sister-wife, because if they weren’t so in tune with the Wind, there’s no way they would have been able to slaughter the rest in time!”

  Lao Tie blinked, as if only in that moment noting a scowling Ya Ling peering so intently all around them, taking her duty every bit as seriously as Tang, and incidentally riding the Wind effortlessly, several feet above their heads.

  He flashed a grateful smile. “A Wind Wujen who knows how to channel her art through the steel of her blade. Truly, we are both fortunate and grateful.”

  “And my wrist is still sore from that stop-thrust, and I’m damned lucky Master Coy was the one who made my blade or it would have been destroyed,” she said softly, almost under her breath, yet the wind carried her words effortlessly to all their ears.

  Tang chuckled ruefully. “And a better scout than me or Kuaisu, at least in Winter’s storm.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Kuaisu said with a husky voice and drained smile as she and Wu Xien finished binding her fortunately only slightly sore calf and making sure that the shredded armaments were secure and would neither hinder her movements nor expose her to too much chill. She turned, peering thoughtfully Alex’s way.

  “I thought I was done for, Captain,” she said with odd solemnly. “But the speed this kid moved…” she shook her head. “He took out three. Two of them by himself. In the time it took Tang to eliminate the bastard that would have torn right through my wrist, after I lost my footing on the ice under this layer of awful powdered snow, because I moved just a bit too fast…” She shook her head with rue. “Because all it takes is a single mistake, no matter how many successful runs we’ve already completed, no matter how many beasts so like these that we’ve sent to their graves.”

  For just a moment, her unguarded features were filled with dismay, before she chuckled, eyes twinkling with wry good humor once more. “And how fortunate we are to have run into a full quartet of boon companions at just the right time. Had they not been fighting by our side…”

  “We never would have dared Winter. It’s as simple as that,” Wu Xien curtly said, before bowing his head toward Alex. “Well fought, boy.” He frowned thoughtfully at the savaged beasts before them. “Struck dead before I was able to trundle through this damned slippery snow and strike a single one.” He then frowned. “And I note that your feet touch the snow so lightly that you don’t even leave footprints!”

  Kuaisu nodded her agreement. “And he’s fast. Damned fast.” She caught Alex’s gaze. “You have your wife’s talents?”

  Alex gazed up and met Ya Ling’s flushed countenance as she quickly looked away.

  “Ya Ling and I both enjoyed the same fortuitous encounter with an enchanted lychee tree that gave us Greater Wind Qi affinity,” Alex admitted readily enough.

  Kuaisu’s eyes widened. “Are you serious?”

  Ya Ling grinned. “He is,” she said from on high.

  Tang chuckled. “Talk about finding your fortune! I’d certainly love to hear that campfire tale!”

  Alex frowned, gazing up at the girl now smiling down at him so impishly. “Ya Ling, you might want to get down.”

  She frowned down at him. “Alex?”

  He sighed, glaring at the corpses Wu Xien was even now chopping through with a nod from Lao Tie. “If predators can camouflage themselves so well and attack from the cover of snow..”

  Ya Ling’s furrowed brow turned to a look of alarm. She quickly glided down to his side. “So what’s to say that some giant Silver-tier roc, raven, or ice-bird spirit beast monster won’t glide down from it’s snow aerie and make short work of me?”

  “Pretty much, yeah. I mean, it’s fine for getting an edge in combat or occasionally scouting, but certainly don’t go flying off too far or high.”

  Lao Tie gazed intently at a frowning Wu Xien. “Wu?”

  The giant sighed, holding out five decently sized beast cores. Several Alex was surprised to find that he didn’t recognize, and three he did all too well, the pair generating curses from the more experienced delvers.

  “Dark stones. Get rid of them.”

  Wu Xien snorted and readied to toss them, before blinking when Alex gently clasped his wrist.

  “I don’t suppose I could take those off your hands?”

