The path through the room would take me under the smaller fuschia-colored lichen on the ceiling.

Uekisheile (Lichen, Dawn) Talents: Qi Sensitive, Qi Plunderer, Budding Sentience, One with Qi

Nascent: ???, ???

What’s scarier than a parasitic lichen? An intelligent parasitic lichen that targets your qi. What the fork is up with this world? Can’t something just be nice and pleasant? I mean, I saw some wild roses while foraging once, and there was no lack of wild flowers in general, but still.

I took a calming breath and reestablished at one with the land. It’d been a long day, a frightening day, the stress of which was perfectly understandable. Freaking out at every obstacle wasn’t going to help though.

If the uekisheile was a danger, then I’d avoid walking under it. The answer was that simple. I’d already decided the eilesheile was probably safe. I threw a pebble among them to see if they’d react, and they didn’t.

“See, not so bad,” I whispered to myself.

The uekisheile’s description included Dawn. The only other time I saw anything like that was the bishkawi alpha’s Dusk.

Light and dark, eh? It didn’t take a genius to make the connection to silver and darklight. The bishkawi alpha must’ve grown stronger absorbing darklight, while the uekisheile used silverlight. That was a decent supposition.

It raised a number of questions. Were the alpha and the uekisheile leveled up versions of the bishkawi and eilesheile? Where did the darklight in the Red Room go? Did the uekisheile ignore it? Was there not enough for a cave full of eilesheile to turn Dusk? I’d need to see the process in action to know, which I’d rather not do, thank you very much, given that I’d be the likely target.

I used Woldec’s hunting knife to scrape some of the eilesheile onto a square cloth, which I then tightly wrapped with cordage. Not wanting to contaminate any of my new containers, I hung the wrapped eilesheile from the backpack.

Nothing attacked me while I worked. The eilesheile didn’t move, and I didn’t feel anything strange. The Condition section of my Status stayed clear. I sighed. Maybe this wouldn’t be as hard as I thought it’d be.

The chimneys on the right side of the room were too high to reach. I’d have an easier time on the left where the stalactites were within reach of the stalagmites. Once I reached the ceiling, I should be able to see if the chimneys were also climbable.

After a moment’s consideration, I shook my head and left through the room’s other exit instead. The uekisheile clung to the stone near the chimney, and I felt uneasy about getting that close to a creature with the Qi Plunderer Talent.

The tunnel leading away from the Red Room wound upward, but I stopped as soon as I found a pile of scat. It wasn’t fresh, but it wasn’t old either; a week or two at most. The pile was the size and shape you’d expect from a mountain lion.

I hightailed it back to the Red Room. Suddenly, the uekisheile didn’t seem so bad. At least, not compared to a Murder Cat. I recalled vividly the way Akbash’s face peeled away from his skull, as well as all the myriad cuts on his body, on Biaka’s body, and even on the javelina. Yes, the lichen was a threat, but I safely gathered the eilesheile. Maybe the uekisheile had to be ingested too?

So, I decided to climb, and to do it with my backpack. I knew it was dumb, but I couldn’t help it. I wasn’t willing to leave anything behind. Well, there was no way to bring Kiertie’s spear, but everything else would stay with me.

I grabbed onto the biggest stalagmite and pulled myself up. The backpack changed my center of gravity, but ripples in the stone helped with my footing and it was only ten feet to the top of the stalagmite. From there it was an easy jump to the stalactite. Although, if I fell, I’d land among the eilesheile.

Qi 11/13

My back muscles and core were going to do most of the heavy lifting, so I split eight qi between them. I took a deep breath to steady myself, and jumped. There was a moment of flying, which ended when I grabbed onto the stalactite and swung my legs around it. Like a caterpillar, I inched my way up.

Near the ceiling, I circled around the stalactite’s base to get to the chimney. Looking up, I saw that it wasn’t wide enough to fit me, not if I wanted to bring my backpack. I was brainstorming solutions, when I saw something move out of the corner of my eye.

The uekisheile looked a lot like wolf lichen, with multiple branches ending in feathery tufts. The breeze from the chimney caused the tufts to sway in the air. At least, I hoped it was the breeze. They wriggled in my direction, like they were sniffing the air.

“Ah, hello. Don’t mind me. I’m...ah… just passing through. I’ll be leaving now, so don’t bother to get up or anything.”

I scooted around the stalactite to put the stone between us and quick-inched my way down. Halfway, I checked to make sure the uekisheile wasn’t following me, and I found them following me. Thin tendrils under the creature’s base slid into and out of the stone to pick their way down toward me.

