Urmie
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Extra 2: Adoption on a Treasure Hunt
🕑 Added 2024-04-02 19:00:06 +0000 UTCSiwang found treasures in the damnedest places. Of all the places to find some sort of magical treasure, he just HAD to send her to some sort of cave smack dab in the middle of a forest that came straight out of some sort of Lovecraftian horror. Well… maybe she was exaggerating that a bit. But the cave was definitely one of those in some horror fantasy where some important character died.
Its entrance, concealed behind twisting vines and gnarled roots, seemed to pulse with a life of its own, like the jaws of a lurking beast ready to pounce on any unsuspecting soul. Samaya felt every pore of her body warning of danger ahead when she entered the cave, wary of the dangerous pulsing walls.
Inside, the heavy scent of decay permeated the air, mixed with the echoes of long-forgotten murmurs that appeared to ricochet down the wet, murky paths. The cave's floor was covered in a thick blanket of moss, pleasant underfoot yet concealing dangerous traps beneath its emerald surface. Carnivorous plants lurked in the shadows, their sharp leaves ready to catch any unlucky traveller who tried to approach too closely. Their tendrils, like ravenous serpents, stretched out to feed their terrible desire with the warmth of live flesh.
At the heart of the cave, lay a pulsing blob of blue and golden sap, covered by a thin, veiny membrane. Thorny vines wrapped around it as they climbed up and above the blob, forming a receptacle that held a single blue flower.
And what did you know?
That was the treasure!
It was apparently a miracle flower with magical properties, with different parts doing different things. The sap from it could kill someone within seconds with the right dose, while the nectar could bring anyone back from near death. The thing was, you could not just pluck the flower. You could not separate it from the blob beneath it, which worked like a sort of heart for the flower. It would harden in a sort of sapphire-like stone which - while beautiful - was not nearly as valuable as the flower itself and would not fetch nearly as much money in the black market.
The problem? Well… the moment he took that little blob was the moment the cave would actually come to life and try to eat her. Literally. Those carnivorous trees would unhinge their “jaws” wide open and try to devour her. Likewise, those fucking traps that she had worked so hard to avoid would be triggered. The reason she was sent here instead of Siwang’s men was because “oh but you are faster than any of them”.
And what about his elites? “Oh, they are away on other important missions so I cannot spare them for this!”
Aka she was more expendable than them.
Well, fuck you too, Siwang.
He was lucky she needed a steady source of income and most missions were not as dangerous as this.
Well, there was no use delaying. Taking the flower itself was not the hard part, getting out was. She tightened the gloves on her hands and made sure they were secure. Enforced by talismans carved on the inside, they would protect her from the thorns which - surprise, surprise - were poisonous. She was covered head to toe in protective clothing today. Those things better work. They were expensive. Siwang gave those to her and she was sure he was going to take the cost out of her money, more so if they got destroyed.
Alright, she told herself as she tiptoed on the soft moss coated floor, here went nothing.
She gently reached out and wrapped her hands around the blob. Immediately, she could feel those damn plants stirring. She took a deep breath. She couldn’t just rip this out, unless she wanted the delicate membrane to tear, spilling that poisonous sap all over her hand. So took a knife and gently cut around the edges, until there was only a minuscule part connected. The moment she disconnected that, this entire cave would come to life.
She sheathed the knife and tucked it back into her belt. Exhaling softly, she balanced on her toes, ready to sprint, before ripping it out as fast as she could, like ripping off a band aid. Before she had even lifted the flower, she was off the ground, her figure a blur, the floor collapsing a millisecond after she jumped.
She could see those plants and flowers turn to her in unison and open their “jaws” wide. She did not have the time to think as those carnivorous plants shot towards her at breakneck speed. Alright, now she could understand why Siwang sent her. Most of his men would have a hard time keeping up.
