Once Sen got Lo Meifeng and Falling Leaf to calm down enough to let him get a word in edgewise, their ire swiftly transferred from him to the Clear Spring sect. As far as they were concerned, it had been the sect’s job, in general, and the patriarch’s job, specifically, to see to their safety. Letting a three-person team of hired killers get into the sect to injure or kill Sen was an epic failure on all fronts. While Lo Meifeng stormed off to find someone official to scream at for a while, Falling Leaf never let him stray more than two feet from her side.

“You know, the danger is over now,” observed Sen.

“Only the danger you know about,” she said, while her eyes never stopped searching the surrounding area.

Sen almost objected, but she did have a point. Instead, he changed the subject.

“How long was I in there?” he asked.

She paused long enough to give him an irritated look. “Don’t you know?”

“No. Things in there got…weird.”

She sniffed at him, using that single noise to convey a host of things to him. First and foremost, it told him exactly how disappointed she was in him for losing track of something so basic as the passage of time. It also conveyed to him that he should expect to be explaining to her, in detail, why it was he thought it was a great idea to run off somewhere without her to watch out for him. It also, somehow, conveyed to him that she thought he was far overdue for a bath and some basic grooming. Lastly, but not even close to the least important, that sniff informed him that she was very angry with him for making her worry. Sen was truly baffled about how she had managed to cram all of that into one noise, but there it was. Maybe it’s some kind of special qi technique, he thought. After a moment of thought, she finally answered.

“Three weeks.”

She’d hesitated a bit on term weeks like she wasn’t entirely sure it was the right word, but Sen was still stunned.

“I was in there most of a month?”

She frowned but nodded. “Yes.”

No wonder he was so tired and out of sorts. That was a long time to go without sleep, even for him. Although, he also had no idea how long he’d been knocked unconscious by the spring. He wasn’t sure that really counted as rest, though. Knocking out a body cultivator at his level of development probably meant that he’d taken some kind of injury to his brain that had needed to heal. Still, it would probably help explain why he’d defaulted to basic fighting with the core cultivators instead of using any of the other options available to him. Fighting was second nature and barely took any consideration, while almost everything else required him to make some conscious decisions. While that might be a good thing to know about himself, it wasn’t something he was especially happy about.

The only upside to the whole experience was that the fight had seemed to let him bleed off some of that anger he’d been bottling up for a while now. It wasn’t gone, but it wasn’t waiting to jump out at anything or anyone who crossed his path. Even temporary relief from that anger was like taking a drink of cool water on a hot summer day. Still, he was none too pleased to learn that he had burned nearly a month of his limited time on sitting around and talking with a sentient spring, no matter how interesting it had all been. He’d expected to be in or at least near the capital by now. Sighing, Sen let it go. The time was already gone, and he couldn’t get it back. They’d just have to try to make up some time as they traveled.

Sen watched with some amusement as the water cultivators debated about what to do with the wind cultivator who had survived the fight. That reminded Sen about something, and he sent his spiritual sense over to the fire cultivator that he’d impaled. He did a double-take when he realized that tough bastard was still clinging to life if just barely. If the fire cultivator didn’t get attention in the immediate future, he’d die. Sen strongly considered not saying anything. The man had come to main or cripple him in some way. If that decision led to his death, maybe it was his karma to die. The conversation about karma came floating back up into his mind, particularly the part about not being able to judge the full impact of any given choice. Sen didn’t want to accidentally condemn some kid to starvation and death by letting the fire cultivator die. Sen grabbed one of the water cultivators who didn’t look like he had an actual purpose in the area.

“Just so you know, that guy,” said Sen, pointing at the impaled fire cultivator, “is still alive. You might want to tell whoever is in charge.”

The young man’s eyes went wide, and he took off at a run yelling for some elder or another. Falling Leaf gave him a strange look.

“What?” he asked.

“He came to harm you. Why help him?”

“Karma,” muttered Sen. “I don’t need any extra bad karma.”

A moment later, the jade beauty from the dinner literally flew past Sen and landed next to the impaled man. She frowned for a moment, shook her head, and then pointed at Sen without ever looking his way.

“You. Come here.”

Sen traded a glance with Falling Leaf before he walked over to where she stood.

“Yes?” he asked.

