To Kaz’s disappointment, instead of looking excited or surprised, Lianhua just shook her head. “Highly unlikely.The Diushi were expansionists; aggressive, but in very specific ways. They sent scholars, explorers, diplomats, and finally soldiers to every part of the continent. They never attacked wantonly, but waited until the time was right, when they knew they could win with minimal loss of effort and money. By the end, most countries yielded without a fight, and their former rulers were allowed to remain in some capacity, so long as they didn’t attempt to incite an uprising.”

Kaz nodded. She had mentioned some of this before, and he thought it must be like a smaller tribe yielding to a larger one, without first requiring luegat. Sometimes the old chief was even allowed to stay, so long as she submitted publicly and earnestly enough.

Lianhua went on. “The Diushi reached the western side of this mountain range, and they were even technically claimed by the empire. There were other areas that were easier to reach than the countries on the far side of the mountain range, so Raff’s country, Holiander, hadn’t been absorbed yet, but we have maps and assessments about them, written by scholars and explorers who might better have been called spies.”

Kaz wasn’t certain what a spy was, but Lianhua sounded like she was finally getting to the point, and he knew better than to ask any questions. She would shift to another topic, speaking about it at length, but still insist on returning to the original point as if she’d never left it behind.

“As part of those reports,” Lianhua said, fingers again twitching toward her waist, where her pouch should have been, “we have thorough records of these mountains, including this mountain, which is called Shengsheng. There were a few small human settlements scattered along the main pass, but no mention of kobolds either anecdotally or personally.

“In fact, the only large creatures other than a few elk and goats were dragons, who nested in the top of the mountains here. The husede were mentioned, and there was some discussion of whether it would be feasible to absorb them into the empire, but I believe it was determined that it would be too difficult, so diplomats were sent to establish trade instead.”

She tapped her fingers on the ground, looking oddly nervous as she said, “If there had been any sign of civilization within the mountain, any place the emperors might have been interested in, however rudimentary, there would be records of it. The Diushi kept consistent, detailed records of everything they did, which is the only way to keep track of such a large and diverse empire.”

Now Kaz frowned. “So where did my people come from? We can’t have just appeared in a few generations. Even if these Diushi are our ancients, there are images of us in their carvings. Kobolds have lived in the mountain for centuries.”

Reluctantly, Lianhua said, “I believe they have, yes, but-”

Kaz and Li stared at her expectantly, and the human finally sighed.

“Zhangwo’s records are sparse except in a few notable aspects. First, as I mentioned, he had extremely detailed reports on everything he sent to his master, and then the mysterious Nucai. There was a brief lapse about eight hundred years ago, which may be when the master died, but soon after that, Zhangwo made an extremely large shipment before returning to his normal pattern.”

She drew a circle on the stone between them, then a series of smaller circles inside it. She gave the image no power, so it simply seemed to be a means of distracting herself from whatever she was about to say.

“The second thing he kept meticulous track of are his experiments,” Lianhua said softly. “He claimed he fathered the mosui, and to some extent I believe he was telling the truth. He records experimental subjects by number, not name, and there were more of them than I care to think of.

“Whenever an intelligent being with a core, usually a human, but not always, came into his grasp, he would feed them a core corrupted by fulan, creating what he called a shiyan. He then waited to see what the result of that combination was, and if it was useful, he had some way of neutralizing the fulan, allowing the shiyan to return to rationality. It seems that his favorite was a cross between a human and a divine beast that started its existence as a mole. Once he was able to produce several of what eventually became the mosui, he harvested the core of the strongest one, and ingested it himself.”

She stopped, sliding her palm over the invisible circles on the ground, wiping away something only she could see. “This master and Nucai were both aiding him, but I think there were others, doing the same thing to other creatures.” She finally looked up, meeting Kaz’s eyes.

“I believe the kobolds are a created race, not a natural one.”

Kaz stared at her. He wanted to deny it, but somehow, it felt right, as if it was something he had always known, but only now had it been brought to his attention. Slowly, he held out his own hand, looking at it as though for the first time. Lianhua’s hand was still on the ground between them, and he stared from one to the other for a long time.

They were the same. The shape, the conformation, the way the fingers bent and the nails curved. His claws were thicker and sharper, and the back of his fingers and hand were covered in fine blue fur, but if you looked at the palms, you’d never know which belonged to a human, and which to a kobold, other than the color of the skin. In fact, his entire upper body except for the neck and head looked very much like a particularly hairy human. Kaz had seen Raff without his clothes, and knew that he had far more fur than Kaz would have guessed, though Raff had only laughed when Kaz pointed it out, saying that not all male humans were as hairless as Gaoda.

