NOVPUB---
Kent whispered, "We ghost out, keep Jade unburned."
They pivoted through a side arch. Auri fluttered overhead as a scout. Behind them, a barker shouted "Rare thunder-pumpkin mash!" Nima swerved, tempted, but Kent tugged her collar.
They popped up a different stair, burst into daylight behind the Dye-Works. Kent yanked off the beard, ripping three feathers and half of the glue. Nima unwound her scarf, coughing incense. Auri shook sooty residue, feathers restoring fiery sheen.
"He saw none of it," Nima giggled.
"Good. Jade can claim fat-scholar anonymity." Kent rubbed his reddened lip. "But we still need intel. Raka and Lumo should have scouted by now."
Kent and Nima traded a grin. "Back to spy work?" Nima asked.
"Back to spy work," Kent agreed, pocketing the last popcorn kernels.
Behind them, deep in the cellar, Jade's voice could faintly be heard, apparently he'd escaped the soldiers only to keep haggling, now offended at the phrase 'bubble-waist aristocrat.'
Kent laughed all the way up the alley. This mission, officially, had every flavor.
The alley's dye stained stones were just beginning to warm under the slanted spring sun when Kent and Nima slipped around the last turn and re-entered the back lane behind Crane-Wing Hostel.
Nima's indigo scarf was now folded into a headband. Kent's fake beard and mustache had been stuffed into a greasy paper cone and tossed down a drain. Auri glided in lazy circles overhead, charcoal still smudging some of his feathers, while occasional sparks betrayed the phoenix beneath the crow disguise.
Kent felt lighter for the laughter but heavier for the mission ahead. Jade's secret excursion to the Night Spider Exchange had raised more questions than it answered. And somewhere on the ridge line west of town, Raka and Lumo were already staking their claim at Star-Wall Basin with only a leather map, a battered lantern, and Lumo's uncertain sense of direction. Kent hoped the soul bears newfound Level-D fortitude had kicked in.
He and Nima rounded the hostel's side garden and climbed the crooked back stair to the second floor hall. At the top step stood a familiar, shambling silhouette, bulky shoulders, oversized traveler's cloak, straw hat pulled so low it almost hid the nervous eyes. Raka himself. Clinging to the banister, he bowed when he saw them.
"Miss Nima," he whispered, wide-eyed as always, "Master Kent. Lumo and I… we found a ledge!"
Before Kent could answer, floorboards BULK THUMPED from farther down the hall, and a shaggy figure lumbered into view. Lumo, the former mountain spiritual bear now soul tethered into a soul bear with two forms, ducked to clear the ceiling beam. He grinned with ursine pride, one huge hand holding up a rolled bark parchment that smelled of pine sap and wet moss.
"We claim the ridge. Good wind. No snakes," Lumo rumbled, his baritone echoing off plaster. Nima translates Lumo growling Kent.
Kent exhaled relief. "Good work. Let's go Inside, quick."
Back in their private room, Jade's pallet still empty, they gathered around the lacquered tea table. Auri hopped down beside the teapot, keeping vigil at the shuttered window. Nima poured weak chrysanthemum tea for everyone and plopped onto the floor cushions, eager.
Raka unfurled Lumo's bark map. Sweat had smeared some ink, but Kent could make out craggy lines and three crosses. One cross marked a "FALLEN IDOL" an eroded statue by the goat path. The second, "SMALL SPRING: CLEAN". The third, larger and circled thrice: "LEDGE CAMP, MOON VIEW".
Raka cleared his throat and growled. "We followed the charcoal peddlers for two paths, then doubled back over the dry sluice. Lumo sniffed a safe ledge ten paces above the road. From that perch you can see both the basin floor and the warden tents on the east scarp, but mist hides you from below."
Lumo thumped his chest. "Bear nose."
Kent nodded approval. "Perfect forward post. Did you meet trouble?"
Raka winced. "One Yanling spear patrol on the switchback. We hid under an old overhang while they marched past. They grumbled something about a smuggler ring in town, Night Spider, I think?"
Nima bit her lower lip, exchanging a pointed glance with Kent. "Small world," she muttered.
Kent turned back to the map. "All right. You two will take your first watch tonight. We still move after dusk. If you sense anything above Level-C, you trigger the soul tether reversal and alert Nima immediately."
Raka nodded, face firm despite lingering nervous ticks. Lumo lumbered upright. "We guard."
