Qingchi's greatest asset had been her ability to discern truth, she had experienced a great many of the half-truths and lies that people would repeat to themselves. She had become a beacon of confession, a woman whom grievances could be aired and settled. As a truther, she was always direct and to the heart of the matter. No level of deceit could crash her position, she spoke only truths.
Watching the core during its separation, she was fearful. Her body had gone through a number of changes and vanished entirely during the process. She had been refined and uploaded, torn away from her physical body and stored like data but the power of her soul was just too much, it manifested.
Qu's torture had been real, the constant flames at his body had forced a change in him. The Furry, Velvet-colored Nyankin Spirit Guardian of the Pagoda Tower had been burned over and over. It was chaos to Qu, flames literally penetrated his soul. Bright Tri-colored Flames burned in her absence, she had been in pain and worried for her child as she wailed away.
'A Boy,' Qingchi had seen it was a boy before her final moments.
("What is my Son's name?") Qingchi stretched out once her core began to stabilize, Her core stood on its own pedestal next to Qu's. Wu Hai was standing nearby as her avatar was becoming more corporeal. She flittered around the room, obsessive and interested in the processes that her soul was undergoing.
Vector was less fortunate, "Ying Wu." He answered first, it was a moment that he regretted for the rest of the evening.
Qingchi was a workaholic, her inspirations were all she had but she could never let anything good go to waste. "Start taking notes, I'll want these for later." Qingchi started to dictate her thoughts through Vector's hands, he wrote as fast as he could but she was relentless. There were other methods she could have used but because her soul was undergoing a change and repair, expending energy outside of speech was ill advised.
It was amazing, the process was absolutely unprecedented and it had even been a success, somewhat. Qu was extremely displeased having to give up work on his body that had been done over the past thousands of years. His attitude changed when he realized that he had gained significantly from the experiences.
The Tri-colored Flames were more than just a lingering after effect, his icy abilities had merged with the fire and his control over temperature had become something else. Bright lights, they hovered around him like motes to an herb. 'Why now?' Qu had been in the presence of an enormous amount of elemental essences and concentrated spiritual items before. There had never been chances like the one that had just happened, the qualitative change or anything close to it had never happened in the history of ghosts, spirits or spectres.
Qu's core inhabited the Pagoda. The Pagoda strengthened itself but nothing, pretty much nothing at all had ever had such an effect. Repairing the Core had already broken every preconception that Qu had about Cores. The Splintering of cores had happened by shaving a piece away, the damage it had incurred because of Protocol Nine was repairable but it would have taken decades. As reckless as the protocol was, had it not been for it being enacted Qingchi would have died, and maybe, perhaps maybe a lot more of the Zao family would have perished in the subsequent blasts.
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The Swamp was filled with creatures, many different types of reptiles and semi-aquatic species called it home and hunting ground. Patrols were constantly passing through the area and the appearance of the Pagoda had drawn an attention. A race that looked like a species of frogmen had surrounded it. Their attacks went unchallenged as they struck the wall.
They wanted access.
"HEAVE!" Hooks were thrown out and they did their best to pull down the door. They were idiots, the door opened the other direction but it didn't stop them from trying.
"HO!"
"HEAVE!"
"HO"
They kept up their attempts and when the door would not come down after the first few hours, they turned their tactics into bombardment. Explosives were thrown and eventually, tiny bits of the exterior began to show marks of stress. The materials and even the explosives themselves were much more powerful than those traditionally found on Shiyan.
The Pagoda was taking damage.
From within the Lobby, Honey and Mursayade could feel the thuds as they crashed against the exterior. "Those are getting louder."
"Honey, back me up." Mursayade wanted to fight. Her body was coursing with a new energy, her four arms were easily manipulated.
She flowed like water and dripped onto the lobby floor. Starlight followed in her trail like a snail, there were shells across her shoulder like a Mollusk and her arms split into tendrils that shot up and onto the door. "Help me pry this open enough to get out."
"and then lets kick their asses?" Honey was in a good mood, her high spirits made Mursayade chuckle.
Straining to open the door, there was finally a crack.
An explosive device had gone off just when the opening appeared. The blast translated through the crack and blew away several of Mursayade's tendrils, forcing the door to shut again. "Dammit!"
She was shaking her hands while they recombined. A few of her fingers had been blown off, it hurt quite a bit.
Honey's first instinct was to wrap Mursayade's finger in some of her oils. They were absorbed very quickly, drained away like it had never been. "Wow, that was fast." Bones began to grow, it was at a visible rate.
Soon, flesh wrapped Mursayade's new fingers.
"Somehow, I feel that I would have healed without your help but thank you. Can you help me open the door this time?" Mursayade was grateful having been healed but her strength was still something to be desired. "Honey, do you have control over your shape only or can you really mimic all the powers from the Gygax."
"Gygax, No.. I know what they do, I can do those things.. What do you want me to do?" Honey's body flexed around and she bounced in a blob.
"Can you still make them sleepy?" Mursayade watched her fingers regrowing.
"They are frogmen and locals, so I don't know. I can increase the potency but it will take lots of energy to restore myself after." Honey didn't leave anything out, she bounced and appeared next to Mursayade.
"Then, just do what you can." Mursayade's tendrils were driven into the doorway once again and she started to lift. "PUSH HARDER!""
