PtM Book 17 - Bloodstorm - Prologue

It took a bit longer than I expected to edit this one, but we're in business. One of three chapters this week. How many total this month will depend on how many words I add or subtract in the third draft. 

For those of you waiting for Book 16's epub/mobi, I'll be posting it shortly.

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The storm struck suddenly and without warning, from all directions at once, battering the Inkwell Plane with enough force to sunder continents and empty oceans. This was not a normal spatial storm, but a world breaker, the kind that struck no more than once a millennium.

It was the third such storm they’d seen in the past few decades.

Billions of creatures perished as portions of the planar membrane ruptured. Islands vanished and oceans evaporated. Concentrated primal chaos energy bubbled unfiltered into the realm, warping everything it touched, especially the living.

Dao Lord Blackwater saw it all as it happened from an alcove in the Scriptorium. Those who knew him knew that he was a cold-blood person that would sacrifice anyone and anything to achieve his goals. Yet even he couldn’t help but feel for those suffering from the catastrophe.

His first instinct was to jump out and investigate, but he ruthlessly suppressed these thoughts. He was in the Scriptorium for a single reason: it was the fifth safest location on the Inkwell Plane, and as long as he stayed here, it would be impossible for anyone to find him.

The Scriptorium was a wonderful place. Through it, one could scry on virtually anyone in the realm without being discovered. If one were so inclined, it was possible to use it to divine the future. It was something Dao Lord Blackwater did frequently, if only to pass the time.

Yet fate was growing increasingly murky. The future was becoming impossible to predict. What was worse, the fate of the realm was growing more certain. They didn’t have a lot of time remaining.

“Scriptorium, you have records of every spatial storm that has ever struck the Inkwell Plane,” Dao Lord Blackwater said. “Excluding recent events, has the plane ever been so unlucky? Storms of this magnitude aren’t exactly rare.”

The spirit of the Scriptorium appeared before Dao Lord Blackwater. It took the form of a larger ink sprite, with humanoid features but a familiar shell pattern on the left side of its face.

“The last time something similar happened was over a hundred thousand years ago,” said the Scriptorium. “There were two such storms that struck around the same time, roughly one century apart. The plane was weaker at the time and couldn’t adequately defend itself from the second storm. It took three thousand years for the state of the realm to recover.”

“And now we have three such storms, only ten years apart,” Dao Lord Blackwater said. “Yet the planar boundary still holds.”

“Perhaps these are echoes of a greater storm elsewhere in the void?” the spirit of the Scriptorium suggested.

“Or perhaps these storms aren’t strong at all,” said Dao Lord Blackwater. “And our ability to defend against such things has been weakened.”

The spirit of the Scriptorium was not one to speculate. It watched as Dao Lord Blackwater summoned a map of the Inkwell Plane, using his own ink and blood as a medium. As the strongest cultivator on the entire plane, he’d fused his essence with every nook and cranny of it. It was just that he rarely made use of this ability, as it also made him vulnerable.

The map showed not only the Inkwell Plane but the adjacent void as well. It revealed cultivators and flying ships and kept special tabs on the Inkwell Clan’s recent resurgence and retaliation against the Paper Tiger Clan. There was insurrection in both the Crimson Lotus Empire and the Slovana Empire. Mendin was currently a war zone between two goddesses, which had now shed all pretences and intensified their eternal conflict.

“Things are getting too violent, too quickly,” Dao Lord Blackwater said. “It’s unnatural, even given the major disasters we’ve seen. There’s usually some chaos that accompanies a Heartforge Realm opening, but usually it happens after the survivors return to their respective powers.

Predictably, the powerhouses of the realm ended their seclusion to inspect the damage to the planar membrane. The Golden Emperor of Slovana, Emperor Qin of the Crimson Lotus Empire, and both of Mendin’s popes flew north, where the damage was greatest.

