D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

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Bing woke to the sound of crumbling rocks. She shot up and readied a handful of compressed air… until she remembered what was going on. Bing quickly dismissed the wind as Bodeir stumbled forward out of the rocky cocoon he had entombed himself in. Before she could think of what to do, the vault opened and Meng strolled in and tapped Bodeir on the head. Bodeir collapsed forward, heading for the ground, but Kat moved to his side and prevented the collision.

“Why did you just let Meng do… whatever that was?” asked Bing with genuine curiosity. “Actually Meng what did you just do?”

“I let it happen because I was watching the whole time and my Contract wasn’t screaming at me to act. Bodeir wasn’t going to be harmed by whatever it was… and I do need to extend some amount of real trust towards Meng, not just words. So I let it happen,” answered Kat.

” ‘It’ happens to be one of those sleeping techniques I was telling Kat about before. The one I chose makes it nearly impossible for Bodeir to wake up until 8 hours have passed. Plenty of time for us to get out of here… hopefully. Bang should have an excuse for an array master to look it over and grant him permission to sneak through. Probably something that has already happened. That being said… I just didn’t really want to bother explaining anything to Bodeir,” explained Meng.

“That’s…” Bing didn’t really know what to say. Was it good? Bad? Careless? Careful? As she looked at Bodeir’s peacefully sleeping face, the answer was rather unclear. He would have caused some amount of trouble certainly, but Meng didn’t even give him a chance to not be an ass. Though, from what Bing had learnt about Bodeir recently… that might have been a big ask.

*I just… I didn’t realise that Meng would be so quick to act. No time to regain his bearings. No time to ask questions just. ‘I don’t want to deal with this sleep’. It’s very different to the Meng that would take time out of her day to here complaints from the outer sect disciples, or tour the towns and help pass judgement on people accused of various crimes.

Maybe I’m just reading too much into things. I mean, she didn’t kill him, or even attack him. Bodeir is just asleep and he’s going to be fine when he wakes up. Why am I worrying about this? It’s not like he’s hurt and presumably they did the same thing to Voldar right? Though… I guess I didn’t really ask. He was just in the corner and I… didn’t care. Hmm… perhaps I’m not quite the virtuous person I like to think I am. I didn’t even think about Voldar at all until now.*

.....

Despite this revelation, Bing did not in fact ask about Voldar. She did at least pull out one of the pillows in her storage ring… but that was as far as her care went. Meng, seeing her daughter in action did the same for Bodeir and Feng… was also asleep. Something Bing was thankful for. She didn’t want to argue more with him right now. Bing rolled her arms to chase away some of the lingering fatigue from her rest. “Hey Mom?” asked Bing, choosing her form of address intentionally. It wasn’t exactly her normal way of referring to Meng, but it was still something she wanted to acknowledge.

“Yes darling?” returned Meng.

“So… we’re going to run. I’ve accepted that. I’m sure Lily is convincing Lian that it’s a good idea as well. What I want to know is… what can I expect? How often will we just… be running? How will this effect our cultivation? What sort of speed will we be traveling at?” asked Bing, one question after another.

“At the moment I’ve decided that we should catch a ride to the Mountain Shaker sect, not to stay of course, but to simply inform Bodeir Sr of what’s happened. I do this not because I particularly care what Bodeir Sr thinks of us, but because we need to leave fast and their airship will take us quite some way without any effort on our part. I’ll exchange what information I need to with Bodeir Sr and then we will continue from there.

“Sadly… I suspect we will need to be on the move for at least a year once we take off. I will be doing a lot of the work, either acquiring a good mount for you and your brother, or carrying you myself using my illusions. The second is likely faster, but more draining and I need to be ready for an attack at just about any time. I’m not so skilled that I can travel for days on end at my top speed without rest and still keep my qi in good shape. Picking when and how we rest will be key… unless I happen to have information that is surprisingly valuable to Bodeir Sr, I suspect I’ll need to do the running at some point.

“As for your cultivation… we should have enough resources to keep you from falling too far behind… but the real question will be if you can meditate while traveling. If you can’t… then at least that first year of running will see you making no progress. It’s annoying but I can’t see any way around it. Then the final question? Speed? As fast as we can of course,” explained Meng.

“How… how at risk are we?” asked Bing.

Meng shrugged, “It really does depend on who they can send after me. I’m one of the strongest spies on retainer and I’m not sure they can send anyone low profile after me… and the organisation only has the one Rank 5 connected to it. My defection is annoying… and I’ll be taking a lot of cultivation resources when I leave, I did grab a bunch before Kat got here… but ultimately if it’s clear that I’m running and have no further plans to screw over the organisation? They might not be able to justify the cost of attacking me…

“I assume they’ll try and grab you or your brother, and Lian once they learn I’m taking her as well. They won’t try too hard, just send a few words into the underworld that they’d pay well for your capture and hope that someone can get lucky… but I’m not too worried about that sort of thing. You’re basically rank 3 and I myself am solidly in Rank 4. Feng is most at risk… but he is a combat savant, and Rank 2. The sort of people likely to risk it all on those sorts of jobs tend to be weak or desperate, and both are easily managed,” explained Meng.

“Is there a reason we’re leaving well… anything behind?” asked Bing.

Meng frowned at the question. “Daughter darling… I feel like I’ve taught you better then that. How about we use this as a teaching moment. Why do YOU think I’m not just taking everything when we leave?”

“Um… hmm… we don’t have enough space in the rings?” offered Bing.

“That’s part of the reason Bing, but I’ve not aimed for the things with the highest value, but ones that are most useful to you and Feng. Now… why might that be?” asked Meng again.

Kat looked on from the side. She was pretty sure she knew the answer to the question after Meng had phrased it like that, but she chose to hold her tongue. “Um… hmm… because that’s more important to you then the money?” answered Bing.

“Once again, yes, that’s partially true but you’re still missing that I was taught when I was quite young myself. Would you like to take another guess?” offered Meng.

“Um… don’t take everything because then you can’t rob them again later?” offered Bing with a wry smile.

Meng shook her head, but she was forced to look at the ground to hide her grin because it was an amusing sort of picture. “No, it’s because we’d be worth too much money otherwise. Remember how I said it wasn’t worth chasing us if we were clearly intending not to cause problems? Well if we ALSO have a number of priceless relics then suddenly it isn’t just a rogue cultivator and her kids, but a rogue cultivator and an entire vault’s worth of items. All worth more than some sects manage to collect in a year,”

“Oh!” intoned Bing as she nodded in understand. “That means we’re taking only what we need, and maybe a bit more… but nothing extravagant?”

“Yes exactly. One particularly noteworthy artifact is the Heavenly Nature Robes we have locked up in another vault. That’s a priceless artifact prized for its ability to speed up the growth of rare herbs. If we had a powerful nature affinity cultivator we would be handing it off to them, as it stands, we just have it placed near some crops and it works, just to a much lesser effect. Not worth taking,”

“I understand,” said Bing with a nod.