“So are we inside of the bones of a dragon or something?” Nay said. The three of them sat by the blue fire of Ilyawraith’s hearth, eating breakfast.

The cultivator had served them, giving Nay a break from having to cook since she spent the past day undergoing the breathing technique lesson.

She handed them bowls of skyr topped with crystal berries and drizzled with honey. The skyr was a thick sour yogurt. It was delicious with a little sweetness added to it.

Nay ate while musing on the details of Ilyawraith’s strange home.

The cultivator had referred to herself as a rebel and Nay wondered what that meant. She also wanted people to think she was dead and she lived all the way out on the Caraxe Strait inside the frozen remains of a kaiju.

If anyone screamed introvert it was Ilyawraith.

“They say before this land was as it is now,” Ilyawraith said, “before there was a sun and a moon above us, the only light from above came from the stars. So, there was a darkness here, but a natural darkness.

"There was also an Unnatural Darkness that was present here. It had leaked out of the Nether Realm and found its way to our world.”

She set down her half-eaten bowl of skyr and stared into the flames of the hearth as if she was trying to look back in time. “There were things of that Unnatural Darkness that developed a jealousy and a hatred for the men that dwelt here.”

“So this thing was one of them?” Nay said, gesturing at the entombed kaiju around them.

“Let her tell the tale,” Quincy said. He stood up and went to refill his bowl of skyr. He was generous when he got to the berries and honey.

“The men who toiled at the earth and fished in the sea had protectors,” Ilyawraith said. “Contrary to what the Ligeia League may have us believe, not all creatures perceived as monsters are bad.”

“But it’s easy to convince a person a monster is evil when you’re consuming their parts to get stronger,” Quincy said.

Nay was starting to see the picture in her head.

Like back home, where greed was all the motivation one needed.

To justify destruction and death, and to make everyone feel a little bit better about the wholesale rape of the sacred when it becomes a resource, you label the victims as evil.

All it took was recontextualizing the picture in order to sell it to a public who may have some initial qualms.

Which was just their humanity trying to warn them.

“The tribes of men had made an alliance and joined forces to build a Beacon. A Beacon of light that harnessed vigor, that would have the power to illuminate the land so the men didn’t always have to toil underneath the dark light of stars.

“The Unnatural Darkness despised man and hated everything they had built. They sent their unnatural army out to destroy the Beacon, the fruit of man's labor.

“At the same time, the Friends of Man, who had been present here even before man came to be, came from the lands up North to stand with them, to protect the Beacon in the upcoming conflict.

“The Unnatural Darkness had sent Entrioch, said originally be a powerful servant of the Friends of Man, once known as a slim and beautiful youth who taught cultivation secrets to the first Sects. His techniques are supposedly the foundation of the ancient First Fist Sect today.

“But after he was betrayed by the Diamond Fist, the first human here to ascend to Diamond Rank, he become corrupted and found abode with the Unnatural Darkness. Man thought he had disappeared forever. When he reappeared during the siege of Teer, he had taken the form of a monster.

“A giant demon. Three cruel horns adorned his skull. Fang-like tusks emerged from his mouth. He had two extra fingers on each hand and they ended in sharp claws that could rend mountains.

“He could slaughter dozens of men with one swipe of his war club, a weapon forged from iron that was the length of several trees. It was studded on one end and Entrioch used it to smash and break even the strongest cultivators with a savage ferocity.

“When the unnatural armies came for the Beacon, the alliance of men and the friends who aided them met them outside the city.

“There was fear at the sight of Entrioch who smashed his way through the defense walls, leaving a trail of horror and rubble as he headed straight for the Beacon.

“All was thought lost, that the Unnatural Darkness would destroy the light and cast the world in a void, but the Diamond Fist appeared and met Entrioch in combat.

“It’s said their battle lasted seven days and seven nights, the Diamond Fist luring Entrioch out of the city where they fought to the land and also to the sky.

“Some say it was their battle that formed the Burning Plateau and the Charred Mountain Range.

“But Entrioch, aided by Nether Realm sorcery, had gained an advantage over the Diamond Fist and was on the precipice of finishing him when Ianthe appeared out of the sky and met Entrioch with a savagery that put fear into the dark heart of man’s enemy.”

Ilyawraith walked to the wall and ran her fingers along the bone protruding from the ice.

“They say Ianthe was the first mobile form to emerge from the art of Marrow Eating. She was a disciple of the Diamond Fist and had consumed a rare Delicacy called Scale of the Forlorn, activating this first mobile skill tree.

“She spent a lifetime consuming specific Marrows to augment her form and her powers, only ever to be used when Entrioch was on the verge of killing her master.

“Their fight had only lasted a day but it contained all the ferocity and more of the previous seven days.

“Entrioch, weakened in his battle with the Diamond Fist, summoned aid.

"Nine Nether Realm Entrophists came from the under realm, practitioners of anti-cultivation.”

“Anti-cultivators?” Nay said.

“They gain power through anti-life,” Quincy said. “They feed on souls sent to the Nether Realm to perish. They’re not easily attainable, the practitioners debase themselves and will do anything to gain access to the souls.”