“You did this?” she asked, waving at the stone spikes.

“I did.”

“Can you undo it?” she asked.

“I can, assuming you can treat him right here. Otherwise, the shock alone will kill him.”

“Yes,” she said, “I am aware of that fact.”

“Have you accounted for the fact that he’s a fire cultivator?”

She frowned and a line appeared between her eyes at that. “It shouldn’t be a problem.”

Sen lifted an eyebrow at that. Then, he started asking her about exactly how she planned to treat him and with what. The conversation threatened to implode into an argument until Sen started countering with a list of alternate ingredients that would work better for the fire cultivator. Then, he wished he hadn’t brought it up because they didn’t have any of them on hand. Of course, they don’t have them on hand, thought Sen, because they’re all water cultivators. They’d never need them. In the end, Sen found himself forced to make something on the spot. It was ugly work, carried out almost entirely inside the stone vial with Sen applying heat and cold as necessary to cook the ingredients down to something useful. It wasn’t as good as it could have been or should have been, but there just wasn’t time to do anything better.

When the – Sen couldn’t bring himself to call it an elixir – concoction was done, he handed it over to the jade beauty. He positioned himself so he had a solid grip on the fire cultivator’s robes. He looked over at the woman. She gave him a nod. Cycling up earth qi, he almost yanked the spikes free, but then thought better of it. Instead, he did a kind of controlled erosion that wouldn’t do as much immediate damage. No way of removing the spikes was going to be damage free, but he didn’t have to make things worse than necessary. As soon as the stone spikes were gone, the jade beauty tilted the man’s head back, poured the concoction into his mouth, and then massaged his throat until he swallowed. With a gesture, she scooped the fire cultivator onto a qi platform and walked away with him.

“Well, Karma,” said Sen under his breath, “you better be nice to me for that one.”

Sen felt the approach of the patriarch before he ever saw the man. Unless they really worked at it, nascent soul cultivators were always obvious. Sen felt his anger start to bubble up again and pressed it back down hard. The last thing he needed to do was start an argument with the patriarch. Still, he had a question he needed to ask the man, and Sen was confident he wasn’t going to like the answer. When the patriarch stepped up next to him, Sen didn’t even look at the man. He just asked the question as politely as he could.

“Patriarch, where is Gong Jun De?”

“He has fled the sect,” said the patriarch.

“I was aware of that much. I assume that you dispatched people to retrieve him.”

There was a very long, very awkward silence before the patriarch spoke. “I did not.”

Sen’s anger tried to flare, but he kept his cool on the surface. “The man hired people to, by his own admission, cripple me. He got them into this compound, past your security, and in position to execute a not very impressive ambush. My experience with sects is limited, but I have to assume that this violates at least some of your rules and traditions.”

The patriarch sighed. “It does. Several, in fact.”

“Then, I’m forced to ask, why isn’t he being hunted down and brought back here?”

“His family is very powerful. They could cause the sect considerable trouble.”

Sen took several deep breaths and did his best not to clench his fists. “Patriarch, I may only be an unimportant wandering cultivator, but even I know what guest rights are. I also know what the obligations of the host are. If I know these things, I have to assume that you know them.”

“I do,” admitted the patriarch.

Sen let that hang in the air for nearly half a minute before he broke the silence. “And you wonder why I hate sects.”

“Please,” pleaded the patriarch. “Wait. Let me explain.”

Sen walked away from the man and bellowed. “Lo Meifeng. Fa Ling Li. We’re leaving. Now. Where is Shi Ping? He didn’t get himself killed did he?”

“He didn’t,” said Lo Meifeng, after she hurried over to join him. “He’s probably still asleep. Without you around to enforce shame and discipline, he’s fallen back to form.”

“What a shock,” said Sen. “Fine. Take me to him. I’ll wake him up. I’ve got a silver tael that says he won’t like it.”

Lo Meifeng barked out a short laugh and shook her head. “Pass. That’s a sucker’s bet.”

Falling Leaf, who had put some distance between herself and the sect’s leader when he arrived, joined the small group. She gave Sen a questioning look.

“Why are we leaving now?” she asked.

Sen turned and stared at the patriarch. He was confident that the man could hear every word they were saying, so Sen didn’t raise his voice.

“There is no honor in this place.”