Ad Astra

Chapter 31. Closing In

That dawn they packed the bulk of their belongings into two trunks—which they then stashed into Dorian’s new interspatial ring.

“Thank Heavens!” said Kaya, laughing as she dragged out a sled from out a corner of the tent. It was a mess of wood which looked like it’d been designed and nailed together by a slightly stupid child; half its wheels were missing and the other half were misshapen, groaning with each pull. It looked like it was held together by only spit and prayers. 2021-10-25 06:38:41 +0000 UTC View Post

30. Moving Fast

Smoke puffed up from the sands, wreathing the kneeling Chosen. To the side Tuketu watched with a knowing smirk. Nobody moved. Dorian kept his hand held out, angling his palm to the light; sunlight glazed the pills in a golden halo.

Still nobody moved.

Dorian frowned. Had he miscalculated? There was a distinct strain of hesitancy as he surveyed the gathered Chosen. In theory he’d beaten them beyond the point of humiliation; he’d beaten them so absolutely it was like an avalanch...

29. Stick & Carrot

“You’re right.”

Confusion. Anger. Suspicion. Silence.

Dorian spread his hands, swallowing, and threw on a wide-eyed look. “What can I say? Most all of you worked really hard. Most all of you is deserving. You feel I’ve skipped over you—you feel slighted. I get it. I’d feel that way too.”

He went along the crowd left-to-right, making eye contact with each person as he did. He saw their faces, saw the uncertainty in them, the angst bubbling under the surface. S...

28. Loose Tongues

Dorian greeted the rising sun with a Kata. He spilled through the Daybreak Kata like fresh sunlight, light, fast, melting from one form to the next. His body hummed in tune with the universe; he breathed rare air. His head felt as though it were made of light and puffs and clouds and a chorus of cherubic voices, all drawn in a harmonic hymn. Qi warmed his insides in a coursing river; gritting his teeth, he hunched his back, exhaled and drew it through the length of his body. His core pulsed w...

27. Interlude I

The sun was sinking below the horizon, red as a drop of fresh blood. Tuketu tracked its progress expectantly, his hands clasped behind his back, his back straight as a board. For the best part of half an hour he’d stood there, unmoving, letting the redness wash over him and all about him. His eyes were stern and narrowed.

The Chief was late.

On the horizon, there was a dot. It grew larger as the minutes passed, blotting and expanding until shapes could be seen, shadowed at this ...

26. Pill Bonanza

When Dorian arrived, he was greeted by an island of calm amid Hu’s usual dumpster of a shop. At the back left corner, past rows of shelves stocked full of potions, pills, and random trinkets, was a lab workstation: a polished cauldron, a table, ladles, prepped ingredients, and books, all arrayed in a neat little pile.

“‘Lo!” said Hu, beckoning him over with a wide smile. “I’ve been waiting for you. Impatiently, might I add,” he chortled. Then he gestured to the workspace. ...

25. Sinkholes

It felt like he was stepping on invisible mid-air trampolines. Up and up he went, buoyed by qi, until he was ten, twenty, forty feet off the ground. He took a second to stabilize himself and feel out his new scant weight. From here the tents looked like small flaps in the sand, almost blended fully into the sands, a landscape drenched in purple. The currents tugged him to and fro, never fully off-balancing but disconcerting, like he was being jostled about in a crowd.

Once he f...

24. Fight & Flight

It was like Kaya was a kid again and the world was her sandbox. A very big, hilly, bone-studded sandbox.

She leapt around, catapulting and whooping. “Look!” She yelled as she bent down, coiling like a spring, and bounced into another leap. The sand at her feet shot out in a blast and she flew twenty feet in the air; twisting into a somersault, she landed nimbly into a crouch. Her smile was full of vicious joy, a predator at play.

Dorian nodded. Usually this effect was only pos...

23. Death & Rebirth

It took him half an hour to extricate himself.

