Emerson Fortier
patreon
Chapter 25 - Makeover
🕑 Added 2022-09-16 18:13:36 +0000 UTCThe “Ki Bath” advertised by the bath-house several turns down the concourse from Te’Klub was nothing like the cultivation experience described by the mesmeric stone outside its door. “Remove impurities while re-invigorating your cultivation.” It said.
Perhaps if he hadn’t come straight from cultivating with a powerful source.
Hot water streamed into a tub as Yi Cao entered the little booth assigned to him by the attendant. Steam filled the room making the white tiles slick beneath his feet and palms as he climbed in. The smell of aromatic soaps, expensive aromatic soaps, mingled with the steam. Flecks of the “spiritual herbs” drifted in the foam kicked up by the water roaring into the porcelain bowl. The herbs came with just a hint of Ki. A class five source, probably, if Zihan had told him the truth about sources. The next best thing to mundane soil back home. Probably an expensive luxury on station.
He wondered if there was such a thing as a Soap aspect.
Yi Cao’s skin prickled as he sank into the hot water. He relaxed, and the aches and pains leftover from his ordeal on Elleppu station loosened and began to fade in the heat.
For a long time, he just sat and stared at the drifting steam. Eventually he pulled the rough sponge from its hook and began to scrub.
The bath had only just begun to cool when the door to the little booth opened and Zihan stepped in, hair still wet, a towel wrapped around his waist. He closed the door behind himself then crossed and put his back to the wall before sliding down to sit next to the tub.
“Time up already?” Yi Cao asked when the Young Master didn’t speak for several seconds.
“No.” Zihan replied. “Thought I could use a bath. Water got cold though.” He braced his forearms on his knees and sat staring at the clasped hands in front of him. When he didn’t say more Yi Cao returned to scrubbing the impurities off his hand, turning the water gray.
“I’m sorry I dragged you here.” Zihan said after a while. “If it means anything to you.”
Steam danced above the cooling bath and Yi Cao’s hand slowed until he sat looking at it. “You could dismiss the oath.” He said.
Zihan snorted and hung his head but didn’t say anything.
Yi Cao dipped his hand in the water and returned to scrubbing, conflicted.
The two sat in silence as the steam eddied between them.
“You weren’t wrong about me.” Yi Cao said eventually.
“How’s that?” Zihan asked.
Yi Cao stopped scrubbing, his hand raw from the combined heat and attention with the sponge. He turned his palm in the light as though to examine the channels hidden within. “When we arrived,” he said, “you told me I’d sell my own mother for my advancement.”
Zihan lifted his head and opened his eyes. He stared at the door. “Did I?” He asked. “I suppose I did.”
“You weren’t that wrong.” Yi Cao said again.
Zihan looked at him and Yi Cao dunked his hand back into the water. “Do I want to know more?” The Young Master asked.
Yi Cao shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I just,” he lifted his dripping hand from the bath and examined it again, “I haven’t seen my mother in twelve years, not since I joined the sect.” He extended the hand until he held it between them and met Zihan’s eyes, then dropped the hand into the bath and turned away. “I’ve made more progress since meeting you than since I left home.”
Zihan snorted and looked away. “A key scripture isn’t really progress.”
“No.” Yi Cao made the water eddy by shifting his hand under the surface. “But it would have taken me the whole twelve years to cut that scripture, back home.” He glanced sharply at Zihan, then away again when the Young Master made eye contact. “I worry about my cousin sometimes.”
Zihan sighed and the two sat in silence for a while as the bath cooled.
Eventually a green light flicked on above the door and began flashing.
“Time.” Zihan said. He glanced at Yi Cao as he stood to leave. “Your cousin will be fine.” He said. “Better, while they think you’re dead.”
Yi Cao nodded as the door closed and he felt the water around him start to drain. “Better that I’m dead.”
He stood and toweled off.
His clothes still stank when he pulled them on, despite the washing service they’d paid for when they stripped them off and tossed them into the basket for the attendant, and Zihan’s shirt still had a ragged hole burnt into its side.
Instead of putting them back on, Zihan told him to wrap a towel around his waist and led the way out into the concourse back towards Te’klub.
A piss-bot buzzed to life in one of the walls as they passed and it hovered down in front of them to keep pace as they walked.
“Do you require the facilities?” The little construct enquired.
“No.” Zihan informed it.
