Emery

Escaping the underground antlion tunnels turned out to be pretty easy when we were no longer trying to avoid using our Qi. Even just cycling it through our bodies gave us a supernaturally accurate read of the incline and directions we were traveling, but the addition of Avuri using her Domain to scout ahead made the trip much easier.

Unfortunately, while the navigation of the tunnels became easy, the trek itself had a sense of failure hanging over all of us. When we ran into the two adults and the children in the caves again, they all looked defeated. There wasn't a dry face among them, but they listened to us well and followed me while Avuri guarded the rear. There was sniffling and whimpers among the group, but nothing that would attract unwanted attention. At least not with the antlions so busy destroying the camp.

While we did our best not to show it, Avuri and I were equally downcast. Once the actual fight was won, all the regret had surged back in full, and our negative feelings were mingling into a huge ball of frustration and bitterness, directed at everyone - but mostly ourselves.

"We could have saved him. If we hadn't been so cautious, we could have saved him."

"The demons were weak. We didn't need to waste so much time skulking around."

"If we had just acted, that boy would still be alive."

"It's our fault he died."

"We killed him."

As we led the way through the maze of tunnels, the thoughts kept bouncing back and forth between us. I couldn't even tell which one of us had which thought - but each time it echoed between us it got louder and louder.

"Left up ahead." Avuri sent, her direct message cutting through some of the mental noise. At least enough for me to make it out clearly, but it did nothing to interrupt the jumble of negativity.

"This way." I said aloud as I took the left as directed. The mortals followed behind wordlessly. One of the children sniffled while another hiccuped. I felt bile rise in my throat but fought it down. This was hardly the time for that; there were still six people who needed our help.

When our group emerged from some random hole in the ground, Avuri asked everyone to wait a moment so she could get her bearings so we could head directly toward Resin. I left her to it, and I could feel her focus moving to her First Snow technique so she could try to spot the city on the horizon while I tried to focus on the mortals with us.

The adults were corralling the children together, but looked a little hollow. The kids, in turn, were clearly upset but had gotten to the point that they were no longer actively crying or sniffling, but rather similarly numb. When I walked up to the group, the six pairs of empty eyes turning my way made my mouth go dry. I had to take a breath and swallow before I could get my voice out.

"Hey." My voice was shaky, but I tried to play it off while crouching down to be closer to eye level with the children. I tried to smile, hoping it wouldn't look too fake especially to the children. "My name is Emery. What's yours?"

The little boy nearest to me answered first. His eyes looked to have the most energy in them, but it was still dim. "Kord."

He looked directly at me, without any flinching or looking away. It wasn't defiance or hate that I could see in his eyes, but something more like preparation for a challenge. He was ready for something.

I put my hand on his head gently, without messing up his hair, just trying to comfort him.

"Nice to meet you, Kord."

He said nothing, but nodded in acknowledgement a moment later.

Another child was standing right behind Kord, holding onto the sack of cloth that was functioning as clothing. The kid's hair was long and looked like it had been fairly well taken care of at one point, but now it was a tangled mess and dirty. "I'm…Briar."

As soon as she said her piece, the little girl stepped back behind Kord again, who instinctively put a hand out to guard her. I smiled at that, a little of the regret I felt being pushed aside for the moment. "Hello Briar. I'm Emery."

She nodded from behind Kord, while the two remaining boys stepped up and said their names were Karn and Enrik. They both had the empty look that dominated the entire group, with not much energy left in their eyes. While I hadn't picked up on it when we first found them in the camp, it was clear that they were more malnourished than Kord and Briar - they weren't sickly or emaciated, but they were definitely on their way toward showing ribs.

"I'm Risha." The middle aged woman said flatly. Her eyes were constantly flicking over and around the children in concern, as if watching for them to suddenly sprout injuries.

"You can call me Fal." The young man looked to have hardened himself the most to the experience, but even he was clearly showing signs of distress. I figured it was likely he was a guard that was hired for one of the caravans, but still new to the position. He was clearly not used to the death and danger of situations like this yet, despite the job.

Though, to be fair, I wouldn't have expected most people to remain unbothered by witnessing the murder of a child, even if more veteran guards could hide it better.

I dipped my head to both of them in greeting. "I wish we could have met under better circumstances."

They both seemed a little disturbed that they had a Cultivator bowing to them, even if only slightly, but seemed to accept it in the end. Fal muttered an agreement to my statement.

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"What happens now?" Risha asked, her eyes now flicking between the children and my face.

"To start, we get all of you to Resin. After that…it'll depend on what you all want to do."

"I…can't take care of the kids." Fal said outright. "I have no family, and barely make any money as a wandering guard as is."

"That's alright." I said, confident that this was one way that I could help without restraint. "My wife and I can take all four of them, unless any of them have anywhere else to go."

"Your…? Oh." Fal nodded, looking between Avuri and I, "I see."

I offered him a polite smile at his apparent shock. "They won't even be the first children we've taken in under…similar circumstances."

