OtH 1.17 - Making Connections

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Lurona was sitting behind her desk when he arrived with Reodan. The white stone of the wall behind her framing her against the brown and green streaked stone of the rest of the interior. Various pieces of paper were on her desk, her pen flashing across them with lightning speed.

While Aarick was bemused with using superhuman speed to fill out paperwork, he was most struck by what he could now sense about her.

She burned. She was radiating fire like a furnace and he could feel the weight of her qi. There was a feeling of depth about her, a sense that he was only seeing surface of a raging star. A purity and intensity that was far beyond his capacity to measure.

How much qi does she even have?

Ultimately, he decided it wasn’t an important question for the moment. He didn’t have anycultivation, so wondering at what he might get later was meaningless.

The last of papers were finished and promptly disappeared.

Lurona looked up, the intensity of her eyes still vaguely unsettling, as her enormous dark blue irises fixated themselves to look at him for a moment. They flickered away to glance at Reodan, before she began to stand up.

“Reodan, you are dismissed. I will ensure Aarick returns to his rooms after we are finished.”

“As you command, Lady Lurona.” Reodan bowed deeply and then left the room. The doors to office closed behind him.

For a moment Lurona just stood looking at him, before she walked around her desk.

“Follow me,” she said, and started to walk away.

Aarick started in surprise, then began to follow.

They walked back into Lurona’s more private office area, and he followed her into the first door on the left, which turned out to be a stairway leading up.

He expected it to lead to the roof, since her office was on one of the corners of the building, but it turned out to lead to an intermediate level hallway. He had noticed the that the ceiling for most of his quarters were much lower than the height to the next floor, with the notable exception of the martial training room. He had just assumed that they were like that for structural reasons.

“What exactly is up here?” Aarick said.

“Depends on where you are,” Lurona said, “but there are hallways connecting most of the structure, as well as supply rooms, and other background needs. Reodan’s new quarters, plus any needed for other servants, are directly above your suite.”

Huh. I just assumed he had quarters elsewhere. I wonder if there is a main kitchen he brought me food from, or if there is one above my suite? Not that both couldn’t be true. Do I have a full staff living above me that I didn’t even know about?

I’m going to need to meet and thank them if so.

For a moment he changed his mind, thinking that might not fit into his role as a noble.

Eh, screw it. I would rather be a slightly eccentric noble that is overly nice than be an asshole, even if it is expected and normal behavior.

Guess there are certain cultural values that I am just going to adapt to myself, regardless.

Not that Lurona, the only real example of a noble he had met so far, had been anything other than polite. He would need to interact with others before he could make any decisions. Unfortunately, the history he had been reading had not left him overly optimistic in that regard.

Of course, those were usually the higher ups, so who knows who I’ll meet.

The hallway that they were passing through was the same brown stone, the viridescent streaks of green acting as a contrast to the deep brown. These hallways had far less in the way of decorations, and, ignoring the perfect regularity of the shape, it almost felt like he was inside of some giant hollow tree branch.

Lenora’s brisk gliding stepped carried them to a large spiraling stairway. It edged around a large dome, spiraling inward toward the center. As he walked up the shallow steps he could see downwards through panels in the dome.

Beneath the dome another large pair of spiral stairs formed a helix connecting the first and second floors, with a large open cylinder of space between them. The stairs were wide, each easily able to handle multiple people going in both directions. Carpets in imperial yellow glittered on the stairs, threads flashed gold in the light of a pure white chandelier.

The chandelier was a work of art in its own right. Rather than the candelabra style that he was used to, it was obviously magical. Calling it a chandelier might be a misnomer in the first place. A thin, but wide, band of white metal swirled like a ribbon. At the top, where a thin chain connected to the ceiling above, it ended in a sharp spike. From there it ballooned out in to a curve, until the overall shape was a slightly elongated ovoid with a sharp spike at the center and bottom. The interior of the chandelier was easy to see, the space between each section of the metallic ribbon’s winding path about as wide as the ribbon itself. And, in the middle, with no sign of anything holding it, a brilliant ball of scintillating light cast beams of light out through the gaps.

He had stopped without realizing it, admiring the beauty of the scene laid out before him.

He started when he felt a gentle touch on his arm. He shook himself and saw Lurona smiling gently at him. Her eyes were crinkled slightly at the corners, casting her face into an expression of contentment.

“S-Sorry,” he stuttered out after a moment.

“Don’t be,” she said. “I am glad that you enjoyed seeing it. It was a pleasure to see your appreciation. It would have been a shame if I missed it.”

She resumed walked up the stairs, her pace more sedate than before. The faint whispering of her robes was the only sign of her steps. She seemed less to be climbing each step than floating gently upward in a path that happened to match the stairs.