  Lao Tie furrowed his brow. “Why exactly do you want waste cores?”

  Alex flashed a tight smile. “They can actually be quite useful in formations that assure bountiful crops, much like Ruidians expelling waste Qi to enhance their gardens. And our storage space was designed to assure that they’re potency is… safely contained.”

  Linnea gave an animated nod as Alex claimed them and mimed putting them in her pack.

  Lao Tie furrowed his brow, before giving a relieved nod, seconds later.

  “Captain?”

  “It’s fine. I sense no waste emanations at all. And who would know better how to make use of those things than a Ruidian cultivator?”

  Kiuasu snorted. “Those things are near worthless in anyone else’s hands.”

  Lao Tie nodded. “And we won’t even count them against their share.” He sighed, before looking philosophically at the pair he had. “Well, at least these have value, no matter how cracked and flawed they may be.”

  Alex frowned. He so wanted to ask… so Linnea, sensing his curiosity, did it for him.

  “Ooh… those aren’t like any beast core I’ve seen before! It’s bigger than the Bronze tier ones in Liushi, but it does look oddly… pitted? And I can’t tell what element is it aligned with?”

  “That’s because it’s not really aligned to any one element,” Lao Tie explained offhandedly, earning surprised looks from the Liushi native.

  Kuaisu snorted. “Not all delves are as cleanly defined as Liushi’s,” She said with a snort. “But if I were to guess, those cores are composites of Spirit, the beast’s will, compressed by Earth, and have been further shaped by Wind.”

  “Snow as well,” Lao Tie noted. “But not ice. Just bitter cold. So, sadly, it does us no good, and the Caldera is in desperate need of a pristine Water core… not a composite.”

  Alex frowned. “Alright, how common are these composites versus purer stones?”

  Lao Tie sighed. “Honestly, Alex, its really a matter of luck, what you’ll find in any given season, on any particular expedition… though from the records I’ve gone over, it’s tended more toward warped composites than pristine perfectly rounded cores of any particular element as the years press on and our final Water core wanes. But don’t worry,” he hastened to assure upon catching sight of Alex’s expression. “We’re just at the periphery. It’s always composites this close to the gate. Fortunately, our alchemists and artificers are able to use composites with a high degree of efficacy. We’ll still earn considerable credits or silver with this find alone!”

  “And we sure as hell aren’t stopping here,” Kuaisu insisted with quiet intensity, nodding her head at Lao Tie’s look. “My leg now feels fine, and we now know what to expect. And with two Wind-aligned flankers…” She forced a smile. “I think we’ll be fine.”

  Tang nodded. “Even if it’s been awhile since anyone dared Winter, we all know the tales of this realm, don’t we?”

  Wu Xien nodded. “Guardians hunt only when there are prizes worthy of guarding.”

  Alex blinked at the looks of excitement coming over their countenances. “I’m sorry?”

  “It’s the nature of these rifts, Alex,” Lao Tie explained. “You wouldn’t know unless you were from here… or from a Ruidian clan that delves regularly in Wanshi. But almost always, pristine cores will be found in the depths of a season, not its shallows… and the more aggressive and fearsome the beasts, the better quality the cores.”

  Alex dipped his head. “Makes sense.” He gazed out into the howling snow storm all about them. “So, how the heck do we know where we’re going… or even make sure we can get back safely?” He turned back the way he had come. Though he had a good feel for where it presently was, even without Forest Sense or Desert Sense in play, he couldn’t say with absolute certainty that he’d remember if they traveled much further than they already had.

  “Oh no worries there, my Ruidian friend! I’ve keyed the rift gate to my personal talisman. No matter how far we dare this rift, even during what I hope will prove to be a very propitious snowstorm, I will be able to find our way back. I promise you that.”

  Alex nodded his understanding, sharing a quick glance with Ya Ling. What was left unsaid was that if the surprisingly gracious young master didn’t make it back in one piece… then neither would they.

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