“I’m… part human?” he asked, turning his hand this way and that, remembering how the mosui were so sensitive about their lack of dexterity. If they were created, surely there must have been a reason for their wide hands and long claws, though Zhangwo’s hands had been almost as human as Kaz’s, so perhaps he simply hadn’t gotten the combination quite right before he died. He had said something about the mosui ‘regressing to their baser forms’, so perhaps they were becoming more animal-like over time?

Lianhua smiled, just a tremble at the corner of her mouth, but her eyes still looked worried. “One of your ancestors was, probably. I think someone, maybe this Master, was going out into the world and capturing people and Divine Beasts to bring back here for these experiments. He must have been very powerful to do that, maybe even at peak Golden Core or, possibly, early Nascent Soul, though that’s far less likely.”

She reached out and gently grasped Kaz’s hand. “They brought back all kinds of people and creatures. Humans, demi-humans, dwarves, even some whose runes I don’t recognize. Any of them could have been used in creating the kobolds, though I suspect that the Divine Beast was some kind of canine, possibly a wolf. Though if the others were like Zhangwo, then it was probably a combination of many-”

“Lianhua,” Kaz said, quietly, and she stopped, fingers tightening briefly around his own and then releasing him when he didn’t respond.

The steam seemed to crowd in around him as his entire world view shifted. What had been a peaceful, warm room became a dark, hot one, pressing against his skin in moist, sticky heat until he stood, pacing back and forth, mouth hanging open as he panted, trying to catch his breath.

He, and all of his people, were things made by madmen. Beasts, or half-beasts, created to… what? Fulfill some role? Or simply because they could? What had Zhangwo said about kobolds, in between his laughter?

The scene played through his mind, aided by Li, who had returned to his shoulder and was pressing her head against his, her tail snuggled around his shoulders like an embrace.

“Kobolds took him, kobolds left him, kobolds live on while he lies forgotten,” he murmured. Looking up, Kaz peered through the mists, which seemed much denser and darker than they had been only a few minutes before. No longer playful, now they clung greedily to his face, sliding thick and heavy into his lungs.

“Did we kill this Master?” he asked, hopefully. “Or did we just fail to die with him?”

Lianhua shook her head. “I don’t know. Other than the pause in shipments, there’s no indication that anything happened at all. Well, other than Zhangwo’s ranting.”

Kaz stopped his pacing, staring upward. “I need to talk to Nucai,” he said. “I need to get back into the room with the mirror.”

Lianhua stood, too, then paused, looking down at Kaz’s row of forgotten treasures. Leaning down, she picked up the empty bag, then held it out to him. “I know what some of these things are,” she told him, “but this one in particular will be useful. It’s a spatial storage pouch, much like mine.”

When Kaz accepted it, she started picking up the other items, passing them to him one by one. Without even being aware of what he was doing, Kaz untied the string and tried to put the mithril ingot inside. It fit through the splayed opening, but just hit the bottom of the bag, which was otherwise as empty as it had been when he examined it before.

Lianhua smiled a little awkwardly. “You have to feed it some of your ki, the first time. Each person’s ki is unique, though I didn’t know before Thabil told us that mana was the same. So long as you give your pouch a bit of your ki on a regular basis, it will be able to maintain its storage, and it won’t open for anyone else. If it’s left unused for some period of time, it will revert to its original state, and can bind to the next person who gives it power.”

Kaz looked down at the unassuming little bag in surprise. That explained why he saw that spark going from user to pouch each time one of the humans used their storage devices. They were giving it ki in order to make sure it recognized them and continued working.

“What happens to the things inside if it runs out of power? And how long can it last without feeding it any ki?” he asked.

Lianhua grimaced and tucked a stray tendril of hair behind her round little ear. “It depends. Usually, everything inside is ejected, so if someone steals a storage item, they can just hide it somewhere until it fails. When it does, not only do they get the contents, but they can sell the pouch itself as well. How long that takes depends entirely on how much ki the bag held, and the quality of the item. A cheap one, like Raff’s, would probably only last a few weeks, though I don’t have experience with ones that use mana, rather than ki.”

Kaz actually had some thoughts about that, but now wasn’t the time, so he remained quiet as she went on.

“Better ones, like mine, can store more power and more items. In fact, there’s a direct relationship between how much power the item requires and its capacity. Unfortunately, there’s really no way to know how good that one is without trying it.” She made a face. “Well, that’s not entirely true. An artisan could probably just examine it and tell you, but I can’t.”

Kaz took the mithril back out and stared down into the depths of the pouch. “So, I just give it ki, and then I can use it?”

She nodded, clearly glad to be able to give him some good news.

Tentatively, Kaz touched his fingers to the bag in the same way he’d seen the humans do, and sent a spark of ki into it.

It was as if he gave a single drop of water to a dying woshi. Something opened up, pulling at Kaz’s ki, which drained away far faster than he would have believed possible. If Li’s egg and the seed had once seemed like empty pits into which he could drain his excess ki, this thing was alive, and very, very thirsty.