A light on its front blinked green and the hand sized device fluttered whatever Ki field it used to fly in order to kick itself around to their left side. “Ordinance eleven seventeen dictates that public nudity is prohibited outside of private or licensed establishments.” It informed them. “I will remain in attendance to ensure no violation of this ordinance occurs.”
“Suit yourself.” Zihan replied then ignored it as it followed them to the doors of a store advertising “This year’s styles at last year’s prices” alongside images of sharply dressed men, women, and things that looked like them, in clothing absolutely alien to Yi Cao.
The hag of a woman, half mechanical parts and half wrinkled skin and ragged gray hair, eyed them from the counter at the front of the store as they entered. Her mechanical eye vibrated as lenses moved inside their steel socket while her organic eye glared. She nodded at the clothes in Zihan’s arm.
“I don’t buy rags.” She croaked.
Zihan gave her a brilliant hard edged smile as the door closed behind Yi Cao and he looked through its window to watch the piss-bot buzz away back to its socket in the wall.
“Madam.” Zihan told the woman. “I am not here to sell you anything. I am here to buy.”
They spent two hours buying. Zihan did anyways. It took Yi Cao all of ten minutes to find a pair of brown cultivator’s robes without too many holes and only a little too big for him around the chest, then he sat in a chair between racks of pants and watched Zihan try on more and more exotic garb. Silver pants that ballooned around his calves, a shirt that swirled with headache inducing patterns of light and colors, or crawled across his body as though itself alive.
The Young Master smiled at his reflection when he tried on his final selection, A red shirt of shining leather with straps across his chest like false ribs, tight sleeves and matching red pants. It might have looked like armor back home. Might have been armor, for all Yi Cao knew.
“I’ve heard it said that clothing makes the man.” Zihan said as he turned to Yi Cao. His eyes sparkled as he took in Yi Cao’s selection for the first time then nodded with smirk. “I can see you still haven’t realized that.”
Yi Cao looked down at the brown second hand robes he’d put on, then back at Zihan. “They do the job.”
“What job?” Zihan asked. “They look look cheap.”
Yi Cao frowned. “I hope they are.”
Zihan gave him a look, then he turned to the pile of other outfits draped in two different piles over a hangar nearby. “Carry those for me.” He said, then waited for Yi Cao to scoop them up before leading him to the old woman waiting at the front.
They bought all of them. Something like a dozen outfits in half a dozen different colors and as many styles. Zihan tucked them into his wallet one by one as the proprietor tallied them up and presented the charge. He handed her the technomancer card and they left, Yi Cao looking over his shoulder at the store as he followed Zihan back towards Te’klub.
“Four hundred credits sounds like a lot.” He said.
“This again.” Zihan replied.
“You brought me.” Yi Cao replied. “I’m sorry if I’m concerned.”
They walked in silence until they came to Te’klub and pushed past the burly gray skinned guard into a bar bustling with customers, to the point that they had trouble maneuvering through the press to get to the door. Yi Cao caught a glimpse of Izzi and the spider thing from what must have been the previous shift, moving up and down the bar in a frenzy.
“The girls showed me a place where I could do some gambling.” Zihan told him as they moved down the corridor towards their room. “So, we’re set for a little longer.” He dialed the code for the lock on their door while Yi Cao looked at him incredulously.
“You’re gambling?” He asked.
The door popped open with a snap and Zihan pushed it part way open with a dismissive wave in Yi Cao’s direction. “The heavens love me.” He said. “Why would they betray me to a bunch of barbarians?” He tossed himself onto the bed with a sigh then put his hands behind his head. He looked at Yi Cao and raised one eyebrow.
“You’re going to get us stuck here.” Yi Cao said from the doorway.
Zihan pulled his wallet out and fiddled with it while he brooded in silence. Eventually he flipped it open and a glass bottle popped out. He bit the top to rip the lid off and spat the little fold of metal into a corner before giving Yi Cao a glare. “You said that already.” He said, and took a drink.
Yi Cao shook his head and stepped inside.
“I suppose you had spare robes in there anyways.” Yi Cao said as Zihan snapped the wallet closed.
Zihan smiled and flipped the wallet in his hand. “Of course.” He said. “But where’s the fun in that.” He tossed the wallet and Yi Cao caught it while Zihan waved to the mess of empty bottles scattered throughout the room.
Wordlessly, Yi Cao began shoving the empties into the wallet as he’d done before.