Her tendrils wrapped under the doorway and when there was barely enough room for them to squeeze through, both of them had left the building.
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Wu Hai and Vector were still busy with Qingchi, Kuzunoha and Vira were still listening to the battle outside. Monitors had gone down and they were unable to watch but they heard a lot of screaming, none of it was female. Orders and explosions could be heard, everything else was muffled by the walls.
Misozi's puppet came near the Empresses, "Are you not going to fight outside with the others?"
"No. We can hear the progress outside, its not like either of them have the slightest chance of losing." Another boom could be heard outside, it was not on the tower. "See.." Kuzunoha patted a seat near her and called Misozi over to sit. "If you're here you might as well join in on the conversation."
"How are you doing in this journey?" Vira asked Misozi.
The puppet was just a housing for her avatar, her complex expressions didn't translate very well but she gave her best response. "It is more than I expected and less complicated than I thought."
"How so?" Kuzunoha took a sip of wine.
"In Master Xuan's diagrams, I was only suppose to be able to create a puppet. I was never suppose to be able to leave the confines of the Ship. Seeing myself from outside, its a bit odd but I'm getting use to it." Misozi spun her head around abruptly, "I sort of like this though."
Kuzunoha spit her wine out. "Ahh, That's..."
"Oh?!?" Misozi put her head on right and turned to face her properly. "Is there something wrong with my movement?"
"No. It just creeps me out. Sorry, I'll get use to it but normally that is very alarming." Kuzunoha slapped her thigh and laughed. "Don't worry about it, I'm fine. So.. do you have anything you want to change, I know you just got upgrades but what is it that you want? You're a spirit, I admit, Qu has his perspectives but he's not a girl."
Vira leaned in to listen.
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Qu's avatar was coming online, the damage in his core was mending but it was quite smaller than it had originally been. Thousands of years of work, hollowed out for another, the first words out of his mouth were about its size, "This is going to take a long time to repair, I need to recuperate what was lost."
"You're alive, sort of. I promise to work hard to repair what's happened but it cannot be expedited." Wu Hai walked to Qingchi's Core, "Qingchi, are you okay in there?" He pulled out a puppet and put a dress on it. "Can you manifest an avatar?"
A vibrant yet slightly transparent manifestation of Qingchi began to take form. Wisps of seven-colored fire gathered and came as one. "This is so weird." She spoke but her avatar was difficult for her to move at first.
"Just take your time, I still have some treatments you need to keep to while we're away. Qu can do the work or you can do it yourself after you learn how to manipulate a puppet." Wu Hai sat down hard on the floor and took out the Pagoda Token.. "I am out of energy and need to rest."
Focusing his mind, he teleported into the throne room. Wu Hai's appearance startled the girls, they were exchanging ghost stories and giggling out of their skulls when he showed up.
"Ah, You're back." Vira jumped hard and ran up. "How is Qingchi?"
"She's good. Right now she's learning how to move her avatar. We can figure out something better later but for now she's not in danger." Wu Hai grabbed her bottom. "I need to cultivate, have you two had a chance yet?"
"No, we wanted to eat some steak but it didn't happen." Kuzunoha pouted slightly and then Vector showed up.
"STEAK!" A barbecue pit that was attached to a trailer plopped down in the middle of the Lobby. The tires barked slightly when it landed. Vector began to cackle maniacally.
"Mike?... Did you steal this?" Wu Hai laughed at his enthusiasm.
"And a Taco Truck but.. I ran out of propane." Vector showed no shame in his action, they were spoils of war in his opinion. He felt a little bad about the taco truck, it did't fit his needs and just gathered dust in his inventory. "I'll get this started, but I suspect that if cooking this is anything like cooking regular meat.. come back in like an hour, there's plenty." Vector winked at the Emperor.
"Where's Mursayade?" Wu Hai asked.
Vira ran her fingers down Wu Hai's back, "She's handling the perimeter and getting experience. Honey's with her so it should be fine. Don't worry about those two.."
"Qu, Misozi, you two keep an eye on Mursayade and Honey's situation, alert us if they need our help or if things get out of hand." Kuzunoha came to Wu Hai's side and slapped his ass. "You shouldn't worry about what those two are up to.." She tilted her head slightly and put her finger against her lips. "You should be worried about what we're up to."
Vira and Kuzunoha both grabbed at Wu Hai's collar, yanking him inside.
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There were hundreds of them, they brokered all their bets with the greatest of their combined attacks. Encircled, Mursayade kicked wildly. Her leg stretched and tore into their bodies, hacking many of them to pieces with a single swipe.
A commander with a large hacking cleaver drove his way through the body parts.
"Gods of Water, Protect Me!" Bile and Blood swirled around him, it drilled and dove into his body and the Commander swelled in size, he grew to several meters in height and barfed out a large pearl.
He crushed it.
The air around him began to boil, the water evaporated from his body and he stood there, stacked like a ton of bricks.
"NO ONE CAN MATCH THE BLESSINGS OF THE WATER!" He patted his stomach and spat out his tongue, launching it toward them.
Mursayade laughed at the Commander and slashed out at more of his troops. Many body parts and stones littered the ground, she gathered what she could but her heart was elsewhere. She was enjoying the slaughter.
The Commander's face went dark. There was a bitterness to his senses, he had landed his tongue on Honey's bouncy flesh and in that moment, he realized his error.