The damage, he had to admit, was strange. It wasn’t severe enough for him to get involved, but the strangeness of it bothered him. Equally bothering was the feeling that he definitely shouldn’t leave the Scriptorium, as doing so would spell his end. It was an unusual feeling for a cultivator of level, because he knew for a fact that it would take at least three cultivators of Emperor Qin’s calibre, or two demons of the Pale King’s calibre to match his combat prowess.

Though he was loathe to expose himself when his instincts were screaming for him to stay put, it was his duty to investigate. No one on the plane knew as much about planar collapse mechanics as he did. Without his help, they’d never figure it out.

He took two steps. The first one brought him outside of the Scriptorium. He was now exposed to enemy detection and would not be able to hide his presence for any significant length of time.

The second step took him hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, past the storms of the Inkwell Sea and into the bubble of relative calm at its center. He checked on the prison and was relieved to find it intact. This matter should have nothing to do with his clan’s ancient enemy.

Time was not on Dao Lord Blackwater’s side, so he did not linger. He took a third step, which took him to the Inky Sea Sect’s Western Branch, and their guardian treasure, the Gallery. Like the Scriptorium, which contained the Inkwell Ancestor’s stories and creative will, the Gallery housed her appreciation, and a hoard of treasures that could only be retrieved by the worthy.

The Gallery was still well-guarded and undamaged by the spatial storm, so Dao Lord Blackwater continued his inspection.  He took a brief look at the Northern Branch’s Bridge of Ascension and confirmed that it wouldn’t be opening for another five decades.

That only left the Eastern Branch’s Ink World Sanctuary. The Eastern Branch was the only branch currently without a guardian. Their duty was to care for the rare monstrous creatures in the Inworld Sanctuary and maintain ecological balance on the Inkwell Plane.

Having confirmed that nothing was amiss at these key locations, and having spread his aura around the entire Inkwell Sea, Dao Lord Blackwater teleported to his true destination: the edge of the Inkwell Plane.

He did not go to travel to the largest membrane fracture like the other powerhouse, but instead went to inspect a place that looked relatively undamaged but was falling apart at the seams.

The planar fabric here is unusually weak, he noted. Spatial cracks appear here with greater frequency than normal. But what’s most amazing is that the area looks relatively undamaged. It’s only when small pieces fall off that the anomaly can be noticed. What’s even stranger is that the damage to the planar membrane is then immediately repaired.

He could tell just by looking at the place that this sort of collapse or membrane regression occurred with relative frequency. He didn’t have to wait long before a strip of ocean a hundred meters wide and several kilometres long and deep broke away from the Inkwell Plane. It entered the void, where it disintegrated.

All of this was normal. What was abnormal was how quickly it happened, and what happened after the planar fragment disintegrated. He double-checked and triple checked before confirming that he wasn’t imagining things. “The energy isn’t drifting off into the void like it should. Instead, it’s being reabsorbed!”

Blackwater had borne witness to the slow and inevitable collapse of his home plane for several tens of thousands of years and was therefore very familiar with how the process should play out. Planes were like living beings, and it was inevitable that pieces of them were knocked off or broken away. The plane would then absorb more primal chaos energy to make up for the deficiency and produce a smaller but more stable piece of land to replace it.

This process of replacing matter was continuous, but it was contingent on energy loss. Without loss, matter would not be replaced. This meant that the Inkwell Plane was shrinking and would continue to shrink at an alarming rate.

This must all be connected, Dao Lord Blackwater thought. The wars. The spatial storms striking harder than they should. The plane’s inexplicable collapse and recycling of energy. It was unlike anything he’d ever seen, and he’d seen a lot over the past hundred millennium.

No matter. He’d gone out and he’d investigated. There was no need to risk further exposure. He would retreat back to the Scriptorium and report his findings to all the major powers.

He was about to leave when, suddenly, he found his body stiffening and his qi freezing over. Thinking grew difficult. Time seemed to freeze, but this was only an illusion. Time only appeared to freeze over because the waters had grown silent, the edge of the plane had suddenly stopped collapsing, and the creatures that remained in this stretch of ocean froze in place, not daring to move a single inch.

“Who is it?” Dao Lord Blackwater spoke. He saw no enemy to speak of – only violet skies and an open ocean. “Don’t tease this old man. Show yourself. Enough with the theatrics.”