I humped down even faster; so much so that I lost my grip. My backpack pulled me away from the stalactite, and I fell the remaining distance to the ground. The traitor backpack cushioned my fall, but my head snapped back against the stone. I blacked out.

###

My head hurt, and I felt like I needed to throw up. My vision was blurry, but my Status page was unaffected.

Hit Points 6/10 Mana 8/18 Qi 2/13 Conditions Concussion

I fumbled for a waterskin and cast Healing Water. The headache receded, and my vision cleared.

The area in a circle around me was clear of eilesheile. Huh… turns out that they could move after all. I just wasn’t a good enough reason. What was? The uekisheile perched on my chest, like a king on their throne. Their tendrils poked through the chain links in my armor and through the weave of my clothes. I carefully and gently lifted my collar and saw them poking into my skin.

“Oh, that’s not good.”

My chest tingled, as if an electric current ran through it. I carefully and gently reached for my hunting knife to scrape the lichen off, but the current buzzed in response. I froze. A couple of breaths later, the buzzing eased. I brought to mind the rune for Cold Snap, but that triggered another round of buzzing.

Was the ueikisheile reading my mind? My intent? Would Anesthetic help with that? Thinking mild thoughts, I wondered about the impact of a sequence of Anesthetic, Cold Snap, knife, and Healing Water.

I only had four points worth of mana. It’d take four hours to recover the additional mana needed, but I couldn’t just lay there helpless. I began to meditate.

As my energy circulated, the electric current’s tenor changed again. I thought I was caught out, but--ah, I was such a dunce: the current was the flow of the uekisheile’s qi. And their qi became excited. Instead of a king on their throne, they were a baby seeing a rattle for the first time.

The lichen spread to follow the way my qi moved through my body. The tendrils picked their way up my neck, across my face, and a clump gathered above my upper dantian. Another small clump sat above my lower dantian.

The qi running through their tendrils tickled, and I involuntarily laughed. The motion alarmed the uekisheile, and their tendrils tightened, but that only tickled more. I tried not to laugh--how miserable a death would that be--but I couldn’t help it. The combination of tendrils and qi was torture.

And somewhere along the way, the uekisheile’s alarm turned into curiosity. The tendrils spread to look for more ticklish spots. They even tried to get into my pants, but I blocked the way with my hands.

“Oh no,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “We’re not going there.”

My refusal alarmed the uekisheile, but I tried--I tried so very hard--to be clear about my intent. I didn’t mean any harm, but there was a boundary I wouldn’t let them cross. In response, I felt confusion, wariness, and a spike in their curiosity. What I didn’t feel was threatened.

I started circulating my energy again, which the uekisheile liked. They snuggled into me, not like a king on their throne, not like a baby and their rattle, but like a cat into a warm blanket. Slowly, I sat up.

Wariness, alarm.

I stopped. Then, when the uekisheile calmed, I started again.

Wariness, alarm.

I stopped, and repeated the process. Moving only when the uekisheile relaxed. Eventually, they became accustomed to me moving. They also realized it was warmer and more comfortable under my clothes.

I was mobile again, which was progress, but I wasn’t sure where to go. I could try climbing the chimney or the tunnel with the Murder Cat, but neither option held any clues for what to do about my new passenger. There was my planned sequence of spells, but I wasn’t sure how effective they’d be. And they’d for sure spoil the uekisheile’s mood.

That was when my stomach rumbled and made the decision for me. I backtracked toward the bat cave. The uekisheile found traveling through the cave system fascinating. Their tufts poked out from under my shirt to sense the changes in their environment.

Everything was interesting; from breaking up my old spear for firewood to empowering the Candle Stone to drawing the bow and starting a fire. Every action, emotion, and thought affected the qi flowing through me, and the uekisheile noticed every shift.

Mostly, they were happy to just observe the changes in their environment. The only exception came when I was dressing the dead bat. The uekisheile’s tendrils extended down my arms, poked out from under my sleeves, and disappeared into the bat’s body. They just vanished. A moment later, the qi remaining inside the bat flared and disappeared.

I blinked and tried not to react; to not let the uekisheile sense my fear. The tendrils reappeared above the body, as if nothing special happened.

The thing they loved most was me circulating my energy. The uekisheile burbled when I meditated after the meal. Not audibly--lichen don’t have any way to make sound--but their qi hummed, almost like they were singing to themselves. They were cute, in a weird alien invader kind of way.

The uekisheile must’ve liked what the thought did to my qi, because the humming transformed into a trilling, and the next thing I knew, I felt a sharp pain across my chest, like I’d been slapped by a giant palm.

