Threads 47 Signs 2

<You’ve got this,> Sixiang encouraged.

Ling Qi appreciated the sentiment as she leaped lightly down from the cliff, floating like a leaf on the breeze. As her feet touched the damp grass on the river’s shore, she stopped restraining her qi, and her flute materialized in her hand. The moment she did, the lazy ripples of the slow flowing river churned and thrashed. She glimpsed a piscine silhouette forming beneath the surface before a jet of extremely dense pressurized water shot out and cut straight through her chest, carving a gouge in the rock behind her. Ling Qi raised her flute to her lips as her form wavered back into solidity, unperturbed by the attack.

The shape in the water thrashed to the surface, and she heard the spirit speak in a warbling, bubbling voice that trembled with indignant rage. “You impudent savages! You dare return to challenge this river again! Do not think that this resplendent one will fall for your underhanded tricks again!”

The spirit was very large. At six meters long, it was the largest fish she had ever seen. Its scales gleamed like sapphires in the morning sunlight. It had a wide flat head with thick fleshy whiskers that trembled like a rotund man’s jowls as it spoke.

“O master of the valley,” Ling Qi spoke formally, even as she sidestepped another cutting jet of water. “Please be calm. This humble supplicant wishes only to offer apologies for the indignities laid upon you.”

“Yoooooou,” the river spirit rumbled in its quivering voice. “Do you really think this mighty one is so easily tricked? Fool! Trickster! Charlatan!”

<Man, this guy is making a mess of the scenery in more ways than one,> Sixiang said drolly as Ling Qi jumped and dashed along the rising top of the wave that emerged from the river, circling to pull its attention away from her subordinates’ hiding place.

<Right? Are you sure we can’t just ice this big dumb fish over?> Hanyi huffed. <Like some lazy carp deserves one of Big Sister’s songs.>

Ling Qi continued speaking, maintaining her formal and respectful tone even as she danced atop churning waters that sucked at the soles of her shoes.

“A thousand apologies, O resplendent master,” she began, careful to keep the grin out of her voice. “Please allow this humble one to make an offering. Long have I contemplated your flowing waters and rich depths, and I have composed a song in your honor!” She was lying. She had been composing a song about a different river, but it was not so hard to switch out some details in the piece on the spot. “I beg of you to allow me to make an offering and begin making amends!”

All the while as she spoke, she continued to avoid the spirit’s efforts, landing back on the far shore as she spoke her last words. The massive carp regarded her balefully, whiskers shaking and gills fluttering with exertion. It reminded her of a fat, red-faced merchant giving up on catching a fleet-footed thief. “This magnanimous one will give you one chance, savage. But if this is treachery…!”

“Of course not,” she said with a smile. “Thank you so much for your understanding. I call this piece ‘Shimmering Vale.’”

Ling Qi raised her flute to her lips and began to play, and soon, the valley was filled with music. The world seemed to grow still as her notes painted a melody that spoke of a rich and vibrant river, carrying life across the land. It was, Ling Qi thought, not one of her best pieces given the hasty alterations, but the spirit was swiftly entranced anyway. It looked like her subordinates’ reports of the creature’s pride were not inaccurate.

Later, after the waters had receded and the spirit dispersed back to its resting state, Ling Qi was joined on the shore by her subordinates.

“I think that went well,” Ling Qi commented lightly.

“It did indeed. I was not aware that you were so prodigious a musician, ma’am,” Chang He replied, dipping his head respectfully. “Spirits of the land often desire devotion and respect. The purity of your expression will serve you in good stead in such dealings.”

Mo Lian nodded, nervously tugging at his beard as he glanced at the waters. “Still, without more material offerings, it is a stopgap. We should proceed.”

“Yes,” Ling Qi agreed, her feet lifting off the ground. “Chun Yan, take point as we fan out.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the older woman replied immediately. Ling Qi was gratified to see that there was little doubt left in her voice.

From there, using Liao Zhu’s advice, they fanned out, not separating far but enough to cover ground more efficiently. Ling Qi took on an overwatch role, soaring overhead as the three of them combed the paths and trails in the region. Many had been washed out by flooding, but the damage was not too bad.

As the sun began to descend from its zenith, they came back together atop a high cliff overlooking the river to compile what they had found over the course of the morning and early afternoon.

“It looks like we’ll have to update the maps quite a bit,” Ling Qi mused, seated in a tree branch. “Is that normal out here?”

“It is not natural for rock spirits to move so much in a single year,” Cheng He said from his position by their small fire. “One or perhaps two passes shifting is normal enough, but we have already discovered four that have closed. The earth spirits are agitated.”

There had been a certain majesty to watching whole cliffs and hills groan and crawl, shifting visibly before her eyes. However, Cheng He was right. It was an unusual and worrying phenomenon, one not so easily solved as a single rowdy and vengeful river spirit.

“New paths open when old ones close. It’s annoying but not real trouble,” said Chun Yan. “The desolation in the southeastern valley is more worrying. Last time I saw withering like that, my village lost its whole harvest to the black earthworms. Something has been letting them grow beyond their normal numbers and size.”

The valley Chun Yan spoke of was a withered place, trees bare of leaves and even the grass and weeds withered and shrunken. She had seen all-too-familiar worms poking their eyeless heads out of the earth, the actinic scent of lightning drifting from their maws. She had only glimpsed Yan Renshu’s real spirit beast once, but the worms that she had seen in the valley dwarfed it in size.

“The tunnels I sensed were worryingly large,” Mo Lian said, tugging nervously at his beard. “But I am more concerned about the Old Watch. The ruin has been silent for as long as I can remember, but you all saw the dancing bones and heard the cries in the air.”

“The dead should not walk,” Cheng He said darkly. “It shames those who still live.”

The Old Watch was a fortification which had belonged to the clan that had owned this land before Ogodei. It had been the site of one of the early battles in the war. The people there had been slaughtered, and later, a second group sent to recapture the site had been ambushed and killed by barbarians as well. According to the report, the site had previously been thoroughly exorcised and was now quiescent, if still uninhabitable due to the malice infecting the air.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Ling Qi hummed to herself. They would no doubt find more trouble in the days to come as they filled in the holes left by their general exploration today. However, none of them needed rest just yet, so it occurred to Ling Qi that before they were forced to begin splitting up to address smaller problems, perhaps they could solve one of these larger issues.

Idly, she glanced toward the setting sun and wondered where Liao Zhu was. She supposed it didn’t matter.

“The matter of the moving mountains is the most important one for us to investigate,” Ling Qi announced as authoritatively as she could manage. “As long as we mark down the other two as problem areas, the main group should be better suited to handle those.”

She glanced between her subordinates while they chorused “Yes, ma’am,” but she did not notice any discontent. That was good, she thought.

“I am more experienced with spirit beasts and moon spirits than earth spirits,” she continued. “Do you have any advice on how to approach the task?”

There was a brief pause, but then Chang He spoke up. “The trouble with earth spirits is getting them to notice you. That goes double for wild spirits of mountain and vale.”

“He is right,” Mo Lian agreed. “To a mountain, we are all flickering, ephemeral things. It is difficult for them to hear our words as more than the buzzing of flies.”