She moved, dodging the plants and making sure her feet did not stay long enough for the ground to swallow her up, her mind moving just as fast as her body. She used the only part of the caves that would not collapse into traps full of vines that would suffocate her or was not riddled with poisonous thorns - the inside of the mouth of those plants. They only secreted an acid when they had their prey in their jaw, unable to move. Before they closed though, they were dry. She would have that millisecond before the mouths closed to springboard from one plant to another all the way to the exit.
And that was what she did. She jumped from one unhinged jaw to another, springing off them just a moment before they snapped close. She let her mind take a backseat and her body guide her toward the exit. If anyone saw, they would only see something resembling a black blur amongst wide open, hungry mouths snapping this way and that to try and catch it, while vines shot from every which way in an attempt to trap the figure. Samaya darted and swerved through them, allowing her deep-seated reflexes to react to the danger.
She cursed when she looked ahead and saw that the exit was closing up too, those vines and stems twisting and turning over one another as they crawled across the empty space that was the entrance and exit. She could see the opening getting smaller and smaller by the second.
She sped up, pushing herself to the limit. It was the kind of speed she only used when Siwang went all out in their spars. Those were a monster of their own, she had to use every last fucking particle of her body just to keep up.
The opening kept shrinking. If she didn’t get out, she would be trapped and swallowed up by the cave. Manu… he would be all alone. She couldn’t leave the poor boy, couldn’t abandon him like that. Her son.
She risked it and pressed her feet onto the next plant just a millisecond longer, pushing as hard as she could, absently feeling the edges tear through the socks and scratch the side of her feet. She spun mid-air, straightening her body as much as she could, as if she were diving off a cliff.
Against the odds, she managed to pass through the opening, grunting softly as she fell to the ground, letting the momentum roll her to minimize any damage she might get. She looked back to see the entrance cum exit closing off. Not a second too late. The faint tremors running through the ground told her that the cave was collapsing. She exhaled softly and looked at the flower in her hand, faintly glowing in the moonlight.
“You better be worth it, motherfucker.”
She took out her satchel, dumping the extra set of clothes inside onto the ground, before pushing the flower inside.
“Alright. Let’s go.”
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She found her way to the nearest village, needing to find an inn to stay the night because she was exhausted.
She wore the coarse clothes she brought with her, resembling a young peasant boy. It was better to travel this way. Safer and free of hindrance. Most of the time. The clothes Siwang had lent her for the mission were safely inside the bag, with the flower.
As she made her way through the village trying to find an inn where she could eat and stay, she heard a commotion coming from nearby. It did not take her long to find the source of the sound, with people gathering around the village square.
….
She should just leave it alone. But the sight of more and more people gathering gave her a sense of curiosity. She sighed softly and made her way there, squeezing through the crowd to see what was happening. The crowd surrounded the square, standing at an uncannily consistent radius from the square.
Her eyes widened at the sight in front of her.
A little boy was tied to a pole erected in front of the square, with dried hay and dried wood tied around him and a man pouring what seemed to be oil on him. The boy was in rags, slumped against the pole. His eyes were blank and he didn’t struggle, didn’t even react to the oil being poured on him, looking as if he had given up the will to live. He couldn’t be more than 10-12 years old.
What the fuck was happening?
She didn’t have to ask.
The man spoke soon enough, apparently done with pouring the oil. “My fellow villagers, we have long been plagued by this devil. Do not be deceived by his innocent face! He was born with the power of the demons, with dark qi! The moment he was born, he ate up his mother! The poor woman died, drained of life and blood. His father tried to discipline the boy, but this… this heartless demon killed him too! Everywhere he goes, death follows. Now the very disease that took his mother is back. Our innocent villagefolks, dead in their homes, their bodies skeletal as if drained of all blood. This… this demon has started its killing spree again!! It must be purged! All these years, we showed sympathy to the face of a child. No more! Today, we shall be free!”
Murmurs of agreement rippled through the crowd, some louder than others, cursing out the little child who stared blankly at the ground.
“Demon!”
“Monster!”
“Kill him!”
“Burn him alive!”
