Todd lopes behind with Jingshu at his side. As they go, a group of three people rise to their feet. They stop Todd and ask him what is happening.
Looking around their shoulders at the fleeing man, Todd explains what had happened. There’s a stunned silence and a guilty look on a woman’s face.
“He stole crystals, pills and two weapons from us,” Todd says pointedly.
“I’m sure there’s just a misunderstanding,” one of the men lies.
From the distance there’s a flash of light and a cry of pain. Todd spins and runs towards Joe. The young man has fallen to his knees. His hands are claws and his jaw is clenched so hard he could break teeth.
“You mother fucker!” Candra shouts. She leaps forward in a surge and wraps her limbs around the thief. The man yelps as he’s jerked backwards, his bag flying off his shoulder behind him.
Todd makes his way over, while Candra holds the man on the floor in a neck and hip lock. First, Todd heads to Joe. The tall young man is breathing heavily. His hair is frizzy and he smells of foul burning. There is a tremor in his body as he reaches out a hand to Todd.
Todd helps Joe back onto his feet.
“Damn,” Joe cusses, “that stung like hell.”
“Are you okay?” Todd checks.
Branching red burn lines mark Joe’s skin, reaching up his chin and on his hand.
“I’ll be fine, just give me a minute,” Joe insists.
Todd is incredulous. “He hit you with a skill?”
“I guess so,” Joe chuckles. The act pains him.
“Candra!” Todd shouts. He runs over to her and lays a knee down on the thief’s arm.
The man struggles mightily, but his strength is simply not high enough to compete with Candra’s.
“I didn’t do anything, you’ve got the wrong guy,” the man gasps as the pressure on his throat mounts.
Joe limps over, carrying the fallen bag. He drops it on the ground and rifles through it. He finds more than ten crystals and his own sword.
“Where’s the rest of it,” Joe croaks.
“I don’t know. That’s all I took,” the man changes his story.
“Bullshit,” Candra squeezes.
There’s a crack of electricity and a jagged arc of plasma lashes out from the thief’s hand. Joe steps back. The man fails to direct his attack towards anyone and it peters out.
“Drips, go check the people in his group. He probably handed our gear off on them,” Joe instructs.
Todd hesitates. He heads back.
A crowd starts forming, curious onlookers asking what is happening.
“We’re still missing stuff. Did that guy give you anything to hold onto?” Todd asks the team.
Heads shake. They deny it. Todd stands awkwardly in detente.
“Check their fucking bags,” Candra shouts.
Todd jumps. He addresses the man’s group. “Can I look in your bags?”
“It’s our stuff, you can’t just go through our things,” the woman says.
“They aren’t letting me check!” Todd calls out.
“Drips, stop messing around,” Joe shouts. His voice cracks roughly.
A voice asks Todd what is going on.
“They stole a bunch of stuff from us,” Todd replies, “now they aren’t letting us look in their bags.”
Outcry starts to build slowly, then continues to rise. The assembled people begin to transform from a crowd into a mob. They begin shouting at the thieves. A few of the figures from the leadership council show up and add their voices to the clamor.
The group of three tries to extract themselves, but they are hemmed in. The jeering starts and their resolve starts to break.
“This isn’t fair,” whinges the woman.
“What gives you the right to go through our things?” the third man objects.
“What did they take?” one of the women in the crowd shouts.
“They took my spear thing, it’s reddish and short. They also took nexus crystals and two bottles of pills.”
“If they have the spear then they took the rest of it!” suggests a man.
The three cultivators argue a while longer, but they can’t resist the anger of the gathered people. They reluctantly open their bags; at first they try to obscure the contents, but Todd’s ixwa is difficult to hide.
Strangely, Todd notices that the broken tip of the spear is in much better shape; as if it’s regrowing.
Crystals shine from within the depth of the bags. The three cultivators are roughly grabbed and pulled away. Todd moves forward and empties the stones and bottles of pills from their satchels. He makes a pile of them. At the center of the mob, he feels particularly exposed.
A question peeks in from somewhere in the crowd. “How did you get so many nexus crystals?”
Todd ignores the question. He doesn’t have a bag of his own here, his satchel was too heavy to drag around. He grabs his ixwa and stuffs the pill bottles into his pockets.
“Hey, some of those are ours!” one of the thieves claims, struggling against the grips holding him back.
“Do you guys mind watching over our stuff?” he asks mustache Eric.
The man agrees and Todd leaves to fetch the thief’s bag. He fills it up with the stack of crystals, then he goes to return the items back to their own satchels. He quickly counts everything and discovers that they really do have five extra crystals. Wary of leaving them again, he asks Jingshu to watch over their things. Once everything is in place, he goes back to the thieves and returns their bag.
There is a heated debate going on about what to do. Some voices are calling out to confiscate their nexus coins. Some are talking about taking their food tokens and [mercury rod]s too. The most bloodthirsty suggestion comes from the gawky, pale Carter Leeds. The teenager recommends they hold a public flogging.
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At first, there’s quick rebuke for that idea. Many of the present cultivators don’t have the stomach for corporal punishment. Modern living has left them with softer sensibilities. But there is a significant minority who are harder-hearted, especially those who have already lost people. A rising murmur of sentiment emerges, calling for public blood.