I jerked my shirt down, ready with my knife, but the uekisheile was no longer there. All I saw was a starburst welt centered over my heart dantian. The uekisheile’s qi wriggled, as they settled inside my chest. The feeling was like nothing I’d experienced before--like chugging a liter of fizzy water, except the water was alive and curious.

The uekisheile had transformed into qi and injected themselves into my meridians. They sent feelers throughout my whole body to explore. Their own qi felt… satisfied. Apparently, I was a warm and cozy home. Also, I was delicious. My impression of their impression was of an intense flavor. A point of qi disappeared.

Hit Points 8/10 Mana 7/18 Qi 5/13 Conditions Occupied

My mind raced, but since the uekisheile could read my intent, I didn’t think any threatening or violent thoughts. No, what I needed was to be less hospitable, but not so much so that I wasn’t worth keeping around.

The uekisheile liked when the qi sped through my meridians. Would it be less appealing if the qi slowed down? I’d never tried that before, but it was worth a shot. I applied my will, and the qi responded, thickening like molasses. Yeah, just like molasses--I used the image to slow the energy’s flow to a crawl.

Confused, the uekisheile prodded the qi to speed it up again. The two intents collided within my heart dantian, the fast qi hitting the slow qi and turning it back on itself.

The qi churned. My heartbeat stumbled, and I couldn’t breathe. The uekisheile was also in distress, jostled by the sudden turbulence. Neither of us backed down though. Instead, we had the same thought--the same intent--we willed the qi in my heart dantian to resume spinning; to reestablish the natural whirlpool that existed there before.

A thin stream of qi shifted course. Then another joined it, and the two drew a third. From three, a flow was established, and the rest of the qi soon followed, circling through the dantian. The fast qi spun against the slow, the two intents still at an impasse, but I could breathe again. My heart beat normally.

The points of contact between the fast and slow qi couldn’t hold though. The boundaries of both sheared to form a third, middle ring between them. This qi, under pressure, like wheat in a thresher, broke apart. A single drop found a denser, more stable formation. It fell from the middle ring into the center of the whirlpool. Another drop of condensed qi fell, then a third. My chest felt heavy and light at the same time. But my amazement turned into horror when the uekisheile surrounded the newly condensed qi. They ate a drop, and a shiver of pleasure ran through the creature.

That was it. I was so dead. The uekisheile was going to eat all my qi. Could a person survive without it? Not that I knew. And even if I somehow did, I’d be crippled. Qi was essential to health and wellbeing.

The uekesheile didn’t gobble up all my qi though. Yes, they ate a second drop, but they left the third alone. Their own qi circulated rapidly, giving the impression of intense thought. Which gave me the idea of speeding up my qi again. If no more qi condensed--if I was no longer as delicious--maybe they wouldn’t eat me. Or at least not right away.

In moments, the qi was zipping through my meridians faster than I ever thought possible. There were two of us pushing after all.

That confused the uekisheile, and they quickly switched gears. Their intent now focused on slowing the qi circulating through my heart dantian. But they didn’t have the same control over my qi as I did. The qi didn’t condense as before.

The creature radiated a blend of confusion, dissatisfaction, and unhappiness. There was also a curiosity about the tenor of their own emotions. Much of what they felt seemed new. Only hunger, satiation, and a kind of unrequited curiosity were familiar.

The uekisheile really were intelligent. I didn’t know how much, but maybe we could communicate? Come to an arrangement where they didn’t eat me?

I called to mind the joy of greeting a friend.

The uekisheile liked that.

I radiated a feeling of welcome.

The uekisheile like that too.

I remembered the feeling of talking late into the night, sharing stories around a campfire.

The uekisheile was curious about all these new feelings and found them enjoyable. But nothing I tried triggered a response. They understood me to be an environment to be inhabited, not a thinking being like them. Their only experience of intelligence was their own. They must not have met any others. Or kept them alive long enough to discover they could be intelligent.

So, if all they knew was themselves… I reflected the uekisheile’s humming, trilling, curiosity, poking-at-the-environment back toward them.

The uekisheile responded with alarm-surprise. I felt a stab through my heart, as I lost a point of Qi and a Hit Point too. The pain shocked me, but I tried not to react otherwise.

Confusion-wariness-guarded curiosity.

I matched their feelings and filtered out my fear, my uneasiness, and my uncertainty. I locked them away and hoped it’d be enough.

The uekisheile recognized their own feelings, but not the hope. It’d snuck in between the other emotions.

Confusion-confusion-confusion.