v4c6.2: Join the Cause p2

Tigu loved travelling. She loved exploring the world and experiencing what it had to offer. The ones with the biggest impact were burned into her memory. Seeing Pale Moon Lake City from the top of Cloudrest Peak. When the trees thinned out and turned into the rolling hills and endless blue sky of the Grass Sea. The proud Dueling Peaks, standing unrivaled and framing a sunset.

 

Yun Ren had the right idea by recording them, while Tigu tried her best to capture the majesty of places in her own way, by carving them permanently into stone or using the feelings the vistas evoked to fuel her craft.

 

This new place was just as interesting. As they travelled from the Crystal Hill to Xianghua’s home, the landscape changed drastically. The humidity soared, mist starting to obscure their vision. The ground became boggy and wet, and the grass, once waist high at most, grew so tall it would hide her Master from view with room to spare.

 

“I wonder how long it would take to cut all this to a proper height?” Tigu asked. Normally they had the sheep eat the grass to keep it short, but occasionally her Master would take a scythe to it to trim it down short, and after he cut it wildflowers would always bloom.

 

It also smelled very nice.

 

Xianghua laughed. “It’s a fool’s errand! This is the short, slow-growing stuff still. Deeper in one could cut for a thousand years and not make a true dent in it! The Lakemen weave artificial islands out of the reeds. Floating towns and villages that they use to migrate around the lake, following the fish and the Keelbreakers as they shear open new paths.”

 

“It grows that fast?” The Torrent Rider asked. Shaggy Two was trotting beside him, his fur from the legs down a pile of mud from when he stepped off the trail.

 

“It does!” Xianghua replied. “The old timers bet on it. They each choose a strand of grass or reed, and whichever grows the longest the fastest wins! They get quite rowdy over it.”

 

Rag’s eyes lit up at the mention of gambling. “I know what I’m doing tonight. Whose all in?”

 

“I’m quite good at nurturing Blades of Grass.” Tigu boasted, and Xiulan rolled her eyes.

 

“Wouldn’t this place have been better for the Verdant Blade Sect? Since you’re all about grass?” Loud Boy asked as he ripped a stalk out of the ground to examine it. “Though… I guess it wasn’t always grass, huh?”

 

He was referring to long ago in the past, when the lake and its rivers looked more like the ones near Pale Moon Lake.

 

“… indeed. It was not always grass. Honestly, it would look stranger without it being so green.” Xianghua admitted. “The grass and swamp has protected the Lakemen for generations. To have it all go back to easily navigable waters and rivers… it would destroy our entire way of life… but so too would our lives be destroyed if the grasses and reeds completely choke out the water. It is a delicate balance, I suppose.”

 

They lapsed into silence for a moment. Some people may have thought about which path was better, the path of the past or keeping things like they were… and Tigu was firmly on the second side.

 

What was the point in changing it? It had happened, and trying to revert it just seemed like inviting a second catastrophe.

 

“This is kind of neat. How do they get the reeds so solid?” Yin asked as she looked closely at the section of the road they were all walking down.

 

“The Misty Lake is renowned for its weavers.” Xiulan was the one that answered this time. “Most of my clothes are brought from the Misty Lake Masters”

 

“Indeed! Every good son or daughter of the Mist knows how to weave! The children can make a reed canoe before they can walk, sometimes.” Xianghua replied, a note of pride in her voice. “Now! This is our turn off, here.” She said turning to face the solid wall of green, instead of continuing on the road. “The rest of this road is for outsiders, it loops around a few more times. This way will cut a day off our journey, and I want to show you what the lake is really like.”

 

Xianghua lifted up her cart and pushed through the grasses. Shrugging, the rest they followed behind her, Tigu picking up Shaggy Two.

 

“Make sure not to step off the path; you’ll go down with mud over your head and get covered in leeches.” Xainghua cautioned as they stepped onto a nearly invisible reed path. Though none of them went into the water to worry about the leeches, they were hounded by another droning pest. They were uncommon back home, but this place was swarming with mosquitoes.

 

Tigu was rather glad her skin was too tough for them to get through, but poor Shaggy Two had no such defense.