Pixie Aefore floats above the gathering. She observes impassively for a time. When there is a lull in the conversation she adds her own opinion, and it is predictably ruthless.
“It is not uncommon to take the hands or fingers of thieves so that they may be marked for their crimes,” she offers.
Officer Bernice pushes his way to the center of the cluster. “Hey, we’re not gonna do that, okay?” she shouts. “They got caught, the goods were returned, it’s over. We’ll have them apologize, and we’ll put this all behind us.”
There’s additional angry shouting, but there isn’t enough will to truly punish the offenders. It helps that Joe and Candra aren’t interested in pushing the matter further.
That doesn’t change the fact that Joe is furious and seriously injured, he just doesn’t have any desire to inflict cruelty on them in turn.
The thieves are released and the crowd begins to break up. The group of four is shunned by the rest of their larger team and by the cultivators in general. As the day continues, they pull further and further away from everyone else.
Once the matter is settled, the council reconvenes and Soup Nina returns with her report. She announces that one group of seven is missing entirely, and a total of fifteen other cultivators are known to have died during the treasure hunt.
The number is sobering.
On the other hand, the matter of distributing food is nearly handled. Each group is mostly responsible for their own supplies. It’s decided that the council can share the price of around a hundred subsistence tokens and easily cover all of the tutorial section’s needs.
One by one, people transfer smaller quantities of nexus coins to Nina until she has her required thousand.
After transferring a hundred fifty, Todd inspects his remaining count.
It’s enough to buy one cheap, low quality healing pill. He could also spring for a full set of leather armor, or a new steel weapon. Not much. Objectively, he knows it’s a lot of money. It just doesn’t feel that way.
The real cultivation resources are far beyond his means. He particularly thinks of the lists of skills in the shop and remembers the astronomical prices of the abilities. He wonders how anyone is supposed to afford them at all.
Once the matter of the food is handled, the council makes preparations for another round of cultivation and weapons training and then breaks for rest.
Todd leaves to find a pixie to identify the items in their haul. He’s running on a day without sleep and yawns escape his mouth as he fights them.
He makes a beeline towards Ciforre, who hovers over Harold the crafter. The man holds his cracked redburr shell helmet under his arm as he asks the pixie a question. She listens and answers.
Todd is closing the distance when an electric burble interrupts him and bouncing motes flow in a circle around his body. They swirl around him and then assemble into the form of Befor. She’s cut him off.
“Todd, Todd, Todd, how can we help you, you little limp-wristed pansy?”
“Excuse me?” he bleats.
“You’re excused, you silly billy. Now what exactly is it that you want?”
“I was hoping Ciforre could look at a few of the things we picked up and tell us what they do. Please,” Todd requests.
“Oops, looks like she’s busy. Show me, I’ll tell you,” Befor giggles.
Todd relents and leads the pixie over to their bags. She takes a circuitous route to meet him. When he gets there, he relieves Jingshu and sends the teenager on his way. Then, Todd rummages and produces the bottles of pills and the red crystal.
“We also have the gear and the metal bars,” he indicates. “Thanks.”
“Well the itty bitty bottle of white pills are for healing. They’re better than you’re used to. Nothing real special though. The green pills are way more fun. They’re mid grade [constitution pill]s. These little things help you advance the grade of your race attribute. But more than that, eat one of those and your natural lifespan will increase by eight years. If you push through to the next grade, you’ll live for five hundred. If you take all ten yourself, then goodness, even if you don’t break through, you could still be a hundred eighty!” Before trumpets.
The main problem with what Befor is saying is that she’s loud. Todd raises a finger to his lips to shush her, but she continues on uninterrupted.
“The crystal is interesting. It’s a heritage skill crystal, they’re very valuable. It can only be used a certain number of times per decade before it must recover, but you can use it to give yourself a skill.”
Todd’s curiosity is tickled. “Okay. Which skills can it give us?”
“Only something called [Scout’s Perception]. It’s a skill for your eyes. It looks like it’s useful for seeing things at a distance.”
“That sounds alright,” Todd considers, “how many times can we use it?”
“Questions, questions,” Befor drawls. “I see that you can use it three times every five years.”
Todd continues asking, and Befor eventually explains that their bags are filled with F-grade iron, copper, tin, and mortal grade gold. The shield and two handed sword are both enchanted to repair themselves, and are durable enough to survive significant wear and tear.
That brings him to the dipper.
He holds it gingerly between two hands. “Okay, so what does this thing do?” he asks.
Befor burbles over closer and cups her chin. She inspects it closely.
“Ho? This is an odd thing. It’s a [Shui Wei dipper]. Any water which is put into the cup and infused with cosmic energy will become like a weak warrior and healing concoction in one. It takes from the reserves of the user, and relies on water aspected energies to take effect. It’s an interesting curiosity. But compared to true alchemy, it’s worthless.”
Todd’s fingers curl tight around the intricately carved rod. Images of fish and veiled women decorate its length. Befor is selling the dipper short. Free healing? Just energy and water? He doesn’t pay attention to Befor’s dismissal of the tool. He knows in his bones that it’s meant for him.