“Theatrics…” said a voice like crashing wave. “Yes, I suppose this qualifies as theatrics, if only barely.”

A cloaked figure rose up from the ocean. It was impossible to tell if it was male or female – all he knew was that this person, this thing,was weak. Yet despite this weakness, it was suppressing his blood and preventing him from exerting any of his strength.

“So you’ve finally return,” Dao Lord Blackwater said. There was only one person, one creature who could freeze his blood so.

“I do not wish to take your life, Blackwater,” they said. “Give me the key, and your life will be spared.”

They took a step forward, and the frozen ocean waves flattened. Inky waters became smooth as polished obsidian. They took a second step, and his breath caught in his throat. His heart stopped and refused to beat.

Dao Lord Blackwater’s expression turned grim as his guess was confirmed. “We sealed you. Your prison holds. How did you escape?” At the same time, he tried to think of a solution to his predicament. Survival was impossible, but he had to warn them.

His first instinct was to tell West Sea. After all, West Sea had the key, which was the one thing they had to make sure she didn’t get. But his frozen mind quickly put a stop to that terrible idea. Warning him would only give away his position.

“No matter how much you struggle, you will give into me in the end,” the cloaked figure said. “I ask you for the third and last time, Blackwater: Give me the key!”

Her words were law. They could not be disobeyed. His body bean to move without his permission.

Think, think, you need to think, he told himself. You aren’t fully under her control. She asked you to retrieve the key, so reaching for your storage is allowed. He placed his hand on his ring of holding, then mustered the entirety of his will to take out a single item. Not a key, but a talisman!

A golden barrier appeared around Dao Lord Blackwater, greatly relieving his bloodline suppression. “Really? A Golden Fortress Talisman?” his opponent said. “It might be an immortal grade talisman but breaking through will take me three seconds at best.”

Three seconds was all Dao Lord Blackwater needed. He gathered all the energy in his body, including his bloodline, his demon core, and his manifestations. He even burned his five law projections, as well as the hint of immortal will he’d managed to condense.

Mores strength than he could ever handle filled his body. For a single second, he could slay immortals and gods.

Yet he did not attack. He could not attack her. And besides, he’d come here for a different purpose. His goal had been to investigate the source of strange planar events, and to an extent, he’d succeeded. So he settled for the next best thing, and spoke a warning, one that shattered his shield and broke through her spatial blockade. He spoke using the plane as a medium, warning all four branches of the Inky Sea Sect, the two emperors, the two popes, and the pale king. He spoke to every powerhouse on the Inkwell Plane.

“The Seal is Broken! Our ancient enemy has returned! Run! Hide! Our doom is upon us!”

The price he paid to deliver this message was everything he had. Even his spiritual sea was damaged. His soul was beyond repair, to the point that it would be impossible for him to reincarnate. Specifically, it was too damaged to be soul-searched. She would not be getting any answers out of him.

The cloaked figure sighed. “Why struggle so much, when in the end, you’re doomed to fail? This plane is mine. You can’t stop me, Blackwater. No one can.”

“We sealed you once,” Dao Lord Blackwater said. “We can do it again.”

She shook her head. “I have another conduit into this world. My power is sealed, but my will can no longer be contained.”

“We shall see,” Dao Lord Blackwater said. “Powerful as you are, you are still a fragment. Remember who it is that sealed you in the first place.”

These words provoked the desired emotional fluctuation, but it was too little, too late. There was no saving Dao Lord Blackwater. He, the strongest cultivator on the Inkwell Plane, had been vanquished. By a cultivator who’d yet to reach the fusion realm, no less.

***

Myth had it that Yama was invincible. It was tough verify such a claim, since beings of this level were nigh impossible to begin with, but whenever famous cultivators were asked who they’d never fight at any cost, the answer was always Yama.

This wasn’t just because of Yama’s superb control over lays or his innate reaper constitution, which made him physically indestructible. A body that couldn’t be killed wasn’t an entirely unsolvable problem, as one could always target his soul or capture. No, the real problem instead lay with his dominion over death. If you fought Yama and lost, there were no second chances.