“I commissioned that light from one of my favorite artists. Transporting it here cost far more than the commission itself, but I still appreciate it each time that I see it.”

He nodded, unsure of what to say.

Does art and aesthetics play a much larger role here? If you are going to be in the same house for a thousand years, or more, I imagine that would be a big deal.

He thought back to his family home for a moment. There were small issues with the house even after they had been living there for almost two decades. He barely remembered the old house at all.

There are paintings on the wall that have been there the entire time. So maybe it is like that instead. The ultimate version of getting so used to your environment that you don’t even see it. It all becomes background.

He shrugged internally, making sure he kept pace behind her. Getting lost in thought once was fine, doing it again would probably be exasperating.

The ceiling of the surrounding area grew level with his head, the staircase now a tight spiral that pushed up through it directly above the center of the dome. A dozen more feet upward and he began to feel an itching pressure as the qi in the air grew denser.

He continued to walk, communicating with the qi as best he could. It retreated from him, giving him room to breathe, and he kept his thoughts contained to ensure it stayed that way.

Finally, Lurona passed into a new room, and he followed up the stairs.

He paused before he let his head enter level with the room. Bands of glowing white at the top of the stairs demarcated the start of the room. Beyond them, he could sense the pressure of the qi was significantly denser.

He lifted a hand, pushing a single finger through the barrier to see what happened.

The pressure was crushing. Even with only his finger in the barrier, it took almost all his concentration to keep the qi from flowing inwards. He could feel a faint feeling from the qi. Almost a desire, a wanting to connect.

He allowed himself a tiny fraction of distraction. For a moment he simply tried to understand the qi.

The nature of the Liminal Space flashed through his mind again, as he remembered the thinnest of barriers had separated him from… everything. Here, again, he felt the same. The sense that all it would take to connect to the qi was acceptance. Unlike Liminal Space, there was no feeling of danger here.

And he suspected that was a lie.

Connection was not inherently dangerous, but it would be easy to lose himself. Connection had to be constrained.

And that gave him a tiny flash of insight into ziu, too. Disconnection was not dangerous, either.

Either one could be too much. Connect to much to the world around you, and you lost yourself. Disconnect too far, and you no longer cared about anything.

With that thought, the faint sense of distance joined his connection.

He didn’t feel only the qi, anymore. Ziu was concentrated behind the barrier too. It was inevitable. Each was a natural force, and while The Empire stayed away from where the contaminated ziu was deepest, it was impossible to be rid of it entirely. Each force was needed for the world to exist at all.

They were meant to go together, and so he connected to both.

Qi acted as a bridge to the reclusive ziu, and his mind opened again.

This time, it wasn’t quite the same as before.

For a brief moment, he could see the world.

Qi drew together and ziu isolated. Each allowed the other to function, even as normal matter and forces integrated differently with each in turn. A constant flow of energy was exchanged back and forth, keeping the cycle going.

Without people, without spirits, or souls, they might be completely neutral forces. However, it was obvious that they were meant to work together. Emotion and meaning gave the two forces, the two energies, direction on what to do and what to be.

For a moment the barriers surrounding the room and spread through out the entire structure spoke to him.

They were crude things. No more than the barest truth of a symbol laid down for the universe to read. They lacked all the detail that they should need to truly operate. Instead, they relied on the meaning, the intent of the one who had created them. They worked because the qi understood meaning and acted as a bridge to convince the universe into action.

For a moment he understood more than a master of the art, his focus drawn to the lines. Each crude meaning was clear and how to fix it was laid bare, but the moment faded away. Only a vague understanding was left behind, the power of the experience greater than him memory could contain.

He had a sense of loss, that he couldn’t keep the intensity and purity of the experience.

Maybe someday my cultivation will let me keep that kind of memory.

He smirked to himself as he had another thought.

Of course, by then, I might gain even greater experiences that I cannot keep. That would be a worthy reason to keep cultivating, at least.

At some point his hand had fallen down to his side, and he became aware of the rest of the world once again.

His sense of ‘touch’ had expanded, now encompassing a sphere about fifteen feet across, centered around the middle of his body. He could clearly sense qi flowing throughout the sphere, especially any fire qi. Ziu flowed through the sphere too, a more ghostly sensation, like echoes or afterimages of the streams of qi.

Aarick didn’t need to push against the qi anymore. The density where he stood was perfectly comfortable, the qi obliging his desires and not pushing to too hard.

At the top of the stairs Lurona had her arms folded, one of her fingers tapped on her arm while she stared down at him.

“Uh, sorry, I-” he started to say.

“You just finished qi familiarization, didn’t you?” She said.

“Yeah, and, uh, ziu too.” He said, somewhat apologetically.

One of her eyebrows rose slightly, and she muttered something under her breath before jerking her head up.

“Come on, we need to talk.”