Beware of Quillbur 2 (Patreon)

Bi Di stared at the one who slew the Interlopers. Like the Interlopers, he took the form of The Great Master. But a part of Bi Di's mind said that the Strange One was wrong. The color of his skin, the shape of his eyes, the vibrant red of his fur. That was without considering his sheer size. The Strange One was tall, even more so than The Great Master, and nearly as broad at the shoulders as Brother Chun Ke was long.

As Bi Di made the mental comparison, Brother Chun Ke and Sister Pi Pa returned, a number of iron spurs upon her back. Brother Chun Ke had a number of strange spurs held sideways in his mouth, the majority of their length black but white at the tips, the ends soaked in blood.

Nasty Interlopers were already dealt with, Sister Pi Pa said primly. Most with the strange needles that Dear is carrying.

Bi Di’s eyes narrowed contemplatively. The Interlopers were all disposed of, before the Disciples had reached them. The Strange One had behaved himself, sitting down and leaning back against a tree as Chun Ke and Pi Pa investigated. Sister Tigu was disappointed by not getting the opportunity to prove herself against the Interlopers, and so sought to intimidate the Strange One. The Strange One responded to her threats if he should seek to harm Great Fa Ram by reaching down and scratching behind her ears like The Great Master and The Healing Sage did.

Sister Tigu’s change of heart as to The Strange One’s character was most amusing. Still, The Strange One appeared to have spoken the truth. Bi Di would choose to extend a measure of trust towards The Strange One. He did not approach through the Great Pillars, as was proper, but he did say that he was lost, and given the bizarre features he possessed, Bi Di could believe that much at least.

Thus, with Bi Di upon Sister Pi Pa’s back, Sister Ri Zu upon his own, Sister Tigu in The Strange One’s hand receiving more scratches, and Brother Chun Ke at their side, the Disciples led The Strange One to Great Fa Ram.

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Jin’s day had started out strangely. First his back itched, Big D and the others weren’t where they normally were, and he had a very weird feeling about what was about to happen. All of that was before he came across his missing animals escorting a very confused man. A man that had me thinking one thing the moment I saw him: ‘That’s a goddamn white guy.’

The man saw Jin first, and for the first time since arriving, he heard someone else speak English, “Oh joy, first I’m dumped in the woods, then I meet talking animals, now I come across Old MacDonald.”

“Whereas I am meeting Paul Bunyan on the edge of my farm,” Jin responded, making the man start and most of his animals freeze. Chunky ran straight for Jin, dropping the weird spear looking things he’d been carrying, and barreling into his legs.

“I think I’m going to need an explanation,” Jin said, keeping an eye on the man’s face to see if whatever had brought him here had taught him the local language. Fortunately, it seemed that it had, or at least there wasn’t a look of incomprehension, so Jin continued. “Name’s Jin, my farm’s up ahead.”

Jin offered a hand, and the man took it in a handshake, and said, “Emmett Barnes, former US Army Ranger. There were some scraggly bastards in the woods who talked about what they wanted to do to the farmstead. Yours, I’m guessing. I… disagreed with their plans.”

A soldier. That could either be very good or very bad. Still, with a sigh, Jin turned to his animals and told them, “Head on back, I’m going to have some words with Emmett here. We’ll be down shortly.”

[hr][/hr]

The last twelve hours had been the weirdest of my life. Jin, at least, was kind enough to give me a run down on the kind of place I’d found myself in. I’d say it was convenient that I ended up on the edge of the farm of a guy who’d been through something similar to me, even if he got a local body, but given the conversation I’d had with the entity I very much doubt coincidence had anything to do with it.

Still, this…’Cultivation’ sounded weird. It made vague sense, in a concept of self-improvement turned into a magic system kind of way, but the sheer amount of escalation that everyone used was ridiculous. How did you manage to keep civilization going if someone would start a blood feud over some mud on your shoes?

I’d told him… some of my story. That I was an Army Ranger, that I’d had a conversation with a disembodied voice, and ended up here in the woods surrounding his farm. I left out why I’d been medically discharged and hanging myself, but I did mention the weird power the voice had given me. Couldn’t really avoid it, what with the big ass quills I’d used on the bandits. After that long conversation, I followed Jin back to his house and offered to help out around the farm until I could figure out where I was going from here.

There were three people waiting, two guys and a woman, along with the farm animals. The woman had a frown and glare on her face as her nose twitched. Upon Jin and I coming up to the front door, she spoke up, “Jin, why do your animals have The Crimson Demon’s Tooth, and who is this?”

I knew the sound of an angry woman, so even though the tone combined with the freckles made my heart clench, I immediately saluted her like she was a superior officer and said, “Emmett Barnes, a traveler who is so lost I wouldn’t be able to find my own ass with two hands and a map.”

“Emmett here found a group of bandits in the woods and dealt with them,” Jin said, and I was grateful to him for taking her attention off me. The two guys next to her were still staring at me, the shorter one with his hand on the hilt of a sword at his belt.

“Gods, he’s even bigger than Yao Che,” I heard the taller of the two mutter.