“This too.”
Zihan tossed the Sapphire source to Yi Cao. The Ki in the room eddied around the stone as it landed in Yi Cao’s palm, then stilled and clarified as it disappeared into the shimmering void space.
The floor gradual stopped squishing under his feet as the water summoned by the stone dissipated back into Ki.
Zihan settled against the pillows while he cradled the bottle in his hand. “Advancement makes sleep less necessary.” He said as he stared at the bottle. “But sometimes nothing sounds better than a two or three hour nap.” He took a drink and watched Yi Cao clean up the last of the bottles from the top of the narrow dresser, then open the drawer to sweep the half a dozen tobacco butts into it.
Yi Cao slid the drawer closed and met his eyes. After a moment he nodded to the drawer. “Unless you wanted those in here too?”
Zihan shook his head. “You said you finished the key scripture?”
“I did.” Yi Cao replied. He tossed the wallet to Zihan and the other boy flipped it in his hands a few times before tucking it into the chest pocket of the leather shirt.
“And it didn’t work?”
“It did not.”
“Sure.” Zihan said. “Easy to diagnose. Why don’t you try cultivating now.”
Yi Cao went to his spot on the floor and assumed the lotus position.
“In your new clothes?”
Yi Cao paused, then stood and stripped the new clothes off, down the loincloth he wore underneath.
“And after giving me all that shit.” Zihan said.
Yi Cao kicked his trousers out of the way then sat and pulled the chain over his head to drop the source into his palm. The rippling in the stone made the lines of his hand dance and sway, lensing in and out in time to the weak pulses of Ki from the locked source. Zihan watched as Yi Cao closed his eyes and pulled on the channels in his palm.
Nothing happened, then a wave of nausea ran from Yi Cao’s head down to his toes.
“Mm.” Zihan grunted. He took a drink from his bottle then set it aside and sat up.
Yi Cao stopped cultivating and opened his eyes to glare at the Young Master while his gorge threatened to rebel.
“You’re missing the bridge channels.” Zihan said. He looked around and pulled the paper showing the scripture on out from underneath the Pillars of Creation scripture. He pointed to a couple of lines.
“These go beyond your flesh.” He said. “Just barely. Just far enough to touch the source. How far did you take them?”
Yi Cao looked at the lines. “Just beneath the skin.” He said. He looked at his hand, then at ZIhan. “Isn’t it impossible to cut beyond your body?” He asked.
“Not at all.” Zihan replied. He tossed the paper back onto the table. “Just inadvisable.” He touched his hands as though drawing a line in the air as he collapsed back onto the pillows.
“The farther you go, the bigger the doorway for foreign energies to invade you. Hardly a concern in a dead world, or at the kind of level where you have access to your own sources, but I’ve heard of people using that sort of inadvisable foundation to sabotage low level disciple’s cultivation, teach them a poor foundation to keep them from ascending, but you don’t usually give a key to someone you don’t want to have access to a powerful source, and you don’t usually give a powerful source to someone who doesn’t have a powerful law, or the beginnings of one, in the first place. This kind of scripture isn’t too much of a risk for you.”
Yi Cao looked at his hand and tried to gauge the distance he had to go. Not far. He shivered. “I’ll need the source again.” He said, looking up at Zihan. “The gemstone.”
“How long will it take you?” Zihan asked.
Yi Cao looked at his hand again. “Maybe, an hour?” He said. “Half that?”
“No problem then.” Zihan said. He closed his eyes and seemed to focus for a moment, then Yi Cao felt a wash of Ki sweep out to touch him. Something hot and dry, alien to the damp source he’d cultivated with only a few hours before. He could feel the carpet underneath him crinkle as it dried.
“Try now.” Zihan told him as he took a drink.
The Ki infiltrated Yi Cao’s channels and he looked up at Zihan. “Fire Ki?” He asked.
Zihan nodded. “Not what I’d call the most comfortable technique,” he said, “but its better than trying to sleep in that dirty Ki you were using.”
“That…” Yi Cao looked back at his hand. “I’ve never heard of such a technique.” He said.
Zihan scowled. “And you won’t again.” He replied. He closed his eyes and took another drink before dropping the bottle on the bedside table. “I’m going to take a nap.” He said. “Wake me when you connect with the source so I can retract the field. This sort of thing isn’t free.”
Yi Cao did as he was told and cultivated.