One would therefore think that fabled invincibility would give Yama an edge in corporate meetings. Alas, apocalyptic powers meant little to engineers and city planners who were convinced that their solution was the right one. Yama had a headache, and the day had barely started. He had no idea when his next coffee break was, but he did know that it couldn’t come quick enough.

“And that, ladies, and gentlemen, is why the best course of action is to clear out residential area C4 instead of C5 through C6.” The speaker was a man in a well-tailored Hades suit. His voice was as smooth as soul silk, and his features were suited the ‘evil businessman’ look the man was going for very much. “Not only is C4’s population density lower, thereby minimizing the costs per square footage, but the construction is also sub-par compared to C5 and C6. Its elevation is also three spatial inches lower on average, which will maximize surge capacity.”

Excluding Yama, there were four other individuals in the meeting. Yama’s role was strictly non-technical. All he had to do was keep the peace and look threatening.

“I have never heard a viler regurgitation of twisted ideas, Melfor,” said one of the four. Unlike Melfor, her style of dress was simple and straight to the point. A holy and caring aura practically radiated from her white suit skirt, naturally clashing with Melfor’s much darker aura at the center of the table.

The woman was an angel. The man who’d spoken before was a devil. There was one more angel and one more devil in the room, making the group perfectly balanced, as all things should be.

“Vile how, Exendia?” Melfor said. “Be specific, and don’t be a bleeding heart.”

“Tone it down, Melfor,” Yama warned.

Melfor inclined his head. “I overstepped myself, Exendia. Please accept my apologies and state your objections.”

“You and I both know that the only reason you’re looking to clear out C4 is because you own real estate in C4 and C5,” Exendia said. “You specifically snatched up these properties before coming to this meeting.”

“Yes,” Melfor said. “I admit it. I have publicly disclosed these investment interests as per company policy. Let it be known that my profiteering is irrelevant to the current argument. I bought those properties because I knew exactly what the lay of the land was, knowing full well that I did not have full control over this decision, and would need to gain your approval to proceed with the project.”

Angels and devils. They gave Yama the most horrendous of headaches. And at the same time, they were some of the best employees one could hope for. Not only did they have strong souls that could resist the aura of yin that pervaded the underworld, they were hyper-competitive and extremely passionate about their work, assuming you knew how to manipulate their distinctive tendencies to your company’s advantage.

Yama did not like to generalize, but by and large, Angels tended to put the good of the company and the good of the people above their personal welfare. They looked out for the bottom line, since doing otherwise would be unethical. They were passionate, hardworking, but unfortunately not very pragmatic.

Devils tended to pursue their own personal welfare, but they knew that the best way to do so was to put the company’s values and interests on a pedestal. They had a keen eye on ways to enrich themselves and were naturally very selfish. And like angels, they were very keen on cutting through red tape when doing so suited them.

All-devil teams and all-angel teams were a recipe for disaster. The best way to organize them, Yama found, was using strategies of mutual restraint and augmentation.

For example, this meeting. There were exactly two devils and two angels in the meeting, and one neutral minder. The minder’s role was to moderate the meeting and ensure that any decisions made had the approval of at least three of four group members.

It also fell to the neutral minder to enforce a decision if a consensus could not be reached in a reasonable time frame. And that decision would be specifically suboptimal for both parties involved, no matter how terrible that decision was form a technical or political perspective.

“Look. Exendia,” Melfor said. “This proposal is based purely on the costs involved.”

“Yes, I’m fully aware that C4’s income is well below median and destroying their residences would be far less costly,” Exendia answered drily. “This is the worst form of gentrification. I won’t have it.”

“But the costs will be thirty percent lower if we do it this way,” Melfor said. “Think of the company’s bottom line. This will also free up many additional funds, which we could use to temporarily house the residents elsewhere, and even rebuild their homes. They’ll be winning out in the exchange.”

“Most of them are renting,” Exendia argued. “If their homes are rebuilt, they’ll be new and much more expensive.”