At first Hu was ready to chain him down to a chair, slap a ladle in his hand, and force him to brew until he’d finished squeezing every last Lira out of Dorian; after a slew of excuses and placations—he was still an apprentice, still a beginner in regards to cauldron-brewing, still lacked experience and training, among other cold ‘realities’—Hu’s hotheaded frenzy cooled down. He came to his senses enough to let Dorian return hom...

22. Buying It

Dorian took a breath. A deep breath, the sort he could feel all the way through his chest, up to his head, up to his spirit, even. Anger and annoyance surged in him. He felt it as a ball of twined energy in his chest, a quickening of his heartbeat, a shortness of breath.

He stepped back.

Admittedly he wasn’t always in complete control of his emotions—sometimes to an embarrassing degree for a Godking of his stature—but in moments like these, and with a spike as big a...

21. Housekeeping

What bloodline was it? Dorian couldn’t tell by cursory inspection. Frowning, he leaned in and felt for the energy signatures. Then he tried channeling his qi in, feeling for a response; he got back a hot, unstable, angry essence. Some kind of bear, or boar, or bull, perhaps? Still he couldn’t tell. Interesting…

Kaya was still ecstatic. “No way,” she said again. “Can I?”

Then she snatched it straight out his palm.

This time he’d even started ...

20. Lucky Loot

Tuketu said nothing. His face gave away nothing. He looked at Dorian with a puzzled frown.

After a pause that was verging on uncomfortable, he broke out into a sudden smile.

“Of course. I did promise that, didn’t I?” He chuckled. “In the rush, it must’ve slipped my mind.”

“That’s okay,” said Dorian, nodding agreeably. He held out a hand.

“You’re a curious one.” Tuketu studied him like a hawk. “So you fought Hento—I still did not think for a ...

19. The Chosen & The Spurned (V)

The shards hissed and crackled into being in a small sphere around Hento—a spawning zone. Hento whipped out the embroidered sleeves of his silk robes in a flourish.

The shards shot out, arching like spears, and Dorian was reduced to frantic dodging. His eyes flitted between them, noting their trajectories and speeds as he screamed at his limbs to move.

The issue with newer bodies was that they never felt quite right until he’d worn them in. The major things were the l...

18. The Chosen & The Spurned (IV)

Tuketu raised his hand and all the other Chosen fell back. All around Dorian and Hento, a circle of runes rippled to life, hemming them in: a makeshift arena.

But before Tuketu could finish, Dorian stepped up. “Wait!”

“Hm?” Tuketu raised an eyebrow. The runes died down.

“One moment,” gasped Dorian.

Five seconds passed. Then ten. By now everyone was staring at him like he’d lost his head.

Then—

[Level-up!]

[Origin Lv. 3]

His qi cr...

17. The Chosen & The Spurned (III)

Despite its fussiness, the first Kata was a neat technique. It was the first status-type move he’d seen in this world: it buffed the body and cleansed the spirit. There were echoes of the essence of the True Phoenix embedded within—distant, nearly inaudible echoes, true, but it made for a decent move nonetheless.

Plus, it had a nice rustic charm to it. It was like stumbling upon a village of monkeys, and finding they’d fashioned a crude spear out of sticks and twine and stone.

16. The Chosen & The Spurned (II)

It was a pill, and it was literally lightning in a bottle.

The pill’s insides fizzed and jolted about, like it was trying to break free of the casing.

Dorian looked at it side-eyed, with a little apprehension.

“This,” said Tuketu, “Is a Vigor Spirit Pill. When the Tribe last docked at the Azcan Oasis, Chief Rust personally bartered for a batch. They were made by a Grade-Four Alchemist. It is a pill made from rare ingredients found only in the depths of the A...

15. The Chosen & The Spurned (I)

Dorian jerked awake, one side of his face burning. He knew instantly he’d been slapped.

The slapper in question stood above him, grinning with all her teeth.

“Morning!” said Kaya.

Groaning, Dorian pulled himself up to his elbows. He felt sore and his head still ached, but not nearly as much as he’d expected. A soft sheet of sunlight wafted in through the doorflaps. His mind was elsewhere.

Holding onto that vision felt like grabbing at water. Was that <...