 

Tigu got an idea. “Torrent Rider!” she barked, and the boy straightened up immediately.

 

“Yes!”

 

“Guard duty! Use your spear to strike these foul beasts from the sky!”

 

“Yes!”

 

Soon the air was filled with the sound of a swishing spear as the Torrent Rider committed a massacre. They continued on for perhaps an hour, until they broke through and came up to open water.

 

Xianghua whistled, a keening sound that reminded Tigu of a bird.

 

Not five minutes later a man appeared through the mist, wearing a wide brimmed hat and using a barge pole to push his reed raft along.

 

He paused as he saw them, and then he bowed deeply.

 

“I greet the Young Mistress,” he said. “What do you require of me?”

 

“Is it Thatchback or Welterraft that’s nearby?” Xainghua asked.

 

“Thatchback, my lady. South, middle, east, north through the Breakerpaths.”

 

“Not far then. I would use your raft—rest for a while and we shall take over the chore of moving it.”

 

“What’s mine is yours, Young Mistress.” The man said agreeably, stepping back and letting them all aboard the large square woven from reeds. “Welcome home.”

 

Tigu blinked at the rather friendly nature of the man as he simply stepped off his boat, handing it over without a second thought.

 

“It is good to be back, and thank you.” Xainghua replied as she took the man’s barge pole from him and then started expertly maneuvering the raft back into the forest of mist and reeds.

 

“…aren’t you going to pay him?” Tigu asked, and Xianghua shook her head.

 

“This is his duty, just as it is mine to protect him. He would have refused me if I had tried… and besides, he was likely looking for an excuse to sit around and drink anyway. One of his friends will find him, or he’ll walk back to the main road.”

 

Tigu nodded as they set off into the water. It was a maze. Tigu couldn’t make sense of it at all, and yet Xianghua didn’t even hesitate as she navigated the reeds.

 

There was something ethereal about the place that Tigu liked. It was oddly quiet as everyone fell into silent contemplation, the only sounds being their breathing and the soft thump of the pole meeting the bottom of the lake, propelling them forwards.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

 

“The Hells is that?” Loud Boy asked, pointing into the water—at first, it looked like a submerged log, before Tigu noticed the fins.

 

“That is a Keelbreaker.” Xianghua said. “It’s not the breeding season, so we have little to fear.”

 

The fish was a giant—longer than Wa Shi when he was a dragon. Its head was an armored battering ram, and it had a massive, scissor-like set of teeth. It looked like a ferocious predator… yet even as Tigu watched, it bit down on a section of reeds, shearing straight through them and creating a new path in the water.

 

“The gardeners of the Misty Lake. That one is a male. One can tell by how small it is.”

 

“That’s small?” Rags asked incredulously.

 

“Indeed.”

 

Rags just sat back on the barge.

 

The sun was starting to set when they heard another call like the one Xianghua had made, and a glow started to penetrate the mist.

 

There was something moving out there.

 

Tigu smiled as her eyes pierced the fog enough to see.

 

It was a town. A town, floating on a giant reed barge. It wasn’t as big as Verdant Hill, but it had nearly fifty buildings on it; an eclectic mixture of reed huts, wooden houses, and even a stone building in the center of it, which looked like a tavern. Lanterns hung from poles all around, glowing orange through the mist.

 

And at its back, and along the sides, stood nearly a hundred people with barge poles.

 

The bird-call sounded again, and as one they shoved the poles down and pushed, moving the entire village.

 

The sound of shearing teeth and crunching showed a line of twenty Keelbreakers abreast all chewing their way through the reeds in front of the town, consuming tons of the plants every moment.

 

“Wow.” The Torrent Rider said, voicing what Tigu felt. This would make for a great carving.

 

==========================

 

The town was surprisingly normal, for being a mobile island. The tavern served its drinks and everybody was rather polite and respectful, bowing their heads to the Young Mistress.

 

They got a private room for all of them, and though Xianghua’s clothes got a bit of a strange glance, as they looked like their attire mixed with Hu Li’s tribe’s, they were left alone.