Pieces of Sonder

For the hundredth time, Freya looked at the cave entrance. 

Still nothing.

Breathing a small sigh of relief, she focused her attention back on K13. In just a few hours of practice, he was starting to control his qi well. 

“Maybe tomorrow morning, we can try to awaken your Meridian Manipulation skill,” Freya told K13.

The boy nodded. He shyly looked towards her, “You can eat. I’ll keep practicing.”

Taking him up on the offer, she got up and sat on the opposite side of the fire Diviner Houkyu constructed. Despite the heat, everyone tried to stay close to the campfire. The potion Diviner Houkyu threw into the fire every so often significantly reduced the number of biting insects. 

Freya picked up the one bowl they had and poured some traditional Kai Nai soup made by the diviner. Heilong was the only one that had any kind of cookware, so they had to take turns eating with the single bowl and spoon. Infamous Biscuit told Freya and Diviner Houkyu to make sure to eat their fill; the rest of them didn’t have to eat in-game. 

Currently, Infamous Biscuit was the one logged out. He said he would log back in another ten hours. Freya wondered what he was eating in his world.

Thunk.

On the other side of the clearing, Heilong stood in her makeshift archery range. She had been firing arrows perfectly into her target for the last hour but still shook her head in dissatisfaction each time.

Freya assumed she was trying to infuse a Meridian Manipulation skill into her archery. She wasn’t sure if it was possible, but she admired Heilong’s efforts. Freya also wondered if there was any way for her to learn another Meridian Manipulation based skill. Her Shockwave had an annoying cooldown time. 

As the last sunlight streamed through the trees, Heilong finally stopped firing arrows. She walked over and sat beside Freya.

“I’ll take the first watch. You should get some sleep.”

Freya sighed, “I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep.”

“It’ll be alright,” Heilong said, clapping her on the back. “I’m resetting my traps every hour. We’ll get a good jump start if any orcs come out.”

“I hope none appear.”

Freya spread her shaman cloak out on the ground. It was hot enough she didn’t need a blanket, but she still felt odd sleeping without one.

Across their campsite, she could hear Heilong and Diviner Houkyu talking. The frogs and crickets drowned out most of their conversation with their earsplitting racket. Tossing and turning, Freya thought she would never get any sleep.

…

Freya jerked upright. Gasping for breath, she looked around.

“Are you alright?” Heilong asked.

Shielding her eyes from the early morning light, Freya found their campsite as it was the night before. 

No orcs. 

No pink mush from Infamous Biscuit’s watermelon bombs. 

No blood or bodies on the ground.

Heilong, K13, and Diviner Houkyu were sitting in a circle around the fire. They each held a stick with something at the end of it. A pleasant smell of meat cooking filled the air. 

Relaxing further, Freya got up and put her shaman cloak into her inventory. She shook her head. The horrific scene slowly melted away from her vision. Inwardly she complained, stupid dream scaring me for no reason.

“You guys are eating without me? And I thought someone was supposed to wake me up for the next watch.”

Heilong shrugged, “Houkyu volunteered to keep a longer watch.”

“I’m not going to be much help in a fight anyway,” he said, sticking his skewer further into the fire.

Freya sat next to him. Heilong offered her a stick and pointed to a bag. Taking a piece of salted meat from the bag, she stuck it on her stick and started roasting it.

“I don’t think you should come into the dungeon, but in some emergency situation, you should be able to do some damage, right? You must have strong qi, or blood to be able to support a spirit summoning for so long.” Freya said to Diviner Houkyu, nodding towards Pekkae on his shoulder.

The diviner sucked in his breath, “I don’t know. It’s been a long time since I’ve exorcised any demon.”

“Really?” Freya said, interested. “Are there demoniclasts or specialized demon hunters here that usually take care of them?”

Diviner Houkyu shook his head, “There’s just not that many demons around here. I heard up in Vansyl there are more.”

“Hm, I never really thought of us having a lot. But I do have to perform exorcisms quite often.”

Freya knew different areas of Vansyl had different varieties of demons, but she never thought they might be rare altogether on other continents.

Somewhere in the forest, a bird let out a distinctive shriek!

A shiver ran down her spine. Yesterday she heard that bird call many times, but now that call reminded her of the bad dream. In her dream, that bird call sounded just before the orcs emerged from the dungeon. Freya shook her head again. It was just a bad dream.

Heilong threw her stick into the fire, “I need to leave for a little bit. Message me if anything happens. Oh actually, K13 message me. No offense, Freya.”

“None taken,” Freya said, still biting her lip a little. She turned to explain to K13, “I’m really slow at, what do you call it? Typing.”

Heilong smirked a tiny bit and waved goodbye. She disappeared.

“Do you want to warm up with the qi breathing exercises?” Freya asked K13. “I’ll check your progress.”

Freya finished eating and then checked K13’s qi flow. Diviner Houkyu sat facing the dungeon entrance but watched them.

“Your control is good! I think you’re ready.”

Following the same procedure she used on Infamous Biscuit and Heilong, Freya had K13 drink a bottle of essence of merkcantil then filled his meridian lines with extra qi energy.

“The rest is up to you,” Freya explained. “Try to push your qi out.”

Diviner Houkyu nodded in agreement with her words, “Yes, you never want someone else to try to push your energy out from you. That’s a good way to damage your blood.”

Freya blinked at the diviner’s words. Hearing it phrased that way, an idea started to form in her head. Currently, her Shockwave skill pushed out her qi to damage others, but what if she tried to pull?