Chapter 5:

Sae’s jaw drops at this and he quickly turns to his older brother, “You bet five silver that I was dead!” He cries out in disbelief.

Seeing this offended expression even Trae squirms a little, “It wasn’t like that. We’d been waiting at the entrance of those stupid mines for months with no sign from you. Everybody else already believed you dead and I was falling into that opinion as well. Hona still believed that you’d show up right as rain with some ridiculous story about where you’d been though so we wound up betting five silver on it. Lo and behold here you are with the ridiculous story to boot and now I’m short five silver.”

Hona smiles as he quietly pockets his earnings.

“Serves you right!” Sae admonishes him. “Hona you should be asking for interest on that bet. Bleed him for all he’s worth!”

“Alright, alright!” Coda interrupts the squabbling siblings. “It's time we took our leave isn’t it? Sae can stay on the mountain for now, he’s already cleared the monsters away and the villagers don’t seem to mind him… Oh! But wait, Sae when we came up there was a group of men camped out at the foot of the path.”

Sae rolls his eyes, “That lot! I wish they’d pack up and move on already!” He crosses his arms, “How hard can it be to become virtuous? It’s not even a little bit! The mountain even considers me as virtuous and that’s saying something!” He shakes his head in exasperation.

The three cultivators stare at him. Since the mountain is Coda's business Hona and Trae leave the questions to him. “What do you mean by saying the mountain considers you as virtuous? What type of spell have you cast here?”

Sae shrugs his shoulders and absently sips on his tea before answering. “The words I wrote on the sign at the base of the mountain, ‘All may enter, only the virtuous may leave.’ I carved those on the core of the mountain as well so they are to be taken quite literally.”

All three cultivators are struck dumb by this claim. Coda sputters, “On the core? On the core of the mountain?! You carved something like that! How?! Something like that should be impossible!” His head falls to his hands and he mumbles meekly to himself, “It's permanent now. On the core… How could you do such a thing?” His heart swims in sadness at the news that his family’s mountain has been defaced to such a degree.

Sae waves off his dramatics, “It's not permanent.” Coda’s head lifts in excitement, but then Sae follows with, “All you have to do is destroy the mountain and the spell is broken.” Poor Coda falls into such a deep despair that his head falls all the way to the table where he buries his face in his arms. “Even though I don’t see why you’d want to.” Sae continues with no regard to the state he’s put Coda in. “The only problem is those idiots who refuse to become virtuous. They’ve been down there for weeks now.”

Seeing their friend put in such a state Trae and Hona attempt to intervene for him while he wallows. Hona asks, “How did you do this?”

“Eh, don’t ask me that.” Sae waves the question off, “It wasn’t my intention. I was attempting to command the mountain’s shadow and use it as a barrier, but as it turns out shadows here are different than in the Shadowlands, more flimsy and slippery, and so somehow I wound up with the core in my hands instead. I didn’t have much time for thought on the matter being in that type of situation, I just wrote in the first thing that came to mind which is what I’ve written on the sign.”

Hearing this explanation even wilts Hona’s confidence in Sae while Trae sits there spitting mad at his brother. Coda falls even deeper into despair upon hearing Sae’s words. From the recesses of his arms the other’s can hear him crying, “By accident… he did it by accident… carved something so ridiculous on the mountain’s core. My father is going to kill me!”

In the midst of his moaning another cry draws everybody’s attention to the outside. “Was that a child?” Trae asks as he hurriedly gets to his feet and storms outside. The others follow close behind him.

All four of them are momentarily blinded by the sudden change in lighting. After being in the dim candlelight for so long their eyes had forgotten how bright the sun is. Sae recovers his sight first and finds a typical occurrence in his courtyard that causes him to sigh and cross his arms in front of his chest. Another childish wail fills the air as the others try to understand what is happening.

On the ground is a small child, only about waist high, sitting on the ground clutching his knees to his chest and crying about it. Scripp and Strigg circle around him and offer comforting purrs. Upon seeing the shadows the three cultivators misunderstand the situation completely. Trae barrels forward with his sword in hand, but is quickly frozen again by Sae who casually walks past him and up to the child.

“Why are you crying little Tula?” He asks as he crouches down next to him.

Tula lets out a few more pathetic sobs and cries before saying, “I scraped -hic- my knee!”

Scripp gives a small purr and noses against the wounded appendage. Finding blood there she daintily licks it clean while Sae pulls out a small bandage to wrap Tula’s knee with. “Yep, that’s quite the wound you’ve got there.” Sae says as he inspects it before wrapping it up. Tula continues to sob and cry dramatically much to Sae’s amusement. He turns to the three behind him, “One of you go in and grab the tin I left on the table.”

Hona makes himself useful and takes a moment to retrieve it. When he returns he opens the lid and offers the contents to Tula. At the sight of the sweets the child’s tears quickly dry. He grabs two handfuls of cookies and shoves them in his mouth and then another two handfuls to fill his pockets with. Seeing the con for what it is now Hona smiles and shakes his head.

Sae stands up as he finishes bandaging Tula’s knee. “How'd you get yourself banged up like that anyway?”

Tula shrugs, “I fell.” He answers simply around his mouthful of sweets.

Sae rolls his eyes, “Alright, I’ll walk you down the mountain then. Make sure you don’t fall again.”

Tula makes to stand, but before he gets to his feet Scripp wriggles underneath him and holds him aloft on her back. The small child lets out a peal of laughter as he’s lifted up and carried about.

“You spoil him too much.” Sae admonishes Scripp who pretends to not hear him. She prances ahead and lets the men follow behind her. Strigg, not caring one way or another for the child lurks in Sae’s shadow to keep an eye on Scripp.

The group sets off towards the village.