System Break

The green veil guarded a wild garden of mushrooms and fungi on a bed of smooth rocks and running spring water. A petrified tree still stood in the centre and it was covered in multicoloured glowing moss which helped light the area along with the bioluminescent stalactites which covered the high ceiling of the natural cavern.

There was no land core but the whole area was rich with qi. "Is this a domain?" I asked.

"No," she simply said with no further explanation. It was too unreal to be real, and yet it was here.

She pointed. "Sit. I have my questions to be answered now."

I did as asked, but still protested. "Hold on. I still have a million questions."

"You may ask when time allows." She sat and removed her cowl. It flopped onto her shoulders and upper back.

Her eyes were not one purple, but a speckled collage of several hues. They were large and round and if I didn't know she was ancient I would have sword she was eighteen. Her cerulean blue skin was without blemish and her lips were the same colour just a darker hue. The whites of her eyes and teeth were the only aspect which wasn't alien. Even her shocking white hair was far to white to be human.

But despite her beauty there was no joy, no warmth she was cold as she looked. Gisael was ruthless but there was a hunger, an aggression which made her alive. Shade could be a blue robot and I wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

"When I was hidden you saw through my shroud," she said.

"Yeah."

"This is a high level ocular skill which you do not possess. You stumble in the dark, but you can see through a deep shroud created by a master in the art. This is strange, there is something you are hiding."

"Can you swear to a secret?"

"I bear more secrets than you have hairs on your head."

"Oh you can tell me those, but if I tell you how I can see through your deep shroud then you must keep that a secret."

"Very well. I agree."

"I can see qi. I can see your core right now. I can see that this place has no land core, but in the black cloak masters room there was a land core in the altar. I saw the network of land cores which were connected between the nobles estate and when you use a technique I can see the patterns and your streams of qi. The only things I cannot see is an aura, when you hide your core and become nobody, and a core stored within obsidian."

She stared at me, but her face showed no emotion other than the tiniest twinkle in her eyes. She leaned forward and stared into my eyes. "You cannot know these things and be lying. However it is unbelievable. Do you know the story of the Qi Sage?"

"A little. Tell me."

"Eons ago he came to visit the Alfar on our island in the forever sky. It was much larger than this one, a hundred times. We lived in peace and harmony with the land and its creatures. We ate fish, fruit and what we could harvest from nature. We did not keep animals or grow crops."

"We were happy, but we were ignorant of qi. It was everywhere, we were rich with it, and we were carefree. With lived with it and it guided us, but we did not use techniques not wield its power."

"He was a prophet and a teacher. He was wise and talented. But he also corrupted us and to some he cursed us. If a prophet never comes and never tells you what will pass will it actually pass? Does the prophet cause the event he prophesises? These are the questions Myrkalfar have discussed for an eon after the cataclysm. Some worship the Qi Sage, some despise and curse him."

"He spoke of threats from the Jotnar and the Fomori. That they would come and destroy us if we did not learn to defend ourselves. And he was right. Everything he said would happen came to pass. And for all his teaching techniques to the Alfar we were still destroyed."

"Some did escape. But we are no longer Alfar. They escaped the cataclysm, but our beautiful home was destroyed by the greed of the two prime races who fought over it. They did not come to destroy us, but to conquer us and make us serve them. But that does not change the outcome which was destruction of our island and our people."

"We ran and hid on smaller islands in the sky. Some were caught and enslaved by the Jotnar. Others fled underground and dug into the very rock beneath the island to hide, while others hid in the deep forests."

"Now we are Myrkalfar, Dokkalfar and Svartalfar. The Alfar race is broken into three."

The end of the story I had heard, but there was a slight twist that the Qizhu Scholar missed. "The Myrkalfar are the race enslaved by the Jotnar?"

She nodded.

"How did you come here?"

"I was a shade and possess many techniques which were useful to my master.

Over time I grew in strength and my master grew complacent. He was lax and I escaped then travelled for years – I was on the run. I moved from island to island until I found this place. It was deserted. There were no men. There was no one. But the ruins were here. Someone used to live here."

"When I crept through the undercity - away from all people - I was out of reach from my master. And when the men came I reverted to old habits out of fear of discovery. I am shortening the tale but in the last hundred years I have served successive Masters of the Black Cloaks just as I served my old Jotnar master."

I had an idea why she was the way she was. She was not a robot she was withdrawn into herself so far that all that appeared on the outside was the cold person before me. 

"I have heard some of this before. I also heard that I share qi-sight with the Qi Sage and that's why I was warned to keep it to myself."

She nodded. "I understand. But you are not him. There is no danger with me knowing this fact."

I looked around the tranquil cavern which was a rare natural spot within the undercity. "This undercity – do you know who used to live here?"

She nodded. "The cataclysm splintered the Alfar's island into a hundred shards. This place is one of those shards. The buildings you see were built during the Qi Sage era, the land core network was built by him and the Alfar. He walked these lands and was in this city. It is a strange coincidence that out of the hundreds of thousands of islands in the never ending sky that you came here."

I nodded. It was a coincidence. Despite everything she told me there was still much I didn't know. I felt like we were still scratching the surface. "Can you take me to the gatekeepers?"

She shivered and it was uncommon for her to move. Just the idea of the gatekeepers frightened her and when she spoke her voice wavered. "No. I cannot."

My shoulders slumped. So much for that shortcut.