Melfor eyed his other angelic opponent, Jazine, then proceeded to make a counteroffer. “What if we compromised and reserved a portion of the new residential structures as government-owned low-income housing? We would add a clause that would prioritize the original residents, at rates comparable to those they are currently paying for then next five decades.” The second devil in the room snorted. “What? Is there a problem with my proposal, Norech?”

“No problems,” Norech said. “None at all.”

“Just spit it out dear, it’ll be better in the long run,” Jazine said. She was the oldest of the lot by far. Yet there was twinkle of youth in her eyes that spoke of brimming vitality. She was a healer, and a very good one at that.

“I just don’t want to see him deceive you, that’s all,” Norech said. “It’s obvious that he’d already considered offering low-incoming housing. After all, the many businesses in the entertainment district he’s proposed to council will require workers. Especially the casino.”

“A casino?” Exendia said angrily. “You know how much I hate those things, Melfor. How dare you plot against me?”

“What’s wrong with casinos?” Jazine said. “I love casinos!”

“They cheat people, Jazine,” Exendia said. “They latch onto their hopes and dreams and suck them dry. They’re worse than vampires. They’re worse than mosquitos.”

“I think they give people hope and provide wonderful entertainment,” Jazine shot back. “Sure, some people slip through the cracks. But I think casinos are a legitimate form of entertainment, assuming we can curb addictive tendencies.”

“Please focus, people,” Yama interrupted. “You have twenty more minutes to get through this entire meeting, and if you can’t come to an agreement, I will veto both your proposals and run everything through section D7 instead.

Both of them shuddered. That was the richest neighborhood. There was nothing intrinsically wrong with flooding such a neighborhood, obviously, but the costs would be astronomical. It would blow their budget and take away maneuvering room for their other projects. What was worse, it would cost them their bonuses.

“I can agree to this proposal,” Exendia said. “But only if you extend the flood zone into C3.”

“Why would we want to do that?” Jazine asked.

“Because it’s filled foul industries that pollute the environment,” Exendia said. “If C4 gets flooded, so should C3.”

“Done!” Melfor said. “I couldn’t care less about C3.”

“I have an alternate proposal,” said Norech, who seemed to relish in the sheer chaos of these meetings. “There’s a park not far away. It is uninhabited and frankly probably the cheapest option. By destroying it, we could enact vengeance on the local goose population. The mental health benefits alone are worth considering.”

Jazine ignored Norech. “Give me a fully funded hospital and I’ll agree to it, Melfor. Ten thousand patients a day.”

“Five thousand and I’m on board,” Melfor said.

“Nine thousand,” Jazine countered.

Melfor looked to Norech. “What do you even want?”

“I take great pleasure in watching you suffer,” Norech replied. “Isn’t that enough?”

“Seven thousand and not a person more,” Melfor said to Jazine.

“Seven five.”

“No.”

“Seven four.”

“No.”

“Seven one.”

“… fine.”

An agreement in principle was quickly reached. They had to haggle with Jazine, who’d been sold on Norech’s anti-goose proposal, but they soon came to a consensus.

Ironically, Norech didn’t seem displeased by the result in the meeting in the slightest. Yama suspected that he’d been bribed in some way by Melfor to instigate at key moments, thereby shaping the tone of the entire meeting.

Angels and devils. They were at each other’s throats if left to their own devices, but very efficient when forced to cooperate. Not many people knew about this, and aside from himself, only Elder Zhong, and Patriarch Heartforge were brave enough to make it happen.

“How many more, Lily?” Yama said once the meeting was over.

“Only forty-nine more today, superimposed,” Lily said.

“Must I?” asked Yama.

“Yes, you must,” Lily said. “You are a very intimidating presence, and quite frankly, the only reason why we’ve been able to keep the archangels and arch-devils in check.”

“Very well,” Yama said, resigning himself to his fate. It was just another normal day in the underworld, free of schemes and world ending disasters. The outsiders had all been cleared up, and all he had to do now was pick up the pieces.