"You'll take us together?" Kord asked, still looking down at his bare and scuffed feet.

"If you'd like us to." I said, then met Risha's eyes. "Are any of them -"

"No." She said abruptly, no doubt guessing my question. "I was…I was a maid for Karn's family." She glanced toward the little boy, who looked as lost as any of them. "Before we were…taken, I never interacted with him much, though."

"Fal, you weren't there long, right?"

"No. Kord, Briar, and I were all in the caravan that was attacked…today?" He let out a heavy breath. "That was today, wasn't it?"

"Yes, it was." I said. "And Risha?"

"Our caravan was attacked a while ago. I don't know how long, it was difficult to keep track of days down there."

"I see."

"The other boy - Enrik? - was already there when we arrived." She added.

I suspected, given that information, that Risha and Karn were in the previous month's attack, while Enrik was the one before that, although I had no way to be sure.

I also had an awkward question I wanted to ask Risha, but wasn't sure how to ask without it sounding incredibly crude - if she knew why she was kept alive. Instead, I went with another pertinent question.

"Now that we're out of the caves and safe, are you able to explain what they were doing down there?"

Risha shook her head. "When we first arrived, they partied the same way they did today, and stuffed us all in that one tent. It was kept shut most of the time, except for when people brought us food. They fed us well, if nothing else." I watched as her eyes drifted over to Karn and Enrik. "They would occasionally take one of the children out of the tent, then return them hours later. I never saw what happened, and they've never talked about it."

I turned to ask the boys if they remembered anything, and felt Avuri's attention return to her body. She must have found our travel heading, but was remaining quiet and listening in on our conversation now. I shuffled over to crouch in front of Karn and Enrik. "I don't suppose either of you can tell me what you remember about what they did with you?"

The younger of the boys, Karn, shook his head without looking up. Enrik met my eyes though, and stared at me for a moment before finally speaking. His voice was brutally raspy from disuse.

"They…they made me sit in the middle of a red circle, with them around me. Then it was all…tingly. It felt like when my leg falls asleep, but it was everything. If I was good, they let me have special food."

"Special food?" Risha asked.

The boy sort of shrugged it off. "It was like candy. This big." Enrik held up his thumb and index finger to indicate a size that could have easily been a normal piece of candy. But it was also roughly the size of most Cultivation pills.

"I see. Well, I guess you did good, then, didn't you?" I said, patting his head. He nodded with the ghost of a smile on his face at the praise.

"He didn't mention his parents or anything about before hand at all." Avuri sent.

"No, I noticed that too. Despite being withdrawn - which could be explained by…what they saw before running - Karn and Enrik seem weirdly chipper. Kord and Briar seem more guarded than anything else."

"Do you think they've had memories suppressed forcibly somehow, or something of that nature?"

"I don't know."

The way none of the children seemed to be worried about their parents, or presumed lack thereof, was concerning. I was fairly certain, given that Risha and Fal both mentioned times before their respective ambushes, they had their memories intact. However, the children's current personalities would be far more easily explained if the demonic Cultivators had altered their memories or emotions somehow, as if to keep them docile.

Even if there was no hard evidence of it, the idea made my blood boil under the surface. It reminded me of the effect the Qi poison had on Cierra when we had first found her, the way everything seemed muted and distant to her.

Then there was the matter of whatever the demons had actually done to the children. I could make guesses, of course; the most obvious being that they were using a technique that would force the child's body to act as something akin to a sieve, filtering the Qi through their body to gain power more quickly. It would have been similar to the way using Dual Cultivation boosted my and Avuri's Cultivation speed, but in a decidedly less friendly manner.

The whole body tingling effect was proof enough that they were using the children's bodies to circulate more Qi than their little bodies could handle. That full-body-asleep sensation was common in those forced to contain more Qi than their meridians could safely handle, and was a sign that they were on the verge of rupture.

Maintaining that state in a body for long periods of time would be disastrous for just about anyone, but there were no doubt spiritual medicines and Cultivation aides that could be used to mitigate the effect over time.

Given that the demons we had fought were clearly just sacks of raw power with no skill whatsoever, it made sense to me that their demonic techniques were simplistic as well, which led me to believe they really had just used the kids as nothing more than living power cells.

I took a deep breath, and Avuri walked over from where she had been waiting.

"Resin is this way." She said amicably. "We should be able to get there just after nightfall if we start moving now."

"Oh. Oh, that's good." Risha said.

"We have an inn room rented under our name. It will be a tight fit, but I think we can all squeeze in there when we arrive for the night and figure out what to do tomorrow." I said.

Fal nodded while motioning to the kids to stand. "Very well. That sounds like as good a plan as any."

"Let's get moving then. I'm Avuri, by the way. It's nice to meet you, Risha, Fal, Kord, Briar, Karn, and Enrik." She smiled at each of their new companions in turn before spinning on a heel and walking toward the town without waiting for a reply.

"I'll take up the rear this time," I said, "You all stay in the middle and we'll keep an eye out for threats."

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