“The battle between Ianthe, Diamond Fist and Entrioch and the Entrophists reshaped the world,” Ilyawraith said. It was cataclysmic in scale and shifted the very nature of this planet. It caused storms and floods and the devastation effected generations.”

“They say Diamond Fist sacrificed himself to destroy the Entrophists. There are even some Loremasters who believe that this event was the spark that created The Scar.

“Ianthe carried Entrioch to the firmament, to the stars, where her final attack, all the vigor essence she had left in her, was released. They both perished to each other’s final blows. The shockwave of vigor and anti-life shook the heavens. The outpouring, had it happened down here, would have resulted in untold destruction that would have left our world in ruins.

“She fell from the firmament, her lifeless form crashing into the Caraxe Sea, bringing the cold of the outer darkness where the stars dwell with her. The cold spreading from her body froze the very ocean.

“And here her bones have remained, preserved in time and ice. “

/////////

Nay’s Second Trial, or lesson, was to be somewhere on land, a place Ilyawraith called the Frozen Vale.

They were flying on an eddy of snow and wind, Ilyawraith’s preferred mode of transportation.

Nay hugged her instructor, her arms wrapped around her waist and her hands interlocked in a steel grip.

“It is okay if you let go of me,” Ilyawraith said. “Or at least not hold me so tight. Even though I am Silver Rank, I still need to breathe.”

The cook squinted her eyes in the rushing atmosphere of cloud mist, wind and snow. She caught a glimpse of the geography below them racing by. The frozen and shattered sea was covered in a blizzard. They flew above the storm.

Nay was terrified she was going to be swept off this carpet ride, where the carpet was swirling snow and a blast of wind. That she would disappear in the atmosphere and turn to ice.

“I trust you,” Nay said, “but at the same time I don’t know if I believe you.”

“I would think by now that we would be past your fear of my intentions,” Ilyawraith said.

“And what would those be?”

“To awaken your True Eye so you can truly see the world around you.”

“Yeah, that’s not necessary. I have an interface for that.”

“Pupils of the Banshee Sect do not rely on handicaps. We cultivate technique, not short cuts.”

/////////

The Frozen Vale was a large valley in the Spineshard mountains that was once home to a city of men, but now it was just stone ruins mostly covered in ice and snow. A haunting wind moved through the remains of the temple Nay found herself in.

Ilyawraith had brought them here, to the remnants of a sacred place next to a now frozen lake.

The vestiges of all the pillars made Nay think of being in a forest full of nothing but dead trees.

“Look up desolate in the dictionary and it shows you a picture of this place,” Nay said.

Ilyawraith showed no sign of amusement.

“Look around you,” she said.

“That’s what I’m doing,” Nay said.

“Do you not see them?”

“See what?”

“Your Elseworlder Interface isn’t showing you?”

Nay, now concerned, checked her HUD. There were no incoming prompts and there was nothing of note on her mini-map. She looked around her and saw nothing but the cracked and crumbling stone pillars and the snow drifting between them.

“A cultivator must be able to see the traces of vigor around them,” Ilyawraith said. “They must use the True Eye.”

“What’s that?”

“Just as you have veins within you that are capable of cycling vigor, you also have a True Eye that can see the vigor around you. It can see between the material plane and the spiritual.”

“Yeah, the last time I checked I have nothing like that.”

“When you were trapped in the sea water, learning the Spirit Song, didn’t you see and sense the vigor in the water?”

Nay realized she had. But her eyes had been closed. She thought that was just a vision, or a hallucination, seeing the globules of vigor floating in the water. “I did. But I don’t know how. I was focusing on my breathing, and they just appeared.”

Ilyawraith didn’t say anything. But there was a half smile at the corner of her lips.

“All around us now,” Ilywraith said, “flying and flitting between these pillars, are the Vigama.”

“Vig…vigama?”

“They’re spirit creatures, the manifestation of vigor,” Ilyawraith said.

“They’re all around us? Right now?” Nay said. She looked around, skeptical, not seeing any sign of them.

The cultivator nodded. “They can only be seen through the True Eye.”

Ilyawraith produced an object from her pack that reminded Nay of a butterfly catcher. Then she took out a lidded glass jar. She held them out for Nay.

“What’s this?”

“When you catch five Vigama, then you can leave the Frozen Vale.”

“What?”

Ilyawraith put the items in her hand.

An eddy of snow began forming around her feet and she stepped onto it.

“You’re just going to leave me here?” Nay said.

“I’ll come back once you’ve completed the task,” Ilyawraith said. The eddy floated into the air, and she rose with it.

“What if I’m not able to catch them?” Nay said. She panicked. “Then what? You’re gonna abandon me out here?”

Ilywraith just looked down her nose at her as she rose into the moonlit sky, snowdrifts blowing past her.

“How will you know?” Nay said. She shouted. “How will you know when I’ve caught them?!”

The leader of the Banshee Sect disappeared into the sky, riding the wind and snow.