Of all the things the Shaman was or could have been this surprised me the most. I sat in a shock while it sank in. This was the man who travelled and tethered our world to this one.
"How did you do it?" I asked.
"I followed the path set out by the ancients. I was not the first to come here, I was just the first to come here this century. You see all the men - city and mountainfolk? Why are they here? How did they get here? They are the descendants of the first of the enlightened."
"Why did you use a lump and not your own body? Is it impossible to bring your own body?"
He cackled and spat. "Of course it is but I am not powerful like the ancients. This lump is an aberration made by the gatekeepers."
I frowned. The founder, the man who made this all possible should be someone I should admire but he was a broken pitiful wreck hiding in the mountains and scamming the mountainfolk to feed him both with food and qi.