Nima tossed them each a cloth packet, rice puffs laced with pepper dust. "Eat on the trail. Pepper wakes you up."
The servants bowed. Raka tucked the snacks under his cloak; Lumo opened his immediately, inhaled half with one content growl, and loped out. (They didn't need to eat. To play with Nima they eat human food. The food doesn't have any other benefits. Only to make Nima happy.) Footsteps receded down the stairs, Kent listened until silence settled again.
It was near the seventh bell when the latch clicked and Jade Monroe shouldered into the room, cheeks pink, brow dewy, cloak bulging suspiciously at the middle. His eyes darted around, relieved to see Kent and Nima alone.
"You haven't left yet," he noted.
"We waited for the road to cool," Kent said calmly. He kept any teasing from his voice; Jade might yet reveal the market shard if given space.
Jade set a plain satchel on the table. "Town hall papers took… longer than planned. Warden forms run on tea breaks." He eased onto a cushion, some stuffing in his robes squeaked like straw.
Nima narrowed her gaze over her teacup. "Productive day, Scholar Monroe?" (Nima was acting.)
"Moderately." He tugged at his padded belt. "Secured an artifact fragment that may calibrate door timing once the pocket interface blooms." He produced the dull green stone. The same chunk Kent and Nima had watched him haggle for and pushed it toward Kent. "Partial sigil coil, third ring. Recognize the strokes?"
Kent rotated it under lamp light. The spiral grooves did echo the coin's outer geometry. "Interesting find," he said, noncommittal. He caught Nima's smirk. She said nothing, though Auri gave a single suspicious chirp.
Jade never asked why both siblings smelled like pepper smoke and incense ash.
Final preparations were brisk. Kent packed:
Collapsible pick-hammer
Spirit-glass jars (three)
Rune-chalk (white and saffron)
Compact sparker beacon
Protein buns, salt plums, dried kelp
Nima slung her lighter satchel of medicinal lintseed oil, bandages, and two extra scarves in case of dust storms. Auri perched on her shoulder. Spidey, called forth briefly for chores, scrubbed the wash closet a last time, then merged back into Nima's chest with a resentful grunt.
By 18:40 shadows stretched long across Qingshi Crossing. They left by the back lane, hooking west along terraced paddies where frogs cried out for rain. On the high trail, they blended with ten or so wandering cultivators, foreigners and locals alike all bound toward Star-Wall Basin with the same hunger for newly birthed treasure.
Lumo's map proved reliable. After a steep ninety minute haul they reached the Fallen Idol, a toppled basalt warrior half buried in moss. Here Raka emerged from behind a tangle of switchgrass, waving discreetly. Above, Lumo's broad outline beckoned from the ledge.
Jade signaled halt. "We camp there," he whispered. "Patrol passes should thin after the first dog-watch. Rift flares most between midnight and second dawn."
One by one they scrambled up the narrow goat track. Auri flew scouting arcs, wings dark against the deepening blue. Nima ascended with nimble hops, straw hat shadowing her grin. Kent followed, the coin and disk secure inside his system storage, heart thrumming with anticipation.
At the ledge they found a shallow recess of stone, enough for a fireless shelter and half-screened by gnarled juniper. A slender gap allowed a clear lookout over the basin floor where lantern pricks marked warden campfires. Beyond that, a pale swirl of unnatural mist hovered low, coiling like breath frozen in place.
"That's the anchor," Jade murmured, crouching. "Spatial sub-gale. Good, the gate's still compressing."
Raka lit a rune glow pebble and fixed it beneath an overhang so faint orange light spilled just enough to see packs and faces. Lumo stacked stones to form a low parapet. Nima unrolled sleeping mats, humming a jaunty tavern tune.
Kent recorded altitude, humidity, and air spiritual energy density while Jade compared the new jade shard to the coin's outer ring. Under Kent's palm he felt those lines hum faintly in resonance, promising, if still half asleep.
Auri perched on the parapet, feathers mottling between ember and soot as he calculated wind shear.
Night deepened. The watch order:
First watch (dusk-to-third bell):
Raka and Lumo. Second watch: Kent and Jade.
Third watch: Nima with Spidey and Auri (on tether)
Raka drew himself straight, clutching an old highwayman's sabre polished bright since his robber days. The bad guy had changed, fear still flickered but was ironed thin by Nima's soul bond. Lumo crouched beside him, half bear, half shadow, yellow eyes keen in dark.