The feeling of true and utter disgust curled in her gut. In what world did that lifeless child look like a monster? He looked ready to embrace death. No child should have that kind of expression.
The exhaustion from her mission must have clouded her mind because she couldn’t help but blurt out the next words. “You are burning a child?”
She wasn’t that loud. But the few people around her turned to stare at her. It was enough that the people around them noticed too.
“You must be from out of here,” one of them said. “That is not a child. That is a demon that kills everything it touches.”
She clenched her teeth and looked back at the small, broken figure tied to the pole. He had looked up, tilting his head. The look in his eyes wasn’t hope, like she had seen on Manu when she had first found him. No, it was …. A cynical sort of curiosity. The boy looked at her as if she was a performer about to put on a show for his execution.
….
Fuck it.
The split second decision made, she reached inside the small pouch tied to her waist and pulled out a smoke ball, throwing it unhesitantly onto the ground. Immediately, it burst and covered the area with smoke, concealing everything around her including the square. The people in the crowd covered their mouths and tried to wave away the smoke.
It took a few long moments for the smoke to clear.
When it did, the onlookers found that the pole was empty, ropes cut through and scattered across the ground, along with the hay and wood. The child and the woman who had just spoken up were nowhere to be seen.
A moment of stunned silence passed before chaos erupted.
“That woman! That woman took the demon!” Someone screeched.
“She must be his kind!”
“They will rain curses on this village!”
“We must find them!”
“Everyone!” The man who had poured oil on the child called, his voice booming over the others’. He seemed to be some sort of leader for the villagers. “We must remain calm. Even if they are demons, they cannot have gone far. After all, it is just a woman with a child. Let us find them and bring them to justice!”
The man promptly organized a few groups to send in every direction to find them. Unfortunately - or fortunately - they would have no such luck. Samaya was already pushing her exhausted body, rushing past the mud and bamboo houses of the quaint village and speeding into the woods, her surroundings a mere haze to her eyes. Gods, she would be surprised if she did not pass out the moment she stopped.
The boy was curled up in her arms, faint tremors running through his body. She slowed down when she thought she was far enough that those villagers wouldn’t be able to get to her.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “You are safe. No one will hurt you.”
The boy was silent, his tense body as rigid as when she first picked him up. She sighed softly as she looked around for a place to stay for the night. It had to be a clearing or some sort of cave. A normal one, this time.
“Do you have a name?” She asked softly as she slowed down to a walk.
A pause. Then the boy shook his head.
It was a lie. The boy had to have a name. But… she wasn’t surprised that he denied it, given the glimpse she got of how he was treated in that village.
Her eyes landed on the crowd of willow trees ahead. They looked beautiful under the moonlight.
“Liu,” she said softly. “Your name can be Liu. If you want it.”
Another pause. A nod.
The boy buried his face into her neck. Samaya smiled. How cute.
“Nice to meet you, Ah-Liu.”
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Author's Note: And here we see the backstory of how Ah-Liu got adopted. His name is Liu and the Ah is a prefix used for endearment. Similar to the 'er suffix that I had the Emperor use for Samaya. This is something I adopted from my reading and understanding of Chinese novels and manhuas. I am about... 90% sure I did it right lol.
This chapter will come out publicly the week after I have posted Chapter 39. I had originally planned on posting it here a week before public release. But by then, some of my supporters won't be here. I wanted them to enjoy this too! They signed up for a random bonus chapter too, after all XD
I have no particular plans or schedules for bonus chapters. Bonus/Extra chapters will usually be centered around events that either have already happened or are outside of the narrative of the main story, but they will have a little bit of effect on the main story. I plan on getting a list of potential ideas for the bonus chapters on discord. I will welcome any thoughts, opinions and ideas.
Thank you for reading! Hope you enjoyed. If you see any mistakes, please let me know. Leave your thoughts in a comment below.
Comments
Sammy Girl
Thank you! Edited.
OlivierA
Edits : 3 'he' that should be 'she'
