Chapter 7- A Tea Failure

Tian and Hong made their way down the rough stone path into the hill. The grey stone was rimmed with green. Moss, growing thick from the damp, made little forests next to lakes of lichen and the occasional rising mountain of stone. Tiny landscapes, scattered like a thousand fractured worlds across the cave. The only light came from the hole leading outside, but that was alright. Perception arts were things every young immortal was expected to master.

The path opened up into a wide cavern. Tian could smell the water, cool and clean, before he saw it. He could hear the faint trickling of tiny waterfalls, and feel the breath of the wind on his neck, pulled down the long tunnel and freshening the caverns below.

“Are you doing alright?” Tian asked.

“Fine. I’m going to get out the light array, though.”

“Mmm.” Tian subtly got his rope dart ready, stretching his senses to their extremes. Things had a nasty way of jumping at you when you suddenly disturbed them. Hong pulled out a little formation disk (another gift from the Wang Clan, as a thank you for all the tea Tian had been serving them) and tapped the embedded spirit crystal. Soft light, the color of daylight an hour after a summer dawn, filled the cavern.

Tian and Hong gasped. The cave seemed to come alive. Flecks of mica and streaks of colorful stone caught the light and made it dance. The little stream ran through the cavern, down little falls until it spread onto a rocky shelf and formed a pool. Faint wisps of steam rose from the clear water, making the mossy cavern damp and misty. The qi in the room was powerful, yet calm, filled with the healing strength of water and earth, balanced with the liveliness of wood. It lacked only fire and metal to form a complete cycle.

“I always wondered why they were called grotto heavens. I see it now.” Hong murmured. “Even for me, this would be a wonderful place to cultivate.”

Tian pointed towards the back of the cavern. “It seems our predecessors agreed with you.”

Sitting on a platform at the end of the cavern was a skeleton, sitting cross legged, palms up on its knees, index and middle fingers pinched to its thumbs. Its robe was an elegant silver, as though woven through with untarnishing metal, and edged with deep red. There was a sword next to it on the ground, and, still attached to the ancient senior’s finger, was a fine looking ring.

“That isn’t an Ancient Crane Monastery uniform robe,” Hong murmured. “And… don’t the bones look a little off?”

Tian took a closer look. “Your eyes were always better than mine. I don’t see it.”

They two walked over, quietly readying themselves in case of an unpleasant surprise. Hong had her spear resting against her shoulder, her eyes sweeping any shadowy spot where something vile might be hiding.

Tian kept his eyes fixed on the skeleton. As they got closer, he started seeing what had alerted Liren. The bones were too white, chalk white, as though they had been rubbed with powder. Tian stopped dead in his tracks. His instincts were screaming at him, and he believed them.

Hong stopped with him, spear at the ready, trying to see what he had spotted. Tian gently put her hand on her wrist, before stepping forward and bowing.

“Ancient Crane Monastery’s Tian Zihao and Hong Liren offer their respectful greetings to the senior, and apologize for intruding on their secluded cultivation.”

The skeleton didn’t move. Tian held the bow, and Hong belatedly followed suit. The little stream made its merry noise, as it had for untold centuries, but for all that, the cavern felt dreadfully quiet.

The skeleton felt like it slightly nodded its head, and the two straightened their backs.

“I am quite certain not a hint of my qi escaped.” The voice sounded garbled, the words hauntingly familiar, yet alien. As it spoke, the words became more intelligible, more familiar, though still achingly wrong. Intelligible, but wrong. “You haven’t even begun to cultivate shen, so it wasn’t anything like that either. How did you know?” The voice was male, and something about it itched the ears, like centipede legs in the middle of the night.

“Senior is not the first spirit possessing their skeleton we have met. Might I know Sir’s honored name?” Tian was on his best behavior. The Saintess, ghost or not, had been strong enough to scare even Heavenly Realm cultivators. He didn’t know how powerful this senior was, but he wasn’t willing to take stupid chances.

“Honored name, eh?” The laugh wasn’t pleasant, but it didn’t seem hostile. “Maybe in this era, my name shall be honored.” The skeleton didn’t move. It’s mouth never opened, it’s hands didn’t twitch. However it was speaking, it didn’t involve moving air. “In this era, I will be known as Suneater.”

Tian cupped his hands and bowed again. “Respectful greetings to Daoist Suneater.”

“Mmm. You said Ancient Crane Monastery. Did Elder Eightgates finally lose his mind and slap a nickname on Heavenstep Mountain?”

“Reporting to Senior, this Junior has only ever known it as Ancient Crane Mountain. I do not know Elder Eightgates.”

Tian felt brainpower flex and twist around him. It seemed that Suneater was less than convinced by his answer.

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“Eightgates. Elder Eightgates. Perfected Human Eightgates. How could you live on this mountain and not know who rules it?”

Tian and Hong could only smile awkwardly.

“Merciful heavens, I’ve been awoken by idiots. Let’s start from the top, shall we? You are servants of my Eight Directions Palace, hoping to cultivate immortality some day. You apparently aren’t complete idiots, since I can see your master or mistress has invested at least a little into your foundations. For some reason, they have renamed the mountain and changed the servants’ uniform.”

Tian felt the increasing weight of the brainpower around him, trying to make sense of what he was hearing. Suneater was clearly some sort of powerful ancient, but the Saintess spoke like an ancient. Even Starsieve, who was comparatively much younger, spoke like an ancient. Suneater sounded younger. Not that much older than Tian for all his voice rasped and pricked his ears.