In the end my offer to help when paired with the fact that I’d killed an apparently rather infamous bandit netted me a spare corner to sleep in. That resulted in the next issue.

“You killed the Whirling Demon Sword Gang! You killed Sun Ken! People will be celebrating this throughout the Azure Hills, why wouldn’t you want the credit?” Yun Ren, the brother who’d had the sword, asked me later that day.

“At the moment I just want to get my bearings,” I told him as I tried to get the chopsticks to cooperate. “I still have no clue where in the world I am or what I even want to do. Plus it sounds like there’d be a lot of politics. I want no part of politics, local or otherwise.”

“Still,” Gou Ren began, not convinced.

I considered how to put it, “Think of it this way, let’s say you found yourself in a land where everyone looked like me. You do something noteworthy and the locals want you to meet the local Jarl. You have no idea who the Jarl is, you don’t know what the proper customs are, you don’t even know what the word Jarl even means. If I’d been here for a while, then I might have considered taking credit. As it is, it’d be too much attention, too fast, and I still haven’t recovered from losing…”

I forced myself to stop, the sharp stabbing pain in my chest nearly causing tears to form. I took a deep breath to get my emotions under control, straightened my back and said, “Sorry, but I’m not going to budge on this.”

Fortunately, they dropped the matter, and I headed to the porch to finish my lunch. I’d given up on getting the chopsticks to work the way they were supposed to be used so I just held the plate to my mouth and shoveled rice and egg straight into my mouth. I heard footsteps behind me, too soft to be anyone but Meiling, Jin’s fiance. I closed my eyes and did my best to brace myself.

“Everything alright?” she asked.

I took a deep breath, and figured I’d just rip the bandaid off, “My fiance died less than a month ago. I’m still grieving.”

Even without turning to look at her, I could feel the wince. From both her and Jin where he was standing by the door. I continued, “I’m sorry, but you’re a lot like her, can I have…”

“Of course,” she said, understanding what I was asking. She headed inside, hesitating briefly before she said, “Yun, Gou, and I are returning to our village tomorrow, I won’t be a reminder for much longer.”

I nod, still focusing on keeping the torrent of emotions swirling about in my mind under control. I didn’t want to hide away in a bottle like I had after Taylor passed away, neither of them would ever forgive me if I did that again. But living after losing them was hard, it took me over a decade before I was able to heal from losing Taylor. I didn’t know if I could handle losing someone like that again.

[hr][/hr]

“Holy shit, what chewed you up, Lady?” I heard Jin ask later that night.

I’d been in the water room, marveling at the design that had the river run through the house, and only just made it into the main room when Jin walked in with a woman in his arms. There was a lot of blood, and some kind of black pus leaking from her body, so the brothers and I were roped into helping Meiling as Jin stuck his hand in a pot of water and made it instantly boil. Huh, this qi stuff was pretty handy.

Idle thought was pushed aside, as I fell into the familiar role of obeying the medic as they barked orders on the battlefield, daring death to take their patient from them. The brothers were shooed away in short order, Jin was recruited to act as a living battery, while Rizzo was recruited into helping Meiling. I was in the way at this point, so I headed outside.

I didn’t really have anything else to do while Jin and Meiling did their best to help the injured woman, so I found some big rocks, put them on my back and started doing push ups. It wasn’t a particularly precise work out, but it was better than nothing. Or at least, that had been my initial thought. Either the voice who sent me here did something to my strength or the rocks on Jin’s land were mostly pumice.

“Hey, Em Et!” Yun shouted, getting my attention.

I let the rocks roll off my back, since they weren’t adding anything to my workout, and walked over to the brothers. Once I got close, I asked them, “What’s up?”

“There was something bugging us about the way you killed Sun Ken,” Gou began, almost hesitantly. “We were looking at your spears, and couldn’t help but notice how much they look like bristleback quills. Did you take them from a spirit beast?”

I assumed that bristleback was the local name for porcupines, and after a moment’s hesitation said, “Not exactly. I have no idea how, but, well… it’ll be easier to show you.”

I stepped back from them a little bit and slid the shirt I’d been loaned off. I breathed in, and shifted. Now that I had other people to compare my field of vision to, I figured that I’d gained about a foot in height from my normal, human form. I was still built like a brick wall, but now I was more like a brick wall that had one side covered in a sheet of nails.

“Gods!” Yun yelped, jumping back. Gou’s response didn’t provide him nearly as much dignity, he instead screamed like a little girl.

“Keep it down out there!” Meiling shouted from inside the house, making the brothers freeze.

I shifted back to my normal human form with a chuckle, “I can go full porcupine too. But the quills came from my back, not a spirit beast. Don’t ask me to teach you, I have no idea how I do it, I just do.”

“Geeze, you look terrifying like that,” Gou said, a hand over his heart.

“Good,” I shot back. “If I look terrifying then that means people are less likely to want to fuck with me.”

The night from there passed more or less quietly, the brothers left in the morning like they’d planned while Meiling stayed to continue looking after the patient. Also in the morning I started helping Jin around the farm. Yippee.